Thicker Than Blood | Page 5

gunna be a half hour before I can leave." Joe was still a bit dazed by his near miss. "So I'll see you in thirty-five minutes then." Joe could hear Mark smirking on the phone. "I don't drive that fast." Joe grinned. "I thought you were going to strap a jet engine to your car this month?" "Nope. No jets in the scrap this month." Joe smirked. "Talk to you soon," Mark uttered in his almost singsong accent. "Later." Joe looked at the pile of tools and broken parts on the floor and shook his head.
Chapter 2
Why was Mark in a silly mood? Perhaps he has good news about our entrance into the next cyborg wars. Joe walked out the shop door scanning for strangers in the shadows. Satisfied that no one was lurking, he let his mind wander. The name cyborg wars was inaccurate, even funny, he thought. The main factor differentiating the cyborg war from the other robot battle shows, was the two-legged, two-armed nature of the machines. Not that these robots actually used the legs to walk, they typically had tracks for oversized feet. The key Joe had inserted into the shop door refused to turn. He examined the keychain and inserted the right one. Pay attention, he thought to himself. He had to be careful. He was physically large and possibly even intimidating, but his baby face revealed his age. If he were attacked he would be in trouble since ambulance response times were slower than ever. Joe walked cautiously through the cool foggy night toward his classic Camaro. The '73 Camaro looked strange with its red door, silver body and black hood. The air intake system stuck up through a hole in the hood, hinting at the power it might conceal. Joe thought it was probably a good thing it looked like a junk heap, otherwise it might not stay in the parking lot. The suspension groaned as Joe climbed in the car. He started the engine and the whole neighborhood knew it. This could never pass an honest inspection, he thought. Joe smiled. He turned on the stereo, loud, but then reached up and shut it back off again. He reached under the seat and retrieved a small computer and a pair of glasses. He strapped the computer to his arm, and put the pair of Clark Kents on. Clark Kents or "clarks", as the computer savvy liked to call them, were thick framed non-prescription glasses. They weren't just any glasses. They had a thin film display inside each lens and two simple color cameras embedded in the bulky frames. Joe tapped the flat panel screen on the small bland rectangular com15 puter strapped to his arm. This activated the binocular heads up display in Joe's clarks. Some text flashed by as the computer booted and synchronized with the computer Joe had retrofitted to the old Chevy. A semi-translucent tachometer, speedometer and nitrous oxide gauge appeared on the lenses of Joe's clarks. Joe preferred the style of gauge used in the elderly game Wipe Out, because it matched the graphics on his LCD stereo readout. Sensors on the car's hood and doors fed information into his Heads Up Display to visually enhance possible obstacles. Most modern cars had HUDs built in, but Joe couldn't justify the windshield projector since he had a decent pair of clarks. He looked at the wireframed objects on the street, scanning for police. He attracted a lot of negative attention with his Chevy, so a little patience was needed. Joe tapped his computer's screen and made an arching thumbs-'up motion in front of his clarks. A symbol shaped like a double clef flashed by. He turned the black knob on his 80s style car stereo. Static was followed by a few clicks and then the Rolling Stones. Joe mashed the gas, and the tachometer displayed on his clarks redlined. He couldn't hear the tires squeal over the music and exhaust. Joe scanned for cops as he drove. He was cranking along the Southern State Parkway at about seventy-five miles per hour. The inverted pitches built into the road made the Southern State the most challenging to drive. It was the only local parkway whose speed limit was not raised from the once mandatory fifty-five miles per hour. The highway patrol had lost some funding after the Seaford Oyster Bay Railroad line was opened, so there were considerably more speed traps. Lots of people used mass transit now, so the police had to work harder to meet the once reasonable quotas. Blue blobs of varying intensity flickered across Joe's clarks. The car computer was calculating the odds that any combination of bush covered reflectors, CB radio traffic, and radar signals meant a speed trap. He enjoyed taunting the turns with