TWISTED METAL: INAMORATA'S CRY
CHAPTER ONE: IGNITION
Black for death.
White for purity.
Pink for a girl.
Blue for a boy.
Red for danger.
Green for go.
The lights on the dash turned green one by one, each indicating the car's systems starting up. Fuel management first, then power steering, anti-lock brakes, radar, transponder, nitrous, defence, weapons.
She smiled, red lips flickering out across her face. Red for danger.
The heads-up display came to life in front of her, projecting itself onto the windscreen of her car, a sleek silver Honda RSX that she called the Seraph. The HUD glowed green, the reticle in the centre still without targets to lock to within the spacious garage. At the bottom of the display, 'SAFE' was flashing in bold lettering, a reminder that the Seraph was in stand-by mode.
She thumbed the control buttons on the steering wheel, an inventory appearing on the HUD. Her smile grew, noting the nitrous level at 100%. An injection of nitrous oxide into an engine provides an instant but short-term speed increase, a turbo boost, if you will. And as far as she was concerned, the faster the better. Always a fan of motor racing from a child, she had opted for speed over raw power when she had said yes to him.
Him.
You couldn't really say no to him, could you? A soft laugh filled the car. You'd have to be insane to say no to him, but you'd have to be insane to say yes.
Clearing her head, she moved through the HUD's menu, taking stock; 5 incendiary missiles, or 'fires' as they were called, 5 homing missiles that were a variant of the AIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, 2 non-directional high-explosive missiles and 2000 rounds in the machine gun under the hood.
Insane to say yes, but you got wonderful toys.
Insane, she thought, What a beautiful little word. Much better than psychotic, deranged, lunatic, maniacal.
So much sweeter. Like camouflage over a beartrap, a sweet aroma to a poison gas, it covers the meaning, sugar-coats it for easy digestion. English had been her favourite class at school.
Insane. Adj, (1) Seriously mentally ill and unable to live in normal society.
Normal. A normal society is one where governments wage wars spurred on by businesses, where babies die naturally while rapists live to 100, where our friends and family are ripped away from us. Normal. Who wants normal?
(2) People who are insane.
Insane. Insane is working to 'better yourself' at school, running up the debts, getting some low-paid job somewhere (somewhere anonymous and identical), working all the hours God sends and destroying your life all for money, just so you can clone yourself and go off and die, knowing you've kept the species going for at least one more generation.
(3) Very stupid, crazy or dangerous.
Hey, what do you know, I guess I must be insane after all.
Insane to say yes, insane to say no, insane to be asked.
She thought it was a dream at first. A hallucination born out of the 50mgs of Molapine to keep her calm for the night, making her frightened that the dreams were coming back again.
He stood over her, smiling like a viper would if it could. His face was bald and burnt, a busted up eye just adding to the look.
She had pulled the covers over herself at the sight of the stranger, ready to pounce at the slightest threat. "What?" she had asked, her voice still groggy with sleep.
He had chuckled, a deep laugh that lacked any humour and chilled her to the soul. "Nice room," he said, motioning to the stripped down room, the walls bare and featureless, nothing for a blanket noose to get purchase on.
She had shrugged. "It's free. Food's terrible but the drugs are great. Are you here to offer me another suite? Maybe one with a view of the pool?"
"No." Simple. Simple and getting to the point.
"Well what then?"
Insane.
Blackfield Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
Sorry, Blackfield Hospital for the Emotionally Troubled.
God, how she hated political correctness, the way it tried to sweeten everything, make it nicer. But in reality, it was just dumbing down. Like telling a child that their dog's gone to live on a farm in Ohio, and the whole world was suffering this.
Call a spade a spade.
Call a lunatic a lunatic.
Better yet, call her Sarah.
He had.
Him.
"Calypso. My name is Calypso."
She grinned, "Catchy. Parents not like you or something?"
He nodded. "So I killed them with my bare hands."
She pressed her back harder into the wall, a chill growing in her spine. How did he get into her room (which she had tried so many times to escape from), and what was he doing standing in front of her?
She checked his hands for a shank and saw none, but from what he had just said, it sounded like he didn't need one.
"N...nice," she managed.
"Sarah, do you dream? Well, of course you do, but what I mean is, did you dream before? What did you want more than anything in the world? What do you want just now, Sarah?"
"How do you know my name?"
He shook his head softly at such trivial matters. "Sarah Clare Nightingale, born December 19, 1982. Attended..."
Sarah cut him off with a wave of her hand, a look of intrigue crossing her face. "Fine, you know me. What are you here for? Making my wishes come true like a fairy godmother?"
Calypso looked her over; her auburn hair messed up by sleep, tumbling over her shoulders, brown eyes fixed intently on him. "I can give you whatever you want, anything you've ever wanted."
"What's the catch?"
"You're fast. Two catches; the first is to join my little game."
"And the second?"
"You have to win."
