Man Behind the Wheel (The Next Half Century Book 1)

by Steve Rzasa

  “That’s a stealth suit,” Aldo murmured in a tone Rome reserved for Sunday services. “Special Forces. Marvelous piece of tech.”

  “Yes. And then there’s this.”

  The vehicle rippled and faded from view.

  Rome blew out a breath.

  Great.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE TECHS AT FTZ WEST had the Halcyon dent free by the time Cho’s briefing finished. Rome gave the car a once-over, making sure nothing was altered from its prior settings.

  [All systems restored within parameters,] Marcy reported. [Structural integrity reinforced to specifications.]

  “Good to know. I’m still going to eyeball it, if you don’t mind.”

  [Understood, sir.]

  There was barely time to sign off on the repairs before Gabriela signaled their hour was up. Rome and Aldo walked the Halcyon back to Condor 33’s landing pad, letting Marcy drive. For something as simple as guiding the car from the repair garage back to its berth aboard the Condor, Rome didn’t need to waste his time with the override and the manual mode conversion.

  “You should see all this stuff.” Aldo stared at his implant, eyes wide, as data flickered by. “Man. These guys are professionals. When was the last time we saw someone run an operation like this?”

  “Never, in your case.” Rome nudged Aldo aside, clearing the path for a tech that rode an equipment cart laden with power cells and electronic components. Too bad humans didn’t come with standard issue distance and proximity sensors like their automotive counterparts. “Military grade stealth for both their suits and their vehicle. That isn’t good.”

  “No kidding! Plus side—all their hits follow the same pattern, so we know what kind of vehicle to keep an eye on.”

  “It’d be far better for us if they’d stick to one geographic region of the Ninety. They’re all over the map.”

  “Did you even read the case notes Cho uploaded?”

  “Yeah. I don’t consider between the Rockies and the Mississippi to be a narrow enough range. As soon as we’re aboard and you can sync Marcy with the Condor’s mainframe, I want a listing of every registered auto traveling the Ninety between their hits that’s a brand name with a value greater than $50,000.”

  Aldo rolled his eyes. “That’ll narrow it down.”

  “Cross check with purchases of coins. There won’t be nearly as many.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Gabriela had the Condor’s engines running when they got back. Rome was surprised to see that the forward bay hatch opposite the lifter was open. “You get any notice that we’re taking another ride with us?”

  “Nope. Why?” Aldo still had his nose tucked into the mini hologram.

  Rome shoved his wrist down and pointed.

  “Oh… huh… yeah, I got no—Whoa!”

  Rome saw another car approach from a different repair bay, accompanied by a driver and info tech. It was a sleek Rishi Panther, metallic blue with multi-form wheels at least two upgrades newer than the Halcyon’s. Gold stripes along the running boards flashed with the rare rays of sun that poked through the thick clouds. Unnecessarily flashy, but fast. Rome had no doubt. He figured the car—not the drivers — elicited Aldo’s outburst.

  Two men of Latino background approached them, wearing identical forest green jackets over brown jumpsuits. Their boots were black leather, shined to a ridiculous reflectivity. One man was tall with olive-toned skin and a bald shaved head. His Van Dyke beard was trimmed to perfection. The other was short, stocky, and mocha colored. He too was bald, though a tattoo of angel wings wrapped from the back of his head out over his ears and a black, elaborate cross marked his forehead.

  “Ah, Roman. I wondered who was gonna share our ride.” The bearded man stopped a few feet from the base of the landing pad.

  “Thad. Didn’t expect to see you anywhere there wasn’t an open bar.”

  “Such a kidder. Unlike some of my compatriots—one Driver in particular—I don’t have a gearshift permanently inserted in my posterior.”

  “Cute.”

  Aldo glanced back and forth between the two. “Okay, I’m getting the vibe you don’t like this guy. Am I supposed to like him?”

  “Not my call.” Rome folded his arms.

  “Who’s the gringo sitting in your lap these days, Rome?” Thad asked.

  “Aldo Burns.” Aldo held out his hand. “Piss off. Oh, wait. I meant ‘pleased to meet you.’”

