The city’s dark side was waking up to this rare opportunity, this treat, and he supposed everyone else was finding out how good their preparations had been. He heard what he supposed were local emergency signals blaring from multiple directions, carried far now that the city had next to no vehicle traffic. The cops were moving about, though, and it didn’t take him long to see three police aircars, going in three different directions at high speed.
So, what are you going to do?
He’d checked earlier, and public transports tended to simply be deliberately shut down in previous Lawless Black events. It was cheaper to lose business for a few hours than to replace all the vehicles that got destroyed by vandals. So calling in another car wasn’t in the cards. But there was a single official train line that cut through the most important districts. It had permanent guards and everything, and had generally stayed active during the blackouts.
The line would at least get him in the general vicinity of Arret Blanc. And if he couldn’t board for whatever reason, at least heading there would mean moving in the right direction. The blackout wouldn’t last forever.
The comm beeped.
“Gaylen!” Jaquan said. “They’re coming! They’re on you! From the east! Horruk and some others are in an aircar, going straight for you!”
“Time?”
“A little under three minutes, at the current rate! They’re really speeding!”
It remained a mystery how the pirates did their tracking. And now it didn’t even matter. This game was in its final stages. And Gaylen thought he might have spotted a lucky card.
The parked car was a clunky, box-shaped beast with a sizeable cargo hold; clearly some sort of minor transport. More importantly, someone had been kind enough to break into it for him.
The car stood on an unlit corner, beneath a pitch-black shopping centre, and was lit only by a penlight and the flame of a small cutter. The driver side door had been cut open, and one person was sticking halfway out, while another one stood close by with a bag.
They were teenagers, from what Gaylen could tell; a boy and a girl. They seemed to be alone and unarmed, which made things even simpler. He ran over and drew the gun.
The girl turned and saw him, and shined a small light. Gaylen fired into the street, and she yelped.
“Away from the car, both of you!”
“Alright, alright!” she cried, and her partner exited with flailing limbs.
“Give me the light.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Just strode up to her and snatched it out of her hand. They backed away slowly with their hands up, and Gaylen took a peek inside the car. They hadn’t gotten far. A panel on the dashboard had been opened, but all the electronics seemed to still be in place.
“Give me that jacker,” he demanded of the boy, and pointed to his belt. “Now!”
The boy took the pointy little tool out and threw it on the ground at Gaylen’s feet. Then they both turned and ran, and he had no problem with that whatsoever.
Gaylen snatched the jacker up, got inside, and inserted it into the starter.
“Jaquan, time.”
“Less than two minutes!”
“Right.”
Jackers, not to mention vehicles, differed from place to place, but machinery did operate according to a logic, and certain things repeated all over because they worked. So, since the car ultimately looked basic and cheap, and the door was meant as its main defence, the jacker did work. The engine started.
“I have an aircar,” Gaylen announced.
“I can see that!” Jaquan said. “Now stop making me watch you sit around!”
Gaylen didn’t recognise the alphabet the controls used, and the controls themselves were a bit odd; consisting of buttons and control sticks that were much farther apart than he was used to. He half-wondered if some idiot had designed a car to be steered by two people at the same time.
Still, he found the button for the thrusters, and the right stick to pull to take to the air. Then, after a single jarring mistake, the car shot forward. Rapid experimentation activated the radar, and with no other immediate air traffic Gaylen dared experiment a little, giving him a feel for the car’s reactions and manoeuvrability. Both felt aggravatingly clumsy.
“You need to pick up the pace, Gaylen, or they are going to catch up,” Jaquan told him.
“Yeah yeah.
Acceleration seemed to be controlled with a lever, and he carefully pushed it forward, only for the car to slow down. He pulled back, and returned to the previous speed, then further back and sped up.
Who designed this fucking thing??
He had a nice, long, unbroken stretch of road before him, and so he risked taking his eyes off it to figure out the map function. He found the general area around Arret Blanc through memory, and managed to activate a guidance system. There might have been an autodriver feature too, but those were hardwired to follow traffic laws, and this was no time for that.
“Jaquan, what can you see? Do you think the cops are going to come at me if I go above the allowed height? Or are they focusing on bigger problems?”
“I honestly can’t tell. Everything just looks like chaos.”
Gaylen passed by a fire, visible through the windows of a high rise.
“Can you go faster, if you don’t have obstructions?”
“I’m starting to doubt it. I picked a real junker.”
“Then you’re probably better off with cover. They’re still gaining on you, incrementally. Going higher would only make things worse.”
“Right.”
The time came for the first 90 degree turn, and Gaylen told his stomach to shut up and stop bothering him.
It was easy for a full-time runner to forget that most people lived out their lives on whatever planet birthed them. And when they did travel through space, it was in the comfy passenger hold of some huge transport. Certainly nowhere near the cockpit.
