Cerebus - Turn 10

“Hey guys I theenk they meen to keel us!” comes the voice of Mex-Bot from up in the drivers seat, breaking the silence that had been amongst the meks after hearing the transmission.

“Right,” declares Cerebus deciding on some direct action, “let me at that keyboard!” Slammer moves to one side to allow Cerebus to do his stuff, Silent Death hovering over the hacker’s shoulder, suggesting things he should do.

“I’m in,” announces Cerebus as the onboard computer screen’s final security wall crumbles to his deft keyboard work. He tries to find maps and calls up a SET sat tracking system which has maps of the entire city. Entering the words ‘Hubert Roper Block’ as his search criteria, he finds its location and is even able to call up a best route to get there. He calls out the route details to Screwball, to pass on to Mex-Bot and shouts to them, “I think we should ditch before we get too near the target location.”

Silent Death spots something and ousts Cerebus from his seat to try his own brand of hacking. His fingers fly across the keys and he calls out to Mex-Bot, “Can you see some red traffic control lights off ahead?”

“Err… yees I can see theem.”

“Are they now green?”

“Yees. How’d you do theet?”

Silent Death waits for them to get across the four way junction, taps a few keys and hits the ‘Enter’ button. Behind them, the traffic control lights at all four junctions turn to green and vehicles speed out only to collide with others in a massive metal mangle.

“Aha!” declares Cerebus from up front having found the auto-pilot functions. As he works out how to operate them, Slammer calls out a warning, “I’ve got five blips on this sat tracking system and if I’m right and this other blip is us, they will be on us now!”

From his position up with the Shock Cannon, The Noose sees five SET pursuit vehicles come skidding around a corner to his left, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Swinging the cannon to line up with the closest of the vehicles, he pulls the trigger and sends a stream of bright electricity into the front of it. The crackles of energy leap about the surface of the car and it veers to its right and drops back, apparently little damaged by the effects of the cannon but possibly having problems with a few circuits shorting out.

Spotting what Silent Death intends to do, Screwball and Slammer join her. Weapons at the ready, and suitable chips activated, Slammer kicks open the back of the doors and as Silent Death shouts, “Heads up Time to Die!” the three unleash deadly energy in the direction of the pursuing vehicles.

One of the pursuit cars takes an energy globe from Silent Death’s Bazoo-Kanon right through the windscreen and as it veers off to the right, Screwball sends shot after shot into the left side front wheel of the car next to it. Sparks suddenly burst from the hub and as the wheel leaves the car, it goes down on that side, spins and then flips, rolling into the path of more civilian traffic where a collision results in an explosion.

Slammer is shot in the chest by a pulse rifle being aimed at him out of the side window of one of the cars and looking down at the smoking injury, he then growls and replies with his Sinister Gun. The weapon shakes and vibrates in his hand as it calls up all its energy resources to send forth one mighty blast of energy. It strikes the front and right side of the vehicle, blowing the bonnet off and shattering the windscreen as well as causing the car to veer and spin out of control.

Looking at the one car still left in hot pursuit, Silent Death grins and indicating for the others to stand back. She takes several steps back into the van, says, “Leave this one to me…”

The pursuing vehicle’s driver has managed to line up with the back of the van as his partner loads up the grenade launcher. Suddenly to his surprise, one of the meks from the van leaps out from the back of it, directly towards his car. It looks as if it were intending to land on its feet on the bonnet, but instead it hits the bonnet and falls to roll directly through the windscreen.

Silent Death finds herself with her head in the lap of the winded driver and with the driver’s partner struggling to pull out a pulse pistol. She draws up one knee and then kicks out with all her might into the head on the partner, to smash it through the side window, knocking him out. Looking up from his lap, she grabs a hold of the driver and says, “I’m not that sort of lady!” activating her Electro Shock chip. Taking a hold of the door, she opens it and pushes the juddering, crackling man out onto the flyway to be struck by following traffic.

“Yeehaw!” comes the cry from Screwball as he leaps from the back of the van to land with rather more panache on the bonnet of the car. Climbing in through the none existent windscreen, he opens the other door and throws out the unconscious partner.

On seeing what they have done through the rear view mirror, Cerebus points out that it might be an idea to, “Get ready to leave!” as they are approaching the vicinity of their destination. He taps in the final instructions into the auto pilot function and gives the nod to Mex-Bot to take his hands from the wheel. There is a slight jerk as he presses in the activation key and the auto pilot takes over.

Quickly The Noose, Mex-Bot and Cerebus head over to join with Slammer, who has indicated for Silent Death to get the car nudging up to the back of the van so that it is just a short hop onto the bonnet. As he heads past the vid screens displaying the sat tracking system, The Noose spots a whole multitude of blips gathering on the screen about six blocks from the current location of the van apparently as if forming a huge roadblock.

“I didn’t mean for everyone to get aboard,” comments Silent Death as the last mek clambers aboard, making it a tight squeeze in the car. Disappointed that she did not see a bike a steal, she turns the car down the next street as instructed, the van heading onwards along the main flyway.

As Silent Death parks up down a side street, there is the sound of a terrific amount of gunfire and a large explosion several blocks away…

“What can I get you gentlemen?”

It is the voice of the attractive young waitress, the badge on her left breast displaying the words, ‘Hi I’m Sara! Happy to Help!’ Her short red hair gives her a boyish appearance, those thoughts however quickly dispersed when looking at her slim but very womanly figure.

The customer closest to her in the booth lowers his menu and smiles to display his gold teeth with the words, “I theenk you can.” The other figures lower their menus and she finds herself looking at the six meks.

Her eyes grow wide and with a quick look left and right at the busy restaurant to make sure no-one is watching or listening she asks excitedly, “Have you got it!”