Duval Dirtbag

Murder On The Base

Chapter 36 - The Daytona 500 (Ricochet)

Oh what the fuck is this? Finley bellowed in his mind palace. His eye twitched and he aggressively licked the crust at the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t move his left leg and his right hand was numb. He shook the pins and needles from his hand and looked down at the bottom half of his body. He had been under a dog pile all night. Not a sexy one though. Like one of your earlier chapters. ??? No, not like one of the earlier chapters. The Pack had plenty of places to sit in Bill’s mom’s house, but while the living room and kitchen were voluminous, there weren’t more than two bedrooms in the house. So some of them had to sleep on the floor. Being the gentleman that he was, Ssgt Remington had volunteered himself and Finley to the floor. So “Princess” Fala could have a bed. I hope there wasn’t a pea under the mattress. Boo hoo hoo-oow ow, Finley thought as he pried his foot from under one of Ssgt Remington’s massive haunches.

What are we doing today? Oh right. The race. Whooptyfuckin’doo. If I wanted to watch a bunch of rednecks run in circles, I could be stationed at Fort Knox. Finley shook his left leg until some of the feeling came back. He hobbled to the kitchen island and found a bowl into which he could draw some water. My mouth is the Sahara. He thought as he eagerly tongued the bowl.

Sharon entered the kitchen in a bright pink kimono with two orange, black, and white koi swimming circles around the front of it as though to help close the ornamental robe. At least someone else here is awake. Sharon smiled formally at Finley and poured some coffee from the time set pot. Ooh…coffee. Finley tipped the bowl into his mouth until it was empty and proffered the bowl toward Sharon. She looked at the bowl and then at Finley with distaste. He shivered and blinked nervously. Make with the coffee, bitch!

Bill tramped sleepily into the kitchen. Where the hell did you sleep? Finley internally questioned, still holding out the bowl for coffee.

Sharon didn’t take her eyes off of Finley as Bill opened a cabinet and pulled down a coffee mug that was shaped like Darth Vader’s helmet. “I don’t know that I trust this one, Willy.”

“He’s fine, Mom,” Bill said nasally. “He just wants some coffee.” With bleary eyes, Bill poured himself some coffee and then reached out to the bowl Finley was still holding.

That’s fuckin’ right, pink dick. Finley nearly dropped the bowl but grabbed it with both hands to still the shaking. Bill emptied the pot into the bowl.

“Better make some more,” Bill honked.

“You know where it is,” Sharon almost sneered.

Bill lolled his head back to his mother. He looked at her for a beat as if to say “really?” but he didn’t. He dropped his head a moment, took a sip of the hot beverage and went to another cabinet to grab more coffee, powdered creamer and the sugar. He swapped out the damp wad of spent grounds and filter and replaced it with a new one. He sprinkled more sugar than he should have into his coffee. He started to turn the top of the powdered creamer to open it, then thought to ask, “Do we have any other creamer in the fridge?”

“I think Billy has some french vanilla in there,” Sharon sipped, “But you know I like mine black.”

Yeah, I bet. Finley burnt his tongue trying to sip the steaming beverage from his bowl. Shit! How?

Bill saw Finley wince more than usual and pried open the refrigerator door. He grabbed the jug of french vanilla creamer and doused Finley’s bowl. “You want some sugar too?”

Fuck yeah I do. FInley flapped his burnt tongue in front of his open mouth and shakily nodded his head.

“Yeah, you do. I gotchu buddy,” Bill said after splashing his own coffee with the cold creamer. He handed the plastic container labeled sugar over to Finley.

I don’t know about the others, but I appreciate you, motherfucker. Finley savored his flavored and sweetened coffee.

The others got up over time and eventually made themselves ready to go watch the race. Finley rolled his eyes at each late, probably comfortable, riser.

***

Wait…

Finley pressed his face against the rear passenger window of the Shil’vati vehicle, this isn’t the VFW we were at last night. This is something different.

“Hey Bill?” Michael asked aloud, “Where are we going?”

