X. Red Devil's Night
Two Freedom-Fighting Gals, One Souped-Up Bug & A Final Night On The Town!
For the hippie-punk Lita and ring-girl Ashley Damier, the one-room sanctum was a brilliant, beautiful cloud in which they swam. The more decidedly feminine of the two (offset by her calling everyone “man” or “dude”), Ash was different in almost every way from her mohawk-adorned friend. Their only overlaps were driving styles (“ain’t no laws with lead paws” as they’d always say) and some cannabis-based indulgences. The two wolves passed the joint back and forth between them, smoking it down to the filter.
“So like...we gotta get the whole thing together,” Ash started, the white wolven punk swimming in smoke. “Gotta, like, make it a big ol’ beautiful circle who can...ah, shit, is that what you potheads always sound like?”
Lita’s lunatic cackle said it all; the impression was bang-on. “Pretty much,” the vigilante grinned, sliding into her sandals. “And yeah, I can’t stand talking like it for more than five seconds. It becomes a draaaag, maaaaan.”
The 20-somethings fell into each other, laughing (and coughing) hysterically. Once the mania died down, it was time for real business.
“I ain’t joking about the Creed though,” Lita nodded. “Think it’s time to grow up and get some real shit done. Between the stories Doc Smith told me about up north, and all the shit going down here in East Wing, we are way overdo for some real organizing. Think you can get our pack involved?”
Ash smiled, patting her friend’s back. “You betcha! I’m sure Chuck would be game to help. If he can wait five seconds and let his damn ligaments heal.”
“Well, everyone don’t have to all be in the field.” the dark-furred punk chuckled. “Hell, it’s gonna be hard not going out every night. Keeping everyone in line, getting some actual plans cooked up.”
“How ‘bout we though?” the white wolf asked, throwing her denim jacket on.
Lita’s snout scrunched. “Ash, we gotta get serious though! If everyone just keeps going around willy-nilly, no plans, always fucking the next guy over and—”
“Not talking the Creed, hun!” she shot back. “I mean one last ride. You, me, R.D. and a night sticking it to the man? Make it big, fun, hit ‘em hard and have a blast.”
Lita stopped dead in her tangent as a devilish gleam lit up her crimson eyes. The punk snickered in delight. “Well if you insist! Let’s get him prepped.”
For Lita, “prepped” meant a whole new routine for her bloody little Bug. He was packed full of weird gadgets, a million loose wires, and she hadn’t lost her penchant for dropping THC in his engine oil. Tonight, however, was going to be a work of sheer boredom: how the Red Devil performed after dropping acid.
“You’re fucking joking, right?” Ash snickered. “I mean you gotta be.”
“What’s wrong with trying!?” the punk grinned. “Mama’s little hot-rod deserves a good trip every once in a while.”
“Bro, he’s a fucking car!” The denim-clad white wolf was in stitches.
Lita plucked the joint from out Ash’s mouth, took a final puff, and snuffed it out on her own jacket. “Then let’s see how it fixes performance.”
She popped the tab in the gas tank, kissed the flap, and opened the sanctum’s doors. The chicks dove into the Bug, Lita ripped him in reverse, and the deep-red beast whipped into the alleyway. Before they took off, she held the brake down, and threw him in first. The Bug’s back tires screamed, spewing smoke up the back alley wall.
“Yo, don’t blow your drivetrain, man.” Ash warned.
“Yes mom,” Lita answered drolly. She popped her foot off the brake, and the Red Devil bolted down the alleyway. He hit the main street like a bat out of hell, the city a Technicolor blur in those dinner-plate headlights. The dark blue night melded with the various street lamps, and his own red body reflected in the mirror glass of countless skyscrapers. If he was feeling anything at all, it was the thunder of his mechanical heart pounding, and the reassuring touch of Lita’s half-gloved hands on the wheel, and her sandaled paw flat on the throttle, claws out on all fours.
“Who you wanna fuck up first?” quizzed the dark gray wolf.
Ash nodded. “Any bikers fair game tonight?”
“Lemme ring up my boy inside,” Lita nodded, punching a number on the Bug’s mobile phone. “AYO MACKEY! Wazzup?”
