by RJ Johnson
But as they roared up to the trailer — hauling what Alex assumed was tomatoes — the Hypertruck got within inches of the rear truck bumper, much closer than it did last night. Alex’s body flew forward, his nose nearly hitting the windshield as the Hypertruck decelerated suddenly. His body was then thrown to the right as the Truck’s computer navigation took over and accelerated into the next lane, passing the semi. The driver, who had been on the road for 32 hours straight, flipped Alex off as they passed. Alex waved weakly, trying to settle himself back into the bucket seat, his heart racing as he watched the next car appear on the horizon in front of them.
Alex grabbed his friend and began shaking him awake. “Scott! We’ve got a problem.”
Scott murmured something about whipped cream under his breath. Alex rolled his eyes and punched his friend in the shoulder as hard as he could. That did the trick.
“Ow, Alex!” Scott said crossly as he woke up. “That wasn’t cool, man; you could’ve…”
Alex cut him off. “I think something’s wrong with the autopilot.”
Scott rolled his eyes, “There’s nothing wrong with the autopilot. You’re just being paranoid ‘cause big bad Mr. Alex isn’t in control of something for the first time in his…”
The Hypertruck’s tires squealed as they braked and weaved at the last minute, avoiding a minivan which had appeared out of nowhere. Scott’s face lost some color as he realized they had come within inches of a collision.
“OK,” Scott said slowly, “I think there might be something wrong with the autopilot.”
Alex snorted loudly, “Really, dude? You think?”
Scott punched a few buttons on the control panel in front of him, attempting to take back control of the vehicle. The console buzzed several times as Scott’s eyes darted towards Alex.
“Just one seeecccooond.” Scott drew out the last word, exhaling in a frustrated breath. Alex shook his head. It was a bad sign that things weren’t working so well on Scott’s latest invention.
“Siobhan,” Alex called to the rear, “you OK back there?”
Siobhan’s face was white, her mouth screwed shut in fear. She clutched the handhold next to her tightly as she nodded quickly.
Satisfied, Alex turned back to Scott, who was quickly typing on the touch screen in front of him. Various electronic displays began flying up on the screen as the worried look his face began to betray his nervousness.
“Anything?” Alex asked as they whipped past another large semi trailer. The margin of error was getting smaller; they just barely avoided hitting the rear of the truck. The news got worse as they approached the Bay; the traffic was getting heavier, and the truck’s computer systems were definitely going too slow to compensate.
“Scott!” Alex yelled as they nearly avoided hitting a smaller vehicle. “Now would be a good time to get control of this thing.”
Scott’s only answer was the sweat pouring down his brow. “Umm, two things seem to have gone wrong here. One, the sensors aren’t responding as well as they should be; I think the road muck out there must have collected on the sensors last night.”
“Oh, good,” Alex said sarcastically, “you figured that out. I thought we were just playing bumper cars.”
“You know, I work quicker without the sarcasm,” Scott shot back, his fingers flying over the keypad.
“But then I wouldn’t get to tell you what a moron you are!” Alex screamed as the truck jostled about, narrowly dodging several more passenger cars. Scott sighed in frustration and slammed his fists down on the screen, causing it to go black.
“Everything OK?” Alex asked in a low mocking tone. “I don’t think a multi-million dollar navigation system actually responds to the Fonz! What was the second thing?”
“We, uhh, got a problem with the on-board computer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, ahh, apparently, the on-board computer has frozen and needs to be restarted.”
“You mean the on-board computer you showed me earlier tonight?”
“Yeah,” Scott said sadly, already dreading the next question.
“You mean the on-board computer located UNDERNEATH this rig?”
Scott coughed, “Well, the main computer is actually stored underneath the car on top of the undercarriage.”
“And there’s no sorta reset button inside the cab, I suppose?” Alex put his face in his palms.
“This was a prototype! It wasn't meant for road trips!”
