Concrete Chaos

by Earle, Michael-Scott

  Everything screamed.

  I screamed.

  Funakoshi's tires screamed when they struggled to hold on to the road.

  His engine screamed because the tires were getting pulled in the direction opposite to that he wanted to spin.

  The air screamed because half a dozen pods around me automatically laid on their horns. My sudden movement must have freaked out their systems, and they made the noise in the hope that I would realize they were right fucking next to me.

  I let off the engine a bit and tried to focus on keeping Funakoshi upright. But I was really going too fast, and it felt like I was a half a hair away from spinning like a top across an ice rink. All of the fucking gyro alarms, traction controls, and engine warning lights were flashing across his screen like a dance club. I knew I'd done this too fast. I couldn't control him. I was going to lay out spectacularly, probably in a ball of fucking lava, and Funakoshi's giant tires would fly though the air and then roll down the road like sticky donuts.

  Funakoshi and I floated across the freeway for a handful of agonizing seconds, and the world seemed to suddenly become silent. The cars weren't around me, the freeway wasn't under me, and Hogan wasn't yelling at me. It was just Dad and I riding through the Sierra Nevadas on the back of Funakoshi, laughing. I had my arms around his muscular stomach, and he would tell me to squeeze tighter so he could go faster. I buried my helmet into his back and giggled when I felt the engine roar underneath us.

  Damn it, Dad. Why did you die?

  Then everything caught and snapped forward. The memory of Dad evaporated, and Funakoshi growled like an angry earthquake. I screamed with triumph and then gasped before I had to yank the ancient motorcycle away from smashing right into the front of a blue painted pod. There was a family inside the self-driving car, and the eyes of the man and woman in the front seats were almost as large as the headlights of the vehicle.

  Then I was at the three motorcycle-riding fuckfaces.

  My bitches had taken my cue and closed the gap behind the black-suited riders. None of them had reached for their guns, and I wish I could have seen the surprise on their faces, but their visors were too tinted. I did imagine that they were as shocked as the family in the blue car I had just slid around.

  They were about to get more surprised.

  I picked the one out the most to the right, and I saw my girls angle the other way. I'd done plenty of bosozoku brawling on the back of Funakoshi, so this guy was more than outmatched. I extended my left elbow and tapped the fucker on his left arm when I shot by him. We were both going fast, but the flat part of my elbow was high on hardness and low on pain receptors. It was also covered with a four-inch pad of Kevlar riding armor. Meanwhile, Dickbag the Third took my hit right where his bicep connected with his forearm. There was no armor there, just a thin piece of leather that did nothing to protect his nerves or muscles.

  His bike spun a hard left as soon as I passed, and the goon catapulted into the air as if someone had shot him out of a cannon. There was a massive amount of confusion with the other two men as my bitches sacked them, but I had to dodge another car and then focus on getting over to the shoulder of the freeway. I nearly died a second time when some jackass decided he needed to turn off the auto-pilot in his silver pod and try to steer away from me himself, but I managed to weave around him and get over to the shoulder. Then I was back at the change from the 101, and I was plowing down the wrong ramp to get back onto the 85.

  "We got 'em!" Stacey Jones shrieked with absolute glee.

  "Yessssssss! Can they get on their bikes? They might try to get back to their boss."

  "Ahhh, no. All their bikes are fucked up. One of the men might be able to walk. But he isn't going to be moving fast. Shit!" Xiu Mei screamed.

  "What happened?" I exited the wrong way off the 85 and flipped back around to get on it going west."

  Someone in a silver car just plowed into the last guy. Yeah, no one is going to be fucking with you anymore." Kate Tee's voice became a maniacal cackle, and her venom surprised me.

  "I'm heading back to Jae. The guy we want is getting away." I felt tears on my cheeks and thought again about Dad.

  "We see you on the map. Turning around as soon as we can. Don't let him get away," Xiu Mei said.

  "Jae, what is your location?" I asked.

  "Eastbound on Blossom Hill. Just passed Camden. Where were you?"

  "I had to shake the motorcycle jerk-offs. They won't be a problem anymore."

