Carnage! Love & Lust in the Wasteland
ROUND ONE (Peacekeepers vs. Soviets)
Otis spat the last bit of bile from his mouth, ignoring the blood that had come up with it. He turned on the taps and let the yellowed water do its good work, slapping a few handfuls on his cheeks and leering bloodshot at himself in the mirror.
“Pull yourself together, man,” he growled at his reflection. Sopping wet, gray-skinned, and starting to look a bit gaunt, he was the farthest cry from the Menace who had dominated the Carnage Circuits in his youth. At least his old leathers still fit, even if they hung off him a bit. He ran a rough hand over a couple day’s growth of silver stubble, deciding it made him look like a life-hardened death dealer instead of a haggard old man.
The sudden stabbing in his chest stole the breath from his lungs and Otis pitched forward, fingers digging into the chipped porcelain as he clung onto the stained sink. His throat closed to a narrow, whistling hole and he forced his hand to move into his Peacekeeper coat, dangling from a low hook on the wall. He rifled in one of the pockets, drawing out the bottle of pills and popping two into his mouth, forcing them through the narrow gap of his throat with a few gulps of the sulfurous tap water. After a few steadying breaths, he straightened and gave himself a final look.
“Now or never, Menace,” he said to himself. “Might not get another chance.” He nodded to himself and left the restroom.
The garage was in the throes of chaos that preceded a match, the fervor increased tenfold since the slot machine-style animation had played on the jumbotrons and revealed their match’s format, course, and hazard level.
*DEATH RACE - ASPHALT - LOW HAZARD*
One of their boons had come in the form of a few more mechanics to give the team time to rest this morning, waves of sparks and slag flying as welders fired as fast as they could. The final reinforcements would still be hot when they hit the field. A dozen voices filled the garage with requests for fluids, wrenches, or parts, and the go-fers hustled with sweat streaked brows. He frowned around the garage for the core team. Julia was already in the turret in the back of his truck, swiveling it around and getting used to the harpoon's controls. Roman was shouting at Mass from the cab of the monster truck, the big man in the box, heaving on a winch to bring a flamethrower aboard. The weapon had been amongst their boons too, claimed quickly by the huge man. He pressed through the shuffle toward them.
“Alright boys?” Otis called up, the tires of the beast taller than him for fuck’s sake.
“All good, Otis!” Mass called back, swinging the flamethrower aboard. He knelt and grabbed a set of brackets he’d had made, hefting an impact gun to bolt the flamethrower’s tank behind the driver’s seat in the cab. Otis saw that the driver’s side mirror had been removed and fashioned into a mount for the business end. Mass was all smiles, excited as could be, but with a hardness to his focus that Otis saw promise in. Green as the boy was, he needn’t worry about him.
“Not all good!” Roman growled, dreadlocks whipping around as he stuck his head out the window. “Not all good at all. Otis, you stick me with a madman! One loose spark and this thing goes up faster than we can say ‘I told ya so, ya bat-shit honky’!” He leered at Mass, the big man chuffing a laugh in response.
“Where’s Hawk?”
“Moping in the shitmobile,” Roman replied, pulling his torso back into the cab. “Mass, do we have any more of that fireproofing? I’m building a wall in here between me and your dumb ass.” Otis moved off, leaving them to it.
It seems that they hadn’t found time to paint the old cruiser, and in fact it looked all the worse for it. The welders had done a quick job of cleaning the steel only where they needed to weld, so the car was a garbled mess of rough reinforcements on a rusted body. In addition to the bits of armour, hardened steel blades had been affixed to the door, sticking out like low wings that would clip through tires that got too close. The machine guns formerly on the roof had been moved onto the hood and were encased in some steel channeling to protect them from assault. The steel mesh remained in place of the windshield, but the driver and passenger screens had been removed from the doors. Otis leaned down, doing a quick double take at the bit of lacy black tied to the stout radio antenna above the door, and turned his attention to the lad sitting in the car still and silent, bare-chested with knuckles white on the wheel.
