Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Epilogue

Ben rode on through what remained of the day and the gradual twilight that followed after, eyes focused on the road ahead. It was a long, lonely ride down to Corville, and he didn’t have any time to waste looking at the scenery or staring at exits, wondering if Mo had taken one and hidden in some backwater town somewhere.

Stars were peeking out from behind the clouds by the time Ben looked down at the fuel gauge and realized he’d need to stop for gas if he didn’t want to walk the rest of the way. Sighing, cursing the delay, he pulled off at the next exit that looked even remotely promising.

The problem with stopping for gas was that all the gas towers were under strict government control. Anybody who wanted to get their hands on that gas for something like a gas station--in theory--had to have strict clearance. Most station owners were acutely aware of just how much they owed their livelihood to the government, and if they knew that Ben was a wanted man...well, he didn’t think they’d have any qualms about turning him over.

But every so often you came across a station or two that wasn’t exactly on the level. Ben had no idea where they got their gas from, since most of them didn’t have the necessary clearance, but they managed to keep it in ready supply for anybody who passed through. And they didn’t ask questions. He knew a few places like that back in and around Polecat territory, but closer to Corville he was a little less certain about where to find them. The closer you got to a major city, the tighter the governmental controls, and the less likely it was that so-called “mercenary” stations managed to survive.

But Ben pulled into a place that somehow managed to be sinking into the mud even faster than Melonweed and began scouting anyway. It was late enough that nobody was out and about, and most of the lights in the town’s smattering of trailers were out. Hell, Ben thought, I wonder if they even have electricity.

Finally, he was rewarded a few miles out of town when a wayward trailer popped up on the horizon, lit inside and out by the soft glow of electric lights. And as Ben got closer, he saw the massive gas tank lurking just behind the trailer and the pump out in front. He grinned and pulled into the gravel driveway.

The trailer door opened at the sound of wheels on gravel, revealing a silhouette of a tall, gangly man with an oversized shotgun in his hands. Ben stayed on his bike and didn’t move. The man seemed to scrutinize him for a long moment, then finally propped the gun against the door and stepped outside.

“Lookin’ for some gas?” His voice had a flat Midwestern accent to it, the kind Ben hadn’t heard in a long time. His hands were stained with grease and oil, along with his clothes--a plain white t-shirt and blue overalls.

“Yeah,” Ben answered, climbing off his bike and wincing as all his bruises complained at once. “Tank’s about empty.”

The man took a long look at the bike and whistled appreciatively. “Must’ve been ridin’ that girl hard, eh? She looks like she’s built to hold a lot.” He wandered over and bent down, peering at the underside. Then he pulled back, blinking--he must’ve seen the hover lift and the booster fuel. But, like a good mercenary station owner, he didn’t ask questions. Except for one.

“You got enough money?”

“Would you take a hover lift?”

He seemed to think on that for a minute, bending back down and touching a couple of wires, running a hand through his thinning blond hair at the same time. “Don’t see why not,” he said at last. “She ain’t welded on or anything, and I could use one. It’d just take a few extra minutes, if that’s all right with you.”

Ben shrugged. One delay was worth another apparently, and the hover lift had been slowing him down all the way here. “Fine by me.”

“Okay then,” the man said, and began fiddling with the fuel pump.

Ben watched him work for a little while as he took a slow walking tour of the driveway, looking out at the empty stretch of road beyond. Though the town was just a few miles down the road, at night it was so dark you wouldn’t know it was there. When he ran out of scenery to look at, Ben turned back to the station owner, who was still filling the tank.

“Seen any Vultures around here?”

He looked back at him and laughed, long and loud. “Vultures? They ain’t been on this stretch of road for years now. Damn bad for business now that they’re ridin’ somewhere else, mind, but...man, they were crazy-ee!” He shook his head and returned his focus to topping off the gas tank.

“Actually,” Ben said, “I’m looking more for one of them in particular. Ex-Vulture. Her name’s--”

“Whoa, whoa.” The man waved his hands for Ben to stop. “I don’t ask nobody’s name. But if it’s a girl you’re after, she might’ve stopped an’ talked to my wife. Hold on...Dolores!”

The trailer door opened again and a middle-aged woman stepped out, tying a bathrobe over her pajamas. She paused, tugged on a pair of sandals, and stepped out onto the gravel. “Jesus Christ, Frank,” she snapped, “I’m not deaf! Now what?” She had a twang to her voice that placed her as a native of the desert, unlike her husband.

Frank pointed at Ben. “Got a guy here’s lookin’ for a girl.”

She looked him up and down, squinting in the dim light. Then she nodded. “C’mon inside. We’ll talk; take a look at that hand.”

Ben looked down at his hand--he’d been concentrating on the road so much, he’d forgotten about the gash the Rottwheeler’s chain had torn into it. It had stiffened up as time went by, and just trying to straighten his fingers out threatened to make it start bleeding again. He nodded and followed Dolores inside, casting one glance back at Frank, who was now hard at work pulling the hover lift off his bike.

Once inside, he found himself standing in their kitchen. A table with three chairs rested in the center, surrounded by a sky blue colored counter and a rusting stove and fridge. Dolores bustled about, fishing through cabinets. “Sit down,” she said, and it was more of an order than a request. “You want coffee?”

“Uh...sure.” He sat down uneasily, trying to keep an eye on what was going on outside through one of the trailer windows. Dolores dropped a mug full of coffee down in front of him a split second later, then sat down across from him. She had with her her own cup of coffee and a first aid kit.

“So,” she began, grabbing hold of his hand and peeling the glove from it. Blood had dried under it, causing it to stick to his skin. “When did this girl of yours come through, d’you think?”

“Don’t know. Probably a few hours ago. Maybe more.” He took a sip of coffee and blinked. Dolores made her coffee strong.

Dolores “hmmed” and laid his hand out flat on the table, dabbing it with antiseptic. “She got a name?”

“Maureen. Mo.”

She seemed to ponder on that for a while as she worked and drank her coffee. Finally, as she was winding the bandage around Ben’s hand, she said, “Don’t think she stopped by here. If she did, she didn’t use her name.” She hesitated, then asked, “Why’re you looking for her? If y’don’t mind.”

He stared down into his coffee mug, trying to phrase things as best as he could without letting them know he was in trouble with the law...or that Mo was the heiress to a fortune and a gigantic company. Finally, he settled on, “Her father just died. And he...he told me to take care of her.”

“Ah-ha.” She smiled, her blue eyes glinting in that way women had that implied they knew--or thought they knew--that something else was going on between the lines. Ben frowned at her, and she responded by tying the bandage tighter than she had to. “And she’s on the road, is that it?”

“Yeah. Don’t know where.” He took a long drink of coffee. “But she used to be a Vulture, and if she doesn’t have anywhere else to go, I thought she might--”

“--go back to her gang,” Dolores finished, nodding. She got up and poured herself another cup of coffee, then offered him the pot. He waved it off, and she sat back down. “Makes sense. And you’re headed in the right direction--their hideout’s just outside of Corville, right by the Corley Motors factory.

“But you be careful, sweetheart. I used to be friends with their leader. A Vulture’s a Vulture for life to her, and you can bet she sees this girl like a daughter. She might not want to give her up. And I know she won’t take kindly to somebody walkin’ up to their front door without an engraved invitation.”

Ben nodded. He could understand that. “I’ll be careful. Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, you go around getting any more scrapes like that, and you won’t even make it to Corville.” She patted the bandage on his hand. “That should do ya, by the way.”

“Thanks.” He drained the last of the coffee from his mug and stood up, tugged his glove back on, and headed outside.

When he stepped out of the trailer--with Dolores trailing after him--he found Frank standing by his bike, the hover lift in one hand. “Came off all right,” Frank announced, “and yer tank’s full. You still want me to keep the hover lift?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then that should do it,” he said, tossing the hover lift aside.

Dolores smiled at him. “Hope you find your girl--Maureen, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I hope you find her.” Her eyes had that glint to them again, which he purposefully ignored.

“Thanks for your help,” he said instead, to both of them, then climbed onto his bike after a quick inspection and started her up. He took off down the road without looking back, heading towards town again, and from there back to the highway. As he went, he flexed his wounded hand--Dolores had done a good job with it, that was for certain.

Dolores watched him leave, then went back into the trailer and dug their phone out of one of the kitchen cabinets. Hope their phone’s still working, she thought, dialing. It rang four times on the other end before somebody picked it up.

“What?” snapped a woman’s voice with just a hint of southern drawl and an overdose of military precision.

“Suz,” Dolores answered, smiling faintly. “It’s Lola.”

It took the voice on the other end a minute to answer. “Lola? Been a few years, kid.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She looked up as Frank walked in, then waved him away. He wandered off, deeper into the trailer. “Look, Suz, I thought ya ought to know...there was some guy here at the station askin’ about the gang.”

“Goddamn newbies,” was the immediate response. “Every day I gotta beat up one of them for asking too many questions.”

Dolores gripped the phone cord, sighing. “This wasn’t a newbie. He had a Polecats jacket on. It’s funny...ain’t they the guys who murdered Old Man Corley?”

“Their leader, yeah,” Suz answered slowly. Something in the tone of her voice told Dolores that she was on to something.

“Well...he was askin’ about an old Vulture. I think she was around after my time, ‘cause I didn’t recognize the name, but...Maureen, he said. He’s looking for Maureen.”

Silence fell on the line for a long, long time.

“He’s headed your way,” Dolores added. “But I figure if the minefield don’t get him, you will. I know you like beating up idiots like that.”

“Yeah,” Suz said, her voice low and dangerous. “We’ll get him. We’re gonna get that boy good.”

The Corley Motors factory that Dolores had mentioned appeared on the horizon as an orange blot on the night sky an hour or so later. It was perched on the very outskirts of Corville, all by itself. As Ben got closer, he could see the Corley Motors logo spinning around on top of the building, even that late at night. Cool.

The factory was closed up tight, from the looks of things--but then, that wouldn’t be hard. Ben couldn’t see a window on the entire front side of the building. He couldn’t see any sort of employee parking lot, either, though he did see a stadium tucked in front of and below the factory. It looked like something was going on in there--either that or all the lights had been turned on for kicks.

