Faster

by Alex Schuler

  The author of this book is solely responsible for the accuracy of all facts and statements contained in the book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Level 4 Press, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Published by:

  Level 4 Press, Inc.

  13518 Jamul Drive

  Jamul, CA 91935

  www.level4press.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019908659

  ISBN: 978-1-93376-984-4

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-93376-985-1

  Printed in USA

  Other books by Alex Schuler

  CODE WORD ACCESS

  CODE WORD BRAVO

  ROGUE

  CODE WORD CHARLIE

  CODE WORD DELTA

  DEDICATION

  This novel is a work of fiction and facts, woven together to tell a story. The inspiration comes from the brilliant visionary women and men working tirelessly to advance the state of transportation and develop new ways to design and build vehicles. We are on the precipice of moving from a world dominated by personal vehicle ownership to a way of life where transportation as a service is the new normal. Change is never easy, and not everyone can agree on the best way to make this transition.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  1

  Ted Wolff smiled as he revved the rebuilt engine of the classic black 1990 Pontiac Trans Am. Once the tachometer reached 4,000 RPMs, he released the clutch and the car jolted forward into the dry desert of Nevada, sand firing out behind the tires. Ted had named the car Frankie because of the hand-painted, bright lime-green portrait of Frankenstein across the hood in place of the Firebird “screaming chicken” emblem, the car’s hood pin latches doubling as neck bolts. One wide green stripe stretched down the middle from just above Frankenstein’s head, over the roof, to the back of the vehicle.

  Movement in the rearview mirror caught Ted’s eye and he grinned at the sight of his co-worker, portly Kevin Hallaway, waving his arms frantically as he ran after Ted and Frankie. Ted kept driving, watching Kevin and the dusty, drab exterior of the workshop and garage get smaller behind him. He had a kickass job—designing and building desert-racer vehicles for Fisher Tuner, the best company around of its type—though he knew it would only be temporary. He turned his attention back to the road ahead. The five-speed manual vibrated in protest beneath his right hand. He had never bothered to put the Pontiac on a dynamometer to determine how much additional power the supercharger generated. He knew the transmission wasn’t built to handle this kind of load, but figured it really didn’t matter. The puffs of blue smoke spitting from the exhaust also indicated the engine didn’t like his modifications.

  Less than a mile north of Fisher Tuner was what Ted called the playground. Several impossibly massive dunes dotted this region, making it a perfect test site. As he pulled into the area and slowed to a halt, the transmission stopped shaking and the engine settled to a quiet burble.

  “Okay, Frankie. Let’s see if we can go three for three today.”

  Ted, just two months shy of turning twenty-three, was lean and lanky, deep blue eyes, chestnut hair cut above the collar, parted to the right and longer in front with one lock that always fell in front of one eye. His pale complexion covered a square jawline and ski-slope nose. His passion for rock-n-roll matched his intense attention on the world around him. “Intense”—there was a word that followed Ted. Currently, his lasered attention was on this test vehicle at Fisher Tuner.

  The interior of the Pontiac was a mess. The airbags had been removed; the top of the caramel-colored dashboard and door panels, faded and cracked. The passenger seat was cluttered with three different notepads filled with scribbles and mathematical formulas. Fast-food wrappers and crumpled napkins filled the floor and accounted for the slightly nauseating smell of deep-fried food. Half of the warning lights on the instrument panel flashed or glowed solid amber or red. Ted ignored the warnings.

  Grabbing a red ballpoint pen and yellow notepad from the bottom of the pile, he scanned quickly through his calculations, nervously tapping the pad before tossing the pen and pad onto the seat. He knew his figures were as good as they could be.

  In the middle of the mess, secured in the passenger seat, was the brand new 2005 IBM ThinkPad T43 laptop resting against a small black canvas bag. A cable ran from the back of the laptop to one end of a metal box screwed beneath the dashboard, the other end of which had several more cables dangling toward the floor. These multi-colored wires looped back up and disappeared through the firewall, the area between the dashboard and engine.

  The ThinkPad’s screen, divided into four sections, showed the status of each of the wheels and a list of components for the custom air-suspension system Ted was about to test. All four sections had green status indicators. The lower part of the screen, labeled Mag Setting, focused on the magnetic shock absorbers. Ted changed the setting from “Standard” to “Off-Road.”

  Shoving his hand into the small black bag next to him, he pulled out a clear plastic CD case. Inside, the Memorex CD-R disc was labeled Rock It in red marker next to a hand-drawn small rocket in black and blue, red flames thrusting from the bottom. He slid the disc into the aftermarket Pioneer stereo system jammed into the car’s dashboard. As the CD loaded, Ted shifted Frankie into first gear and rolled the car forward, spinning the steering wheel to aim for the first dune.

