Riotfish, Inc.: In Debt: Chapter 50

Thirty minutes later, Robby blazed into the clearing like his tires were on fire and his tailpipe was catching. He sprayed to a stop in the midst of a patch of gravel, showering everyone liberally with the small stones.

“Old man Dau– uh, I mean, Mr. Daugereaux, I’m here!” he yelled, hanging out the driver’s side window.

“May, it took you ‘bout long enough,” Daugereaux said.

“Um, I’m real sorry, sir. I got here as fast as I could.”

Daugereaux peered at Robby.

“Well, help me get dis knucklehead loaded up. You boys go on and hop in de back.”

“Yes, sir!” Robby hopped out and helped carry Fleer to the truck.

“Now be careful wit’ him, he’s leaking a little,” Daugereaux warned.

“Yeah, alright. Oh, I see. Wow. That is, um, a lotta blood.”

“Dat ain’t gonna be a problem?” Daugereaux glared at Robby.

Robby looked at the bleeding man they were carrying, then back at his shiny new truck.

“Uh. Nnnnnnnaw. Naw, that ain’t gonna be a problem.” Robby stepped forward and gingerly helped bundle Fleer and Daugereaux into the front seat. Ma Daugereaux loaded up as well, wedged between her husband and the passenger door.

“Y’all okay?” Robby asked quietly, looking at the massive hole in the front of Daugereaux’ cabin.

“We all right, we got to get dis fella to de hospital, though. Tout de suite, just as fas’ as you can.”

The rest of the Riotfish loaded up in the back, and the truck started rolling carefully through the woods, with Robby trying to avoid bouncing the injured Fleer.

“What kinda trouble y’all have out here?” Robby asked.

“Keep your paddle at your end of the pirogue,” Daugereaux said.

“Yes, sir!” Robby replied, keeping his eyes riveted forward.

“Oh, and dem fellas what done all dis,” Daugereaux said, gesturing at Fleer, “is on dere way wit’ more couyons booday. So you maybe wanna turn up the accel’rator some more?”

“Right!” Robby said, speeding up significantly. Branches slapped and scratched at the truck as it barreled through the woods.

A distant thudding sound grew in the distance.

“Hoo me, dat sounds like one o’ dem helichoppers comin’,” Daugereaux observed.

Robby turned to Daugereaux, aghast. The truck sped up some more. Pine branches openly snatched at the truck now, here ripping off the antenna, there pulling off a windshield wiper. A brief skid resulted in the truck flattening a small tree without slowing down.

They rocketed through the woods, with Daugereaux trying to buffer Fleer from the worst of the buffeting.

“What is he doing?” D’khara yelled in vibrato as he lay clinging fiercely to the bed of the truck.

“Living!” shrieked Little Timmy, standing up in the bed, clinging to the roof with a huge grin, and reveling in each lash of pine needle and bough.

“I made whoopsie!” Roger said.

“That maniac needs to slow down, or he’ll get us all killed!” D’khara yelled.

Oliver pointed at his ear as the thudding grew clearer.

“Choppers!” he yelled.

D’khara glared at him for a moment.

“That maniac needs to speed up, or he’ll get us all killed!” D’khara yelled.

“I think we’re about out of the woods!” Oliver yelled, and sure enough, with a final screech and the shattering of the passenger window, the bright red truck burst clear of the foliage. Robby spun the wheel, slewing them onto the patched, narrow road. As rough as it was, it was a cloud of bliss compared to the ride through the woods.

“Little Timmy, get down!” D’khara yelled irritably.

Little Timmy, all unawares, was glorying in the rush of wind in his face.

Oliver pulled him down.

“You’re slowing us down,” Oliver said, grimacing. “Too much wind resistance.”

Little Timmy tried to look put out, but he was riding high, and couldn’t keep his manic grin from resurfacing.

Robby opened up the truck on the straight, narrow road. The wide tires sang on the weathered gray asphalt as the needle on the speedometer passed three digits.

The minutes stretched out in terror. Robby could feel the steering wheel grow looser in his hands as their speed lifted some of the truck’s weight from the road. He clenched his teeth.

If so much as a squirrel ran across the road right now, they’d all be the flying dead.

Ten minutes of Robby’s white-knuckled speed-demonry brought them out to the main highway. He slammed on the brakes to make the turn, leaving a hundred fifty feet of rubber on the road, and still rounded the cloverleaf on two wheels.

They slammed back down onto all four wheels, and picked up speed on the smooth highway. The thudding sound faded some, and everyone breathed a little easier. The truck’s engine howled as Robby pegged the needle at 110.

“Which hospital?” Robby yelled, his bulging eyes riveted to the windshield.

“Mmmm, maybe I think Saint’s Mercy. Or Mulkin Center. Me I don’t know, which one you think is closer?”

Robby, his face locked in a terrified rictus, turned slowly toward Daugereaux.

“How’m I supposed to know that?” he bleated.

“You know what, you right, shah. I’ll look dat up, you jus’ drive.”

Daugereaux peered intently at Fleer’s datapad, scrolling slowly.

“I cain’t tell. Dey look about de same amount apart on dis little screen here.”

Robby refused to respond to this.

Outside, the thudding sound grew from near-inaudible faintness to a heavy bass throbbing. It suddenly clarified as a Mohawk Warbird cleared the trees.