Ben stopped in the factory’s massive driveway and let the bike idle for a little while as he stared up at the factory. Holy ground, he decided, silently paying his respects to Old Man Corley.

He climbed off his bike with some uncertainty, testing out various muscles. They complained a little, but nothing serious. As for the bruises, well, those would take care of themselves eventually. He stood, still watching the factory and still letting his bike idle. He was having serious thoughts about trying to get into the factory and get at Ripburger right then and there--assuming he was there, which Ben figured he was. He had a shareholders’ meeting to give, after all, and this factory had always doubled as Corley Motors headquarters. But then there was Mo.

Ben had only the fact that the Vultures’ hideout was near here--he’d seen a dirt road down below the highway that looked promising--to go on. Whether she was actually there or not was another question. Who knew what Ripburger’s thugs had gotten up to since he’d left them on the other side of Poyahoga Gorge?

After a moment’s thought, Ben reached over and pulled the keys out of the ignition. He needed to get the lay of the land before he did anything, he decided. Besides, a part of him had always wanted to walk on holy ground.

The first place he tried was the factory’s front door. It was an elegant, expensive affair--giant steel double doors that looked as if they would take four people to open them by hand, with a huge Corley Motors logo emblazoned on the front. It was surrounded by Greek pillars that supported another Corley Motors sign. Ben knocked on the door three times, letting the noise echo.

A slot on the wall to his right slid open and a shadowy figure peered out. “What?” he asked, his voice flat and unaccented.

Ben turned and looked him square in the eye--or rather, where he figured the man’s eye would be. “I’m here for the shareholders’ meeting.”

“Mr. Ripburger has postponed the meeting until Mr. Corley’s murderers are apprehended,” the man answered, his tone distinctly condescending. “All the shareholders were notified.” The slot snapped shut.

“Yeah,” Ben grumbled sarcastically, “well, I haven’t checked my voicemail lately, Mac.”

So much for just walking in the front door. Ben turned around and headed down towards the stadium, just to see what was going on. He walked past his bike and down a ramp into a passageway that looked as if it led somewhere.

“Souvenirs here!” cried a voice straight out of the backroads of Kentucky, startling him. “We got yer hats! We got yer pennants! We got it all right here!”

Ben came around the corner and found himself standing in front of a souvenir stand. It was small, stocked mainly with t-shirts and pennants, though an RC car complete with controller and a yellow motorized bunny, hopping up and down on its leash, sat out in front of the stand. The Kentucky voice was coming from here--or rather, from the middle-aged man standing inside the souvenir stand. His nametag said “Horrace.” He had a blue hat on his head with a couple of cans attached to it, which he would drink from every so often. Both the hat and the t-shirt he was wearing were plastered with Corley Motors logos. Something about him reminded Ben of a biker who had fallen off his bike one too many times without a helmet.

He looked straight at Ben and shouted, “Official Corley Motors merchandise! Drive yer own derby car by remote control! Our bunnies come with batteries included!”

Ben almost thought about walking on past him, but at the last second he stopped and leaned against the stand wall. “Ahem.”

“What can I getcha?” Horrace asked, beaming proudly.

Ben jerked a thumb towards the stadium. “Why all the lights down here?”

“We got a demolition derby tonight!” he cried, way too excited for this time of night--or any time, for that matter.

Frowning, Ben looked at the stadium and then back at Horrace. A loud cheer from inside implied that the derby, if not already underway, would be starting fairly soon. Ripburger cancels the shareholders’ meeting...but not the derby. Huh. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange?” he asked. “Having a demolition derby when Corley was murdered just last night?”

Horrace shrugged. “Well, I figure it’s to honor his memory. He built the Smash-A-Torium all the way out here so his employees could have some wholesome entertainment nearby, y’know. And first prize tonight is a vintage Corley hardtail...completely restored by the Old Man himself!”

“One summer we did nothing but restore this old hardtail together...I mean, we scrubbed every bolt until it shined...”

Ben snapped to attention but still tried to appear casual. “A hardtail, huh?”

Horrace scratched his stomach and burped, completely oblivious. “Yep.”

“Hmm. Well...better let you get back to work.” He walked away before Horrace could say anything more. As he walked back up the ramp, he heard him starting up his spiel again.

Ben hurried back to his bike and climbed on, starting the engine. That has to be the hardtail Mo restored with her dad, he thought, shaking his head. He smelled a trap. Ripburger would try to lure Mo in with that hardtail, and he had no idea if Mo would be able to resist or not. He hoped not, but...

He gunned the engine and took off, taking a flying leap off the highway--the guardrail was broken off just above the road below, conveniently enough--and took off down the road. He had to find Mo. Now.

The road narrowed as it went on and the riding got rougher, but Ben pressed on ahead. Finally, as all the lights from Corville died away, the road came to an abrupt end just beyond a fence hung with the skeletal remains of less fortunate intruders, at the edge of a crater-pocked field. Beyond that was the closest thing the desert had to a mountain, standing out there alone. A narrow entrance had been carved into it near the bottom--a light was on inside. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.

Ben left his bike on what remained of the road and walked forward to the edge of the field. Something about that field didn’t look right to him. Maybe it’s the craters. He picked up a stone, tossed it around in his palm for a while, then chucked it out into the field. It exploded on impact.

“Guess what they say about the Vultures is true,” he remarked aloud.

“You can bet your britches it is, sweetheart.”

He whirled around upon hearing the woman’s voice, deep and deeply southern. She had a touch of the military about her...or at least, her voice did. The woman herself was the shortest, roundest woman he’d ever seen--he couldn’t make out her face in the dim light. And he had no idea how she’d managed to sneak up behind him.

“I must be slipping,” he said dryly.

She pulled out a gun and trained it on him, flicking the safety off. “Yeah, you are. Now let’s go.”

Ben jerked a thumb at the minefield, disbelieving. “Through there?”

“Relax,” she snapped, “I know the safe way through.” When he didn’t move, she snapped her fingers. Two more Vultures appeared as if out of thin air, and suddenly there was three guns pointing at him. That was a little more convincing.

He started towards the minefield. One of the Vultures got ahead of him, and the other and the woman got right behind him, in case he had any ideas of jumping their friend. They led him through a twisty, windy path through the field which he did his best to memorize, all the way up to their front door.

The second they walked up, all the lights clicked on inside, seemingly aimed directly at Ben’s eyes. He brought his hand up to shield his face, only to hear the sound of the rest of the Vultures--standing there waiting for him as vaguely threatening shadows--cocking their guns.

One rather shapely shadow, however, was unarmed. She was standing there in the center of what looked for all the world to be an open airplane cockpit, arms folded across her chest. Silence fell for a split second, then a familiar voice said, “That’s the guy I was tellin’ you about, Suzi.”

Ben let himself relax. Mo. It was Mo--of course it was, he should’ve recognized that figure. So she was all right after all.

Suzi prodded him in the back with her gun. “You sure?”

Mo nodded. “Yeah.” She seemed to glare at him as she continued, her voice so cold and angry he could hardly believe it. “That’s the guy who killed my father.”

He could see Suzi wave her gun to the other Vultures out of the corner of his eye, but he just stared at Mo, disbelieving. Was she nuts?

“All right, Vultures! Rack ‘im up!”

The next thing he knew, the two Vultures who had accompanied him and Suzi through the minefield had put away their guns and grabbed him from behind. Another stepped forward with several lengths of rope, and four more put away their guns and disappeared inside the hideout. They came back just as the others had finished tying the rope around his wrists and ankles, wheeling bikes out with them.

Ben had a bad feeling about this.

They forced him down to his knees and began lashing the ropes tight around the bikes. Their riders jumped on, started the engines, and angled off in four different directions. Ben winced inwardly as they pulled apart just far enough for him to be lying on his back a few inches above the ground. Mo watched the proceedings with a calm, angry air about her. She didn’t say a thing until she was certain everything was ready.

“Let’s rip ‘im quick!” she called, and the bikes’ engines revved. Ben grunted as they jerked his arms and legs apart. And it was only going to get worse from there, he knew. He lifted his head to try and make eye contact with Mo. She would listen to him. She had to.

“Listen, Mo!” he shouted desperately, trying to be heard over the engine noise. “You’re making a big mistake!”

“Oh, Ben.” The false sweetness in her voice told him that maybe she wouldn't listen to him. “You’re right. We shouldn’t do this quickly...” And in a flash, she was back to being teasing and cruel. “We should draw this out, don’t you think, Suzi?”

Suzi, who had moved up to stand beside Mo and watch the proceedings, merely shrugged. “Hey, I got all night.” Then, to the Vultures, “You heard her, kids: Let’s draw this out!”

They revved their engines again, moving forward hardly more than an inch. Still, the strain they were putting on Ben’s muscles was fast adding up. He had to find a way to make Mo see reason, and fast.

He went for the eye contact tactic again and tried to tell her the truth of what had happened at the rest stop. “Your father--”

She interrupted him before he could finish, so angry she had to shout to get the words out. “Don’t you dare talk about my father, you heartless bastard!” The bikes revved again. Ben felt something in his right shoulder pop.

“But Corley and I--”

“I said shut up about my dad!”

Obviously she wasn’t interested in the truth, at least not from him. But who else was there who knew what had really happened that night?

Then it hit him, at the same time as the Vultures began some serious chiropractic work again. Miranda. The film. The empty camera at Mo’s shack in Melonweed. What if Mo had picked up the film?

“Hey, Mo,” he called, trying to seem casual, “you taken any pictures lately?”

She chuckled, elbowing Suzi. “He’s getting delusional,” she muttered, then shouted to him again. “What’s the matter, Ben? Pain getting to you already?”

Goddammit, Mo! If his hands had been free just then, he doubted he would have had the self-control to keep himself from punching her. At the rate things were going, it might well be the only way to get through to her. Never mind that she probably would’ve shot him before he had a chance to explain himself.

His right shoulder started making more threatening noises, and he could feel his muscles starting to pull in ways they weren’t meant to pull. Maybe if he couldn’t physically punch Mo, he could do some damage verbally. And he had just the insult in mind--assuming he could manage to get the words out.

“Let me go or else...” he growled, putting as much threat into his voice as he could.