“Whose idea… You know what?” Alex stopped himself; now was not the time. “It doesn’t matter. Where is the reset button on this model?”
“The only way to reset is to cut the power to the main computer.” Scott said. “We have to get underneath the Hypertruck and sever the power cable directly.”
“Of course.” Alex said sadly. He turned back to Siobhan, who was still clutching the handholds on her seat in terror.
“Can you shapeshift into something small enough so you can get back and underneath the truck to reset the computer?”
She swallowed. “I can try.”
Alex smiled, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right here in case anything goes wrong.” Unlocking the door, he opened the window. “Big enough?”
“Plenty of room, thank you.” She nodded and closed her eyes. As she concentrated, the purple stone hanging from her ear flashed, and her body began to shrink.
Incredibly, the beautiful blonde woman that had been sitting in front of Scott and Alex had turned herself into a gecko lizard, her purple stone hanging comically from the side of its head. Quickly scrambling up and over the passenger seat, Siobhan scampered up and out the window, down towards the rear of the truck.
“I like her,” Scott said absently.
Siobhan moved along the slippery surface of the Hypertruck. Her new feet and hands were designed for clutching onto surfaces, but the carbon nanofiber shell was machined incredibly well and it made for a slick surface.
Moving carefully across the car, she nearly lost her footing when the giant car beneath her swerved into the next lane, narrowly avoiding a small passenger truck.
“Underneath the bumper!” Alex shouted towards the lizard on the car roof. The lizard looked back towards Alex, and he could’ve sworn she winked at him.
Moving up towards the top of the car, Siobhan realized too late the body she had chosen for this stunt outside was too way too light, the car was moving too fast, and her hands were quickly losing her grip.
The Hypertruck raced up the northbound Five Interstate, passing a large semi quickly on its left side. The wind whipped up as they passed too close, and it was too much for the tiny gecko, as Siobhan flew off the side of the Hypertruck.
Alex’s face fell. He looked back into the truck at Scott.
“She fell off. The lizard body was too light for all that wind.”
Scott looked panicked. “Now what?”
Alex sighed, unlocked the door and opened it, letting the rushing wind into the Cab. Scott caught his arm, stopping Alex just before he leaped out.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Fixing your computer. I’m like an extreme Geek Squad.” Alex yelled back to his friend over the wind. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve done this before.”
The door closed as Alex climbed out onto the roof of the truck. Scott just shook his head in wonder.
“Done this before?” Scott muttered to himself. “I have got to get some questions answered.”
The Hypertruck flew down the highway, the wind making it extremely difficult for Alex to hang on. His muscles tensed and strained as he kept his body profile as low as possible. The amount of exertion needed to keep him from flying off the roof was taxing his muscles to their ultimate limits. Alex set his jaw in determination and slowly began to progress his way forward down the sloping windshield.
Fighting inch by inch down the sloping hood, Alex reached forward and grabbed the grill of the truck, holding on tightly for what he was about to do. Unfortunately, he
ran out of time, as the Hypertruck rushed up behind another commuter in front of him.
The tires protested their treatment as the truck activated the braking system, slowing quickly to avoid colliding with the car that just appeared on the computer’s sensors.
The momentum of the truck’s high-speed maneuver tossed Alex’s body onto the highway, his ankle cracking solidly onto the pavement, breaking it quickly and throwing his shoe off in the process. Tears filled his vision as his knuckles, his only anchor to the truck’s grill, turned white. He cried out in pain. Using the momentum of the truck and the friction of the pavement, he moved his feet to skip his body back up onto the hood. The stone glowed bright blue in his pocket as the energy raced towards his ankle and feet, the bones cracking as they knit back together.
Alex felt his ankle stop throbbing. He glanced up at the road ahead of him and saw that there wasn’t enough time to get comfortable. A slow-moving garbage truck had appeared ahead. There was no way the Hypertruck could stop in time.