“Not much, Hot-stuff,” came Mack Malten’s reply. “Watcha cooking?”
“I got a tank full of LSD, I’m hot and bothered about this pretty city of ours, and I got a friend who wants to take out some two-wheeled dipshits if you got any.”
“So it’s a Tuesday then.”
The girls, still coasting on their mean green cloud, were in stitches. When Malten got himself back together, he knew just the hounds to send them to.
“How bouta protection racket? Been trying to get these guys on-side, but old habits die hard. J.J. Bailey has an all-bobber club. No front fender, half a rear. That thing. Hit ‘em at the Fleischer complex. They’re probably roughing someone up there.”
“What’s he look like?” Ash asked.
“It’s a tans-only club, so all ‘em got that desert fur thing going.”
“Thanks handsome,” Lita smiled. “O&O, hitting the Fleischer now”
When she kicked the brake and clutch, the Bug slid into a drift before rocketing down the side street and towards their first target.
“Damn, man.” the thin white punk smiled, “his suspension’s smoooooth. Gotta help me get the Maverick that butterfly flow.”
“Shit, ain’t even touch it for a few months” Lita chuckled. “Hope you digging the trip, cutie.” She thumbed the gearshift as she flattened the gas, the ecstasy of it hitting her like an 18-wheeler.
“Where my part in all the fun, Mrs. Robinson?” Ash asked cheekily, “Seeing as you two are having so much of it already.”
One snorting laugh later, Lita pulled out an odd silver revolver, one whose cylinder sat in front of the trigger rather than above.
“You get to play with this bullpup-ass piece of shit.” Before she could get offended, the dark gray driver explained. “I call my Mateba that ‘cuz I love it, but I don’t ever use it. They used to call ‘em MTR-8s. Funky lil’ dude packs a pretty big wallop, especially with the laser cartridges I got loaded.”
Ash grinned, kissed the barrel, and waited patiently for their arrival at the Fleischer apartment complex. A few short minutes later, they were right on the building’s doorstep, and right in the thick of biker gang’s mobbing. The Fleischer complex was part of what locals now called a “dark street,” a place A.C.E.S. had seemingly forsaken in her infinite “wisdom.” No cops to take the crooks down, residences were never cleared to move anywhere else, and reduced efficiency of nanotech meant damage sustained to the buildings wouldn’t “heal” as fast.
When the bikers saw the Red Devil, they knew it wasn’t a courtesy call.
“IT’S MALTEN’S BITCH, GET ‘ER!”
Out came their guns, and down came that sandaled lead paw, Lita plowing into the tan-furred bastards without a care in the world. Ash slapped the hand-crank, the shotgun-side window dropping and her aim on par with most beginners; that being rather poor. She hit just about every crack in the asphalt, chipped a few bricks, and grazed a few handlebars. Lita could see her floundering.
“You want me to—”
“NOPE!” Ash barked indignantly, “I got this in the bag.” It took her five more shots (and a judging glower from Lita) before she could prove herself, but the last shot Ash made was worth the wait.
On an upper floor, she could see a family of grays, mother cradling her newborn, slowly backing away from the window. Backing towards it, knife drawn, was one of the tan bikers. A brief fury burned within her as she raised the gun, kept her mark, and blew the hound’s head off. The body slumped against the shattered glass and fell to the street, its fall broken by another gangster.
“Fucking A, man.” the white wolf growled with pleasure.
For Lita, the lightness with which the Red Devil drifted seeped into the hit-and-run festivities. The crimson-colored Bug fishtailed with each kick of the brakes, always slamming the nearest thug he could get his tires on. As he barreled over the bodies and knocked over the bikes, Lita and Ash didn’t feel an ounce of it.
“Whaddya say we take ‘em for a ride, Little Man?” Lita growled. The engine roared in reply as the bubble-shaped hot-rod bolted from the scene. Any bikers left standing leapt onto their slick black rides and gave chase.
“Watcha thinking next?” a winded Ash asked.
“Roight,” replied the punk, mustering her thickest British accent, “it ain’t a real royot if we don’t get the rozzers involved, now init?”