Mo grinned, recognizing the challenge and not being much impressed by it. “Or else what?”

“I’ll call you names!” he said angrily. He felt like an idiot, but he had to catch her completely off her guard if he wanted to pull this off with his arms and legs still attached.

“Oooh!” She’d thrown that sarcastic shudder into her voice just to annoy him, he knew it. But he took that as a good sign. “Like what?”

Immediately, he answered, “Diapered Dynamo!”

The bikes idled quietly, the only noise in the silence that followed. “How--” Mo started softly, then broke off. “Where’d you hear that name?” she finally managed, struggling to keep the hesitation and confusion out of her voice.

“Your father,” Ben said evenly. Finally, he was getting somewhere. “He told me just before he died.”

He couldn’t have knocked her more off her balance if he’d hit her. She picked her words slowly and carefully, still trying to make sense of everything. “You...bludgeoned my father, and then talked about old times?” She made a face as if to say, “you’re sick.”

Ben jumped in with the truth before she could jump to wrong conclusions again. If she did, she might just decide to tear him apart and get it over with. “I didn’t kill him! Ripburger did!” He took a breath when he saw she wasn’t going to interrupt him again, then continued on. “A photographer took pictures, but her camera was stolen by the same thug that came after you.”

She let her arms drop to her sides, clearly stunned. Her voice was shaky. “I...I still have that roll...”

He knew it. But still, his arms were aching, and if she didn’t hurry it up he was going to end up with a dislocated shoulder. “Well, develop it, would ya?” he snapped, a little testily. “While I still fit in my clothes?”

“Okay,” she said, turning to go inside the Vultures’ hideout, “you stay here.”

“Hey!” That hadn’t been quite the response Ben was hoping for. She’s kidding...right? When she didn’t come back and the Vultures didn’t untie him, he started to think maybe not.

Fortunately for his limbs, Mo returned a few lengthy minutes later, significantly calmer and back to more of her old self. “Bring him inside,” she said, not looking at him. “Film’s almost ready.”

The Vultures shut their engines off and began untying the ropes from their bikes, grumbling all the while about all the fun they were missing. Ben hit the ground as the ropes went slack. He made to stand up under his own power, just to prove to himself that he was still capable of walking, but one of the Vultures grabbed him and shoved him back down to the ground. Another gathered up the rope and wound it haphazardly around his arms and chest.

Assuming that to be good enough, they hauled him to his feet and marched him inside the hideout. The sound of their boots against the floor echoed weirdly in the empty space. He took a quick look around--the entire place was metal. Weird, Ben decided.

Mo was waiting for them--everyone else seemed to have disappeared for parts unknown. She watched silently as the Vultures deposited him in the middle of the hideout, forced him to sit down (he wasn’t about to complain--much), and then disappeared. They waited there for a few minutes, not saying anything and not looking at one another, until a Vulture wandered in with a stack of photos. He handed them to Mo, then took off.

She flipped through them slowly, her expression unreadable until she came to the last photograph. Then she winced and offered an embarrassed, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” Ben grumbled, trying to get the feeling back in his right shoulder, “don’t sweat it...”

She ignored him, flipping through the pictures again. Her hands clenched themselves into fists--one of the photos slipped from her grip. Ben almost went to pick it up for her, then remembered he couldn’t. “I’m gonna get Ripburger,” she growled softly, “even if I die trying...”

Ben shook his head. Mo dying was definitely not part of his plan. “No,” he said, quickly formulating a passable plan, “we have to expose Ripburger at the shareholders’ meeting. That way, we take him down, we save my gang, and your father gets his dying wish...” He gave her a very pointed look. “You take over Corley Motors.”

Mo frowned. “Ripburger canceled the shareholders’ meeting,” she snapped. “He made a statement to the press that there would be no meeting until the murderers were brought to justice.”

He didn’t even blink before offering her a response. “So, no shareholders’ meeting until we’re both dead?” It was just something he’d come up with off the top of his head, something to keep her from charging off after Ripburger and getting herself killed. Unfortunately, she took his suggestion more seriously than he would have liked.

“Hmm...” She mulled that thought over for a minute, then said, grinning, “That could be arranged...”

Ben frowned. This was not good.

Mo mumbled something about finding Suzi and disappeared, leaving Ben still sitting on the floor. When she returned, it was with Suzi and a handful of other Vultures in tow. Suzi had several sheets of blank blueprint paper rolled up under her arm. She tacked them onto the wall and immediately began scribbling on them, assisted by two other Vultures who offered their input in low, hushed tones.

Ben eyed them uneasily as Mo started fighting with the ropes wrapped around his chest. “What’s she up to?” he asked, motioning to Suzi with a jerk of his head.

“Coming up with a plan to kill us,” she said casually.

He winced. “Look, Mo, I didn’t mean--”

“Relax, Suzi wouldn’t really kill us. ...Well, she wouldn’t kill me.”

“That’s reassuring,” he muttered sarcastically, stretching as the ropes finally came loose. Mo tugged them all away and tossed them into a corner. He got slowly to his feet, testing his limbs to make sure that none of them had been dislocated. They hadn’t.

Mo stood up too, casting a hurried glance at the other Vultures. “I...said I was sorry, right?” she asked, embarrassment creeping into her voice. “About the whole, you know...”

“You did,” Ben said, rubbing his right arm ruefully. “And I said don’t sweat it.”

“Oh. Well--”

“Hey! You two!” They both turned and looked at Suzi. The blueprint pages had been thoroughly scribbled on now, and the two Vultures who had been with her had scurried off elsewhere. There were still a few others hanging around, though, no doubt with one ear turned to their conversation.

Mo quickly composed herself and called back, “You got something, Suzi?”

“You betcha, kid.” She picked up a twig somebody had tracked in and brandished it like a pointer, clearing her throat. Mo drifted over, gently touching Ben’s arm as she passed. He took the hint but hung back anyway, folding his arms across his chest and listening to Suzi’s “plan” with more than a bit of suspicion.

Suzi made eye contact with each of them--sparing Ben a nasty glare along the way--before she started. “Okay,” she said, “so here we go: Faking Ben and Maureen’s death, act one, scene one.

“Adrian Ripburger, in a desperate attempt to lure our Maureen out of hiding, has developed the following lame-ass scheme.” She snapped her pointer over to something on one of the blueprints, even though the print was so small there was no hope of anybody but her reading it. “First prize at tonight’s smash-up derby is a vintage hardtail that Mo restored with her dad. Rip hopes Mo will try to nab said bike on accounta her sentimental attachment to it.” She sneered, then snapped the pointer over to the second blueprint.

“So Ben and Mo play along, put on disguises, and enter the demolition derby. Which ends tragically when their cars explode...and both are presumed dead.”

“Uh...” Ben interrupted, suddenly not liking this plan much, “question.”

She didn’t even look at him before answering, with dictatorial precision, “Please save your questions until the end.”

“Now,” she continued, motioning to several drawings on the blueprint, “the explosives in Mo’s car can only be triggered by a head-on collision with Ben’s car. This ejector seat projects Mo clear of the explosion, and she parachutes to safety.”

Ben cleared his throat and interrupted again with an overwhelming desire to state the obvious. “Don’t you think someone will notice her ejecting out of her car?”

“No,” she snapped back, “they’ll all be watching you runnin’ around on fire!”

“Yeah, that’s another question I have--”

She grinned at him and continued, “When your car explodes, you climb from it in flames...and run around the stadium distractin’ the audience. In your cute little asbestos suit, of course,” she finished, laughing.

Ben stared at her for a long time, until it sunk in that she was serious about this entire thing. “That’s some plan,” he answered dryly.

Apparently that was all the approval Suzi needed. She tossed the pointer aside and grinned. “All right then! Let’s go blow you little darlin’s up!”

As it turned out, blowing people up was a little more complicated than it sounded. The Vultures had had to scrounge up parts for the cars and the explosives and put it all together. It had all been going well until Mo pointed out that her car was lacking in the critical ejector seat, which meant that half the car had to be dismantled to install it. There’d been more than a little grumbling over that one.

It was some point after the installation of the ejector seat that a Vulture stretched out under Mo’s car said, “Uh-oh.”

Everybody in the room froze. But when nothing exploded, Mo tore herself away from a careful inspection of the ejection system and ventured a “What?”

“Well...I think Raz put the explosives in wrong.”

“I did not!” snapped a woman with a bright red mohawk, leaning over the side of Ben’s car. She waved a wrench around dangerously--Ben stepped out of her way, just in case. “I followed the goddamn directions!”

Mo sighed and slid under the car. “Okay, so what’s up, Sid?”

“Here,” Sid answered, voice muffled by several tons of steel. “The computer’s defunct. It’ll still take a head-on collision to make this baby go pow, but now it’s got no way to talk to the system we’re putting on your buddy’s car. It won’t know and won’t care that you hit the right car.”

“So?”

“So anybody hits you head on, angel, and this thing’s gonna go pow.”

Mo slid out from under the car and straightened, rubbing at a smudge of grease on her pants. She almost backed straight into Ben, who had wandered over to eavesdrop on the conversation (and, as an added bonus, keep away from a very disgruntled Raz).

“Can’t you fix it?” he asked, looking first at Mo and then at Sid’s feet.

“Nope,” came the automatic response from under the car. “Computers ain’t my field of expertise. That’d be Mike’s job...but so far as I know, he’s still out cruising the Road.”

Ben winced. Not only did he have a hunch that Mike was trapped on the other side of Poyahoga Gorge, but that he was out one tank of booster fuel and probably half his bike.

Suzi snuck behind him then and yelled loud enough to wake the dead. “Yeah, and we’re runnin’ out of time, kids! Now get back to work!” She marched off with more of that dictatorial precision of hers, leaving the rest of the Vultures scurrying around in her wake.

Ears ringing, Ben turned to Mo and asked dryly, “Is she the reason you left the Vultures?” Mo only laughed and went back to giving the ejector seat a thorough inspection.

“Hey, cat-boy!” Razor was still brandishing her wrench like a weapon, and she still didn’t look happy. Ben narrowed his eyes at her, but she ignored that. “Get over here and give me a hand before I rewire your car to beat the crap out of you, okay?”

