Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories

“Let him go, George,” Jessica said. “You know he’d take you.”

Two blotches of anger spread on George’s cheeks. “Oh, yeah!?!” He howled at the Operator, “Get me a confirm on that Mercury, Operator!”

She blurred off, and George decked the Piranha; it leaped forward. Jessica sighed with resignation and pulled the drawer out from beneath her bucket. She unfolded the g-suit and began stretching into it. She said nothing, but continued to shake her head.

“We’ll see!” George said.

“Oh, George, when will you ever grow up?

He did not answer, but his nostrils flared with barely restrained anger.

The Operator smeared back and said, “Opponent confirms, sir. Freeway Underwriters have already cross-filed you as mutual beneficiaries. Please observe standard traffic regulations, and good luck, sir.”

She vanished, and George set the Piranha on sleepwalker as he donned his own g-suit. He overrode the sleeper and was back on manual in moments.

“Now, you stuffer, now let’s see!” 100, 110, 120.

He was gaining rapidly on the Merc now. As the Chevy hit 120, the mastercomp flashed red and suggested crossover. George punched the selector and the telescoping arms of the buzzsaws retracted into the axles, even as the buzzsaws stopped whirling. In a moment they had been drawn back in, now merely fancy decorations in the hubcaps. The wheels retracted into the underbody of the Chevy and the air-cushion took over. Now the Chevy skimmed along, two inches above the roadbed of the Freeway.

Ahead, George could see the Merc also crossing over to aircushion. 120. 135. 150.

“George, this is crazy!” Jessica said, her face in that characteristic shrike expression. “You’re no hot-rodder, George. You’re a family man, and this is the family car!”

George chuckled nastily. “I’ve had it with these fuzzfaces. Last year…you remember last year?…you remember when that punk stuffer ran us into the abutment? I swore I’d never put up with that kind of thing again. Why’d’you think I had all the optionals installed?”

Jessica opened the tambour doors of the glove compartment and slid out the service tray. She unplugged the jar of anti-flash salve and began spreading it on her face and hands. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you put that laser thing in this car!” George chuckled again. Fuzzfaces, punks, rodders!

George felt the Piranha surge forward, the big reliable stirling engine recycling the hot air for more and more efficient thrust. Unlike the Merc’s inefficient kerosene system, there was no exhaust emission from the nuclear power plant, the external combustion engine almost noiseless, the big radiator tailfin in the rear dissipating the tremendous heat, stabilizing the car as it swooshed along, two inches off the roadbed.

George knew he would catch the blood-red Mercury. Then one smartass punk was going to learn he couldn’t flout law and order by running decent citizens off the freeways!

“Get me my gun,” George said.

Jessica shook her head with exasperation, reached under George’s bucket, pulled out his drawer and handed him the bulky.45 automatic in its breakaway upside-down shoulder rig. George studded in the sleeper, worked his arms into the rig, tested the oiled leather of the holster, and when he was satisfied, returned the Piranha to manual.

“Oh, God,” Jessica said, “John Dillinger rides again.”

“Listen!” George shouted, getting more furious with each stupidity she offered. “If you can’t be of some help to me, just shut your damned mouth. I’d put you out and come back for you, but I’m in a duel…can you understand that? I’m in a duel!” She murmured a yes, George, and fell silent.

There was a transmission queep from the transceiver. George studded it on. No picture. Just vocal. It had to be the driver of the Mercury, up ahead of them. Beaming directly at one another’s antennae, using a tightbeam directional, they could keep in touch: it was a standard trick used by rods to rattle their opponents.

“Hey, Boze, you not really gonna custer me, are you? Back’m, Boze. No bad trips, true. The kid’ll drop back, hang a couple of biggies on ya, just to teach ya little lesson, letcha swimaway.” The voice of the driver was hard, mirthless, the ugly sound of a driver used to being challenged.

“Listen, you young snot,” George said, grating his words, trying to sound more menacing than he felt, “I’m going to teach you the lesson!”

The Merc’s driver laughed raucously.

“Boze, you de-mote me, true!”

“And stop calling me a bozo, you lousy little degenerate!”

“Ooooo-weeee, got me a thrasher this time out. Okay, Boze, you be custer an’ I’ll play arrow. Good shells, baby Boze!”

The finalizing queep sounded, and George gripped the wheel with hands that went knuckle-white. The Merc suddenly shot away from him. He had been steadily gaining, but now as though it had been springloaded, the Mercury burst forward, spraying gook and water on both sides of the forty-foot lanes they were using. “Cut in his afterburner,” George snarled. The driver of the Mercury had injected water into the exhaust for added thrust through the jet nozzle. The boom of the Merc’s big, noisy engine hit him, and George studded in the rear-mounted propellers to give him more speed. 175. 185. 195.

He was crawling up the line toward the Merc. Gaining, gaining. Jessica pulled out her drawer and unfolded her crash-suit. It went on over the g-suit, and she let George know what she thought of his turning their Sunday Drive into a kamikaze duel.

He told her to stuff, and did a sleeper, donned his own crash-suit, applied flash salve, and lowered the bangup helmet onto his head.

Back on manual he crawled, crawled, till he was only fifty yards behind the Mercury, the gas-turbine vehicle sharp in his tinted windshield. “Put on your goggles…I’m going to show that punk who’s a bozo….”

He pressed the stud to open the laser louvers. The needle-nosed glass tube peered out from its bay in the Chevy’s hood. George read the power drain on his dash. The MHD power generator used to drive the laser was charging. He remembered what the salesman at Chick Williams Chevrolet had told him, pridefully, about the laser gun, when George had inquired about the optional.

Dynamite feature, Mr. Jackson. Absolutely sensational. Works off a magneto hydro dynamic power generator. Latest thing in defense armament. You know, to achieve sufficient potency from a CO 2laser, you’d need a glass tube a mile long. Well, sir, we both know that’s impractical, to say the least, so the project engineers at Chevy ‘s big Bombay plant developed the “stack” method. Glass rods baffled with mirrors—360 feet of stack, the length of a football field…plus end-zones. Use it three ways. Punch a hole right through their tires at any speed under a hundred and twenty. If they’re running a GT. you can put that hole right into the kerosene fuel tank, blow them off the road. Or, if they’re running a stirling, just heat the radiator. When the radiator gets hotter than the engine, the whole works shuts down. Dynamite. Also…and this is with proper CC authorization, you can go straight for the old jugular. Use the beam on the driver. Makes a neat hole. Dynamite!

“I’ll take it,” George murmured.

“What did you say?” Jessica asked.

“Nothing.”

“George, you’re a family man, not a rodder!”

“Stuff it!”

Then he was sorry he’d said it. She meant well. It was simply that…well, a man had to work hard to keep his balls. He looked sidewise at her. Wearing the Armadillo crash-suit, with its overlapping discs of ceramic material, she looked like a ferryflight pilot. The bangup hat hid her face. He wanted to apologize, but the moment had arrived. He locked the laser on the Merc, depressed the fire stud, and a beam of blinding light flashed from the hood of the Piranha. With the Merc on air-cushion, he had gone straight for the fuel tank.