The throbbing of the synth and the pulsing beat reverberated through the jumpcar’s speakers –rising – expanding – reverberating in a wave of sound into a crescendo … then fast faded into a haunting echo.
Immediately, an obnoxious commercial crashed onto the airwaves and totally spoiled the vibe.
Ryxi drummed her neon green fingernails on the steering wheel for a moment, then jabbed at the Scan button to find another station.
Freeway traffic into the city was a damn parking lot this Friday.
She hit the Seek button again, popped her bubble gum, waited for the station to land, jabbed the button again, popped some more bubbles.
She gave up. Turned the stereo off.
She craned her neck out the window to look left down the sightline, but of course an RV camper blocked the entire view up ahead.
Just cars stuck from end to end up ahead, and glancing in the rearview mirror, going back for at least a mile until the freeway switched back out of sight.
She had places to see and people to do, and a whole lot of money to be made running some contraband – only IF she could get to her meeting in time with her contact. But this traffic had been crawling along for over an hour.
Maybe she should risk using her car’s jump boost to get around all this mess. But this stretch was notorious for the damn highway patrol, as her active radar was blinking furiously to remind her.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the traffic just inched along as the minutes just dragged by.
Then, an opportunity developed not far up ahead. She saw another jumpcar, tentatively rising up above the throng – and maybe the poor schmuck didn’t have an active radar scanner, or didn’t care and really wanted to get the hell out of dodge, but she saw its lift boosters funneling the air pressure down to give it the burst of lift – a red and fancy modified Ferrari of all things –
as the car horns honked out in protest and outrage at the audacity of someone to bypass the wait the rest of them.
And then with a rotation to the right, its tail boosters throttled and it shot off straight ahead like a jailbreak out of this traffic prison.
With a gleeful smile, almost clapping her hands together, Ryxi watched what ensued.
The blinking dot on her radar display rose up ahead and showed itself as a California Highway Patrol hovercar – more advanced and longer boosts, meaning bad news for the jailbreaker – and it zoomed off after the Ferrari with lights blazing and siren blaring.
The Ferrari must have seen it by then, as it engaged its thrusters and sped forward like a jet. The patrol hovercar, with startling acceleration, darted forward and banked at a new intercept angle, gliding through the air like a MiG fighter jet, its siren burping into full volume and blue-white-and-red lights flashing in accompaniment.
The chase zoomed way forward into the distance and then over the small swell of the freeway and out of view. The cars all around were still laying on their horns in sarcastic applause for the momentary show.
Ryxi double-checked that the blinking dot was gone and no others appeared to take its place.
Then, with a nonchalant grin, she flipped up the switch for her own up boosters and initiated the lift procedure. Like a smaller, more compact Harrier vertical-lift fighter jet, she ascended and levitated over the throng.
She looked down at them all, smirking as the cacophony of horns started anew, this time in outrage aimed at her.
Laughing, she engaged her forward throttle.
“So long, suckers,” she said, and banked for the far shoulder and then over the crest of the hill to make a beeline for the city.
Half an hour later, she pulled up in front of a warehouse, and with pistol safely secured under her jacket, she got out and went in for her meeting to talk business.