Chapter 6

Vinnie thundered past the whirling purple bike and raced to the finish line. Looking into the rear-view mirror, he could see that the other bike had abruptly stopped its spin cycle and started to come after him again. But with only about a kilometre left to race, it was all downhill now. Vinnie was going to win, hands down. He chuckled.

Suddenly, he felt Sweetheart lurch underneath him and, for some reason, slowed right down. His head came forward from the loss of momentum and hit the small windscreen on the dash, cracking it. He made to look behind to see what caused it when he was smashed in the face by the rider he just knocked down. He fell over, blood coming from his nose and stars littering his vision. He could only look and watch as the rookie raced on to claim victory.

*

His eyesight turned from black, to grey, then to something resembling fog. And then, he could see again perfectly. Swerving to miss the crowd on the footpath, he kept going till he crossed the line and claimed the checked flag, waved by the same girl who was wearing the black and white bikini.

It always happened when he was under stress. When his life was in danger. When he got angry. And it was dangerous. If he ever lapsed into his...subconsciousness, or whatever it was...he was totally unpredictable. Uncontrollable. Almost unstoppable. He should have known that going into this stupid race was a bad idea. What if someone got hurt? What if they traced any damage back to him and got Charley into trouble?

In any case, he returned and collected his prize money and went back to where Charley was standing discreetly, in case Vinnie saw her and asked to know what she was thinking by not letting the most studliest mouse in the universe come round to her place. Together, they rode back to the Last Chance.

After pulling in through the roller doors, Charley went and shut it, then went to talk to Spectre about how he went.

When she approached him, he became flustered and agitated, mumbling under his breath. He ripped the helmet off his head and started pacing up and down.

"Are you ok," Charley asked worried, keeping her distance.

His eyes flashing his usual bright orange, Spectre merely grunted at her. He was still walking up and down, talking in jibberish. Something had spooked him.

"Spectre, calm down. Please, just breathe," said Charley, approaching him and touching his shoulder. She started to breathe in and out in the same way one would encourage a woman in labour, and he started to follow. Slowly, he relaxed, and she held him close.

"It's ok, it's ok," she said softly.

They went an sat on the sofa in the lounge room, which had been clean for longer than one day since the guys hadn't been around to wreck anything.

"What's got you all worked up?"

"It-it was the during the race. I was in front," Spectre said, recalling the event. "And then...I think I got shunted and then I started spinning out of control."

Charley silently boiled at Vinnie doing such as cheap thing like that to win a stupid street race. When she saw him next, she was going to string him up by his tail and beat him with the biggest wrench she had in the garage.

"But you're ok now, and you won the race!" Charley said with probably too much enthusiasm. "How did you do it?"

"I-I don't know."

"Surely you must have some idea."

Spectre honestly wished he had no idea of why these things happened.

"You can tell me," Charley murmured.

"It's...it's complicated," replied Spectre.

"I can't help you if you won't let me," said Charley. She put her hand on his shoulder.

Spectre rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hated even attempting to recall what the Plutarkians did to him. It was too painful. What made him take his next step, he didn't really understand.

"I...I have a...I guess in short, an alter ego," he stammered.

"Like a split personality?"

"I guess. But it only comes out when I'm really angry or scared, and when I'm out of danger or nothing else is there to wreck, then I come out of it and...and I'm me again," he told her. He'd had a lot of time trying to figure out what was happening inside his head. "Anyway, because I was out of control, and was gonna get hurt...I guess that's what set it off."

"Sounds like some type of guardian angel to me," offered Charley

"It's not a guardian angel," he muttered, sounding somewhat nervy. "It's a demon. It recklessly destroys things, it loves to cause carnage. It's even killed people. It's dangerous."

Charley frowned.

"When I escaped Plutark, I leveled about six by eight city blocks in just a few minutes. Why do you think I named her Oblivion?"

There was silence over the room for the next few minutes. Charley couldn't believe that such a monster lay within the emaciated, scared young man that was sitting on the other side of her couch.

"How did you get to be like this?" she finally managed to spit out.

"Some device that was still in it's experimental stages," Spectre replied. "It was meant to brainwash people and make them loyal to Plutark. They called it the Mind Turner, or Mind Bender, or something like that. Except it wasn't a Plutarkian who came up with it."

Charley's face went white.

"Can't remember the guy's name. He was short, little bit of blonde hair, and he always wore these little green goggles and black high-heel boots... Are you ok? There's no color in your face."

*

While initially annoyed that he went into an illegal street race, both Throttle and Modo couldn't help but laugh at Vinnie when he told them he got owned by someone who 'spun out' and still won the race.

"Bro, you really suck," laughed Throttle.

"It's not fair," wailed Vinnie.

"Are your racing skills getting bent out of place like your nose?" crowed Modo.

Vinnie scoffed, holding an rag filled with ice onto his face. The punch had actually left a couple of dints in the mask he wore, some blood was still coming from his nose, and he was still feeling a lot of pain.

The snow-colored mouse ignored his comrades jeering and joking as he went over to Sweetheart to examine her windscreen. A rough semi-circle had been chipped out when his head crashed into it, and a crack had gone all the way to the body. He would have to ask Charley if she had anything that could possibly replace it.

Charley.

Man, she was beautiful. Funny. Caring. Hard working. Sexy. Flirtatious. She was everything a guy could want. He liked her so much, but he hadn't had the courage to ask her on a date. And now she was asking the guys not to come over to the Last Chance. She probably had a boyfriend now, and didn't want to freak him out when three Martians on motorbikes rocked up. Damn it.

Vinnie's gaze shifted to the tail end of Sweetheart's chassis, and something caught his eye.

Four small punctures in the armour plating. What could have made those holes? He hadn't noted them this morning. Maybe they had happened during the race. And they seemed to be evenly spaced apart.

Wait a second...

Vinnie opened the panel that housed the rear towing cable. Barely noticing a comment from one of his bros that he was so useless on a bike now that he had to open things manually, he took the four prong pincer and lined it up against the indents on his beloved.

They fitted pretty snugly.

Then it dawned on him.

He was racing a Martian bike. It explained the fact it kept up with him, even overtaking him at one point (or two points, if he was going to be honest with himself), and why he had been slowed to a crawl at one point.

And he knew exactly where to search for it. No mechanic in Chi-town could make a Martian bike look so good, except for one little lady.