Moon Base One: Tyr4nt
A Prequel Story
Patrick Rivers
Copyright © 2021 Patrick Rivers
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Victoria Davies @ vcbookcovers.com
Printed in the United States of America
To my loving family, who has always been there for me
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Ch. 1: Hover Cars
Ch. 2: Drinks
Ch. 3: Work (Snoogle)
Ch. 4: Sydney’s Underground
Ch. 5: Ash
Ch. 6: Red Button
Ch. 7: Morning After
Ch. 8: Tournament
Ch. 9: String of Moments
Ch. 10: Tyr4nt
Ch. 11: Win
Ch. 12: Head Honcho
Ch. 13: Six Months Later
Ch. 14: Amber’s
Ch. 15: Bulldozer’s Apartment
Ch. 16: Final Test
Ch. 17: Daniel Star
Ch. 18: Lisa
Ch. 19: Moon Base One
Acknowledgement
About The Author
Books By This Author
Ch. 1: Hover Cars
Zeek shifted in the driver seat as he watched the girl in skimpy clothes hold up a red rag while bathed in the yellow light from his headlights.
“You’re going to like what’s going to happen next. I made some modifications to your engine,” Zeek said.
“And what exactly—Oh shit!” Joey said as he was thrown into his seat.
The girl had let go of the rag and it was floating to the ground; Zeek punched the accelerator with his foot, slamming him and Joey back as the car came to life with a roar.
Laughing, Zeek said, “I wasn’t expecting it to be that powerful. Whoo!”
They were racing ahead flying through a tunnel, trying to keep ahead of the red sports car behind them. The lights whooshed by so fast they were streaks that blurred in the side windows. The engine sounded like it had a wasp nest under the hood, the revving loud in both their ears. Zeek twisted the wheel with both hands and down shifted, sliding across the street as he made a quick turn. He was up on the sidewall of the tunnel practically upside down before he was pulled back down to the pavement by gravity. He laughed harder.
Joey clutched his armrest harder; he was all white knuckles and wide eyes. Finally when he caught his breath, he asked, “What the fuck are you doing?”
The red sports car bumped the back of the black Kumai hover car they were driving, and Joey let out a shout. Zeek simply upshifted and blue flames poured out of the back thrusters sending them rocketing down the street and leaving the other car in their wake.
“Winning,” Zeek replied.
“What did you do to my baby?” Joey asked, relaxing a little.
“Just a simple modification to the engine…” he trailed off.
“Leave it to the MIT grad to do some rocket science shit to my ride, then tell me it was just a simple mod.” Joey shook his head.
Zeek twisted the wheel again this time to the right and flew up the wall riding on the side, feeling the pull of his seat belt as it held him in place. He slid down the wall and past an ordinary hover car that wasn’t in the race.
“Jesus!” Joey whispered.
They were gaining even more speed and the streetlights in the ceiling of the tunnel were going by so fast they made their faces appear as if there was a strobe light shining on them. “Watch this.”
“No, please. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
Zeek turned to him and gave a demonic grin. “Push that red button on the shifter.”
“I really don’t think…we’re winning. Why—AAhhhh!”
After Zeek mashed the button, the car flew to an unnatural speed, and the g-force was so intense that Joey’s head started to bob as if he was going to pass out. Zeek on the other hand was grinning and loving every moment. He had his favorite drug coursing through his veins, Blue Drillamine. An amphetamine he’d shot up right before the race started. Laughing like a mad man, he whipped around another pedestrian car by riding up the side of the tunnel. He felt like he was flying a spaceship at this point, they had to be breaking five hundred MPH at this point. Something he just realized as he saw the speedometer bottom out as if it couldn’t go any higher. What would happen if we broke the sound barrier? Would the car rip itself apart?
“ZEEK!” Joey shouted, pulling him back to the present.
A semi-trailer was turning where the tunnel ended, cutting across traffic making a left turn. All the other cars had slowed down to let it pass.
“We can make it.”
“What? Stop, slow down. You’re going to kill us!”
“I can’t slow down, we’re almost to the finish line. Plus…I didn’t make it to where I can stop at this speed. Oops!” Zeek said with a nonchalant shrug.
“What the fuck, man?”
“I didn’t take that part into the equation; I’m drifting on velocity at this point. If I try to brake now, it’ll flip us, or tear your shit apart. I’m telling you we can make it. We’ll go under.”
“Under? Jesus, I thought you were smart. How the hell did you not put braking into the equation? You’re gonna owe me a new car if we live.”
He couldn’t respond, he had to use all his mental abilities to concentrate on the road. Gripping the wheel tighter, he felt the adrenaline pumping hard in his chest now. Under, we’ll go under, we have to, there’s no other way.
Flying at speeds that were almost uncontrollable, he felt the steering wheel shudder under his hands. He put all his weight into the slight turn coming up ahead, and they raced underneath the back of the truck’s trailer and barely went between the wheels. The top half of the car ripped off the Kumai as if it were made of paper mâché.
