Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #6 – My Way or the Highway

“So?”

“I’ve tracked her. Two blocks from here. The camera feeds are somewhat confused, but I could make up her approximate position.”

A wrecked taxi cab, still on old-fashioned wheels. Paint peeling off, only one light working, the engine roaring and sputtering, the insignia blinking on and off, highlighting the letters T, X and I, since the A had long faded. A tall man stood on its side, his metallic face connected to a small device tucked inside the car. A visor installed on top of his own artificial eye, LEDs flickering on its sides in a coordinated dance. His hand moved in the air, touching buttons invisible to anyone else, including the woman standing at his side. Yet, for her it wouldn’t have made any difference, since her sight was long gone. She pushed her cap on her red hair, made sure that her face mask hid her mouth and her eyepatch covered her left eye, while her right one pretended to be able to see. She let her hair flow too. Long hair, going down almost to her kidneys. A leather jacket on a black tank top and ripped jeans pants completed the picture, together with two sneakers that once had to be white and now lay untied on the asphalt. The man sported instead a green, short-sleeved shirt, with purple flowers printed all over it and bright pink pants – something that created an eye-straining contrast for whomever watched him. Well, except his partner in crime, of course. One of the few advantages of being almost blind, she surmised. The man tapped a holographic button one more time, waving his hand in the air, before turning to the woman.

“You look good dressed like – you know – a normal person, for once.”

The woman glanced back at him – or at least tried to, seeing only a nondescript patch of color and guessing where his face should be. A pinch of resentment took hold of her voice, as she spat a retort to that out-of-place comment.

“What’s wrong with my usual costume?!”

“Edgy blindfold? Stereotypical evil hood? Bare legs? No shoes? The fact that you look like a reject cartoon villain? Choose one, I’ve got more.”

“At least I don’t have an exhaust port coming out of my neck.”

“Well, I didn’t choose to have one.”

“Whatever.”

The massive man shrugged, stared at her again, his one red eye moving up and down,

“By the way, what name should I call you with, this time?”

“Chris is fine.”

“I thought you hated it.”

“Mia’s burned, the Corps found it when they raided our last hideout. Can’t use that name for a while.”

“Oh, yeah, right. I forgot about that.”

“And you?”

“Dobrio’s okay.”

“… way to go, Mr. Hiding-in-Plain-Sight.”

“As if I could hide at all, with an exhaust pipe coming out of my neck.”

“… fair.”

The woman named Chris tapped the handle of the door, sat at the driving place. Her fingers moved around the steering wheel, followed its profile in full two times in a row. Dobrio removed the visor, his eye stared at her with its pupil almost fully dilated.

“Chris? You ain’t driving. Full stop.”

“Hush, I’m a professional.”

“A professional disaster, yes.”

He grabbed her by her shoulder, hurled her out of the car with one swing of his hand. Chris bounced on the road, almost slammed her chin on it. Dobrio sat at what was once her seat, grabbed the steering wheel. A jungle of cables emerged from his neck, connecting to all of the car’s system through the dashboard. Chris growled, sat on the asphalt, before standing up while still massaging her jaw. She followed the profile of the car with her left hand, circumnavigating it till she found the handle to the passenger door. She entered the car with a groan, as the soft fabric of the cushion welcomed her.

“Why can’t I drive?”

“Your right arm is still held together by hopes and dreams, yes? Seriously, what part of ‘don’t move it’ didn’t you understand?”

“But I didn’t…”

“You know I’m the one changing your bedsheets every morning, right?”

“I have a left hand too, you dunce!”

“Then, how come the wound on your right shoulder is still hurting?”

She rolled her eyes, let herself slump in the seat.

“Ugh. Whatever. Rev up this goddamn car.”

Her legs crossed, her shoes resting over the dashboard.

“We’ve got a plant to snatch ‘fore it’s too late.”

