Chapter 1

Life is a Highway/California's Worst Driver

Check, check, and we are rolling! Welcome back to the never-ending story Motorbabies! You're chilling with me, Dr. Death Defying. Now I suggest you buckle down and listen up, 'cause do I have a story for you! But first, some housekeeping: if Danger Detonator is listening right now, you still owe me for that SOAD merch I sent your way last month. Just 'cause I'm in a chair don't mean I won't kick your trigger-happy ass halfway to Djibouti!

Anyways, enough of that! These are the days when legends are made, and these are the airwaves that carry them straight to your rock n' roll brains! What I have for you tonight will make you laugh, make you cry, make you go all shades of goddamn insane! This is a story about a girl and a boy...and some other boys...and a couple of other girls...and some people I'm not totally sure about... Sit back and relax, 'cause Dr. D is bringing you dinner tonight, and we're serving up an appetizer of dissatisfaction, some rage to drink, and an entree of ass-kicking, with just a hint of sweet romance. Nothing's over 'till it's over, and once my tale is through, I want each and every one of you to join with me in making a joyful noise unto the bastards of Battery City! I want our voices to ring from Zone 6 to the Great Beyond! But first, gimme your ears Killjoys...this one's for the ages!

"Woohoooooooooooooooo!"

Jenny screamed with elation as her car roared through the desert. For the first time in her life, there was nothing holding her back. No job, no medication, no boyfriend...if he could even be called that...nothing. She was free, as free as the wind that roared past the pristine white, box-shaped vehicle. Perhaps not the most practical choice for an off-road trip, but all the cars driven by Better Living Industries' employees were pretty well the same. Small, uniform, boring...kind of like the people who drive them, Jenny thought. Well, starting today she wasn't going to be one of those people. At long last, she was taking control of her life.

She switched on the radio, and after adjusting the dial for a moment, a low hum filled the car, and a deep male voice flooded out of her speakers.

"Look alive, sunshine." Jenny almost jumped with shock. There was no mistaking that voice. "109 in the sky, but the pigs won't quit! You're here with me, Dr. Death Defying." Jenny's eyes widened. Unbelievable! The enigmatic pirate radio DJ was the most wanted man in the Zones, and here she was, listening to one of his infamous broadcasts. It was like something out of a withdrawal-induced dream...but she wasn't dreaming. This was the real thing. "I'll be your surgeon, your proctor, your helicopter; pumping out the slaughtermatic sounds to keep you live! A system failure for the masses! Antimatter for the master plan! Louder than God's revolver, and twice as shiny!" Her heart racing with excitement, Jenny couldn't help but feel that he was speaking directly to her, as if he had been waiting for her all this time. "This one's for all you rock n' rollers, all you crash queens and motorbabies. Listen up! The future is bulletproof! The aftermath is secondary! It's time to do it now and do it loud! Killjoys, make some noise!"

Following his speech, the car was filled with a kind of noise that Jenny hadn't heard in years: music was blasting out of the speakers. Jenny clenched the steering wheel as adrenaline coursed through her body. She didn't know the song, but she tapped her fingers to the beat anyways. She would learn the song, she told herself. She would learn how to live in the wastelands, free of the oppression and monotony of Battery City. She would learn how to be an outlaw, a fighter, a badass. Anything was possible now. As long as she was free...

She was so caught up in her own ecstatic thoughts that she failed to notice that she was crossing a highway...a highway with a car on it. Which she promptly proceeded to T-bone with an ear-shattering BANG!

She yelped in pain as he head jerked back into the headrest, but the extensive safety measures built into the car protected her from any serious harm. However, she did have to wait a few moments for her head to stop spinning and for the ringing in her ears to die down. This was not the welcome to her new life that she'd been expecting. Once she was relatively sure she was unharmed, she struggled out of the damaged car. She stumbled a few steps, and sat down on the ground beside the crash, still dizzy, and very confused. Who the hell is driving out here?