  "I'm running out of juice guys. Got half a minute then I'm going to have to land her," Emma said. "Damn it, Pavel, you are getting blood all over my shit."

  "Apologies, Emma," the big Russian said.

  "I'm... two minutes away," I said.

  "I'll try to tail him; he knows we are on him. Hurry, please," Caleb said.

  "Keep me updated on where he is going. I'm going to take 85 as far as I can."

  "I think he'll try to go north on Los Gatos Boulevard to get back on the freeway," Jae said.

  "Wait, what exactly am I supposed to do when I catch up to you guys? He won't be able to get away, but the fuckface has a gun. Can't he just pull over and shoot me?" Despite my question, I still pushed Funakoshi up to 130 and passed the Camden Avenue exit before I finished my sentence.

  "We are going to have to make him pull over," Jae said.

  "How are we going to do that?"

  "He's slowing down and making a turn on Union!" Jae shouted.

  "Ughhhh." I was just about to blow past the exit, but I cut the throttle and leaned over hard to the right. I skipped through three lanes and felt the G's kick me in the gut when I hit the horse shoe-shaped turn.

  "I'm heading south on Union," I said after I exited the ramp and made a right. This was the Cambrian Park district, and the skyline was filled with super-high apartment towers.

  "You'll see us in a minute. Wait, he's turning on Lark," Jae said. I thought I saw a car cut across traffic right ahead of me, and then I hit the brakes so that I wouldn't plow into the vehicle Caleb was driving. Three other self-driving pods had stopped in the middle of the road, and a few horns were beeping. But Caleb had already sped away, and I feathered my throttle to follow him."

  "Where is he going?" Jae muttered into the phone. We crossed a bridge over the high-speed rail line, and I took a position to the side of their car.

  "How are we going to do this?" I asked again. "I can't really knock over a car."

  "We'll give you a gun. You can shoot out the tires if it isn't- Wait, where is he going?"

  The car ahead of us made a sharp right and cut into the long driveway of one of the massive apartment buildings.

  "I'm following. Shit!" Caleb slammed on his brakes as soon as he turned in, and I did the same thing. The long driveway had a gate half way open, and there were a metric fuck ton of guards posted on the perimeter of the opened metal door. Each of the guards was dressed in a black uniform with slick, red lettering on the shoulders.

  It was the Zato Industries logo.

  And each of them was pointing a large assault rifle in our direction.

  "This building is off limits for civilians and non-approved personnel. Back your vehicles into the street and leave immediately." There was a guard booth with a massive set of speakers on the roof. When the commands finished, the gate opened all the way. The car with the tall, bearded hacker drove past the guards, and none of them spared a glance at its passing.

  "Fuck. We lost him," Emma groaned.

  "I'm backing up," Caleb said, and the car began to inch backwards. Once he had pointed the front of the pod towards the main street, I glanced back at the building and observed the target's car turn into a parking garage.

  "Damn it. Why is he at Zato Industries?" I asked.

  "Let's get out of here, Sue Zay. We have the computer. Caleb can hack it in a few hours."

  "But.... My mother should-"

  "Let's go. They are going to shoot you if you don't move," Jae warned me.

  "Y
eah. Okay." I twisted Funakoshi's throttle and sped out after the car that held Jae, Caleb, Pavel, and Emma.

  Chapter 13

  "Can ya pass me the eight-millimeter Allen key?" Emma asked me as she stuck out her right hand.

  "Yeah." I looked through her somewhat-organized pile of tools, found the small stick-looking wrench, and gave it to her.

  "Perfect. This baby will be ready to fly as soon as I screw this in." The cute, brown-haired girl stuck her tongue out when she worked, and I went back to slouching in the chair next to her.

  Exhaustion was starting to hit me.

  It was twelve thirty-four AM, and I was sitting in Emma's work shop in Jae's garage. I'd been banished from Caleb's office because I kept asking the tattooed man if he'd broken into the hacker's computer. Then I'd lean over his shoulder so I could try to help him with the code, and he'd finally called in Jae. The Asian hunk had pushed me out of the room with a smile on his way-to-fucking-sexy face and locked the door with both of them inside.

