DAWSON DID IT, by C.J. Henderson

Bill Dawson was the best friend I ever had. I guess I should get something straight right here—I’m not the next Shakespeare, or Hemingway, or Tupen Dere and I know it. The only reason I decided to tell this story is because I owe Bill, and this is the only way I could figure to pay him back.

Bill and I met in the Company School—Second Level MOS—management off-spring. I looked over to his seat and saw him—rough, sandy hair, those thin arms, and that stupid good luck charm—completely ignoring the day’s lesson, the vid-com, everything, to read a copy of Batman.

I had never seen a real comic book until that moment. Bill’s Dad had gotten it along with a few thousand others from Bill’s grandfather who’d been a boy when they’d stopped producing comics back around the turn of the century. When the com-light was aimed toward Glory Daver I reached over and tapped his attention. When he turned around I gave him a look that said I would give the Earth, moon, and my left arm to see one of his comics. When the com’s next blind spot came around, he passed one over. I still remember it—The Amazing Spider-Man #20…first appearance of the Scorpion. It was great. Just like our friendship.

Even at that age, you could tell how we were going to turn out. Bill was seven, one year younger than me but already at my level. He was small compared to level one kids, and a runt in level two. Everyone called him Dawson the Dwarf, but he never seemed to care. He could probably have skipped a few more levels and been Out/There four or five years early, but he always leveled with me.

I guess you could say I got Bill into my crowd and made sure he stayed there. He introduced me to Stan Lee and Robert E. Howard, de Maupassant and Kipling. I zeroed his sights on to Muslimgauze, Windshield, the Fergum Beta Quartet and Green Ivory. Daws read and I listened to tunes and we just shared. He would come to my games and I’d play harder just to hear him whoop. He would read me a story he wrote and I’d play him a run I’d jotted in my tuner. He’d buy me a burger and I’d take him Freewayin’. And that, I guess, is how the whole thing got started.

We weren’t steel curtained at the time or anything—we’d just cruise, looking for wrecks, fights to watch…the usual. No one challenged us—we were clearly in/transit…Voyeurs. We could wait for our day.

Bill’s Dad told us stories about the old days when the freeways had still been open and safe, back before anyone had armor. Once the decay forced most long-distance traffic into the clouds, the highways between cities were patrolled with less rigor. That meant motorists were left to solve their differences by themselves, when they weren’t being preyed on by rovers. Fenderbender slug-ups would go on for thirty miles.

Pretty soon, those who had to drive the interstates were taking along a weapon or two—or three. After that came the year when both Ford and BMW decided that Smith & Wesson didn’t deserve all the bucks, and we all started getting the most exotic factory extras in decades.

And suddenly, the world had a brand new sport.

* * * *

The only good thing to come out of the year 2052 was the merger of Chevrolet and Volkswagen, and their opening product, the CVW Firefox. It came with standard .45 guns front and aft, German armor and glass, the most beautiful 738 cubes Chevy had ever produced, ’phalt dusters, double rear sausage and steering grips with touch control.

I’d worked three summers to save up for mine. It’d been Dead Bubble Fergeson’s. With his kids moved out, he and his wife only needed a neighborhood scattler, so he moved to dump the DoubleF, unloading it directly into my outstretched arms.

Bill was with me the day we made transfer…it was a Saturday. I remember. I had dumped every credit I had into my Dad’s account and he had gifted me his card to use for the day. I handed it to Fergeson who thumbed out his threeG and handed it back.

I was shaking. Three klids for a CVW only four years old. Four clean years. Fergeson had bought it for inner-city protection. It was perfect—eat-off-the-carb clean. It was a jewel and it was mine. In the door pocket, the standard factory issue .357 still sat with its original ammunition. Fergeson had taken good care of his car, and good care not to get himself compromised in a situation where he would have to use what he had.

“Well,” he said, his mouth pulling into a crooked smile, “I’ve driven with you; you know your way around a DoubleF, your Dad says ‘al’reet’ and I did wheel your wad so…I guess these are yours.”

He held out the keys. I went to take them, but before I could make contact he dropped them on the floor…on purpose. I didn’t want to start anything, so I bent to pick them up…and he stepped on them. By then I was getting annoyed.

“Are you gettin’ mad?” he asked. “Good and boiled? Feelin’ the wet fear cakin’ on your back?”

