The tests were run in a lesser-used section of town in a big stadium. The user had set it up specifically for his Mecha run. I had checked all the specs out in great detail beforehand. The “Soul-cc” was a monstrous fifty-feet tall, weighing several tons. It was powered by a modern fuel cell, which apparently afforded it a one-week operating time. Bi-pedal locomotion similar to human mobility, and its body type was modeled after something I had seen in one too many Animes. It was a little bulky in the body area, and the design didn’t look like it was well thought out. Apparently it was supposed to be able to withstand most modern rail weaponry, I had my doubts about that.
It didn’t matter how thick the armor was, or how many guns it could carry. I checked all of charts and diagrams a hundred times. The most important information was on the user. He was young, probably too young to remember the wars. His designs were taking into account the world, as he knew it, not the world as it was. Sure his Mecha would hold up against what he believed to exist, but what about everything else?
I brought all that up at the test trials; his hulking robots had plenty of missiles and guns. They stood against several tanks and choppers firing on them from several distances. They were just huge targets, and weren’t fitted with any of the technology they could have been. Granted he was showing us prototype designs, he wasn’t digging far enough. Long ago had I realized the potential of the technology imagined in the old Animes. He was only looking at what was spawned from that imagination. The old Japanese Mecha programs he salvaged were a great find. Unfortunately they were far from complete. I had my own design drawn up before I went to bed that night.
Konpyuuta Chan told me it was a little optimistic with my engineering. I told her she was created the same way; she just stuck her tongue out at me. I had to figure out when I decided to make her respond that way to everything. I spent a couple sleepless nights trying to pick out some bugs out of her code, at this point it was to integrated to change anything, she was stuck. Sure my designs were a little flashy and techno-hungry, but that’s how I liked things. If it can turn invisible, I’ll make it turn invisible. Heck, if I could find a way to cool it with liquid nitrogen to make it invisible to heat scans I’d do it.
The user who created the designs name actually escapes me now that I think about it. It didn’t seem important to me at all. I had realized that he only served to open the door to my obsession. All the Mecha files he saved were taken and cataloged. Ironic that they were all sitting on one of the thousands of hard drives humming away in my would-be-closet. I copied all of the data to my portable before I slid it back into its carrier on my waist. Funny how now I could store untold amounts of information on little black chip a centimeter square, about a millimeter thick.
I glanced down at the wristwatch I wore, another peripheral to my portable system. All that power, and it was countless times smaller then behemoth I ran in the closet. It had to be that huge though, I had to support the user balance for all of the stored information in Tokyo Domain. That was a lot of info being accessed a lot of times. Besides, I couldn’t say no to an almost infinite loop of RAM. Well it wasn’t like I was downloading the whole world anytime soon, so I guess I’d never see how good it would really run.
The car I was riding in stopped. How long had I been daydreaming? The cabby threw the run down cab into park and waited patiently. It must have been then I realized just how backwards this town was, a person was actually driving the car. I reached into my pocket and produced an old-fashioned credit chip; they couldn’t track you with these, and waved it across the little metal strip in the back of the cab. I tipped him nicely; he lived down the street from me.
I had been coming to this dealership for years; I bought my first bike from this place, used of course. I learned how to service bikes from the mechanics, and used the track out back to learn how to ride. It was like a second home to me. I fell out of the motorcycle obsession for a while though. It had probably been a year since I came here for anything like I used too. Like tonight, I was just here to pick up my bike.
I dropped it off a week ago, the refit took a lot longer then I had expected. Some of the programs I sent him had to be altered for my chassis. Apparently no one had tried to fit the kind of stuff I was using on a classic body before. All the new bikes looked a little too different for me these days anyway. I couldn’t stand the riding position either, you were almost lying flat on your stomach. I stuck with what I knew, nice old-fashioned racing style from before the corporate wars. Of course what you see on the outside, isn’t necessarily what is under the hood.