  I'd moved to the living room afterwards, but Pavel had been in there, still covered with crusty, three-hour-old blood, and the huge fucking man had attempted to sit on my lap so that he could update me with his latest cat videos. I'd escaped to the garage and had tried my best to help Emma repair her broken drones, but while I was getting my degree in mechanical engineering, it quickly became obvious that the smiling girl was light years beyond anything that I'd ever be able to learn in school.

  "When do you think they will be done?" I asked Emma for probably the twentieth time.

  "Oh, I dunno, any second now," she gave me the same answer she'd given me for the last two hours.

  "Ugh." I put my head on the table and sighed. I had the top quarter of my suit unzipped, and I could smell the stinky fear sweat that had dried on my skin. It had been one hell of a crazy day, or, yesterday had, since it was tomorrow now. I couldn't even think straight anymore. I almost wanted to fall asleep, but while I knew that my body wanted rest, my mind was still far too nervous. What I really wanted was a fucking shower, but I didn't relish the idea of slipping back into my stinky clothes.

  I had told my bitches to go back home, but they had continued to send me text messages every hour or so. The last one came through to Hogan twenty minutes ago, and I'd finally told them to go to bed. I'd update them tomorrow with whatever secrets Caleb found on the computer.

  That is, if Jae wasn't going to keep them from me.

  "Emma, is Sue Zay with you?" Jae's voice came out of the speaker concealed on the wall of the garage.

  "Yeah, Jae, right next to me. She helped me repair Hummingbird." Emma named all of her flying robots after birds or insects.

  "We've gotten the info off the computer. Meet in the main room for a briefing."

  "Thank Muhammad." I lifted my face off the table and followed Emma out of the polished garage.

  Pavel was crushing one end of the couch with his bulk, and Caleb sat on the other end. The tattooed hacker looked blurry eyed, but he gave me a grin when I walked into the room. Jae wasn't here yet, but Emma and I found spots on the other couch and waited for the handsome Asian man to arrive.

  "Water?" Jae walked in and handed each of us a bottle of the bubbly stuff. As soon as it touched my lips, I realized that I hadn't drunk anything all day, and the exhaustion hammered into my back.

  "What was found on computer?" Pavel asked once Jae sat next to him. Jae wasn't a short man. He was tall, and muscular, and fucking perfect looking, but next to the giant Russian he seemed like a ten year old.

  "This is the hacker. Goes by the name Hael Ander, but we don't think that is his real one." I saw a picture of the tall, bearded man that I had been playing cat and mouse with for most of the day. He was sitting in what looked like a coffee shop behind the screen of a laptop computer.

  "That's him," I confirmed.

  "This shot was taken a few years ago by Interpol. At one point, they suspected him of cyber terrorism against Israel. But they found no evidence besides his occasional meetings with other terrorist organizations targeting the Middle Eastern Jewish population at the time."

  "Sounds like this asshole is an equal-opportunity fuckface. Jews, Muslims, and Mormons. He doesn't care," I said.

  "Could be. There isn't much more to go on. Caleb, talk to us about the program you found." Jae looked over the Russian to the tattooed man.

  "It's an interesting piece of work. Its core directive seems to be to eliminate all the external safety protocols Cordia has in place on their trains."

  "And what else?" Emma asked.

  "That's it. These safety measures are managed remotely, but all of the train controls are taken care of onboard the actual vehicle. They did that on purpose to specifically prevent terrorists from hacking a system. If there is ever any issue with a train, then Cordia's external systems can shut it down. The train itself also has firmware to do it, as does the track system. Don't misunderstand me, this software that Hael put together is a work of art, very difficult stuff, but the only way something like this would be dangerous is if someone also hacked the track system and had someone else on board the actual train. I just don't see how that is possible without a lot of different pieces coming together."