She took a breath. "And then I get whatever I want?"
"Anything you like."
"Must be quite a game," she said evenly.
Calypso smiled his viper smile. "It is."
Insane.
Insane to be asked. Insane to say no.
Even more insane to say yes.
The systems check on the Seraph complete, Sarah relaxed back into the driver's seat, still unsure about everything. Hell, it was far too late for that now, wasn't it? As soon as she had agreed to join Calypso in his game, all hell had broken loose, literally.
As if hell had anything that could match him.
Needles Kane, the former surgeon turned serial killer, the one that made Bundy, Manson and the rest look like petty thieves in comparison. The serial killer that had prowled the country leaving a trail behind him that few could even comprehend. The serial killer who had become an urban legend, even while he was still killing. The serial killer they said couldn't be killed.
Sweet Tooth.
The man who had required a specially-built wing at Blackfield, the man who terrified the biggest of guards, who was untreatable, seemingly indestructible, and now on the loose.
Out.
Escaped.
Unleashed.
He -no- it was out of its cell. A mere moment after Calypso had walked out of Sarah's room, the power had gone, plunging Blackfield into it's darkest ever night. With the lights, alarms, security and cell locks controlled by the central computer, the entire building was immersed in silence for a year-long second, before the screams. And the wails. And the hollers.
Blackfield had shut down and Sarah hadn't waited.
A million questions had run through Sarah's mind during her desperate flight from Blackfield that night, losing herself among the throng of patients and staff, each as confused and terrified as the other at the thought of him being free. Madness, sheer madness and panic had swept through Blackfield like a forest fire, running, screaming, crying, begging.
Sarah had closed herself off, head down and ran through the cloud of pandemonium, still asking questions. Was it Calypso behind Sweet Tooth's breakout? Why? All this just for her? Surely not. No? What was going to happen to her, would she even make it to the meeting point Calypso had arranged? If she did, what then? If not...?
And then dirt.
Under the wide pale moon, the world had appeared beautiful, stunning her in her tracks. Sarah had looked down at her bare feet standing in the earth, a tremendous sense of excitement and wonder filling her body, blotting out the fear and confusion for a brief moment.
The screaming of patients and the barking of dogs broke her thoughts and sent her running off into the night, towards New York City, running against a deadline.
The next time she looked at the moon, it was 24 hours later, a torrential downpour lashing down on Sarah as she stood hunched outside the Empire State Building. Just as she was beginning to curse Calypso, a sleek stretch limousine had drawn up in front of her, a hand beckoning her inside.
And from that car to this, the Seraph which Calypso had given her, unable to comprehend everything he had told her inside that limousine.
He had called it 'Twisted Metal', seemingly proud of his little competition.
"Cute name," she had said, still angry about being soaked to the skin. "Gimmie details."
"Simple, oh so simple. Each year, a number of participants are invited to join my competition, and the winner gets their wish from me at the end. To win, all you have to do is make sure you're the last one left."
"Doing what?"
"You like cars, don't you, Sarah? Fast ones?"
"You want me to be in a race?"
A flicker of a smile crossed Calypso's face. "Call it a race to survive."
Sarah had fixed him with a look. "Are you talking about some kind of destruction derby?"
A deep chuckle. "Something like that. Twisted Metal takes place over five rounds, where twenty competitors will engage in automotive gladiatorial combat in a fight to the death. I will provide the automobiles you require, fit them to your personal standards and provide enough weaponry for you all. I set the rules, the times and let mayhem commence.
"Why?" she croaked, somewhat taken aback.
"Why not? It's amusing. It's fun to watch."
Sarah looked over the figure sitting opposite her and wondered just what else this strange man found fun.
Calypso went on; "Some combat will take place within fixed arenas, while others...well others are others. During the first four rounds, the two competitors remaining at the end will go through, placed in the pool to be randomly drawn for the next battle. Depending on the luck of the draw, you may have to fight five times, you may luck out and go right through to the final, though I wouldn't recommend going out there a virgin, so to speak."
She looked on in shock. He had made no effort to hide the barbarity of the competition, not hard sell to her. But yet, something was drawing her towards it. The past was pushing her towards her future.
Something in her soul was trying to say yes, and she could tell Calypso knew this. And that chilled her even more.
"So?" he asked.
"A fight to the death?" She frowned a little; was she really prepared to kill? To die? But…if he could give her everything. Everything…he could fix everything.
"You have any problems with that, Sarah?" he asked, as if reading her mind. "You have no family, you're an escaped mental patient with a history of self-harm and violent tendencies. All you have to look forward to is a life of institutionalised care. You can live for another 100 years as a walking zombie, or try and survive the next week and get your heart's desire." Calypso crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. "I'll make it clear to you, it's highly unlikely that you'll survive."
Sarah smiled a little, trying to disguise her thoughts. "Unlikely, but not for sure. Let's do this."