1~
Far below the high, torturous sun, and along a vast, deadly desert, a high-speed battle was taking place.
Driver Richard "Dick" Dastardly glanced down at the rear camera monitor on the dashboard of his racer, none too pleased with what was occurring behind him.
His racing car, #00, also known as the Mean Machine, was a high-tech, purple and black jetcar, designed around a strong steampunk esthetic. It roared across a lonely Nevada road, while behind him, ten vehicles of various designs and abilities, hotly pursued it.
Leading the pack was a gleaming white and steel conveyance that gave the appearance of a bleeding-edge concept car combined with something reverse-engineered from Area 51.
It steadily closed the distance on the jetcar, outpacing the others behind it by tens of yards.
From his futuristically styled Convert-a-Car, #3, a vehicle that could transform into a myriad of other vehicles and machines, Patrick Pending, professional race car driver, adventurer and ex-professor of Physics at Princeton University, kept his eyes glued to the rear of the Mean Machine, wondering when Dick would make his move.
Pat chanced a glance back from his cockpit-style driver's seat, and took in the commanding view of the landscape from the impact-resistant canopy that sat on the flat, wide front of the car.
The others were starting to increase their speed and gain on him. In particular, an ungainly machine in eye-catching red that had literally leap-frogged ahead of the other cars, and now closed in on Pat.
The car in question, a curiously mad hybrid of early 20th century roadster and World War I German biplane, was driven and piloted by a man whose face was covered by a pair of flying goggles that sat atop his bulbous nose, wearing a matching red combat pilot's flight suit, complete with parachute.
With a stomp of a special pedal beside the accelerator, the small propeller jutting from the radiator grill of the plane/car hybrid, #4, the Crimson Haybaler, sputtered into rotary life, creating enough revolutions, without tearing the vehicle apart, to produce acceleration.
With the boost of speed, the Haybaler's double-decker, fabric-and-framed wings caught lift and it took off from the road.
Unfortunately, because of the sheer weight of the thing, the Crimson Haybaler could fly no farther than several yards before gliding, and then landing with a jarring bounce, absorbed by a modified transmission and shock absorber system.
Pat turned his attention back to Dick just in time to see, at last, the perennial cheat's gambit.
"Alright, Muttley," Dick said, while he focused on the road. "It's time for the other Racers to...mine their own business!"
In the passenger seat beside him, his henchman, of sorts, Muttley gave his customary wheezing snicker in approval to the plan, if not to his master's bad joke.
The shaggy-furred canine, a troublemaking descendant of the Annunaki, flexed the digits of his upraised paw eagerly, and then pressed a large button on his side of the dashboard.
From hatches in the rear of the jetcar, ten round, prop-driven, explosive-packed drones, swarmed from the Mean Machine, each one cunningly programmed with the emissions profile of a selected Wacky Racer's car to home in on.
Pat quickly touched his headset.
"Racers, Dick just launched his Terrible Turbo Drones!" he reported. "We're coming up on the home stretch. I'm going to try to find their wi-fi frequency and hack into their targeting computers. In the meantime, I suggest we protect each other from them as best we can."
After he heard a number of shared affirmatives come back to him, he switch his headset back to direct voice communication with his car, just as the TTD programmed with the Convert-a-Car's emissions profile closed in on him.
"Time to go off-road. Geococcyx Californianus," he commanded the car.
The length of the silver and white conveyance reared, the command section hinged downward to become a head, of sorts, as sections of the chassis either retracted and folded away, to become more avian and aerodynamic, or expanded and extended, like the simulacrum of a long pair of tail feathers.
With the complete extension of powerful, servo-driven, bird-like legs from the undercarriage, transitioning from tires without breaking stride, the Convert-a-Car converted to "Roadrunner Power", and peeled away from the road, but kept a parallelled pace with the Mean Machine, his Drone in close pursuit.
The pilot/driver, a German named Maximillian Von Doofflieger, known to the Racers, and to history, as the Red Max, lined up the antique sight of the car's forward twin machine guns on his approaching Drone.
The cannons spat at the weapon ahead, but Max misjudged the Drone's approach angle, and the bullets chopped away at asphalt instead.
The Drone beelined towards the props of the Haybaler, preparing to detonate on contact and rip the hybrid into flaming ruin.
