Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10.5 by Randolph Lalonde

Author:Randolph Lalonde [Lalonde, Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-988175-13-3
Publisher: Randolph Lalonde

Part Twenty

If I knew then what I know now, things would have gone much smoother. Driving the hover car was easy, if we weren’t running for our lives it would probably have been fun. I took the car onto land and slowed down as soon as I was between buildings. The concrete and metal giants were huddled together with walkways that the car barely fit on. The hover beast I was driving was really made for the hanging roads stretching between clusters of tall skyscrapers, and the cargo streets far below.

I was distracted by groups of people who had to get out of our way, there were so many more than I could have expected. Many of them were armed, but they didn’t bother firing, another surprise. “There must be thousands of people holed up here.”

“It looks like many of the people who lived in this quarter survived, and I see no evidence of surviving robots.”

“What about cannibalism?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“My sensors aren’t quick enough to scan for food prepared with, er, human parts while we pass at this speed, but I’ll try harder.”

“You do that.” A hail of pings and taps against our rear panels told me that our friends in the other hover cars had caught up. I glanced behind to confirm; all four of the hover cars were coming onto the avenue, and people were rushing to get out of their way. “Are you sure you can’t shoot at those guys?”

“I may do harm to the biological beings inside, so my programming prohibits it.”

See, this is where I should have said; ‘Well, then, why don’t you drive? I’ll shoot at the bad guys.’ Some lessons take a while to learn. I took us up a ramp that led to one of the main hanging roads and before long we were dodging between and bumping over cars that were hit by the electromagnetic pulse. I never thought about how many accidents I would cause when I set that off. These cars were hit when they were moving at full speed. A few went over the rail, plummeting hundreds of metres in some places. Others rolled end over end, or got into pile-ups that were so bad sometimes that I couldn’t tell how many cars were actually crushed together. Most of them skidded, sliding to a stop as useless as bricks with seats.

One of the guys chasing us hit us with some kind of heat ray. The transparent metal back window was turning red when it occurred to me, and I felt like a huge idiot. “Theo, can you drive?”

“I can drive extremely well. Considering this is an emergency situation, I could drive as quickly as this car and the obstacles permit.”

“All right, I’m going to buy us some time so we can switch seats.” I said, looking to a broken railing and the field far beyond, far below. “Hang on tight.” I turned the hover car towards the opening and we flew right off.

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