The alley was empty, aside from his attaché driving towards him in the Ferrari. It was unrecognizable. It looked like somebody had stapled a giant, smooth-faced slab of metal onto the front of it. The modification set that Drake had applied to it had turned the front end into a giant ramp. Oversized tires were covered by a sheet of steel that angled up to a windshield that had been replaced with heavy bulletproof glass molded to continue the shape of the front end. The car vaguely resembled a giant wedge, its rear end more or less normal, aside from the heavy armor plating. Kurt nodded with a smile as he slid behind the wheel.
“What is that?” Jimmy had pulled the cab up out of the ramp and was leaned forward staring at Kurt’s Ferrari. “I’m not certain I approve.”
“Ha! Yeah, it’s a little ugly.” Kurt revved the engine, hearing the difference with the new high-power modifications. He had told Drake that he needed as much acceleration from it as possible, and the new engine mods certainly had that effect, as he discovered when he boiled the tires just trying to turn the thing around. After a quick, slipping turn, Kurt was facing the exit of the alley with Jimmy behind him. They pulled out into the empty street together, still moving cautiously, expecting an attack that didn’t come.
“Okay, so where are we taking this?” Jimmy asked once it was clear no enemies were nearby.
“Uhhh, good question. I didn’t plan that far ahead.” Kurt swiped up his phone and muted Jimmy for a moment, calling The Lace. Once the customarily short question of what he needed was posed, he thought for a second. “We need a high-value pickup for a large cargo container on a big rig truck.”
The voice on the other line hesitated before the line clicked in his ear and suddenly Crane was on the other end. “The only vehicle The Lace has that can move something like that is the Stronghold. The pickup can only take place at an airport, and the nearest one to you is an active warzone. You risk the loss of your faction’s Stronghold, understood?”
“I do. Land the plane, we’ll be there.” Kurt hung up on Crane, flicking his coms back to Jimmy.
“—should probably not sit here much longer. Why aren’t you answering me!?” He had apparently been talking to Kurt the whole time he was on the phone with the Lace. “Hello?”
“I was getting us a pickup. We need to get to the airport. I already set a waypoint, but you should take the lead. I’ll back you up.” Kurt moved his vehicle aside, finally seeing a small detachment of GoonStorm vehicles heading their way. They were approaching in formation, three Humvees with eager gunners in place.
Jimmy activated his armor and pressed the gas, sending the surprisingly quick big rig down the middle of the road towards them with grey dust billowing behind it as the gunners opened fire. Kurt tucked in behind the truck, paying attention to his map as the trucks swerved to avoid the stone-plated juggernaut heading towards them. The center Humvee slid into his companion to the right, both of them stopping dead in the middle of the road as Jimmy hurtled down on them. Kurt cut his wheel to the left, slipping his front end under the hood and wheels of the final Humvee and sending it hurtling into the air. His car was driven forcefully downwards in the action, but the strike plates on the undercarriage protected the engine and him from too much damage. Jimmy slammed the cow catcher into the Humvees in front of him, causing both of them to flip over in different directions.
“Okay, this is officially fun. We should drive these things more often,” Jimmy announced.
Kurt smiled at his friend’s quip, expanding his map and throwing it onto the side of his windshield. They were approaching the mouth of the concrete river bed that had been the scene of the Pirates’ devastating defeat the night before. Kurt looked at his map once more, a scowl growing on his face as he watched a massive red glow encroach from the sea.
“Hey, Jimmy, are you seeing this?” He waited, becoming aware of a faint but growing sound in the air. Kurt rolled down his window a crack, immediately recognizing the noise as a series of fog horns.
“Oh shit! It’s Kitty.” Jimmy hauled on the brakes, stopping the big rig in a cloud of tire smoke as they passed over a bridge leading into the Downtown Cluster proper. Both men stopped their vehicles on the other side, leaning out to look over the bay.
The red glow entered Kurt’s map range enough to fully register on the map. It was a giant vehicle notification dot, attached to the Jahre Viking. It was hurtling towards the mouth of the concrete river bed at an unrealistic rate of speed, a massive wake of ocean water spraying up behind it as all of its air horns blared a warning.
“Uh, Jimmy?” Kurt looked up at the truck beside him to see Jimmy leaning out of the cab, staring at the ship with his mask lifted and obvious concern on his face. “She can’t actually destroy the city, right?” He paused, remembering their days in Brescia again as his eyes went wide. “Dumb question. Never mind.”