Dobrio smashed his foot on the throttle. The tires screeched, before finally starting to bite the road. He could feel the car, every inch of it, in his brain. The metal had become an extension of his senses, the engine connected to his beating heart. His implants mediated his thoughts, transmitted it to the fine components of the vehicle, steering each of its constituents independently, rewriting the software of the electronic control unit every other second to micromanage its performance. The four-door coupé accelerated on the deserted street, breaking every speed limits, as Dobrio’s hands turned the wheel with mechanical precision. He wasn’t simply directing his car – he was the car. His red eye was fully dilated, unblinking, all while Chris was hugging her seatbelt, blessing her blindness more and more after every near miss against a wall or the guard rail. A sharp turn right, the handbrake activated through the brain connection. Chris swore against inertia, shielded her cheek with her left hand, avoiding a close contact with the window at the last second. That’s when Dobrio saw them. Three blips on the ranged sensors. Three blips standing still, close to the next crossing, on a choke point that offered no alternative runway. He calculated his odds, his old-model processors trying to crack the optimization problem. Unfortunately, his statistic unit was too antiquated for that. So, no chances. No odds. Just gut feeling. And his gut feeling told him to step on the throttle and force his way through.

One instant before, there were three blue and white cars with blue lights, lazily directing curious civilians to leave the area.

One instant later, two of those cars were flying off course, right as an armored, battered taxi plowed through them, thrashing the sheet metal, breaking in at full speed. Its hood and bumper were torn from its chassis, its bullbar broke into pieces while smashing the front-end of a sedan. Still, that wasn’t enough to stop its momentum. The taxi kept speeding up under the shocked gaze of the Peacekeepers, without slowing down even for a second. Yet, before they lost sight of it, one of them, the least flabbergasted, tapped his helmet, shouted in the microphone. Right as the one surviving car turned around and started to give chase.

Dobrio modified the control unit mapping again, removed all the limiters for pollution and sparing fuel. The now exposed engine roared, while pieces of sheet metal were scratching the asphalt, flying away at the first contact. A concerto of blue lights, of sirens blared behind them. Dobrio could see it from the mirror. One car. Just one car. The only one he didn’t manage to break down. Then, he noticed them. Two heads, getting out of the pursuing vehicle’s windows. Hands too, holding automatic rifles. Rifles that started shooting. The rear window exploded into a shower of glass fragments, the rear A-beams bent from the impact. Dobrio issued a new command, released a lock. The trunk opened up all of a sudden, covering the now glass-less back window in full, leaving no room for anything to pass. Metallic clangs, the sound of bullets deflected, bouncing on an even harder surface. The rear wheels were protected by thick fenders, fenders that couldn’t be pierced that easily even with a gun. So was the interior of the trunk. That car was almost totaled, but that didn’t mean that it was on its last leg. On the contrary, all of the improvements Dobrio had made were now finally seeing some usage. He glanced at the mirror. The pursuer was still there, yet losing ground. He turned sharply towards a maze of side streets, fitting by a centimeter or two in the narrow space between two buildings. The Corps car followed suit, though the agents had to get back in, not enough room for them to shoot their guns. Chris kept a hand on her forehead, her right arm still motionless. She turned around to face that blot of colors that had to be Dobrio, seeing something like a red patch where she suspected his eye would be.

“See, you dunce? If I drove, you could have shot back at them! My violin is useless here and I’m terrible with guns!”

“If you drove, we would have crashed at the first intersection and would have already been arrested.”

“Ugh, have it your way, metallic man.”