I walked into the back like I always used too. No one was around. It was late; I must have just realized it. I had the code to the computer lock from all those years ago; they never bothered to change it. My bike was sitting there in the middle of the display room in all of her glory. It was all black, the materials taken off of downed stealth technology aircraft the corporations were throwing away to be reprocessed. I loved the way the light just seemed to get sucked in by it, like it was lost forever. The wheels were a custom job too, taken from the designs they were using for the modern racing bikes. I tried not to follow the trends they were setting, with the huge rear wheel and tiny front. I kept mine about the same size; the back was only a little wider.
The engine itself was designed to run at impossibly high speeds, I had it on special order from Kawasaki HQ in California, they were under the impression I was their R+D office in Florida. I picked it out for its high torque and customizability; there wasn’t another magnetically driven engine that would match its performance. She would run fast, and all of it was controlled by the HK processor and CPU I built for her. I put on my helmet and ran a diagnostic check. She was all preprogrammed all right. Nothing was damaged. The bike hummed silently to life, the sound dampeners in her hull were running fine.
Konpyuuta Chan would always ask me when I was designing it about that. It was always “Why are you building a stealth motorcycle?” or “But aren’t they supposed to be loud?” I didn’t make it for all that, I just needed the wind resistance cut to a minimum, the materials I was using were just supposed to be the best. Of course scanning corporate databases brought up even more crazy ideas and prototypes. I just stuck with what I knew I could do, and what I wanted. Sure I kept a few old touches in there, there was a backup chain drive installed, and it was geared for my riding tastes. So she was an all black silent running mag-driven cycle, HK CPU controlled with all the onboard extras, and I would be paying for her well after I was dead.
“Well are you going to ride it or just sit on it all day?” Konpyuuta Chan plopped down on the bike behind me.
“How fast do you think it will go?” I smiled as I revved the engine a couple of times.
“I don’t think we should find out any time soon…” Before she could finish we were already on the road, running like a demon.
I didn’t get to enjoy it long before we caught up with them. A bunch of kids form the local college, prowling around on the racing bikes their daddies bought them. Konpyuuta Chan picked them up on the road before I could see them with my night vision. Just great. I was just trying to go for a nice night ride, and of course they wouldn’t just let me pass.
I wasn’t even within a mile of them before I heard them over the broad channel yelling back to me.
“Nice bike loser.” and “Hey can that thing even go over a hundred?” or “Hey gramps, nice bicycle”. I think I was starting to remember why I hated the college kids so much. I rode up through their group, six of them together. They were riding the newest models from a couple of the big name companies. The big guy in front looked like he was in charge, riding a red Honda racer.
“His daddy must have spent a fortune for him to ride that rocket.” Konpyuuta Chan was already streaming me info on the kid’s bike before I could ask for it. “So, you wanted to see if your baby could book right?” I smiled; well I guess it was time to show the punks what was up.
“Alright kiddies lets see what you’ve got” I hit the accelerator and the bike responded instantly.
We were screaming down the dark stretch of highway faster with each passing moment. I was watching all of my readouts carefully, I didn’t want to find out something wasn’t working at a couple hundred miles per hour. I cut the limiters on all of the functions to match the Honda bike exactly. We were perfectly aligned, our front wheels never breaking sync. The acceleration was good; I was keeping up with the racer perfectly.
We had already left a few of his friends behind on the road, only three of them were keeping up with us, and from the sounds of it, their bikes wouldn’t handle much more. I pushed the limits a little higher, the engine revved a little and I shot forward. The road was a straight line for town; we only had about fifty miles to go. The Honda guy hit his bike into gear pulling up alongside mine again. I just smiled.
“Hey, how fast you think we can go without the limiters in place?” I directed the statement toward Konpyuuta Chan.
“I don’t think we should find out.” It was a little late for that, I was already cutting out my imposed safety limits, the bike was picking up, the Honda sounded like it was about to bust a few welds.
So it ended with me pulling away from the Honda racer and hitting town a good five minutes before they would even see it. I slammed on my brakes almost pitching the bike over into one of the trees in the middle of town. I smiled; when I looked back Konpyuuta Chan was throwing up over the back of the bike.
“Hey, at least we know the breaks work.”
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