  The opening guitar strands of “Limelight” by Rush ripped through the cabin. Ted smiled and turned up the volume almost as high as it could go. Once the drums kicked in, the Velodyne subwoofers crammed into the back hatch thundered to life. The bass pounded through his body.

  He revved the engine and dropped the clutch. The fifteen-inch rims of the Trans Am had been replaced with twenty-inch aftermarket steel wheels carrying all-terrain A/TX tires. They barely fit inside the wheel wells, scraping against the edges. As the car raced toward the first dune, Ted tapped a few keys on his laptop, triggering the air suspension to engage.

  Frankie began his transformation. Ted’s air suspension had a maximum articulation of fourteen inches. When fully deployed, the Trans Am was an odd sight to behold—a lifted muscle car off-roading on desert sand.

  He nudged the music up to full volume and upshifted, bringing the
speed to forty miles per hour. The music completely engulfed him. What he saw in the rearview mirror was blurred by the rattling glass of the rear hatch caused by the vibrations coming from the twin Velodynes as the music blared. Even so, he could make out the sun beginning its descent behind the mountains behind him. He looked over at his laptop to check the car’s status. All four sections showed full deployment to fourteen inches, and air pressure steady within the suspension.

  “Number one,” Ted announced to the empty car while stamping down on the accelerator. Frankie lunged toward the first dune. Despite the extended front and rear overhangs on the Pontiac, the jacked-up suspension allowed the car to claw straight up the first dune relatively easily, launching all four tires into the air at the peak. “That’s it!” Ted screamed.

  The car hit the ground and took a few rebounds against the custom suspension before settling down and heading to the next dune. Ted gripped the wheel harder, turning it twenty degrees to the right.

  The old Pontiac edged up to fifty miles per hour and Ted glanced at his computer screen. Again, all four indicators showed green. He took a deep breath as the Trans Am vaulted up the steep dune. This second one had a thirty-five-degree incline and a steeper drop-off on the other side. He held his breath as Frankie again took flight, landing smoothly a ways down the backside. Still immersed in the music, Ted couldn’t hear the warning beeps coming from the ThinkPad.

  He spun Frankie ninety degrees to the left, allowing the car to do a wide sideways drift through the sand, and accelerated to fifty-five miles per hour, heading toward the final dune, a beast, with a forty-five-degree incline and even steeper fifty-five-degree decline. Just before the final ascent he turned to the computer. The front right air bladder was running at seventy percent, and the status had changed from green to yellow. He frowned but shrugged it off and pressed forward.

  “Come on, Frankie, don’t let me down.”

  Moments later, he and the car began their climb. At the top, in the air, Ted closed his eyes and waited. The landing this time was much harder than the last two. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and braced his knee against the driver’s door as the Pontiac rocked a couple of times before steadying itself.

  Holding on, he looked at the laptop. Three of the four wheels read green, with only the front passenger side still in the yellow. As he slowed Frankie to a halt, the pressure was down to sixty percent. He could tell the front right corner of the car was dipping compared to the rest of the vehicle. “Talk to me, Frankie.”

  He clicked through the settings of the failing suspension. After a brief pause, the pressure readout slowly began to rise as the hiss of a compressor filled the cabin. Within moments, the readouts were all back to normal.

  “Yes!” Ted shouted again. He slid the gearshift into first and cranked the steering wheel to head back to the shop. Turning his head to stare at the area he had just conquered, he thought the dune had never looked more beautiful, bathed in the fading orange light of the setting sun. Bringing Frankie to an abrupt stop, he studied the deep tire marks on the rear side of the dune where the car had impacted.

  “I wonder,” he said. He looked at his laptop to confirm all systems still green. Turning down the music and grabbing his pen, he rifled through the pile of notepads. His hands landed on the small five-by-seven white one with corners frayed. Flipping to the last page, he quickly scanned the formulas, tapping his pen impatiently as he stared down. A smile crossed his face. “Why not?”

  Pumping up the volume, he floored the gas pedal as he headed toward the backside of the dune he’d just come down. The transmission shuddered as he shifted into second gear. Blue smoke trailed anew from the exhaust pipe of the old Pontiac. Laughing out loud and singing at the top of his voice, he slammed the transmission into third.

  The Trans Am raced up the steep hill, the A/TX tires tearing through the sand, when once again, Frankie went airborne. Ted straightened his arms against the steering wheel to brace himself. He glanced at the speedometer, shocked to see he had hit sixty-five when Frankie launched. He waited for what felt like an eternity until the car finally hit ground.

  The car landed hard and rocked sideways to the left onto two tires, almost going all the way over before coming back down and rocking up on the other two, throwing Ted back and forth within his racing harness. The front right suspension gave out, collapsing that corner of the car into the sand. Tearing out of its restraint, the laptop flew off the passenger seat and crashed to the floor. The steering wheel rotated violently, ripping itself from Ted’s grip. The IBM’s warnings rang out uselessly in the loud music, lights flashing as one by one the systems began to fail, plunging from green to yellow and finally all to red.

