Chapter 350 - Far Future, Ch. 60 – New Playgrounds (1/2)

I caromed over the ramp as Fyr, whooping with glee as my Ride went airborne. I aimed Wobble across my chest and fired a Sun Shot at the gunner on Grilnos' wheels, and his brains went flying in the other direction before his multi-gun got within six inches of my undercarriage.

Joy hit the ground, bounced on some very wuvvly, wuvvly shocks, thank you future tech, there's a good girl, and my car's tail swiped hard into Joclol's side at just the right angle to tip him over for Crumper.

Crumper's dozer blade took Joclol in the side and sent him spinning and flying. The crash as he came down and volatile petrol went up in a gorgeous fireblow was all part of the show.

Joy's tires bit and slewed as my tremblesense rumbled through the floor, picking out the greatest traction and the least, and Joy leapt ahead like a frightened bunny, inches ahead of the hungry pack behind.

Heavy slugs whined loudly off the gunshield behind me, and I ignored them with the serenity of time to downshift and get away from the losers behind me. Crumbed duracrete whined in protest as Joy roared in happy release, and we were off and away while they tried to punch through four inches of tempered durasteel with variable anti-grav for weight offset. Hissing beams of light strobed past as the occasional laser tried some hard light alternatives to slugs, and whipped and wanged off Joy's armor and laenwork glass.

Deathmatches were dangerous but immensely rewarding in Karma, and hey, I had to get these extra selves of mine up there, so taking some risks was immensely rewarding. From initial bang-up collision fests, no-holds-barred barrio racing, and some wild scree-lot shoot outs, I'd been making Fyr a living legend among the killer racing set, and enjoying the hell out of it as I did so.

I didn't have a second rider, as I didn't need the weight, and if I needed something done, Joy, Fyr's psicrystal and Ride 'AI', was perfectly capable of handling the shooting. Without a Sun Strike powering it, 95% of all shots here were just cosmetic damage, which was mostly the point.

There were thousands of gangers and civs up in the stands, cheering on their favorites over this two-mile course, replete with ramps, breaks, forks, kill spots, dead ends, and a dozen death traps you could ram people into, or if you were stupid, drive into yourselves. Slaughter Alley, the long straightaway, had four of them all by itself, and half the fun was maneuvering not to hit them as everyone tried to occupy a constantly changing safe lane and force you into a death lane.

Crumper slid around the turn right behind me, hungry for some killing, the exhaust vents on his truck spewing fire as he roared forwards, dozer blade coming for me... and I fishtailed and pretended to have lost traction, my Ride Skating for a second above the ground, and let him run up on me and lift while my front wheels screamed for traction.

I let down my heavyfoot, grabbed on with 100% friction, and pulled away, yawing as I did so, and he pursued, trying to keep me up on his dozer and failing as I whipped ahead, going into no friction and spinning out into a 360 across the lane as he followed, smelling a kill.

Whoop, there I went, spinning across the Hedge trigger in the pavement with all four wheels... but moving at an angle, not straight on. He didn't quite see it as he missed it and was coming over parallel as the reinforced adamant-tipped steel bars sprang up from the track.

He kind of squeaked as they punched right through his steel plow, smashed into his engine, and took the full impact. As they did, the engines underground went on high torque, revolving the bars down, and crunched the front of his put-down truck down, exposing his underbelly to the pack behind.

A trio of tracer fire and lasers mauled the underside of his truck, and he could only scream there in the shock gel impact cushion as his ride blew around him, his dozing days all done.

Joy straightened out smoothly as I spun the wheel, purring in satisfaction and leading the way once again. The boys behind me unloaded to show me how much they enjoyed chasing my tail, the durasteel pinged a happy drumbeat, and Joy poured it on to get to the corner first and into position.

Chiller came around the corner first, and found me parked right there flat against the wall, impossible to hit unless you knew I was there and you whipped in high and outside. That side armor blew apart as I opened up with a short buzzsaw of tracers, the first two rounds glowing with Sun Shots and blasting out the laen of his windows. I could see the diodes of his eyes, cold and blue, looking right at me as he tried to turn, and couldn't get his shattered window out of the way as Wobble's discharge took him full in the face.

His hands spasmed, I unleashed two more salvoes into the sides of those coming around the corner, and as their glass shattered, I pulled the trigger twice more.

Out of control killwheels slid and slewed and lost friction, spinning and ejecting their dead drivers, and sometimes screaming living co-riders, and took out two other cars from the pack who couldn't avoid crashing into them or being crashed into as they went around me.

Drum-Drum, the heavy workhorse at the back of the pack in a tri-axle rumbler, grumbled past me, wincing as I mauled his wheels and blew out his rear axle's left tire, which was gonna tank his drive speed even more. He fought for control among the scattered burning cars, even as Joy rammed backwards into gear, spun like a ballerina as lightfoot Skated her around, her axles slammed from forwards to back with a scream of delight, and we were on the hunt again.

I was simultaneously plugged into the vid feeds so that nobody could pull a trick like that on me and driving like a mad bitch, loving the rush and the purring power of Joy crazy to just run. I reached over to touch Joy from where she was plugged into the dash, and recharged her Focus for her next shot. Joy screamed as we revved to catch up with the limping Drum-Drum.

Only a Driver could use lightfoot with their ride. The ability to switch between heavyfoot and lightfoot, near absolute friction and none at all, was a deadly thing in auto duels. I didn't slide if I didn't want to, slid like grease if I wanted to, or anything and everything in between. The way Joy could drift, brake, and accelerate just had the crowds and the other drivers agog, and since active psi-use was forbidden here, they just couldn't understand it.

Monk on wheels, that was Fyr! Her Wheelman Talent made all this extremely intoxicating.

The road was split by steel beams here, flicking past with roars of wind as I pulled up alongside Drum-Drum, who looked over in fear. He was definitely a clean-up driver... if you faltered, he had the tools to take you out of the race, and the mass to grind up anyone alongside of him. Me managing to take out one of his wheels was a miserable thing for him, as he was falling even further behind the pack now.

I aimed Wobble, timing the girders casually, and pam-pam, blew apart the key welds of the plate guarding his rear axle on the right side. The armor there crumped, and then Joy spit a short volley from the multigun stubber on the rear hood and ripped off the rest of it.

He tried to brake and shake me, but he was in my Tremble and I could see him slam his foot, matched him precisely, and blew out his other rear tire.