Max took his mind out of the moment and found the ace pilot he once was, back in control. He hit the breaks and skidded into a marked deceleration, giving him precious seconds to stomp on the Prop Pedal.
The Crimson Haybaler jumped with newborn speed, narrowly missing and flying over the Drone by inches, causing it to continue on its path below the car.
The Drone's computer swiftly recomputed its pursuit path, banked around, and dove after it, as the car landed, for a terminal rear-end.
From his rearview mirror, Max saw it coming in fast, and knew he had to time his next move with combat precision.
From the Drone's angle of attack, it would surgically strike Max directly on his back, no doubt, a little personal programming from Dastardly. But, now, it was close enough.
Max slammed on the breaks again, causing the outmaneuvered Drone to overshoot past Max's head, down the length of the front half of the Haybaler, and into its waiting guns.
A squeeze of the steering wheel triggers, and his Drone became a hot storm of armor fragments, detonated ordinance, and ruined electronics.
Max gave a roaring laugh as the Crimson Haybaler drove through the debris.
Several cars back, the sound of gunfire sparked the attention of the short men sitting together in the front seat of an unusually fast 1920's sedan.
Not far from Max's dogfight with his Drone, Penelope Pitstop, in her Compact Pussycat, #5, and Peter Perfect, in his dragster, the Turbo Terrific, #9, were inspired by Max's limited, yet successful aerobatics.
Over their headsets, the gruff voice of diminutive Clyde Barrel, leader of the equally diminutive Ant Hill Mob, was heard.
"Hey, Penelope! You and Fancy Pants need some help wit dese things?"
Penelope purred back, "We sure do, Sugah. We'll try to lead them little ol' Drones to you."
Back at their car, Clyde ordered, "Okay, boys! It's time for the 'ol protection racket! Ring-a-Ding, you take the wheel!"
"Our Drones are coming up fast, my dear," Peter said nonchalantly to Penelope over his headset, despite seeing his possible death flying low and fast towards him. "Care to do the Crisscross?"
"You lead, darlin'," he heard her purring reply.
Snow-white leather gloves tightening her grip on the wheel, Penelope lined up parallel with the length of the Turbo Terrific, and then widened the gap between them.
Without warning, she gunned the engine, leaping ahead of Peter. She spun the small car into a tight drift and cut across the front of him. At the same time, Peter decelerated his longer car into a skid and slipped around behind the Pussycat, pulling up alongside her from the other side.
This precision driving confused the flight computers of the Drones, forcing them slow down and pass overhead of the two drivers, before righting themselves, at a distance, and chasing them down.
Three of the mobsters, led by Clyde, picked up their Thompson machine guns, and stuck them out of the open front passenger window. The other three clambered into the wide back seat with their weapons and brandished them out of the open rear left window.
The 20's black sedan, which the criminals christened The Bulletproof Bomb, #7, was now bristling with barrels, all of which were firing, trying to zero in on a Drone up ahead.
The sedan swerved suddenly, throwing off the mobsters' already shoddy aim.
Clyde glared at Ring-a-Ding. "What are you doin', you dummy? Drivin' with you eyes closed?"
The criminal dunce twisted the steering wheel this way and that, his eyes, blissfully shut.
"Duh, how did ya know, Clyde?" he asked.
"Keep the Bomb steady!" his comrades yelled at him. Opening his eyes and holding the wheel on a reasonable angle, Ring-a-Ding did as he was told.
The Drone assigned to them, however, was soaring into a killing path with the Mob, increasing their fervor to aim and hit accurately. They collectively prayed that, if they failed to hit their Drone, the Bulletproof Bomb was also bombproof, as well.
Their erratic firing proved to be worthless, as the Drone closed in on the Bomb, promising to blow the car apart when it touched it.
"Oops! Sorry, guys! My hand slipped," Ring-a-Ding apologized, after he swerved the car again, causing their death deliverer to miss the broadside of the auto. The sudden jerky maneuver also brought their combined fire closer to Penelope's Drone.
"Ring-a-Ding!" Clyde called out. "Keep drivin' like that!"
"Duh, okay, if that's whatchu want," the dimwit driver said, shrugging, before he made another haphazard move.