Gaylen, meanwhile, had been running the lanes since before he could really call himself an adult. As such, he’d never had any reason to really learn how to steer planetside vehicles.
“O-kay,” he muttered out loud as the moment arrived, and pulled back the acceleration, just a bit, while yanking one of the steering sticks to the side. The big, boxy car swung, and just kept on swinging, as if it had hit an icy path on the ground.
He completely overshot the intended turn and the car shifted almost 180 degrees. The opposite row of high-rises closed in fast, dark and terrible in the blackout, and Gaylen pictured himself smashing into someone’s bedroom.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He adjusted the stick and acceleration a bit, the turn slowed down, and he was rocked in his seat as the aft corner of the car banged into the building. Sparks flew as the side of the vehicle dragged alongside the wall, before the sluggish machine responded to his entreaties.
Steering the damned thing felt like managing a big, dumb, stubborn animal, but the acceleration did pick back up, and he got the car away from the wall without going into another wild arc.
He passed over a light show that seemed to be some sort of riot, or maybe a gang rampage, while on his left a team was standing on top of an aircar and cutting their way into a building.
Just doing my part in all this… he grumbled on the inside.
The next big turn went more smoothly, although that was a low bar. He picked up speed again slightly more quicker than last time, and found himself before another lengthy stretch.
“How are things going?” he asked Jaquan.
“They are still gaining, Gaylen. Maybe a minute apart now.”
Gaylen checked the street map again, and the little dots that made up the traffic.
“I think I see them on screen,” he said.
He was coming up on an intersection, with a good deal more traffic than he’d seen so far. Aircars were moving in multiple directions, at multiple levels of elevation, and down below was a network of bridges for land vehicles and pedestrians. He had enough on his conscience without adding a mass-fatality event to the list, and so he sped up and slowly pulled on one of the sticks. The car started rising gently. Too gently, even with several hundred metres to spare, so Gaylen pulled further, forcing the front of the car higher and higher.
He flew well above the flow of vehicles, no doubt breaking multiple laws in the process, and it was at the height of the arc that a bolt of light shot past the car.
“Alright, they’re shooting now,” Gaylen said flatly, and pushed harder on the stick.
The car dipped, blasting downwards at a severe angle, like a horrible amusement park ride. He pulled, and the car started levelling off in a clumsy, unpleasant way. It was strange how doing much more dramatic things on a spaceship didn’t bother him as much.
The car he’d noticed on the map cleared the intersection, more smoothly than he had. The car was actually a similar size to his boxy monster, but just looked better made.
Gaylen started messing with one of the sticks, moving it side to side with small gestures. His car couldn’t weave worth a damn, but at least it was something.
Another shot came, and it passed just under his car.
Sure, assholes. Plasma in an urban area, why not?
He switched to moving up and down, as if floating on waves, and the third shot missed.
“Something took out our drone!” Jaquan said. “I think they might have their own!”
“Don’t say anything, Jaquan,” Gaylen said. “I need to focus.”
The pirates continued to close in, slowly but inevitably. Arret Blanc wasn’t far away, on a personal vehicle, but then Horruk and his folks would enjoy several minutes of cruising alongside him, within ideal shooting range. He had his own gun, of course, but there was probably a whole pack of them stuffed in that vehicle, and they didn’t have to twist around to fire.
The fourth shot hit. The car wasn’t armoured against weapons-grade plasma, and the bolt passed straight through. Fortunately, there was a lot more car than there was Gaylen, or vital systems, and all it did was create an annoying sound of wind blowing through the holes.
He peeked at the map again, then double-checked to see he’d read it right.
“Screw it.”
He took a sudden turn, and made this one wild on purpose; all the harder to hit him as the car swayed like a drunkard. Then he hit the acceleration, and headed straight at a commercial building. It was listed as closed down and evacuated for the Lawless Black, and the exterior was all shimmering glass, through which one could glimpse really big floors.
Gaylen stuck his hand out the window and fired a shot, to weaken the glass a bit just in case it was reinforced, then braced himself.
The heavy, ugly metal box he was steering proved good for something, and the huge sheet of glass he hit smashed apart like nothing. He continued on through the shopping floor without slowing, knocking over stands and displays; mostly clothes, from what he could tell.
It only took a slight turn to get around the only nearby wall, and seconds later he smashed out through the other side of the building. It all shaved about one minute from the projected arrival time, but did far less to shake the pirates. The holes Gaylen had created accommodated their sleeker car just fine, and they emerged a few seconds after him. But it wasn’t like Horruk had struck him as the cautious, thoughtful type.
Gaylen took another turn, another wild, slippery sway in between towering buildings, and for a few precious moments the pirates were unable to fire at him. Another shot did come, as he took yet another turn, and this one punched through the cargo hold. Then he was around another block, and got another brief respite.
It was a bit funny to think that if he just owned the car, he would be able to call the law for help for once. What a twist that would be.