I looked at him, wondering what kind of dust such an old guy might be toggling that early on a Saturday morning when his arms shot out like pistons. He caught me out flat and stupid. I bounced off the back wall of his garage. While I pulled myself together, he sneered,

“Punksnot little wank—fargo for you, drag ass. You ain’t got the max to push ten for morning, let alone lunch.”

I wanted to kill him. If his hands came up again I was ready to launch on the old bastard. They didn’t. Instead, he knelt down and picked up the keys, saying,

“Yeah, right, ‘Dead Bubble’ knows the talk. I had an Agitator before ‘freewaying’ was a word. I know the roads and how to tame ’em. Over on that wall—see the clip from Burning Chrome? That’s a picture of me on top.” Bill was staring at it, shaking his head.

“He’s right,” my life-long pal was whispering with a kind of awe stuck in his voice. “Look—look at the stars on the side—blues and oranges. And a yellow—And it has to measure 300 millimeters.”

Bill was right. They were stupefying scalps to display. Fergeson agreed.

“Yeah,” he told us. “I was kingshit supreme. And nobody could make a touch on me, either—not ’til my cement skull got me in up past my nostrils. I got nudged off the road at 180 and they took me outta the bric-a-brac with a torch.”

Fergeson pulled his shirt up. I’m sure the reactions we made to the ugly, sick dead colors scarred across his stomach were just what he was looking for. Bill grabbed at his good luck charm and I gritted my teeth to force them to stay closed.

“Ain’t pretty,” said Fergeson as he rolled his shirt back down. “I know. But I did all this to make a point. Now, you listen to me, any fatnose can push you around like I just did. Anyone. But, if you let ’em make you mad—you lose. Remember that. You got mad here, but you didn’t let me dander you. Good. When you get challenged, that means you got someone who’s lookin’ for trouble. And that’s always good.” Fergeson pulled a trio of malts from a small fridge there in the garage. Throwing each of us one, he explained,

“Anyone lookin’ for trouble is point down already and easy to take down. You can arf-arf any monkey-gland who tries to get you—just don’t go lookin’ for trouble. Cruise when you want, paddle up and down alla 87 if you want—just don’t nudge any nests. Let them come to you. Believe me. They will. But if you get in the habit of diggin’ people’s graves for ’em, you’re gonna put the wrong person in one some day.” He stared me sharp in the eye and asked,

“Understand?” When I told him I did, he smiled and said, “That’s good, Gene. Real good.”

I should have listened to him.

* * * *

Bill and I spent the next two weeks working on the DoubleF. Nobody in R.M. Nixon Memorial had anything like her even before we started and we knew none of them had even dreamed of the animal we had up our sleeves. Bill wasn’t key for the kind of work we were doing, but he grunted out his share. We would pop a bender each in the morning and head for Dad’s garage where she waited for us.

On the last day of the overhaul, we entered to find a set of twin trunks—both armed with heatseekers—still in their crates…a present from Freida Cummings. Her old man was loaded, Freida was loaded, all the Goddamned Cummings were loaded. No complaint intended, though. Sometimes a rich girlfriend is a pleasant thing to have.

We stripped down the dings and dents, reinforced, sealed sanded and painted. Fergeson’s oil had been fair clean—we changed it anyway. We dropped the plugs (which were foul) and the points (which were fair). We replaced three hoses, two side strips, and then we attacked the trunk. The trunkers went in with two bits of trouble—not at all bad. We knew they would work if we targeted a lock and that was all we cared.

When we finally got down to the finishing touches, nineteen days had gone by. I remember the sun was overhead. I was laying in the shade of Dad’s tree watching Bill. Shirt sleeves rolled, he sat on the hood working down from the windshield, handpainting the bathead which the dark knight detective had sported on his car in all those old comics. On my hood. On the hood of my DoubleF. My CVW Firefox. Mine.

I was sipping from a can of soda. I’d of preferred a malt, of course, but Dad said there was such a thing as neighborhood image. Strange man, Dad, but I wasn’t complaining. He let me have my DoubleF. He had to be great.

“Hey, Gene,” Bill called. “The second coat of fireproof will be dry tonight. There’s a great double at the El Rancho Pull’em’up.

Frame Up 99 and the remake of that old Cerisini flicker Night Ice. What’ya say?”

I hated to say what I had to, but everybody juggles. So I tossed the first ball into the air, hoping I could catch it.

“Well, to be level with ya, Mr. Cranston,” I guess I should’ve said that everyone else called him ‘dwarf.’ I never did, not even behind his back. Straight line. “I promised Freida that after I was done haulin’ her over that I’d spend the night with her. I mean, she popped for the trunkers, and I haven’t seen her for nineteen nights. And, if we must review the awful facts…” I cupped a whisper,

“She did give me the last 350 I needed. If Dad ever tumbled to that bit of news he’d stomp my teeth into dandruff.”