The unpredictable movement made the Drone lose seconds in lining up to its target, and before it could correct its course, a pulse of better-aimed bullets punched up through its armor, and detonated it from below.
Another swerve, and the Chicago Typewriters' combined fire finally found and ripped into Pitstop's Drone from behind, causing it to explode.
"Bless ya'll for the timely assistance," Penelope thanked the Mob through her helmet's headset.
Every Drone had what could reasonably be considered a thinking computer for a brain, and Peter's Drone, seeing how vulnerable its comrades were by flying at a higher altitude, thought.
It lowered its altitude, even as it began closing the distance between it and its target, bringing the gangsters' tracking machine gun fire dangerously close to hitting either the Turbo Terrific's engine, or worse, to the back of Peter's helmeted head.
"Gentlemen, cease fire!" Peter yelled into his headset. "You're going to hit me!"
Quickly, the firing ceased.
Peter swerved as best he could to avoid a lock-on, but his Turbo, being a dragster, had difficulties on high-speed turns, making his long, slim racer a sitting duck.
Before anyone could figure on a plan of action, Penelope hit the breaks and slipped the Pussycat behind Peter, occupying the space that was rapidly shrinking, thanks to the Drone, then flicked a switch on her dashboard.
The car's trunk opened, releasing a white, robotic boom arm that folded up and out, ending in an articulated servo-grip holding a large powder puff.
The boom lowered until it brought the puff to ground level, then the grip proceeded to pat the road, creating a thick smokescreen of face powder to confuse the Drone.
Its brain followed the logic that if its vision was impaired, yet was safe from incoming fire by flying low, than it would need to fly even lower to avoid this new harm.
It flew too low to the ground to avoid the powder cloud, and promptly crashed against the road, tumbling into a trailing wreck of debris.
"Thank you, my dear Penelope," Peter breathed gratefully. "Remind me, after the race, to thank you properly with dinner."
With a burst of speed, Penelope blasted ahead of him, but made sure to favor him with some Southern Hospitality by blowing a kiss his way.
And so it went, with Racers seeing and seizing the opportunity to give help and receive it when a Drone flew in for the kill.
When caveman Rock Slag drove their car closer to the Buzzwagon, #10, brother Gravel carefully aimed and threw his club end-over-end at Rufus Ruffcut's Drone, damaging it and causing it to fall under the Buzzwagon's disc-like saws that served as its tires, slicing it to pieces.
Rufus returned the favor by passing the Slags' car, the Boulder Mobile, #1, and, after pulling off the long handled axe from the side of his log-built car, slashed the cavemen's Drone in half with a single swing from his muscular arm, much to the delight of his partner, the Annunaki-descended beaver, Sawtooth.
Lazy Luke, the laidback hillbilly, didn't seem to stir, as he drove his coal stove-powered, ramshackle Arkansas Chugabug, #8, with his bare feet, even managing to take a swig of moonshine from a nearby jug when cowardly Annunaki-descended co-driver and sidekick, Blubber Bear, warned him of their approaching Drone.
When it got close enough, Luke, calmly holding a mouthful of liquor, lit a wooden match and spat out the concoction in a forceful blast in front of the fire, creating a makeshift flamethrower that reached out and incinerated the Drone.
Throwing on a pair of field glasses, Sergeant Roderick Blast surveyed the battlefield from the view from his turret, part of his hybrid, an armored combination of reinforced jeep and midget tank that was called the Army Surplus Special, #6.
From what he could see up ahead, the race was continuing where the Racers had fought their way through, which pleased Blast. However, he thought he could do a better job at combat.
To the side and high above him, the gothic-themed Creepy Coupe, #2, an oddly built racer, due to the large belfry that sat atop of it, was being held aloft by a dragon, his serpentine neck, wings and balancing tail extending through the belfry's open windows.
Because of the obscene amounts of drag the belfry was creating, the Coupe's flight was slow and ungainly, as the Gruesomes, a Frankenstein's Monster/vampire driving team, tried to avoid its Drone, which was having a better time of tracking it.
Blast slapped at the side of the turret, getting the attention of the driver.
"Yeah, Sarge?" called out Private First Class David Meekly over the noise of the #6's treads and modified diesel engine.
