The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

Helmet picked off three of the lead vehicles wa-hooing after her, disliking the whining buzz of their engines. He’d gotten really good at the job, and since she didn’t use her symbiote’s optic beams, he was happy to help that way.

Since he was a true symbiotic life form and not an AI, he had no issues with aiming, either. The Road was heavily biased to living shooters. Make the best shooting programs possible, go on the Road, and they wouldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with any accuracy. You had living (or undead...) shooters, or you didn’t shoot, you were just wasting ammo.

She’d seen more than a few N-Zoners try to put down saturation salvoes, expending huge amounts of power and ammo to literally blanket an area every five square centimeters in outgoing fire... and totally manage to miss everything in that area except the ground, and sometimes failing at that. It never failed to make her laugh.

They also loved to spray and pray, which also was fabulously non-productive. The whole spray was considered one attack, so exactly one shot from the whole thing could hit a target. The rest just slewed wildly around and didn’t hit a bloody thing, no matter how long the trigger was kept depressed.

Target locks? Failed utterly, as they were mechanical aiming. Relying on them meant they basically missed every time in unending sets of fantastic coincidences, and if the gunners persisted at it, she’d seen more than a few ricochet-shoot themselves right out of existence.

She swung up off the dirt road, and heard the discordant roar the instant Shoe’s tires touched paved Road. She grinned, and absolute friction sent her Ride bolting into motion with heavy g’s she powered right through without effort, out onto the Highway and making for speed.

Her Ride was up there at the limit of what the Road would allow. Pure rocket-propelled stuff wasn’t allowed on the Road; those who tried it inevitably went out of control, hurtled over the sides, and went screaming somewhere off-Road, like as not into open void or depthless canyons or seas, as the Road decided.

Nope, you had an engine, and you worked the wheels. Short-term boosts with rockets, especially for some of the heavier Rides that couldn’t make velocity otherwise, was okay, but you didn’t Rocket Race on the Road, or it sent you off.

Air Elemental Command kept Shoe in a wind funnel, so she didn’t have to worry about aerodynamic drag, or especially lift. Enough weight would do the same, but staying in contact with the road, your engine going full out, was what the Road was all about. Super-speed, like flight, was a no-no.

You were already moving at superspeed, just by being on the Road. Doubling up on it just sent you crashing back into reality, often into the side of a mountain.

As always, she took time to appreciate the sights.

The Road was always, ALWAYS scenic. From hot, austere deserts, to rolling badlands, picturesque mountains, rolling valleys, verdant forests, serene ice fields, and even dizzying cityscapes from whatever the local culture was; the Road flowed through them, and let you enjoy the Drive and the sights to see.

Although all the sights were drawn from reality, nothing there could see the Road. You entered the Road on a Ride, and the Highways from a Ramp. They were totally invisible to the outside world.

The skies were always magnificent, too. Stars as bright and glorious as being in space, or alien worlds in any hues of air or clouds, along with raging storms of pure elemental might, pouring rain, crystals, snow, ice, lightning, whirlwinds, and tornadoes down all around, but none of that affected the Road.

She’d been through hundreds of worlds by now, in both other galaxies and different dimensions, just sightseeing, mapping out her version of the Road from place to place, as the Road varied from Driver to Driver on just where it went and what it connected to. The Road was as individual as each Driver, and different Drivers would have completely different routes through different worlds when traveling place to place independently.

Sometimes new Roads would pop up linked to old ones, but old Roads would only go away if the worlds they were tied to did, or the roads in Reality that bound the Road vanished. So, the Map of a Driver could change if Reality did, but if there were roads there, the Road there lasted as long as they did.

The black line on the Road behind her rumbled louder as the Zoners piled onto the track behind her, and promptly rumbled after her.

The top speed limit, which in ‘real’ terms was about 400 mph, meant you couldn’t truly outrun anything. When chasing, rocket-boosting was allowed to catch up to something fleeing. Being a Driver meant driving and defending your ride, not just outrunning something with better wheels.

The Road wanted to see you drive, and to watch you fight.

