2-16-2013

William Lewis

All locations, street names, and vehicles featured in Dream Chaser are either real or hyper realistic. The story and its characters are fiction.

Dream Chaser

Volume One

Chapter Three: Scramble!

Joseph Chavez exhaled, looking up at the ceiling and away from the computer screen. A program update this large normally took two days to complete, but was due in less than ten hours. "Well," the middle aged computer programmer thought, "Better than being corporate." He had left Microsoft several years previous, and enjoyed not having to adhere to the corporate world he saw as uptight and creativity-stifling. He narrowed his eyes, peering through glasses at the ceiling in the room only lit from the glow of the computer. One of the main reasons he had left Microsoft was to spend more time with his teenage son Jose, but that hadn't worked out yet.

"At least he's got some good friends..." Mr. Chavezthought, wondering how any his pals during his own teenage years could've survived their own antics. He had raised Jose different than that. He wouldn't get himself into trouble, at least.

Little did Joseph Chavez know that his son would be involved in a high-speed police pursuit in the next few moments.

Opa-locka Industrial Park, Miami, United States

June 3, 2014

The sun had long since set over the deserted light industrial park just south of the Opa-Locka airport. The light clouds in the dark sky were lit up in bright white from the moon behind them, adding a mysterious glow to the cul-de-sac where roughly a dozen sports cars were parked. Matt Traveler had just put away his phone, and the young street racer standing in front of him was looking intently at his own mobile. He addressed the teen with the tone of a teacher.

"That hidden app gives you access to something called the Underground Network. It'll track your car during races and keep you in touch with the rest of the Miami Underground with an encrypted signal."

Suddenly, a low whir was heard over the low din of traffic from the nearby freeway, and everyone standing in the cul-de-sac stopped what they were doing and looked up. A slender black shape crossed in front of the moon, and in the next moment a spotlight erupted from the front of the shape, illuminating one of the buildings directly adjacent to the cul-de-sac. Matt, the seasoned veteran of the group of street racers, grimaced.

"SCRAMBLE!" he shouted just as the police helicopter's spotlight swung onto the cul-de-sac. The roughly dozen racers instantly bolted to their cars lining the circular end of the road, and in moments engines could be heard starting up as the Miami-Dade Police Department Eurocopter AS350 slowed to a hover roughly five hundred feet overhead.

The newly minted Underground member Jose slammed on his seatbelt just as Skip did beside him, then dropped the clutch as the yellow Integra in front of them took off down the street with a chirp from the tires and a arrrrrrnnnn from the engine. The line of fast cars was headed out of the industrial park at breakneck speed the same way they had came in, and as they passed through an intersection Jose saw why. Flashing blue and red lights were atop the large American sedans rushing down the street that abutted the one their car was speeding down, sirens just now switching on. The two teens in the faded red CR-X were equally scared out of their minds, but also knew to focus on getting out of the situation alive and hopefully without handcuffs.

While the cops were entering the industrial park through all streets in an attempt to box the racers in, the racers followed Matt out in a single file line, betting that they would able to burst through the blockade if they stuck together. They would now find out, as a Crown Victoria police interceptor slid to a stop on the narrow road directly in front of the racers. The line of fast cars jinked in unison, leaving the cop's ears ringing with the diverse engine notes flying past him as the racers clipped the grass before swinging back into the road, one after the other.

"Whoa!" Skip exclaimed as the Rockit swung back into the road, hot on the tail of the yellow Integra. They continued down the mostly straight and narrow road towards the exit, every vehicle in the line going at full tilt. Jose and Skip were being slowly left behind as the other far more powerful cars in the group pulled away. He just realized this as the phone he had stuck in its vent holder lit up, a large black pulsating "U" being displayed on the bright white screen. Jose jammed his index finger on the screen before shifting into fourth, and the screen switched to a map of the immediate surroundings, with many flashing red and blue dots converging on a few white dots racing out of the industrial park. The moving map was centered on the dot furthest from the exit, and Jose realized that the map somehow knew the locations of all the cops chasing after them and attempting to box them in. Skip looked down and saw that the white dot in the lead had breached the exit and suddenly slowed, moving in tiny circles. Skip wondered if the network had broken somehow when he heard Jose exclaim in solemn dismay-

"Oh crap," he muttered, seeing a large cloud of grey smoke rise from where the exit was ahead of them. "He crashed?" Skip wondered quickly. Matt had been leading the group, and would've been the first one to happen upon the cops who were headed for the same intersection.

"Looks like it." Jose replied as the cars ahead of them began braking for the turn onto the four lane Le Jeune road. He got on the brakes and downshifted, pressing both himself and Skip against their seatbelts as the car rapidly slowed. After getting the car back down to thirty miles an hour for the turn, Jose glanced to the left as he swung the car to the right, and saw what was making all the smoke. Matt Traveler had swung tightly to the left just as he exited the industrial park, and promptly began doing donuts. The resulting smoke screen from the immensely powerful Charger shielded the racers, and blinded any cops who were trying to follow. The blasting snarl from the ridiculous Hemi 440 under the hood of the Charger overpowered the little Honda's growl even inside the car for a moment as they blew past and out onto the road.

"Whooohooo!" Skip shouted in glee, looking behind to see the Charger blast out of the cloud of tire smoke and immediately begin catching up to the CR-X already an eighth of a mile down the road. But it wasn't over yet.