Bill was driving, as he was the only one familiar with the Daytona area. “We’re going to watch the race. You forget again?”

“Naw man, I just thought we were going back to the FTW,” Michael replied dumbly. ???

“You mean the VFW?” Bill rolled his eyes. “We’re going to another place.” Bill repl–didn’t fucking clarify.

Excuse me for this break in narration. Hi, this is Wasted Hope, the author of this fanfic, speaking directly to you, Finley.

Yes?

I’m trying to write a narration here, sir.

Yes.

Could you…like, not edit this document for me?

Could you…like, fucking narrate what these idiots are doing accurately?

I…I am.

Fuck you, Wasted, I’m taking over from here on out.

…

So anyway, turns out we didn’t go back to the nest of empty nesters, we went to another community center. Sharon, the shitty host, had us drive out to the Filipino Community Center. Which was fucking awkward. And I’m a psychotic shivering half-pint of a dog person, so think about how incredibly fucking awkward that must be.

Bill walked us into what was clearly Sharon’s domain. She was the queen in her queendom. No wonder she didn’t want to serve me coffee. She doesn’t serve others. I thought the Purple Bitches were bad, but Sharon could probably give them a run for their money.

The Filipino Community Center was not dissimilar from the VFW but for the fact that it was newer. There was a modest foyer, office space, a gathering space and instead of a kitchenette there was an honest to goodness industrial sized kitchen. They were ready to feed an army. Even more than Sharon had done the first night we were there.

There was a gigantic tv in the center of a fucking gymnasium. This community center had a real audi-gym-ateria feel to it. It was for sure a multi-purpose room. In the center of the room, tacked highest on the wall, was the flag of the Shil’vati Imperium. What-the-fuck-ever, we all do what we have to do to keep the peace. Staggered downward was the American flag and down from that was the flag of the Philippines. Before things could really get going, the attendees had to sing the “Shil’vanti” Imperial Anthem, then the American National Anthem, then the National Anthem of the Philippines, Lupang Hinirang. I noticed that they did the USA song a little more wholeheartedly than the others, but they’ll catch the fuck up eventually. The Shils will grind it into their bones.

The Old Bill put his cap back on and crossed over the middle aisle of cafeteria tables to get a drink. Michael sat down across from Linnet, of course, and the others filled the rest of the seats at the table. Everyone seemed to stick to their own kind with the exception of Sharon, she floated like a butterfly between tables talking some sort of petty fucking small talk with everyone.

Michael turned to Bill and pithily whined, “So…we’re going to watch these cars turn left for how long?”

Bill had grabbed his own drink before he sat down, he took a swig and smiled, “As long as it takes.” He gave Harley a wink. She didn’t respond.

Unconsciously, Finley said, “Interesting.”

“You say something, Fin?” Michael asked. He thinks he can call me Fin, huh? Grrr. Finley shook his head negatively and shivered violently. “Anyway,” the Idiot continued yammering, “these cars don’t look like I remember.”

Bel’a looked at the Idiot like he was an idiot. “No, there’s been a,” she hesitated, “a change in management.”

“Are the cars floating!?!” The Idiot clabbered idiotically.

Is “idiot” the only insult you know, Finley?

No.

All the same, I’m taking back over.

Whatever.

Old Bill leaned into Michael with his hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, the Shil’vanti took over, and it looks a little funny nowadays.” He chuckled, “They started out as car-sized bricks until they figured out that long cubes aren’t as aerodynamic as the NASCAR rigs so they shaved them down into more of a car shape.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Michael leaned back in his plastic seat, “I should’ve known from all the purple cars.” He stupidly leaned forward again, “Where’s the Wonder Bread car?”

Tex, a veteran friend of Old Bill’s, waved nonchalantly at the projection on the wall, “Oh, Ah’m sure Elliot’sout ‘ere some’ere.” Tex was a leathery-skinned cuss who spoke with a heavy accent. He swirled his Corona before taking a big draw, the beer fell into his mouth like a hurricane.

