Chapter 7: The Dirt Bike Car
"You forgot the tape player, didn't you?" Samantha asked, side glancing at Amelia while sticking out of Jam's backpack.
"We don't have time to go back for it," Amelia said, running beside Jam.
"Then how are we going to convince my brother that he's not who he thinks he is?" Jam asked.
Amelia launched herself at the next car with her harpoons before answering. "We'll have to corner him first. Then we can try to get it through his thick skull."
Jam jetted himself off the previous car and landed behind her before continuing the chase. He could see Alrick about six cars up ahead.
Alrick checked his right arm's screen, then jumped off the top of the train car, landing on the bridge. He punched the door open and entered.
"His battery must be really low," Jam said. "He chose to walk instead of jet." He looked at his own battery display. "Mine's at 20%. I'll need to find replacements soon."
"You guys should have used accumulators," Amelia said, running and launching herself off cars with the harpoons.
Jam stared at her, puzzled. "What?"
"Batteries that you can recharge."
After they both landed on the sixth car, Jam said, "Oh. I'm not sure if I should be glad or cheesed off that my brother didn't think of picking up some of those and adding chargers to our armors."
"I see you know at least one British term," Amelia said, grinning at him.
"I know a few others too," Jam said, jumping off the car and landing with his armored feet on the bridge. After Amelia joined him, he added, "But I'm more comfortable using American terms for those definitions."
The trio entered the car through the destroyed door. The place looked like a desert. In the distance, they saw Alrick talk with a humanoid boar denizen who had a brown leather jacket on. There were ten motorcycles near the two, and Alrick seemed a bit nervous.
"He isn't going to ride a dirt bike, is he?" Amelia said, looking horrified.
Jam stared at Alrick with a worried look. "He hates bikes because … well, you know. But he might be desperate enough to do it."
Amelia ran toward Alrick. "Don't do it! You'll crash!"
Alrick looked at Amelia, then at the nearest motorcycle, then back at her. Trying to run on the sandy, narrow road that had deep canyons on its sides, he ended up being brought back to the boar by a sand tornado.
"Sir," the boar said, "you'll have to use a bike, otherwise the car will keep bringing you back here."
Seeing no other way out of the situation, Alrick hopped on a motorcycle and took to the road with it.
"Sir, you forgot to take a helmet!" the boar said, pointing to the shelf full of colorful helmets to his left. "I hope he doesn't crash." He saw Amelia and Jam approach him.
Jam said, "We need motorcycles. Can you lend us two, please?"
"Sure," the boar told him. "It's the only way to get to the other side anyway. The sand tornadoes won't let you walk there. And please remember to take a helmet."
Amelia stared at Jam with a sad look. "Can't we just go outside and wait for him on the other end of the car?"
"He can still track me, so he'll just take the opposite end to the one where I'd wait. Then he'll just dodge us and keep running atop the train."
"Each of us can wait for him on one end," Amelia said.
"But neither of us can take him on alone!"
"If he's tracking your armour, then you can just leave it on one side so we can ambush him on the other."
"We need my armor, otherwise he'll escape!" Jam said, raising his hands in the air.
"But ..." Amelia turned to look at the motorcycle near her. "No! I don't want a repeat of what happened to my Alrick!"
"My brother's already on the bike, mom," Jam said. "It could happen to him too. We need to stop him before it does."
She had tears in her eyes. "What if it happens to you instead?"
He put on the most serious expression he could. "If it happens, it happens. All I can do is be extra careful." After grabbing a red helmet and putting it on, he hopped on a motorcycle, turned on the kill switch, and stepped on the kick starter, bringing the engine to life. "If we worry about what could happen, we'll never change what will happen."
Amelia wiped away her tears with her right sleeve and grabbed a green helmet. She equipped herself with it and hopped on a motorcycle too. "Let's hope I won't crash either."
They took it slow at first, getting used to the turns and maintaining their balance, but after a few minutes they got the hang of riding the motorcycles.
Amelia never imagined she'd enjoy the speed again. In the past, she and her fiancé rode bicycles together on the beach, but he had also shown her how he rode his dirt bike. It was a bit more complicated than riding a bicycle, even though there was no pedaling needed. She had to control the acceleration and front brakes with her right hand and the rear brakes with her right foot while using the clutch with her left hand. Then there was the shifter, which shifted gears as she used her left foot to push or raise it. The bike was noisy compared to its non-motorized counterpart, but she managed to tune out the loudness the more she went on.
Samantha enjoyed the wind blowing through her fur while she looked around from Jam's backpack.
They were getting closer and closer to Alrick, who kept looking behind himself from time to time.
"Alrick, stop before you get hurt!" Amelia said.
"Like you care!" Alrick shouted back.
"I do care! So does your brother!"
