The sound of the sink came through the audio of my helmet, and even Hogan's face looked wide eyed on my helmet display. I couldn't ever recall programming him to look afraid, but there was no mistaking the terror on the AI's handsome face. He knew enough not to speak into my helmet, but I bet he was ready to chastise me for the next twenty-four hours once I made it out of here.
If I made it out of here.
I reached the catwalk and felt a speckle of joy lace my muscles. Okay, like forty more yards up these stairs and through that window. Then I'd be out of here and bragging to my Bosozoku Bitches about how fucking badass of a ninja I was. The best part was that Kate Tee watched me do the whole thing. She'd do all the bragging for me, and I could sit back and enjoy the rain of praise from the girls. I just had to get to that fucking window.
My helmet was fogging up. It had a vent system that could be powered on, but Hogan hadn't engaged it yet. I didn't need to see that far to crawl, so I didn't really need it to work, but a glance at the goons sitting at the card table confirmed that their outlines were blurry. I was working way too hard at this.
"Oh yeah. That was like the biggest piece of pipe I've laid in the last three- what the fuck?" I heard the tall motherfucker's voice rip through the silence of the warehouse and slam into my skull like an ice pick.
"Who the fuck is that? What are you two doing? Shoot that asshole!" His voice was a screech, and I didn't even bother to look at the tall, bearded man. I just jumped to my feet and sprinted the last twenty yards to the window. Kate Tee had pulled her head out of the way already, and I ducked through the opened spot of sunlight as quickly as I could.
Kate Tee was already on the lowest of the three air units and bounding to the overhang. I saw Stacey Jones and Xiu Mei were already on their bikes, and they urgently waved for me to get my fucking ass down there.
My audio was still turned up on the helmet, and I yelped when the explosive sounds of gunshots echoed into my brain. I heard the bullets whizz past my head, break the small bits of glass still on the window, and slam into the brick of the building from the inside. I jumped off the air vent I was on and landed on the lower one with a thud.
The vent let out a screech of death and started to rip from the rusted metal pieces that fastened the massive machine to the ancient building. Fuck me, I'd forgotten that this one was on death's door, and a lurching sensation confirmed that I was about to ride the rusty piece of tetanus some fifty feet to the ground. I heard my friends scream with surprise, and I tried to roll forward off the descending thing.
The sky spun, metal screeched, and bullets pounded against the brick wall next to me. I felt my shoulders connect with the rusted metal of the lowest unit, and I tried to halt my somersault, but I had too much momentum, and I rolled off the edge and fell the remaining eight feet to smash into the overhang.
The front of my helmet smacked into the rusted metal-roof-tile mixture of the overhang, and the air was punched out of my body. My vision blurred before it got bright yellow, and then I heard the bitches screaming at me to get up. I tasted blood in my mouth and used the power of my terror-laced adrenaline to force my muscles to move. I rolled over to the left and grabbed onto the edge of the overhang with my gloved fingers.
"Let's fucking goooo!" Kate Tee was shouting when I dropped to the parking lot with the grace of a sack of potatoes. Stacey Jones and Xiu Mei had already peeled out, but Kate Tee was waiting for me. I jumped on the back of my blonde friend's black and yellow trimmed motorcycle with much more athleticism than my fall off the roof, and she twisted the throttle of her bike as if she was breaking the neck of a chicken.
The front end threatened to lift off the ground, but Kate Tee and I were used to the reactions of super bikes. We both leaned forward, and the motorcycle squealed with surprise. The tires caught, the front stayed on the road, and Kate Tee's bike jumped out from behind the side of the building like a springing tiger.
"The roll-up door is coming up!" My bitches were screaming a cocktail of terrorized commentary and self-congratulating appraisal. My shout about the door cut through the mix, and we raced to the edges of the abandoned parking lot.
Then the cream-colored executive pod pulled into the entrance of the gate and stopped at the mouth.
"Fuck!" the four of us screamed.
