Chapter 2 Friends
Aaron was surprised at himself. He had always found it incredibly difficult to talk to any girls. Still, he would either have to change that or he would have to ask the teacher to move his seat to the other side of the classroom. To Aaron, Samantha seemed like she would be easy to get along with. At the same time, Samantha thought Aaron would make a nice friend; to her, he seemed like he needed a friend and a little guidance. For the whole class, Samantha and Aaron talked through the teachers lecture.
"Why'd you move all the way up here? I'd rather stay in New Mexico." Aaron asked quietly.
"It's nice down there, but it's a lot nicer up here… it actually cools off a little around here. I had to move with mom and my brother. I don't have any relatives down there." Samantha explained near a whisper. Aaron knew what that was like; he had been doing nothing but moving around these past five years with his parents. His parents did some work for the military, so their jobs took them all over the United States.
"Tomorrow if you're not doing anything, you wanna get together and do something?" Aaron asked Samantha.
"Um… not that I know of. My parents are leaving on business tonight before I get home, so I shouldn't have anything going on. I'll let you know tomorrow in class here." Samantha said as the class was dismissed.
"Okay… I'll see you at lunch then." Aaron said as he and Sam walked out of the classroom. At that, they parted and went to the rest of their classes and then eventually after what seemed like hours to Aaron, he finally made it to lunch.
"Hey, Sam! How you doing?" Aaron asked as he entered the lunchroom and sat down next to Sam.
"Hi Aaron. So far, it's been going by quickly. Having you in language arts with me makes it go by a little faster too." Sam said between bites of food. Lunch passed quickly for Aaron and Sam and before they knew it, they had to head back to class. By the end of the day, Aaron was ready to just sleep the rest of the day and night and most of tomorrow. He walked home that night, and once home called his parents who were away on business in Texas. After he called them, he went about his normal chores and to end the night, he took out the garbage.
Meanwhile, Samantha spent a quiet evening at home alone. Her brother and sister were spending the week at friend's places and all the people she had met at school lived in different towns than she did. To combat her boredom, she ran around the house cleaning what needed it and eventually wore herself out and went to bed.
At Aaron's house, he was taking the garbage out when he stumbled across a section of the garage floor that was darker than the rest. Curious, he dug around and found a flashlight and a screwdriver and tapped on the floor section that looked darker than the rest. The odd section sounded like it was hollowed out, so to test his initial thought, he found an edge of it and pried it up with the screwdriver. After finding something to hold the section of concrete open, Aaron climbed down into the opening it had created.
For the next few days, things were quiet around Mobotropolis. Not much happened; Sally tried to write in her diary daily and play with Sonic when possible. The latter proved to be tougher than she wanted; her parents wanted her to stay in the castle as much as possible so she would learn how to run the city when it came her turn to ascend the throne.
Then, one day while on routine patrol at the edge of the Great Forest, Jules and Charles Hedgehog found a rather obese human laying face down in a puddle of mud.
"Charles, what should we do? You know how the tensions between the Overlanders and the Mobians have been lately… shouldn't we just leave him here?" Jules asked. Charles, knowing that they could be imprisoned for bringing an Overlander too close to the city but at the same time knowing that his life could be endangered out here, weighed the two options. Hearing some sounds coming from the West, Charles and Jules made the decision right there. They hefted the human into the side-cart on their motorbike and sped back to the Kingdom. After a short distance, they finally made it back to the Kingdom.
At the gate, the Sergeant At Arms forbid them from entering with an Overlander amongst them.
"Sergeant, we need to get this man to the hospital for medical care. He could be hurt." Jules said, hoping that the guard would let them pass.
"You'll have to talk to the King before you do anything with him. You may enter… I'll let the King know to expect you two and this human." The Sergeant announced before contacting the King over his radio device. "Sire, I hate to interrupt… but Jules and Charles Hedgehog are on their way into the castle. They have a large human with them. Should I have security escort them in?" Sergeant Quill asked once Jules and Charles were out of earshot. The radios were voice-activated, so any voices in the room that he was communicating with would activate it. In the background, he heard the voice of the King tell someone to hold on.