“You alright, Hawk?” He looked like shit, eyes bloodshot with dark circles beneath, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips and dropping ash on his chest. Otis hoped he had managed some sleep at least. The lad gave a small nod in reply, eyes wide and fearful. Otis sighed. “Keep your head, kid. This ain’t nothing you haven’t done before when you get into a dog fight out on the dunes.”
“Except in here there’s nowhere to run,” Hawk breathed. He turned those round, tearful eyes on Otis. “Why did I do this, Otis? What the fuck was I thinking? I—”
Hawk’s head slammed against the steering wheel when Otis hit him, the garage quieting for a moment as the Crown Vic’s horn blared. Otis shook the pain out of his hand as Hawk righted himself, the side of his face already turning red. He recoiled in horror as Otis took him by the back of his neck and pulled him inches away from his face.
“Listen to me, Sid,” Otis hissed. “There’s no sense in whats and whys this late in the game. You’re here and you’re right. There’s no place to run. You want to live? Grow a pair, find your spine, and win.” He threw Hawk back into the seat, watching his words sink into the boy. Slowly, the shocked tears receded, the pain fading from his face as his lip stopped quivering. Hawk nodded, mouth opening as though to say something else, but shook his head and frowned down at his own lap.
“Thanks, Otis.”
“Five minutes!” someone called. Otis reached in and gave Hawk’s shoulder a kind squeeze.
“Drive safe, kid.” He moved off.
Otis climbed into his truck, Julia busy in the bed making her final calibrations. He flicked through the truck’s start-ups, firing the ignition and revving the engine. Someone hooted and the monster truck fired behind him, a hungry beast. He heard Hawk’s wild warcry next and the shitbox cruiser screamed into life, beautiful if you didn’t look at her. It might look like shit but that car was their speed.
The buzzer sounded and the garage door began to spool up. Otis flicked on the XM radio and cued up ZZ Top’s La Grange, cranking the volume as he palmed the pills from his coat pocket and threw back another two.
“You ready for this, Menace?” Julia crackled in his earpiece, exhilaration in her voice.
He said nothing, revving his engine to a deafening growl as glaring sunlight and the screams of thousands of fans spilled into the garage.
“Are you ready for Carnage!” the announcer blared as the garage doors came up. Mei was pressed to the glass in the Sung’s skybox, a jumbotron directly across flashing different feeds from the drones zipping around the stadium, but Mei’s vantage a perfect bird’s eye view of the steel shutters that would roll back and raise whatever course the Asphalt had been configured into for the first match. The air wavered with the heat of the droves of fans waiting for the same, baking in the morning sun, but they roared all the same as the teams rumbled out onto the Victory Lap.
“Here they come,” Izzy said next to her.
The Menace led the charge from the Peacekeeper garage, the bulky steel blue Dodge surprisingly agile for its size. The harpoon mounted in the back swiveled, the gunner waving and making a good show for the fans. Flanking him were the mismatched pair of Mass’ powder keg monster truck, a rolling tangle of hoses and lines leading to a flamethrower and some sort of cannon mounted atop the cab. Mei could hear the laughter as the jumbotrons flashed the piece-of-shit cruiser Hawk was driving, a rusted armoured car with a couple machine guns and not even a screen of bulletproof glass. His silly green hair was rippling in the wind through his open windows, the drones catching a good shot of him rounding the far curve. He looked focussed, hard, lethal, and it made her knees weak.
The stadium rumbled with the movement of hundreds of unseen gears, the steel shutters at the center of the Victory Lap rolling back, the course rising from the shadows below in all its hazardous glory. Sea-cans with mounted turrets ran a gauntlet corridor in the center of the Asphalt, fresh potholes blasted into hiding places at the sharper corners, the Start/Finish line on the opposite side of the stadium from where Mei sat. They were starting the games off slow it seemed, a simple loop with the shortcut through the center that only the most suicidal drivers would dare attempt. Smashed and jagged guard rails edged the audience-side of the track, a few burning wrecks throwing noxious smoke to harry drivers placed strategically around the inner ring. The Peacekeeper team had finished their lap and were jostling onto the starting line, out of sight from Mei but for the jumbotron and drone-feeds.