It also wanted to crush those who scorned the Rules of the Road.

Hundreds of vehicles piled onto the roadway behind her, another Rule of the Road: if you traveled as a pack, you stayed as a pack. You entered the Road together, and you exited it together.

From her perspective, it should have taken several minutes of time for all those vehicles to come onto the Highway, and yet it happened in a couple breaths. They flowed onto the Road in an unbroken stream, and as long as the drivers were skilled, they could get into formation and stay there, not strung out in a line miles long.

It was really convenient for traveling in convoys and big groups. It also meant that the Chase was Right Behind You when you swept up there, and not miles behind the lead elements.

Another Rule of the Road: the Chase was a Chase. The only exception, where you came onto the Road in the middle of a Chase, was the Ride Outta Hell. The Road didn’t want the Damned thinking it was an easy exit from their punishment, after all.

The Hellraiser Chase roared and rumbled, the pounding heavy metal music thundering in the air as flaming skeletal figures gaped and jeered and waved around burning chains and whips and weapons while literally burning up the road at impossible speeds as they swung in from the Chase Road in very hot pursuit.

She saw the Zoners turning around in shock, and then in horror as they realized this wasn’t one of the Chases they had seen before.

Hell was after them, and it was riding them down!

“Slow ‘em down, and feed ‘em to the Chase.”

Jobbers nodded, and his door swung out, pivoting around as his autocannons began to whirl and purr slowly. He and his Specs Reti hooked into the sights of the guns and they began to execute short, sharp poom-pooms of armor-piercing death, no more than three shots in a row.

His targets weren’t the heavily-shielded stuff, of course, but the lighter cars and speedy things that might try to stay ahead of the Chase and catch them. Since a Pack had to stay together, the big, slow stuff didn’t actually fall that far behind, but that didn’t mean it could actually catch a swifter enemy.

It could probably get into weapon range, however, but that wasn’t going to happen today, as all those weapons were being frantically turned around and directed at the burning, pounding dark glory of the Hellraiser Chase coming after them.

The Zoners outnumbered her a lot, but she wasn’t worried. Jobbers was picking off the light stuff, she was blowing apart the medium stuff fleeing desperately from the Chase behind them, and the heavy stuff, well, it was quickly being caught, boarded by burning Damned Riders, and one by one, they went over in burning piles, exploding and sending the Zoners off to join the Chase for eternity, and maybe longer.

The Chase wouldn’t spare her, of course, but that didn’t worry her. Jobbers was picking off the speedy elements that might catch them, but the majority of the Chase was going after the Zoners, their kind of people, bringing them in to join their torment and madness as mere tools of the Road.

There was one desperate attempt by the Zoners to break away from the Chase, to try and catch up and pass her by. Rockets roared and they barreled ahead, leaving the slower elements behind to the flaming Drivers and the Burning Rides coming for them. Danica watched a Hellcannon on one of the flaming-jawed Doom Haulers boom, and a Zoner wheelwagon blew a hundred feet into the air from the lucky shot.

Quite coolly, she cycled her rail guns around and picked off the dozen remaining vehicles one by one. A desperate fusillade of fire swarmed over and about her, and she ignored it all as it blindly hit the Road or went wild past her. “Trigger discipline,” she chided them, as her railgun rotated, and spheres of dense metal exploded into the sides of the vehicles at Mach 20 or so, rupturing their shields and caving in key parts of the vehicles before shattering into supersonic shrapnel that shredded everything vulnerable about them.

Was that some despair in those reptilian eyes as her turret swung onto the last one, and hundreds of ineffectual pulse lasers danced around Shoe, unable to hit him after the first single shots from the four muzzles bounced off his shields?

A sphere of Heavy-compressed lead-cored steel pounded into their engine block, blew apart, something ruptured, and the last fleeing Zoner battlewagon exploded off its wheels, hit the pavement, bounced, rolled, and was swallowed by the Chase seconds later.