"Agh!" Jose grunted in astonished near-panic as a sleek jet black sports car powerslid out of a parking lot on the side of the road, trailing heavy tire smoke as the lightbar integrated aerodynamically into its roof lit up with flashing red and blue lights. The gorgeously sleek fighter plane like shape in menacing black effortlessly stayed ahead of the CR-X, as if the full blast of the Honda was not even parking lot speed for the stealth cop car.

"Capture to Central, I've got the Organizer in my rearview, a black vintage Charger." The policeman inside reported into a radio, his speech clipped and utilitarian.

"Copy that, take em down." A female voice replied out of the speaker.

Matt Traveler's black 68' Charger caught up to the speeding Honda in a moment, and for perhaps a second the black/red/black line of cars blew down the street in what looked like a convoy, the sleek black sports car with flashing police lights leading. Then that same black sports car's four square LED taillamps lit up, and in the next moment the Honda's headlights directly illuminated the embossed Corvette logo on the back of the brand-new 2015 Corvette Z06 cop car. Jose clenched his teeth and got hard on the brakes, barely avoiding the rear of the sleek sports car attempting to box him in, and then he took a massive chance.

At a glance he saw there was no oncoming traffic for the moment, and swung the wheel to the left, bounding over the low grassy center divider of the wide avenue and screaming into the parking lot of a flea market. Jose barely managed to keep his prized CR-X out of the fence on the edge of the lot, braking heavily to stabilize the vehicle.

"Did I get away?" he hopefully wondered, looking in the rearview mirror.

To his astonishment he saw the Charger drifting at full bore into the lot, the cop's Vette inches behind. Matt had taken the same risk Jose had and jumped the low divider, tail out and tires smoking, his taillight glow flashing off the chainlink fence even though Matt wasn't braking. The low slung Corvette had somehow slowed enough to get behind the Charger, and abruptly followed as the Dodge jumped the divider.

"Dang it, these guys can DRIVE!" Jose exclaimed in equal parts frustration and admiration, dodging a parked cargo van and blasting across the large parking lot, checking the Underground map to see if the lot had an exit on the other end. It did, a narrow road over a bridge and through a rundown parking lot.

Jose suddenly found himself in a very autocross-like environment, just like his mall practice runs. Except instead of posting a quick time around and through a mall lot for fun, he was dodging concrete barriers with a street racing king in a 68' Charger and dangerous cop in a C7 Corvette on his bumper.

He blew past and slalomed through the barriers erected to control traffic through the lot, weaving an intricate and dangerous path through the hard walls of reinforced concrete. The Charger and Corvette followed his path, the Charger jerking and diving as Matt worked the gas to slide the large heavy muscle car through the seemingly impossible bends, while the Corvette stayed right on his bumper with considerably less visible effort and very little drifting.

They cranked through one last turn onto the narrow bridge, and as soon as they touched land again the Charger flew out from behind Rockit and screamed past, the Vette following suit immediately after. By the time The little red Honda hatch had reached the exit of the parking lot, the cop and racer duo had long since gone- although the smoke from the Charger's exiting drift still hung in the glow of a streetlamp.

Jose pulled out into the street and quickly slowed to the speed limit, putting the car in fifth to limit engine noise before rolling down the windows. The warm, quiet breeze that blew into the cabin was a stark contrast to what had just gone down, and while sirens and rotorblades could still be heard, they were fading away. But as the sounds of police cruisers and helicopters moved further away, the dueling howls of a twin-turbo Hemi and a nitrous-boosted Chevy LT1 rose in a strange, distant symphony. The two boys looked at each other for a long moment, both soaking up the incredible sounds radiating through the windows as the CR-X slowly cruised along.

"I'm PITing him!" Capture declared loudly into his radio, just after rounding a highspeed corner half a mile from the flea market. The Corvette's superior handling at speed let it walk up to the Charger through the shallow yet narrow turn through an intersection, and the modern fighter jet pulled nearly alongside the classic brick. Lieutenant George Lock looked over at Underground Number One Matt Traveler. Both of their brows were furrowed. Both had their eyes slightly narrowed. But the cop's expression was one of authority and confidence, while the racer's was of desperation and ingenuity.

Lt. Lock began to steer to hit the rear right quarter panel of the Charger, when red flashing lights popped up in his peripheral vision ahead of him. In the next moment he realized that the railroad crossing just a 150ft ahead of them was active, the protective gates closed. He instinctively got on the brakes and looked over to the Charger, expecting the racer to do the same- but instead all he saw was that expression of determined desperation on the racer's face as he floored it. The cop watched in horror as the beautiful black Charger raced towards its death in the form of the massive blue and yellow CSX freight train speeding into the crossing, all as the Vette was in the process of stopping on a dime.

Then, just as the train was entering the road area, the Charger blew through the protective gate, and then the mint 60's Dodge was gone. All Lieutenant Lock saw were bits of reflective red and white barrier tossed into the air from behind the train, along with a cloud of dust and some small metal pieces that began floating back down after a moment. The black fighter jet of the Corvette waited at the crossing as the train passed, and after ten minutes the last CSX car had passed, and the remaining gates began to lift. What was left of the Charger left Lock speechless.

Two short skidmarks and a cloud of dust from where the Mopar machine had touched down and kept going after barely beating the train. The pieces of the reflective barrier had landed fifty feet down the street, the black metal pieces framing the lights atop it scattered across the roadway.

He got away clean.

The cop slowly touched his forehead to the Corvette's steering wheel and chuckled before looking up and down the road.

"Next time."