He wandered over and stopped just short of stepping on her toes, glaring down at her. She took his hand, slapped a tire iron into it, and pointed at the nearest tire. “Make sure those tires aren’t goin’ to fall off, cat-boy.”

After half a moment’s thought, Ben loosened one of the lug nuts, pulled it off, and tossed it at Razor’s head. Mo then spent the next five minutes trying to keep her from running off to get her chainsaw.

Finally, after several inspections and a lot of muttering from Sid that the fault with the computer was all Razor’s doing, Ben and Mo were handed their respective keys and disguises.

“You kids have fun now,” Suzi said cheerfully. Then she turned to Ben and said, in that same cheery tone, “You screw this up, and I’m gonna tear you apart with my bare hands and then throw ya to the minefield.” And with that, she turned around and disappeared somewhere. Ben shook his head and began untangling his asbestos suit. It was a sickly, off-purple color, except for the black hood and gloves that came with it. He was tugging it on over his feet when he looked up and noticed Mo’s “disguise.”

It was a blonde wig that looked more like a giant yellow puffball, and it didn’t fit her at all. Small tufts of auburn hair stuck out from underneath on all sides. “Suzi said she wanted to make sure Rip would know it was us,” she said with a shrug when she noticed the amused grin on Ben’s face.

“I didn’t think he was that thick,” he answered, pulling the suit up the rest of the the way. He tugged the gloves on next, then the hood.

Mo whistled. “Nice. I think that makes you look taller.”

“And that wig makes you look stupid,” he shot back, voice muffled by the suit. Mo punched him in the arm and jumped into her car.

“We’re taking the back way out of the hideout...just follow me.”

Ben followed Mo down a narrow, well-hidden road behind the cave that served as the Vultures’ hideout. It wound down and around through empty desert, shying away from anything that could possibly be civilization until it joined up, in a vaguely defined sort of way, with one of the back roads that led to the Corley Motors factory. They pulled up behind the factory, in an employee parking lot full of cars--some in the derby, some not--and people milling around. Mo brought her car to a stop near a table literally covered with banners that read “Registration.”

The man sitting behind the table when they arrived looked excruciatingly bored. He took one look at both of them, didn’t even blink at their disguises, and took one brief look at their cars before asking, “Names?”

Mo, who was first in line, seemed to think about this for a few seconds. Then she answered, “Doreen Schmorely.” Ben snorted--she jammed an elbow into his stomach.

The man jotted down the name without comment, then peered around Mo to look at Ben. “Name?”

“Uh...The Unknown Avenger.”

Mo snickered, and again the man made no comment. He finished jotting down some notes, then said, without even looking up, “Okay. Just bring your cars around through the entrance. Follow the line. Only rule is that there are no rules.” He waved them off and began stuffing papers into folders that were already bulging.

“So...” Mo tucked a few stray hairs under her wig, smirking. “Mr. Avenger, huh?” He would’ve said that he was glad to see her back to her old self, but he’d forgotten just how sarcastic her old self could be.

“It’s better than what you came up with.”

“All right folks! Hang on to your chilidogs, ‘cause it’s time to start...the Corley Motors Smash-A-Torium Amateur Driver Ultimate Destruction Maximum Carnage Marathon! Let’s meet our crash-cage gladiators!”

Between the announcer’s annoying habit of practically eating the microphone and the cheers from the crowd--the stadium was packed so full that people were leaning over the edge of the wall--Ben could hardly hear himself think. And that wasn’t a good thing at the moment, given that he was still trying to figure out exactly how to keep the competition away from Mo, collide with her head-on, and somehow find the time to save his own skin, asbestos-covered or not.

Furthermore, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep up the annoying wave the contestants seemed to be forced to do. Mo was so good at it it was frightening.

“That mysterious-looking hooded figure wouldn’t give us his real name...he prefers to be known as ‘The Unknown Avenger,’ and that’s just fine with us, isn’t it folks?”

He’d already cased the competition--what little there was of it. The only threat he could make out was a bulky, bearded guy who looked like he might’ve been a Rottwheeler in a former life. He had a jumpsuit that was the same color as Ben’s asbestos suit and a constant ponderous frown on his face. Well, except for when he’d been grinning lecherously at Mo--Ben had a feeling that she was going to make him pay for that one. Hopefully without any head-on collisions involved.

“And next to him is another newcomer... Please give a big Smash-A-Torium salute to the Princess of Pileup, Doreeeeeeeen Schmorley!”

Somewhere, Ben knew, Ripburger was laughing.

“...and finally, we have a last-minute addition to the lineup tonight: a deadly-looking team known as ‘The Boom-Boom Brothers.’”

They’d just gotten into their cars and started the engines when a blue car drove onto the floor. It paused, seemed to take a survey of its surroundings, and then barreled straight towards Ben, colliding with him head-on and sending him spinning backwards. He snarled involuntarily as he tried to regain his bearings--he wasn’t sure how they’d made it across Poyahoga Gorge, but he had a pretty good idea of who the “Boom-Boom Brothers” were. Now the only question left was how they’d managed to cram themselves into the same car. Ben was cramped for space as it was--but he didn’t pity them much, or at all, for that matter.

“All right now, are you ready to see some reckless driving?” The crowd went up in another large cheer. “Are you ready to see some unnecessarily VIOLENT destruction?” Further earsplitting cheers. “Then let the demolition derby...BEGIN!”

All told, this was shaping up to be a rough night. Mo had no idea who these “Boom-Boom Brothers” were exactly, but she figured that they had to be Ripburger’s thugs. It wasn’t exactly a complication she’d planned for--though she figured that Ripburger would’ve found some sort of way to make sure she and Ben didn’t leave the stadium alive. And at that exact moment, it looked as if Ripburger might get his wish.

The Boom-Boom Brothers took a swing at her, and she barely managed to avoid a head-on collision, but she’d made a mistake in retreating to the nearest corner in hopes of staying out of the way. They followed her, pinned her, and began ramming the driver’s side of her car. The dents they were fast making had her a little concerned.

Ripping that stupid wig off once and for all and tugging her goggles on, Mo frowned and concentrated on getting away from them. She took a quick look around for Ben’s car and didn’t see him. This wasn’t exactly going according to plan.

“Where are you, Ben?”

Ben gritted his teeth, weaving around all the other drivers as they took their shots at them. They had to get this over with, and if they took Nestor and Bolus out with them--well, so much the better. “Hang on, Mo! Here I come!”

He sped towards her at top speed, scaring the Boom-Boom Brothers enough that they got out of his way--and then rammed him head on. Ben frowned. He tried to get around them and get to Mo from another direction--they threw themselves in his path and he ended up broadsiding them.

This was not working.

Mo frowned and spun the wheel around, trying to get herself out of the corner the Boom-Boom Brothers had practically wedged her into. Fortunately, they were at that moment distracted by Ben, who was weaving patterns all over the asphalt and leaving burned rubber plus a few wrecked cars in his wake. She shook her head and floored the accelerator.

“Ben, what are you doing?” She swerved out of the way as a beat-up purple car made straight for her front fender. It managed only a scraping blow off her side, but it still left her a little rattled. “Ben! I can’t avoid these other cars forever!”

Ben drove straight through a puddle of oil slick and spun out, slamming into the nearest wall. The engine whined for a few seconds, then shut off completely. Muttering curses, he turned the key in the ignition--and kept turning, waiting for the engine to finally cave in and restart. The Boom-Boom Brothers, meanwhile, took advantage of the sudden opportunity and started ramming into the side of Ben’s car with wild abandon.

Mo wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but she didn’t like it. And she especially didn’t like the fact that Ben’s car looked suspiciously stalled. “That’s it,” she growled, swinging out of the way of another car and flooring it across the Smash-A-Torium towards Ben. “Okay, Boom-Boom Brothers--it’s all over.”

Finally, Ben was rewarded by the sound of the engine kicking back to life, even if it sounded rather unhappy about it. He sped forward with an ugly squeal of metal on metal as he scraped across Nestor and Bolus’s front fender. Their car flew forward a few seconds later, slamming up against the wall. Ben was surprised to see Mo’s car behind them--she’d hit them at an angle that didn’t quite qualify as head-on and probably just narrowly avoided setting off the explosives tucked under the hood of her car.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, Mo,” he grumbled, swinging the car back around and putting himself between her and the Boom-Boom Brothers, just as they were bringing their car around to collide with hers. They struck him broadside, pushing him over a few inches, almost into Mo’s car. She took off, circling around behind them. They took the bait immediately and went after her. Ben followed.

Mo led them all on quite the chase around the stadium, though she mostly skirted around the oil and mud puddles. Nestor and Bolus rammed her from behind on occasion, and the other cars racing around weren’t helping matters, either. They seemed to find the concept of their three-way chase amusing.

Finally, to gain a little ground and get away from the Boom-Boom Brothers, Mo took one of the two ramps in the stadium and jumped off it, flying through the air before landing with a nasty thump on the asphalt and driving forward again. Nestor and Bolus followed after, with Ben right on their tail, grinning.

He had an idea how to keep them off their backs for a little while.

They flew through the air, with Ben’s car in close pursuit. When they landed, he punched the accelerator such that he landed at the same time--right on their roof. He bounced off the roof and landed a ways away, none the worse for wear, if a bit shaken around. The Boom-Boom Brothers, on the other hand, were dead in the water. Ben smirked.

Sitting alone in the executive booth high above the stadium, Ripburger tapped the floor with his cane, sighing impatiently. “Get him!” he snapped, not at all pleased by what was going on in the stadium below. “What are you doing? Are you taking a nap?” But Nestor and Bolus’s car didn’t move. Ripburger sighed.

“Idiots!”

Back down on the stadium floor, Ben brought his car around to the dead center of the arena. His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Okay, Mo! Time for our big finale!”

She slowed down a little, swung her car around to face him, and floored the accelerator. Ben did the same.

They hit each other head-on at full speed. The explosion was instantaneous, a giant fireball that quickly consumed both cars. Ben couldn’t see a thing in the sudden burst of light and heat, but he hoped Mo had managed to make it out safely. Meanwhile, he had his own problems--like how to get out of the car. He found what he thought was the door and started kicking.