Joey was screaming something inaudible over the sound of the metal scraping and tearing away from the body of the car. Zeek grimaced and tried to keep the car from going out of control as they skidded sideways as if they were on a street made of ice. He pulled hard to the right and straightened back out, and they cruised past a light and a crowd of people yelling and shouting. Slowing down enough from the impact with the truck, he applied the brakes and they slowly slid to a stop.
Ch. 2: Drinks
Joey stomped around his car and threw his hands wildly in the air, shouting and cursing. “Look at this! Do you know how much this car costs?” he shouted over Zeek’s shoulder as he waited for the man in a red baseball cap and gold chain to come up to him.
The man held his hand up to his mouth as if his fists were a microphone. “Oh shit, that was some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.” He looked over at Zeek. “There’s no question you got illegal mods on that thing. Is he gonna be okay?” he asked, pointing to Joey who was still flipping his lid; as he said this, the red sports car slowed down behind him coming to a stop.
“He’ll be fine; he’ll be even better when I give him some creds. Pay up.” Zeek held out his hand and caught the man’s gaze.
The man straightened up and adjusted his hat, “Alright, alright, you’re one crazy-ass white boy. But you did win. Here you go.” He dumped a handful of creds in Zeek’s hands and said, “What was the mod on there?”
>
Joey was standing next to him; his blond hair was a mess from him practically pulling it out as he circled his car before. He stared him down, but Zeek didn’t even bother to look over. “It was an atomic battery fuel cell mod that I whipped up.”
“Damn, son, you ain’t playin’,” the man in the cap said with a laugh.
“Atomic? Like nuclear, we could have set off a nuke if we crashed, atomic?” Joey said. He looked deranged with his wavy hair in a wild mess around his head like Einstein.
The guy in the ball cap backed away with his hands up. “Good race, but I hope I don’t see you round here no more. Tell your guy.” He pointed to Joey.
Joey was bright red next to him, fuming; he looked like he was about to hit Zeek, his fist balled up at his side. Zeek casually tossed him half the credits and started to walk back to the busted hover car.
“Drinks? I think we earned it, we won!” Zeek said jovially and somewhat patronizing.
Joey looked down at the credits in his hand, some of the fight taken out of him. He jumped into the passenger side. “This does not make things right! I want to make that clear.”
Zeek was outside the driver’s side door. “These windows…they really are indestructible; I thought that was a clever marketing ploy.” He touched the driver-side window and looked at the still intact windshield. Gripping the roof that hung off the back, he pulled it up and back onto the top of the car where it landed on the windows, creaking and groaning the whole way down. “You just weld there and there,” he was pointing at the two points where the broken bent roof met the frame, “and you’re back in business.”
“Get in the fucking car, you asshole. We’re going to Monte’s and you’re buying. I want to get so drunk I can’t see straight. Otherwise, I might hurt you.”
Zeek hurriedly got in the car and started it up with the push of a button. He knew Joey was the closest thing to a best friend he had, but he also knew that he had his limits. He also wasn’t a small guy; he had an athletic build from playing sports throughout high school and college. “Yes, sir!” he said. He passed him a loader with Blue Drillamine in it. He hoped that would mollify him.
Joey begrudgingly snatched the loader from him and shot it into the pit of his elbow aiming for the basilic vein. “Atomic car cell? You turned my car into a goddamn dirty bomb.”
Zeek was already shifting like he was racing again and speeding down the street. “It doesn’t work like that. In the worst-case scenario, it would have caused a radiation leak.” He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but he wasn’t about to tell Joey that.
Ultimately, he knew his friend would forgive him, it would take a while before he wouldn’t bring it up, but he would forgive. Joey came from parents with deep pockets; they were lawyers or something, Zeek couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew he could afford to fix his car at the very least and keep rolling without being phased. The luxuries of having a trust fund, he mused. It was too bad that Zeek’s parents had cut him off after college. His dad was adamant about it, he told him it was time to be his own man. They also had their suspicions about his sobriety after his girlfriend, Lisa, had gone to them in confidence complaining about Zeek’s ‘habit’.
* * * * *
Zeek woke up with a blinding headache; he felt like he’d been run over by the hover car and was recovering. The light hurt his eyes when he opened them, and he realized he was on the carpeted floor, Joey beside him on the leather couch. He groaned and rubbed his eyes when he sat up. Glasses? Where are my glasses? Everything was blurry, but he saw something resembling them on the coffee table in front of him. He groped for them and felt the relief of feeling their familiar smooth texture under his fingertips. He stood up and wiped the lenses with his shirt as he walked over to the living room window. “Shades,” he said, and the windows untinted and revealed the afternoon sun pouring into the window. He covered his eyes with a shock and Joey stirred and muttered something as he rolled over. “Joey, fuck, what time is it?” Zeek said as the fog of the previous night started to clear away. He swayed a little as he walked over to the couch. Damn, I’m still a little drunk.
“I don’t know, man. Time to get wasted again,” Joey said sleepily, his back to Zeek.
“How the hell did we get home? I don’t remember anything, do you?”