The right mirror of the Corps car smashed onto the wall, as the driver tried to keep the vehicle on track, in that narrower and narrower passage. The roof opened right behind the blue lights. A Peacekeeper emerged from it, their rifle locked and loaded. Only for them to have to duck immediately after, as a clothesline with several pullovers and panties almost cut through their neck. They cursed, got up again, this time looking in the distance if any other obstacles were going their way. Then, once they were sure it was fine, they opened fire. High-speed bullets rained on the taxi’s roof, leaving huge bumps into its metallic structure, getting stuck into it, but never piercing through. Not a hole in sight, no successful shot. The Peacekeeper touched the side of their weapon, adjusted the settings, switched the magazine. The barrel elongated, as did the rifle butt, turning a semi-auto into what looked more like a sniper’s weapon. The Peacekeeper aimed it at the car, pulled the trigger without a precise goal first. He needed to ascertain whether it was enough, and needed to see it quickly. The bullet roared through the air, pierced the metal, flew inside the car, smashing its way through.

Dobrio jerked as the shot almost chipped his shoulder, crashing through the front window instead. The reinforced glass kept together by miracle – a hole surrounded by a cobweb of cracks was the only visible effect on it. Dobrio connected to the rear cameras, saw the strange weapon, rolled his eye in the mechanical socket. He turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, making the car disappear into yet another narrow side road. The pursuing Peacekeepers had to slow down, readjust their heavier, larger vehicle to fit it in. Only enough room to maneuver, the curse of old urban architecture. A blessing for the fugitives, though.

“Change of plans, Chris.”

He tapped on the steering wheel, without letting go of the throttle.

“You drive now. But only with your left hand, got it? I’ve put the gearbox on auto.”

The cables returned inside Dobrio’s neck, got absorbed back. The dashboard opened up in the middle, letting the steering wheel travel to the right, move towards Chris. Throttle and brake emerged from the floor, right under her feet, while disappearing from Dobrio’s side. Then, from the back of Chris’s neck, four new cables emerged, connected with the car system much like Dobrio’s did before. Suddenly, she could see again, her blindness gone. The cameras. The sensors. The car had become an extension of her body. The one way she could still perceive the real world as she used to. She let out a big, dumb smile, mostly hidden by the white paper of her face mask.

“Heckin’ finally!”

She savored every instant of that inebriating sensation, as her will took over the machine, as her foot floored the throttle, making the engine roar like a caged lion. Dobrio pulled a lever, turned down the backrest, his hand reached for the backside of the car. For a gadget he had prepared for similar eventualities. He caressed its metallic case. If he had a mouth, one could have seen him smile too. He patted Chris’s cap with his left hand, as she made the car go through an even narrower passage, the one leading to the main street of that city block. She smirked with satisfaction, as her extended eyes saw everything around their vehicle.

“Taking the dog out for a walk?”

“Yup. Be right back.”

The Corps car lost its left mirror too, in the process of following that broken down armored taxi. Yet, now there was no way out. That side road led to the biggest artery running around Aralu. Two other units were converging there. Even if they forced their way out, the gliders would have been on them in minutes. They were trapped like mice. That’s why the agents could take it slower, without too much hurry. Still, it would have been a shame if they had to rely on their colleagues. Promotions didn’t come easy, right? So, the Peacekeeper on the roof decided to go for it again. They trained their rifle on the car, aiming at where the driver had to be seated. That shot would have finished everything, before other units could claim the prize. They adjusted the aim, finger on the trigger, ready to pull. Till the roof opened, sliding back, taking them by surprise. Only for a massive figure to emerge from it. A mechanical mask, only one red eye, a bizarre green, sleeveless shirt that showed his gray skin. And what looked like an oversized chain gun with bull horns on its sides aiming at them. The Peacekeeper jolted, his aim broken, an instinctive hurry to get back inside.

That’s when the chain gun started singing.