"Sergeant, I'm sure that will not be necessary. Charles and Jules are good men… they would not do anything that would put the Kingdom in danger. They are to pass unobstructed. Thank you for letting me know." The King said into his radio before ending the call. He turned back to the videophone and the call he was in.
"I apologize, President Jacobson, but I have to cut our call short. Something's come up here that requires my attention. I do hope that you can resolve your problem with little trouble. I shall be in contact again soon." King Acorn said into the videophone before terminating the call. The King walked from his study into his main chambers to await the arrival of Jules and Charles. Within a matter of minutes, they arrived with the human.
Once down below the garage, Aaron discovered what was housed within it. Upon laying eyes on the various computers and unidentifiable devices down there, he ran back up to the house and quickly looked up Samantha's phone number online. Once he found it, he called her.
"Hello?" Samantha said. It was obvious that she was tired from the sound of her voice.
"It's me, Aaron. I'm sorry to be calling you so late like this, but I think I found something that you might like to take a look at with me. It's not an emergency, I'd just like you to see it at the same time I do." Aaron explained.
"What is it? Don't keep me in the dark here." Samantha asked, sounding a little more awake.
"It's a car of some sort. But, it's not like any car I've ever seen before. It's fitted with all kinds of computers and other devices I haven't seen before." Aaron explained.
"Hmm… Okay, I'll come over. I'm not sure how much good I'll be… I don't know that much about cars. I'll be there in a few minutes." Samantha replied, "Where do you live, by the way?"
"About three blocks north of you. I looked up your phone number online and ended up getting your address too. My house isn't that hard to miss, but I'll be outside waiting for you so you don't get lost. See you when you get here." Aaron said before he hung up. To keep himself occupied, he grabbed his laptop and set it up on the porch and waited for Samantha. When she got there, it was past ten at night. Samantha had biked there after hurriedly getting dressed. Samantha looked almost the same at night as she did during the day; long straight hair, comfortable clothes, quite natural looking. In Aaron's eyes, that was what had caught his attention the first time he had seen her. After jumping off her bike, she walked it up the sidewalk to where Aaron was standing.
"I'm here… where's this car you wanted to show me?" Samantha said once she caught her breath.
"Under the garage. Yes… it's really under the garage. Looks like someone built a secret basement-type structure under the ordinary garage and did a pretty good job of concealing their efforts. Come with me and I'll show you the car." Aaron said as he led Samantha to the garage. They walked back to the garage and climbed down the hole in the floor. Once down in the sub-garage, Aaron felt along the wall until he found the light switch.
"Wow! Look at the size of this place… it's huge!" Sam said as she surveyed the garage. They both walked around the perimeter of the covered thing in the center of it. Samantha pointed to it and asked, "What's that? Is that the car that you wanted to show me?" Aaron walked over to it and grabbed a corner of the tarp that covered it.
"Yeah, it is." Aaron said as he pulled the tarp off the car. Under the tarp was the third most expensive car available on the market, a Lamborghini Diablo. The body and frame were in perfect shape and so was the interior. After looking around the benches that surrounded the walls, Aaron found the keys to the car and opened the doors. Samantha climbed into the passenger seat and looked over the gauges and multitude of buttons that filled the dashboard.
"Who do you think owns this thing? It looks as if someone was in the process of modifying it." Sam said as she checked the connections on a few of the buttons, "Any idea on what the mods were for?" Aaron walked over and sat down in the drivers seat.
"No clue on either question. The purpose of it, I could only guess at. From what I saw earlier tonight when I stumbled across it, none of the computers in it look familiar at all. The ones around the garage here look like they're standard home computers, though I'm not sure why whoever designed this thing would need this many computers. What do you say… try starting it up and see if it runs?" Sam climbed out of the car and stood beside it looking at it.