Fala folded her paws together, “Bo Elliot has been the favorite since he won the Disappearing Derby.”

“The Disappearing Derby? What’s that?” How dumb could this guy get?

“How long’s it been since you watched NASCAR, son?” Tex asked.

Michael stood up awkwardly, “I guess it’s been a while.” He turned to leave the table. “I’m going to get a drink. Save my seat!”

Almost as soon as Michael had passed the end of the adjacent table, Old Bill sat down. He turned to Bill with a face more serious than he’d given since the Pack had met him. “Now, Willy, how well can we trust your Shil’vanti friends?” He eyeballed the others who sat at the table.

“I’m not sure what you mean, but–” Bill glanced anxiously at Fala and Harley, closing his eyes as if to shore up his resolve. “Yes, you can trust them.”

“They are Rekeyri.” Old Bill gave the table a half nod. “Another people subjugated by the Purple Bitches.” Fala winced as if in pain. Ssgt Remington saw her reaction and scowled. The rest of the table grumbled in halfway agreement. Old Bill inhaled harshly, “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Ok, so I talked to my people this morning after our meet up last night and assumed that y’all seemed on the trolley, but I wanted to make sure for myself.” He twisted in what was Michael’s seat to face the table squarely. “We’ve got some people on the pit crew. This race is going to make a statement. I think you will all appreciate it.” He locked eyes with everyone at the table individually, as if giving a conspiratorial handshake to them all. He only broke when Sharon walked by, “Sharon, my love!” He smiled enthusiastically, all seriousness was wiped away from his expression.

Sharon waved him toward her while also shushing him, “Come over here, the Mendozas want to talk to you!”

The old man got up creakily, but spryly followed her. Michael set himself down in “his” seat that Old Bill had recently vacated. Food at center and drink to his right, Michael looked up at everyone, “I miss anything?” Idiot. The table found themselves unable to meet his smile. Michael looked at Bill questioningly. Bill shrugged his shoulders in a “I dunno” manner. Michael also shrugged his shoulders in an idiotic acceptance of the situation and started eating.

The race had begun with what seemed to be an organized march of cars whizzing over the track in a uniform pattern, as if they’d agreed to this formation in rehearsal. “What’s the shimmering happening on the edges of the track?” Michael asked between mouthfuls of chips and wings.

“That’s the repulsors around the track,” Harley answered matter of factly. “They keep the cars from floating up into the stands.”

Linnet followed up, “Yeah, there was a terrible accident a few years ago.”

Fala continued, “The owner of the only Human racing team, Greg Owens, was a racer back then. He flipped a car into the stands. It was awful.”

Michael’s eyes hadn’t left Linnet’s since she’d been on this bandwagon of NASCAR cronies answering him as if he were the odd one out. “Et tu Linnet?”

Linnet’s eyes widened, “What? A girl can’t get into racing?”

Michael shook his head and looked down at his plate, “No, no, I just didn’t know how out of the loop I was.” No joke, Finley thought as he blinked involuntarily.

The announcer mentioned something about the Human driver Bo Elliot thinking it was a good time to take a pit stop. The projector panned over to the Human pit stall. Michael made a double take, “Is that Rachel!?!” He saw her angelic face under the Wonder Bread cap before he got confirmation from the reflective purple arm that was shown in the opening under the sleeve of her jumpsuit. She was deftly maneuvering a pneumatic drill along the back end of the vehicle, doing God knows what, then gave a quick thumbs up to the pit chief. “She’s got a thumb!” Michael exclaimed, mouth agape, “not a hook!”

Bill leaned toward Michael, “Seems she got an upgrade.”

“She was so against it!” Michael wrinkled his face in confusion. “Why would she do that?”

Linnet pointed her plastic fork in Michael’s direction, “Maybe she saw how it turned you off and decided that boys like hands.”

Michael blushed. “Not everything’s about me.”

“You don’t always seem to know that,” Linnet prodded at her food.

