Tally Road Original Story- Chapter 22

"No, you can't have a bike again, Boodins." said Rai.

"But why not?"

"You've got to be kidding." said Siertes. "Haven't you heard of Tally Road?"

"Yeah, from the song, and the movie, and... oh! Wait, come on, you mean it's real?"

"What gave you the idea it was fake?" said Dene, blinking.

"Well, it's pretty extreme..."

"That's why you can't have a bike, Boodins." said Rai. "It's just too dangerous. What about this one, Siertes, 'aons?"

The Tompar Mued studied the suggested vehicle. "One word: range. Otherwise it would be OK."

"How far do we have to get?" asked Rai.

"We can't count on any refueling. We need to be able to make a straight shot to Vierach without slowing or stopping, because Leet isn't supporting us..."

"Is he attacking us?"

"We can get out of his territory without any harm as long as we make no further demands on him. That mostly means we can't take advantage of any of his resources. We're too hot to touch right now and he needs us to pretend we don't even know him."

"Well, you know him!" said Boodins.

"I know him well enough to pretend I don't know him at all. How about this one?"

Siertes indicated a sleek trucklike vehicle well provisioned with fuel tanks, turrets, no visible windows... the telltale air inlets and outlets for typical Runge turbine electric generation were startlingly large. The vehicle was polished to an expensive gleam. It was black.

"We can't take that!" breathed Dene. "I mean... just look at it! You can't think that he'll let us have something like that!"

Siertes smirked. "Just for that, it's elected. Get in."

"But..."

"Listen." said Siertes. "Leet wants us gone. He owes me, and he's not so bad if you don't cross him or own something he wants, but what's important here is that he can get another one of these in just a few weeks. I don't know who he got this one from, but if we don't take it someone else will. Get in."

Rai looked distressed. "Are there no vehicles he legitimately owns?"

Siertes laughed unkindly, and got in. Dene followed, and Boodins and Rairate grudgingly followed suit, exchanging unhappy looks.

"I could probably convince Voustrets to buy it..." offered Rai, which got him a sharp glare from Siertes. "Don't even joke." she said. "Don't even think about contacting him or anyone until we're out of here..."

Siertes took the wheel, and a brief search led her to a likely-looking switch on the dashboard, which was largely bereft of features. She flipped this switch triumphantly, and was caught with a blank look as the formerly plain dashboard lit up and was filled with graphic display readouts of great complexity.

"And now we, uh, go." said Siertes. Her eyes darted among the readouts and displays. After a few seconds, Rairate remarked "Do we?"

Dene was hovering fretfully over Siertes' shoulder. "I think I know how that works. Can I tell you what to do?"

"Figures. Sit your fuzzy butt down here, crazy wolfess, you're driving."

"To where?"

"...good question."

After a few seconds, Rairate suggested, "Could we go back to the spaceport and return to the Aintar world Delmas to look for Finn?"

"How can we return there when we never got there in the first place?" asked Boodins.

"Oh, we were there all right," said Siertes, "just comatose."

"That doesn't count!" said Boodins.

"I suppose it would seem more relevant if we'd stayed there." said Rai.

"I like the idea of getting off-world if Leet doesn't want us around. That should work." said Siertes.

"Do you think Finn will know we're coming?" asked Dene.

Rai and Siertes looked at each other.

"That depends," said Siertes, "on whether Leet pulled us in on his own, or whether he was doing it on Finn's say-so."

"No, he said something about Finn being in trouble- I think he kidnapped us because Finn asked him to. It depends on whether he wants to keep communicating with Finn." said Rai.

"Which he doesn't."

"It appears not."

"So Finn won't know we're coming?" asked Dene.

"He knew we were after him." said Siertes. "It's hard to say how much he'll guess. He didn't get to work for Leet by being stupid."

Rai considered this. "But, he is also working to supply Xarnax?"

Siertes' eyes narrowed. "Maybe he became stupid."

"But how could anybody work for Xarnax?" said Boodins. "They want to destroy all organic life!"

"That is not precisely true, 'aons." said Rai. "Xarnax units have been seen very far from their home system. I've never heard of one attacking a Vorsi, and our people as well have been frequently spared attacks."

Siertes glowered. "Our people have not."

Rairate said politely, "Of course. And in addition, Estrai have been targeted, as they have fought in the defense of the Tompar."

"But how would anyone even work with AIs?" said Boodins. "How do you communicate?"

"Over the network." said Dene.

The others looked at her. "That was a very quick answer, crazy wolfess." said Siertes. "Why do you have such a quick answer?"

"I've seen it done. Well- I've seen people who said it was done."

Siertes seized on this. "Then... if that's true, you could, I don't know, give them a virus or something?"

Dene barked with brief laughter. "Don't you know what they are?"

"The enemy."

"No," said Dene, "what I'm trying to say is that they're out of my league, and yours. The serious code hackers have to deal with them, and they don't like to talk about it much. They're on the network, and if Xarnax wants to do something to you, they probably can. If there's a vuln, indirect exploit, anything like that, they're in, just like that. You have to watch for system loads because you can tell Xarnax stuff by that. Their backdoors eat tons of CPU. You have to power off the systems and sometimes wipe the media, because it's like the backdoors are alive..."

She tapered off, meeting uncomprehending looks from her companions.

"Can you kill them?" said Siertes.

"No."

"Then shut up and drive."

Dene tapped some touchscreens, grabbed the steering wheel, and slammed her paw down on the accelerator, and they were off.