Spitshine

Feb. 24th 2009

"I'll squeeze galaxies between my unfettered fingers, swallowing the molten juice, inhaling exhumed nebulous clouds, downing the tiny many, and flecking the sticky remainder from my lightless lips."

It's a city tired as it's tall. Out for a day's drive some clutter, Harris isn't even sure what (he has to keep his eyes on the road) falls into the seat next to him, a few flakes hitting his bare scalp. They must have come through the sunroof. Writing of sun, some shine from that celestial competitor in a galactic chili cookoff jumped from the corner-decorations of a skyscraper and swiped Harris in the eye. He had returned los ojos to admiring the details (those he could make out at 70 km/h) when a mischievous wind reeled back a scrap of smog to put our local chilipot on center stage. It has details of its' own too bright for a man to ever make out at our Earth's spinning speed: bubbling fire that arcs like a playful puppy. Harris had looked at some of the stuff brushed from his baldness and it had a gray rocky appearence, aerated enough it didn't hurt landing on him from however high up. Whatever newer fragments carried through off the roof or as part of a promenade of jumpers, dashingly making it into the car just before the sunroof sealed, were no more informative. Harris had passed the last newer buildings this road wove, some of those w/scaffolding still in use, and entered the run-down section of Ebulon City. He wasn't going as far as the slums, where demolition charges would wake up squatters, but home. Into the territory of skyscrapers which ascended higher than the smog rose at the hottest time of year, pitted by acid rain, streaked by soot delivered in snowlike flurries then half-washed down, their pores looking like a mascara-wearing woman after her boyfriend breaks up w/her. Harris took his gear-shift in a calloused hand and looked in his rearview mirror before switching lanes. The part of his windshield's hud that showed the cityscape behind gave a glimpse of In Cindy-Sahn Phoom, the platan where his work was. The closest car (a conspiciously expensive Darbi) was trailing far enough back Harris could switch lanes w/out any fear of a crash. His exit was coming up. He took a right onto Imelt Tower. Where the road forked to the building's sides he road the East face. In the shadow of a skyscraper, during sunset, the Darbi's bodylight got Harris's attention. He had a tail.
Forget the speed advisory, risk of disconnecting from the magnitop, potential cars 'round the unseen tower corner, and above all safety: Harris accelerated. The engine misfired. His Miraldi doesn't have quite the pickup-and-go needed to manage his orders. A flash of light beneath him and electric pop was embarrisingly loud. Sparks cascaded in his wake. Enough to blind the Darbi so he could lose it? No. The trailing car had switched lanes (dodging the discharge) and was catching up. Over the building's edge. Harris knew another way home; he wouldn't be lost by the following manuevre. He violently flipped the polarity-tuner of his Miraldi and the resulting repuslision pushed his car into the air. His heart caught reflexivly but his motor skills took over: throwing his weight to the left to get the car's belly turning the opposite way and jerking the polarity-tuner back into position. Harris was still as a tinfoil hat before a flying saucer's openign bay doors as the highway parralel to Imelt Tower pulled his car to its' magnitop. Harris pulled into the emergency lane and turned off his Miraldi's lights. He checked the vehicle's underside to be sure that earlier pop hadn't burnt anything out. The underside was fine. As he got back in his ride he saw a terribly familiar Darbi and done what he shouldn't-a done: he panicked. Keeping ahead of the enemy he had his magnibay in a higher gear, closing to connect less w/the magnitop, before it'd established a good loop in a lower gear. It was a few minutes but they passed fast. The cars about Harris became abstracter streaks of glowing color as he hurtled down the straightaway to get distance between himself an' the unknown follower. Soon his chassis-transmission AI had locked the Miraldi's body-plates into their most streamlined, low-center-of-gravity arrangement and fellow drivers showed up as the opaquer patches in a polygonless cosmos to jink from before touching. Dangerously, Harris accessed his Navigator while the other hand steered through constelations that reset w/a blink. Driver Assistence>Defensive Driving>Other Drivers>Vehicle Identification. Both hands were returned to the wheel and both eyes watched the windshield as Harris waited for the "done" boop. Cars keeping up w/him would show up first as those closest-but-passed would be a lower-on-the-list streaming update. Boop. 1) Darbi 2)-Harris felt nervous. He checked his speed (still cycles to add before topping out). But he couldn't spare the brain cells or time to think right now and avoid collision. He could only read signs on his windshiled's hud. Needing to think, Harris decided if the man in the Darbi hadn't been lost at this speed there was no benefit to maintaining it so he might as well shred some cycles and plan...yeah. Now he could see the Darbi through his camera's rear-display. It was risky but Harris knew one more trick for shaking a follower. He felt confident enough to pull it off. At Yuo Overpass he would jump the magnitop. 3 exits left. 2. 1 He made a 90 degree turn while fully closing the magnibay for a second. That shutter-click moment almost had his car dragging and scratching but it got airborne. Falling down to the Yuo Overpass, Harris's Miraldi got some unwanted lift on its' rear. He clutched at the steering wheel, pressed his feet tight to the floor, and arced his back in an attempt to alighn the magnibay of his Miraldi w/the magnitop of Yuo Overpass. Crunch. The windshield had cracked. Harris shut down his Miraldi. The Darbi was lost. He had been holding the forward trigger down on his steering-wheel with such force and over such duration his released pointer-finger curled in the air -like a shrimp- convulsivly grabbing at nothing as its' muscles clenched.
