Bork Lazer — Roleplayer Guild

>//:OVER_DRIVER

“ Ho-zzztt-oing---zzzzzttt-Chaff-zzzzttttttttin-c-bbbrrzzzzttt”

Well, something finally broke this solitude of silence. Mack heard the familiar buzzing of radio interference coming from the inbuilt speaker in his Prism, in the midst of peeling open yet another carb-bar. He quickly stuffed it back into his pocket, sugar-high beginning to wear off after an hour of standing and waiting for absolutely no one.. He placed his Prism on top of Monica’s front hood. His gloved hand reached inwards into the helmet, twisting a dial to increase the overall audibility of the radio frequency from a unintelligible garble to something that resembled normal human speech. 

“ I’m here to help,- bbzzzttt -you know…...If you could believe that, Driver-Boy?” 

“ What in the  -” He narrowed his eyes for a moment, ignoring the awful nickname, before they widened in a mixture of realisation and surprise. “Amano? Are you surfing right now?” The outer edges of the Zone were cut off from the data-stream of the Labyrinth, as far as he knew. He stared around, Amano’s voice continuing to emanate from his helmet as if it was possessed by some ghost. It should have been impossible. Not for Delilah Amano, though. If he was the deposed king of the streets, then, Amano was the queen of the Labyrinth. He’d interacted with the roguish tech-wizard a few times, merely on a professional basis and never on a personal level. He had no problems with trans-humanists but he was freaked out by Amano’s perverted fascination with melding meat with metal. It was simply shuddering to think about the galleons of Neurosynth that Delilah would have to guzzle everyday to stay sane. He continued to listen, albeit far more on edge than he was usually before. If Amano was involved in the workings of their makeshift scouting team, then, it would take a fool to not listen to the word of a data-surfer. 

“ Well, that’s interesting. These voting machines are definitely different than the ones in Central...Isn’t there supposed to be a standard number of machines per voting zone? I’m counting only three in there.”

 “Three?” Mack blurted out loud, stewing the revelation over in his mind while a bubbling mixture of anger and anxiety brewed inside him. Seven or six less than the standard amount as far as he knew. Why did Campbell have to jinx himself? Then, again, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Tampering and corruption within the Zone was considered to be a virtue, not a sin. It was a way of life and no matter how Campbell tried to become the paradigm shift that the Zone truly deserved, people would still be people. 

“Shit. I’ll be right back. The boss needs me - probably…” 

Delilah’s frequency shorted out for a moment with a brief bout of radio static before becoming deathly silent. “ Amano? Amano?” No response. Mack stepped away from the Prism, leaning back on Monica’s frame with a silent creak. What to do? What to do? He briefly considered telepathing with Monica to use her 3.5 Ghz comm modules to contact Delilah. Unfortunately, Daedalus didn’t programme the Victory’s with an inbuilt data translator to sync into the digital mazes of the Labyrinth.. Besides, attempting to link his brain to a high-speed channel of matrix data without a proper installed neural deck would short-circuit and overload his dendrites. He wasn’t keen on becoming a permanent vegetable anytime soon. He stared downwards at the Prism helmet again and then, at the front storage where the dart pills lied in anticipation of his surrender. Perhaps, having a bulletproof cranium and Amano in his ear was better than visibility after all. With a sign, he donned the Prism helmet again, stuffy hot interiors transforming into cool air lieu of the built-in miniature aero-cyclers. Delilah’s mere observatory comments were enough to make him bristle with a mixture of anticipatory paranoia. They were walking into something alright. At the very least, the mission wouldn’t be as boring as he hoped. Loneliness began to set in once more as he waited for Weaver to arrive, tapping his foot in an incessant rhythm. 

The longer he stared at the ruins of the Railstop Station in all of its dilapidated glory, the more it unnerved him.. He’d sent a few passengers to the RailStop Station before, though, they mostly consisted of drunkards who used it as an loitering area or the odd rogue avant-garde holo-tagger who used the decaying walls as a fresh palette for never-to-be-seen art pieces. He knew only gossip and murmurs about its history from the online rumour mill. Past mayors had been attempting to satiate the public concerns about urban decay with gentrification policies but Gatch only used a few run-down buildings in the inner zone as examples of his benevolence, never the outer edges. The outer zone was abandoned, both politically and physically, from the rest of the Zone. A graveyard of hopes and ambitions, of future promises gone to waste. The sound of churning engines broke Mack out of his reverie as all-terrain tires scrunched onto the syn-crete pavement. 

Weaver’s car was jury-rigged, a hodge-podge of various models and frames that belonged in a scrapyard. The ugly contours and the cobbled composition made the automobile an eye-sore for Mack. His mind raced with a flurry of over-analytical criticism and instinctual commentary as he scanned and appraised the vehicle for himself. Paint job is a mess. No electro-matting whatsoever. He walked over towards her parked vehicle as she swung open the door, fermented tobacco filling the air around Taryn. He only gave a nod in response to her apology, more interested in her car than her.

Hydraulic suspension. Foam cushions. Frame somewhat resembles a Quadra.. About as common on the market these days as synthetic diamonds, which is to say, not that rare. He leaned on his knee for a moment near to one of the exhaust pipes, taking a moment to breathe in the fumes. 2045 factory model uni-vented turbocharger engine. Quadra was always famous for their quad turbocharged engines, although, they lost the legal lawsuit back in 39’ when they started combining isotopic CHOO and a carbonation engine. Heck of a lot of speed but at the cost of stability. Of the explosive variety. He stared through the window. Old analogue display. Quadra probably tried to cash in on nostalgia. If the Victory was a modern art-piece, then, Weaver’s Quadra was like a classical painting that had been tuned up to modern standards. Pure ethyl engines were rare on the market now as hybrid and hydro grew in demand. Overall, he wouldn't mind giving Taryn's wheels a spin. He could feel Monica's headlights glaring at him with every growing second. The Quadra was competition to her.

Standing back up and shaking his head in approval, Mack brusquely replied back to Taryn’s query, his back turned towards her. “ Yeah, Cantos is already in the heat of it already. Razor-girl’s probably done mopping up whatever schmuck’s inside there already.” He then chuckled as he briefly thought about Cantos pulling out that street katana of her. “ Well, if there are any schmucks to kill.” 

He took out his Street-Shredder, holding onto the polycarbonate frame like a lifeline and pointing the barrel towards the general direction of the front entrance “ I reckon we go in through the front, through the train-yards over there. We meet up with Cantos in the center, see if there’s anything left to scrounge up in this mess.” He began to walk over towards the RailStop, motioning for Weaver to follow him. He wasn’t a trained street-samurai or a corpo-bodyguard who read razor-mags everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe, he was out of his league but someone had to come up with a plan and he sure as Hell wasn’t going to twiddle thumbs, hoping for someone to have a plan of action.

He kept twitching the radio transceiver in the meantime, waiting for Delilah’s nonchalant voice to pop back up on frequency.

“Hey, Amano. If you’re there, having you as a rear mirror would be really helpful.”
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