Tourists of the Apocalypse (35 page)

“Ruh, ruh, right, but this car doesn’t need the body. What I mean is, the body panels will crack and fall off, but the wrap won’t let the rounds through the first few times. The car will run and drive just fine without them.”

“They can still shoot the engine or the tires.”

“Puh, puh, put a big steel plate over the injection system so all they can shoot is the radiator, but that’s it. The tires are the mega run flats T-Buck made. If a tire ruptures, the air hits the inside and a fluid turns hard in a split second. It’s like driving on a solid rubber tire, but we won’t have any flats per se. I had them on the Mustang too.”

I recall him explaining this tire before. Ahead of us, the chase car slows; allowing us to catch up to it well before we get to the truck. I pull the shotgun from the door and start to stand up, but Dickey tugs on my pant leg.

“Ree, ree, release the Kraken,” he stammers, pointing at the Goliath. “Pop open the tie down clamps and hit
ARM
.”

There are two ratchet straps holding the framework to the bottom of the turret. They’re probably for stability. I loosen each one and toss them onto the road as we fly along. Dropping into my seat, I sift through the mass of wires on the floor, coming back with the controller. With one eye on the chase car, I hit the
ARM
button.

“Nuh, nuh, now hit deploy.”

I do this, releasing a shrill hydraulic howl. The turret pops straight up, then pivots like a kid’s telescope. The top has the familiar dome with the all-seeing eye glowing inside. It turns right, then left, jerking to abrupt stops. Then it does the same in an up and down orientation ending with loud clicks. Finally, the barrel begins to spin.

We catch the chase car, but Dickey slows, keeping it in front of us. The passenger leans out and fires several shots, only one glancing off the Goliaths structure. Sitting down I see the back end of the chase car on the screen imbedded in the controller. Using the two tiny joysticks under my thumbs, I move the camera shot up and down, then realize I am actually moving the gun. Above me it whines and sputters as it locks in place, then moves again. Another series of gunshots echoes above the rushing wind. One hits the windshield, leaving a small nick.

“Wuh, wuh, we waiting for some reason?”

I put the back of their car in the center of the screen and push the fire button. I don’t hold it down long, only tap it. A short burst fires out hitting them and causing sparks to fly. Dickey looks over and swirls a finger to the side, indicating that I should hold the button down longer. The passenger leans out again, but I let fly with a long burst, hitting him and cutting the back end of the chase car to ribbons. He falls onto the road and we swerve to miss him. The chase car weaves left, and then hooks right and flips over, the driver side rear tire comes completely off and rolls down the road alongside us for a brief moment.

“Wholly cow,” I mumble.

“Stuh, stuh, state of the art bang, bang,” Dickey chirps hammering the accelerator.

We have dropped back from the truck during our brief encounter with the chase car. As we fly along at 100 MPH trying to close the gap again, a faint engine whine can he heard. Tapping the touch screen, I see a red motorcycle race into view behind us. Two more brightly colored rice burners trail along behind it.

“We got company,” I shout over the wind. “Probably advance scouts from that band of pirates who set up the lady trap.”

“Scuh, scuh, scouts?”

“We didn’t stop, but they liked the car,” I shrug, explaining my theory. “Send these bikes out to slow us down while they follow in slower vehicles.

One of the bikes races past and cuts us off. The driver pulls a pistol and points it back randomly, firing several shots. Dickey slows slightly, but I slap the dash in an effort to keep him from letting off the gas.
That is after all what they want
. Pointing the Goliath with the controller, I fire a burst, but the bike is weaving and I miss three times before Dickey raps his knuckles like a nervous tick on the steering wheel.

“Huh, huh, hit
AUTO
and let her off the leash.”

“It will never hit them.”

“Huh, huh, how do you know? You’ve never seen one in action.”

“You have?”

He doesn’t answer, but is right of course. I press the auto button and the turret does its right, left, up, down orientation dance. The biker gets off two more shots before the Goliath fires. It misses its target, but fires three more short bursts in succession. The bike’s pattern causes all shots to miss, but then the shots pause. The bike moves from side to side, then as if it were predicting the pattern, the gun fires a very short burst. The bike is hit in the back tire and crumples to the pavement, the driver bouncing to one side. The bike skids along, then catches the air and flies over the top of us.

