Thursday, July 13, 2006

Six's blog. The Zoo

By N.Barnes

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Entry 12: 08.06.70>

So Ash finally put his short arms in his deep pockets and coughed up some Benjamins for a Dodge Crew Cab. I’ve got plans for this vehicle capiche – it’s for my boy so I’m tricking it out as a real sweet ride and spent most of last week with my head under the bonnet. I reckon another couple of weeks and she’ll be good to go.

Kitty decided I’d been hard at it for a little too long and at her insistence we hauled ass down the Strip for an impromptu meet. Two racers were looking for action - a young pup, name of Bumfluff, cruising in a DBI tuned Toyota Commuter, I’d seen in last week’s ‘Trader. I knew what to expect from him but there was a Troll too, name of Smog, mixing it in a tidy UCAS Muscle Car and he was an unknown quantity. Like I was bothered…

Off the line I played up for the crowd and deliberately let the boys get the drop but damn me if I didn’t immediately go and dump the clutch late and kangaroo forward off the line. Ain’t no kudos in those skills Dog!

Bumfluff’s acceleration gave him the lead from Smog but he was all about straight line with no concession for the corners and he span out first turn.
Ghosting Smog around, I saw him swerve to avoid a reversing truck and I dived for the gap slowly appearing between the truck’s front end and the wall. It was tight, but I am THAT damn good. Cruised past the cab giving the truckie a coronary and left Smog chewing fumes.

Evidently Mr Troll is a canny racer though. He tracked me through turn two and on the back straight picked up my slipstream. He got a good draft and was wise to me closing the door, selling me a dummy before chasing it up the inside. He was maybe a car length in front and I could see his muscle motor had the top speed edge. I knew I’d have to put my skills on the limit through the complex of turns three and four. I picked up his draft, then as I saw him dump the brakes, swung out to take a higher, tighter and faster line. The rubber bit at the front as the back drifted nicely out leaving Smog chewing his steering wheel in frustration. He bogged down out of the corner and there was no need to take further risks, so I eased off through four, then floored it for the home straight before kicking the back end out past the line to finish with a neat little J. I had to give Smog his props though – the dog can drive so I’ll be looking out for him on the strip again next time!

Turns out that while I was laying down my moves on the blacktop, Mr Contacts was doing his thing and picking us up an easy sounding 20k contract to ‘liberate’ a mated pair of Thunderbirds from the San Fran National Zoo. He hit me up the next day and a brief Google later, I was smacking him upside his damn swede. Thunderbirds are paranormal crits that can form an electrical charge like a lightning bolt and fire it out of their damn arse.

And we’d gotta bring these birds in alive? What a crap shoot.
We took the girls for a day out at the zoo and had a quick recce, learning that our Thanksgiving Turkeys were being treated at the Vets. You’d think this would make it an easy mark but after gearing up and heading back later that night, we found someone a little ahead of us. The guards were out cold, gates and doors forced open and cameras spray painted out. Thunderbirds were gone and Lone Star were inbound. We snuck out quietly and Sickle tapped up Lamb for some intel. Tracking the raiders on Cam, we followed them to a Downtown apartment block. We expected trouble but it was just a couple of student beatnik Greenpeace wannabe’s FFS! Sickle gave them a lecture while Ash set up a drop and we took our birds and blazed. Frag knows what ailed them - if not for the Medibot we’d have lost them but they held on until the Johnson paid up!

Mood: Bemused! From Corp War to Avian Theft. What a week!

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You crazy kids. I dunno, i take a week off and you start stealing lightning turkeys...

Race sounded good though, keep at it six!!

Anonymous said...

The race was tense...reminds me of dodging asteroids in fading suns!

Didn't realise how much we lean on a decker in everyday runs till Ki-rin was absent...appreciate your deckers more - even if they are hard to get on with automotons!

Anonymous said...

What was funniest about the race was Trev, who drove his car they way he used to fly his ship. Switch the asteroids for parked cars and the corners of buildings and there you have it, Trev zipping around like an Ewok on a speeder bike again...

Anonymous said...

You could argue that after his lack of success in all these styled runs he would would change his MO..but oh no not the treebore..finesse is just not a word he understands!

Never mind T...one day the odds dictate that you may actually come close winning one...or at the very least finishing.

Anonymous said...

Eh? Who's hard to get on with? Besides Mr Personality of the year 2070 who are you to talk :-P

Anonymous said...

Never said I was easy go get on with..or had the personality of the year...be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that what I said is true!