Trucksong (11 page)

Sinner suddenly took off for the highway, slow at first, but gaining speed up through the gears as the Left Tenant caught on a second too late but followed it out soon enough. On the road with the glowing silver streaks of guide posts blur and the smooth flow of the tarmac under the tyres. Sinner got way out in front, forcing the Left Tenant to push itself into the red. Then it ever so gently slackened off the pace and lured in the Left Tenant, let it come in nice and close and then it hit the brakes and I watched the Left Tenant swerve and scream past and so we were then the ones up behind. I pushed a speedy patch through the link, and Sinnerman moved even faster on the tail of the brumby, zoning in on up for a ram or at least threatening some damage to the panels of that vain truck. The battle would leave its mark on both trucks, no two ways. The Left Tenant was wily though, it wasn’t gunna let Sinnerman best it so easy. Right as rain it swerved off course and fishtailed away, donk screaming and dirt flying as its tyres bit the shoulder. Sinner held steady and wasn’t gunna back down now. It was in its element, and it was pining and angry for its lost buddy Storm, though now the game had switched and it was back in front of the Left Tenant.

The Left Tenant had gotten the wind gauge now, and it wanted to send a message loud and clear so it licked with a tongue of fire from tanks of burning oil jelly under its bonnet, a spurt of flame set to singe Sinner’s tail and melt its paintwork and its mood for battling. Sinner heaved. It was dead scared of fire, I realised just then. It squealed like a babby and swerved to the right trying to free itself from the gout of deep orange flame lit black at the edges with fuel smoke that I could see through the rear view. Sinner’s fear came on through the IV link then, sickly grime that soured me stomach but it also gave Sinner a new burst and I worked the mix through the link, balancing off the panic with some new seeded patches to mech a good burst for Sinnerman.

It worked a trick, Sinner turned right around with a screeching of tyres and dust flying up behind. Black scatters of tyre fragments skittered all over the road and pebbles and gravel slid underneath as the whole creaking chasis rocked and came to stop right as the Left Tenant bore down. The Left Tenant must not have kept anything back with the fire, or else it was saving for another burst, but it held its distance and Sinner spun forwards with the sun glinting off the shiny tip of its ramming spike. The Left Tenant shied away from Sinner’s showing of strength and courage, and also I guessed it didn’t want to try its luck against that spike. So Sinner called the bluff and the upper hand switched as Sinner gunned its ram towards the Left Tenant’s beautiful shining paintwork.

The Left Tenant was a crafty truck, it wasn’t gunna let this unmarked indie get the best of it. It hit reverse full bore just as Sinner come on to it and spun the front wheels hard left, bringing its nose around and swinging its tail off the road and in to the dust and gravel. Sinner overshot and screamed its tyres and blatted air brakes in anger and frustration. The Left Tenant lifted up its twin fifties from inside the engine cowling and opened fire with a terrible roar and clatter of shattered bone and whooshing recoil. Spent cartilage casings scattered the ground like hail from dark green storm clouds and the rounds pinged into Sinner’s armour and peppered holes into the painted panels. The Brumby King gloomed shadowly behind the backwash of smoke and dust.

A rush of pain and shock came on up through the dripline and I felt sick from it and the thought that maybe Sinnerman wasn’t up to scratch with a wild brumby that made its living doing battle in the backroads. Sinner downed a gear and did a big loop around. It was aiming to get its own fifties into play and I heard the servo whine of their mounts as Sinner pulled back the housing covers. Still feeling sick as, I was just a passenger in this truck fight but I could help Sinnerman out with a little shot of something tasty through the link, so I lined up a nice hit of Red Leather from me list of patchfile tags that I read off from the linkmaker behind me eyes. The crackling burst of the patch shot through and Sinner’s donk roared. Its gearbox screaming, it swung itself into firing position and opened up with the fifties. It wasn’t being shy with the ammo, neither.