"I dunno… how do you know it'll even run? What if it blows up or something?" Samantha asked, peering beneath it. The undercarriage was covered with sheet metal, making the bottom waterproof, Samantha guessed.
"There's only one way to find out. The driveway for the aboveground garage is also the garage door for the underground one. Could you push that button over there?" Aaron asked as he pointed to the red button located next to a large hydraulic piston. Samantha walked over and pushed the button. A few seconds after she pushed the button, a relatively quiet compressor started up, and the piston came to life lifting the heavy concrete driveway. Aaron got back in the car, fiddled around with finding the right key for the ignition, and inserted the key. They both locked eyes before Aaron turned the key.
"I'm sorry to bother you, your Majesty, but I felt that you should know we found an Overlander wandering through the woods. He was being chased by two of his kind in their aircar devices." Charles explained.
"We were out on patrol duty when we spotted him running through the woods with the other two humans following. From what we saw, he tripped and fell and the others flew on up ahead and we didn't see them again. We thought it best to bring him back here so he could be sent back to New America." Jules added. The King sat on his throne, obviously thinking it over.
It would be unwise to pass judgment this soon, for the King knew of what was happening in New America then. Their Science Advisor to the President had designed a power plant that amplified the electricity generated by the Chaos Emeralds, while soaking the President for all the resources he could get. Eventually, the Science Advisor got the power plant operational though the construction ended up costing them ten lives, which was later attributed to a faulty synthetic metal beam. Meanwhile, the construction of the power plant and its strain on the economy angered a few of the more conservative humans, who in turn gathered strength through supporters of the idea that they had lived for more than twenty years without a power plant and they said that they did not need one now. Also, the strain on the economy forced the President to raise taxes to compensate for the coming budget crisis, which also fueled the growing protests. To escape the revolt, the Science Advisor took one of his aircars vanished from the country.
"You know about the traveling rules… no one is to travel beyond the borders of their home country without first making arrangements with his destination. What brought you here, human?" King Acorn asked as politely as possible.
"Sire, I mean your country no harm. My country fell into rebellion and I came here seeking refuge until New America calmed down. I am Julian Kintobar, science advisor to President Jacobson." Julian said, bowing slightly. The King kept running what President Monroe had told him and what the Overlander who called himself Julian Kintobar had just told him through his mind. If Julian was not lying, the Mobians might need his help. And, with the disappearance of King Acorn's former Warlord, Kodos, he needed to fill the position as soon as possible if a war could possibly break out amongst the humans.
"With your knowledge about the humans, you may just be the person I was looking for. You see, my Warlord vanished three days ago and I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement for him. I think you'd make a good Warlord, especially if the war somehow makes it into our territory. Charles and Jules, take Julian to Doctor Quack and see to it that he gets a complete check-up. Afterward, bring him back here so I can instate him as Warlord at once." The King said before dismissing Charles, Jules, and Julian. Charles and his brother took the human to see Doctor Quentin Quack, the village's medical doctor. Because Quentin had never seen a human in person before, Jules went in first to explain what they were to do.
"Jules! What brings you here? Did you trip into that patch of thorny bushes again?" Doctor Quack asked light-heartedly. Jules did not laugh as usual at the doctor's sense of humor. It seemed that he had something else on his mind.
"I've got an unusual request from the King for you… we stumbled across an Overlander wandering through the forest earlier today and we took him to the King who wants to instate the human as Warlord. He said that you're to give him a thorough physical examination." Jules explained.
