The Vespa's route was curious. Though the Lamborghini Huracán was a mere 3.6 miles from the Roadside Assistance Station across an overpass on the very highway she now rode, the Vespa instead headed south-east towards the scrub lands.
Tasìa didn't need to hold on to the steer grips. Her hands were free to fiddle with her PA to solve the mystery of León's disappearance. By her personal calculation the Huracán should be found near or within a vehicle salvage yard just off of the main Highway.
Was the Vespa going in the opposite direction because the Lamborghini Huracán was on the move again, and the coordinates she was fed had yet to update?
"Vespa, do you have a means of communication," she asked, speaking into the console panel aligned against the steering head.
It was silent.
Odd, she considered.
The Autonomous Authority tended to embed personal assistants and servitors into every aspect of its customer service operation.
Tasìa activated a LED panel and opened up a text console on the passenger assistance screen. She was about to make a query when the emacs interface wiped clean and was replaced by a skellabot's head.
"I'm afraid the Vespa is entirely controlled through relay back at the station. Prima Vaquera, do you have a question for me?"
It was the same pleasant sounding male voice she heard over the customer service desk.
"Yes. The Vespa is headed into the scrublands, should we not be getting on the highway about right now."
The skull head emoted a grimace.
"The highway is blockaded going north-eastward from your present position on the highway. So I plugged in the next most efficient route for the Vespa to take."
"What's the holdup then?"
Tasìa thought she may have needed to reword her question but the skellabot processed her highly idiomatic contemporary Spanish language usage without missing a beat.
"A very large tractor trailer carrying a dozen sporting vehicles jackknifed about an hour ago. It still needs to be cleared out."
She wondered if the accident was related to Leon abandoning the car before they were scheduled to meet.
"Skellabot, is there a way to override the autonomous navigation system on the Vespa?"
"Yes. Affirmative."
"I wish to take a moment to survey the accident. It may be related to my friend who drove the Lamborghini."
After a few seconds where the skull seemed to blank-out as it stared into space, it once more became highly animated.
"Our scans show no damage or excessive wear and tear on the vehicle. Nor any temperature gradient above atmospheric norms inside of it.
"However, you may find this to be an oddity. There is large - what appears to be a large mammal in excess of 70 pounds on the roof of the vehicle."
Tasìa shook her head. She saw León in her mind's eye back at the Daga Chicas, his magnificent nude, muscular body.
"No. My friend would be more than double that weight, near to tripling it."
"It is not your friend then. It's core body temperature is in excess of 110°, so this creature is most likely not human, at least not for long."
Curious and curiouser still.
"So.. you still wish to visit the scene of the accident?"
"Yes. And I need the discretion of an infiltrator. You understand, that can only be achieved if I can manually override the Vespa's service protocols."
To her surprise, the skellabot gave her no fuss.
"Very well. When you have your foot placed firmly on the accelerator and your hands firmly on the steer grips pointing towards the current directional array, I will handover control to you."
Anticipating her next query, the skull vanished and was replaced by a road map centered on her present location.
"Thank you," she said as she began her calculations.
She glanced up at the deep indigo of the horizon stretched over the distant scrub lands with an aggressive glare, Tasìa clenched her teeth before she reared the accelerator, and hauled ass deeper into what felt to be enemy territory to find the next off-turn ramp.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Although Tasìa had figured out the voice commands of the input system, her access to the Vespas interface was more limited than what she needed at the moment.
She wanted access to the traffic cams and the policing drones to get a better idea of how she should covertly approach the scene. The interface would only provide her with a road map and route suggestions.
She stopped the Vespa a mile in her estimation from an overpass above the interdicted zone for the wreckage, hopped off, and led the motorbike into a copse of trees that spread outward in dense bush between which was a wild game trail.
When she popped out the kickstand, the skellabot's visage popped back up on the screen.
"Prima Vaquera, I need to inform you that if the vehicle is not occupied for one half an hour it is policy for the vehicle to return back to it's assigned station feed on it's on accord.
She squinted as she made a calculation. The salvage yard was a mere 1.5 miles from the accident zone. She could easily walk the distance but if Leòn was in any danger she would be eating into what could be crucial minutes.
Avoiding the gnarl of branches above her, She looked around the copses, and determined the scrub lands with the ridge of low cliffs, twenty odd feet high, that from that side the Vespa could not pass.
Tasìa grabbed a set of fell branches nearby and quickly obstructed the motorbike's path back out onto the main road. She wondered if the vehicle had a means to detect duplicity, and if that would cause any problems with her VEAA service contact.