“Now that’s an explosion, ladies and gentlemen!”

Tell me something I don’t know, Mac, Ben thought, giving the door one more solid kick. It gave way and opened up a narrow window for him to escape through. Without wasting another second, he jumped out and ran for it. That was when he noticed that he was on fire.

“Can’t see any survivors ye--wait! What’s that? It’s the Unknown Avenger! And he’s on fire!” The crowd, predictably, went wild. “Let’s give him a hand, folks. That looks painful! We should really put him out right away, but...what a show, huh?”

The announcer continued in that vein for some time as Ben ran around the arena, hoping he was being distracting enough. He glanced up at the prize booth, where they’d put the old hardtail to lord over the stadium. It was still there. He was starting to worry about Mo, but he still had distracting to do, assuming that she’d gotten away. Which he hoped she had.

“I guess the Avenger never heard of Stop, Drop, and Roll, huh?”

Ben slowed down and came to a stop next to Nestor and Bolus’s car, which they were still trying to restart. The fire was making it hard to breathe, and he could’ve sworn that the asbestos was warping and melting under the constant heat. The car’s engine whined--he wondered if setting the car on fire would be a good enough distraction. It certainly would be entertaining.

That was when he had a better idea.

Grinning, Ben reached out and touched one of the hay bales lining the Smash-A-Torium walls. He watched the flames lick their way over from his glove to the hay, expanding and already looking for more hay--or anything else, for that matter--as they went.

The flames also found the wooden railing that ran around the stadium began burning that, racing along down the stadium wall at a rapid pace. The crowd, noticing this, gasped as one and began fighting their way towards the exits. The announcer, on the other hand, remained rather oblivious.

“Well, folks...it looks like the party’s getting a little out of hand. The stadium seems to be catching fire, but let’s all remain calm and--” At which point, he finally seemed to realize that there was as much smoke pouring out of the stadium as people, which unnerved him a little. “Ah, yer right. The derby’s over! Run for your lives!”

As people streamed out of the stadium, Ben watched as two Vultures appeared in the prize room, grabbed the hardtail and took off with it. He frowned--he hoped that didn’t mean that Mo hadn’t made it out and they’d just come to pick up the hardtail anyway, as a matter of sticking it to Ripburger.

I’d better get out of here. He was starting for the exit--which had sprung open during the fire--when he heard Nestor and Bolus’s engine kick to life.

The fire didn’t bother Ripburger much. The executive booth was well equipped with fire exits, after all--and he’d never cared much for the Smash-A-Torium anyway. The fewer remnants there were of Corley’s legacy, the better.

He smiled to see Nestor and Bolus’s car lurch forward with renewed life. With only the biker left--he was rather pleased that the girl had managed to get herself killed and save him the trouble--they should be able to take care of business.

“Squish that firefly while he’s hot, boys.”

The car stirred to life, and Nestor wasted no time in chasing Ben around the stadium. “Look at him run!” he crowed to Bolus, laughing. They cut off the path to the only exit and then started closing in on him. Finally, to keep from being run down, Ben had to jump up onto the roof of another derby car, now abandoned. Nestor started ramming it in hopes of knocking him off.

At one point during this, it seemed almost as if something had landed on the roof with a loud thump, but Nestor dismissed it. All the ramming was shaking up the car, after all, and he wouldn’t be surprised if it fell completely apart by the time this was over.

“Hey...” Nestor cringed--being stuck in such an enclosed space with Bolus this long was insufferable even when he didn’t say anything. “I don’t think he’s on the car anymore...”

Nestor sighed. “Where else would he go, idiot?”

“Well...I’m just sayin’...”

Sometimes he couldn’t stand Bolus, but he humored him just this once. He pulled away, slowly, from the abandoned car and peered at its roof. Sure enough, the biker wasn’t there. “Hmm.”

“There he is!” Bolus’s hand almost hit him square in the face. Grumbling, Nestor looked out one of the shatterproof side windows and was surprised to see the biker running around on the ground again, still very much on fire.

“I’ll get him,” Nestor said, coming up behind him as fast as he could. The biker, hearing the sound of their engine, picked up the pace and ran into the flaming ball of wreckage that used to be his own car. Without thinking, Nestor followed.

The car came to a shuddering, thumping stop, hardly out of reach of the flames. It sounded to Nestor as if they’d run over someone. He grinned.

Flames began to lick at the back wheels and started working their way up.

Ripburger leaned forward anxiously in his seat, trying to get a better idea of what was going on. “What happened? Did you get him?”

“We finally got him, Bolus!” His grin widened as he started to imagine exactly what that meant. “That means Ripburger has to make us vice-presidents now, like he promised! And give us ten thousand shares of stock each!” He paused and sniffed the air. That was odd, dead bodies usually didn’t smell funny for a few days... “Hmmm... Funny smell...”

Bolus started sniffing the air, too. That was when Nestor noticed the flashing light on the dashboard. He squinted at it. “What’s that? The...temperature light?” The proverbial light bulb finally clicked on--at the same time their car turned into a fiery, blazing inferno.

Ripburger watched the explosion with a distinct sense of disdain. All right, so he was out a pair of thugs and henchmen. Replacing them might not be easy. “Well...” he sighed, slowly getting to his feet, “on the bright side...I just made twenty thousand shares of stock.”

And there was an even brighter side--the Corley remnant and her little tag-along were out of the picture. “Time to start the shareholders’ meeting!”

It was a long walk back to the Vultures’ hideout. Ben managed to get the fire out on his way out of the stadium and stripped off the asbestos suit, which had warped and melted under all the strain, such that it was nearly impossible to get out of. And his clothes reeked of smoke and ash.

Yeah, it was a very long walk back to the Vultures’ hideout. And when he finally made it back, it was to find Mo--to his relief--sitting on the floor and pawing through a pile of parts. He looked around. “Where’s the hardtail?”

She smirked and waved one of the parts at him. “All over the floor, Mr. Avenger.”

“What?” He blinked. Obviously Mo had taken a direct blow to the head when she’d parachuted to safety. It was the only thing that could possibly explain what she’d just said. “What happened to your deep, sentimental attachment to your father’s vintage bike?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ben, it’s just a bike! I can put it back together in about half an hour.”

Oh. Yeah. Somehow, he’d forgotten she could do that.

“That’s assuming, of course, I can find that key...” she continued, muttering under her breath. He had a feeling she wasn’t talking to him, but he couldn’t help but interject with his own questions anyway.

“What key are you talking about?”

“Key to my dad’s safe,” she answered automatically, not even looking up. “I remember he hid it somewhere on this bike...but I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find anything that even looks like a key!”

He took a quick look around and didn’t see anything that looked like a key, either. But given this mess...well, it would be no surprise if even Mo’s sharp eyes managed to miss it. He sat down and started rifling through the parts, too. “What’s in the safe that’s so important?”

“My dad’s will! I’m counting on him to tell the truth about me, finally.” Her voice was tinged with frustration and bitterness. She scowled and concentrated on shaking out an exhaust pipe.

“Why did he keep you a secret all these years?” Ben asked. That was something he just didn’t understand.

Mo shrugged. “He didn’t want people to find out about my mom.”

Now he was really confused. “What’s so bad about Mrs. Corley?”

She set the exhaust pipe down, looked straight at him and said, slowly and deliberately, “She wasn’t my mom.”

“Aaah.”

Silence descended for a long time after that, broken only by the sound of parts being picked up, carefully examined, and then tossed back down onto the floor. “Uh,” Ben said finally, looking up, “how are we going to get in the factory?”

“In the back of the factory, there’s a secret entrance that leads straight into Dad’s office.” She grinned proudly. “He used to sneak me in so I could help him with his bike designs.”

“When he got too old to do all the work himself?”

“Nah, this was back when I was six.”

Ben stared at her. “You know what I said about you being amazing?”

She grinned and tossed another part out of the way. “Yeah?”

“Uh...so, how do I find the secret passage?”

She frowned at him, then paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, it’s tricky.” Then she waved a hand dismissively, almost sending a bolt flying his way. “But don’t worry about it; I’ll get you in. I’ve gotta go and sneak into the shareholders’ meeting anyway.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh,” she muttered, distracted by a vaguely key-shaped object. She held it up to the light, squinted at it for a few seconds, then tossed it back down, sighing. “We’re going to expose Ripburger, right?”

Ben frowned. “Right.”

A few minutes of awkward silence later, Mo threw down a second exhaust pipe and let out a long sigh. “I give up. Do you see anything that looks like a key?”

He took a quick look around, then picked up one of the parts and squinted at it. “Just part numbers.”

She took the part from him, trying to make out the numbers in the dim light. “Yeah...all the Corley Motors parts have part numbers. Except--hmm...”

Ben set down an exhaust pipe and looked at her. “What?”

“This thing has six digits. They didn’t start printing six digit part numbers until after the war. And the hardtail’s pre-war.”

Frowning, Ben picked up a few other parts and began looking them over for part numbers. A majority of them had five digits, but every now and again one popped up with a combination of six letters and numbers. He looked back at Mo. “This key to your dad’s safe...”

“It’s been a while since I was six, okay?” she snapped, then went back through shuffling through the parts.

Ben sat back and let her work for a while, taking a slow survey of his surroundings. A Vulture walked by, looked at them and the mess on the floor, snorted and went on his way. Ben glowered at him. Then, to Mo, he asked, “What are we in, anyway?”

“It’s a C330 ‘Big Mouth’ Industrial Cargo Jumbo Transport we fixed up.” She stared at a set of numbers for a while, then shook her head and tossed it aside. “We want to get it rolling so we can take it to biker rallies.”

“You’re going to try to fly this thing?” Ben blinked. What was it about this girl and setting him off his balance?

“Rolling, Ben,” she said, her tone vaguely condescending, “rolling. Nah, this baby’s flying days are over, just like mine.”

Ben went back to looking through the parts after that. Mo had the bike’s engine fairly well dismantled, so he started there and began moving outwards. Working along a process of elimination, he eventually came to the carburetor and looked it over. Only one part on it had six digits, without letters or dashes. “What about this?” he asked, pointing to the number.

She squinted at the number, then grinned, looking as if she wanted to hug him--or the carburetor. “154492! This is it!”