“In English, please.”
“It was!” Lita barked. “Ol’ Doc’d appreciate it anyway. We’re getting some fucking autocops, hang on.”
She punched the purple button above her knee, and clung to the wheel as the Beetle raced into the night, his speedometer swung hard into the 200s. A smile split the young wolf’s snout as she knuckled the suede of her sandals. “Nitro on-demand. That’ll get us to the nearest station in three, two…”
POP!
The Bug’s back tires screamed as he spun out of control, Lita fighting to get him back together. The bikers saw their chance and leapt on it, hitting the pint-sized machine with everything they had. Laser fire, bike locks, beer bottles, and anything else they had on hand.
“ANYTHING I CAN DO!?” Ash shouted over the commotion.
Lita shook her head and stomped the brakes one last time. The Red Devil lurched forward and raced on, smooth as ever. When Ash saw what they had run over, she was horrified. “We lost the whole back tire!”
The darksome punk answered with another shake of her mohawked head. “The main wheel’s rubber,” she replied. “But not my baby’s run-flats! Feels a bit like a lowrider now.”
All the commotion worked in her favor, for out came the black-and- silver hovercrafts, the slender forms whipping into the rearview mirror, whipping out the front battalion of biker thugs, firing off the sweet, automated nothings Lita loved to hear.
“HALT. H-H-H-HALT. HALT. YOU’RE V-VIOLATING THE LA-LAW. PULL O-O-OVER N-N-NOW.”
“And there’s Phase 2,” Lita grinned. “Give ‘em the Dragon, Ash, if I pull another braking stunt like that, we might not have any wheels left.”
“You’re seri—”
“FUCK YEAH I’M SERIOUS, GIRL. GET YO BITCH-ASS ON THE TRIGGER!”
Now it was the white wolf’s turn to don the demonic grin. She holstered the revolver, plucked up the sniper rifle, leaned out the window and lit up the night at 210 miles an hour. The white streaks of light roared from the Dragunov’s barrel into the silver autocops’ engines. She didn’t bother aiming for just one; spraying electric lead everywhere and catching the stray bikers who tried to weave around the hovercraft was too much fun to pass up.
“FUCK MAN, I SHOULDA BEEN HANGING WITH YA MORE!” Ash hollered, in the absolute heat of punk heaven. She managed to detonate her first autocop when she felt a rip at her shirt, and found herself pulled back inside.
“Yo the fuck was—”
BOOM!
“Shrapnel goes in all directions.” Lita replied plainly.
“Can I go back to—”
The “vmooph” of a streetlamp hitting the pavement told her it was best to stay inside. “Shit,” she harrumphed, slapping the safety on and kicking her sneakers up on the dash. “Just when I get in the game of it.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Lita growled. “Besides, you’re missing watchu made!”
Ashley looked up into the rearview, and saw the mangled pileup she set in motion. The electric blue fireball made of her first autocop took all the bikers near it down in its flames, and a good chunk of the autocops caught in the wall of carnage.
“Shit, man.” Ash gasped in awe. “I’m pretty fucking good at this freedom-fighting crap, ain’t I?”
“Wanna kiss in victory circle?” Lita teased.
“Didn’t know you did threesomes on the street.”
“Yeouch!” the gray punk seethed. “I’m gonna have to use that burn one day, bitch!”
Her white-furred friend giggled like a schoolgirl before straightening out. “To hell with that, what’s next? Empire Square?”
“Nah, I got something even better.” beamed the red-eyed wolf. “I got a gaggle of cops and a gang of dip-shit bikers on my 6. If I swing my Little Man’s tail the right way...whatchu think Comm/Ent. is gonna look like with these bastards coming thru?”
“Think you’ll make it?” Ash asked innocently.
Lita was puzzled. “Whaddya mean?”
“Surprised I ain’t seen your O face already. You’re past 250 and you look like you’re in heat.”
It was a different kind of killing blow, hearing that from a friend, and Lita was in pieces. Tears of laughter streaked down her face as she tried to pull herself together. She was so taken aback that she took her eyes off the road for a second. One second long enough to go careening into the side of an apartment.
