Specimen Days

With his head almost touching his knees, he could not see the road. The car careened, scraped against the guardrail. Catareen raised her head slightly above the dashboard and put a hand on the wheel. She helped guide the car back into its lane. Wind blew through the empty windshield.

Another ray angled in, aimed at Catareen's head. She bobbed just in time. It struck the console between driver and passenger seat. It sent up a minor flame, a curl of plastic smoke.

Simon lifted his head high enough to see the road. The drone was not visible. Then it was. It was at his side again. He hit the brake. The tires screeched. The car shimmied. The drone's ray shot straight across the hood.

Simon accelerated and turned the wheel sharply. He steered into the hoverpod lane and clipped the front end of a pod. It sounded its horn. He saw that there was just enough space for the Mitsubishi on the shoulder to the pod's left. He swerved onto the shoulder.

The drone was behind them now. It tried to shoot out the rear windshield. It missed the first time, aiming too high, and sent its beam into New Jersey. The second time, it took out the rear windshield and struck the radio. Bruce Springsteen started singing "Born to Run."

Simon and Catareen were covered in glass. The hoverpods were trumpeting. The one just ahead applied its brakes, and Simon shot around and in front of it. The car was shuddering. It had not been made for this. Simon had not been made for this, either.

Directly ahead, both lanes were empty, except for a hoverpod thirty yards away. Simon weaved from lane to lane as erratically as he could. A ray clipped his cheek. He felt the burn. He swerved sharply to the right as another ray shot through the baseball cap (sharp sudden smell of hot plastiwool) and glanced across his scalp. He couldn't tell how badly he was hurt. He knew he was alive. He knew he could keep driving.

The drone hovered just outside the empty place where the rear windshield had been. It emitted a low, metallic cough and flipped in midair. When it had righted itself, it let loose. This time it aimed too high and to the left, hitting the hoverpod that was now slowing down thirty yards ahead. The drone seemed to have gotten stuck. It shot the hoverpod seven times in quick succession. The first two shots drilled into the pod's sleek white chassis, leaving two brown-edged smoldering holes the size of quarters. The third shattered a window and concisely killed a person who appeared to have been a Sino woman. The fourth killed the man who had been seated beside the woman and who had stood up when the previous beam killed her. The fifth and sixth shot out two more windows. The seventh entered through the shot-out window created by the sixth.

Simon could see the chaos inside the pod. It was impossible to tell whether the driver had been hit. The pod careened to the right, caught an updraft, and blew sideways along the bridge until it stopped, blocking both lanes. It hovered there, four feet above the asphalt.

The drone was on Catareen's side now. "Get down," Simon yelled. She dove into the footwell. The Nadians were fast. The drone's ray sizzled on the suddenly empty passenger seat. Simon swerved again. The next ray struck the passenger door just below the place where the window had been.

He knew what he had to do. He aimed the car directly at the hoverpod that was blocking both lanes. He said to Catareen, "Stay there," and hit the accelerator.

The hoverpod scraped loudly against the Mitsubishi's top as they went under. It made a strange Velcro-ish sound. For a moment Simon felt the car hesitate as a living thing might hesitate, assessing its damage. He saw the white underbelly of the hoverpod. It was like passing under a whale.

The end of the bridge was straight ahead. A sign said WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY.

Then they were off the bridge and out of Old New York. The drone hovered behind them at the bridge's boundary. It snapped its vids. Would it follow illegally? Simon felt the operator making a decision. There was the matter of the dead tourists, which would not be good for Infmidot. Was it better to break the law and go after Simon and Catareen by crossing a state line? Would the story be less damaging if it ended in an arrest?

The drone turned and flew back toward Old New York. Drone operators were not well paid. They tended to sorrow and to the drugs that made sorrow more enjoyable. This one might have had a dram or two during the chase. He might have reached his limit. He must know that his job was lost already. He might be glad about it. Several robbery players on the Dangerous Encounters payroll had been drone operators who'd become discouraged. They tended to make good robbers.

* * *