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

Author:Steve Rzasa [Rzasa, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steve Rzasa
Published: 2017-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

THE EIGHTY-TWO AND THE EIGHTY-FOUR were smaller connectors, linking the Ninety with the Eighty Free Travel Zone. Patrols were correspondingly lighter. A few times, Rome started from a sleep when the Halcyon chimed that drones overflew their position.

Once it was a Condor.

But Aldo had them disguised for the time being. The Halcyon was a deep, shining chrome, and its registry numbers were an amalgam that—as far as FTZ was aware—Rome and Aldo did not have in their databanks. Aldo had fabricated a new set from scratch in the first hour and a half of their 13-hour trek.

The next half hour, he’d rigged up his comp-panel so that it could drive the Halcyon.

It wasn’t nearly as responsive as Marcy, but at least Rome could stow the steering column and the other cars around them would register it as driverless. Plus, Rome had no desire to drive clear through the night. He leaned into the headrest and watched out the window as the dim white and yellow glow of passing vehicles made traffic a stream of fireflies.

They drove into a 30-mile stretch of wireless induction charging panels and the Halcyon immediately lit a graphic of the power core’s level. It had dipped below 40 percent. Rome’s eyes blurred as he drifted into sleep, giving him double vision of the charging progress.

Aldo shaved. Red hair rained onto his jacket, which he’d spread out on his lap as a makeshift apron. It still got all over the floor, dusting his shoes and the seat, too.

Rome didn’t have the heart to bother him. Every whine of the razor, every clump of fiery hair, must cost Aldo.

The Eighty FTZ across southern Wyoming was barren as Rome had ever seen a highway. Sure, vehicles passed them every once and a while, but the bulk of them were freighters, huge convoys of them. Eight passed them end-to-end, doing 100 miles per hour. The Halcyon synced with the local Famtrac and passenger car traffic, which held at a steady 90.

The rolling landscape around them was bathed in blue—pale, powdery shades for the dry hills, dark navy for the sparse vegetation and shadows. Suddenly, a dark shape barreled alongside the Eighty, its cockpit lit up with a yellow beacon. Tiny red lights marked the ends of hundreds of containers—some boxy, some cylindrical, others spherical—all streamlined for high-speed rail travel. The train blasted by the Eighty traffic at 184 miles per hour—so the Halcyon told him, its basic nav sensors registered the speed at too dangerous for road travel.

Rome blinked at the red numbers on the dash. 2 a.m. A faint green glow encased Aldo’s side of the car, silhouetting his seat. He was turned toward the window.

“Can’t sleep?” Rome’s mouth was as parched as the ravine at Sunnyside. He dug down by his seat, and located a hydrator bottle. He drained a third of it, clean and cold.

“No. And I’ll clean up the mess whenever we get where we’re going.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Cheyenne was a thick cluster of lights on the otherwise dark plains.

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