Chapter 1
It was late in the afternoon when Chris stepped out of the Department of Motor Vehicles Building and into the cool Autumn sunset. There was a celebrating teenager whooping on the pavement, a small piece of official looking paper clenched in his fist, a piece of paper which indicated the first step towards his independence. Chris had seen this sight quite a few times before, almost on a daily basis. That, and the looks of abject misery which meant that the piece of paper had not been won. She gave a small smile and shook her head. That's all this city needed, another crap teenage driver.
Her parents had been killed in a car accident only a few years before, when a careless teen driver had skipped a red light and crashed into them. If there were not a job shortage in Steelport, she would have left the DMV long ago, but as it was, she was stuck there.
She deftly evaded the still dancing teen and made her way to the staff parking lot. Her precious car was gleaming in the fading light, its Gunmetal finish looking pink in the sunset. She sighed to herself. This was what she had left of her Dad. He had built this car himself in the driveway of their home. He had loved it almost as much as he had loved Chris & her mother. She had the house as well now, but that was her mums pride and joy through & through. Everything had been decorated to reflect Daphne Worth, right down to the peach coloured exterior and 'Doris Day' feel.
The car was her dad, right down to a tee. Classic and classy with a good deal of grunt. Chris smiled at the thought.
Chris got into the car, threw her handbag into the back seat and smiled as she turned the key and the car growled to life. She loved to drive, especially this car. She waved at one of her workmates who was dodging the jubilant teen on the steps and reversed out of her car park and started on her way home, noting that the kid was now trying to do some kind running man move and was trying to engage anyone who happened near. She moved out if the parking lot and headed south towards Bridgeport, noting as she drove the increased and slightly worrying activity on the sidewalks.
When you lived in Steelport, there were a few inalienable truths. The most prominent of which was that the city was under the control of a conglomerate of gangs; or more specifically The Syndicate. Comprising of three gangs who had merged to create a "Super Gang", they had carved up the city into their own little parcels. Morningstar controlled Downtown & New Colvin. They were into white collar crime and high end prostitution. They were the leaders of the gangs in general due to their immense wealth, influence & power. Today there seemed to be an increased presence of the gang called The Deckers. They were based on Stanfield Island and were big on cybercrime among other things. As she drove through Brickston in the south of the Island, she noted they were about in numbers and that they seemed agitated, shouting instructions to each other out of Black and Neon Blue vehicles and waving their guns about. Guns were also very common in Steelport. Everyone had one, even Chris had a shotgun in her closet at home. It was probably best if Chris moved a little faster through the area.
Chris normally didn't take note of the gangs at all, they were after all, a fact of life in this city, especially the Deckers who looked slightly ridiculous in their Emo/Anime/Cyberpunk get ups, but she knew that they were very dangerous and had no regard for the lives of the ordinary citizens of the city. She lived in Bridgeport, in the area controlled by the Luchadores. The gang populated by steroid abusing psychopaths who wore army surplus gear and Mexican style wrestling masks. They were considered the most dangerous of the gangs, they were unstable and unpredictable and it seemed that even Morningstar had trouble keeping them on a short leash. They controlled Carver Island in the southwest of Steelport and Bridgeport was in the southeast of Carver Island.
Chris was a block away from the Carver Bridge when she stopped at the last set of lights. She sat gazing at the red light, waiting for it to change so that she could get out of this part of the city, when her passenger door was wrenched open and a large man leaped into her car.
"Get out of the fucking car." He grated menacingly.
"Fuck off" she hollered back, without thinking, "You get out of the fucking car"
He blinked, his handsome face shocked that some peon had denied him. Most people would have leapt from the car and run screaming into the street. He produced a very large handgun and held it under her chin. "Get out of the car or I will shoot you." He said more calmly and with more menace, his eyes narrowing.
"This is a mint condition, 1972 Hammerhead... you will take this car over my dead body" She replied through gritted teeth and with equal calm and menace.
What was she doing?
Her brain was screaming at her, 'get out of the damn car'. Her heart was yelling back, 'this is your dads car, You can't even comprehend letting it go'.
The man looked dumbfounded for a moment as he locked eyes with the stubborn woman when he seemed to catch a glimpse of something bad out of the front windscreen.
Very Bad Indeed!
"Drive! Drive! Drive!" He yelled suddenly, making Chris jump in her seat.
She looked out of the windscreen and saw that during their exchange the lights had changed and because the car hadn't moved, they were eliciting honks from the cars behind. They had also drawn the attention of a group of Deckers on the opposite pavement. Deckers that were now excitedly pointing and yelling…. and levelling their weapons at them… at her.
Chris slammed the car into gear and planted her foot. The car screeched to life and zoomed into the intersection as the first bullets began to rain. She could see the unmistakable neon blue & black of Decker vehicles move to block off the Carver Bridge. She quickly yanked on the handbrake & spun the car to the left in a cloud of smoke and sped instead towards downtown. She vaguely noticed her unwanted passenger scramble to hold on as she weaved through the traffic towards the entrance to the freeway. They were definitely being followed at speed by a Decker convoy, she could hear bullets clunking into the rear of her car. They were hurting her baby and it made her angry.
"Can't you shoot back or something" She raged at the man whose fault all of this was.
"Nope" He said, calm considering the circumstances. He was however, snapping his seatbelt into place. "I'm out of ammo"
The bastard had tried to bluff her out of her car with an empty gun.
Bullets pelted the car from all angles as Deckers seemed to sprout out of the landscape. Their cars weaved through the traffic in pursuit of the mystery man and his unwilling chauffer. Chris elected to drive straight down the centreline of the road, which left a wide wake for their pursuers to use as well. Her Hammerhead was faster and more manoeuvrable than their fashionable SUVs and she began to pull away from them. She swore loudly to herself when she saw cars emerge from the side streets ahead. She ducked her head suddenly as a stray bullet shattered the rear window, showering the interior with glass.