“SHIT!” she barked, trying to bring the Bug back around. The sudden shift of momentum gave the autocops and bikers plenty of fair shots at the Bug’s run-flat wheels. Laser fire peppered the ground beneath the careening street machine as his driver tried her damnedest to steady him. It was only when they hung a hard right turn that it all went down around them. But not in the way they suspected.
“Alright, you get your ass ready to light ‘em up like the Fourth of July,” the darksome punk ordered. “I’ll bust out the Wildey and give ‘em the ol’
She shifted gears and swung a hard right turn, the remaining menagerie of bikers and automated hovercraft barreling towards her. That final drift proved a saving grace, for the unwieldy handling of the autocops meant a wide-enough radius to knock down and burn up any bikers in their way. Scores of riders and rides screamed to a stop, detonating beneath the slender, silver machines.
What Lita and Ash hadn’t counted on was the sudden relapse in self-awareness the mishap brought about. From out the gang’s blind-rage, they suddenly realized they were all surrounded by cops. The bikers slammed on their brakes, and fell back behind the pursuing hovercrafts.
This sudden, mass shift in movement triggered the sensors of the autocops, and it became apparent to the onboard protocols that there were at least a dozen or more felons to be dragged to jail, or slaughtered on-site. Before the two punks realized what was going on, the bikers opened fire on the hovercraft engines, and the fired on wolf and machine alike. An earth-shaking BOOM finally caught the punks’ attention. Lita slowed the Red Devil down and whipped him around to face their pursuers. What Ash and Lit were met with was a distant, jumbled mess of blood and steel in the middle of the street.
“Well shit,” she snapped. “The fuck they go and do that for!?”
Ash was the first to step out, and took the anticlimax in stride. “Maybe they did us a favor.”
“The fuck you mean favor!?” Lita bellowed, leaping out of the driver’s seat. “Coulda had all them dumbasses trashing their shit! Right for everyone to see!”
“Well,” the mellowed white wolf sighed. “Hard to run a top-secret underground resistance when your car is plastered on every new-and-improved telescreen when A.C.E.S. regenerates the whole of Comm/Ent.”
Lita slowly turned to face her friend, staring her down across the blood-caked roof of the Beetle. It had finally dawned on her. Ash flinched for a second before the gray hippie-punk sighed, scoffed at herself and flashed a knowing smile towards her friend.
“And that’s why we gotta plan our shit before we start making real moves.” she replied. “Guess we coulda done worse for a final night. Lemme get you back to Chuck. I think I’ll go over to Mack’s to blow the rest of this steam off. My tough guy done plenty tonight as-is.”
The two went in for a kiss on the Red Devil’s fenders, only to realize just how soaked they were. “In fact, your tough guy needs a hose-down.”
“You wanna drive him back to Base then?” Lita asked. “Getchu one last shot of adrenaline?”
“You betcha!” Ash hollered with glee. Quick as a flash, she leapt behind the wheel and gassed the Red Devil up. Lita crawled over to the passenger side, and clung tight to the handrail as the bloody red Bug sped off. Fortunately, Ash was a lightening-fast driver in her own right. Unfortunately, it seemed the party she threw herself caught what was left of the autocops.
When Lita saw the silvery demons in the rearview, she could only grin. “Show me how you shake these bastards off,” she winked. And for the rest of the night, Ash did just that. And for the rest of the night, and the next day, Lita heard a strange, soft rumbling in her Red Devil. The little man’s engine wasn’t damaged from her little experiment, he had burned through the whole tab by the night’s end, but he seemed to almost be chanting something to himself. At first she was freaked out by it, but the more she listened, the more it seemed like a meditation.
“Just keep rockin’ and rollin’ for me, baby,” Lita smiled. “We got a lotta work to get done if we want this city back the way it oughta be.”
His last rumbling fell on her last word, and all she could do was smile right back at that goofy little face of his. The Urban Avenger and her tenacious little machine were ready for the Creed that was to come, but no one could be ready for the incredible task they would all soon tackle.
Good ol' bug, the VW Beetle is one of my favorite classic cars.