“That ship would have grounded by now in real life, but this is a game, dude. Her skillset is all based around piloting ships and burning things.” Jimmy paused before shaking his head and flipping his mask back down. “We need to get away from the river!”
They ducked back into their vehicles, and Kurt noticed several more vehicles heading directly for them — the fleet he had been expecting since they made it out of the basement garage. The ground beneath them started to shake and neither man was able to drive as the vehicles shuddered and jumped on the road beneath them. A low rumble began to compete with the blare of the fog horns, and within a few seconds nothing else could be heard. Kurt glanced behind them at the bay.
The Jahre Viking’s prow lifted as giant plumes of flame and black smoke rose from its custom exhaust pipes. Kitty had activated some kind of booster system just as the massive ship entered the bay. Its plume of sea water rose dramatically, and the single largest man-made moving object in history rammed into the city. Kitty’s aim was impeccable, and the ship hit the riverbed straight on. Screams of tearing metal filled the air alongside the other apocalyptic sounds caused by the ship. Her skillset had ensured that the gigantic ship did not behave as it would have in the real world, primarily altering its top speed. The heavily modified oil tanker took three hours to reach its top speed, but Kitty had taken it out to sea far enough to ensure that wasn’t a problem. By the time the ship hit the riverbed, it was traveling at nearly eighty knots.
The Viking’s weight and momentum immediately began to tear the ship apart, but it absolutely would not stop. It slid screaming and blaring horns its full length into the Downtown Cluster, smashing through low bridges and trailing a slick of oil thousands of gallons in volume as it went. As the slow rumble of crushed concrete and tearing metal began to slow, the air horns cut out, and the ship listed to a stop. Large rectangular sections of the hull split loose and fell to the pavement in unison, each producing a sputtering gout of thick black liquid.
“We need to go!” Jimmy cut into Kurt’s stunned reverie, flooring the gas on the truck and boiling several of its tires as he started moving in a general direction of ‘away from that’.
“Yeah we do,” Kurt replied. His voice wavered as he watched a creeping wave of refined oil cover the city in his rearview mirror. It didn’t take his experience with Kitty to know what was coming next.
Jimmy cut the wheel to avoid a battalion of Abrams tanks heading to cut them off, driving them past an open-air mall as waves of oil sloshed through it. Taking only a few blocks that way at high speed was enough to allow the flood to catch up to them, and they both turned back to the north, desperate to escape the hell that Kitty was no doubt about to unleash.
“How much oil can possibly be in there?” Kurt muttered under his breath as they turned, driving into the teeth of a squad of Ursa APCs.
The big rig slammed into one, sending it hurtling into the air above the truck in a series of graceless flips. It smashed onto the pavement in front of Kurt as he swerved out of its path, driving his ramp underneath another. “It came standard with 168 million gallons, and Kitty’s skillset has probably quadrupled that by now. Just keep going.”
Kurt fell back as the remaining BPM-97 APC slid in beside them and hit the truck with a blast from its top-mounted 30mm cannon. He floored the gas pedal and slid underneath the APC’s back wheels, sending it hurtling into the air above them as his car spit sparks from its undercarriage and swerved on the road.
Kurt glanced in his rearview mirror to watch the APC splash into the encroaching oil slick but noticed something terrifying behind that. Due to the curve of the city around the bay they had pulled even with the bridge of the Jahre Viking, and Kurt could just make out a tiny figure standing on top of it with vibrantly colored hair. She was holding a lit flare above her head, and as Kurt stared, she waved cheerfully in his direction and allowed the flare to drop.
“GO! GO! GO!” Kurt practically shrieked into his coms, flooring his own gas pedal as the big rig lurched into a higher gear. The world in his rear-view mirror went white, a series of towering explosions rocking the city in a line at the river bed. Half a dozen skyscrapers stationed along the banks began to crumble and fall, consumed by rising gouts of flame and smoke. The Jahre Viking herself erupted in a massive fireball, splashing flaming oil over nearly a full mile of the city and surrounding area. A red alert popped onto Kurt’s map, announcing that the two Lace Hubs in the Downtown Cluster had been destroyed. Another followed, announcing his safe house was out of commission until the server reset.
Their com channel crackled slightly, an indicator that someone had joined it. “What the hell is going on?” Gadot’s voice was shaky.
