THE FUTURENESS Ch18: It's Unwise To Try To Fight Me
The heat signatures of the no-jokers came toward us, carrying lanterns and flashlights and long guns.
“Methyl, you know they live off recycling e-waste,” I said. “And we just landed a half-mil’s worth of tech on their beach. Plus what they’re going to find under our own skins. This is not going to be a conversation.”
“Don’t you have a gun?”
“It’s organic. It’s built for secrecy, not stopping power. And I only have twelve rounds.”
Francesca opened a compartment under the steering wheel. I took out the device.
“Weird.”
“Brass knuckles with a short barrel, called an eye-popper. It helps you in a fight. So, it’s not actually a gun.”
“Fucking great. What about you, Fran?”
I’m street legal.
“Can you drive?”
The bag has locked my brakes. Figures approaching at two hundred meters. My windows are blacked out.
I’d never been in anything like this situation but I felt calm like I had been at the wall. The sky was dark, but warmth emanating from my back kept panic at bay.
“They don’t know what to expect of us, so they’re going to come up slowly. We have a little time.”
“To even do what? Has anyone gotten our calls?”
Unconfirmed. It’s part of the bag trap.
Methyl’s color had drained away again. She looked thinner than ever. She was running on fumes. And that, I thought, might be a way to survive.
The mob had come out of the shadows in the distance. Dim cloud light glowed on their shoulders as they marched slowly toward us. Nearly every one of them had a weapon over a shoulder. One swung a bag like a child on the way to school, then swung harder and harder, until the bag spun in full circles over his head then flew from his hand in an arc and disappeared against the night sky. A moment later, the bag landed on Francesca’s roof with a horrifying crash that brought the overhead down three centimeters.
Now is the time to do something, Rich.
“I know. Where’s the extinguisher?”
Under your seat. Rich, this new bag trap works on the mind.
“What mind?” Methyl said.
“Hers. She has a couple of minutes.”
I pulled the mini fire extinguisher from under my seat and laid it in my lap. Two minutes until Francesca’s mind was gone and the mob started getting through the windows… and then what?
“What’s that?” Methyl said, pointing at the extinguisher.
“Now that the bag’s on, they’ll be here soon. But they can’t see in. Francesca, you’re on the windows. Methyl, I have some empty Subway cups in the back seat. Grab some of the straws out.”
Methyl leaned into the backseat. A tapping came at my window. The man knocking was lit by a battery-powered lantern. He was about fifty-five years old, most of those years spent outdoors in the e-waste pits. He’d gone ragged and creased at the edges. His eyes roamed over Francesca.
“They did hit us first,” I said.
Un occhio per occhio.
“Lower the window enough for my hand,” I said.
Francesca lowered the window, I threw out my right fist, connected and triggered the gun, yanked my arm back as Methyl screamed and Francesca brought the window back up.
The man had already collapsed below the window. A long, pale filament of tissue torn from his eye socket stretched from the top of the window to my fist. I shook it loose and gagged.
“Works.”
“Holy shit.”
“That’s not going to stop them for a very long time. At some point, they’ll start taking her apart to get to us. Why am I so calm?”
“It’s weird.”
“Now we need you to do something very dangerous, Methyl.”
“Um.”
“Francesca has taken two major hits. The first one left us stranded, but the second one could wipe her for, I don’t know, forever. We don’t know.”
It’s something. It sickens.
“Hang on. We have to ask you for one more thing, Fran,” I said.
I turned to Methyl. I was going to feed her endlessly if I got us out of here.
“Got them?”
She held up three Subway straws.
“Got your lighter?”
“What the fuck?”
“You’re going to do the opposite of smoking. I’m sure before the wall you tried it. Or think of the atomizer, but you’re breathing out. And then you stop, and you hold your breath and hold your nose, okay? Through the straw, out the window, let’s go. I’ll spark it. Let’s go. Let’s go, or we’re dead.”
Tears collected in her eyes as the crowd around us thickened. I saw crowbars and a power saw coming out of bags.
“Let’s get those tears wiped away first,” I said. “And then let’s go. We can freak the fuck out about this when the cops or Xavier comes for us, okay?”
Methyl sniffled and used the back of her sleeve to wipe her eyes.
“Blow through the straw at them? In their faces?”
“They are going to take us apart, Methyl. We have serious tech inside us. How fast before they accidentally catch you on fire—”
“Okay. I got it.”
“A million birthdays, right?”
Methyl took her lighter out of her chest pocket and handed it to me.
“Fran, you still with us?”
Sì.
“Methyl’s window. Two centimeters down on my mark.”
I leaned across Methyl with the lighter in my left hand, the extinguisher in my right hand aimed at her head. I pressed the lighter against the top of the window.
“Ready?”
Methyl closed her eyes and put the straw in her mouth.
“Work up some spit.”
She closed her eyes tighter. I let her be for a moment.
“Turn to the window,” I told her.
She turned.
“Mark.”
Francesca lowered the window. Fingers from outside furiously jammed into the car. The roar of the mob and a power saw running in the distance were terrifying. I hit the button on the lighter.
“Now!”
With her eyes still closed, Methyl exhaled hard through the straw. A rose of blue flame touched off at my hand and flew out the window, hungry for oxygen. The no-jokers outside screamed and stumbled back.
“Hold your breath! Window up.”
I put the lighter in my pocket, tore the straw from Methyl’s mouth and covered her nose and mouth with my hand.
“You’re okay? You’re okay.”
I took my hands away. She was crying, her eyes still closed.
“That scared them,” I told her.
“That scared the shit out of me.”
I dimly heard the mob outside trying to extinguish their comrades who had gone up in Methyl’s flame. Their firelight glowed amber on the dash.
“Francesca?”
She was not there.
Three no-jokers were fully engulfed in flame, several others were on fire in places, their arms, their legs, their heads. I held Methyl to my chest as she wept. I was fresh out of ideas. I felt my own eyes fill for Francesca; I had no way to help her. Whatever had been buoying me, the skrip maybe, felt exhausted, as depleted as my mind.
Suddenly, all the burning men went down. Several more people lost their feet and tumbled. I felt a churning in my stomach, as though the fighting had caught up with my calm, and my guts were ready to purge. A thudding came across the air. Another, sharper pain entered my guts and my head.
“Ow!” Methyl yelled.
A concussive whomp, and every figure outside the car collapsed to the earth and lay motionless.
“Jesus,” I whispered to Methyl. “They’re all down.”
A black helmet three sizes too large for a human head appeared in the window. It turned slightly left and right, as though it were looking inside the car. A square of video the size of a playing card appeared on the helmet’s face mask. On the screen, Xavier sat at a conference table with about a dozen strangers surrounding him. He leaned forward, squinting.
“Sit tight, everyone. We’re getting you out of there,” he said.
And at that, I felt us rise up off the ground.
There's suddenly a "Snowcrash" feel to this. Really good. More!