As if to answer her question, a tall man emerged from the other car. He was the most strangely-dressed man Jenny had ever seen. He was dressed mainly in black, noticeably sporting a somewhat dusty leather jacket, and his long hair was dishevelled to an amazing extent. A large pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, and a red bandana covered the lower half of his face...and he was pointing a laser gun at her head.

"What the hell were you doing?" he roared. "Learn how to fucking drive!" Jenny quickly crawled behind her smashed vehicle. "Hey! Get back here! I'm talking to you! Holy shit...you completely smashed up my ride! I still had, like, three payments on that!" The strange man paused for a moment, only to cry out a second later, and rush back to his own car. Jenny stood up, staring curiously after him. After a brief struggle, he forced the trunk of the car open, and breathed a loud sigh of relief. "Oh thank God. She's okay." This statement made no sense whatsoever to Jenny, but she was distracted by the two other men who were getting out of the car.

"You're such a moron!" yelled one of them, another tall man with shorter, jet-black hair, who was dressed in blue and grey with a black vest. It took her a moment to figure out that the comment was directed at the abrasive man behind the wrecked car. "Why don't you just leave it at home? You don't see me carrying my sword around all the time!" The man in blue then came towards her, gun in hand, but unlike the other man, he didn't point it at her. Rather, he held it cautiously as he approached. At first, Jenny thought there was something wrong with his eyes, but a second look revealed that he was wearing goggles with red-tinted lenses.

The third man quickly joined the second. His skin was much darker, and he sported a worn brown jacket and perfectly circular sunglasses. He also had his gun drawn, and pointed it towards her much as the first man had. Jenny took an involuntary step backwards. What had she gotten herself into?

"Hey, are you okay?" asked the man in blue. Jenny blinked, surprised. "Don't be scared. We won't hurt you."

"I might!" growled the first man.

"Will you shut up?" the man in blue snapped. He then turned back to her. "Ignore him. He's an idiot." He holstered his gun. "What are you doing out here? What's your name?"

"I...I'm Jenny," she stammered out. At least she had a good answer to that question. As for the other... "Um...are you...are you Killjoys?" As the words left her mouth, it occurred to her that she wasn't entirely sure what she wanted the answer to be. The man in brown put away his gun and smiled, but Jenny got the distinct impression that he was rolling his eyes at her behind his sunglasses.

"No," he said. "We're Robin Hood's Merry Men." Seeing Jenny's uncomprehending expression, he sighed dramatically. "Of course we're Killjoys!"

Killjoys. Outlaws. Terrorists. As an employee (ex-employee, she reminded herself) of Better Living Industries, she knew all about them; loosely connected bands of thieves and guerrilla fighters who roamed the wasteland, watched over by Dr. Death Defying and his mysterious messengers. They were the sworn enemies of BL/ind, the entire reason that the barely-human Exterminators existed, and as a result, the citizens of Battery City were taught to fear and revile them.

The first man came to join the other two, muttering angrily to himself.

"The car's toast. I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell don't want to walk back home." He took his sunglasses off, and locked his eyes on Jenny. "What the hell are you doing out here, especially driving a BL/ind company car? You sure don't look like an Exterminator to me."

"I'm not!" Jenny insisted. "I'm just...I..." Speech had suddenly become unattainable for her. She couldn't even think! But she knew she had to; these people, these Killjoys, they were almost certainly dangerous. She had to think of something!

"Well, spit it out!" he snapped. Jenny flinched, as though his frustration was a physical blow, and got the distinct and horrifying feeling that she was about to cry.

"Leave her alone for a second!" the man in blue rebuked him. He turned back to Jenny and smiled reassuringly. Empowered by that smile, and flooded with momentary, fleeting confidence, Jenny spoke up.

"I...left," she said. Not quite the confident response she'd wanted, but the words in her head were quite separate from the words that made it to her mouth. "I just left. I..." She was suddenly struck by the absurdity of her situation. "Look, I'm really sorry about...oh God, this is so stupid...I'm so, so sorry that I hit you guys. I didn't think anyone would be driving around out here."

"You're...new here, aren't you?" the man in blue said, stating the obvious. He sighed. "You're not in Battery City anymore, Dorothy."