“Just Kitty keeping her promises. She rammed the Viking into the riverbed and blew its oil reserve. She’s destroying the city, exactly like she said she would.” Jimmy sounded strangely calm, as he maneuvered the big rig towards a new pack of vehicles. They were also attempting to flee the fire and had the misfortune to join Kurt and Jimmy on their street. “We have the buyout. Heading north on Sepulveda Boulevard.”
“Right . . . right, I’m on my way.” Gadot seemed to shake off the giant firestorm consuming half of the city rather well, refocusing on the task at hand.
Jimmy slammed into the group of Humvees, scattering them and destroying two as they hurtled into a nearby shopfront upside down. The tsunami of oil behind them was now on fire, and still moving at a frightening rate, immolating any vehicles that couldn’t get out of its way fast enough. Kurt did his level best to ignore his rearview mirror, swerving to slip beneath a Humvee with its .50 cal focused on the big rig. The gunner wailed helplessly as he was thrown free and plummeted into the rush of oncoming flood, followed immediately by the bulk of his former vehicle landing atop him.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
A glance at his map showed more vehicles on intercept routes. Word had gotten out about where they were, and what route they appeared to be taking. The out-of-control fire behind them limited the city in an encroaching wave, but there were plenty of eager combatants on the outskirts, willing to try and take back or destroy the three billion. A cluster of dots on the map ahead of them concerned Kurt, but when they approached he saw the situation had fallen apart for GoonStorm. Their vehicles were engaged in a running battle against a squad of Ursa APCs, and the less-armored Humvees were losing badly. Kurt and Jimmy slammed through the groups, sending both sides flipping and smashing into each other and nearby buildings, to be consumed by the oncoming firestorm.
Their running battle became desperate as more and more enemy vehicles poured onto their route. Kurt began taking fire from GoonStorm Humvees directly behind them and swerved ahead of the big rig to protect his more vulnerable vehicle. Jimmy activated his stone skin armor, the truck regaining its stony appearance.
“Ow!” He sounded unhappy. “Can either of you get these Goons off me?”
Gadot chimed in with a short reply. “I’m a few seconds out, just hold on.”
Kurt cut his wheel again, moving to intercept an oncoming APC that appeared intent on ramming them. He slid his ramp underneath its front end and vaulted the heavy vehicle off-course, sending it tumbling over the truck into a Humvee on the other side of the road. “Really hope you brought something with guns, Gadot.”
As he completed his sentence, the road behind them became a cloud of asphalt and shards of metal. The line of Humvees chasing them were shredded from the sky as a jet engine tore the air, accompanied by the sound of a massive gun. BRRRRRRT!
Gadot banked her A-10 Warthog, flying it high above the rooftops and turning back for another strafing run. She dove and opened up her main gun again, raining an inescapable barrage of metallic death onto the road ahead of her crew and clearing the way. Jimmy and Kurt hurtled through the cramped downtown streets, ramming aside the burnt and shredded husks of Humvees and APCs.
Kurt eagerly leaned forward, tracking Gadot above them. “Yes! I’m starting to think we might actually pull this off!”
“Shut up! Everybody knows you don’t say shit like that on a heist, dude!” Jimmy’s voice was strained. As he spoke, a ten bar heat sprang onto Kurt’s map and he heard his lifelong friend sigh. “I blame you for this, Kurt, I really do.”
Kurt reached towards the windshield, pulling at the corners to expand his map as far as it would go. The side streets surrounding them were rapidly filling with red and blue dots, and the highway they had been approaching was practically flooded with the flashing irritations. “We need to change our route.”
“No. Just push through, we got this!” Jimmy sounded rather sure, but Kurt struggled to meet his optimism as he looked at the roadblock forming ahead on the map.
“Roadblock!” Kurt pulled alongside the armored truck to get a glimpse of the oncoming obstacle, and immediately regretted it. Two massive M35-series two and a half ton trucks were cramming themselves together nose-to-nose across the road in front of them.
“I see it. Get directly in front of me, match my speed and aim for the section right behind the cab of the truck on our right.” The big-rig swerved, repositioning on the road as the distance between them and the roadblock shrank.
Kurt hurried to aid his friend, putting on a burst of speed and moving out in front of Jimmy’s truck. He glanced in the rearview and pressed the gas a bit more to keep the point of the ram off his back end as Jimmy also gathered speed. The boxy troop transport ahead of them had a slight gap in the structure behind the cab, with an obvious fuel tank, and Kurt assumed that’s what Jimmy wanted him to aim for. He grimaced and flinched, closing his eyes as the huge truck filled his tiny viewing port.