“Yeah,” answered Bill, patting the left trunker release catch, “I guess you owe her one.” He smiled wide and then threw his rag at me. Charging, he dabbed at my head with his paint brush, shouting, “But they’d best beware us on the main run tomorrow night, eh, Mr. Wayne?”

Truly, Mr. Grayson.”

We were both laughing and throwing grass at each other. We tossed each other around, and we laughed when I fell on my soda can, and when I painted a moustache on him, and when I tripped over my own two feet. And we laughed and I knew neither of us believed it and I knew he was crying on the inside and he knew I felt like shit and neither of us said a word about it to the other. Good friends are like that.

I picked Freida up after dark. She had been waiting a long time, according to the way she told time, for the first ride in the DoubleF. I hate to drive up to her house. I mean, neither of our families had to live in city apartments—just like Bill’s, our folks all had the credits to have a real home outside if they were up to the risk. The difference was, while Mr. Dawson and Dad were both reasonable important out at Cal Daw, Mr. Cummings owned it.

Freida’s brother was not around. Always an improvement. Freida was a girl with everything—curling, blondish hair, the perfect size and shape, deep blue eyes, and the disposition of a wet cat that didn’t know who had emptied the bucket on her. She knew she was beautiful and thought everything in the world was hers to do with as she pleased. Trouble was, since the red-hot musician who was the quarterback for the home team was the most prestigious steady to have, she had him. I never had any say in the matter. Sure, I did the brag to Bill and the rest of the guys that I would dump her when I was done with her. I’ve told bigger lies in my time, too. Just never stupider ones.

I should have known where she’d want to go.

“Where else?” she told me. “The Pull’em’up.”

“Ahh, what do you want to go there for?”

“Because,” she told me flatly, “this is the biggest night of the week. Because everyone we know will be there and I want them to see me in this.”

As she ran her hand over the blazing red of the DoubleF’s door, I had to at least give her points for honesty. After we were inside, she continued to run her hands over the car, the door, the dash, my leg, as if we were all one object. Maybe to here we were.

* * * *

I knew it would happen. Bill spotted the DoubleF and zeroed us. Of course, it’s not like I wasn’t glad to see him. We gabbed for awhile—him in the back seat, me turned halfway around in the front. After the shorts and previews and tunies and such, Bill cut back to Larber’s car. Larber was an okay guy a couple points under our level, but his go-bucket was strictly a stock, in-city four-wheel asshauler. He was always good for a ride, though, so Bill had gotten him to drag out his Tonka, and here they were. Bill and I said a few, “Goodbye, Mr. Richards,” “Goodbye, Mr. Grims” and left it at that. Freida, unfortunately, was not happy to leave it at that.

“Why do you let that creep hang around you all the time?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“The Dwarf. Why do you have to hang every corner with him? Everyone talks. He’s so fanned. And that idiot comic book drool you both flag. It’s so roachy. Honestly.”

“Look, we’re friends. We’ve always been friends, and we’re always going to be friends. Why can’t you accept that? You like this car, right? You like toopin’ around in it, right? Well, if it hadn’t been for Bill—the only other guy who knows bee’s balls about real cars in this comm-cen—I’d still be under her tightening gun braces by myself. So, why don’t you just lay-front on this shit—Fan me?”

She didn’t. Fan me? She hadn’t the faintest inkling of a breeze. All she could think to say was,

“My brother knows cars. He could’ve helped you.”

“Your monkey-gland of a brother couldn’t change his mind let alone lay out the centrifugal on a compressor map. Besides, if you can’t tumble to why I wouldn’t want him touching this car, then you don’t know shit about me.”

I was reaching for the doorhandle when she touched me. Her hand was back on my leg, circling and grabbing and teasing. She was good at it. I stopped moving which, well—of course—had been her intention. She moved closer, her elbow on the seat, her lips against my shirt. I knew what was coming.

She wanted me to tell her that I wouldn’t broil with Bill anymore. I could feel it in the way she moved, her hands and face and chest all rubbing against me. She knew what she wanted and she was going after it in the same creamy, knee-shaking mechanical way she went after everything. Maybe I was really that good a friend, or maybe I was tired of the game for once. I’m not sure. But, before she could continue, or get me to join in, I snapped open the door.