Joey rolled over now knowing he wasn’t going to be allowed to sleep anymore. “I’m not sure, did Megan drive us home?”
Zeek rubbed the back of his neck while peering out the window and saw that the car was nowhere in sight. I’ll just let him figure that out on his own. His vid-phone beeped at him, seven missed calls. “Lisa, oh no, I didn’t call her, she must be worried.” He saw the time on his phone. “Shit, Joey, I need to borrow one of your cars. I have to get to work, I’m late as…” He rushed around the room searching for his missing shoe.
“Yeah, yeah, take whatever you need. You still owe me a roof,” Joey said and rolled back over on his couch and passed out.
Zeek ran to the garage and jumped inside a green pick-up that he knew Joey wouldn’t care about. Shit, shit, shit! Two hours late, I’m gonna get my ass handed to me!
He backed out of the driveway and flung the car around in one motion and pressed the pedal down, zooming up the road.
Ch. 3: Work (Snoogle)
Zeek parked in the parking lot of Snoogle Labs, a global powerhouse in the tech world. Only then did he realize what a mess he was, he looked down at his t-shirt. Damn, I can’t go in there like this. He smelled his armpit, Blegh, I smell like ass. He looked up at the rearview mirror and saw a small spray bottle hanging from it with the words refresh on it and a picture of pine trees.
He took it down and sprayed the front of his t-shirt that said, “Will hack for food.” That’s better…
He snuck into his cubicle at work and calmly began working on a project he had been assigned. The clock at the bottom of the screen read 11:00 am. An email message alert from his boss popped up in the corner of his screen. It simply said: Report to me immediately.
Not good, he thought and pondered a copious amount of excuses he could use.
Before he knocked on his boss’ door that said Head of Programing with the words Dr. Karl Kemper under them, he looked down at his clothes one more time. He wished he was wearing anything other than his ratty shirt and jeans right now, even a burlap sack would look better. He ran his hands through his greasy hair and fixed his thick glasses. Knock-knock.
“Have a seat, Mr. Star. Do you know why I’ve called you here today?” Kemper asked.
“I’m not exactly sure, I was a little late today due to some car trouble, but I could have sworn I sent a message to my team manager informing him. Could have gotten lost, I didn’t have the best signal on the road.” This was sounding good to him. But he studied his boss’ face and it was blank. “Or maybe you’re wondering about the Johanna assignment I’ve been working—” Zeek stopped when his boss held up his hand. He was standing behind his desk, it made butterflies roll in his stomach. I wish he would sit down. He’s making me nervous.
“Stop, you were a ‘little late’? It’s eleven, we start here at eight…unless you’ve forgotten. When I hired you for this job, my instincts told me that you would be trouble, but I ignored them because you’re so qualified. It’s not every day we get MIT grads applying here. And the recommendation from Daniel Star. That sealed the deal, but I’m afraid I can no longer ignore your tardiness, your unprofessional behavior, and general disregard for the rules here. You’re not held to any special privileges here. You are expected to work just like everyone else. And your father isn’t going to be able to save you this time. Look at how you’re dressed.” Kemper pointed at his shirt.
“Sir,” Zeek said.
“My God, son, you smell like a bar mixed with a dead body left in the back of a cab to rot. Go home, take a shower. Figure your shit out. We are letting you go, get your stuff, a security guard will escort you to your car. We will no longer be needing your services; we thank
you for all the work you’ve done. Have a good day.” Kemper scowled.
“But…” Zeek didn’t know what to say.
“You want me to put it more bluntly? Get out, you’ve got a drug problem, you need help…good day.”
* * * * *
Zeek drove mindlessly back to his pod house, he wasn’t even sure if he had obeyed the traffic laws. He simply sat in the driveway and stared out the windshield, like he was a catatonic zombie. He got out of the car, robotic and stiff, and walked into the house. Take a shower, I’ll take a shower. Maybe this is a wake-up call. I just need to start over, get myself clean and everything will be okay.
He stepped out of the shower and opened a secret drawer he had installed in a dresser, in the back of the walk-in closet. He glanced at the loader with the Blue Drillamine and touched it with his fingers, then withdrew them as if it had bitten him. Wiping his head with a towel and drying out his ears, he walked into the kitchen; he couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
He stopped abruptly as he came to the fridge. “What are you doing here?” Lisa asked from the kitchen counter.
“I just came home to shower and grab some food,” Zeek lied.
She put down her sandwich, and he felt her eyes studying him as if she had x-ray vision that could see all his faults down to his bones. “Uh-huh. And where were you last night? I called and called, and you never answered. You didn’t message me back, nothing. I can’t do this anymore, Zeek. I’ve tried for a long time now.”
“Lisa, I was with Joey, and I won a race…and time just slipped away. We went to Monte’s, and I got a little drunk.”
“Your eyes are pretty red. Why aren’t you really at work? I got a call from your boss this morning, and he sounded pissed, asked me where you were and why you weren’t at your desk. Why did he call me, Zeek?”
Moon Base One: Tyr4nt: A Prequel Story Page 1