"Meekly! Stay with the Coupe! We're gonna win this thing...by attrition!"
"Gotcha, Sarge!"
The Special began to pull away from the rest of the Racers, charging on an intercept course with the Coupe.
Blast rotated the turret in the flying car's direction, but because the turret had no fire control to speak of, all aiming had to be done with the naked eye. A serious design flaw, he knew, but Roderick always like a challenge.
He elevated the barrel. He wanted to lead his target, tiny as it was.
Satisfied with the angle, he yelled. "Keep 'er steady, Meekly!" His hand tightened on the trigger.
A round launched out of the turret's barrel and screamed at the Creepy Coupe, streaking behind the car and obliterating the lightweight Drone, continuing on its trajectory beyond the mountains, to destroy a gas station in a nearby town.
The two soldiers' cheering was immediately subdued as their Drone came out of the smoke and heat of the battle ahead and flew at them.
Blast wasn't too concerned, at first. Due to the Special's construction, something like the Drone might not do as much damage as feared, at least not to the thick, curving armor of the turret.
But Meekly, he knew, wouldn't be so lucky. Exposed as he was in the driver's seat below, if the Drone struck the front end of the jeep, it would wreck it instantly and kill the private in the process.
"Meekly!" he commanded. "Get up here in the turret with me!"
The young soldier never once tried to leave his seat while the Special was in transit, not just because it was inherently dangerous to do so, but because there was a sense of pride in being its driver. Out of all the poor SOB's in the Army motorpool to chose from, his sergeant had picked him.
But any chance he had to leave his seat was dashed, as the Drone closed the distance so swiftly, the private knew he didn't have the time.
"No time, Sarge!" he cried out, expecting that to be the last thing he would say in life.
What he heard after his words, however, was the unexpected roar of a dragon-born inferno bloom in front of the Special, the Drone disappearing in its heart.
Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly gave the Gruesomes a stiff, yet thankful salute as the Army Surplus Special drove through the burning patch of road, followed by the banking Creepy Coupe.
The Convert-a-Car-turned Roadrunner kicked up plumes of desert sand under its clawed metal feet, as the final Drone kept a tenacious pace with it.
While he steered, Pat ran wireless frequency permutations through his dashboard's mainframe, and had the car's communications array trained on the weapon behind him.
Sets of numbers were painted across the small monitor, each one less effective than the last, and the professor was about to quit trying to disable Dastardly's little gift and simply destroy it, somehow, when a green string of numbers scrolled on the screen.
Without thinking, Pat highlighted the numbers, and then punched the Enter key.
The Drone's on-board com received the access code, freely giving back its targeting computer settings to Pat's computer.
Two boxes appeared on the monitor, a red lined one filled with a picture of the unconverted Convert-a-Car and its exhaust profile, the other, green, with the Mean Machine and its profile.
Quick fingers danced over keys to change the target selection. Now the green box encompassed his car, and Dick's was boxed in red.
With a tap of the Enter key, the Drone slowed down and banked away from the car's rear, heading in the direction of the Mean Machine, Pat following close behind.
Inside the jetcar, Dick engaged in one of his favorite pursuits. Gloating.
"Ha! Ha! Better cheating through technology, eh, Muttley?"
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Muttley agreed with a snicker. Then he noticed the returning Drone out of his rearview mirror.
"Rut, roh!"
Dick hadn't heard his dog, and continued, unaware. "Soon, we shall savor the sweet taste of victory, while those idiots, out there, taste sand and ash!"
By the time he felt Muttley's urgent tap on his arm, the Drone had reached the powerful, yet vulnerable engines.
Muttley covered his floppy ears, waiting for the hit, as Dick Dastardly finally noticed his own Drone colliding with the jetcar's rotund engine nacelle.
Though the Machine was armored and had a reinforced frame underneath, the jets were blown open. Leaking fuel and wayward nozzles of fiery exhaust turned the Double Zero into a rolling smoke factory and a potential time bomb.
Dick opened his bubble-canopied door, and jumped out, along with Muttley. They tumbled away from the decelerating deathtrap, and covered their heads in the sand with their arms, when they stopped.