The impact drove his car down into the road hard, throwing up sparks and rattling Kurt’s teeth. His vehicle barely lifted the massive truck, slipping under it and tossing it a few feet in the air where it met the ram on Jimmy’s semi. The troop transport split in half a second before erupting in dual fireballs on either side of the truck.
Free of the roadblock, they took the upcoming onramp, heading down onto the freeway that arced through the city and would take them directly to the airport. Kurt’s nerves frayed a bit when he noticed the thin stream of white smoke emanating from the hood of his car, but calmed when he saw the flood of burning oil spend itself and stop its chase, pooling where it dripped onto the freeway.
Olive drab camo Humvees and M35 troop transport trucks began to swarm into the freeway around them, giving chase alongside the Ursa APCs and GoonStorm Humvees. Within a few seconds of them having arrived on the freeway, it was full of high caliber gunfire as three factions all competed to rip them apart. Kurt gunned his engine, watching the rearview to make sure Jimmy was keeping up as he aimed for any vehicle foolish enough to get directly in front of them.
A roadblock ahead of them spanned all six lanes of the freeway and was under attack by GoonStorm forces desperate to get through. Half a dozen tanks crouched across the road, firing at each other while Humvees and troop transport trucks struggled to shove one another out of the way. Gadot made her return then, sweeping in low and lighting up the road block with a sustained BRRRT of fire from her nose cannon. As she roared by overhead, she released two underslung bombs that slammed into the Abrams. Jimmy and Kurt had to slow down to pick their way through the mess, avoiding the shelled-out tanks and shoving aside a flaming troop transport before the road was clear again.
They both pushed on the gas then, fleeing growing pursuit as the freeway finally arced up to thread through downtown towards the airport. Gadot flew by again, using her warthog’s cannon to shred any forces in their way. As she finished her attack run, she banked hard and swung into the city as two F-15 Eagle fighter jets screamed by and fired missiles.
“Holy . . . the heat has jets, too?” Kurt gripped his wheel harder, watching Gadot’s dot begin an intricate dance between the buildings of the Downtown Cluster.
“Yes. And tanks,” Gadot answered. Her voice was strained as she fought the G-force shoving at her during a hard bank. “And helicopters with miniguns.”
“Oh,” Kurt whispered. His voice was small, and the burning city rose up all around them to further intimidate him. Kurt looked out his side window, seeing the burning oil flood underneath them as they curved back through the city.
Jimmy chuckled in his ear. “Think of heat more in game mechanic terms. I mean as a concept. It’s not something you can really fight and defeat. You can just run if you piss it off, and the more you piss it off, the harder it comes after you. Too much chaos on a server, and the heat mechanic comes out hard to shut it down.”
“Very helpful Jimmy, thank you.” Kurt dropped back behind the semi-truck, having seen an approaching helicopter dot with flashing red and blue lights on his map.
A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter swept in overhead, buzzing down to hover beside the semi-truck. The metal door on its side slid open and the multi-barreled tip of a minigun slid out to point at the truck. Jimmy saw it coming and activated his Stone Skin ability, covering the truck in a rocky appearance.
“Little help?!” Jimmy yelled. His voice was strained, waiting for the onslaught. When it came, the truck swerved back and forth before he managed to get it under control. “Good thing my pain suppression skill is maxed out,” he said through gritted teeth.
Kurt realized he couldn’t wait for Gadot to save them, busy trying to shake the jets as she was. He pressed the button to roll down his window and drove up on the side of the truck, coming even with the back of the helicopter while being careful to avoid the minigun’s stream of lead. He drew The Messenger and carefully aimed, before crossing his fingers on the steering wheel and firing.
The rear rotors made a grinding sound before they spun off and smashed into a nearby building. With inky black smoke pouring from every portal, the Black Hawk bucked and whirled in an untidy circle before crunching onto the freeway overpass in front of them and detonating. Kurt ducked back behind the truck as Jimmy sighed in relief and slammed into the burning husk, sending it spinning off behind them.
“Damn good shooting!” Jimmy yelled. He sounded ecstatic before taking a few breaths. “See, told you. An expert shot in no time.”
“Yeah, well it feels like all I’ve been doing all week is shooting, so that adds up.” Kurt groused to the amusement of his friend. “Where the hell is this airport?”
Jimmy chuckled in his ear as the overpass arced around a skyscraper and the airport came into view. The airport was on a man-made abutment jutting into the ocean, with the roads leading to it all raised above street level. This made it immune to the creeping onslaught of the burning oil slick, which had pooled around the base of its island and streamed into the sea. The city burned around them, great plumes of black smoke streaming out of and between skyscrapers.
