The screak noise whizzed through the hot air as the race car turned around, rack bumping into the track panneling, jolting the driver out from his seat as it took a narrow turn, threatening to topple. The cherring crowd of stand-byers immediately lapsed into silence, awainting the worse.
Joe cursed and quickly adjusted the wheel to prevent any more damage and to set the car back on it's way, all this time not loosing from his sight the other red one that took the opportunity and slipped in front of him.
Joe brought his car back on the track and boosted the speed to 200kmph, grinning as the other vehicles dissaperared from his rear mirror, and the distance from himself and the red one rapidly decreased.
It was now just the two of them.
He accelerated again, at the very limit of his race car, trying to overtake him. The pest, however, didn't take the hint. He continued to speed in front of his, blocking the way.
Joe cursed again and decelerated a bit as the road was getting sinuous, and there followed a lot of turns to take. He took them smoothly, eyes glaring at the red bolide, that managed to mentain a constant distance between them.
Red! It instantly reminded him of another meddlesome jerks he could never outrun. He was beginning to detest this colour.
"Dam'it!"
With Joe hot on his tail, it passed the line that announced the entrance in the final lap. He had now only two more kilometers to outrun it.
One who had been tagged all his life as number 2, absolutely hated the second place. He was going to win this race!
He accelerated again, this time getting passage nearby the other one, metal scratching on metal. In that portion of mountain road, the drivers struggled for every inch of the narrow track as the chasm was opening ahead of them. And Joe was on it's verge.
He looked through his window with strong determination at the red car's driver, and could see his glare returned even as the other had his face covered in the black race helmet.
Both pushed the acceleartion treadle in the same second, sparks flying in the air as the cars sides ridged one into another.
His rival turned his helmet to Joe once more, in a movement that let our Condor know he was up to something dirty.
"What the….."
He gasped in shock as he realised what it was. The other started to ram itself into him, trying to push his one over the edge, down into the chasm. Anger flooded Joe's senses.
It wasn't the first time this happened and whoever was behind that helmet could have made a good Gallactor. That if he wasn't one already.
"Why, you…."
Joe gripped tightly the wheel, trying to drive himself out of the hit's way. Since the track was too narrow and his car was already at it's maximum speed, the only way left was backwards. To the second place.
"Dam'me if I'll let you win!"
He cursed vehemently as he got another push that nearly threw his right tyres out of the road. He turned leftwards the wheel, feeling a little satisfaction as he hit the driver's side leaving nasty dents in the impecatble red tunned metal.
" That's what you get for playing dirty!" he muttered for himself.
The impact sent the car away, allowing him to dissentangle. Joe's front bumper was now few inches ahead.
His satisfaction didn't last long however, for he could see the other one preparing to deliver a new powerfull blow. Allarms went off in his mind as he looked down into the abyss bellow. The road was now at it's narrowest portion. If the moron did it, it could have thrown him, or both of them over the edge.
It was amazing what some people would do just to brag they'd won a race.
He looked leftwards. While at first he thought it was just a maneouvre to scare him, he realised now that the man was actually going to throw him over the edge.
" Just try it!"
He drove ahead as much as he could, half of his car overpassing his rival's one. He grinned catching the violent tilt of the helmet in what seem to be a swearing.
" And stay there!"
He made a mental note to check on every competitors that line up at start next time he would go to an illegal race. Joe looked leftwards again to search for details that would help him recognise later the driver. The helmet was the common type and it was now when he realised he had no number plate on his car. Most would take them off or change them when taking part to illegal racings. Or maybe it fell during the smashes. But it was weird. He knew well most of drivers, since he used to hang around at the track. Newcomers liked to make an entrance but this one was much too aggressive.
He chewed his lip thinking of the possibilities of the other drivers identity, while looked in the rear mirror spotting a flash of red. The red car was coming up water-spout.
"Dam'! Dam'!Dam'it!"
In a fraction of second he had before the impact, Joe could hardly have time to understand what's going on. He just acted on the survival instinct he had so well developped over the years and pulled the clutch so hard, he could fell the wheels of his car scratching on the track. The bolid went milimeters behind him, slightly bumping the rear of Joe's car, then broke through the safety parapet and flew rolling into the chasm below.
Joe braked in the next second and jumped out from his car, his eyes following bellow the fall of the red car. He didn't even stopped to think his actions as he hurried down and ran to it as fast as he could, nearly tripping himself on the abrupt slope.