The pirates gained a line of sight on him again within seconds, of course, and the shots continued. One punched through the car lengthwise again, and got worryingly close to the engine. There was no rear window for Gaylen to look through, and leaning out the door wouldn’t give a good angle, so he twisted in the seat and just fired back through his own car.
He squeezed the trigger once, twice, thrice, not really expecting to hit anything, but hoping for the best. What he did get was them switching to a dodging pattern as the chase continued, slowing them down marginally.
That was something.
Another shot punched through his car. He didn’t know how exactly the engine was laid out, but though the car continued he now heard a hissing noise, unrelated to the wind blowing through all the plasma holes.
“Fantastic…”
Another shot went through, and the next one went through the chair and hit his back. The bolt met the weave in the coat, and the sturdier vest beneath that, so the burn was merely painful rather than agonising. He did groan, and snapped off two more shots just in anger.
The pirates continued, and even with their evasive pattern they continued to draw closer. Always closer, with more guns, and a much better shooting angle.
Gaylen wasn’t going to make it. Not like this. They were going to run out spots to hit that weren’t his head, or a vital part of the car, before they ran out of time.
He started swaying the car more wildly, sacrificing speed for the sake of being a harder target. The damn box was still clumsy and ungainly, and he knew the pattern would become predictable real fast. But the next turn was coming up fast as well, and his map showed no traffic to worry about.
When the plain facts were against you, it was time to get crazy. And so, as two shots missed the car and another one passed through it, he hit the turn more wildly than ever before. He glided towards a large, blocky building with industrial towers sticking out of it, and slowed down just enough to make the inevitable impact bearable.
Gaylen was yanked around in his seat, the aft corner of the car partially flattened with a loud bang, and the car spun around in a semicircle. Gaylen hit the acceleration, and gunned it for the intersection. The pirates came into view, visible by the exterior lights of their car, and mid-turn as they were they didn’t have time to decelerate. Whoever was at the controls attempted a brutal upwards yerk, and Gaylen redirected.
His aim was true, and his big, dumb beast of a car smashed into the more delicate one that had been pursuing him. He hit the underside, and for a couple of seconds Gaylen was wearing the other car on top, pushing them both upwards. He raised the pistol again and fired three shots into the roof.
Debris rained down, from the thrusters and the chassis that had not been designed for impact. But so did plasma, fired in a wild panic. Three missed entirely, one passed through the passenger seat, and one hit the engine.
The cars separated, and the pirates went into a spiral, gently descending as their car swung like an air fan. Gaylen’s car, meanwhile, let out the groan of a mortal injury, followed by a softening of its hums and vibrations. He did a quick check for emergency features, but nothing was marked in a way he understood.
The boxy car started to lose altitude, slowly, as the thrusters started coughing their last, and his flight turned into more of a glide.
“I’m going down, Jaquan,” Gaylen said into the comm. “I’m going to try to make it to the trains, or a heavy police presence.”
His car glided over a web of walkways, and into a neighbourhood that was even less lit than the rest of the blackened city. A glance at the map indicated it was undergoing a major construction project, which at least made him feel slightly better about crashing a big aircar into it.
There was no traffic, no fires, and nothing to indicate any human beings at all. He seized the control sticks and did what steering he could, even if some of the thrusters weren’t responding at all. A few seconds of rapid-fire button pressing finally activated the night vision feature of the windshield, giving him something of a view, even if it was distorted by all the plasma holes.
There was a roof up ahead, and a bit to the right, on top of a building encased in scaffolding for both humans and construction equipment. The car was going to pass over it; Gaylen felt pretty certain of that. But maybe, with just a bit of luck…
He brutalised the control sticks, wringing redirection out of the dying vehicle like last drops of water from a wrung towel. The car shifted, just enough to the side, and just enough downwards, that he settled on his plan. It was either that, or wager on surviving the crash itself.
As the vehicle drifted the final few dozens of metres to the roof, Gaylen opened the driver-side door, took a breath, and swung himself out. He let himself hang by the fingers, off the bottom of the door frame. Then he spotted what he supposed were cargo attachments further under the vehicle, and swung himself forward by one hand, as if he were back in gym class, and gripped one of them.
It made for a better handhold, and with that in place he dared turn around for a look. The pirates, damaged though they were, were back on his tail. Their engine was sparking and coughing, and the lights of the thrusters faded in and out, but if the car was dying it was doing so more slowly than his.
The roof neared, and neared. The box drifted on, losing power, losing altitude, and Gaylen wondered if he’d miscalculated, and he’d get squished beneath the thing as it gave out. But then his feet were dangling over the scaffolding, then over an unfinished part of the roof, and there was still some hang time left.
There was no perfect moment for this. The car’s lights were only giving a general impression of what lay below, leaving plenty of space for unknowns. But pointless waiting wasn’t going to improve his odds in any way. Gaylen let himself fall.