"There's enough room! Go around!" Xiu Mei was at the point of our motorcycle caravan, and she angled her black and blue steed at the narrow space between the chain-link fence opening and the passenger side of the self-driving car. I checked my rear display and saw the three men duck under the rolling door and point scary-looking weapons at me. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Take the driver side, Kate Tee!" I screamed at the girl and pulled with the arms I had around her slender waist in the direction I wanted. Stacey Jones slipped out of the parking lot on the passenger side, and I saw the driver door open. Under most circumstances, Kate Tee might have argued with me about the obviously suicidal strategy of riding her motorcycle right next to a fucker with a gun who wanted to shoot us, but she did what I asked without question. We both leaned in the saddle to change the angle of her approach toward the space between the open door and the side of the fence.
I heard shots fire from the building, but I didn't feel anything hit us, and within a few seconds we were right at the executive pod blockade.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttt!" Kate Tee shrieked as we darted past the front bumper of the car. Robby's door was half open, and I saw a massive arm emerging from inside the pod. A meaty hand closed around a black pistol, and I guessed that the man was probably shocked that we'd decided to flee right next to him.
The space for Kate Tee's bike to fit narrowed every nano second that we sped forward and that Robby's door opened. There wasn't nearly enough space for us to fit through, but I had a plan, or at least a really fucking dumb idea that was probably going to kill all of us.
I moved my hands to the side of Kate Tee's tight riding suit, pinched the leather there as hard as I could between my gloved fingers, and leaned back in the seat. Then I threw out my left leg as far as I could kick and aimed the bottom of my boot at the pod's door.
I didn't know for sure how fast we were going when the impact happened. But three things seemed to happen all at once. The first was that my whole fucking left leg went numb. Like I'd just plunged the limb into a vat of ice water. The shock went up through my spine, and I almost lost my grip on Kate Tee's suit.
Second, the door slammed closed with a sound that closely resembled the gunshots behind us. There was a scream of shock, and I saw Robby's goddamn gun-holding-hand fly away from the door in a spray of blood.
Third was that Kate Tee hadn't expected the impact, or my change in body position, and her motorcycle started to lose traction and tilt out of control as soon as we punched past the door. She shouted in surprise, and I felt the bike lose speed as she let off the throttle and struggled to gain control.
"Lean left!" I shouted over her scream, and she followed my instruction. My helmeted head almost clipped the back bumper of the pod when she turned the motorcycle, and I felt both of her wheels break free of the asphalt. The bike leaned over way too much, and my helmet inched closer to the slithering roadway. I should have shit myself right there and then, but this current situation seemed rather tame compared to the last few minutes of getting shot at and then taking someone's hand off with a motorcycle ninja kick.
"Get uppppp you fuck!" I couldn't tell if Kate Tee was screaming at me or her motorcycle, but the tires suddenly slammed into the curb across the street from the parking lot we'd just escaped, and her bike righted itself in a sudden punch of movement. I hadn't expected the jolt, and maybe Kate Tee hadn't either, but we were able to hang on and didn't slingshot into the closest brick building. The blonde Muslim girl had let off the throttle to control her bike, but she twisted on it again, hard, and we darted in the direction we had been facing. I glanced over to my left and saw the three fuckers from the warehouse sp
rinting across the parking lot with guns in hand.
"Funakoshi is up ahead," I reminded Kate Tee.
"I'm not slowing down. We need to get the fuck out of here. They have guns!" Her voice was past a panicked shrill.
"Don't slow down, I'll fucking jump off. I'm not leaving him."
"Damn it!" we came up to the dumpster that my motorcycle hid behind, and she slowed her own bike to a crawl so I could get off safely.
"Go, go, go, go," she chanted as I jumped from her saddle and flung myself on Funakoshi's back. His engine started awake with a tornado's screech, and I waited a few seconds for the systems to boot while I flipped up the kick stand and rolled him away from the trash bin. I should have parked him for a quick exit.
"What the fuck happened?" Stacey Jones asked over our helmets.
"They are the terrorists. I just stole their computer." I sounded like I was telling them I ordered an extra scoop of ice cream on my sundae.
"Please let's just talk about it later. Go, go go," Kate Tee begged me and then started praying in Arabic, or maybe it was Farsi. She spoke both of them, and I had trouble telling the difference.