  Thad sneered and regarded Aldo’s outstretched hand with the same expression most people gave a piece of litter stuck to their shoe.

  “Thaddeus Mancos, Driver for Del Norte Tactical,” Rome snarled. “And his pet troglodyte, Enrique Bassa.”

  Enrique grunted. Whether it was a greeting or dismissal, Rome couldn’t tell.

  “Charming. I hope you don’t mind us commandeering your ride, Roman.” Thad’s words oozed.

  “Not my business whom FTZ transports on its birds. What’s your drop-off?”

  “The Ninety.”

  “Any particular case?”

  Thad shrugged, but the sneer never quite left his lips. “Oh, standard patrol. I’m certain there’s some lawbreaker we can roll who will bring us substantial bounty. Why, just the other day my superiors at Del Norte tasked me to investigate rumors of robberies of the strangest nature taking place on the mighty north road. You wouldn’t have heard any such talk, would you?”

  “Can’t say a thing.” Rome kept his face placid. Inwardly, he fumed at that idiot Cho and his insistence on operational secrecy. What good was it if Del Norte and the other contractors running down on the southern roads already knew? Of course, he had no idea how detailed their intel was. Better to keep it vague. “We should all load up. Gabriela doesn’t like waiting.”

  “Ah, Gabriela. Such a vision.” Thad tossed them a mock salute. “Enjoy the flight.”

  Aldo glowered as they loaded up the Panther. “Asshole.”

  “Big time. But good. Make no mistake. And his pal Enrique is, too.” Rome leaned in closer. “Make sure every database and link is locked up tight. I mean, tighter than usual. I don’t care if whatever you do crosses the gray. Follow?”

  “You’re the driver, Driver.” He whistled. “This guy must be bad news.”

  “Del Norte doesn’t play nicely with independent contractors, if that’s your question. Long time back, when I was working for another interception company, the branch that handled southern road contracts fell under the influence of some Arizonan solar tycoons with too much money and too much time on their hands. Stole a bunch of contracts and company secrets, including operational protocols for pursuit cars.” Rome gestured at the Panther, nestled inside the Condor’s bay. “Del Norte was formed in the aftermath of that mess. They’ve got eight drivers, spread out across the highways. Thad’s their best.”

  “So, we steer clear.”

  “Literally and figuratively. Thad won’t hesitate to swipe this case out from under us.” Rome frowned. “If we’re lucky, he won’t run us into the nearest guardrail.”

  ~

  The Condor swooped low over the rimrock cliffs north of Billings, Montana. The local geology stood out against the silver and red buildings of the city’s downtown and adjacent college as bulwarks between civilization and nature. Residences and farming domes were splotches of green against the brown landscape.

  Gabriela’s navigational system flashed a red warning for high wind and thick dust. The latter rolled across the rimrocks, obscuring most of the city from view.

  “I have to let her circle for a few minutes until the wind dies down,” she said. “I’ll put you boys on the east end of town—there’s a landing circle not far off the main road.”

  Rome leaned on the back of her chair. “I see we’ve still got our friendly passengers back there. They getting the boot after us?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that would be where?”

  Gabriela pursed her lips in a smile as she took over the controls from the automated
system. “That would be wherever they’ve got a contract with the Ninety FTZ to operate. Which is not in your contract, so not your business.”

  “Thad is bad for my business, which makes his location my business.”

  “Go sit down and strap in. You know how it works, Rome.”

  He bowed and quipped “Worth a try” to Aldo, who chewed studiously on a fruit strip that was a hideous orange brilliance.

  “Yeah. Funny. I’m busy.” Aldo swiped through image after image on his wrist display. “Cho wasn’t kidding. There’s blank for physical evidence.”

  “Local LEOs could have missed something. If the big four weren’t present they probably stopped looking.”

  “Well, the data stream from the Lexus’s onboard doesn’t help matters. We’ve got video and sensors, but the car could have been trying to scan a block of stone for all the info it picked up through those stealth suits. I mean, the robbers had body heat and they were human, but even that first one’s iffy because the suits tamp down on excess thermal discharge.”

  Rome nodded. He’d skimmed most of the data, though he hadn’t delved too deep.

