Carramba High Road Rally Day 1 Fluffy 2

Team Fluffy
North 215


No one but Feng noticed how much ground they’d gained on the others on the road, and he kept it to himself. The vehicle was fast, and it handled as he’d tuned it to do: flawlessly. But even then, in Feng’s mind, there were still things to be done with it before it was ‘perfect’.

No creation of his was ever actually perfect in his eyes, of course. He was an engineer and an artist. The closest he could ever really hope for would be ‘good enough’. The only people who ever understood that, implicitly or expressly, were folks like Bart and Sam and even Miranda back there.

By her nature, Ash had practical limits to what she could do – or perhaps, what she could get away with making – for her people back home. They needed things, it wasn’t a matter of want. Safety, their primary concern. Effectiveness, up there in the top five. Extra stuff like head room or a sound system that couldn’t be heard outside? Well, while convenient, or even clever, Feng knew that those were luxuries at best for a girl in her position.

Tanni on the other hand, she knew style as well as functionality. She was a kid, though; she was maybe twelve if that, to Ash’s… something like middle-teens. They’d had lengthy discussions, the three of them, about what they’d do and conditions where they’d have to rotate driving. So far, it didn’t seem like their youngest – and not legal – driver would be up for any length of time behind the wheel.

Feng almost regretted that, but then maybe there would be time for her to get some speeding done out in the desert. Once they left the confines of a Beacon zone, like Wonder or Hoover Dam, as long as they didn’t get caught, it was basically anything goes.

He’d asked: how fast can we switch seats? They’d actively practiced it. When Tanni would be behind the wheel (… when she had to have the seat raised and brought forward to even hit the pedals) it would take at most around 11 seconds to trade out either Ash or Feng. But they had to be in the front passenger seat, and so they were quite adamant about their arrangements in the car, regardless of who else would be there.

And of course, in that 11 seconds, if they were actually moving, the car had an unobtrusive button to set it on auto-pilot for the duration. They practiced that, too. The windows of the vehicle couldn’t be easily seen through, particularly when in motion or from certain angles. If the car was parked, the shocks were able to conceal any motion of sliding over the center shift, even at Feng’s size he could do it easily. He looked a little cramped but then – he took care of the ‘get Tanni out, get Feng in’ swap with another preset on the side of the driver’s seat. She would slap it and start climbing, it would be almost all the way back by the time Feng’s feet reached the pedals.

All that would be left, of course, would be if anyone else said anything. Feng didn’t think anyone would be that dumb.

But to cover that, he also installed a ‘panic quiet button’, which like the cigarette field, isolated parts of the interior and rendered them as silent as needed. Since the car was bigger on the inside than visible outside, he’d thought about putting up a visual damper too – but then, anyone brave enough to pull over this car, during this race, would know they were packing a bunch more people than a 2-seater race car could ever handle.

It would look ‘wrong’ to have merely two in the stretch Lamb.

Feng downshifted as the car moved into the more heavily forested hills. “We’re getting closer to Wonder,” he announced, and others took note with a variety of expressions and a certain amount of muttering. “So, Lethe, Bruno, eyes open.”

Bruno was half-asleep (but then, maybe he wasn’t, perhaps he had spells going behind his eyelids – and he’d claim as much if anyone brought it up) but perked up and sat blinking away his ‘sleep spell’… Lethe looked to her right, and nudged Miranda.

“Much though I hate to give up the nice warm spot next to Armor,” she giggled, “it’s probably easier if I’m by the window. Bruno’s by the left, I’ll take the right.”

Bruno nearly had a heart attack watching Lethe’s muscular rump scoot between the arm rests in front of him, and then nearly had another as Miranda settled in where the combat mage had been. It was probably a good thing he couldn’t sit all the way up, because that would give him way too much of a view of Miranda’s ample cleavage.

Miranda took advantage of her situation, however; she leaned left and purred, “oooh, he is warm.” To which Armorshot just grinned ear to ear.

“Where are we now?” Ramon asked, “we’ve only been driving like, two hours.”

“In twisty roads,” Tanni said, “slower than I thought.”

Ramon leaned forward, he hadn’t been paying much attention as he flipped through one of the comic books he’d brought. “Wait, we’re – we’re actually up in the hills already?” He peered out and saw a number of things that impressed him. A narrow strip of road between them and the cliff below, tree tops directly below that road edge, and a series of evergreen-covered hills slashed with a paved area at ever-increasing heights. “I hadn’t felt any of that, I would have thought we’d be swaying like crazy in these curves,” he looked as far back around as he could, “the shocks on this thing are insane!”

“Yes, they are,” Feng grinned. “You probably won’t feel the acceleration out in the desert when we hit top speed, either, but I can always turn the dampening fields off for that. Everyone should experience a five-G launch.”

“Pff,” Ramon said, “I’m a quarter bird, man. I do tricks like that in my sleep.”

“Another lie from the back seat!” Katie giggled.

“I can,” Ramon pouted.