Bently was flying but he felt like he was swimming. He had to go slower to fix the location of the casino above him. Translucent overlays of its' position jittered left and right, arguing about where the building sat in space. Bently knew it was static, hung in the sky by turbines, mechanical parts spun by the steam from uranium-heatsinks, fixed like cut jewels in gold filigree by the city sprawled in 360 degrees, draped around the casino so it couldn't lift off without tremendous frame-imploding property damage. When the harsh scrape-scream of metal on whatever-blend-his-Hummingbird's-made-of tells Bently he drifted too high he tilts the throttle. The sound is horrendously loud, a battalion of shock troops into his battered battlefied of a throbbing head, jolting him into a state closer to awake. A bounce-bump against the ceiling-building above bit down Bently's bleached teeth into his martinied tongue. A tab of iron taste scratched its' way down his throat. He's blinking w/bloodshot eyes but lids flutter clears the picture not-at-all. This casino's shadow is cool, much nicer than the sun-warm air he'll have to fly in soon. Smoothco. called him today to check the Yuo overpass out. Reports of dramatic shenanigans had come in. The road's manager wanted to be sure there were no cracks in the magnitop needing a repair team to be sent. Bently would do his appraisal -ah, it's bright! He's emerged from under the casino and squints. He's jabbing his thumb on the down arrow to dim his windshield. Black. Relaxing but he can't fly blind. It hurts to see glimmers of sunlight through his tinted windshield. On the scene of the alleged crash Bently leaves his Hummingbird hovering next to the road and staggers off. He stands still untill the ground sways a bit less. Ah, nice and flat. He goes through the whole procedure: running the planer over the site to measure its' levelness, slides magnets over the surface to confirm it has maintained functional levels of electrical current, setting up markers to let drivers know to go around, laser-scans the magnitop to find the deepest pit, fills it w/water then sucks la agua into a vacume tube that gives a readout of how deep the depression is (well below safety concerns). As a personal touch Bently runs his fingers over Yuo Overpass' pits. Meh. He has felt rougher skyscraper exterior walls. These dinky dents won't even cause a cycle to lose power. Bently gathers his tools and reloads his Hummingbird's underbelly. He'll file a report saying no repair crew's needed w/the modification of "high-risk work zone" on his price. That designation's technically for area's w/sterilizing radioactivity, unidentified chemical spills, wildfires, deadly crime rates, etc. but Yuo Overpass lets cars run at enough cycles of electricity and has enough accidents he'd use those numbers as justification for the designation. Really Bently's just erked to've had to go out and check this non-issue. Whoever pays him won't dispute the claim though. Smoothco. wants its' inspectors happy an' he'sn't grifting enough they'll give a shit. Unsteady, Bently trips while returning to the cockpit. His stomach swings into the sidedoor's steps. A burp is slapped out of him. His unsupported legs kick. His eyes are wide and staring as he struggles to hold on. Not sure what to do. Lactic acid already burns in his arms. "Steps extend" he says and a few more steps unfold from the Hummingbird's undercarraige. He thinks he can lay on these. Tentatively, acting ahead of thoughts like "no you'll kill yourself!" he puts one arm 'round the side of the steps. He has a good grip and the steps don't make a sound of protest underneath his torso. A stranger asks, "need some help?". W/his first foot on a rung Bently turns around enough to see who pulled over. "No I'm fine". Red-faced, Bently scrabbles up the steps and stands in the cockpit, holding onto the doorframe for support. "Thanks for the offer". The stranger returns to his car and crackles away. Seated, Bently commands, "stairs retract" and loses his last feelings of needing to justify why he added an additional fee. When he gets home it'll be coffee and a shower.