The Left Tenant had got itself into a tight place, it’d tried to get round for a better shot but now its backend was towards us and Sinner had the full of it in the gun sights and didn’t hold back. The barrels started to glow deep red and tracer rounds arced across the space between them. Smell of gunsmoke and melted lube. It wasn’t no sound system battling now, no more stances and dances. It was full on warfare between two beefy trucks that weren’t gunna give in till the last one was standing. I started to feel like I was safe inside Sinnerman, like we were getting the upper hand. The Left Tenant was being ripped to bits, its beautiful body blistering up and peeling like paint in the sun. It seemed like it was pinned down with the awful pinging of bone bullets and teeth biting at steel plates and the blooming of silver shredded petals around the flowering bullet holes. Shell casings and bits of link skittered around. The sound was terrible. Sinnerman grunted and let out a throaty groan, throwing everything into the attack as it moved in closer for the kill.

Which seemed to be exactly what the Brumby King was after. Sinnerman drew in close by the Left Tenant, which must of been faking its fade, because now it sprung large and hulking in the viewscreen with Sinner in range of its flames. It turned them on big time. A wicked orange tongue of burning fuel and black smoke licked out from its jets that had swung around in their housings to face the enemy approaching from behind. The truckcab got hot. The viewscreen blacked over. Tyres were melting. Sinnerman hit reverse. The Left Tenant limped away backwards in the other direction while the Brumby King came on too, keeping pace. Through a little clear patch in the screen at the corner I could see Sinner’s bright red paint turning black and crinkling like orange peel flaked off to bare steel under the flame sprung from the Left Tenant. I felt Sinner’s scream burning through the link and into me own body like I was the one on fire. I opened me mouth but nothing come out except a dry croak. Me eyes were wired wide with the pain and the rush of adrenaline and truckjuices flushing through the system. Sinnerman wasn’t holding its own no more. It turned one eighty and fled the firey burst with the Brumby King close behind and burning fuel. We managed to break free of the flames and it turned out that Sinnerman could out run the bulky King, though it didn’t make much difference now we’d turned tail and run.

The road bucked underneath and the sky so high above, we felt the sun hot on our burnt metal skin and it was a delicious feeling, sucking in gulps of fresh air through the manifold and squirting fuel to feel this power inside rising up from underneath and setting me teeth on edge with its hold. Through the spike I got a blast from the truckjuice synthfac as Sinner caught more clear air in its grill, a rushing dream and the bush roadside fell into a green haze blur and I was dreaming out loud, a riot of colour and movement all around. Me eyes were wide as with the thrill of doing battle. Roading with the Brumby King’s dust cloud disappearing behind, where we was gunna outrun it even though before all I’d wanted to do was catch up to it.

That was my thinking that bright morning of smokey dealings and burnt up paint, my manifolded future coming on up straight ahead but of course things are never as straight ahead as you would like them to be. There’s always twists and one was waiting for me right there. Nerve toxin shook me outta my haze, the crippling pain of it shuddering through the spike into me arm. Some choking white innerference from the link that had been sent by an evil brumby truckmind to chock our shocks.

Screaming.

Sinnerman screaming too, wheels locked up, spinning outta control.

The Brumby King slotting some wicked trucking magic through the link, grinning at us through the open rear hatch as it caught up.

Dusty black paintwork and massive chunky snub nose filled up the hatch. It knew it’d gotten our number with the trump card, its one shot of system cripple fired through the link at just the right time and already working its way through Sinner and then through me.

We were goners, at speed.

Time slowed right down.

I was looking out of me eyes as if I was someone else watching on a screen.

I seen the way the sun light glinted off the tiny chips of minerals in the gravel at the side of the road and I felt the sway and shudder through Sinner’s body as it tried to right itself but got it all wrong, oversteered and then we were into the roll. I couldn’t believe we’d gone from so high one minute ago to this, running against the soft edges and rolling over into the scrubby dust. The noise of it was loud in me ringing ears, the smell of burning sharp in me nose. Straps pulled tight across me chest, me head snapping with the lurch.

The sun whirled around us like a golden whip and blue sky swapped with black earth till time caught up again and we came to a stop and the noise ended. Then it was just the spinning of a wheel and the creaking of steel and the ping and tick of cooling metal.

I was still strapped in all right but me head had snapped around in the jarring crash and me mouth was bleeding where I’d bit me lip. I hanged sideways down inside the cab. There was nothing from Sinner through the link. Dust blowed past outside, I could see the ground. I flipped the release on me harness. IV came out with a crusted pull of bright pain and along with it a lotta blood and some tendrils where the flesh had been grown into by the feed. I was more a part of Sinner than I realised and it shocked me how fast I’d got truck wise. I hit the deck and coughed up a lung. Already the dust and smoke were getting inside me head. I had to make a move.