"My name's Jenny," she said, confused. The man in blue sighed again, rubbing his forehead.

"I say we shoot her," the first man said. The man in blue shot him a look. "What? She's probably an agent or something! No one's stupid enough to try an escape with a BL/ind company car!"

"Why not?" Jenny asked. "It's not like I had another one to use!"

"Did you at least disable the tracking device?" the man in blue asked. Jenny's heart skipped a beat.

"They have tracking devices?" A long silence followed her words.

"We should probably get out of here," the first man said.

"How?" the man in blue protested. "I thought the car was totalled."

"It is. Looks like we're walking home." The first man's statement was met with a chorus of groans from the other two. "Well do either of you have a better idea? Didn't think so!"

"What about her?" the man in blue asked, indicating Jenny.

"Who cares?" the first man retorted dismissively. "Come on, let's get moving."

"We can't just leave her here!" the man in blue protested. "If they send Draculoids after her..." Jenny's eyes widened and she was sure she felt her heart stop. Draculoid was just another word for Exterminator. Would they really send Exterminators after her? What was the point? She was no one to BL/ind, to anyone! That was the whole reason she'd left in the first place!

"Not our problem," the first man said. "Besides, she did wreck our car."

"We've got another one!"

"We've got a broken one!"

"We should take her with us," the man in blue insisted.

"Over my smoking carcass!"

"But she'll never survive alone out here!" he pleaded.

Throughout this exchange, the man in brown said nothing, but Jenny was certain that he was looking her over, examining her, and something inside her cringed at the thought. After a moment, he approached her, and she suddenly saw that his sunglasses had holographic smiley faces in each lens, which, for some reason, made her skin crawl.

"May I see your hand?" he asked. Jenny blinked in surprise.

"What?"

"Your hand. Could I see it for a moment please?"

"My...hand?" With an irritated sigh, the man grabbed her hand and held it up to his face, twisting her fingers slightly.

"Hey!" Jenny snatched her hand back. "What the hell?"

"Good enough," he said cryptically. He then turned to the other two men. "I agree with Vamp. Let's take her with us, at least for a little while. She's no Exterminator."

"How can you be sure?" the first man demanded.

"How can you tell that from my hand?" Jenny asked at the same time. The man in brown grinned.

"First off, your fingernails. You bite them. Nail-biting is a sign of anxiety, and everyone in Battery City has access to sedatives and other medications on a daily basis. Therefore, you're off your meds, and probably have been for some time. Second, I can tell from your knuckles that you haven't had any hand-to-hand training, so you're probably not an Exterminator." He turned back to the first man. "So, elementary my dear Danger."

"You're outvoted," the man in blue (Vamp?) pointed out smugly. The first man glared at him, and told him to shut up.

"Danger?" Jenny asked quizzically.

"Yeah, that's my name," said the first man.

"Your name is Danger?"

"Yep. Danger Detonator, at your service," he said with a certain degree of pride. Despite the circumstances, Jenny almost chuckled.

"Is that your real name?"

"It's more real than the one my parents gave me." The man...Danger Detonator...put his sunglasses back on. "We should get moving. If you're coming, then you'd better keep up, 'cause I'm not slowing down for you."

"At least we weren't carrying much," the man in brown said. He then turned to Jenny, and said like an afterthought: "I'm Desert Wind by the way."

"And you are...?" Jenny asked the man in blue. He smiled again in his comforting way.

"My name is Memory Vampire," he said. The two of them started to walk east, away from Battery City, away from Jenny's entire life.

"Wait!" Danger Detonator cried after them. He ran back to his wrecked car, and almost dove into the trunk. He emerged with a guitar case strapped to his back. "Okay," he said. "Now we can go."

After half an hour of walking, Jenny was already beginning to question her decision. Outside of Battery City's protective atmosphere, the desert sun beat down on her hellishly. And she was sweating! That was unheard of in the City! She was certain that she smelled disgusting.

"Um...Memory Vampire?" she asked. He was the only one of the three Killjoys that didn't scare her. She was absolutely certain that Danger Detonator, who seemed to be their leader, didn't like her at all, and Desert Wind was just unnerving. "How far do we have to go?"