  “LZ coming up,” Gabriela said. “You sure you don’t want to divert to the rimrock plateau? It’s a lot clearer and broader up there.”

  “True. But I don’t want everyone and their vids to see where we’re going.” Rome grasped for an overhead console bar with one hand and held to the back of Gabriela’s seat with the other as the Condor shuddered. “This will do. Provided you can see through the dust.”

  “It’s cleared off enough.” Her canopy lit up with scan overlays of every building, tree, and light post within a half mile. It made Rome think he was stuck inside an antique video game—those pre-virtual reality ones the local history museums liked to promote.

  Gabriela touched them down with no more fuss than a feather falling. By then, Rome and Aldo were already strapped into the Halcyon. Marcy rolled them onto the landing pad and drove onto the nearest street.

  [Destination is not input.]

  “Five Oh Five East Paintbrush Court,” Rome said. “Marcy, make the route circuitous. We’re in no hurry.”

  [Understood.]

  Aldo didn’t even notice it took them ten minutes longer than it should. The dust lifted, and the sun beat down through the barest tatters of white clouds in an azure sky. Marcy dimmed the glass as the car’s internal temperature rose.

  “Keep running your analyses, but in the background,” Rome ordered Aldo as they drove up a curved gravel road tucked amongst scrubby pines. A half-dozen houses poked their roofs over a nearby hill. “I need you focused on the real world.”

  “Nothing more real than numbers,” Aldo muttered. “It’s all numbers in there. And when you ask the CPU to run comparisons, then have me sort through possible matches, I need—wait… what real world are you talking about?”

  The Halcyon turned a corner past a sandstone outcropping into an oval parking area. Two cars were tucked into a submerged parking slot at its far end. It was the black Lexus—missing its passenger side door and its roof—and a pearl white BMW. The Lexus was the most forlorn of the pair with red sheathing stretched across the damaged area.

  “Both are leased,” Aldo said.

  “I’d be more shocked if these people were the owners. Granted, it’s Montana, so the car ownership rate’s about double what it is on either coast.”

  “No way I’d have the title to my own car. Too much hassle. Way too much money.”

  “You realize who you’re talking to?”

  “Um… duh… but it isn’t my car.”

  Sage grass and rocks dominated the area, adding chalky red and pale green to otherwise drab brown. Two water vapor siphon towers stood at attention to the southeast. Each one was twenty feet tall with broad vanes like the rigging of an old sailing ship mixed with a mutated, giant plant of white and silver. A single residence was perched atop the parking slot. It was a half cylinder, two stories tall with a long, broad wing sloping down to the north. The west side of the cylinder was a reflective surface, mirroring the blue skies and distant hills. As soon as Rome got out of the car, three sections of the bottom side of the cylinder blinked into transparency. He spotted a tall, lanky, man with dark mahogany skin walking by a music stand and several couches set atop a marble floor.

  “Our victims. Joseph and Deborah Brace.” Rome straightened Aldo’s collar. “Shine up your badge. Smile. Make eye contact. Answer their questions, and ask direct but polite ones of your own.”

  Aldo blinked. “What’re you, my stepmom?”

  “I’m the one getting you paid.” Rome led him to the front door, treading carefully on polished sandstone steps. “These two saw our robbers up close. I want to know everything they observed that the comps didn’t.”

  Aldo snorted. He buffed the shine back into his badge with the sleeve of his jacket.

  The black man answered the door. Joseph Brace had his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a navy blue jacket, white pants, and white shirt with the collar undone. A slim silver chain with a slanted gold crucifix hung around his neck. “You’re the investigator?” His voice was deep and mellow, but there was a hammer behind every syllable.

  “Pursuit Specialist Roman Jasko.” Rome smiled full wattage and held out his hand. He made sure the badge was plainly visible on his belt, even with a shine from the sun.

  “Joe. Joe Brace.” Joe ignored the outstretched hand. “A Driver? Hmm. Come in.”

  Rome and Aldo followed him past a small pond. The re-circulator gurgled from some unseen water trap. Rome guessed they hooked into the hidden cistern from which the vapor towers collected their bounty.