A broken symphony of lead, hitting the Corps car like a heavy hailstorm. The lights exploded, first the left, then the right. The frame bumped, the hood pierced, the tires punctured, the bumper dislodged, the A-frames bent. The white paint job now just a mess of holes and scratches. The blue lamps on the top exploded too, in a shower of glass and plastic. The Corps car slammed against the wall, the brakes pulled, front side hitting one building, backside hitting another one, diagonally stuck in the narrow road. Then, the taxi braked too, the red lights popping up. Only for the white light to pop too, as the battered wreck moved backwards, pushing its way against the Corps car, shoving it back through the road, ripping off posters, flyers, and dirt from the walls. Chris floored the throttle again, the tires screeched right as the wheel started to climb the other car’s body. The taxi’s telescopic suspension system kicked in, allowing each wheel to move on its own, raising the main body by several centimeters, making it possible for it to drive over the Corps car, ripping sheet metal and paint in the process, breaking what was left of the blue lights holder, snapping the antenna in half. With one last bump, the taxi landed back on the other side of the Corps car, the side it originally came from. Then, the chain gun sang again. The back tires punctured too, the rear bumper crippled, the lights broken down, the trunk reduced to sawdust in a symphony of lead. Dobrio stared peacefully at the result. A complete, totaled, inoperable mess of metal. Yet, the windows were intact. The Peacekeepers inside most likely still alive, unharmed even – at least physically. Not one bullet directed at them. That was his way. Break things, not people, unless…

Suddenly, the doors of the Corps car jolted. Two Peacekeepers in full tactical gear were trying to open them, to get out of the vehicle – though their efforts were vain. The beams were tilted, the frame deformed in such a way that the doors couldn’t open, not easily at least. One of them smashed the window with the butt of their rifle, making enough room to at least shoot. Yet, their eyes gazed at the massive chain gun with awe, while their arms shivered. Dobrio stared at them without saying a word, just directing his weapon at the broken window, fingers on the trigger. Till the Peacekeeper let his rifle fall outside of the car, in a gesture that could only mean ‘we surrender’. Their colleague did it soon after, dropping all their weapons, their arms up inside the cramped space of what was left of the vehicle. Dobrio turned to Chris, the rotating barrels still trained on the wreckage that was once a Corps car.

“I let them go, ‘kay? They’re good boys, they know when to give up.”

“Yeah. Traffic units are bottom-of-the-food-chain goons. Too low of a clearance to have been… compromised.”

“Nice.”

The barrel roared again, the bullets pierced the downed guns, shredding them to smithereens, rendering them nothing but useless waste metal. Once that was done, Dobrio waved his hand at the Peacekeepers. Then, he disappeared back inside the vehicle, closed the roof behind him, and let the ‘dog’ rest on the rear side of the taxi. Chris floored the throttle again, making their car – or what was left of it – quickly run back on the road they came from, without turning, of course, because there wasn’t enough room for that. So, reverse it was, back to the last junction. Dobrio pulled the lever on his seat, put it back into standing position, still looking at the two Peacekeepers crawling out of the wreckage, with a third one still trapped in, farther and farther away every second, now just silhouettes in the distance. Dobrio would have smirked, if he could. Once the agents disappeared completely from his sight, he tapped his fingers on the dashboard, almost as if to draw Chris’s attention.

“We’re far enough. Can I drive again, now?”

“Nah, you had all the fun with your cowmower. Now, let good ol’ Kryzalid handle it! Having just one good arm ain’t gonna stop me.”

“Okay. Then, I’ll take care of the tracking.”

Cables emerged once again from Dobrio’s neck, connected with the dashboard, reached for the positioning systems, for the camera feeds of the area, for the Corps encrypted communications – encrypted if you didn’t have the key, that is. His brain filtered the background noise, the scrambled radio signals coming from all active units, looking for a word, for the right pictures. Until, suddenly, he found it.

“I’ve spotted our plant. Go back to the crossing, then close in on the coordinates I’ve sent you. She’s moving fast, but I’ll try to update them in real time. Got a couple camera feeds on her, which means the Corps are gonna get to her soon too.”

His red eye met Chris’s blue iris, an iris that had lost the ability to see and yet remained strangely lively. Chris winked at him, as she blinked her non-covered eye.

“Alright. We’ll be there in no time.”

Her fingers closed around the steering wheel, her foot pushed against the pedal once again.

“Looks like somebody’s in a dire need of a taxi.”