“And here come our Soviet comrades!” the announcer called, a chorus of boos and cheers drumming up as a stark Soviet anthem blared over the PA. Mei eyed the trucks, each of the military transports equipped with extra crewmen and towering coils, brass lines all feeding into strange ray guns mounted on a swivel. The triangle formation rounded the Victory Lap with military precision, black smoke spewing from their tailpipes in blinding clouds. As the drones caught snips of the drivers, Mei felt uneasy. Hawk might’ve been a rabid dog, dangerous in his own way, but these were trained men. “The Peacekeepers have won the coin toss on this one, jostling the Menace and the shitbox onto the starting line.” A course of jeering laughter again followed Hawk’s car on the big screen and Mei saw a tightness to his gaze, an intent. “Moscow-1 joins them, sandwiched between the two fierce opponents. On the second line, Ben Massimino and his rumble tumble monster truck idles into place behind M-1, Moscows-2 and -3 queuing behind the Peacekeepers. And now, ladies and gentlemen, our stakes!”
The jumbotrons cleared and pixelated lettering brought up the conditions of match, the announcer sounding off as they scrolled onto the screen.
“This will be a two lap race, projectile weapons to remain inactive until halfway through the first lap when a vehicle passes the checkpoint. First vehicle across the finish line moves on with their team, or the last team driving!” He paused to allow a roaring cheer at the prospect of people dying under their eyes today. “Drivers start your engines. Gunners on the mark. And adoring fans, get ready. It’s time for Carnage!”
The drones swooped low again and panned over the starting line, the vehicles that would become wrecks or renegades in the next few minutes. The Peacekeepers looked ready, the Soviets looked ready, and the crowd was definitely ready. A final shot panned over Hawk and his vehicle, Mei’s squirming as she had flashes from the night before, then she choked on her own fantasies.
“Motherfucker!” she hissed.
“What?” Izzy asked.
“He tied my fucking underwear to his antenna!”
Hawk red lined the cruiser’s engine, acid crawling up his throat, his hands so tight on the wheel they might never come loose. A drone bearing an ancient traffic light hovered down in front of the line and his heart nearly fell out his ass. It was time.
“Hawk, Mass, do you read?” Otis crackled over the earpiece.
“I read,” Hawk said, Mass grunting his ascension.
“When the light turns green I want you to give that shitbox everything she’s got. Get out in front, and watch the cow-catchers on their trucks, they’ll drag you right over.”
“Copy.”
“Mass, I want you to crush as much of that electrical equipment as you can before we hit the weapon checkpoint. I don’t know exactly what those cannons do, but I’m not waiting to find out.”
“You got it, Otis,” Mass replied, the smile clear over the radio.
A horn blared, loud and long, and the air vibrated with horsepower. The red light on the old traffic light blinked on.
“In 3… 2… 1…” The yellow light flicked on as the red died. Hawk set his jaw, hand on the shifter. “GO!!!”
The light turned green and the cruiser bucked, tires squealing on the pavement as Hawk gunned it, the sounds of the crowd and announcer muted in his ears as he tore off the line. He watched the speedometer crawl upward – 90… 110… 130… – the turnoff for the suicidal shortcut blurring past as the first corner came quickly to meet him. He laid a hand on his e-brake, planning his slide around the corner, when his car was struck from the side and nearly spun around as one of the Soviets caught his rear wheel well. Hawk swore, losing some speed as he fought for control of the wobbling car. The UAZ had him hooked, pushing him toward the rusted guard rail.
“I got you, kid!” Otis’s plow blade smashed the UAZ from the back and the Soviet vehicle was ripped free, thrashing as it righted itself. The Soviet tore off, taking the lead, and Otis pulled level with Hawk. “You alright?” he said, mere feet away and invisible behind his tinted glass.
“Let’s get that fucker!” Hawk growled, slamming the accelerator to the floor and howling as the cruiser tore around the first corner on squealing tires, chasing the Soviet.
“Off the first turn, it’s Moscow-1, followed by the shitbox, with the Menace not far behind. Gods below, look what Mass had done to M-2!” Hawk caught a flash of a replay on the jumbotron across the field from him: Mass’ monster truck with its front tires in the air, crushing a UAZ to a twisted wreck. He hooted with laughter then fixed his eyes back on the road. “And here comes the fun as M-1 breaks past the weapon’s checkpoint!”
