FLICKER — NaNoWriMo 2016
NOVEMBER 8TH, 2016 — DAY 08
Back on track today. Feeling like doing my regular daily pieces really helps me feel both more connected with the world and reduces the pressure to perform in a single piece.
Ochoa wedged his way into the huddle that formed around the victor. She was tiny, would’ve just snuck past five feet. From the praise paired with slaps on shoulders, Ochoa was able to grab the name.
“Carter!” Ochoa tried over the crowd, slipping past sharp elbows, pushing forward. The loser moved in to congratulate Carter, slap down a chunky wad of singles in her hand. “Excuse me, Carter?” Ochoa chirped. This time she heard. She lifted her gaze to meet Ochoa’s, waved off the well-wishers.
“Do I know you?” Carter challenged. More and more eyes feel upon Ochoa. A middle-aged Mexican in a suit amongst a group of Americans wearing vintage polyester jackets and sceptical looks. Ochoa had to break the silence that was seeping in.
“No, you don’t.” he stumbled.
“Then why are you talking to me?”
“I wanted to congratulate you, I… I uh used to love this system,” Ochoa gestured at the model bikes. “But of course, when we used to play… We were never as good as that.” Carter traded looks with her loyal supporters. She spied the wad of bills in his hand.
“How much more green you got?” she said, cocking her head.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you used to play. How about you show me?” Carter held up her winnings. “I’ll put in this and you match half, seeing as you’re probably a little out of touch.” She glowed with the cockiness of victory.
“Uh…” Ochoa stammered. He didn’t care much about the money, he’d lose it without blinking. But his pride was little harder to surrender. “Look, I just wanted to buy you a drink — “
“She’s half your age, dude, step the fuck back!” one of Carter’s guard dogs barked.
“It’s nothing like that.” Ochoa was starting to drown in the approaching crowd.
“I bet you’ve got some place you and your suit friends take young girls,” another guard dog accused.
“I just want to talk with her!” Ochoa’s assistant joined the back of the scrum.
“Somewhere you fill up their guts with margaritas and carry them drunk into The Hills.”
“Please, would you just — “ Ochoa was cut off by a stiff yank at his collar, his assistant pulling him clear.
“I told you this was a mistake.” she breathed into his ear, whisking him away.
“Aline, what are you doing?!”
“Listen to your MT, freak! Get the fuck out!” yapped one of Carter’s supporters.
“I’m trying to stop you from wearing your own blood,” Aline asserted.
“Hey! Hermano!” Carter shouted over the group. Aline pulled up short, Ochoa slipped from her grasp to turn back. The group had fallen silent and shot leers at Ochoa. “Forget the bet. You beat me and I’ll let you buy me that drink.”
“I just meant — “
“It’s not up for negotiation, take it or leave it.” Even if it wasn’t what he’d wanted, Ochoa had his in.
The swamp of onlookers once again closed around the two bikes when Ochoa slipped off his blazer. He’d say later it was to give him more mobility but the truth was he had started to sweat. The pilot shades were handed to him, a chunky set that was leashed to the front of the bike with a braid of ribbon cables. Aline took Ochoa’s jacket and he saddled up. Carter, approaching the bike opposite, was milking it. Buoyed by her recent victory, she shot finger pistols from the hip, whipping up a chorus from the crowd.
“What am I doing?” Ochoa quavered.
Aline lent in. “It’s a game. Relax.”
“It’s not easy to relax when you’re about to get whipped in front of a bunch of kids.”
“Stop talking.” Aline flicked out for a sec. Eyes died. And then she was back. “Here. Take this.” Aline opened her palm wide and a small barb protruded from the centre of her hand.
Ochoa ripped his false fingertip off between his teeth and reached for Aline’s hand. “What is it?”
“You want to talk to her, don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Well, I couldn’t bare to ride back with you if you lose.” Ochoa clenched his jaw, set his finger to land on the barb, and braced for impact. And his skull felt it might collapse.
Ochoa came round on the starting line drawn under polygonal motorcycles in a texture you’d find in the game’s file directory simply named “whiteline.bmp”. He must have pulled on the shades, taken the handlebars in his hands somnambulantly. Because now the red turned amber on the stack of lights floating before Ochoa’s face. His fingers fluttered on the throttle but the gloved hand before him stayed as if stapled to the bike. He looked over at the other riders, the pack of clones, what looked like inflated black spandex with black helmets whose mirrored finishes reflected nothing in particular. And then the amber snapped to green and Ochoa found himself climbing first gear.
The lack of sensation unnerved him. Cycles whinging in tinny reproduction rocketed across virtual tarmac but Ochoa went nowhere. He didn’t have much to do with his body tensing, pulling the bike to one side as the break was expertly depressed. The field slinked into a serpent, Ochoa nestling in fifth place just as the first corner was taken. He leapt through the gears on exit gaining two places before the serpent formed again around the second corner. Ochoa was running on reflex he didn’t know he had, an uncanny pre-conscious processing of the unrefined input of the game. He straightened out of the corner and a dialog popped above the rider in second — “Player 1” wrapped in a silvery block floated above them. They pulled away, and rode a third gear screaming in pain into first as the CPU leader lost power in the time taken to shift down from fourth.