“You sure?”

“It’s the only one we’ve seen so far that doesn’t have letters or dashes in it...this has to be it.”

Ben shook his head at her, unconvinced. “But if it’s not--”

“An alarm’ll go off, security’ll show up and arrest you, and I’ll just have to handle Ripburger on my own.” She smiled, then started shooing him towards the door. “Now go. I’ve got to get this bike put back together. I’ll meet you there.”

“I thought you were going to get me into the factory,” he said. She looked up, a sheepish grin on her face.

“Oh. Yeah. Well, just let me--”

Ben stood up and frowned at her. “The shareholders’ meeting’s already started. We’d better get moving. My bike’s still by the minefield--we can take it.”

“But--”

“You can put the hardtail back together after we expose Ripburger.”

Mo looked at the jumble of parts in front of her, then at Ben. “Fine,” she sighed, “just let me go get a trenchcoat.”

“Another brilliant disguise?”

“Shut up.”

They pulled up in front of the Corley Motors just a few minutes later, with Mo hopping off Ben’s bike as soon as he stopped and pulled the keys out of the ignition. There were a few smartly dressed shareholders milling around near the entrance, slowly making their way inside, but they were so absorbed in their own conversations that they didn’t notice Ben and Mo’s arrival. Ben frowned at them.

Mo tugged gently on his arm, motioning to a narrow dirt path that led around the side of the building. “C’mon. The secret entrance’s this way.”

She led him down a steep incline and down the path, which brought them to the back of the factory. The only light was a faint orange glow from the building on their right and a purplish glow the utility meters at the end of the path somehow managed to give off. A tangled mess of wires and pipes sat on the top of a sharp, almost vertical incline up to the factory itself, but the path itself was completely bare. It didn’t look as if anybody had been by in years. To their left, just past a rickety fence that was all that stood between them and a long drop-off, were two portals. One was recessed into the ground and looked rusted shut. The second one was only about two feet high and also looked fairly rusty.

Mo walked past Ben and down the path, her fingers running along the rocky surface of the incline at about waist height. The utility meters made the only noise--a constant series of clicks, pops, squeaks, and the occasional whoosh as they all flashed black in their centers for a split second. Mo’s black trenchcoat brushed against the ground.

“Are you sure you know where this entrance is?” Ben asked as Mo started retracing her steps.

She stopped and blew a long sigh. “Dad just knew exactly where to kick it, okay?” Then she stopped, composed herself, and motioned to the wall. “I remember that there was this big crack in the wall...and if I lined up that crack with my eye level...” She trailed off as she started walking back and forth again, still searching. “And when I kicked the wall in front of me...this weird portal would open up. That’s the entrance.”

Ben eyed the wall doubtfully. It was marked with more tiny cracks than he cared to count, and any one of them could’ve been at eye-level for a six year old. “Are you--”

“I’m sure,” she snapped, “so stop doubting me.”

He blinked, taken aback. “I didn’t--”

But she interrupted him again by stepping back and giving the wall a sharp kick, just below a particularly large crack. The two-foot high portal slid open, casting a pale florescent light on Ben’s pants. He looked at the open door, down the narrow metal staircase beyond, and then over at Mo. Her hands were folded across her chest and she was smirking.

“I told you--”

“I never doubted you,” he said roughly. “Now are you coming with me, or are you sneaking in through the front entrance?”

Mo stopped for a second, thrown a little off-balance. “I’ll go in through the front,” she muttered finally, starting for the path back towards the main doors. “My gang’ll be waiting for me. Suzi promised they’d give us a hand.” She stopped as she passed by him and pulled a handful of photographs out of her trenchcoat--the photographs from Corley’s murder. “Here, take the photos.” She pressed them into his hand with an emphatic, “I don’t want ‘em. Show them to someone important, if you get a chance.”

He took the photos and stuffed them into his jacket without saying a word. Then he crouched down and squeezed himself into the passageway. Mo struck out on her own for the front of the factory.

Ben found himself, after a short trip down the stairs and through a door disguised to look like part of the wall, inside a massive office. All the lights were off--the room’s only illumination was the soft glow of the Smash-A-Torium burning nearby. A window with a perfect view of the blaze took up the entirety of the far wall. The room itself, however, was largely empty. A giant oriental rug in the entry took up the most space and cut down on the echo effect from the metal walls and floor. It led up to Corley’s desk, which seemed tiny in the large space--it was very austere, but had no drawers. Ben searched it, but didn’t see anything that looked like a safe.

That option eliminated, Ben lifted up the rug and started looking for the safe under there. Finally, right in front of Corley’s desk, he found it.

The safe itself was a small, unspectacular affair--a simple metal plate screwed into the floor, with a six number combination that would take the numbers zero through nine. Ben quickly punched in the combination he and Mo had found and then looked around for some sort of confirmation key. He found it in a gold plate with the initials “M.X.C” embossed on it. When he pressed it, the plate depressed, and the safe rose up out of the floor with a hiss and a mechanical whirr.

Ben reached inside and pulled out two vaguely dusty objects. There’s some sorta card... He shook the dust off it and squinted at it. It looked as if it might be some sort of access card, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what use it might have, either. Next he blew the dust off the second object. A tape! I sure hope that’s Corley’s will.

If it wasn’t, he didn’t know what he was going to tell Mo.

He stuffed the tape into his jacket pocket and then left the office via a door directly opposite from the secret entrance. It was the office’s only exit, save for the giant double doors that likely led to some sort of reception room-- but Ben preferred to take the subtle way deeper into the factory.

Once through the door, he found himself in a short, poorly lit hallway. At the far end of the hall was a vaguely ornate wooden door. Mounted above it was a gargoyle face that was sticking its tongue out at him. It eyes followed Ben as he walked to door and pushed against it--it was locked.

Frowning, he turned and looked at the other two doors he’d bypassed. The one closest to him was unlocked, but as he slowly pushed the door open, he heard someone muttering and swearing inside, so he left that one alone for the time being. The second door, which had a sign above it that said, cryptically, “M.M.,” was locked. But it did have what looked to be a card reader mounted on the wall next to it, at knee-height of all places. Ben dropped the card into the card key slot. A beep and a change of lights on the reader from red to green later, and the door unlocked and slid open.

Cool.

He walked into a projector room and stepped around the tapes, paper, and reels of film that were piled everywhere in a sort of haphazard fashion. The projector was running at the moment and creating quite a bit of noise, but it was drowned out by sudden, wild applause from the conference hall. Ben walked over to one of the room’s two small windows and looked out. It seemed as if the meeting had already started.

Ripburger was standing on the stage, speaking from a podium that had been set up. The stage itself was a large, open affair, with two access doors--one on the right, one on the left. Above Ripburger was a massive screen divided up into three parts--one giant middle screen with two smaller sidebars. The two side screens were projecting a picture of the Corley Motors factory and, as an added bonus, the Corley Motors logo. The middle screen was off for the time being. As the applause slowly died down, Ripburger smiled appreciatively and began speaking where he’d left off.

“...was not only an inspirational leader, but also a great personal friend. His loss affects us all...deeply.” He paused to let that sink in, then leaned forward. “Malcolm and I spoke often of the future.”

The middle screen flared to life with an image from the distant past--the ribbon cutting ceremony for the factory there were all standing in, presided over by a much younger Malcolm and Ripburger.

“We talked of a day when Corley Motors would move beyond its humble beginnings, into a new vehicular age. And, although his tragic death took him from us sooner than anyone expected--” He stopped, shook his head, and covered his face with his hand for a moment as if in grief and struggling to compose himself. Finally, he leaned forward and said, with great solemnity, “Malcolm Corley’s dream remains.”

The screens behind Ripburger went blank as he continued, “And I shall carry out that dream...in his memory. Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present to you the future of Corley Motors...”

The middle screen lit up with the most horrific sight Ben had ever seen. “The Corley Minivan!” Startled gasps ran through the audience, followed by a low hum of conversation. The minivan really wasn’t much more than a giant gray box with windows and the Corley Motors logo stamped on the side. But the audience seemed to like it, once they got over their shock--applause finally began breaking out, scattered at first and then gradually building in intensity.

Ben, on the other hand, was still horrified. “Corley was right! I never dreamed it would actually come to minivans, though!” He turned away from the window and started cracking his knuckles.

That was when he saw the projector controls.

The projector itself was an older model--forty year old technology, but they’d been still been all over the place when Ben was a kid. He’d never exactly learned how to use them, but his older brother had taught him how to break them. And that was what he wanted right now--anything to get that image off that screen.

He studied the projector’s two levers for a few seconds, then reached for the one closest to him. If he remembered right, it would be the motor switch. He pulled it--the projector came to an immediate stop. Letting out a deep breath, Ben reached for the light switch and pulled that twice. The light shifted into high beam and began burning down onto the stopped film.

“What you see before you right now...” Ripburger indicated the screen behind him, oblivious to the hissing, popping noises and the waving, shifting nature of the images. “...is my vision for Corley Motors!”

It was only when the audience started gasping and murmuring that Ripburger suspected something might be wrong. He turned, and his eyes widened when he saw nothing but a white screen.

Mavis unlocked the door that went between the control room and the projector room and leaned through it, lit cigarette hanging limply from her mouth. She caught sight of the smoking projector and frowned. “Oh, perfect!”

Ripburger clicked on the speaker and tiny monitor that ran to the projector room and hissed, “This is a disaster!”

“You’re telling me!” Mavis snapped back, leaning against the smoldering projector and taking a long draw from her cigarette. “We’re gonna have some major downtime here... Why don’t you tell a joke or something?”

Ripburger laughed nervously, eyes widening further. “I--I don’t know any jokes!” Everyone knew that. But, looking out at the audience, he could see that that was just about his only option.

“Eh-heh,” he said, clearing his throat. “You know, this reminds me of an amusing anecdote...about...a...uh...uh...” He thought long and hard. Come to think of it, he didn’t know any amusing anecdotes, either. “About...a, uh...I...” He hung his head in his hands. No doubt someone in the audience would eventually end up retelling the story of this botched meeting as their own amusing anecdote.

He’d never live this down.