Thinking quickly, Alex slid down the hood and threw the bulk of his body onto the right side of the truck, in front of where Scott had shown him the narrow band of sensors that calculated the distance between objects.
Holding tightly onto the grill, and with incredible effort, he lowered the bulk of his frame down, locking his feet onto the right side of the bumper next to the right headlamp. His body, covering the sensors, fooled the Hypertruck into evading what it thought was a new obstacle. The brakes squealed as smoke poured from the front tires. The Hypertruck immediately veered to the left, throwing Alex’s body down and onto the highway.
The metal tore into Alex’s hands as he strained to stay attached to his friend’s futuristic vehicle. The good news was that the Hypertruck had avoided the truck and its foul-smelling load at the last second. But they couldn’t continue like this. With each new obstacle, it took longer and longer for the Hypertruck’s computer to process the instructions necessary, and the margin of error got lower and lower. If Alex didn’t reset the mainframe quickly, it was likely they would end up a wreck on the side of the road, or worse, killing some innocent commuter whose only crime was getting an early start on the day.
Out of time, Alex peeked underneath the truck’s low profile. There was barely enough room for his body. And, sadly, he knew exactly what he had to do.
Rotating his body on the hood, he looked at his friend’s frightened face and waved as he eased his body underneath the truck, hanging on for dear life.
His hand slipped, and his body hit the pavement hard. He bounced down underneath the truck. At the last second, his hand caught the truck’s wheel joint. The pavement tore through the new clothing that Scott had given him. The pain was mercifully slight, the stone glowing as it healed his road rash quickly. Regaining his composure and holding tightly to whatever handholds he could find, Alex worked his way underneath the Hypertruck undercarriage, looking for the computer’s main processing center.
Scott watched in horror as his friend disappeared below the truck. He glanced up at the highway in front of him. For now, the traffic had broken up somewhat; there were few commuters on the road at this time of the morning. In the distance, however, a construction crew had begun to set out orange traffic cones, marking the highway as it went from two lanes to one, creating a slight bottleneck of cars and trucks, all of which had slowed out of respect for the highway maintenance crew.
Even if the sensors and computer were working at one hundred percent, no vehicle was designed to go from over 100 miles an hour to five in less than four seconds. If they were to avoid the highway’s death and destruction, Alex was going have to work quickly.
Alex was trying his best. The exertion of holding onto the undercarriage inches above the highway was taking its toll. Sweat poured down his brow, making it difficult for to see. He looked about wildly for anything resembling the computer Scott had showed him.
His feet dropped from their holding place, cracking the bone once again and tearing up his body on the speeding pavement below. Losing his right handhold, he clung with his left, desperately reaching into the undercarriage. Feeling around, he grasped onto the main computer and stabbed wildly with his fingers. In his haste to get out of the Truck, he neglected to ask Scott which cable was the power one.
The Truck hit a pothole, bouncing Alex hard off the pavement once again, snapping his collarbone as he gasped in pain. He looked up, the road upside down to his perspective. He was out of time; the line of cars waiting for the construction crew was less than 500 feet away. He swallowed and jammed his right hand into the undercarriage, hitting the computer Scott had showed him earlier that night and yanking at all the cables he could feel. Two of them came off in his hand. He fell onto the highway. Losing his handhold, Alex shot out from underneath the truck, rolling across the highway and onto the side of the road.
Scott’s screen lit up as the autopilot was disengaged.
“That’s my boy!” Scott screamed happily as the truck sped towards the line of traffic. As the Hypertruck sped towards the wall of cars, Scott slammed on the brakes. Only at the last second did the Hypertruck’s tires come to a halt behind a luxury BMW, its owner chatting away on his cell phone, blissfully ignorant to how close he had come to being a smoking heap of German-engineered rubble.
Breathing quickly, the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Scott used a shaky hand to put the Truck back into gear and moved it to the side of the road. Alex walked up next to him and leaned against the Truck, folding his arms as he did so. The stone glowed slightly underneath his shirt as his wounds finished healing.