"Yeah, bro!" Jam said. "Even though you've been a massive jerk toward me, I just want you to be with us as part of our family! It's where you belong!"
"If I don't belong in her heart, then I don't belong anywhere!" Alrick said, accelerating more.
Jam reached out with his left hand. "Bro! No!"
"He'll crash if he keeps going at that speed!" Amelia said.
"Then we'll have to speed up too."
Amelia stared at him with wide eyes. "Are you crazy?!"
"Heh, maybe," Jam said before he went full throttle, causing her to accelerate as well just to keep up.
From a road to their right, a group of seven green humanoid lizard people with black leather jackets and no helmets joined in. Neither Jam nor Amelia were prepared for what was about to happen.
One of the lizard people kicked Jam from the side, causing him to crash.
"We recognize your stench from a mile away," another lizard guy said.
Amelia braked and turned around, then stopped in the middle of the lizard bikers, who also stopped there. "What are you doing, you hooligans?"
The lizard guy hissed as he whipped the air with his long, blue tongue, then said, "You Apex have skinned our people alive. We will do the same to you, starting with your leader." He pointed with a claw at Jam, who got back on his feet.
"Here we go again," Jam said, rolling his eyes.
"The Apex is no more," Amelia said, "and Jam was never in it. The person you are looking for has been dead for about two weeks now."
"We recognize the face of that killer even through the visor of that helmet," the lizard guy said. "I'll never forget those cold eyes."
Amelia stared at Jam's eyes, but all she saw was sadness in them. She looked back at the yellow-eyed lizard guy. "He's the killer's son! He's not responsible for what his father did to you!"
The lizards laughed at her. Samantha hissed at them.
"Such an absurd lie!" the lizard guy said. "The blond passenger's in his early twenties at most. How can he have a son who also looks like he's in his early twenties?"
"Jam's some kind of ... clone," Amelia said. "Look, it's difficult to explain, and we have something important to do, so if you could all just–"
The lizard guy rammed his bike into hers, causing her to crash on her left side.
"Mom!" Jam yelled. He tried to kick the lizard guy's motorcycle, but the lizard dodged.
Samantha jumped at the lizard guy and scratched his face before she hopped back into Jam's backpack.
Amelia got up and said, "Stop attacking us, or else I'll send you all into the pits!"
The lizard guy had an evil grin on his scratched face. "You and what army? It's seven of us against three of you!"
"Wrong. It's seven of you against my sound shield."
The lizards tried to push them off the road with their bikes, but got repelled by Amelia's sound shield and sent tumbling into the pit to the left. Nobody died, as the fall was short, but they would have difficulty climbing up the steep terrain. There was no way to take their bikes to the top with them.
"I hope you rot in hell, Apex dirtbags!" one of the lizards said.
Another one yelled, "Crash and burn, you sick bastards!"
Amelia and Jam ignored them and got back on their bikes. They noticed that Alrick had stopped to observe the incident from afar. As soon as he saw them ready to go, he turned tail and fled.
The motorcycle chase continued through the twisted roads, sometimes taking them through loops that required going upside-down at high speed to pass. There were moments when they almost caught up to Alrick, but he always found a way to put more distance between himself and them. At times he'd trick them into going for a different road while changing direction in the last second. Other times he would jump from one road to a lower one – something that both Jam and Amelia refused to do due to safety concerns.
"We'll never catch him at this rate," Amelia said.
"You know, maybe we don't have to try to catch him while we're on this narrow road," Jam said. "He'll slow down if he'll see us slow down, so he'll be less likely to crash. Until we get to a car with less dangerous terrain, let's just … enjoy the ride."
They slowed down a bit and continued their journey, laughing, riding side by side, doing wheelies, and enjoying the view as the golden sunset illuminated the canyons and the sandy roads.
Alrick slowed down too, checking on his chasers from time to time. The nerve of those two, having fun in his face while his heart was being tortured by an invisible knife!
The exit was right up ahead, and it unlocked itself, promising freedom once he'd reach it. He went full throttle again. The motorcycle would be useful in saving up battery for his armor, so he decided he would take it with him to the other cars.
Unfortunately for Alrick, the moment he reached the end of the narrow road the motorcycle came to a sudden halt, launching him off itself.
He landed face first into the sand, but got up and tried to take the motorcycle with him. A tornado formed from under the bike and took it away before he could touch it again. After kicking the sand with his armored right foot and growling, he ran for the exit.
Amelia and Jam learned from Alrick's situation and braked before they reached the end of the track. Then they threw their helmets to the ground.
"We'll have to chase him on foot again," Jam said.
"Not as fun as riding bikes, but safer," Amelia said, smiling. As she and Jam exited the car and headed for the next broken door, she looked at her number. At that moment, it went down from 20 to 10.
To be continued.