The rear doors of the UAZ burst open as they hit the check, a pair of gunmen taking aim at Hawk. He swore as bullets began to rip into his hood and windscreen, one grazing his arm on the way by. He growled, coaxing all the speed the old cruiser could muster from its rotten old bones, and jammed the button for his machine guns the moment his tires hit the checkpoint.
One of the Soviets managed to get his door closed, but Hawk’s onslaught ripped into the other, blood spraying and the body doing a grotesque dance before falling into the road in a bloody heap. The thumps as Hawk drove over him brought deafening cheers from the crowd. M-1 was driving more erratically, weaving to eat up the entire roadway as Hawk harried them with more gunfire, hard on their bumper.
“That turbine primed, kid?” Otis said in his earpiece. The Menace swerved to the outside track, Julia swiveling to take aim at M-1.
“Let’s do it!” He popped the trunk and flipped up the switch that would activate the jet engines in his backseat, hovering over the button as the harpoon from the Menace sailed by, embedding itself in one of the rear doors of the UAZ and snapping tight. The big blue Dodge weighed him down with a tap of the brakes, and Hawk jammed the button as the tower of coils began to let off electric blue sparks atop the Soviet vehicle. He was sucked back in his seat as the turbine spooled up, shooting past the crackling UAZ.
“And look at that Hawk fly!” the announcer roared, the crowd calling its support as Hawk claimed the lead, heading for the third corner at breakneck speeds. “Will the Peacekeepers take a commanding lead? Not if the Soviets have anything to say about it!”
Crackling light filled Hawk’s side mirrors and a glowing blue beam struck his car with the popping sizzles of failing electronics. His dash computer flickered out first, the cluster losing lights and letting off streams of acrid smoke, the car sputtering as the engine ground to a halt, the turbine sputtering as it died. There were the sounds of ripping metal and Moscow-1 tore past, missing one of its rear doors as Hawk’s disabled vehicle rolled to a bumpy stop, thudding gently into the guard rail.
“Fuck!” he cried, slamming on the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Otis was barrelling down the road toward him, Mass’s yellow beast just rolling around the weapons checkpoint and spewing a gout of flame at Moscow-3 riding in front of it, desperately trying not to be squished. As he watched, a Soviet torso came out a hatch on M-3’s roof and fired a rocket launcher at the monster truck. Hawk gasped, squinting against the forthcoming explosion. It never came. Instead, the missile thunked into the monster truck’s hull and arcs of electricity leapt over the body, black smoke sputtering from under the hood as it began to fall back.
“I’m cooked!” Mass said. M-3 was threat free and gaining on Otis, the coils on its back charging up for another shot.
“Roman, see what you can do,” Otis said, voice frantic and tense. “Hawk, hold on!”
The Menace raced past with a twang. Hawk only just registered the harpoon sinking into the cruiser’s hood before he was wrenched along, Otis towing him and gaining speed slowly.
“Menace, have you lost your sense, old timer?” the announcer laughed. “There’s no chance you’ll beat these two trailing that giant turd behind you!”
“Hawk,” Julia said in his earpiece. “I rigged your car to run mechanically, everything but the turbine at least, but you need to manually prime the fuel pump with the handle in the trunk.”
“The trunk?!” Hawk sputtered as M-3 whipped past them. They were losing pace with the Soviets, both UAZs streaming ahead of them as they bore down on the end of the first lap. “Why the fuck is it in the trunk?!”
“Just shut up and do it!” Julia said. “The asshole announcer is right, we’re done for if we have to tow you. It’s a big red handle tucked behind your driver-side wheel well.”
“Let me know when you’re ready, Hawk,” Otis added, a smile clear in his words. “This old timer still has a trick or two under the hood!”
Hawk grumbled as he unbuckled himself, knowing that one bump might kill him while he was loose, and climbed over the still-hot turbine with no few curses. The big red handle was where Julia said it would be and Hawk wrenched on it, pumping as hard as he could. As though the cruiser was on a pull-start motor, he heard the engine turn over, then cough, then the floor vibrated beneath his feet. He hooted, scrambling back into the driver’s seat.