“Whoa,” I blurt out.

Without pause the turret points straight up, then tips backwards so it’s aiming behind us. I see a second dome containing an all-seeing eye is mounted on the underside, which is now the top.
That’s a novel bit of engineering
. The gun fires off burst after burst, hitting one of the trailing bikes almost immediately. Sparks fly and it flips over skidding out of sight. The last bike hits the brakes too late and is cut in two by a strafing barrage.

“Muh, muh, my road,” crackles in my headset.

“Apparently so.”

The turret flips back over facing forward, but keeps moving. An armadillo on the shoulder of the highway is turned into a burst of red vapor as we fly by.

“Auh, Auh, off
AUTO
bud.”

I press the correct button and the turret stops and lowers into a holding position facing forward. Clearly if left on it would seek and destroy anything that moves. I pause and a thought pops into my head. Lance’s guys in the chase car had to be wearing Tabs.
Why did the Goliath fire on them?
Dickey moves around a dead car in the road, his wrap around copper glasses glinting in the sun.

“Aren’t the Tabs supposed to keep the Goliath from shooting at people?”

“Yuh, yuh, you bet.”

“But it shot at the chase car? They had to be wearing Tabs.”

“Aye, aye, I didn’t load any safety protocols,” he grins. “But take a wild guess at what that means?”

I think on this, but can’t make any extrapolations from his comment. I shake my head.

“Thuh, thuh, the one on the truck is going to have them.”

“What?”

“Saff, saff, safety protocols,” he grunts. “They can’t have it shooting at the chase car when it’s on auto. That means it won’t fire on us until they can shut them off.”

“How hard is it to do that?”

“Dee, dee, depends,” he mutters, tapping his palm on his forehead in a frustrated way. “Five minutes if they figure it out and re-boot the brain right away.”

A warm feeling comes over me. We will have five full minutes at minimum to fire on them before they can return fire with anything bigger than small arms.
Aren’t they going to be surprised?
It seems my friend Dickey is a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for. When he sees me smiling, he taps his index finger on the top roll bar and points out at the hood. There, under the wrap and the flat paint, are a dozen Tabs trapped between the hood and the honeycombed sheet overlaying it. They stick up and when you know what to look for it’s easy to see them.

“Unbelievable,” I whisper to myself. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

Dickey mouths the word
Batman
at me without speaking.

We close on the truck quickly now. Assuming the safety protocols are in place, we drive straight up behind them. Unsure how much ammo is buried in the bowels of the car I wait to ARM the gun until we are practically on top of them. The gun barrels on their Goliath spin wildly and it jerks back and forth as if shooting at us, but nothing comes out. I
ARM
ours when we are no more than a half dozen car lengths behind them and it lets fly on the back of the truck.

The steel plates keep any shots from going through, but the three visible men are shredded in the first volley. Our fire concentrates on the back initially, but after it only ripples the thick steel, the Goliath lowers all by itself and goes after the tires. Plated splash guards stop most of the rounds, but a few get through and half of the four rear tires on the right side pop. As Dickey explained, they don’t stay that way, but the truck seems to ride much harsher afterward.

Running out of good targets, Dickey pulls around the passenger side and the Goliath pounds away at the window up front leaving a dent riddled gash up the side as it moves forward. The Lexan on the window turns white as the rounds sink in, but it doesn’t fail. Gunfire suddenly hits the back of the Vette, tossing splinters of fiberglass in the air.
Who’s shooting at us?
I was under the impression they had only one chase car. Dickey speeds up, passing the truck, then cuts over and slams on the brakes. The truck passes between us and our attackers. When we fall out from behind, there are two primer grey sedans sitting even with us.

They are old, but not seventies. They were probably swapped over to mechanical distributers. One is an 80’s Caprice and the other’s a Ford of some sort, probably a Thunderbird. Shotguns come out of the side windows and the Vette is hit with a hail of buckshot. Small indentations pot mark my window. The Goliath turns and fires into the Chevy, cutting it in half. It splits each piece spinning off in opposite directions. The front half comes our way and slams into the back fender. In the rearview mirror I see part of the fiberglass fender break away and fly out of sight. The back end fishtails, but Dickey catches it. More gunfire hits the frame on the Goliath. It turns and fires on the Ford, but only a few shots actually come out. The barrel’s spin and firing pin clicks. It would seem our ammo has run dry. I hit the
AUTO
button to stop the pointless movement.
What do we do now?