She watched the Chase devour the last of the Zoners, swarming over the Grind Tractor and turning it over like ants devouring a scorpion. The rest of the Chase half-heartedly kept after her. She was only a single vehicle, wasn’t part of their remit, and she had a Ranger riding with her. The Road looked after its Rangers, and so the Chasers basically hung back, took sniping shots at her she casually avoided or let the shields take, and they treated her to a rousing chorus of thumping heavy metal beats as the Road took to the stars.

Their first view was cutting along the event horizon of a black hole, watching light bend and get devoured by the mass of gravity within, the entropy of the universe at play.

---

Her turn-off came, only having had to pick off a half-dozen eager beavers who wanted to see what she was made of, and she stuck her hand out and waved to the Chasers as she turned off.

The drumbeat solos did a double-time in response to her as they swept past and away, and Danica headed off down a Highway to the Heavens, and the new world beyond.

Jobber’s seat spun back around, retracted back into Shoe, and morphed back into a more comfortable seat, guns Compressing away as Danica cleaned them all at the molecular level.

“Satisfying,” he pronounced with a sharp-toothed smile. “One wonders how many the Road will take before they wise up.”

“I’m sure they aren’t the first to think they can control the Roads, and they won’t be the last,” Danica replied calmly.

The Roads were Free to Drive, as the Trails were to Ride, and the Paths to Walk. Among other things, that meant transporting prisoners or slaves on the Road was a very bad idea. Shackles, chains, and other restraints tended to break or malfunction quickly, and then suddenly you had to fight your victims for control of your vehicle, as was only appropriate. If they won, they drove away, and you got to join the Chase on the Road, enslaved for eternity.

Trying to control the many Ways would be an exercise in both frustration and death. Camping routes or trying to set up check points, none of that stuff worked; it only roused Chases to sweep you away. The only places you could sit around were the Pit Stops, and impeding traffic there got the same results the instant you went back on the Roads. Scavver teams only worked side Roads, and never more than one ambush at a site, obeying the Rules and quickly moving to another location, becoming just another hazard of a Drive.

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Hours later...

The railings suddenly changed as the new stars slid into a cobalt blue sky with pinkish clouds. Danica smiled despite herself: a Race was coming up, which meant a Course. Since she had no destination, this was nothing to her but the fun of a new Race and Course.

Jobbers noticed the shift, too, and was about to say something when a light on the dash flickered up, beeping urgently.

“Ohh, Ranger boy got a call.” It wasn’t from the Road; it was from a Trail, which meant an Intersection was nearby. She scanned the Road ahead as she began to decelerate, seeing the rise of the hill where the railing ran flat and low, the Road easily crossed.

Without hesitation she pulled off onto the Trail there and parked. The Race ahead was just going to have to happen without her.

“Any problems without mounts?” she asked Jobbers, as they pulled open the armored compartments in the trunk that had their carry-gear.

“You should be able to run faster, especially if you’re dragging me,” he answered, pulling out a shotgun and slinging on a bandolier of shells. Danica preferred a rifle and overloading the shots. Personal energy projection was absolute shit for range on the Trail, you were always better off using weapons.

Her Shield Wheels obediently spun up and settled down horizontally next to Jobbers, who sat down on it without hesitation. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a call for help, but the other times it had been on Paths, not a Trail.

“Shoe, camo and wait for us!” Danica called out, starting to run down the Trail, very quickly passing what was humanly possible with lightfoot alone. She could easily reach the speed of most magical mounts afoot, and since she was dragging Jobber, she was technically ‘lead horse’... and alive, not a machine. “We’re off, kemosabe!”

For a Ranger doing his duty, the Trail would let it slide. If she tried this alone, she’d get dumped onto a Path or back to Reality right quick.

Shoe purred over to the edge of the Trail, and an illusion of purple-green tall grass washed past him, erasing him from sight. Of course, anyone trying to jack him was going to be in for some lethal surprises, but it was possible, so she never took chances.

Grinning, Danica raced out and ahead, the lone Ranger and his faithful guide out to rescue someone who’d come into trouble on the Trail, and needed some help...