Her head jerked up, knocking against the steering column—hard—which I must admit made me smile. I told her I wasn’t in the mood and that I was going for something to eat. The door locked behind me just as she started screaming. Walking away, I found myself sinking into confusion. I wanted her. I wanted to hit something. She wanted me to dump Bill and I didn’t want to. I wanted them both in my life and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have what I wanted.

I kicked at a can by the concession palace, but it wasn’t enough. I smashed open the door, but that didn’t make me feel much better. I only felt angrier because it hadn’t bled or screamed—just opened. I walked inside angry and bitter and looking for trouble. I found Wyck Cummings. Close enough.

He was at the drink/vend, deciding between RumCoke and Rolling Rock. I yelled a hello out to Larber loud enough so Wyck would know I was in the palace. I edged in through the others at the counter to place an order. There was no fear in turning your back on Wyck. He was a shrimp, a puny, a featherdog. I knew there was nothing to worry about from him. I was stupid.

Before I could tumble to why everyone to both sides was suddenly making room for me, my face shot upward while my knees buckled and my eyes closed. I fell to the floor, my fingers finding blood on the back of my head after I hit. My nose caught petro-steam fumes. My eyes saw a piece of rail pipe and a greasy glove, both attached to the hand of Filbert Kerchecker. Not good.

I had just been sapped by the brick-hardest lapcruncher in the city comm. The look on Wyck’s face told me whose credits had paid for the attack. The look on Kerchecker’s mug let me know he hadn’t earned all his credits yet.

I tried to stand and was put down again—quick and hard. Everyone else had cleared the area, leaving Kerchecker and me to give them a show from a safe distance. I watched him as he came forward again. There was no emotion in his eyes—no anger, no hate, no enjoyment—maybe boredom. Well, I thought, everyone has to make a living.

I was bleeding, bruised and battered worse than any football game had ever left me. I couldn’t stand, my eyes wouldn’t focus, and I’d already thrown up and been rolled through my own dinner twice. It wasn’t enough. I could tell Kerchecker had finished the warm up and was about to move on to the main show. I was thinking how perfect it was: Kerchecker would leave me on the floor, Wyck would go home happy and never miss the credits he’d thumbed up for both my wrecking and for his freedom from having his sister being seen with a “commoner.”

No one would turn Kerchecker in—people don’t commit suicide for acquaintances. And, of course, I wouldn’t say a word because I would be dead. I’d known Wyck hated me. I just hadn’t known how much. I did then. Of course, then was too late.

I was prepared for the breaking to start when suddenly a noise across the room turned everyone’s head. Another fight had started and, like any competent criminal, Kerchecker had turned along with everyone else to assess the situation. It would’ve been a great time for a comicbook escape, but I wasn’t Captain America so I simply lay where I was, trying to see what had interrupted my execution. It was Bill.

He had tackled Wyck and had him on the floor, yelling orders in his ear while everyone else just stared, not sure what they should do.

“You heard me, Cummings,” he screamed. “Call off your bone-eater or I’ll rip out your shoulder. Think I can do it?”

Wyck bleated like a trapped pig. Bill had his hand dug into the slimeball’s shoulder, his fingers tripping some nerve deep inside. Wyck was in enough pain to forget how he was incriminating himself. He screamed to Kerchecker like a monkey with an arrow through its eye. Kerchecker grunted, shrugged his shoulder, and ambled out the door. Bill had already gotten off Wyck’s back and come to my side.

“Com’on, Gene,” he said, dragging me up off the floor. “We gotta get you back to the DoubleF.”

I staggered out with Bill half-carrying me to the car. Wyck came stumbling up just as we reached it, screaming for his sister. I really didn’t care.

“I’ll be waiting for you, McGill,” he threatened. “I’ll be waiting on 87—in the Burner Stretch. Let’s see if you got the guts to show.” Froth specking over the edges of his mouth, he bellowed,

“I told you to stay away from Freida. The Cummings don’t breed with gutter-splash. I want you dead, McGill! I want your ass dead! You meet me, scud-sniffer. You meet me!”

He was still screaming when we pulled out. Bill was in the front seat next to me. Freida was on the other side. She was mad at me, but pretended to be concerned over my bruised lips and mismatched eyes. It made me sick. She got out at her house, asking me when I was going to call. Her brother marks me and she wants to know when we’re going dancing.

“When I heal,” I muttered. Bill laughed and I smiled, but not too broadly because it hurt. Once Bill realized I wasn’t headed in the direction of home, he asked me where we were going.