The Warbird was a classic combat helicopter, long and narrow, built of sharp angles and fury. It had a rotary autocannon mounted under the fuselage, and four rocket pods mounted under its stubby, downward-sloping wings.

It rose from behind the ubiquitous pines, pointed itself at the Riotfish, and rushed forward with terrifying speed.

Even Oliver paled visibly, his rock-brown skin turning ashen gray.

“Chopper!” he screamed, pounding on the back glass to get the attention of those in the cab of the truck. “Chopp–” he stopped as his fist went through the window. He looked concerned for a moment, then poked his face into the cab.

“Sorry about that. There’s a helicopter out here.”

“Oh, t’ank you shah, dat is good to know.”

A long black gravcar, a Dominion Utopia, came smoothly up from behind and shot past on their left. The powerful engine thrummed as it thrust the gleaming midnight car past them. Another Utopia followed it, buzzing by with a wicked hum. Four more black Utopias swooped up to the rear of the truck, two of them hovering ten feet off the bumper.

“Daugereaux?” Robby trembled.

The cars in front, side by side, started slowing down, forcing Robby to ease back on the accelerator.

“I got dis,” Daugereaux said. He turned and yelled out the freshly shattered back window.

“Little Timmy! You think you can make dem carriages back off de front of us?”

“Are you crazy?” Little Timmy yelled back. “This is what I was born for!” He pulled out his Kealans, clambered onto the roof of the truck, took one running step on the hood and flung himself bodily at the nearest black car.

“I think dat boy needs to drink him a little less coffee in de mornin’,” Daugereaux observed.

The Utopia shimmied a little as Little Timmy landed on the trunk, falling to his knees. He stood, scrambled on top of the car and began firing both guns down through the roof. It only took a second for the driver, holed from above, to fall forward, dropping his foot onto the accelerator. The black car sped up. Little Timmy flung himself over to the other Utopia as his ride veered off the road.

He smacked heavily into the roof of the car, rolled, and slid down the windshield. He managed to snag the bolt handle of one of his Kealans in the windshield scoop of the hood, to keep from sliding off the front of the car.

“It’s like my birthday!” he could be heard to shriek dimly over the wind.

The driver of the second car had the presence of mind to start firing at Little Timmy through the windshield, but for all his training, he had not had any classes or instruction in “Firing Through Lightly Armored Glass At A Shrieking Madman While Driving 100 Miles Per Hour”, and was largely ineffective.

Little Timmy’s other Kealan rattled back at the windshield, and the car began to swerve. He yanked himself to a standing position on the hood. He leaped straight up. Momentum and wind resistance carried him back behind the Utopia.

The car veered off the road, and dropped one corner into a ditch. It flipped over madly like a loose shingle in a tornado as the gravwells lost their tenuous grip on the ground. The car’s brief flight ended as it landed with a heavy crunch in a soybean field and it burst into flames.

Little Timmy floated in the air for a brief, glorious moment before Robby’s truck slammed into him.

He came in through the windshield, half in and half out, spraying tiny cubes of safety glass across the occupants.

“Ow!” he grinned.

“You okay?” Daugereaux asked.

“I’m great!” Little Timmy yelled back, bleeding some. He pulled himself out of the cab and climbed back over the roof.

“Try to stay in de truck, now!” Daugereaux advised.

“Sweet mama in heaven, these boys is straight crazy,” Robby moaned.

“Oh, dey’s fine, dey just a little excitable,” Daugereaux said, knocking out the rest of the windshield so Robby could see. The incoming wind buffeted the passengers of the truck mercilessly.

One of the jet-black sedans behind them sped up, swung out, and crunched gently into the rear quarterpanel of the truck, knocking everyone in the bed over. It sped up, pushing further into Robby’s truck, trying to force them to spin out. As a gravcar, it was more stable at high speeds, but not as powerful, and struggled to push the heavy truck around. After a few seconds of fruitless pushing, it backed off.

Shrieking, Little Timmy popped up and turned his Kealans on the car that had attempted the PIT maneuver. Without being at point-blank range, he was leaving a number of bullet holes in their bodywork, but he wasn’t being terribly effective at stopping them.

“Ooh! Ooh! Me!” Roger called. Little Timmy turned to see Roger with a grenade in his hand, pin already pulled and spoon already popped.

Little Timmy cackled and dropped back down as Roger leaned over and gently dropped the grenade over the side of the truck. It bounced once, spinning madly, then vanished under the pursuing car.

The fancy black sedans, though armored, were not protected from the underneath. The grenade blew all four gravwells off the Utopia, which slewed around and spun out in a massive spray of sparks.

“Yeah!” Little Timmy yelled. “You like that? We kicked you right in the undercarriage! Now you’re walking! But walking funny!”

Roger giggled and dropped another grenade out of the back of the truck, which bounced high, exploding over another of the following cars. It weaved, and slowed down, pulling off to the side of the road to deal with a carload of burst eardrums.

The other two cars backed off.

“Ballet class left my slippers!” he chirped.

Little Timmy’s Kealans started rattling at the cars behind them again when a world-ending whiiiiish shot by, and a rich orange explosion blossomed in front of them. Robby swerved around the smoking crater.