“I’m ready!” he said.
“Here comes the whip, boy!” Otis howled as they hammered around the corner. The outriggers on Otis’ truck slammed down, halting the truck’s momentum as Hawk slammed the accelerator. His speed, plus Otis’ whip, hurled him down the black asphalt nearly as fast as the jet engine had. His thrill turned to horror as he saw the Soviets already nearing the far turn. They were too far ahead, even with the speed boost.
“Holy fucking hell, Otis!” Julia swore. “Warn a woman before you do stupid shit like that!”
Hawk laughed, barely catching Otis lifting the truck’s outriggers in his side mirror. He focussed up, the engine screaming as he eyed the turn off to the suicide corridor, biting his lip and making a quick decision.
Gunfire began to pop as Hawk raced into the narrow corridor, blinded by anything else happening in the race. Sparks flew with the twang of ricocheting lead, a few bouncing around the cab. The barrage was insanity, a death wish, steam and smoke streaming from the bullet holes left in the engine compartment. One of his guards around his guns was ripped clean by the firefight, the gun itself not far behind. Hawk was screaming from a guttural, feral place inside himself, feeling like a god as the hot lead pinged around him, ripping bits of his flesh painlessly, blood and bullets flying around the cabin of his car. The scream turned to laughter as the mesh screen was shredded down with every inch of road he devoured, the sea-cans flanking him seeming to narrow as the end of the corridor came hurtling toward him. Otis and Mass were shrieking in his ear, a garbled mess he couldn’t make out. The track was ahead, he was going to make it! He was going to—”
The ground leapt out in front of him with a deafening explosion, the front end of the cruiser coming off the roadway in a spray of rock, dirt, fire, and shrapnel. Hawk was coughing as the front of the car slammed back onto the roadway, somehow miraculously still running. It took him less than a heartbeat of blinking filth from his stinging eyes to realize his foot was still jammed down on the accelerator. The cruiser tore out of the gauntlet as Moscow-1 was passing by.
Hawk hit the side of the UAZ and was whipped forward on the impact, his excessive speed carrying both vehicles across the width of the track. The truck smashed through the rusted guard rail and Hawk managed to grind to a halt before following it, hung up on the edge of the track as the M-1 rolled in a smoking tumble across the Victory Lap.
He barked a laugh as it came to rest, then flinched back at the ball of fire that bloomed to engulf it, men in flame-retardant jumpsuits well ablaze and bailing out the windows. Or, in one man’s case, screaming from where he was pinned and trying to crawl out the crushed front window, the weight of the vehicle resting on his lower back. Hawk could only blink, blood and sweat stinging his eyes. He looked back to the race track. Moscow-3 had veered past the collision and streaked toward Mass’s disabled truck blocking half the track.
“Shit,” Hawk said, turning his key in the ignition. Nothing happened. He scrambled back over the turbine and wrenched on the manual start again. The engine groaned and wheezed, fluids leaking and smoke dancing with steam as it poured from the car’s crumpled front end. “Come on!” The cruiser gave a near-death grunt, then the engine reluctantly screeched back into life. “Yes!” Hawk said, throwing himself back to the driver seat and slamming it into reverse, the bare rims of what had once been his driver side tires spinning a few times before grabbing the sun-sticky asphalt.
“On your six!” Otis ripped past, a quarter lap behind because of his abrupt halt at the finish line, but making up for it with speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a truck that size. Hawk jostled some speed, though not much, from the cruiser and pursued. M-3 was just passing Mass when a ball of black ooze fired from the monster truck’s rooftop cannon with the thump of discharging air pressure. It broke apart on the track in front of M-3, a mess of slick dirty oil. The Soviet’s tried to brake, but the oil was under their wheels too quickly and the truck spun out of control, going up on two wheels before slamming back onto all fours in a quick halt, tires spinning.
“Nice fucking shot, Mass!” Hawk roared, trying to coax his vehicle up past 60 km/h. Otis was closing the gap between himself and the last of the Soviets, the UAZ struggling to gain traction in the oil slick with its racing tires, the finish line no more than a stone’s throw away. The side door slid open on the UAZ as Otis came nearer, a gunman leveling a rocket launcher at the Menace.