Trouble in paradise? Finley looked around the table. It seemed like not only had Fala and Harley gone cold with Bill, but Linnet wasn’t looking at Michael with anime eyes anymore. Come to think of it, where did Michael and Linnet sleep last night? Finley thought. Before he could get much further in his deduction, a loud explosion came from the speakers. Everyone looked at the projection. The camera had been on the leading Shil’vati vehicle, but the view switched to a more panoramic view from behind the rows of cars. Ahead of them in the oncoming turn, one of the posts that held the repulsors in place had exploded forward onto the track, the fusion of the combined repulsors down on to the track was disrupted and caused the broken post to launch up and out of the stadium in an arc that flew parallel to the stands. The onlookers who could be seen on the projection above the smoke of the initial explosion all ducked in fear.

Soon the next post blew up. Then the next and another final explosion sent shockwaves through the stands. The timing of the explosions and the disruption of the repulsors’ force caused the posts to erupt from their mooring in increasingly shallow angles. The second post impaled the spectators who hadn’t moved out of the way all the way up and out of the stadium. The third flew directly into the middle of the stands making an impact crater that took out everyone in a 12 feet radius until it buried itself halfway up the rows. It was unclear how deep it had gone from the projector, but the damage was palpable. The fourth repulsor post shot directly backwards from where it stood between the track and the stands.

The racers tried to veer away from the turn, a few of the leading cars managed to successfully, though their overcorrection caused them to run into the lee side of the track at a perpendicular angle, they were mostly stopped in their tracks and repulsed back down to the ground. The speed of their cars was met equally with the repulsing force from the still standing posts. These cars ricocheted backward; their elevators didn’t factor in the driver’s avoidance of the inevitable accident. Turns out, this ricocheting of forces shot them backwards from the wall, down to the ground then up off of the ground with roughly equivalent force. These cars launched backward up and out of the protective dome the repulsors provided. However, the repulsors only covered so much of the airspace above the track. The center of which was completely uncovered. These cars shot at racing speeds above the infield and into the opposite stands. Four cars in total became weaponized. Helpless drivers, who thought they were doing the right thing by avoiding the hole in the repulsors, were actually being used as ammunition in what was a planned attack.

The following cars erupted predictably into the stands. Cars in between the inside and outside lanes of the track had nowhere to go but up. Floating purple plasteel shaved the tops of the stands from the opening left by the missing repulsors from the track all the way up the seating and out to the surrounding parking lot.

The only cars left on the field were the leading Shil’vati vehicle who could see what was happening without a car floating in front of them and was going fast enough to stay on the track and the number Three car. Bo Elliot had entered the traffic after the pit stop, but wasn’t going fast enough to get caught up in the lemming race out of the Daytona International Speedway.

Finley looked at the carnage on the projector. There were screams from people in the community center. Then there were cheers. The cheers were led by Old Bill who had removed his hat and was waving it around. “Take that Shil’vanti whores!” Finley’s shaking stopped. He was overjoyed! His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted with excitement. Old Bill pointed at Finley, “I knew you’d enjoy it you little rat bastard!” Finley was so caught up in his joy that he hadn’t noticed the rest of the Pack staring at him aghast. A shrill sound that Finley had been hearing since the explosions started died down. It was his own voice.

“What the fuck was that!?!” Michael exclaimed.

Old Bill clapped his hat back on his head and replied, “Payback, my boy!”

“Are you kidding?!”

“Look around you, son, what do you see?”

Michael saw a room full of people of various ages and colors, a motley crew of Rakiri with an array of reactions: from Ssgt Remington’s look of horror to Finley’s panting, drooling, shrieking excitement. He started to recognize the faces of the veterans he’d seen the night before, showing yellowing teeth in broad smiles under red caps. Michael hadn’t paid attention to what Old Bill’s cap had said until now. He’d tried to ignore it. But unconsciously, he knew what it was; it was a banner that people had taken up signaling a desire to return to how things were, before the invasion. They’d seen many things as political problems before, that Michael thought were piddling semantic issues,l that had never had any impact on him. Now he saw just how wrong he was. He also saw that Fala was taking inventory as well. He saw her initial utter shock dissolve into recognition of a plot. It was subtle and it went away when she saw that he’d seen it.

