Morning Route
First, an announcement: sf frens (a crowdsourced, SF-based zine series that I help organize), is looking for submissions! The theme for zine #5 is “shenanigan(s)”.
Morning Route
Ren empties a bin into his garbage truck and notes its fullness. He’s halfway through his morning route in a stretch of downtown low-rises, finally alert thanks to brightening sunlight and a strong Americano, pondering how many more bins he can collect before heading to the landfill for his mid-shift unload.
Ren’s contemplation is interrupted by an explosion in the building just ahead to his right. A woman emerges from the smoke and hauls herself into his truck’s passenger seat, dragging an unconscious man behind her. She awkwardly lays the man across her lap, and, with her recently-freed hand, aims a pistol at Ren. “Hospital. Now.”
The woman is in her late twenties, about a decade younger than Ren, in blood-and-soot-stained business casual. Her clumsy, white-knuckled grip on the gun, with the faintest tremor, doesn’t escape Ren. He strikes out with his right hand and knocks the gun out of hers, then catches it before it can clatter into the depths of her passengers’ seat footwell. He says, “Let me guess. That’s your friend’s gun, and you’ve never shot one before.”
The woman’s shoulders slump. “Yeah. We were supposed to -”
Tire screeches and staccato pops to the truck’s left. Ren turns to see a leather-clad figure on a motorcycle drawing near, and ducks just in time to avoid a bullet that spiderwebs the top of his windshield. Ren returns fire to blow out the motorcycle’s tires.
A dozen more motorcycles appear in his rearview mirror, but he’s bought them some time. “Go on.”
The woman is wide-eyed. “- supposed to go to the Chronicle’s office. We’re, er, freelance tech journalists, and have information on a certain company from a whistleblower. We didn’t think they’d send mercenaries after us!”
“I’ll get you to the hospital. Name’s Ren.”
“I’m Mira.”
Ren doesn’t press whether it’s her real name. He, who’s so far stayed in his lane despite the brief gunfight, feels the steering wheel jerk left of its own accord. The left wheels cross the double yellow line and raise a chorus of frantic honks. The mercenaries have hacked his truck. He turns to Mira. “Do you know how to code?”
Mira nods. “It’s how I got into tech journalism.”
“Great, I’ll need your help.” He gestures at the touchscreen panel between their seats. “Tap the AC four times, it’ll pull up a terminal and keyboard. You should be able to root in and kill the process.”
In his previous job, such Easter eggs saved his life countless times. In his current job, it’s only been useful for pranking fellow drivers – his proudest is programming the truck to blast Never Gonna Give You Up whenever someone signaled a right turn – until now.
Mira asks, “Your sudo password?”
The garbage truck suddenly accelerates. Ren gasps and stomps on the brakes to compensate, but not before they hit the SUV in front of them. It veers into the right lane with a prolonged honk, its driver shaken but unharmed.
Ren says, “m0chi555, with a zero instead of an O. Mochi’s my dog.”
“Cute.”
Another minute of Ren struggling against the wheel, then Mira enters a final command and pumps her fists in triumph, and it’s under his control again. The motorcyclists have nearly caught up.
Ren shoots off the two remaining bullets, which destroys one motorcycle and slows down the rest, but not for long.
Ren says, “You can edit the script for the truck’s lifting arm. Can you adjust the speed and angle to hit the motorcycles?”
“I can try.”
Mira tweaks a few constants, then presses the “lift” button. The metal arm slings three full trash bags into a clothing store to their left, shattering its glass windows and layering its mannequins in plastic and styrofoam.
“Hmm. Right velocity, wrong angle.” She readjusts the constants.
Her second attempt throws four bags into the street behind them, one of which takes out a pursuing motorcycle and another an unfortunate bystander cyclist.
Mira nails four more motorcycles before the truck is empty. The remaining six, who have fallen back to avoid the trash, accelerate once the projectiles stop. A bullet takes out the truck’s right side mirror.
Fortunately, Ren knows this street from one of his regular routes. He turns sharply into an alley behind a row of restaurants and slows for a precious few seconds to pick up an overfilled bin. Most of it makes it into his truck, a clattering of chicken bones to the alley floor the only casualties.
Mira hits three more motorcycles with their new ammunition. Ren turns into an alley infamous among garbage truck drivers for its potholes. Fortunately, it’s not infamous among mercenaries; one flips on a pothole, and they’re down to their final two pursuers.
The truck races towards a solid steel garage door at the end of the alley. Ren digs through his pockets for a key fob, his foot still on the gas. He taps the fob against the access reader as they drive by. Mira shrinks into her seat as the door nears, but it lifts just in time for them to speed through.
Ren decelerates with a breath of relief in the sparse, high-ceilinged garage.
The motorcycles have almost reached the access reader. Mira asks, “Shouldn’t we -”
The garage door slams down, cutting the first motorcycle in half, its headlights and wheels splitting apart and flying into empty parking spots. The second motorcycle is completely shut out.
Ren says, “We’re fine. This building has crazy tight security - the developers wanted to gentrify the area, but gave up after this one fancy condo.”
He drives to the other side of the garage, where its second exit lets them out five blocks from the hospital. They reach it without further incident.
Mira’s colleague stirs, no longer unconscious but clearly still in need of medical aid. Mira says, “Thanks, we owe you one.”
“No problem. It was fun.”
Mira laughs, giddy from their adventure. “You know, our crew of tech journalists could use a getaway driver, if you’d like to join us.”
Ren considers the offer. He did have fun; the adrenaline rush of a close call feels like an old friend. He shakes his head ruefully. “I was in a similar crew once, but I can’t go back to that life.” He pats his truck’s dashboard. “This gets me a 401k, healthcare, and quality time with music and audiobooks.”
Mira shrugs and hands him a business card. “Suit yourself. Call me if you change your mind.”
Ren watches his passengers as they disappear into the hospital’s sliding glass doors, the injured man leaning heavily on Mira. Then he turns up the music, pulls out of the hospital parking lot, and heads towards the next garbage bin on his route. He’s only half an hour behind on his work schedule.
Fin
This story has two main inspirations: Cyberpunk Edgerunners (such a good anime!) and my writing group’s one-word prompt, “stinky”.
Today was my first of 9 days of the Rooted & Written Conference, and it inspired me to revisit this newsletter.