“They’re EMP charges!” Roman cried over the radio. The Soviet took aim at Otis, but Julia was quicker. The reloaded harpoon twanged and Hawk glimpsed the Soviet’s face on the jumbotron, a moment of stunned surprise before a barbed harpoon shredded his head, the body tumbling into the dirty oil that had the UAZ stuck fast.
The Menace’s rear outriggers lowered, just touching the ground enough to give Otis some stability as he hydroplaned past the Soviets. Hawk’s cruiser finally gave up, rumbling to a defeated halt with a clunking death rattle. He swore, pulling a sidearm and stuck his torso out the window, eyes fixed on the jumbotron, the drone-feeds entirely focused on Otis now, whipping around the track and completing their second lap without incident. The crowd was quiet for the space of a moment as he ground to a squealing halt on the finish line. Hawk was stunned silent, then a smile crept over his face.
“And the winners of the blue bracket’s first round, the Menace and his motley crew! Decades off the tracks haven’t dulled that razor’s edge!” Otis was stepping out of the cab, soaked in sweat and ashen faced but grinning broadly at his image on the big screens. There was a transition on a few of them, Otis’ image replaced by replays: Mass crushing M-2 off the line, Hawk’s suicidal dash through the gauntlet before careening into M-1, then to Hawk and Mass sitting on the doors of their respective wrecks. “Tough go, green boys! Maybe next round you’ll actually finish the race!” Hawk frowned, raising his fists and flipping off the drones panning cameras over him. The crowd roared its approval, jeering laughter and hoots leading to a wave of middle fingers at every turn. “I kid, folks, I kid! Tough crowd, and tough boys! Give it up for Monster Mass and Shitbox Hawk!”
The crowd cheered and Hawk was caught in the jubilation. The pit crews were rushing the track, raising Hawk and attempting to raise Mass onto their shoulders. A bottle was in his hand, a sparkling something that someone had popped. It was sweeter than anything he’d ever tasted before— Except perhaps Mei Sung. Highlights of the match played on the screen and the crowd went nuts for every crash, gunshot, and explosion as if they hadn’t seen the same minutes ago.
This was the best idea I’ve ever had, he thought. He was a Carnage driver now, a daredevil entertainer that no one could touch. And later, I’ll grab Mei and show her how a winner treats a lady. This is the best day of my life—
“That’s him! Arrest him!” Hawk was dropped to his seat as two androids parted the celebration, dead robotic faces set on him. Behind them, a vicious bruise on his chin and looking ready to burst into a thousand little rage monsters, was Dan Sung. He leered at Hawk as the bots wrestled him onto his belly and cuffed him.
“Hey! Get off him!” Mass was trying to press forward, half a dozen of the pit crew holding him back.
“Sung!” Otis roared, marching up to Dan. “What is the meaning of this? Release him!”
“Your disgusting little Scav broke into Sung Compound last night,” Dan sneered. “He assaulted both me and my sister.” Otis turned horrified eyes on Hawk, who buried his face in the hot asphalt to avoid meeting his eye. “Get him out of here,” Dan spat, the bots lifting Hawk and dragging him away. Hawk struggled against them, barking a humorless laugh in Dan Sung’s direction.
“Fucking coward!” Hawk yelled, a drone capturing the drama sending his voice booming over the PA system. The stadium fell to a hush as Dan turned with thunder in his face. Hawk gave another cruel laugh. “The Phoenix can’t handle the Hawk so he has him arrested!” He spat at Sung’s feet, jerking against the unbreakable robot grip holding him. “Guess you’re just a little fizzle, ain’t ya?”
“Hold!” Dan shouted, voice cracking, and the bots stopped their dragging. Sung marched straight up to Hawk and leered down his nose at him. They stood, locked in a silent battle for a moment, then Dan spat in Hawk’s face.
“Take this shithawk away.”
Hawk raged, shouted himself hoarse and frothing at the mouth, fighting to get at Sung. He was dragged out of the sun, the booing of the crowd following him as he was taken to the stadium’s holding cells.
What a ride, sports fans! Check out the continuation of ROUND ONE: DYNASTY VS. HAYAO!