Turbo Killer part 1 by John Smith

In the hall of the council of the Responsible Goodies, dominators of the Lyla System, feathers were ruffed with anticipation in front of the telescreen: the vultures dressed in suits were observing the television studio through the screen.

In that studio, a man dressed in a baroque vest was talking into a microphone cabled both to television and radio.

He was the television chamberlain McDruff, war veteran turned most famous journalist and anchorman of the worlds of the Lyla System.

-Welcome to a new evening with your favourite commentator, chamberlain McDruff.

I am today happy as usual, happy to bring you the most recent news in the name of our overlords, the Responsible Goodies, that upholds the well being of our society.

We keep registering rising economic growth percentages every week, and now that terrorist menaces have subsided, consumerist weekends are again allowed for our free time.

It is a great triumph, and we can finally say that the days of the Old Night are far away from us.

Decades ago, the intergalactic war destroyed interstellar civilization and isolated many places in the cosmos.

The Lyla system remained one of the isolated isles, but we are now riding the progress curve again, regaining hope for the future and comfort to previous levels.

We can be happy to be supervised, as a multicultural community, by the committee board of the Goodies.

The vultures nodded in their dark hall, watching their precious puppet spokesperson with their greedy eyes.

After the transmission ended, the vulture overseers shook their glasses of fine sprinkly wine.

-Gentlemen, we have reasons to be jolly.- shrieked one of them after calling for attention by tickling his wine glass with a fang 
– When we began our social work years ago, trying to regenerate this stellar system that was cut off from the falling intergalactic civilization, we were full of worries and  uncertainties.

Nowadays, those worries have disappeared from our roads like garbage removed by a serf.

We can compliment ourselves on the way we reorganized this restricted region of the cosmos.

The incoherent buzz that stifles from the street, generated by a few discontent with a perverted mind, won’t ruin our satisfaction and happiness…

In the streets outside the high skyscraper, solitary figures of passersby were looking at the tower and at the telescreens above the roads, many of them with a blanket of melancholia over their faces, but soon they moved to the factories, to the shops, or the places where they could have exercised the right to consume or the duty to work.

A lone salaryman sighed, staring at the sky, blinking with his third eye.

The memory of a bizarre nightmare he had the night before distracted him from his daily journey to the workplace.

He dreamed of a sinister motorcycle, driving through the streets of the capital city of the main planet of the Lyla System.
 
 Far away, near the sewers of the city, various hoboes were grasping what they could from the garbage thrown away from the dark city above, but they scuttled uncertainly, always looking for a looming danger.

One of them, a slugperson in a brown, dirty jacket, managed to reach for a half full jar of honey; as he started to open the recipient, he heard a heavy noise behind him and saw with his eyes other bums fleeing.

Gulping, he turned and stared at the size of a massive, circular robotic body similar to a tin can that was standing above him.

A mechanical claw grabbed him and lifted him above: at that new height, he could spot the occupant of the robot, an old lady in a green dress with a white hat, the uniform of the Salvation Army old ladies corp.

-It is time for your misery to end!- she yelled. – Poor man, you will be relocated to a workhouse before the end of the day!-

-No, please no! I don’t want to slave away to produce consumer goods…- the poor slugman yelled, but suddenly, a sinister roar interrupted the conversation.

The old lady turned her attention to the vastness of the canal beside them, and she could see only for a moment the dizzying metallic monster going in her direction, impaling and destroying her robotic vehicle.

The hobo was free and he rolled away from the now useless claw which fell on the ground, seeing clearly behind the wreckage of the machine a dazzling motorcycle which was moving towards the inner city, to disappear quickly on the horizon.

Meanwhile, at a police station at the border of the commercial streets, agents were alerted about an incredibly quick object moving at incredible speed towards the main roads of the city.

They shrugged, but suddenly they saw a dark serpent flashing in the street outside their place, and they jumped over their jetbikes quickly after it.

The tenebrous bike strolled towards the roads of the city, evading the other vehicles and shifting the clothes of the astonished people on the walk sides, while the cops on the bike moved very goofily behind it.

At terrible speed, the dark form crossed a large road between two warehouses, and the chasers moved behind it, stopping once inside the dark alley.

The searchlights of their vehicles were not focused enough to penetrate the shadows, and they used their torches to look around, but they could not spot anything in the shadows of the alley, behind the metal boxes and the garbage; the mysterious intruder seemed to have disappeared.

-What was that?- asked one of the policemen.
-Was it the…- murmured the other.
-No, it is just a voice made up by political dissidents and communists.
There is nothing like a mysterious monster on a motorbike.-
-Checked the weather tonight?- a deep but somewhat warm female voice made their hearts almost stop.

They looked around with their torches, almost panicking, but they could not find anything; they didn’t even pull their hands at their gun, too scared they were.

-It’s gonna rain heavy metal tonight!- the loud voice growled again and one of the policeman stared for one second above.

He could see, even in the penumbra, what was haunting them: over a military motorbike with a dark body and no recognizable signs, there was the pilot, a tall and robust figure cloaked in a long black military coat, a red scarf winding around his neck, the face covered by a metallic gas mask.

The policeman screamed, but the high growl of that motorbike surpassed his scream easily: the pilot jumped down, rolling over both of them and their puny motorbikes with his own vehicle, crashing them with ease.

Then, with a mighty roar of the engines, he sprinted away.

"To all men, an unidentified motorcycle is crossing at illegal speed towards the main avenue. Be prepared and apply maximum caution."

-What the hell does that mean?-

The black motorcycle entered a great superstreet, dazzling like a bolt of darkness; most of the car users didn’t even distinguish it but it moved with great confidence through the traffic.

Two police cars entered the great junction to move after the pirate vehicle, but they realized they could not slide through the traffic as easily.

Suddenly, the shadowy vehicle seemed to get slower and they surpassed riskily a few cars to move closer to them, only to actually lose track of the chase inside the traffic.

-It disappeared!-
-It’s not possible, it has to be somewhere!-

The motorbike was sliding over the cement border of the road, the black wheels in perfect equilibrium over the concrete fence; it turned and surpassed a building site, entering a road closed to the public; one of the police motorcars saw it and tried to turn inside the same way, almost smashing itself against a truck.

-The unidentified motorcycle is exiting the main junction from the unfinished 23rd road.

-Send cars to the exit and we could be able to contain it!

The black motorcycle escaped its chasers , traveling very fast while ignoring the various obstacles that forced the chasing police car to stop.

At the end of that road, just when the unfinished run opened over the center of the city, the police had created a barrier here with the cars and wooden public barriers.

A police officer with a megaphone was waiting behind the barrier, staring at the forbidden road above.

Then, he spotted something moving in the darkness.

-Cease and desist immediately! You are under arrest!- he yelled through the megaphone, but the motorbike, without any kind of light on, still zapped at maximum velocity towards the barricade.

-Damn…- he growled at the other policemen – Shot, shot!-

The policemen opened fire on the coming dark bolt, but it didn’t stutter, it didn’t slow down; he crashed against one of the car, pushing it aside and destroying its frame, pieces of glass and metal everywhere.

Then the dark bike vanished into the roads behind the barricade.

The police chieftain moved closer, uncredulous, but after the sonorous crash of the impact, he heard a more feeble sound, something rolling on the ground.

He blinked and gazed on the concrete ground, puzzled: he firmly saw a bunch of grenade rolling on the floor, without the security pin on.

-Move away, move away!-

In a great flare, more police cars were launched into the air alongside the agents in a great flare.

The dark bike didn’t stop for a second, nor did it turn for a bit to see the devastation because it was already far away.

 
(end of part one)