One of the shots that hit the Ford must have caught a piece of the driver as it slows. With the binoculars, I see the front door open and a man being kicked out onto the road. The back tire runs over him as the door is slammed shut. Dickey floors it, but we have a patch of dead cars to navigate through and he has to slow down. The Ford gains on us and I start trying to form a plan to defend ourselves.

“Got any ideas?”

“Muh, muh, maybe if the road clears, you can unhook the clamps in the rigging,” he suggests, reaching back and slapping the forward leaning roll bars under the turret. “I’ll get them behind us and you can kick it off.

“You’re suggesting we throw the Goliath at them?” I blurt out dismissively.

“Yuh, yuh, you got a better idea? The turret weighs 500 pounds.”

I lose track of time searching for a plan, then the Ford hits us from behind as we weave in and out of the dead cars. Our backend slides out and we wind up going backwards until Dickey slams on the brakes to stops us. The Ford can’t stop its momentum and goes into the median, tossing up grass as it flies past us. Dickey pops the clutch and spins the car in a standing circle before we tear off down the road again. The Ford pops up in the center display and he shrugs at me.

“Ruh, ruh, road’s clear.”

Unable to come up with anything that doesn’t entail me standing up from the protective Lexan to shoot at them, I relent. There are two quick disconnects on the turret. They look like ski boot bindings and Dickey must have used them instead of welding the frame onto the roll cage.
T-Buck probably had the cage in before abandoning the job
. I can’t imagine Dickey with a welder. After a nod from him, I pop the right hand clamp. The Goliath bounces slightly, the right side lifting off the roll bar a bit. In the center screen I see the Ford nearly on us. I pop the second clamp and the Goliath wobbles back and forth, but doesn’t fly off.
The sheer weight of the thing is holding it on
.

The Ford hits us again and the Goliath wobbles forward and back now. I have serious concerns that it’s as likely to fall into the car as out the back. I turn upside down, putting my shoulders on the seat before placing my feet on the underside of the turret. Dickey watches the video screen then nods at me. I kick my feet out, sending the Goliath up and away from the roll cage. There is a thunderous boom followed by a dragging metal sound. When I sit up, the Ford’s front end is impaled by the turret and is grinding to a stop amid a wave of sparks.

Turning to face forward, cold sweat pours off my forehead. I wipe it away with my forearm smearing blood across my face.
It’s Izzy’s blood
. I get a pit in my stomach as the events of the day wash over me yet again. Letting the blood cover my forehead for now, I check the horizon and see we are no more than a mile behind the truck.

“What now?” I exhale deeply. “Ram them with the headlight bombs?”

“Wuh, wuh, works for me.”

“Will the car run after we do that?”

“Thuh, thuh, they won’t detonate until the wire breaks. It’s 50 feet so we should be fine.”

“You didn’t have a longer wire,” I chuckle, feeling faint.

“Suh, suh, sure,” but if it’s too long they can stop before it snaps.”

I nod understanding, but again surprised how quick he answers. He downshifts and climbs over a rise with the speedo at 112 MPH. Without the Goliath, we are significantly faster. We close on the truck quickly as they seem to be slower on the solid tires created by the flats. I’m just about ready to deploy the headlights when the Goliath on the back of their truck opens up on us. The fender on my side explodes and shards of honeycombed wrapped fiberglass are sucked into the driver’s compartment by the wind. The tire explodes with a boom then solidifies, causing our car to bounce up and down. Another burst hits the windshield on my side leaving bullets imbedded in it. These are visible from my vantage point, trapped in Lexan.

“Do something,” I shout.

As their turret arcs the hood is rippled and bent. White steam is suddenly expelled from the radiator, coating the windshield with green fluid. As it pours out under the car the rear wheels get into it and we spin out of control. I’m tossed from side to side, as we careen into a dead car, ripping off the driver’s side rear fender. We wind up in the center median watching the truck drive off.