Love.exe: Surviving Chapter 39: Under The Hood

Chapter 39: Under The Hood

The champagne glasses were still on the table when the table ceased to be available as a table.

Athena’s voice arrived in the narrow space between one moment and the next, carrying the sarcasm it had carried all along. "Good luck to everyone," she said. "And happy racing."

Then the platform was gone, the ellipse was gone, and the light that had been coming from nowhere was replaced by fluorescent tubes poorly installed.

Proxy was standing in a parking bay.

Concrete underfoot, and a metal shelf unit against the far wall holding tools with optimistic neatness.

Overhead, the fluorescent tube buzzed at a frequency that suggested everything was fine while politely reserving the right to be wrong.

Ahead, through the open bay frame, a long floor of identical bays extended in both directions, each one holding a vehicle, the far end of the building disappearing into darkness where the lights had not bothered to continue.

He looked left. He looked right. Nyx was not in the nearest bays on either side.

He put his hands in his pockets and stood where he was, because it would take her no time to find him herself.

She came from two bays to his right, walking as if she already knew where he was.

She reached him and set her hand on the back of his sleeve without ceremony, which was where it ended up within a few seconds of her having any say in the matter.

She looked up at the fluorescent tube.

"Is this a garage?" she said.

"One directly from the 80s, yes." he said.

She looked at the bay ahead of them, which had a truck that communicated, in color, proportion, and general attitude, that it had been working for a long time and intended to keep doing so.

Large frame. Weathered paint.

She tilted her head at it, chin dropping toward her left shoulder.

"It’s not very interesting," she said.

He stepped closer bay.

A floating window appeared at the front of the vehicle, stat fields in clean white text against a dark background.

Speed: Moderate.

Endurance: High.

Acceleration: Low.

Three ability slots: Ram, Reinforce, Flag Carrier.

He read them and moved on.

The next bay had the opposite idea.

A truck designed by someone with a strong opinion about what a truck should be, and that opinion was everything.

Chrome body panels caught the fluorescent light and scattered it in directions it had not intended to go. The wheel rims were scaled to a size that suggested philosophy.

Along the front intake, LED strips cycled through a rhythm that seemed to mean something without ever committing to a single meaning.

Nyx looked at it.

"Someone was compensating for something..." she said.

"It’s a glass cannon build," he said, reading the window.

Speed: High.

Endurance: Low.

Acceleration: High.

Abilities: Burst, Flashbang, Override.

Burst was straightforward enough. The others were situational.

"You’re not choosing this tacky thing, right." She bopped her head at him.

They moved on.

The next bay had a vehicle built with the simple idea that copper was everything it needed.

Piping spread along the exterior in exposed configurations A row of pressure gauges mounted along the dashboard each pointed to a position that suggested theatherics.

The overall effect was of a truck that had arrived from another world and was not embarrassed about it.

Nyx stopped walking.

The look she gave it was warm, interested for no reasonable reason.

"That one has style to it," she said.

He read the window.

Speed: Moderate.

Endurance: Moderate.

Acceleration: Moderate-High.

Abilities: Speed Pulse, Smokescreen, Repair Vent.

Speed Pulse was plainly interesting. The other two depended on details he did not yet have, which moved them mildly curious, where they could sit and wait.

Clippy drifted past the rear wheel well of the copper vehicle, moving at the unhurried pace it had kept since they were brought to the .

The external pipe configuration presents a potential vulnerability at the left flank above wheel height.

I would note this for consideration before committing to a selection. I have noted this observation and it is available on request. This service is complimentary.

"Thank you," Nyx said, pleasantly, the way she always thanked it.

You’re very welcome.

It went on ahead of them down the row of bays, and they followed.

The next vehicle was low and wide, the machine sitting close to the ground of something engineered for terrain that had stopped pretending to be roads.

There was a roll cage visible above the cab. Fuel tanks bolted to the outer flanks.

The paint had either been chosen not to show damage or was damaged enough to become a color of its own.

Then the bay after that, a vehicle that had been given extra metal by someone that very clearly, loved metal.

Welded plate along the sides in sections that did not quite fit. A winch on the front installed with more care than the rest.

Then a truck whose design implied a different century without quite saying which one.

He was three bays past that when Nyx let go of his sleeve.

He turned.

She had stopped in front of a bay he had passed without stopping, which he had done because the vehicle was a joke.

She had apparently not arrived at that opinion.

The truck in the bay was smaller than the others, and its window was not optimistic.

Speed: High

Endurance: Low

Acceleration: Very high.

Abilities: Boost, Slip, Feint.

Boost was a speed surge. Slip was to hinder opponents. Feint was a way to escape targetting.

The stats turned out to be more interesting than he had originally judged.

What had made him pass it the first time was the design.

The proportions were round in the way that suggested the designer had wanted every corner to become family friendly.

The paint was pale, somewhere between cream and the color of something that had decided to be cheerful.

The headlights were disproportionately large for the frame, which gave the vehicle the impression of having two very large eyes.

Nyx was staring at it with a starry-eyed gaze.

"Yeees~" she said.

"You can’t be serious," he said.

"It’s very cute," she said.

"Cute? You think that’s cute?" he sighed. "I’m glad you never called me cute then."

"Hmph. Of course not. You are handsome. The brooding, lazy mysterious sort."

She was still looking at the truck. Nothing in her expression suggested she was changing the decision.

Proxy opted to ignore her description of him and walk back toward another bay.

A dieselpunk truck waited there.

Dark frame, low-slung, no surface material that was not earning its weight.

The design philosophy was simple, in that efficiency justified every decision, and appearance had been considered exactly as much as necessary and no more.

He checked the window.

Speed: Moderate-High.

Endurance: High.

Acceleration: Moderate.

Abilities: Overdrive, EMP Pulse, Brace.

It was, all things considered, pretty damn good.

"Yours?" she called from her bay.

"Yes," he said.

She made the small, satisfied sound that meant a confirmation. Then she appeared in his bay entrance a moment later, leaning against the frame with ease.

She looked at his truck with very obvious curiosity.

"Brooding. It suits you." she said.

He looked at the stat window, again, in a way to ignore her words.

She smiled cutely at the side of his face, watching something he didn’t quite caught what.

Then, in a tone that made it clear she wanted to edge him into it, she said, "If I come in ahead of you, you have to do something for me."

"If," he said.

"Mm," she said, pleasantly, with no sign that she was treating the word as relevant.

"And if you somehow come in ahead of me, I’ll do something for you. It’s fair game."

He considered the proposal.

A bet with open terms.

He very much knew how dangerous that was, specially with what Nyx could request. But that was only if he lost. And he would not lose.

"Fine," he said.

She looked at him for a moment in a way that nearly made he regret, then she turned and went back toward her bay.

He watched her go.

The energy of her walking was not something he could name precisely, but it covered a great deal of ground very quickly in a way that somehow felt like skipping and walking.

Proxy looked at the truck.

Only then, he realized, he never had seen Nyx drive a car before.

Or any sort of vehicle, if that mattered.

He briefly wondered if that would be a problem.

Then, he got in.