...you crazy? Darbi's are the best selling car this year!" Braver than a million of his brothers Ted heads out to search for food though he senses shouting and light. "razor me! We still have roaches Harris! Maybe we could spare for an exterminator if we weren't paying for a new windshield every time you think you're a fucking spy!"
I didn't think I was a spy. You see a Darbi in your rearview and think it's following you? What's wrong with you? ... she has her pointer finger in the right corner of her mouth. She's holding her purse. The roach is in the trash can, crumpled in a paper towel, imprinted w/a heel. Harris has his hands in his pockets. He looks up at her and her eyes meet his showing love blended w/worry and uncertainty. What am I going to do with you? I've set aside some coin for a new motherboard. I'll use that for the windshield. Harris steps over to her. Puts his arms around her waist. Folds them across her back. They tilt their foreheads in together. She sighs. In a tone of 'that's it' 'the game is lost' as one confessing something she'd rather not admit but must address she says, "I have to go get Sesillia."
Bob wonders where Ted went. Harris waits until his wife's done looking at him through the door gap then smooshes the roach he saw. He cleans his hands and wipes her lipstick from his lips. Lawrence was afraid to leave but wants to be with Ted and Bob.
Harris' old windshield is being recycled. Road corporations give discounts to customers who turn in enough car parts. A lot of cars contain materials used in road construction. The rest can be resold to car manufacturers, chop shops, or custom designers. Its' sand had been a rich deep purpily gray. Sparkly, soft, and compressed in a Carribean Quarry. Automatons checked the molten sand for impurities. There were many stages of manufacture. Some of the more interesting included a mold, air-cooling, water-spray cooling, cleaning solutions, being dipped in water, air dried again, and a sprayed-on layer of electroconductive polymer used to display miniture camera fees, GPS arrows, the 'call incoming' jiggly phone animation, etc. The windshield had liked Harris. He usually drove fast so the windshield could feel more airflow on it. Strong air pressure reminded it of its' birth in the O'Gangsta factory. A fast drive was reminescent of its' hydraulic-muscled mother's spurt-of-air curresses. When dust or pollen clogged the windshield's pores faster than it could turn them into enough citrus to smell Harris ran it through his garage's carwash. The windshield loved sitting in Harris' home's garage in the cool dark evening, shiny from moonlight. It had been in pain from the afternoon's accident. Each movement ground its' fractures together a little so it'd say "ooo" or "eee" if it could. The windshield heard the screach of thunderous machines with large shaking bodies. The other windshield's on the rack passed down the story of the machines being Brahman. Windshields were shattered by sonics and crunched by metal needle-teeth into grains. The grains would be melted as they were delivered: hot orange. They were all to be reborn. The windshield took comfort in the story. His cracks ached. On the ground he saw shattered glass smothered in dust. He did not want to decay like those bottle-pieces: discarded, forgotten, dirty, skin coated in dirt. The rack moved and he could see into the gate of the great machine. All he could hear was the screech of glass-polymer broke into smaller and smaller pieces. He could not see the fires. How would he be reforged? Condensation streaking down his face the windshield tinkled to know who had seen the fire. 3 more windshields entered and none could say they saw it. The fourth was cut off after "I see" but he sounded awed. Maybe the fire was real. Harris' windshield focused all its' attention on looking ahead, straining to see if it would be reforged. The rack placed the next three windshields through the great gate. Then the openings in the collossal mechanical afterlife aligned just right and Harris' windshield could see several steps ahead, further down the process-line. A fire roared. Hotter than any he remembered. It knew it had come through such a fire before, though it couldn't remember. The vision of fire was so complete in the windshield it forgot its' cracks as forgelight flickered through them. Then the great gate closed behind it, the machine filled for this cycle, and the windshields who'd heard Harris' windshield's questioning of the fire did not see what became of him.