"Let's go!" I slammed on the throttle, anchored my left foot into the pavement, and spun Funakoshi around in a half circle to point at the back of Kate Tee's motorcycle. She sped ahead, and I quickly followed her out of the alleyway.
"Thanks for turning on my helmet fans, Hogan." They had started spinning as soon as I exited the building, and I couldn't have escaped the cream-colored executive pod barricade if I hadn't of been able to see.
"Sue Zay, you've just performed some extremely dangerous-"
"Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh!" I snapped at him. "I know you're mad, but save the lecture for later tonight. We need to get distance between ourselves and these angry-ass motherfucking psychos." I leaned Funakoshi out onto the main drag by the 880 and caught up to my three friends.
"I can't fucking believe you did that!" Kate Tee screeched. Her voice was half angry and half astounded.
"Okay, what the fuck just happened?" Stacey Jones asked.
"Let's talk on the way out of here. I'm not going to feel safe until we are out of Oakland." As soon as I said the words, I saw a cream-colored car drift angrily onto the road half a mile behind us.
"Shit!" the four of us cursed, and we simultaneously twisted our grips to fly away.
"Jump on the 880 Southbound." The ramp was up ahead, and Xiu Mei led our escape up the road to the interstate. We picked up our speed to 140 once we hit the smooth road and didn't speak until the signs indicated that we were entering Fremont.
"Okay, can we pull the fuck over? We need to talk about this shit, and I'm shaking so bad that my pussy is numb." Kate Tee's question broke the somber silence.
"Yeah. Fine. Let's get off here." We had bunched together on the road in a two by two formation, and we angled to the next off ramp like a group of synchronized swimmers. There was a McTacoKingJr on the adjacent corner, and I nodded toward it. The back of the lot only had a few cars in it, and there was a walking path at the rear that led to some apartment towers.
"Hogan, when did you start recording?" I asked as soon as we parked and turned off our engines.
"I started when you looked in the window, Sue Zay. I predicted that you would want the information to show to the police or Jae Moon," the Aussie voice said.
"I could fucking kiss you, you hunk of sexy computer chips."
"Thank you." He smiled, and then his image frowned. "But we should still converse about the risk that you-"
"Ehh, ehhh, ehh, later. Can you push the video and audio to their helmets for playback?" I pointed at the girls.
"Yes. Hold briefly."
"Got it," the girls repeated after a few seconds. Our helmets replayed the scene of the terrorists at the computer until I started to argue with Kate Tee.
"I still can't fucking believe you went down there. You crazy, crazy bitch." Kate Tee shook her head and laughed.
"I know we are all okay now, but this is hard to watch. My heart is racing," Stacey Jones said.
"Ugh, I forgot to record from my helmet. I doubt I was as nervous as you, but I was fucking sure they were going to see you and I would watch them shoot you dead." Kate Tee's hand grabbed my shoulder and squeezed.
"Fuck, this is crazy," Stacey Jones said after the video moved to me jumping behind the dumpster to get on Funakoshi. "What do we do with this computer?"
"I'm not sure. I should probably give it to Over Zipf and see if he can hack it or something. I don't know if they can do whatever crazy thing they have planned, but I'm hoping that I just took a giant shit on their birthday cake."
"What about Jae?" Xiu Mei asked.
"Fuck him. I don't even know if he's part of this thing. He could have set me up from the start."
"I dunno, Sue Zay, he sounded rather concerned on the phone earlier today. Fuck, that feels like a lifetime ago," Stacey Jones said with a sigh.
"Hmmm, yeah. Maybe he isn't, but I want to get this shit figured out on my own so I feel like I'd have some leverage."
"What's next? Back to my house?" Kate Tee asked.
"Yeah, then we'll wait until Over Zipf calls me tomorrow. Mind if I spend the night?"
"I'd love it. You can all spend the night if you want!" I imagined Kate Tee's brain was already spinning into party-planning mode.
"Sounds good to- Fuck!" Stacey Jones screamed and pointed behind us. I heard a screech of tires, and we turned out heads.
A cream-colored executive pod slid to a stop as soon as it turned past the McTacoKingJr building.
"Fuck!" the rest of us echoed.
