The Ruby Rattlesnake by Nicholas Erik

Author:Nicholas Erik [Erik, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction/Science Fiction/Adventure
Publisher: Watchfire Press
Published: 2016-03-21T04:46:29+00:00

19 | Precinct 21B

Wade tumbled over the divider into the front seat while Keene and Strike pounded against the bulletproof glass windows in the back of the town car.

“It’s not moving,” Strike said. “Damn it, damn it.” She switched from her boots to her hands, battering the tinted windows with a barrage of fists.

Keene caught her arm in mid-swing. “Relax.”

She jerked and tried to free herself, but he held tight. In a display of defiance, she continued punching with her other arm. “We gotta do something.”

Keene let go of her arm and she gave another series of half-hearted punches before giving up. Wade rustled in the front seat.

Keene leaned over the divider to check on what Wade was up to. “Tell me you have something.”

“Car’s control panel is admin access only, dude. Locked out. All controls are—they’re uh, I think they’re remote.”

The frenzied beeping grew louder. Strike kicked at one of the town car’s speakers, and a sputtering mix of static drowned out the countdown of their impending doom.

“She didn’t need to do that,” Wade said. The trembling in his voice had ceased, and he had a more pensive tone.

“But it felt so damn good,” Strike said.

“Not you. The polar bear lady who kidnapped us.” Wade pried at one of the speaker grille’s in the front seat while Keene watched. “She wired the countdown timer so it would play through the speakers.”

“So she’s an asshole,” Strike said. “We knew that.”

“It means I can overload the circuit with a burst of electricity,” Wade said. “Fry it.”

“Won’t that trigger a dead man’s switch or an emergency?” Keene said, but his concerns went unanswered. The kid yanked out a bundle of wires from beneath car’s dashboard and began attaching them to the robot in the driver’s seat.

The bursts of static and sharp beeps grew noisier and more obnoxious, so loud that Keene had to cover his ears. Wade, however, seemed nonplussed by the pandemonium swirling about him as he unhooked and tested various wires.

In frustration—or audio-induced delirium—Keene screamed, “Let me do that,” leaning forward into the front seat, the plastic divider cutting into his rib cage as he ripped a bundle of wires out of the robot’s chest, where its battery was seated. “Give me the others.”

Wade tore out the wires from the stereo and handed them to Keene, who took the conductive copper ends and began twisting them together.

“Dude, I don’t know about that.”

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.” Keene continued meshing the wires from the robot’s battery with the ones sticking out of the ruined speaker. “How much time we got left?”

“I don’t—”

A giant spark filled the air, and Keene was blown back into the leather seat. Smoke came from between his fingers, and he smelled burning hair. He wondered if this was the explosion, and if it was, it was way weaker than he had anticipated and wasn’t really worth the trouble.

Then he passed out.

Kip Keene’s phone rang, and the buzzing next to his heart startled him awake.

He rocketed upwards, forgetting that he was still inside the town car when he tried to stand up.

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