“I acknowledge that you – all of you – have been wonderful hosts and shown us all a great deal of hospitality. And I know that you took great pains to make sure that we’d all be on board with this…fucking atrocity that you’ve set up here. I don’t know that we are.” Michael looked around at the Pack nervously, suddenly unsure of where he stood.

“Speak for yourself.” Fala said calmly.

“Yeah, speak for yourself.” Finley echoed.

Michael almost tripped over himself standing up. “So, what? We’re onboard with killing innocent people?”

“Michael, take it easy,” Old Bill held his hands up to Michael. “It’s collateral damage. Can’t you see that all of those people who bought tickets from the Shil’vanti were funding the enemy? Because for sure, the Shil’vanti are the enemy.”

Michael thought about Serca. He thought about Joph’rena. He thought about Pennar’dun. So far, his experience with the actual Shils was hard to paint in a happy light.

Old Bill saw Michael wrapping his head around what he’d said so far. “Look at your Pack, Michael, and take a look at yourself.” He paused for dramatic effect, “We’re all victims here. Even you.”

“And that’s what victims should do? Retaliate?”

Old Bill smiled slyly. “Sometimes newcomers need a nudge to remind them who came first.”

“This was more than a nudge!” Bill stood up beside Michael. Michael was immediately relieved to see that someone was going to back him up. He’d been looking at Linnet desperately, but so far she had not reciprocated. She saw her Alpha agreeing with what was going on, Fala was the leader and Linnet was going to follow her through what flames may come.

“Oh come on, you’ve been at war, Willy! And we’ve only seen hell on one planet,” Old Bill pointed at the ground then swept his arms around the room. “These monsters have swept up entire species into their war machine; their ‘Imperium’.”

Michael thought back to the pit crew. “And you found a stooley to carry out your plans for you. How’d you get Rachel into this?”

“Oh, it was her idea. She’d been wanting to strike back at the Shil’vanti for a long time and didn’t have anyone with the know-how and munitions lying around to fulfill her vision. Turns out, there’s a lot more people out there who think like her.” Old Bill flicked the bill of his cap. “And with a firebrand like her there will be more.”

“Fuck this,” Bill said, impulsively grabbing Finley by the arm, “C’mon, let’s get out of here!” Bill’s instinct to grab the smallest of the Pack turned out to be a bad idea. He felt the pressure of the impact on his arm before he saw the blade poking out of the top of his forearm. He looked down as Finley let go of the hilt.

“DON’T touch me!” Finley gasped. His eyes blazed in laser focus on Bill. His body was perfectly still. The grotesque sight of the knife through Bill’s arm caused him to involuntarily lick his lips. I wish I had my golden mouthpiece, Finley thought to himself before being able to tell if he’d said that out loud or not. He started looking around. His nearly bulging eyes darted between members of the Pack. He tried to right his ship, “I, I, I-I don’t like to be touched like that.”

Ssgt. Remington lurched forward to comfort Finley. Fala shushed Finley’s stuttering.

Bill took a half step back when he saw Remy coming forward. The knife shuttered in place and he felt a trill of pain ride lightning to his fingertips and back up his shoulder.

“Your first fucking reaction to being grabbed is to stab who’s grabbing you?” Michael accused.

Finley bared his teeth at Michael. Ssgt. Remington lifted Finley so that he’d put himself between Michael and Finley. “We all react differently when threatened.” Remy said to Michael but into Finley’s face. Finley sheathed his teeth for the most part, but still directed a snarl at Michael’s general direction.

Michael stepped toward Bill and got a good look at the knife. Bill turned his arm so that they could see the pommel. There were the eight rays of the sun looking back at him. Their eyes met with recognition. His arm was aflame but so was his heart and his face. “Bad Karma.” He whispered to Michael. “This dumb bitch just stabbed me with my own Goddamn knife!”