“87,” I told him. “Did you expect anything else?”

“No, not really,” he admitted. “But use your head, Gene. We gotta stop first. You need a shower, something to eat. Greenpockets will have a whole crowd of clowngloat hanging off him. Let him get his belt tight. When his ego is on over-swell, then we’ll show up. What kind of comics fan are you, anyway?” With a grin, he added,

“You know we have to let him outline his evil plot to the readers before we can make out dramatic entrance. Right?”

“Right,” I agree.

“Okay. Your house, Mr. Kent?”

“My house, Mr. Olsen.”

I drove off, figuring that Bill had probably just saved my life for the second time that night. How was I supposed to know he wasn’t finished.

* * * *

We headed for the Murket 7 entrance to the Freeway. I had showered, put on some fresh clothes, gulped a soda, a malt, two ham-on-ryes and a chemo-pear. Bill and I both popped a trip-dose of benders before we left. We hit the ’phalt with energy and nerve we never knew existed. Things would have been great if we’d had the brains to go with it.

It didn’t dawn on me until we were just a few miles out from the Burner that we had no idea what we were looking for. Sure, Wyck usually drove his SpiderTeeth 295…but he was Wyck Cummings. He could have gone out and bought a fleet trasher from the city if he wanted. Suddenly we started taking things seriously. We knew Wyck was waiting for us somewhere in the Burner and we were closing on it fast. Bill fingered his good luck charm as we crossed the divide to go in and look for him.

Four kiloms in, we found him. We rolled past an overpass pylon and a burst of heavy shell pained our right-rear fender. I kicked it up to 80kph—looking for distance but not wanting to lose sight of Wyck. I didn’t have to worry.

He pulled out from behind the pylon piloting a black-and-gray Mack Chromewolf. Once I saw that I keyed the DoubleF up to 120 and pressed her for more. He started with a mortar attack, twin shells bursting up over his back seat and splattering the road ahead of us. I needed space and time. Lots of both. Knowing he could only have six volleys tops, I punched it to out-distance the pavement shock, figuring to drop back as soon as he shot his stack.

Bill counted off the volleys. The second it was our turn I ran down the gears—five to one in nothing. Wyck came shooting up the road, his front guns shattering my tail section, but only for the moment. He couldn’t judge my speed in the dark. Without my brake lights showing, he didn’t realize I was slowing until it was too late. Swerving at the last second, he avoided a crash, but he had to put himself in my sights to do it.

“Thanks, Wyck,” I sneered, tabbing up the weapons assembly, “here’s one I owe you!”

I opened with my .45s, smashing away at his tail and back glass. Every time he slowed, I did, too. If he sped up, so did I. If he tried a dodge, ran for the side, spun a loop…anything at all…I hung on his tail and didn’t let go.

I heard the first barrel clips empty and ‘chunk’ out. The auto-replace dropped in new ones and in four seconds lead was raining across Wyck’s back again. At first, it didn’t look as if he was very worried. Wyck just let his superior armor and lead-wired glass make up for his lack of skill. But, finally he began to realize he was in the sweatdog seat.

Gearing down, he took the road with a splash, belching back smoke to cover his escape. It was a 150+ blast and it left us behind. Bill and I caught him for a moment, but he shrugged our grip by spitting out with his rear flamers. Two searing bursts of gelatinous fire roared against the night, leaving burning patches up and down the ’phalt and across our hood. If he’d scored a topglass hit the self-generating napalm would have eaten through to us. But he’d missed, and now his rear defenses were shot.

Desperate, he must have geared down and jumped the brake at the same time. He dime-stopped—fishtailing at the same time—forcing us to hit around to his side. He blazed up after us. We clawed forward for room trying to escape his piercemetal front gun. His hood devil was in full operation, sweeping back and forth on its 90 degree turret. I knew it could blast a decker into us every ten seconds so I kept swerving, hoping to dodge out of its radar’s vector. Two hits in the same spot was the end of us. Period.

We ran the terror line for two, maybe even three more minutes. I’ll admit to being scared, but I was hoping Wyck thought I was really scared—white-knuckled, socks down, teeth-powdered scared. I wanted him smug, thinking of nothing but finishing us off. Hoping he was up there, I dropped my load of dusters.

They dug into the ’phalt and held, going off a moment later. They went off in front of the Chromewolf, to her left, behind and under her. The massive Mack was thrown into the right embankment but it didn’t stay there. Careening off the hillside only made her meaner-looking and harder to hit. I only had one choice left: the trunkers.