He stopped a meter away from the crushed, toppled car and went to the driver's side. The pilot was knocked uncounsicious but despite the state of the car, he didn't appeared seriously injured nor was any blood there. Joe checked for his life signs. The pulse was faint but it was still stable. Then he hauled the the door away and pulled the man out from the car, laying him face up on the ground to prevent the aggravation of whatever injuries he might have. Joe was so tempted to remove the helmet and punch some sense into his head, but that could kill him if he had any fracture at his spine.And he looked like he already got what he deserved.
Instead he signaled for an ambulance through his cellphone and remained beside the injuried gently holding his wrist to know if his condition changed.
" Looks like I'm going to be late! Hehe, not that he's going to miss me!" he mused as he turned his head to the ambulance buzzers that were rapidly approching.
His eyes drifted back on the prone figure of the mysterious driver as he sorted in his head what he was goingto tell to the police investigators.
xXx
Ken's eyes followed the landscape outside as he drove. Fortunately, the highway was quite deserted at that hour, few drivers dashing out at 6 in the morning and the leisured traffic allowed his thoughts to distract him a little from the wheel. The sun hadn't rised yet, only a reddish line above the hills anouncing it's outcome.
He had a break from his work, for medical reasons. He wished to stop the car for a moment to rub his right ellbow joint, where the swelling from his recent chemotherapy session started to throb painfully. It was still, under the level of supportable, and he could take a lot when it come to pain. So he dissmissed the idea and continued his driving, knowing that the destination was only few miles ahead.
He recalled what the doctor had told him.
" Fourtunately your illness had not progressed, but it still made no regress despite all our therapies."
The statement let him cool, he felt no fear or other emotion stirring in the indifference that had taken hold of him during the past two months. He wondered if the true reason for which his illness wouldn't cure was his lack of determination, of will to live. That's what Joe had told him few weeks ago. Analysing himself, Ken was honest to admit that if during the war he had percived his canker as an enemy, now it only saw it as an ancient companion he was used with, that stirred him old and painfully memories. And beside the anaemia crises that ocassionaly interupted his training sessions, it didn't bother him so much.
Memories of his dying mother on her death bed flowed unbounded in his head, her resigned smile as she ruffled his brown locks, and the pain, for he could see the pain in her eyes no matter how much she wanted to hide it. It was in those times he first experienced the human weakness and the loss, and hated it, vowing himself he will never experience such things. And he hated himself for couldn't do nothing to prevent it
But the fate obviously had other plans. Come to think, it wasn't such bad and he knew it will happen someday.
"Death is a part of life, Ken." This was the statement his mother used to calm the eleven –year old boy that the perspective of loosing his remaning parent frightened him beyond limit.
He never questioned it's veracity, but barely now he finally accepted it.
In a morbid fashion he was glad that it happened now, when he was no longer needed. A life after beeing Gatchaman was equally painful perspective as the one of having a deadly disese.
He briefly wondered what would his father say, and in moments like this Ken wanted the old Washio would be here to advice him. Not that he would follow them anyway.
The old wooden paling looming out from the road's bend told him he had reached his destination.
Ken stopped the car in front of the ancient dye-spalled gates and turned off the engine. He then picked up the bouquet of white roses, her favourites, from the near bench and went out from the car.
The only noises in the eerie morning silence were his steps on the dewed grass and the screech of the gates as he slowly pushed them open and made his way through the maze of crosses, to the most recent one, a small white marble stone that only hold the engravure of a Swan with spreaded wings.
He kneeled down and laid the roses on it, his fingers tracing the cold stone.
She used to like this place. It was so calm and peaceful and away from the town and it's noises, and they liked to gather here after their training. He smiled as he remembered her picking white roses from the bushes nearby and Joe and himself teasing her. Then she would strew the petals over them and they would sullenly shake them off. He sometimes caught the looks she gave him; he didn't understood it at first but later his duties would keep them apart. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, so many thing he should have told her…..
" Jun, I……" his words died on his lips. They were useless now, anyway.
He rended a tuft of grass. It felt cool and wet on his skin. Then went silent just staring at the marble stone, eyes flickering over it's edges and every crack, then back at the swan engraving.
Every one he loved was beyond it. His mother, his father, her….. For a moment the stone seem so overwhelimngly beckoning.
His hand reached to touch the engravure once more in a soft caress she used to give him so many times before… His eyes caught his wrist watch in the movement. Half past seven. He was going to be late. He sighed and rose up, heading back to his car. Before stepping out from the cemetery he turned his head to see again the marble stone.
" Good bye Jun!"
He went next to the door and searched in his pocket for the keys, cringing as his hand made contact with something cold and metallic. Ken pulled it out in his palm and opened it. The morning sun's rays shone in it's smooth, golden surface. He stared at it absentmindedly as the item remided him of another long forgiven enemy.
WOW, I've actually written a chapter without Ego in it!