  "But let's say he did engage this software, there was another piece of software to shut down the track-safety systems, and then another piece of software to make the train accelerate, or push its engines, or something to make it crash. Could that happen?" I asked. What Caleb found didn't make a lot of sense. The bomb on the maglev train had done terrible damage, and the news said earlier that the death toll was now at over eight hundred people, but the conversation I overheard between Hael and his employer made me think that this was something much more destructive.

  "It could happen." Caleb shrugged, "but they would have to physically put someone on the train to plug into the terminal. Even if they got past the armed guards in the engine room, it would be a suicide mission after the train crashed." He shrugged.

  "Suicide isn't outside of Muslim beliefs," Emma said with a shrug.

  "But the news said that most of the casualties were Muslim; both Sunni and Shia." I recalled hearing the reporters speak over Pavel's cat videos when I'd been in this room earlier.

  "I agree with you, Sue Zay. The people behind this aren't looking to further a religious agenda. They are looking to make a profit by destabilizing the world." Jae stood from the couch with a sigh and paced the room with his hand on his smooth chin. Even though I was half way to exhausted, I kind of just wanted to put my hand on that beautiful chin, pull him down between my legs, and….

  "That's not all." Caleb's voice interrupted my fantasy. "The software Hael Ander wrote uses a gateway to access Cordia's systems. It is the same gateway that all the self-driving pods use to ensure that there is no car-on-train love-making sessions. Can you guess what authentication he is using?" Caleb turned to me and smirked.

  "Zato Industries," I sighed. I wanted to believe that my mother had nothing to do with this, but if people were afraid of trains blowing up, then they would use more cars, and Zato Industries owned almost the entire marketplace. Then again, she told me a few days ago that her own systems were under attack. Could it be that it was the same group that employed Hael?

  "Annnndddd...." Caleb clicked on his wrist by his watch, and the TV screen changed to show a stocky, bearded man with dark skin and a thick mane of red hair. "This is the identity of the tag on the authorization. Name's Paul Lefton. He's worked at Zato Industries for almost twenty years. Guess where he lives?"

  "The building that Anders turned into? The Zato apartment tower?" Emma smirked.

  "Yep," Caleb confirmed. "Oh, and guess who was the best man at Lefton's wedding sixteen years ago?" The tattooed hacker pressed another part of his wrist, and the screen changed to show a few photos. There was Lefton, weighing a few dozen pounds less, a pretty blonde woman dressed in a white gown, and another man standing next to her. I recognized Greaseball immediately.

&
nbsp; "Collanta!"

  "Correct. My guess is that both of these guys were selling prototype specs to either each other or to a third party, but I could be wrong."

  "How did they get tangled up with Hael Ander?" Emma asked.

  "I have no idea, but..." Caleb smiled and pushed his skin around his watch. The screen in front of us changed, and there was a picture of two teenagers. "These are his kids. I used a combination of their names and birthdays to hack his Zato Industries login. I don't have deep access because I am off site, but I used the login to make this." Caleb reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a key card.

  "We can get into the apartment building now, and I know where Lefton's condo is located. Twenty-seventh floor. North wing. I'm going to guess that we'll find answers there." Caleb turned to Jae. The handsome Asian man was still pacing the floor with his hand on his chin. A few moments of silence passed while Jae seemed to ponder the next move.

  "Let's get suited up. Light armor under street clothes. Emma, bring your hallway drones. Pavel, take a quick shower and put on something that isn't blood stained. Meet at the car in ten minutes. Caleb, you'll have to bypass the cameras."

  "I can do that when we get to the building." Caleb, Emma, and Pavel stood and moved in separate directions.

  "Should I wait in the garage?" I followed their example and stood from my seat on the couch.

  "No," Jae looked away from me a second to make sure everyone else had left the room. "You are done for now. I'd like you to go home and sit this one out. I will call you tomorrow afternoon with an update."

  "No. I want to come help you." Anger rose against the exhaustion, and I crossed my arms.

  "I wish you could, Sue Zay." Jae's beautiful blue eyes met mine, and I felt my breath flee my lungs. "But it is too dangerous." He shook his head.

  "I like danger." I took a step towards him and felt my heart begin to race. There was something in his eyes when he looked at me. Was it desire? Was he trying to protect me?