From their vantage point on the crest of the freeway, Kurt could see a final roadblock in their way. The obstacle consisted of two transport trucks sitting nose-to-nose across the freeway exit, their occupants in firing positions. Bracing them was a duo of Abrams tanks, both swiveling their cannons to face the oncoming vehicles.
“Gadot! We need you!” Jimmy reactivated his armor’s ability, gritting his teeth in preparation for the incoming fire.
Her response was breathless, the G-forces working against her apparent. “I’m . . . trying,” Gadot grunted.
“Shit. Aim for the center, buddy. Hopefully the truck can take it.” Jimmy’s plan was not particularly reassuring to Kurt, but he fell in line and braced himself as he floored the gas pedal.
Both vehicles swept down the two lane overpass, Kurt’s car directly in front as Jimmy pressed up as close behind him as possible. As they approached, the NPCs manning the line opened fire, spattering Kurt’s windshield with bullets, and two shells from the tanks sailed by overhead to impact on the truck directly behind him.
“That’s me out of armor.” Jimmy sounded strangely calm as the stone skin effect fell away from the truck and thick black smoke boiled from beneath its hood.
The sky tore apart to their right as Gadot’s Warthog swept over the roadblock with a deafening burst from her cannon, followed by an anti-tank missile. Kurt held his breath as he ducked low in his seat and slammed into the rising explosion in front of him at top speed. The scream of metal drowned out his own pained grunt as the car bottomed out hard and spit sparks from its undercarriage, tossing aside the ruined husk of a troop transport and barely lifting the tank behind it.
He glanced at his rearview mirror to see Jimmy slam into the tank, wrenching it over the edge of the overpass as the truck shuddered violently and swerved on the pavement. Kurt strained to see Gadot, looking out of his side window as he drove to the bottom of the ramp and the entrance of the airport. Satisfied with the glimpse he caught of her plane weaving and spiraling between the burning skyscrapers, he focused on the road ahead and tried to see through the black smoke pouring from beneath his hood. In his side mirror he caught a glimpse of her as she managed to get the drop on one of the jets in pursuit and down it with a quick burst from the Warthog’s cannon.
The street leading up to the airport was littered with destroyed vehicles, most of them police and civilian cars. Kurt weaved between them, trying not to damage the Ferrari any further as he approached an open chain-link gate leading onto the tarmac. The massive black cargo plane rumbled overhead as it came in for a landing and Jimmy whooped in his ear. “Almost there, man!”
They drove across the tarmac, bypassing the various wrecks of passenger airliners and military vehicles. “Oh . . .” Jimmy’s voice fell as they watched The Lace Stronghold come in for landing. Dozens of troop transports were piling into the airport behind them, having managed to wind their way through the flaming rubble and wrecks they had left behind.
“I’ll go. Get the payout on board and get it out of here.” Kurt sighed as he cranked on the wheel and pressed the gas pedal to get back to the gate. His vague hope was simply to block it long enough for Jimmy to get free, but he really had no idea how he was going to accomplish that. A quick glance at his wrist showed his health sitting at half with no armor left. Shaking his head, Kurt palmed a grenade and slid his wedge-shaped car to a stop in the middle of the single-lane gate entrance, getting out and leaving the car running.
The heat arrived then, dozens of armed and armored NPCs pouring out of the transports and moving to approach his makeshift barricade. Kurt slid down behind his car, gripping his Glock and waiting for his moment. As he heard the boot falls come close enough, he pulled the pin on his grenade and tossed it over the car. An NPC shouted, “Grenade!” in a panic, a second before the thing went off, and Kurt stood up to finish off anyone left standing.
He had misjudged the situation. Another three squads of the game’s best police NPCs opened fire, immediately driving him down behind the car again. Flames erupted from its vents and from beneath the armored wedge, and Kurt was forced into a staggering run, trying to make cover but knowing it was hopeless.
Instead of the small arms fire he expected to hear, a massive noise drowned out the explosion of his car. BRRRRT! Gadot swept over the gathered NPCs and hit them with a quick strafe from her plane’s cannon, before dropping in for a landing.
Kurt turned back, seeing the devastated NPC force. Nothing was left but massive holes in the road and shredded vehicles alongside a few piles of silver dust that were fading into the blacktop. He shrugged and continued running after the landing plane.