"Where am I going?" She yelled to her companion over the thunk of bullets hitting metal and jingle of shattered glass shifting in her back seat.
"Sunset Park" He yelled back over the screech of tires and the grinding metal on metal as they slid along the sides of other cars as the Hammerhead as it sailed past.
She swore again she definitely needed to get on the freeway which was quickly approaching but was also being blocked off by Decker cars. She quickly spun the steering wheel and entered the freeway via the off ramp – straight into oncoming traffic, which veered and squealed out of the way of the careening Hammerhead.
"What the Fuck!" her passenger shouted, as a large cement truck bore down on them. Chris swerved in time but noticed in the rear view mirror, the truck smash through the barrier behind them and plunge into the channel below.
The man seemed to settle quickly, he was obviously used to things that would make an ordinary person die of shock. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialled, keeping an eye out the windscreen, prepared for a head on collision, though Chris was focused fully on negotiating the oncoming traffic.
"Pierce" He addressed whomever had answered "Forget the car, I'm on the move. We'll be coming in hot though so get me a welcome wagon ready, We'll be coming from Loren Square… Yes, I said we…"
Chris saw her opportunity to get onto the correct side of the freeway, a gap in the railing for service vehicles, she veered quickly through the rail and corrected the car perfectly in the farthest lane. Her quick movement was too much for a Decker SUV directly behind them, which missed the mark and slammed into the concrete divider. The next two in line had to stop in a squeal of brakes as well, narrowly avoiding the explosion that followed. She raced on, carving through the rush hour traffic like a bullet.
"Holy Fuck." Her passenger breathed, in awe of the skill with which she was handling the car. He looked over at her with real appreciation.
They were almost to the Loren Square exit when a helicopter descended into the roadway. Chris screamed and wrenched at the wheel, the car slid sideways, narrowly missing the chopper and crashed sideways into the concrete barrier, grating against it for some time before she corrected it on the off ramp. The car became airborne for a moment as it hit the sloping exit too fast. Her brain went quiet and time seemed to slow down and she calmly thought to herself; Sunset Park. Sharp right turn at the bottom of the exit, veer left, straight shot to the park itself. The car hit the tarmac with a crash and the tyres grip slipped a little before they grabbed onto the road again.
"Who are you?" She screamed at her unwelcome companion.
He just grinned in return. The bastard actually seemed to be enjoying himself.
Chris noticed that the Deckers had given up pursuit on the bridge into downtown but they had been replaced by red and black cars of the Morningstar, the most powerful gang in the syndicate. They were now in big trouble. The Morningstar had high powered luxury cars, with new technology that made her Hammerhead look almost stone aged and now there were also helicopters buzzing overhead as well, a testament to their wealth, casting high calibre rounds at her car with a callous disregard for her safety.
But she and her companion were no longer all alone in their desperate flight either. A hoard of Royal Purple cars zoomed through the streets, pulling along side them and taking point in front and behind. They were knocking the Morningstar out of the way like skittles. Purple attack choppers growled overhead as well, they seemed to have RPG's and they simply blew the Morningstar choppers out of the sky. Chris had a sick feeling in her gut at the sight of all of the purple surrounding her. She had a very bad feeling about her passenger, even worse than him being simple car jacker.
She brushed away the thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand.
"Right, we're in Sunset Park, where are we going?" she asked him as they crossed over the invisible line between Loren Square & the Park. Her eyes glued to the road ahead, navigating the carnage.
"The Skyscraper Motel at the end of The Avenue, on the other side of the park" He answered before whipping off his seatbelt and hoisting himself out of the passenger window.
She shot a quick, startled look at his lower half, still in her car. What the Hell! She thought, that was a bad idea, what was he doing?
"Hold on" she yelled to him as she threw the car around a tight corner pasat the park and again as she turned into The Avenue, her car shrieking and squealing in protest the whole time. The building that was their destination loomed ahead of them and her passenger plopped back into the seat next to her. He seemed to have acquired more ammo for his gun from a neighbouring purple car and he was swapping over the clip.
He glanced through the windscreen, which had acquired a long crack and several big bullet holes but was still intact, as he thumped the new magazine into place.
"There are ramps to the underground car park on either side of the entrance" He informed her before heading out of the window again.
She could see the entrances to the ramps coming up fast and they were on awkward angles for their speedy and front on arrival. Her companion flopped back into his seat having emptied his clip and braced himself. She grabbed onto her handbrake and threw out the back end of the Hammerhead, hoping that the slide aligned her with the ramp to the right of the entrance. Not Quite, but good enough she thought as she punched the car back into gear and zoomed onto the ramp. She heard the back end of her beloved car crunch against the wall and grind along it. The ramp curved slightly and then opened out into the cavernous parking garage. She slammed on the brakes at the bottom of the ramp and came to a screeching halt about a foot and a half from the elevator doors. Two young men in purple jackets who had scrambled out of the way of the car hurtling towards them, looked at her with startled expressions on their faces.
She was safe. For now. At least that's how it seemed. She still had a sinking feeling in her gut that she was out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Her companion was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop and she sat there of a moment bemused by what had just transpired and absently listening to the engine of her beloved Hammerhead gasping in pain. She had been driving home from work after a normal day. What had happened?
She cut the engine, slowly took off her seatbelt and opened the driver side door. It crunched slightly and made a cringe worthy grinding sound as it moved. She stepped out of her car and closed the door with a crunch. She turned slowly to look at the wreck that had once been her dads pride and joy.
"I should have got out of the fucking car" She said to herself softly.