“You said you were gonna drive all night,” Alex said accusingly. “What happened to that?”
“I got tired,” Scott said, shrugging. “How’s the…”
Alex looked at his torn-up clothes, missing shoe, and a scar that was just finished healing. “I’m fine.”
Scott’s eyes fell to the ground as he hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry, Alex. It’s never done that to me before. I dunno what happened.”
Alex’s face softened as he watched his chastened friend apologize. He wasn’t the type to stay mad. Besides, the stone was there for a reason.
“Hey, as long as you don’t get mad at me for ripping your Pearl Jam T-shirt, I think we can call it even.” Alex clasped his hand on Scott’s back reassuringly.
Scott’s face lit up and he nodded. “Fair trade.”
A hawk, its wings beating the air quickly, caught up with Alex and Scott landing next to the pair. A purple flash, and suddenly Siobhan was there, screaming her Irish head off.
“What the hell kind of crap’d you boys get me into? I’m not here to play nursemaid to a bunch of geeky computer nerds and their stupid toys! You’d best get your heads together, because you have no idea o’ the evil that ye’ be facing ahead of ye…”
In her anger, Siobhan’s Irish accent was beginning to show itself. Until now, Alex could have sworn she had been born and raised in Southern California. But with her heated temper, and the curses flying, Alex felt like he was back in the old country.
“…and don’t ye forget it!” she screeched, her cheeks colored like two red apples, her faced flushed with the exertion of yelling at Scott.
Scott, who had taken the bulk of her screaming, swallowed and looked apologetically at her. “I’m sorry about that. The road sensors on the front of the Hypertruck got all gunked up with bug guts and dirt and stuff.” He indicated the front bumper, which was covered in a generous smear of yellow and brown bug guts. More bug guts covered the entire sensor bar. Scott looked at Siobhan guiltily.
“I’m sorry; I’m a lab guy, not a test engineer. I never thought about road muck on the sensors.”
Her face faded, and she began to sweetly smile at him once again.
“Apology accepted.”
Alex spoke as he rolled his shoulder, testing to see if his stone had healed all the damage.
“How far are we from SETI?” Alex asked, testing h
is shoulder.
“About an hour. But we need to stop so I can fix the computer on the truck…”
Alex cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Do what it takes to get this thing fixed and back on the road again.”
“Besides,” Alex added looking off into the distance, a worried expression coming over his face. “I have a feeling we don’t have much time left.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When dealing with titans of industry, Geoffrey knew, your best tactic is to treat them as if they were an 800-pound gorilla. For the most part, whatever they want is what goes. Kline was no exception to Geoffrey’ rule. During the ride back, Kline refused to speak to him or answer any of his many questions.
Once in the chopper, Geoffrey had attempted to talk about what he had seen at JPL, but Kline had ignored him, waving him off. He took the rebuke in silence, unsure of how to proceed. Geoffrey decided it was best to stick to the rule and let the man have the silence he asked for.
The main reason Kline had hired him was Geoffrey’ uncanny ability to access information that most could never find. Kline's business thrived on information, and Geoffrey always did whatever necessary to ensure the man had what he needed.
But this time, Geoffrey’ research on the man from the desert had come up empty. Having exhausted all the Internet and computer files he had at his disposal, he could only determine that Alex McCray was a ghost. No record of the man past 2006 existed. It was strange.
It was killing Geoffrey to not ask about the strange and obvious connection between McCray's stone and Kline's. One gave Kline his incredible strength; the other gave Alex a healing ability unlike anything he had seen his entire life. He had watched as his men had pumped round after round into the man’s face, chest and legs. No one could survive that sort of onslaught without some sort of divine intervention.
Finally, after short ride over the San Bernardino Mountains, they landed once again at the Joshua Tree Mesa, where this time, the sun was beginning to rise, tingeing the horizon with pink.