"Um… okay, bring him in. I don't know much about humans other than what I've read and seen so far, so I don't know what good it'll do. But, if the King says to do it, then I'll do it. Bring him in." Doctor Quack said as he briskly walked around his office getting his instruments ready. Jules went outside and brought Charles and Julian into Quentin's doctor's office. The Doctor had done dozens of examinations before, but had never done one on a human. Quentin was a little surprised at the size of the human; his head just about touched the ceiling and he must have weighed at least three hundred pounds. Doctor Quack went about the normal examination as he always did. For his amazing size, the human was healthy; heart held a steady beat for sixty seconds, all reflexes were normal, and his lungs were clean. The only thing the human complained about was a slight headache since he had gotten to the planet. Quentin assumed that it was caused by the difference in air pressure and quality from Earth to Mobius. The doctor put a call through to King Acorn and let him know that the human was perfectly healthy, aside from his weight problem. The King thanked Doctor Quack and told him to send the human back to Castle Acorn with Jules and Charles, then ended the call. Jules and Charles brought the human back to the castle and before the King.
"Ah… I see the good Doctor pronounced you to be in good health. Well, then… I think it's about time to instate you as Warlord." The King said as he unsheathed his Royal Sword. "By the power vested in me, I hereby make you Warlord of Mobotropolis Kingdom." King Acorn said as he welcomed Julian into his new position as Warlord.
The car roared to life after two tries. Slowly, Aaron revved the engine until the tachometer read ten thousand before letting off the gas and letting the engine slow back down to idle speed. Samantha came around to the passenger side and sat down. Once she was inside, the doors closed automatically. Samantha started a bit as the door clicked shut. She looked at Aaron, who in turn said,
"It wasn't me… I'd guess it was the computer system. This thing is all decked out; in-dash GPS, four computer monitors showing different stuff about the car, all the normal displays for a car. I'd love to meet whoever designed and built this thing. You'll probably think I'm nuts, but wanna go for a short drive?" Aaron asked. Samantha did not hesitate,
"I'd love to, but do you think you could drive this thing? Wouldn't you be worried about getting pulled over or something?" She asked as she looked over the various displays. Inside the car with both doors closed, the car was incredibly soundproof.
"I'm pretty sure that this car could outrun a cop car even with the Lamborghini's factory engine. And, I've driven with dad and a couple of my friends to know enough… the tall pedal is gas, the wide one is the brake, 'D' is drive, and 'P' is park. From the look of this thing, it might be able to drive itself." Aaron explained as he adjusted his seat. The seat, windows, mirrors, and steering were all power, so all it took to operate any of them was the push of a button. One thing stumped Aaron about the car; there were hoses and tubes and two heavy-duty glass boxes sitting in the back seat. From what Aaron knew about Lamborghini's, they never even came with a back seat. Ever since he had first seen the car, he had been keeping a mental list of things to do and he just added another thing to that list; go visit another of his friends, Neile Pederson. Neile was a car nut; he would probably be able to figure out what the computers were for. If nothing else, it gave him an excuse to take the car out a few more times before his mom and dad got home from their trip.
"Alright… just try to be careful. I don't really want to get arrested or end up in the hospital after a car crash or something." Samantha said. She was a little worried; Aaron knew the basics of driving, but she was sure he had never driven anything like this one. But, something in the back of her mind said to trust him. He seemed to know what he was doing and more than likely, nothing bad would happen. Aaron checked around inside the car for a garage door opener, and found it. It was built into the dashboard, along with the computers and displays. After confirming that it worked by pressing the button and watching as the garage door closed and opened, he finally shifted into reverse and gently pressed the accelerator. The car shot out of the underground garage; up the paved driveway leading out of the hidden garage and almost hit the shed across the alley. The car stopped just inches from hitting the shed on its own, without Aaron even touching the brakes. Samantha had her arms up to protect her face from flying shards of broken glass, even after the car stopped. After a few seconds, Samantha took her hands away from her face and glowered at Aaron.