Back in the projector room, Mavis fiddled with the controls a little. Sparks flew and the entire projector overheated and shut down. She pulled her cigarette out of her mouth and scratched her head. “Well, I’m outta ideas!”

Ben watched the unfolding chaos in the projector room from the safety of the hallway, having beaten it out of there as fast as he could once the film started to burn. He almost smiled, almost thought that his mission was accomplished--but he knew it wasn’t. He pulled the photographs and the tape out of his jacket. There was one thing he had left to do.

He walked into the control room and took a quick look around. It was neatly kept, and he had no trouble locating the reel-to-reel machine for the tape--it was right in front of him. As he slid the tape onto the reels, he noticed an easel resting to one side. A handful of cards lay strewn around it, pictures of the Corley Minivan. This must be where you put the pictures for the big-screen video projector.

Ben looked at the photographs in his hand, then back at the easel. Well, that’s one way to expose Ripburger, he thought, dropping the photographs onto the easel.

Ripburger saw only the flash of a picture returning to the main screen, and so immediately resumed his speech from where he had left off. “Now, this next slide shows our new, more aggressive corporate strategy...”

A woman in the audience shrieked. Gasps and whispers ran through the conference hall, building into a loud roar of conversation. Ripburger blinked, not understanding. “Eh?”

He turned around just in time to see the ending shot of a blow-by-blow account of the murder of Malcolm Corley--a close up of his own twisted, psychotic face. The best response he could manage was a strangled “Gggk!”

Laughing, Ben started the tape. Corley’s voice was immediately piped into the conference hall from every available speaker.

“Hello there. If you’re hearing this, I musta croaked! Well, people gotta move on, you know, and make room for other people...and that’s what I’m here to talk about today. I’ve made room for someone else to take my place at Corley Motors... And it ain’t that embezzling crook Adrian Ripburger!” More startled gasps from the audience. Ripburger just stared blankly into space, eyes wide with shock. “Rip, you don’t belong at the head of my company--you belong in jail!”

Ripburger started to recover himself and began thinking fast. “Ah...” But before he could think of some sort of cover, Corley’s voice interrupted him again.

“I let that man talk me into far too many things...like keeping my daughter a secret!” Confused whispers began working their way through the crowd. Corley continued on, sounding vaguely regretful. “He was wrong. I was wrong. I should have stood by her. I hope, Maureen, that you forgive me, and that you take over Corley Motors and run it however you see fit.”

A pause and a sudden tone change later, and Corley snapped, “All right, that’s enough! How do I turn this damn thing off?”

The tape clicked off, replaced by the staticky hiss of white noise. Ripburger swallowed. “I, uh...” The audience started hissing and booing, but he did his best to salvage the situation anyway. He might be able to make it out of this in one piece, if he handled this just right... “I’m...sorry you had to hear that tape...from...one of Malcolm’s...psychiatric sessions.” Yes, that was it, the insanity plea! It worked every time. Picking up speed, he added, “Near the end he--he suffered many paranoid delusions... He was haunted by powerful forces of his own creation--”

“And here’s one of them!”

A woman sitting in the front row jumped out of her seat and up onto the far left side of the stage. Ripburger’s eyes went wide. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

Maureen Corley tossed her trenchcoat off and ran for the podium, elbowing Ripburger out of the way and taking his place in front of the microphone. He hovered over her for a moment, then backed off when she stepped on his foot.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, her voice instantly commanding the attention of everyone in the hall. “My name is Maureen Corley, and do I have a heck of a story for you! By the time I’m done, you’ll see why--” she pointed at Ripburger-- “this man should be in jail!”

She turned to look at Ripburger, only to find herself looking at an empty stage. “Hey!” She sighed, muttering, “Where’d he hobble off to?”

“Uh-oh.” Ben pulled himself away from the window and scanned through the other monitors in the room until he found one for the security cameras in the hallway behind the stage. Sure enough, there was Ripburger, hobbling off down the long, dark hallway as fast as he could. He kept glancing back over his shoulder with paranoid eyes. “There he goes,” Ben muttered, taking off down the hall after him.

Mo, meanwhile, was not to be distracted from the story she had to tell. And she was telling it all right, complete with arm waving for dramatic emphasis.

“...and then he sent his goons after me!”

Ben found his way to the front door, which was the way he assumed Ripburger had run. He was still running down the road as Ripburger climbed into a yellow big-rig, started it up, and took off down the road as fast as he could. Ben stopped running.

Run, Ripburger...when it’s time to find you we’ll just follow the shiny trail.

He went back inside the factory after that, slowly finding his way back to the conference hall. He figured that Mo would be perfectly capable of handling things up on the podium, and he was starting to wonder what he was sticking around for. She didn’t seem to need him anymore...but he might need her word to get the Polecats out of jail.

Sighing, he paused just outside the stage door on the left, trying to figure out if he wanted to poke his head out onto that stage or not. Mo’s voice filtered into the hallway. “Yes, of course we’ll have day care facilities!” She sounded self-assured and in control, business-like. “Any other questions?”

This new life would suit her well, he decided. It would definitely suit her much better than a life in a backwater sinkhole, fixing toasters--and the occasional biker who wrecked his bike on the road outside of town.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he poked his head out around the stage door. The movement caught Mo’s attention, and she smiled. “Oh, speak of the devil!” To his surprise, she sounded a little relieved to see him. Applause broke out. He stepped all the way into the doorway, and she waved him over. “Come over here, Ben.”

He made his way over to the podium, and she stepped aside to make room for him. The applause continued as Mo looked first at him, then out at the audience, still smiling. After a minute, she laid one hand on the microphone and the other on his arm. “Isn’t this great, Ben? We’re finally where we were meant to be all along!”

Ben just stood there and didn’t say anything.

Dawn was breaking by the time they managed to make it out of the factory. The shareholders had dispersed quickly enough, but a whole flock of reporters had shown up and insisted on harassing both Ben and Mo with an endless series of questions, some of them related to the sudden changes going on at Corley Motors, some of them decisively more...personal. Finally, just when Ben was about to start throwing punches, Corley’s press secretary appeared out of nowhere.

“I’ll handle this,” she said hurriedly, then went about answering some of the questions while expertly deflecting others. Mo breathed a sigh of relief and made a beeline for the door, Ben following after her.

They pushed their way through the crowd all the way out the front doors, and by the time they reached Ben’s bike, the last of the hangers-on had finally disappeared and gone back to harassing the press secretary. Ben reached in his pocket for his keys, then stopped, looking at Mo.

“Let’s go,” she said, suddenly looking exhausted. He climbed on and started the engine, and she slid into the seat behind him.

It wasn’t until they were well on their way down the road that Ben tried something resembling conversation. He wanted to make sure they were both on the same page. “So, after we pick up your bike, we’ll go get my gang out of jail.”

Mo nodded, adding, “And then find out why my gang never showed up to help us!”

“And then you go business suit shopping,” he teased. He wasn’t sure why he said it--it was just a jab. Something to keep the conversation going.

“Don’t remind me,” she said flatly. He couldn’t see her face, but he was sure she was rolling her eyes, too.

“Don’t complain. You’re going to be rich.”

“At this point, I’d settle for just a little peace and quiet.”

Which was, predictably, when all hell broke loose.

The giant yellow big-rig that pulled up behind them wasn’t anything Ben was expecting to see in the near future. But there it was all the same, right on their tail. Gun ports opened up on its front bumper, and he felt Mo’s hands clench tight around his waist. Ben just gritted his teeth as Ripburger opened fire. Figures he’d find the only assault semi-trailer in the county.

The sudden hailstorm of bullets left Ben dodging and weaving in a desperate attempt to not get himself or Mo shot. There were a few too many close calls, though, and as the bullets started ricocheting off his bike, he started to worry about a shot accidentally striking the fuel line or the gas tank. But then the gunfire was over, and he pushed the throttle as far as it would go.

They managed to gain some good speed at first, though Ben had no idea where they could possibly go to escape Ripburger. His first thought was a side road, the kind that trucks had serious trouble managing, but before he could find an exit--much less make sure Mo was okay--he heard the roar of a big-rig engine behind them.

Ripburger rammed them from behind at top speed, and the next thing Ben knew he was flying in one direction, Mo was flying in the other, and he had no idea where his bike had gone. Ripburger just laughed, hysterically.

Ben wasn’t sure how he managed it, but somehow he was able to land on the big-rig’s front bumper, feet barely balanced on part of the metal framework that came up from underneath the truck. His bike was somehow stuck to the far right side of the bumper, but that wasn’t his first concern--Mo was.

While Ben was able to hang onto the truck’s front vent, Mo had the misfortune of landing near the bottom of the truck. She was barely holding onto the framework, and if she sank any lower her back would be scraping the pavement. And at the speed they were going, that wasn’t a good thing. Ben stretched his hand out towards her.

She slipped down farther, and he stretched his hand out farther, but it was too late--she had disappeared under the truck.

If looks could kill, the look Ben gave Ripburger right then would’ve dropped him dead in half a second. And if he’d somehow managed to survive even that, Ben would’ve been more than happy to take him apart with his bare hands.

Unfortunately, looks couldn’t kill, Ben couldn’t reach Ripburger from his current vantage point, and Ripburger decided to make the situation worse by opening his mouth. “She interrupted my speech, Ben!” he yelled over the roar of the engine. He sounded half-mad, but it was the sane part of him that worried Ben. “She really shouldn’t have! I was just about to talk about the inherent dangers of motorcycle operation!”

And as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a plane showed up behind them. A plane with no wings. And the Vultures’ symbol painted on the nose in red paint. Their timing’s a little off, Ben thought sullenly.

Ripburger looked in his rearview mirror and was caught a little off-guard by what he saw. “Eh? Huh?” He blinked, some of his sanity temporarily restored by it all.

Up in the plane’s cockpit, Suzi was still trying to figure out the finer arts of steering. It was a miracle they’d gotten the engines started in the first place, and she was threatening to push them well past their limits. Even then, they still weren’t gaining any ground on Ripburger--in fact, they were losing.

Suzi gritted her teeth and did what she did best in stressful situations--yelled at somebody. In this case, her co-pilot, who probably had less of an idea of what to do than she did. He was just along for the ride.