“You’re not Rita,” Miranda said, and to Ramon’s questioning, almost suspicious look, she added, “I know her, that pale-ass speed demon, little miss falcon cheetah race-fucking-horse.”

“She’s actually a Pegasus,” Ramon said, visibly relieved, “but yeah she can fly like this car can turn, either way.” He glanced at Bruno, who was looking out his window, but grinning with that distinctly pervy hum. “And she’s taken, and,” he punched Bruno in the shoulder, “she’s got a temper on her like you would not believe.”

“And that’s a bad thing… how?” Bruno asked, still with the idiot grin. “I mean, hot headed women are fantastic.”

“She would beat your ass so hard.” He punched at the air, “hoof to the muzzle, it would be beautiful.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t let her?” Bruno laughed. He also took a look at his arm, where Ramon had ‘punched’ him. “That seriously wasn’t the best you could do, right?”

Ramon squinted and sneered, but then laughed. “When I ‘trip out’, you’ll get to find out, if you want to spar.” He looked back out the right-side window again, as they got around another turn. “This place reminds me of the Reservation.”

“Which?” Feng asked, glancing around, still looking for any sign of their first destination.

“The Snow Rising Reservation – it’s a Triptych homestead, it’s where … well, it’s where a lot of us live.” Clearly, at least clearly to Lethe, Miranda and Feng, Ramon wanted to talk about it, but no pun intended, had reservations about doing so. They didn’t pressure him to discuss it, and though he gave little outward response, he did appreciate that effort. “I’ll… tell you guys later, when we’re more bored.”

“Bored! How can we be bored!” Tanni said, her voice ever so slightly shrill. “This place is beautiful, look at all the trees! And there’s a squirrel – and a bobcat!”

There was, actually, a bobcat – in the middle of the road! Feng hadn’t seen it, as it was loping along the side of the hill heading toward that self-same squirrel, which darted in record time across the road and down the trunk of a nearby tree. The cat, thankfully, skidded to a halt half-way across the oncoming lane, not yet into theirs, and bolted back up the hill.

“Sorry cat, we spoiled your lunch hunt,” Bruno said. “Better that than roadkill I guess.” A moment later he added, “mmmmm, road kill…”

“There is seriously something wrong with you,” Ramon muttered.

Ash gave a private grin, “road kill’s okay, just depends on what’s dead.”

Bruno pushed his paws up to indicate her, “see! She knows what I’m talking about!”

There was a brief and animated discussion about the things they’d eaten off the road, until Lethe waved her hand behind Miranda’s head to attract Bruno’s attention.

“Eyes open,” she said, “do you see that?” She leaned the back of her seat portion as far down as it would go – and would have to smack him for the eyeballing he did of her chest as it did so. “Over across that next pass.”

Bruno squinted, and leaned over a bit, but this time didn’t slobber on the combat mage’s neck. “Yeah, there are a set of wards. I see … three of them, one on the ground, another in the treetops, and a third up above.”

“Probably at least one below ground,” Lethe added, “but we’re not tunneling.” She returned her seat to the upright position, and proclaimed, “Wonder’s in that direction, boss.” She saw Feng’s mane bob with his nod. “So best behavior, I think… we might be first in line.”

“They doing magical news reports?” Tanni asked, halfway joking.

“Yes, they are; apparently we are first in line,” Lethe said, with her fingers in a kind of expecting-something pause. She had opened a spell, Bruno could see it but not properly view its contents. A personal connection to the Mage-net, he could probably open one here, too but decided to let her do the work. “Wonder is gearing up, they hadn’t expected anyone – let alone a high tech unit like ours – to be here this early.”

“What, no welcome wagon yet?” Feng smirked, “that’s fine, as long as the beacon to Alabaster is set up right, we can park and get registered.”

“And then ten hours of boredom so you’ll get to tell us more lies!” Katie laughed, and Ramon gave a snort.

“They’re not lies from me,” Ramon said. “I made some promises and I don’t plan on breaking them, my girl would kill me.” He lifted his hand, human skinned this time, and Mercury, who had been either asleep or very quiet the whole time, turned her highly reflective face to look. She saw a ring, hematite it looked like, with an opal set in it.

“That’s an interesting choice,” she said, grinning, “you’ll have to tell us about her.”

“Wait, wait, you’re hitched?” Bruno stammered. His eyebrows about fell over themselves in confusion.

“Angela and I are actually going to be celebrating our two-year anniversary in about a month,” Ramon got a pleasant, dreamy look on his face. “Lady saves your life, you gotta be thankful in all the right ways.”

“Now you really are gonna have to tell us all about it,” Katie giggled.

That, it seemed, was something Ramon was prepared to talk about. But they would wait for that story at least for another few hours: after two more curved sections of hillside roads were passed, it became clear there was an unusual fork in the road. The eastern path led on its visible way around the rest of the rugged area. The northern path… It wasn’t a big road, but it was definitely just as paved and marked as any normal California street. There were no other vehicles on the road that anyone could see, so Feng slowed down and they halted near the T-intersection.

