[03] Desire for Velocity!

[Piper Juunanagou]

With a grin, Piper adjusted her rearview mirror and flashed a smirk at the complete and utter abscense of any followers. Kaden had veered off in another direction just a short while ago, and if the other racers were still following the main drag than they must have ran into some sort of delay. Either way, Piper couldn’t help but feel a slight confidence welling up within her as she returned her view to the wide street that lie in front of her like a ripe feast for the taking.

Looking down at her steering wheel, the woman traced the tip of her gauntleted thumb across one of the glossy plastic buttons. Inside her mind, the woman found herself wresting with the decision to simply smack the button with all her might. What harm could it do? Obviously the buttons had been installed into the car to serve some sort of purpose.

Or maybe Gamer fudged with them to make sure all of them blow up this bucket of bolts or cause the transmission to fall out… For the time being, it was finally pessimism that won the day. And at last suppressing her urge to press the button, the woman returned her thumb to the rim of the steering wheel and tried to focus on the road.

Ahead of her current path, the soldier noticed that the series of store fronts whizzing past her abruptly gave way to a few big warehouses. Beyond the storage facilities, the woman noticed that the ground to both sides of the road dropped off. With a frown, she leaned over her steering wheel and squinted to get a better look at what was creeping up on her.

Yes, Piper, that’s a bridge. A voice in the woman’s head groaned as Piper let out a soft chuckle and relaxed back into her seat. The more astute observation would be that it’s moving, you ninny.

“Shit,” Piper rasped as she realized that the end (or possibly the middle) of the bridge was slowly rising up. It would only be a matter of time before it reached a ninety degree angle and provided the woman with a nice vertical surface to crash into. “It’s a bascule bridge,” she remarked as she glanced down at the gas pedal and proceeded to promptly slam it the rest of the way to the floor. With a violent jolt, the car shot forward and rapidly began to accelerate toward its maximum velocity.

“A what?” Pikachu barked as Piper clicked the cruise control button and telekinetically summoned her helmet into her hands. Dropping the gaudy, oversized helmet over her head, she snapped the chinstrap closed and gave it a quick yank to tighten the slack. “What’s going on?” The Pokémon-turned-vehicle shouted louder as the woman clasped her hands around the rim of the steering wheel and tried to press the pedal deeper into the ground.

“It’s like a drawbridge,” the woman snapped as her mind tried desperately to extrapolate whether or not she’d get to the bridge before the angle became too steep for her to circumvent. “And if we’re not fast enough…” she muttered cryptically as she took a minute to glance at her surroundings. Even without analyzing everything, Piper realized it was too late to try and veer off and take another route around the bridge, and by the time her car was beginning its rapid ascent up the slowly rising surface, the color had already drained from the woman’s face. The car managed to get about halfway up the nearly forty-five degree platform before Piper and her pilot noticed they were gradually losing speed.

“Gravity’s not our friend!” The soldier growled as the vehicle noticeably began to decelerate.

“Button F!” Pikachu screamed through the speaker system as Piper glanced down at the steering wheel and smacked the F button. The button clicked into place, and a beat later, the car twitched a little before suddenly zipping up the sloped bridge with renewed vigor.

“What the hell did that do?” Piper asked as the car approached the end of the bridge. Before Pikachu had a chance to respond, the vehicle he had been converted into left solid ground. Although she wasn’t afraid of heights, the soldier didn’t dare look out the window to see how high above the water she was. She simply clenched her eyes shut and waited until the car slammed down on the other side of the bridge and began to descend the opposing side of the bridge.

“Spiked tires,” Pikachu finally responded—his tone laced with an air of arrogance as the woman opened her eyes up to see that they were almost at the bottom of the decline. Unfortunately, there was a rather tall safety fence jutting up from the base of the sloping bridge. “A button.”

Nodding her head, Piper smacked the aptly labeled button and let out a gasp when the car jolted up off the bridge and soared over the safety fence. With a thud, the car landed back on solid ground. Looking down, the woman noted that the F button was no longer depressed.

“And those would be the jump jacks,” the rodent spoke in a haughty tone as Piper let her foot off the gas pedal a little. Ahead of her, the road seemed to carry on much the same as it had before the bridge. There were several smaller alleyways and a few cars that were intermittently parked next to the sidewalk. Other than that, it was nothing more than an abnormally wide city street.

[I]When does this end?

Then, as if Gamer had been listening in on her every thought, a giant wall seemed to emerge out of nowhere. Shouting more out of shock than fear, Piper instinctively slammed the jump jacks, and with a pneumatic hiss, they managed to nearly propel the vehicle up over the brick wall. With a grating shriek, the bottom of the car scraped violently against the wall, and the mixture of high speeds and solid brick wall acted to tear away most of the car’s floor as if it were forged from aluminum.

Fuck. The word looped in the woman’s head as the car slammed down onto the road. Looking down, Piper realized that there was nothing but asphalt beneath her feet—the pedals and the rest of the space between her chair and the front-end of the cab were gone.

“How are we moving still?” Piper asked with manic eyes as she watched sparks sprinkle down from twisted piece steel dragging along the street where her clutch had been. Looking back through the rear window of the car, she noticed that several chunks of broken, twisted metal were scattered behind them. Even if she didn't have a nearly intimate relationship with most vehicles, Piper was certain she could deduce that they were in dire straits.

“I have it under control,” Pikachu wheezed—his voice sounded as if he’d been winded or injured in some way. “Just… keep steering, I can handle what’s missing,” he added between what sounded like gasps for air. “Except the brakes…those are useless.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough on that one,” Piper whispered as she took a hand off the steering wheel and placed it against the dashboard.

“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Sergeant Juunanagou!” Pikachu barked as the car swerved to both sides before straightening out. “I’m still... y’know, programmed to want to slaughter your entire species,” he added weakly as a frown spread across Piper’s visage. The frailty that now plagued the rodent’s voice was a stark contrast from the fire and brimstone of his earlier tirades and random outbursts.

“Hang in there,” Piper muttered softly as she returned her hand to the steering wheel and focused on the task at hand. “The end can’t be far off,” she added a little louder as she clenched her hands tight enough to drain away even the scantest flecks of color from her knuckles.

If he doesn't make it, Gamer, I promise that you will follow him to his grave.