"Through the pathway!" I fired up Funakoshi and aimed him at the narrow walking path. It was going to be tight fit for a motorcycle, but I'd be able to squeeze though. The other girls were closer to the exit, and they shot through the narrow opening like water pouring out of a spout.
I heard a snap behind me, and something smacked me in the back. I gasped with surprise and lurched forward in my seat. My stomach turned to ice, and I drove Funakoshi through the entrance to the walkway. I saw the men running after me, and I laid on the throttle a bit more to increase my speed.
"I'm hit!" I shouted into my helmet at the other girls.
"No!" they yelled.
"Where? Are you okay?" Xiu Mei squeezed her question through the other two girls' horror.
"In the back. Feels like someone kicked me in the spine." The walkway was twisty, and I did my best to navigate the turns through the forested greenbelt. Up ahead, I saw an older woman walking her dog. Xiu Mei laid on her horn, and the woman did a sideways dive into some bushes to avoid getting run over.
"How did they find us?" Stacey Jones asked while we bobbed and weaved through the greenbelt sidewalk. We were driving at about 30 miles per hour, and I was somewhat surprised that we could maintain that sort of speed through these blind turns. I was also surprised that I wasn't coughing up blood and on death's door. In fact, while my back hurt, it actually didn't feel that bad. It must have been the adrenaline.
"We need to get her to the hospital!" Xiu Mei cried.
"It's the computer! That is how they found us!" I shouted. Tall Bearded Terror Fucker must have put some sort of tracking device inside. Makes sense; if this thing has code to hack into Cordia, then he'd probably want to be able to track it down if it went missing.
"Hospital first," Xiu Mei stated again.
"No, we need to think of something else," I said. "If they can track the computer, then we need to keep on the move. We definitely aren't returning to Kate Tee's house."
"Let's stop once we get out of here and look at your back," Stacey Jones said. As soon as the words left her mouth, the greenbelt opened into an apartment parking lot. My three friends stopped their bikes and got off the saddles when I joined them.
"Can you take off your suit?" Stacey was already unzipping the front of my leathers.
"Yeah," I winced and unfastened the cuffs. It hurt like fucking crazy to mov
e my shoulders and pull my arms out of the leather. I wore a cotton riding shirt under my suit, and it was soaking wet from the exertion of my day.
"I don't see any blood. Weird." Stacey Jones was examining my back. I felt her hands lift the wet cotton to expose my bare skin. "Giant red mark here though."
"Oh fuck, look at this." Kate Tee tugged on my leathers. "Here is the bullet. Caught you right in the Kevlar spine guard. Holy shit." The blonde girl let out a long whistle. "A few inches in either direction and you would have lost one of your lives."
"Fuck," I said. "We need to move before they are on to us again." I pushed my arms back into my suit, and Stacey Jones helped zip up the leather.
"We can't just keep moving all day. We need a plan," Xiu Mei said. She'd been looking at the end of the parking lot, and I guessed she was worried that the cream-colored car would turn the corner any second.
"I've got a plan," I sighed. "Hogan, call up Jae."
"Yes, Sue Zay," my AI pal said. Within a few seconds, I heard a beep to indicate that the line had been picked up.
"Sue Zay? Are you okay? I've called you twenty-three times." His handsome face appeared on my helmet display, and I could tell he was worried.
"Yeah, and just like you said earlier: I've got good news and bad news." I laughed, and he raised a perfect eyebrow.
Chapter 11
"No, don't hold your hand out like that. Fingers pointing to the ground. Like you are going to grab a baton at a track meet or something," I said over the line to Caleb. I saw the tattooed man's right arm change the way it extended out of the window of the pod to follow my instructions better.
"How's that?" he asked.
"Perfect. Here I come." I spun Funakoshi's engine, and I moved up next to the car that Caleb and Pavel occupied. My fingers found the computer in my front pocket, and I pulled it out with a practiced movement. Then I placed the small black device in Caleb's hand as I rode by them.
"Got it!" he said.
"Good. So am I done here?" I asked. My Bosozoku Bitches were a few miles behind me on the 101. We were heading south and had just gotten out of East San Jose.
Concrete Chaos Page 12