My first thought was that I couldn’t use them—Freida had given them to me. It would be like her beating Wyck, not me. That notion fizzled when my eye hit the rear-view again and I wondered who I thought I was kidding. A Mack Chromewolf was eating up the road, getting ready to bite my ass off at the neck. Across from me, Bill had already opened the controls and thumbed in the relative distance. At least one of us was awake. All I had to do was lock the aim and fire. I did it fast.

A moment later the road behind us blew apart. The Chromewolf was against the bank to stay this time. Its right side and tail assembly were gone—powdered, burned and scattered across three lanes. We were in no shape to enjoy the view, however. A split before impact, Wyck’s hood devil had blown our front sausage and spun us around, slamming us tail first into the rightside embankment.

The hood devil was still firing, shattering the calm rippling sound of the flames tearing up from the back of Wyck’s cruiser. Every ten seconds another shell whizzed past or over us, tearing apart another half-dozen square yards of scenery.

I fumbled weakly, not quite knowing what I was doing. I had bounced off the dash, the seat, and then the dash again so hard I’d split my helmet. My forehead was torn open, bits of my visor stuck in it. Through the drizzle of blood flowing over my face, I could see Wyck crawling out of his smashed windshield, a grenade in his left hand. I knew he was up to something, but my dazed brain simply couldn’t put the pieces together to tell me what. It was beginning to dawn on me what that something might be, but I was too dazed to react. Luckily, Bill wasn’t.

His hand pressed against my chest as he reached across me. His fingers dipped into the driver’s door pocket, coming out with the .357 I had forgotten. His head was going up through the sunroof when I heard the hood devil fire again. In another shot, Bill would be on the target line. I pawed at his leg, trying to drag him back inside, but all I did was distract him.

Wyck was inching closer. The devil blasted again. I knew the next shot had Bill’s name on it. He was just taking aim when suddenly he ducked. The shot went over the roof. Zipping back up then, he clipped off three shots, plastering Wyck against the Chromewolf’s hood with two of them. I started to cry in relief. Then, it happened.

Wyck’s coat jammed the hood devil’s track. Instead of sliding along, it blasted again on the same setting as it had the last time. Bill’s body smashed back against the rear of the sunroof and then just hung there, broken almost in half. The magnum was gone. Blood dripped down out of his shattered frame, covering me.

I had hold of myself until I found Bill’s good luck charm in my shirt pocket. When I realized he had put it there as he had gone for the magnum, something inside me snapped. My tears suddenly dry, I opened my door and stumbled down the road to where Wyck lie waiting. He had been hit in the upper chest and leg. He had lost a lot of blood, but somehow he was still alive.

Seeing that as a mistake that needed rectifying, I dragged him off his hood and smashed his face with my fist until his shirt ripped and he flopped out of my grasp. Too tired to bend down to crank him back up to my level, I merely kicked him—stomped him—groin, head, knees, throat…whatever target presented itself—wherever I could connect.

I fell several times, but I just dragged myself up again, continuing to pound on Wyck’s body, to mash it, break it, mutilate it anyway I could. By the time I was jumping up and down on his chest, he’d been dead a half an hour. Other cars drove by. Some gave me the thumbs up, others stopped to applaud. I stopped beating the dead body beneath me when I passed out.

* * * *

Later, when the sunrise woke me up, I was surprised to find I was unbroken. I sat on the shattered roadway staring at the still smoking Chromewolf. The Firefox remained trapped in the soft dirt of the right bank. Wyck’s body was stretched out next to me. What I’d done to it turned my stomach, racking me with violent, dry spasms. When I finished, I dragged myself back to the DoubleF.

Pulling Bill’s body aright, I fixed it behind the steering wheel. I had messed up big time, but he had pulled me out of it. It had been his victory—his win—and that was the way I was going to tell it. He deserved it.

He was also dead, and the Cummings would soon want their pound of flesh. So, shortly they would know the truth. How, since I was in no shape to drive after Wyck had paid to have me killed, Bill had piloted the Firefox, battled their son, and the two of them had killed each other. I know it was a rotten thing to do, but the choices I had were non-existent.

The Cummings would ruin Bill’s family, drive them down and grind them up. Even Freida couldn’t have protected me from that…even if she might still want to. No, sacrificing Bill’s name and his family was the only way to save myself and mine. It made me feel like scum, but I knew Bill would have understood.

After all, like I said, he was the best friend I ever had.