“This would be it, then?” He asked. “Looks different every time, I swear.”

“It is different every time,” Lethe pointed out, “it keeps the people they don’t want, away. Don’t get me wrong: it’s different for us every time too. Only,” she glanced at Bruno, “we’ve got the means to find it again.”

Ash stared at the intersection. “That really is pretty weird,” she muttered. Feng looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “I can see what they meant, there are markers, I guess wards?” She saw Bruno’s nod. “To me, Vortally, they’re still there, only they look … kind of like the way a Portal Storm starts. They don’t do anything, but they’re mixing spaces. Nach hallam tahh gulallibahh,” she spoke Vortigese, but only Katie recognized what she said. And that was because Katie had a Babel Fish in her ear. “Only, not really hallam, more just nach…”

Even Feng just looked at her like she lost her mind. But Katie realized why they were staring and not nodding. “The pathways between worlds,” she said, and Ash nodded. “Nach hallam,” Katie said, “the chaotic pathways. So you mean, this is more just a path.”

“And actually,” Ash muttered more for her own edification than anything else, “tahh nach lallibahh,” she seemed to think that order of words meant something different. Again, Katie clarified for the others.

“A path made through the worlds,” she enlightened the others. “It’s a neat language. It’s a shame I can’t really hear it, I’ve been told it’s really fun to speak.”

Ash looked at the hitch hiker, “well, fun if you’ve got their lungs and throat. And, if you can speak telepathically. I mean, I’m …” her grey eyes blinked under confused or bemused brows. “I’m the only one in the car that’s telepathic…”

“But isn’t that why we have words?” Armorshot said, “because we’re not?”

“Vorts speak in both mental context and audible words,” Ash said. “So if you want to know something specific, you have to be telepathic. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of words that you can interpret a dozen different ways.”

“Well I’m gonna interpret that sign,” Feng said of the white-bordered green road sign that materialized as they sat idling at the intersection, “as an invitation.”

The sign read, Wonder City Limit, Population 12,443, Elevation 5,030.

Ash and Katie would continue their talk about languages a little bit later. For the moment, Feng turned the indicator on, waited for any oncoming traffic (there was none, still), and moved the vehicle onto the two-lane road. Tall trees lined both sides, and moss and leaf covered boulders dotted some of it. Feng didn’t say anything to the others in the car when he saw the street basically vanish as they drove up it. There would be too many questions and only the inhabitants of the town could answer them.

Thankfully, it looked like half that town turned up. As the street widened a little, into the more familiar sidewalk-sided, yellow-lined ones typical everywhere else in the state, the town itself became visible.

Everyone in the car leaned forward, or looked out their nearest window, to get a view. The windows rolled down at Feng’s flick of a finger, and they could hear cheering – and bugling, there were dragons overhead. It looked like a little slice of the pioneer days, even more so given that Independence Day was yesterday and thus like most other places around the country, their decorations were still up and sales going on in the shops. Buildings with tall colorfully painted facades sat back on wide wooden porches, and a little down the road they had more modern looking and slightly taller buildings forming a small downtown area. Beyond that, a slice of the nearby lake (which they’d been told was not on the ‘designated Beacon area’ so they couldn’t actually park there) was shining in the early-afternoon sun.

“Now this is a nice place,” Ramon said. He could tell that at least a couple of their team would be much more at home in other locales, the rustic look and feel was just not their ‘thing’. His, however, having spent the amount of time he had at Snow Rising, was definitely ‘rustic’. Ramon liked loud music and comic books and video games, but he enjoyed the slower pace of a little town much more than the busy bustle of a large city. Even Carramba’s local setting sometimes made him a bit jumpy.

They drove up into the center of town, where there was literally a square of park and fountain space, surrounded by the town hall, justice building, post office, fire station and whatever other built-in amenities a place like that required. It was, in a word, quaint. Banners slung over several building balconies indicated that the Rally welcome site was at the fountain in the middle of the square, and a large but temporary sign had been erected on one of the park’s entrances that told Feng he ought to leave the car in a specific part of the parking lot.

The temporary equipment that Alabaster had put into the vehicle gave off a little ping sound, and a reddish-orange light flickered on and off. “Looks like we’ve Beaconed,” Feng said, pushing the ‘okay’ button next to the light, and it turned green. “We should check in, that’ll make it official.”

A good number of folks sprang out of the nearby buildings, they definitely hadn’t expected anyone to find the place this early. A tall, slender black woman approached with a big smile, “you made it in first! The television crew doesn’t even know yet!”

“Mayor Wilding,” Feng said with a nod, “pleasure to meet you! I’ll get us parked.”

In the time it took to move the car into its designated area (which Feng gladly put in the ‘first to arrive’ slot, they had thought this out a bit!) the television, and probably Mage-net, people shuffled their butts out of the nearby café. Or, teleported, there was that distinct puff of magical smoke around some of the reporters.

Feng leaned back and looked at his team. “Well, kids, ready to be celebrities?”