It was doubtful they would take such measures, but still, it was a calculated risk on her part. As she walked briskly back on the road she cursed that she had left her fanny pack in the trunk of the Alfa Romeo HybrClydis. It was too gauche for an Vida Escondida adventure. For that she would have to endure many impracticalities to her operative's aesthetic sensibility.
The previous day, Alisha, now with one arm fully mobile and now capable of wiping her own ass, helped her with a wavy perm that curled up her otherwise long strands of hair. Curly hair and a month without much sun exposure she appeared more like her Iberian grandmother on her father's side then her mestiza grandmother, Idris, who married the Russian general.
Fortunately, her footwear, Veronica Leopards, we're fashionable, comfortable, durable and well-designed for a hiking foray.
The inside right boot held in place a 38 Special Ladysmith revolver. A good gun for defense against carjackers and back alley thugs but if things went squirrelly with big genetically modified game like things did in the streets of Asunción a month back, she was pretty much on the fucked side, her latest purchase, a 357 Colt Clastic (Iconoclastic, but no one called them by their full designation) was left back in the Alfa Romeo HybrClydis trunk.
She thought of her circumstances and she patted herself on the back for having the foresight to see the tactical disadvantage inherent in fashion given the leather jacket was made to be seen with red trim and bright yellow icons stitched into it.
When she purchased it off the rack, she paid almost as much to have its interior lining made reversible and smart-dyed in an urban cameotic scheme that adjusted according to the immediate environment.
She reversed the jacket.
Her gunmetal gray jeans were already a good match for the jacket. She was set.
She paused and reframed that sense of self-confidence.
Except her attempt to obtain a scene graph of the accident failed to turn up anything. She was going into the hazard zone blind.
She suspected visual systems were turned off on purpose, and that frightened her even more then any heavy-handed quarantine would.
Flash ops were the domain of Tier One spec forces. In front of her she was beginning to get flashes of such activity in commencement.
She put the PA away, and sprinted down the road towards the overpass. Within mere minutes having overestimated the distance for which she parked the Vespa away from it, she heard the sounds of heavy machinery in the near distance.
Her cover was nearly blown before she even reached the overpass. Tasìa spotted a set of tumbling lights coming towards her from the opposite side of the overpass bridge.
It was the side she needed to get on.
Raising up into a leap, she dove into an aqueduct that swept into an underground canal using her hands to pull forward in counter levers working in unison to keep her descent as stable and painless as possible until her feet were planted on a grate.
Her maneuver cushioned the dive well enough to keep her intact without breaking anything. Barely.
That execution was not satisfactory by any means, Tasìa self-admonished.
She was well out of operative practice at the moment. The month she spent being Alisha's caretaker was no excuse. Annebél had some of the best fighting and gymnastic equipment on the planet that one could purchase.
The truth of the matter, she and Beauregard screwed every evening, sometimes multiple times a day, and on his days off, nearly non-stop for sessions lasting for several hours.
Now, her priorities had changed. When Annebél went off to hunt for Sal in the Sweet that first time, she was glad she had the excuse she was playing nurse to Alisha.
It was the same when her cousin Fodor visited to update her on the hunt for Val Vitaly. She was impressed by the professional soundness of the operation he planned and mapped out.
She had felt no compulsive need to intercede in his quest. Instead she gave him access to her wealth and resources to bankroll a search team that would work under Fodor's direction.
Tasìa kept plenty busy and fit with her recreational activity of preference, but still her skill set was going to crap.
So different were her new priorities, she had only practiced with her firearms on one occasion in all that time.
Tasìa got up on her knees and dismissed her concerns when a rumbling noise grew nearer as she positioned herself to hide.
When the vehicle whooshed by with a strange pneumatic pumping noise, Tasìa popped her head up to catch a glance. Though she got a good look, she could not make head-or-tails of what it was.
A steampunk lowrider is how it appeared.
Four large wheels over a low center of gravity platform. The body of it was all frames and pipes. Pipes ran down the length of it, and they stoked furiously with a strange smelling steam spewing out of them.
Tasìa could clearly see one of the passengers hanging from a bridled harness. She recognized what it was - an Al-Majhul.
"Weird little fuckers," Tasìa muttered under her breath as she recalled their bog hideaway where she encountered and killed a few of them.
She jerked her head back around at the sound of a double turbine engine drone. It was in hot pursuit of the freakish little man inside his fucked-up looking riding contraption.
Tasìa curled against the canal, and hugged against a porous vein of metallic rock beside it in hopes she wasn't spotted by the conflicting parties.
The drone had multiple launchers mounted on each side of its delta-shaped wings. Within seconds the unmistakable hiss of a missile launch hit the air just before it grew into a shriek, ending in a tumultuous explosion.
The Al-Majhul vehicle was turned into shreds of shrapnel that rained down nearby Tasìa's hiding spot.