"You can call me Vamp if you want," he told her. "And home is in Zone Four, so..." A look of concern came over his face. "This isn't gonna work."

"I know!" Jenny protested. "We'll never make it!"

"Especially not if there are Dracs on our tail," he said grimly. He nudged Danger Detonator. "Hey, you've got a plan, right?"

"Two, actually," he said. "Plan A is to keep walking until we run into some more Killjoys, and see if we can get a ride home. Plan B is to head for the Bunker."

"Bunker?" Jenny asked.

"There's some kind of underground shelter not far from here," Memory Vampire replied. "We don't know what it is, but we use it as a place to hide from Exterminator patrols when we're close to the city. We've got supplies and stuff there, so we can definitely hide out there for a while."

"It's weird that we're still alive," Desert Wind commented. He was answered with three confused looks. "I mean, we're walking. The Dracs have cars. Why's it taking so long for them to catch up to us?"

"Don't jinx it," Danger Detonator muttered darkly. The group continued to trudge onwards, the sun beating down on their necks.

After a few more minutes of walking, Jenny felt close to collapse. The view before her eyes had not changed, and the horizon seemed no closer. The world was swimming before her eyes.

"Hey, are you okay?" Memory Vampire asked her, putting a steadying hand on her arm as she wavered. "Here," he said, offering her his bottle of water. "You can't let yourself get dehydrated out here." She took the bottle and took a long drink, and though the water was warm from the sun, to her it seemed as cold as a glacier and as refreshing as liquid heaven. She tried to hand the bottle back to him, but he refused it. "You need it more than I do," he insisted, and she appreciated the gift as the road began to climb.

Suddenly, a figure emerged atop the hill before them, moving closer at a swift pace. As the figure approached, Jenny saw that it was wearing roller skates, and its face was obscured by a blue motorcycle helmet adorned with white polka dots. The pattern was inverted on the figure's tights, and it wore a shirt with NOISE written in large letters across the front.

"Huh? What's Show Pony doing out here?" Danger Detonator wondered.

"Show Pony?" Jenny asked. "Is he...she...is Show Pony another Killjoy?"

"Not exactly," Memory Vampire said with a smile. "He...I think it's a he anyways...he's kind of like Dr. Death Defying's personal assistant. He's like a messenger, runs errands, that kind of thing. Talkative guy."

"Talkative?" Jenny questioned. She had a feeling that he was being sarcastic, but wasn't totally sure. As they finished talking, Show Pony arrived, sliding to a graceful stop right in front of them. He handed a sloppily-folded note to Danger Detonator, accepted high-fives from Memory Vampire and Desert Wind, and began to skate away without saying a word.

"Thanks man!" Danger Detonator called after him. He opened the note, and read it aloud. "Dear Tumbleweeds: Dracs are crawling all over the crash. Head for someplace safe. They're coming. Dr. D." He crumpled up the paper and threw it to the ground angrily. "Shit."

"Well, at least we know where we're going," Desert Wind offered.

"How far away is the bunker?" Jenny asked as the group climbed to the top of the hill. Memory Vampire pointed further along the road, now visible due to their higher vantage point.

"See that signpost up the road? We get off the highway there, and walk north for about fifteen minutes. There's a hatch in the ground, right in the middle of nowhere."

"And I suggest we pick up the pace!" Danger Detonator said. "Let's move!"

Unbeknownst to the Killjoys, a hunting party of Draculoids was scarcely ten minutes behind them, masked and dressed in monochrome white suits, and seemingly unaffected by the heat. In fact, it was only the slightly uneven terrain that had kept the Draculoids from spotting their prey. As they climbed the very same hill that the Killjoys had, their leader noticed something lying on the road. He bent over and picked it up; it was a small crumpled note which he quickly read. Looking up, he scanned the surrounding area with a pair of electronic binoculars...and his search was rewarded: a little ways up the road, four sets of footprints led off the highway. He smiled beneath the horrifying vampire mask that gave the Draculoids their name. The Killjoys would die never knowing what had hit them.