Ochoa found himself clamping the clutch in as he approached the corner. Holding in second gear and watching the pixel-wide needle of the tac bounce at the end of the dial, he knew it could take it. He knew that no matter how hard he charged, the engine would take it so long as it was made out of bits and not atoms. And he knew the CPU riders weren’t programmed to know that. Ochoa held second place as the serpent broke apart on the other side of the corner. Ochoa was riding better than he ever had, performing with a substantially reduced cerebral load. Each twitch of his right wrist on the throttle seemed to come from a place as detached from him as the blocky avatar he inhabited. Whatever packet Aline had pushed to him, it was working.
From first place, Carter stopped playing fair. Like the map of the circuit in the corner of Ochoa’s HUD, Carter would know it was Ochoa that had been trying to find an edge for the last two laps. She’d swerve in front of him, block him from passing, apparently less interested in winning than she was in him losing. He gave her a shunt, knew the motorcycles to be solid models upon which the specific physics of the collision of two hot tyres was lost. But she was just shot a few feet ahead, only to return to her pattern of irritation, shielding before his front wheel. It was here he got an idea.
The pair pulled out onto the back straight of the circuit, 2D faceless clones in the stand. Ochoa let his line fade, pulling ever slightly to the side of the track. He was guessing Carter would have her eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror projections on her HUD to keep Ochoa pinned behind her. And he guessed right. Her front tyre clipped a strip of grass on the track’s edge. Ochoa pulled hard to straighten. Carter’s model slowed aggressively as the rear wheel followed onto the grass. And Ochoa was past. The game chugged as firework effects shot across the finish line with Ochoa whipping under it in first place.
CHAPTER 9
Eu was getting sick of the food. She stabbed at the military MRE for what might have been the twentieth time, sitting at the long table that stretched most of the length of the embedded section of Hyperloop track. The MREs were outlast-nuclear-fallout stable and tasted like it. When something can sit on a shelf for years, or get squished at the bottom of a backpack over the course of a weeks-long trek, “edible” is really the only praise one can give it. Initially, Eu didn’t mind the novelty, even pushed a packet up early on that thrill-seeking citizens were still pulling down. As she prodded at the scarlet sludge, drowned in so much imitation marinara to annihilate any nuance, Eu was just about ready to head back to the city. So thank fuck they were.
“We all get screwed out of this and I’m holding you accountable,” Nedaara shouted over firing engines as she packed down saddle bags onto her bike. The boilersuits had long been won round by the infectious enthusiasm of Moon and it was only the weight of public opinion that had shifted Nedaara’s view. “And I want that bottle of gin whatever happens.”
“Moon promised you that. Take it up with him,” Eu joked, mounting the bike and zipping up her jacket.
Nedaara scoffed. “How much you think he really understands?” She continued packing down the skeletal bike, lassoing off a pressurised fuel canister.
“You don’t give him enough credit.” Eu clunked down her helmet, slapped up her visor. “He understands enough to know there might be more than living out here forever.” Eu looked up at the rest of the group. Some rode lazily, others still prepping their vehicles for the trip. “And it looks to me like some of the others do too.” As bad as the food was, Eu couldn’t complain about the company since being out here. Many carried with them far more than would fit in the saddlebags hanging over their rear wheels. She knew about the Koreans that had fled the Peninsula during unification, a generation born to worship Supreme Leader Kim and forced to grow up without him after his death in 2026. Hearing them tell their own history first-hand had kicked Eu right in the gut.
“I just don’t want him getting busted up when it turns out this whole thing is someone’s bad idea for a worse joke.” Nedaara pulled her neckerchief up over her nose and mouth and spat out a piercing whistle. The group of heads whipped around to catch Nedaara in their gaze. She snapped the engine on and cracked open the throttle. The engine’s guttural growl lead the chorus of others that were turned over and fanned open. She pulled away with a couple of others tucking into her slipstream and off. One rolled up alongside Eu. Engine killed, they pulled down the wrap over their mouth.
“Moon Sung-soo,” Eu said warmly. “All set?”
Moon lifted up his goggles to meet Eu’s eyes. “I came to ask you the same thing.” A cheeky smile split the kid’s face. “Because, if we’re gonna race, you better be set soon.”
“Who said anything about racing?” Eu played along, her hand slid sneakily to the ignition.
“Me. Just now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“So what do you say?”
“I say you’re about to lose.” Eu tore on the engine. Its bark had those ahead reflexively open a path through which Eu shot.
The convoy of grease and grit would ride into Barstow just after midday. There Keiko had arranged a team to greet them, set up along the southbound segment of the Mojave Freeway that led into town. The dozen boilersuits that had come out were in good spirits. They slid in and out of each other’s slips, outdid one another by lying back on seats or sitting atop their handlebars. Much to Eu’s amusement, Moon soon got bored of racing and they fell back into the amorphous lazy school of fish that was the group.
Eu spotted what must have been Keiko’s guys from half a mile out. A converted drone freighter glistened chrome atop the orange land and wavered in the heat haze. Keiko had mentioned something about a pilot, something those in Neon’s media division could test with subscribers. Details were scarce other than that.
Logs:
S: 16–1108_0934, 9641WE: 16–1108_1014, 10075W | 434WS: 16–1108_1456, 10075WE: 16–1108_1522, 10210W | 569WS: 16–1108_1525, 10210WE: 16–1108_1535, 10295W | 654WS: 16–1108_1656, 10295WE: 16–1108_1741, 10653W | 1012WS: 16–1108_1900, 10653WE: 16–1108_1935, 11045W | 1404WS: 16–1108_2136, 11045WE: 16–1108_2221, 11651W | 2010WTOTAL: 3.5H | 2010W