"I didn't mean to do that. I guess the gas pedal is really sensitive and this thing has a collision avoidance system in it. I'll have to watch that… though the good thing is we know the brakes work really good. Let's try that again." Aaron said before he brought the car out of its safety mode by releasing the emergency brake. This time, Aaron ever so gently touched the gas and backed the rest of the way out of the garage before closing the door. Once out of the garage, he carefully navigated his way out onto the streets and realized for the first time how long the car was; turns had to be made a little wider than usual, U-turns were all but impossible, and from prior experience Aaron decided that the normal parking space would be much too short for a car of this size. After driving for a few minutes, Aaron decided that he would need more experience driving the Lamborghini before he was confident enough to drive it down Main Street with all its usual street-racers. Samantha was having fun playing around with the computers and watching all the reactions of the other drivers; most, if not all of them had never seen a Lamborghini around town before. Being it was Friday night, the racers were out staking out a spot for the night's races, and a few of them flew past Aaron and Samantha in their high-performance sports cars. One of them pulled up next to Aaron and motioned for Aaron to roll down his window. Aaron did so at the stoplight.
"Dude! Where'd you get that car?" The other guy asked.
"It was a birthday present from my parents. Why you askin'?" Aaron replied and asked.
"You in tonight's races? I'm positive you'd beat everyone there, including me. Follow me and I'll take you to the spot." The other guy said as he took off. Aaron, ever the polite young man, had a hard time turning down an invite to most anything.
"You're not seriously thinking about it, are you?" Samantha asked. She had a worried look on her face.
"If this thing's as fast as I think it is, there's no possible way I could lose. As we've already seen, the computers control everything in an emergency… nothing bad could happen. If you want, I can drop you off at your place and run your bike over to you once I get home." Aaron offered. Samantha shook her head.
"I'll come with. Just promise me that you won't do anything too dumb. We'd better catch up with that guy before we lose track of him." Samantha said. At that, Aaron stepped on the gas and the car took off like a bullet. Inside the car, there was no sensation of sudden acceleration and no squealing of tires, just instant acceleration. As they raced to catch up with the guy in the fast Honda, Samantha played around with the computer screen in front of her. After a few seconds, she figured out how to operate the computer system. On the screen in front of her, she found a cut-away view of the engine in the car and a specification list for it.
"Aaron… you haven't looked under the hood of this thing yet, have you? The engine in this car is a W-28… nine cylinders on each side of the 'V' and ten in the center. That's where all the power comes from," she was saying as they caught up with the guy in the Honda. "More than that, if these specs are right, we can top out at over seven-hundred miles per hour, more than double that if we had whatever is supposed to be in those boxes in the back seat." She read off the screen. The guy in the Honda gave Aaron a big thumbs up and turned his thousand-watt stereo all the way up and sped off. Aaron stepped on the gas slightly and they caught up to him almost immediately.
"Sam… What's this thing got for a stereo?" Aaron said, glancing over just briefly. She tapped the screen a few times and found it.
"It's a twenty disc CD changer, AM and FM radio with satellite radio built-in. According to what it says here, it's got a ten-thousand watt amp powered by its own alternator." Samantha read off the screen. From what it said on-screen, the CD-changer was located inside the car between the two front seats. She opened it and ejected the cartridge to see what CDs were in it.
"Well… there's rap, rap, heavy metal, rap, some New Age, and more rap. What should I play?" Sam asked, looking from the large CD cartridge she held to Aaron.
"Hmmm… Try the heavy metal. We're almost there, too." Aaron said, watching the road all the time. The guy in the Honda was turning right up ahead to go to the small man-made lake. Next to the lake, adjacent to the high school next to it, there was a large parking lot that was packed full of cars of every type. They turned into the parking lot and Aaron pulled up next to the guy in the Honda. Aaron and Samantha got out of the car and waited for someone to come over to them. After a couple minutes, the guy in the Honda came back over to them.
"What's up? I'm Ryan, leader of the EastSiders." The guy with the Honda said. Aaron reached out and shook hands with him.
"I'm Aaron and this is Samantha. You guys race for money at all or just for sport?" Aaron asked, unsure as to how to proceed. Ryan laughed a little.
"Sometimes we race for money, sometimes we race for slips, sometimes just to prove whose car is the best. You thinking of dropping some green on tonight's races?" Ryan asked.