  “I’ll be plain. I don’t trust a man who feels the need to threaten others.” Joe stood by the music stand, arms folded.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand. Just have a few questions to ask regarding your theft. No threats.” Rome spread his hands wide, making a show of their emptiness.

  “Not that. Your driving. No man needs to drive. The want? That’s what endangers every person out there in the safe hands of their cars. You got questions? Ask them.”

  Great. One of those. Gabriela’s arguments filled Rome’s memories. Last thing he needed was a lecture on the hazards of human directed transport. “Tell me about the people who took your implants.”

  Joe held up his left arm, fist facing out. There was a slick, translucent patch of flesh that was a shade lighter and free of hair and wrinkles. “They gouged them out with a blade. One of them… a woman… did this.”

  Rome felt an itch around the edges of his implant. He made sure the device recorded the entire conversation—including imagery of Joe Brace. “Start from the top.”

  “We were headed back to Billings from Denver. Deb had a symphony holo running, by this composer guy we’d heard play a few months ago. I told her it was funny, watching those tiny people playing their instruments on our dashboard with their micro conductor waving little arms around.” A smile broke the edges of Joe’s frown. “I’ve never been much for classics. Old Jazz and New Pound for me.” The smile faded. “The truck showed up. Our car comp, Cliff, he saw it was getting too close to our lane so he tried to move us out of the way. But there was some kind of system failure—like he was stuck at one speed in one lane and nothing was gonna change that. Next thing I know, all our navigation info goes dark. The symphony guys vanished, and the right side of our car, plus the moon roof, gets covered by this…”

  “It’s a docking collar,” Aldo interjected. “They use them with freighters. You know, transfer cargo out of the weather. Those guys were using it on you to make sure they had easy access.”

  Joe’s demeanor hardened. Rome stiffened. He should have left Aldo in the car. “Continue on, Mr. Brace. They locked the collar on your Lexus…”

  “They tore it open. Guy dressed up like a ninja shoots us with a neural disruptor, twice.” Joe mimicked a gun firing. “My body’s numb, so’s Deb’s. We don’t feel a thing when t
hat lady scoops our implants out like she’s dishing ice cream. Not until the thing wears off, and the pain sets in.”

  “Spazzer set on localized stun,” Aldo muttered. “That takes some doing. Most models can’t be reprogrammed for specific limbs.”

  “Aldo, shut up,” Rome said.

  Aldo scowled, but did as told.

  “Mr. Brace, what can you tell me about the people themselves?”

  “Before or after they helped themselves to our coins? We’d just got them all appraised.”

  “We hope those can be recovered. But the people involved.”

  “They didn’t speak. I heard murmurs but it was like radio communications, maybe in their masks.” Joe paused. “There was a smell. Funny smell. It stank when they opened that first door.”

  “What kind of smell?”

  “Industrial… lubricants?” Joe’s nose wrinkled, as if he smelled it again. “Something else, too. Coconut.”

  “Coconut.”

  “Reminded me of a lotion my brother uses. He works on those floating neighborhoods in Florida, New Miami. Always either in the water or the sun.”

  An odd detail.

  “I’d like to look inside your car.”

  “Cops here already did.”

  “Still, they might have missed something. They were only looking for the big four, most likely—DNA, bacteria, video, and audio.”

  Joe glared at him, but shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”

  “Could I speak with your wife?”

  “No. She’s not up to it. Had a hard enough time getting used to the idea of re-grown skin as big as this.”

  “She might remember something you didn’t,” Aldo said.

  “I said, no. We’re done.”

  Aldo made a face. “Look, man—sir—we’re trying to get this thing fixed. But if we’re gonna catch these ghosts we need more data than what we’ve got.”

  “I don’t have anything else to give you, and I’m not obliged to answer any more stupid questions from you.” Joe prodded him in the chest. “Those coins were in my family for six generations, you follow? Three hundred years! My people worked their way up from nothing to where we are now. First hundred we were slaves and sharecroppers. Next hundred we spent fighting the Klan and the police. This time around? We don’t back down from any man. You find these wheelers, you get back what’s mine, and you bring ’em here so I can stomp on their balls.”