  It seemed like an eternity before the Pontiac ground to a halt. And as if he had choreographed the damn thing himself, just as the car stopped moving, the song on the stereo played its last notes. Ted chuckled. Instead of the silence he expected, though, the urgent blaring of warning alarms from the ThinkPad overtook the interior. The front right air suspension showed “Offline,” as did the magnetic shocks. He killed the engine and tossed the computer back on to the passenger’s seat. A little shaken and not without some effort, he stepped out of Frankie.

  The car was lowering itself toward the passenger side as he began his inspection. The driver’s side showed nothing out of the ordinary. He walked around to the back of the vehicle, his eyes following the bright lime-green stripe. He kept walking around and let out a sigh when he got to the front corner of the passenger side. The lowering had stopped and the front, right nose of the car was flush with the sand. As he bent down to take a closer look, a loud hissing sound shot out from the opposite front side of the vehicle, followed by a lowering of that side to the ground. Both front wheels were now sunk deep within their wells.

  “Shit.” Ted stood and pounded his fists against the hood several times. “You should have made that last jump, Frankie. What did I miss?”

  He dropped to his knees and tried to look beneath the front of the car, but the suspension was fully collapsed. There was no way he was driving the Trans Am back to the garage. He stood up and glanced toward the main road. Way in the distance, he could just barely make out the Fisher Tuner workshop building.

  Sighing, he popped open the passenger’s side door. Then he noticed the blood. “Shit,” he said as he followed the red streak along the edge of the doorframe with his eyes. He turned his right palm up, revealing a gash just below his thumb. Inside the cabin, the back of the laptop was smeared with blood. So was the steering wheel and parts of the driver’s door. He looked from his bleeding hand to the blood throughout the car as he thought about what to do.

  Shit. I gotta call Kevin. But as he formed the words in his head, he remembered that his cell phone was back at the workshop. He and Kevin had planned for this though and always brought radios out here as a backup. He reached into the car for the black canvas bag, which had been thrown to the front passenger-side floor during the hard landing. With his good hand, he grabbed it and began rummaging through. The image of Kevin in the rearview mirror waving at him as he drove off appeared in his mind. “Oh, shit! He was holding the radio!”

  He shoved his laptop and notepads into his bag, grabbed a handful of crumpled napkins, and slammed the door shut. He slid the edge of his bleeding hand into his mouth and headed toward the dirt road several hundred feet away. The last rays of sun disappeared behind the mountain range, and a cool breeze kicked in, spitting sand across his face. The moon, now fully visible, glowed in the darkening sky. Venus began to make her appearance. Ted looked at his watch and hoped Kevin would still be there when he got back. He was going to need a tow.

  2

  It was just after 8:30 p.m. when Ted finally made it back to the Fisher Tuner garage. He was happy to see the bay door still open, and Kevin busy at work. Ted inspected the gash on his hand and frowned as he licked the blood away before going in.


  Fisher Tuner was founded in San Luis, Arizona, just outside Yuma, a small town along the border of Mexico. The company designed and built trophy trucks and other vehicles for desert racing as well as cutting edge components for more general off-road tools and technologies. They had both polished customer-facing stores and testing and development sites. Fisher Tuner’s Nevada Skunk Works shop, where Ted and Kevin worked, was one of the latter. It was located near Pyramid Lake, roughly sixty miles from Reno. The closest real town to the facility was Nixon, a sleepy place with fewer than four hundred residents. The building was a dull, two-bay wood and tin garage, weatherworn and full of dust. The only indication of its purpose was a small hand-painted sign nailed above the front door. Otherwise, it almost looked to be an abandoned building, alone at the end of a winding dirt road.

  Inside, two separate workspaces sat along the back wall lit by rows of incandescent bulbs dotting the ceiling. The work area on the left was organized and relatively clean, depending of course on one’s definition of “clean.” The tables to the right, closest to the office, were in shambles. Stacks of suspension components, wiring, and tools were scattered everywhere, leaving very little of the tabletop exposed. Pinned to the wall behind the mess was a 2005 muscle car calendar. May’s picture, surprisingly current given its run-down surroundings, was a 2005 sonic blue Ford Mustang GT with twin white stripes from front bumper, across the hood, and onto the roof.

  “Where are the keys to the tow truck?” Ted asked as he stepped into the garage, scuffing his feet across the sand he’d fired into the building earlier that evening.

  At 5’8”, Kevin was a few inches shorter than Ted. The slightly overweight thirty-year-old Irishman had been with Fisher Tuner for over six years. Ted found him behind a large black mask, sparks parading up in front of him as he welded a custom control arm. Some of the tools and components around him had yellow sticky note warnings—Do Not Touch. Kevin killed his torch and removed his mask. He looked at Ted and the empty bay surrounding him.