"Eh… I've only got a hundred on me. Or, is there a limit for newcomers?" Aaron said, taking the hundred out of his pocket. His parents gave it to him in case he needed it for anything. Right now, he was looking to make some kind of impression on these guys; prove that he was not a loser or a cheapskate. He also wanted to show Samantha that he was not afraid of taking risks.
"Yeah… I'm not gonna try to talk you out of placing a bet." Ryan said, and then he took a small two-way radio from his belt. "This is Speedy to base. Base come in." A few seconds later, base called him back.
"This is base. What's the word?"
"Round up the guys and meet me over towards my car. Got a new racer with greenbacks."
"Alright… give us a few seconds. Over and out."
"Alright… I'll introduce you to the rest of the guys and then we'll take care of the bets and then we race." Ryan said. Within a couple minutes, the rest of the racers were over there. "Alright… this is Aaron and the girl is Sam. Aaron wants to put a Benjamin on tonight's races, so anyone who can't cough up a hundred can't race tonight. We'll do a ladder race, winner takes all. Greaser, where are you?" Ryan said to the small crowd. Towards the back of the gathering, a skinny young kid came pushing his way through.
"Right here. What's the story? Whoa… whose car is that?" Greaser said looking at the Lamborghini.
"It's Aaron's car. Aaron, mind if we have a look at the engine?"
"Not at all. Let me pop the hood." Aaron said as he climbed back into the car and found the button to open the back. When Aaron hit the button, the engine shut off and after a few seconds, the hood popped open on hydraulic pistons. Greaser dug out a flashlight and proceeded to look it over.
"Wow! This thing's got eighteen… scratch that; it's got twenty-eight cylinders in a 'W' formation. Turbine cooling system. Dual alternators. Eighteen of the cylinders are carbureted, the rest are fuel injection. No nitrous, turbos or anything like that… just good ol' fashioned cylinders. Gotta be over a million under here!" Greaser said from underneath the hood. He climbed out from under it and tried to shut it the way the rest closed.
"There's a button. Everything on this car is controlled with a button." Aaron reached up and tapped the small red glowing button underneath the hood. The hood closed silently and then the engine started up again.
"Dude… this is the kind of car that we need to win the finals! Where'd you get that engine and all the internal gear and computers and stuff?" Greaser asked, wiping his now greasy hands on his pants. Aaron climbed back in it, tugged gently on the display panel that Samantha was using earlier, and removed it. It was a wireless touchscreen display panel through which the user could access the computer system built into the car. Aaron climbed back out with display panel in tow.
"I don't know where they got the engine or anything… my folks gave me the car for my birthday. Real quick before we race, you wanna check out the specs on the engine?" Aaron said as he called up the specs on the display. Once he had them on-screen, he handed the panel to Greaser.
"Awesome! I gotta get me a car like this one!" He said as he paged through the specs and blueprints and schematics for the computer systems.
"Alright kids… race time. I drew up a hasty ladder, so everyone who's got a Benjamin has a turn to race. Who's not gonna be able to race?" Ryan shouted over the ambient noise. Only a couple of all the people present raised their hands. "Okay… Greaser, will you collect the bets? Then we'll be heading out to County Road Twelve… they've got it closed off for maintenance, though they haven't started yet." Greaser ran around and collected the bets and they headed out to the spot for the night. Aaron and Samantha raced four times and won all four times. By the end of the night, they drove away with over a thousand dollars.
"Sam… Tomorrow night, I'll take you out to dinner where ever you want." Aaron said once they made it back to Aaron's house and parked the car in the garage.
"Are you asking me out on a date, Aaron Brandt?" Samantha asked. She was a little surprised that he would be so forward about it.
"Umm… well, yeah. Unless you don't want to or something." Aaron said, a little embarrassed.
"I'd love to!" Samantha said before she hugged Aaron.
(End of Chapter 2)