The boom from the ruptured fuel tanks was heart stopping. Dick raised his head from the desert, in time to see Pat and the Convert-a-Car bound back onto the road and run, full tilt, towards the spectators and across the waiting finish line.
The sounds of individual disappointment might have been heard from the other Racers over the cheers that day, but one voice could be heard crying out to the heavens in frustrated anguish.
"Drat!" Dick Dastardly cursed venomously. "Double drat!"
The three boys and one girl cheered with Marcie Fleach in front of the television set, as they sat together on the living room floor of the Stone residence.
"That was so cool!" crowed Eastwood Stone.
"Did you see when that dragon was flying around?" asked his brother, Norris. "That fireball? That was intense!"
Linda Carter, the boys' sister spoke up. "I can't wait to drive my own car and tear up the countryside! Marcie, do you think I could be a Wacky Racer someday?"
Marcie thought, then gave her a smile, saying, "I think so, Linda. I hear all you need is fully paid life insurance and a high pain threshold."
"Did someone say "pain threshold"?" Bronson's braggadocio voice called out.
The kids and their bespectacled babysitter turned to see Sheriff Bronson Stone and his wife, Mayor Janet Nettles, walk into the living room, fresh from a night on the town at an upscale restaurant called "Andre's Entrées."
"Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad," the children chirped.
"Hi, Babies," Janet answered while she took off her coat. "Did you drive Marcie crazy, tonight?"
"Nah," Marcie assured her. "They were perfect little angles. Uh, I mean angels. I have some geometry homework to do when I get back home."
"Why didn't you do it here?" asked the mayor. "Could've saved yourself the trouble."
"Oh, that's okay, ma'am. I was so caught up in watching the Wacky Races with the kids, I probably wouldn't have got much done."
Janet looked at the credits roll, ending another thrilling show. "Really? It's that good?"
"Oh, yeah, Mom!" little Billy Stone said. "It's one of those reality shows. They take these racers, and they compete in cross-country races for the title of World's Wackiest Racer. And in between all of that, there's all this back-stabbing. It's the best!"
"This week, my favorite Racer, Professor Pat Pending won," Marcie told her. "He and his car are so cool."
Janet gave a thoughtful pose. "Hmm, my mayoral sense is tingling. The town could use a boost in tourism revenue. If I can convince the show's producers to shoot a episode here in Crystal Cove, that would be great."
"They could start their next race here," Marcie agreed. "Lots of publicity and cameras."
"Oh, yes. You can never have too many cameras and publicity," Janet said, with an eager grin, her politician chops, salivating.
Marcie got up off the floor, as the brothers and sister went to their bedrooms to change into their pajamas and go to bed.
"Goodnight, Marcie," they said in unison.
"Goodnight, guys."
Marcie walked over to Bronson, palm itching for contact with government script.
The sheriff gave a sulking sigh and took out his wallet, grumbling all the way.
"Is there any way you could get paid without it being actual cash?" he groused.
"I accept all major credit cards, if that'll make a difference, Sheriff," Marcie quipped with a predacious grin.
Stone sniffed disdainfully. "Teenaged bandits, like you, are gonna rob me blind! Why don't you take my social securuty, too, while you're at it."
Janet quietly brought her husband to heel. "Oh, stop that grumbling, Bronson Stone. Marcie's doing a terrific job babysitting, and she's worth every penny. How would you like it if every time we went to the Tiki Tub, we couldn't dance, because the kids would run around, causing property damage like last time. I'm the mayor! Do you know how embarrassing it would be to be barred from a place in your own town?"
Stone knew he was beaten. Dealing with one woman was one thing, but being double-teamed by two was suicidal.
"Alright, alright! You win! Sheesh, you females, and your "logic"," he conceded, paying Marcie the last of her due, before going into his sons' room to give them their daily, ham-handed lesson in dealing with the opposite sex.
"Thanks, Sheriff," the girl happily said, as she walked to the front door. She then stopped to speak to Janet once more before leaving.
"So, are you going to do it?" she asked her.
"Do what? Get the Wacky Races to start here? I hope so," the mayor told her. "It'll take some finesse, but I think I can charm these Hollywood types. I'll let you know how it goes."
"Thanks, Mayor Nettles," Marcie said, as she stepped outside into the evening. "Good luck and good night!"
"Good night, dear."