I kicked out the hatch and crept outta there into the bright sunshine. I tried to stand but I couldn’t. I was cold and sweating and me heart was still racing. A wave of sick rolled up from me stomach and I vomited. The blue sky above, red dusty earth under me back. I laid there a while and then it clicked what’d gone on but I couldn’t even roll over again before there was a swooshing from above and a flapple flew overhead. Flight of the death bird come to pick shreds from the corpse. The Brumby King grumbled closer, the Left Tenant limping behind. They knew Sinner were finished, lying on its side like that. A roll out here could kill off a truck quicker than bullets. But I thought I felt a burst on the link from the Brumby King as it rolled slow past, just a flash and then gone and I didn’t know what it could mean so I put it outta me head. I was sickened with the crash but I could still see out me eyes, though I was stricken roadside same as Sinner. As the King passed I thought I caught a look of a pale face framed with dark hair and dark eyes lit by a rectangle of light from the rear viewscreen. It was just a flash and it was gone but I knew it was her and I knew she must need me help more than ever, kidnapped by the Brumby King.

Me sick heart quickened even more. I pulled the linkmaker with feverish fumbling, blinking for Sinner and there were signs of life. It was rebooting, but slow as. System crash. Damage to the body, though it’d only rolled the once. I couldn’t see no leaks or nothing. No smoke or fire, not yet anyway. Pretty soon there’d be roadcrew and all manner of scavengers turning up. I couldn’t even stand, let alone walk to run after Isa and the Brumby King. Best I could do was crawl away a bit further towards a patch of prickly pear where I could watch their tracks disappear into the dust.

I sheltered there under wizened cactus till I got myself together. I kept on zoning in and out and me eyes were hard to keep open. I didn’t know what was going on, me arm started aching real bad from where I’d been pulled separate from that big truckbody lying on its side in the dust by the road. We were laid low and I couldn’t see no way out. Pretty soon the flapples and bigdogs would be along to ping Sinnerman’s skin and I thought that’d probably be the end of my tale, too.

Sinnerman was ten tons of metal and gears and self-salvaged tech out in the sun there lying on its side in the rust coloured dust. A tawny flapple sat up high on the top, creaking as it folded its wings. It screeched like an old metal hinge and I heard the ping as it pecked at metal skin. I crawled back over and tried to push on Sinner but I couldn’t shift it. Even if I were hale and hearty I couldn’t of shifted it. I laid down in the dirt. I was gunna need some help to make it through. Some help, and then some more. A pack of bigdog robos gathered and it reminded me of the time I sat beside me Mum after she died birthing a dead babby.

Wasn’t long before Crow showed up, of course. Whenever there’s misery or misfortune, there’s always Crow come to pick the bones and see what he can find.

‘Looks like you’ve hit a snag,’ he said.

‘Yeah, well me truck’s rolled over.’

‘That’s a real shame.’

He eyed the wreckage and me crusted arm and reeking pale body, and his wet tongue licked dry lips.

‘Carn, don’t just stand there like a statue, gimme a hand tryin to right this truck,’ I said.

‘Mate, you know it don’t work like that. I’m here to see what’s of use in this wreck.’

‘It’s no wreck, it’s me truck Sinnerman and we’re gunna be back on the road before the likes of you can get yer claws in.’

‘I dunno about that, boy. Youse’ve got some serious problems. That truck’s on its side.’

He looked at me sharpish through eyes so clear they were almost white inside, and nothing shining in the black.

‘I’m just gunna sit down and have a smoke,’ he said.

He sat down under the shade of Sinners truck body and took out a little pipe, loaded it with ganja from a leather packet. Sparked up and blowed smoke in me face. Meanwhile Sinner was rebooted and trying to fire its engine to get things moving. Not that it would of done much good the way things were.

I looked at Crow closer. He was changed since I last saw him. Looked almost younger in some ways, not so many creases round his eyes. Same trucktyre coat, but. Same hair down to his shoulders though it were turning back from white to black. I shivered inside, it wasn’t a homey feeling, being tied together with a creature like that on the roading through the country of the end times to truck knows where.