“Can’t you make this damn thing go any faster?”

He punched a few buttons and levers, but the distance between their plane and Ripburger’s truck kept increasing. And it didn’t help when he pressed the button that opened up the plane’s nose. The ramp lowered down to the road, revealing the plane’s spacious interior and creating a shower of sparks. The resulting friction only slowed them down further.

Suzi glared at him. “You were supposed to do that after we caught up with him!”

Ben saw the plane’s cargo door open and understood immediately what they were trying to do. But so long as Ripburger kept flooring the accelerator, there was no way they’d ever be able to catch up to the truck. That meant he’d either have to find a way to get Ripburger to slow down--not likely, especially from where he was standing--or disconnect a few fuel lines. The only problem was, this variety of big-rigs kept their fuel lines in the back of the cab. And he doubted that Ripburger was just going to let him meander his way over there.

So, assuming this truck was anything like Emmet’s, there was only one way through to the fuel lines. All right then.

Crawling around in front of one of the headlights, balanced more precariously than ever before, Ben reached out and pulled the grill open.

The fan, unfortunately, was running. He swore--there was no way he’d get past it without being sliced and diced. Still swearing, Ben made a quick inspection of his pockets, but there was nothing in there except for his lockpick. “Great,” he grumbled, though he could hardly hear himself over the roar from the road.

“What are you doing down there?”

Ben looked up to find Ripburger looking back down at him, eyes vaguely glazed over. They stared each other down for a few lengthy seconds before Ripburger shook his head and said, in a chastising tone, “You shouldn’t be there, Ben.”

He picked up his cane and reached out to push Ben off. Ben snatched the cane right out of his hand, half on instinct, and ducked back around towards the front of the vehicle, safely out of Ripburger’s reach.

“My cane!” Ripburger reached for it, sounding distinctly unhappy.

Ben only snarled. “You’ll need more than a cane when I’m through with you, Ripburger.”

He didn’t waste any more time after that. Climbing around onto the opened grill, Ben took the cane and jammed it into the fan, right near the motor. The fan came to a screeching stop, though he doubted the cane would hold it for long. He dived past it as fast as he could and made for the service tunnel.

He came out at the back of the truck, right in front of its four massive fuel lines. Ripburger didn’t seem to know he was back there, or he was too busy concentrating on his reckless driving to take notice of him. Ben rather liked it that way. He hopped up closer to the lines to get a better look at them.

Of the four, three of them looked as if they’d been connected so tightly there’d be no getting them undone, except maybe with a crowbar or two--something Ben didn’t exactly have on hand right now. The fourth, though, appeared to be held in only loosely. He gave it an experimental tug and was rewarded by a hiss and the thick smell of oil.

Hmm. Perfect.

He bent down and wrapped his arms around the line as best as he could. Making sure his feet were securely anchored as best as they could possibly be, Ben took a deep breath and pulled up with all his strength.

A few grunts and tugs later, and the fuel line came away in his hands with a loud hiss. Fuel spilled everywhere. Ben was just about ready to drop it--he wasn’t sure just where, exactly, though on Ripburger’s head was an appealing prospect--when the cab’s back wall fell open.

“Ha!” Ripburger crowed, turning and leveling a pistol at Ben’s head. “No one sneaks up on me from behind!” Ben froze. Ripburger’s finger tensed on the trigger.

That was when Mo leapt in through the driver’s side window and tackled him, sending Ripburger sprawling across the dashboard. The pistol fired out the passenger side window.

Ben just stared at Mo. Amazing.

The distraction and the leaking fuel, meanwhile, slowed the truck down enough that Suzi was able to catch up. It rolled backwards up the cargo ramp, knocking Ben’s bike off and sending it flying to the side of the cargo bay. The truck’s momentum carried it all the way to the back of the plane, where it hit with a loud thump and a cloud of dust. Ben, who had fallen off some time during all that, came to a rolling stop a few feet away from the truck. He shook himself and stayed down on his knees for a while.

Suzi flipped the switch to close the cargo door and then turned around, watching what was going on on the floor. Ben also made a quick assessment--there were a couple of Vultures standing around, Ripburger lurking somewhere in the truck, and Mo slowly pushing herself up onto her elbows behind him, looking vaguely dazed.

Before Ben could get up and make sure she was okay, however, the big-rig’s gun ports opened again and Ripburger opened fire. The two Vultures dove for cover behind some crates, and Mo and Ben followed suit. The Vulture in the co-pilot’s position jumped down to the floor as Ripburger aimed some bullets up into the cockpit and made a mad dash for cover. Suzi remained up in the cockpit for a few seconds longer, but a bullet nicked one of her ankles and sent her into a free-fall. She landed on a box and then bounced back behind it, nearly landing on Mo.

When the hail of bullets finally ended and they could all hear themselves think again, Ben turned to Mo. “I thought you said this thing couldn’t move!”

Mo opened her mouth to snap back a response, but Suzi beat her to it with an annoyed, “I said it couldn’t fly, I never said it couldn’t taxi!”

“Well flying would be nice,” Mo added, a nervous twinge in her voice, “since we’re headed for the gorge!”

Ben stood up. The guns were silent for now, but there was no telling when Ripburger might start feeling trigger-happy again. “Ripburger! You’re going to kill all of us!”

“Shhh!” Ripburger answered, his smile distinctly deranged. “Ben, don’t ruin the ending!”

Ben glowered and wasted no time in turning back to Mo and Suzi. Time to try another tactic. “How do you stop this thing?”

Suzi jerked a thumb upwards. “From the cockpit!”

Hmmm... Ben looked at the ladder, then at Ripburger. Ripburger stared back at him, looking nervous and jittery. Ben made a dive for the ladder, just as Ripburger opened fire again.

“Duck!” Suzi yelled, hunkering down behind the crates.

“Careful Ben!”

Ben ignored them and stopped right in the center of the cargo hold. The big-rig’s guns were side-mounted--they had a blind spot, right in the middle between them. After a few seconds, Ripburger himself seemed to realize that and let the guns lie silent for the time being. As soon as he stopped firing, Ben made a dive for the ladder and scrambled up into the cockpit.

Upon reaching the cockpit, however, Ben started to wonder if maybe getting shot might not be such a bad idea. The controls were completely shot--literally. Only one touchscreen remained intact, along with one button that looked as if it might be connected with the remaining screen.

So much for the controls, he thought grimly. I could’ve used those. He punched the button and waited, impatiently, as the screen flickered to life.

Luck must have been on Ben’s side, because the display that popped up was the main control system for the entire plane. He scanned the options in front of him, trying to figure out what could possibly stop this thing. He tried the brakes, but they weren’t responding.

Cursing in Ripburger’s general direction, Ben tried another tactic--he could still use friction to slow the plane down. He flipped through the post-takeoff menu until he found the option to raise the landing gear. Selecting that, he waited for the “system damaged” error--and didn’t get one. The low rumbling of machinery coming to life resonated throughout the entire plane.

Well, here goes nothing...

Suzi interrupted that thought with a loud, confused “What the--?” just as the landing gear rose back up into the plane’s underbelly. The plane immediately began sliding down the road, sparks flying everywhere. Everyone inside was treated to something of a bumpy ride. Suzi toppled over with an “Aaagh!”

Mo staggered to her feet and into the middle of the floor, fighting to keep her balance as she glared up at Ben. “Ben, what did you do?”

Ben looked down at her, about to answer, and then his eyes slid past her, distracted by a sudden movement. Ripburger stood up in the truck cab and aimed his gun at her back.

Like hell, he thought, and threw himself at Ripburger.

They landed with an “oof” and a tangle of limbs. The gun fired harmlessly into the air. Ripburger didn’t like that much--with a surprising show of strength, he pulled the gun away, almost out of Ben’s hands, and made to aim it at Mo again. Ben snatched it back and twisted it around so that the muzzle wasn’t facing Mo--or him--anymore and began trying to pull it out of Ripburger’s grasp entirely. But Ripburger wasn’t inclined to give it up, and despite Ben’s best efforts was gaining the upper hand.

The plane, meanwhile, was still moving down the road, gradually slowing down. It finally came to a slightly abrupt, jerking stop--halfway over the edge of Poyahoga Gorge.

The big-rig slid forward as a result of the stop, rolling almost all the way out of the front of the plane. Ripburger, Ben, and the gun--currently in Ripburger’s possession--all went flying out through the windshield in a shower of glass. Ben got caught on the dash and ended up with the wind completely knocked out of him.

“Ben!”

Ben groaned, struggling to get air back into his lungs.

“Ben! Are you alive?”

He forced his eyes open, recognizing Mo’s voice, if not her desperately worried tone. “I am,” he said, “but I don’t know about Ripburger.”

After a pause, Mo answered, “I can see him. He’s out cold! Climb back here, quick!”

Ben stood up, slowly, acutely aware of the ominous creaking that ran all through the truck and back to the plane. It was the only sound except for the wind sweeping through the gorge.

At first, he almost turned around and went back towards the plane. Ripburger would be dead enough as soon as the plane went plummeting into the gorge. His promise to Corley would be fulfilled. But something held him back. Maybe it was the fact that Ripburger--who was hanging by the back of his coat from one of the machine guns--wasn’t just swaying innocently in the breeze.

Unconscious men didn’t reach for their guns, Ben knew.

He sat back down in the cab of the truck and went straight for the main controls. Another touchscreen flared to life, flashing over and over that the truck had been reported stolen--and also that there was a fuel leak. Wonderful, Ben thought, flipping through the main menu. It didn’t take him long at all to find the system controls for the machine guns, and, after that, the way to shut them off.

Ripburger heard the guns begin to retract and knew what was coming next. As the ports slid shut and his coat was pushed away, he made a frantic grab at whatever was available. He managed to catch hold of the license plate with one hand, then two.

He held onto it for dear life, but the plate couldn’t hold his weight for very long. It came away in his hands only a few seconds later.

The Corley Motors motto, imprinted on the plate, mocked him all the way down to the bottom of the gorge.

Can’t Beat A Corley!

Ben watched Ripburger plummet, screaming, to the gorge’s bottom. After a short pause, he said only, “Well, that answers that.”

Then he climbed down the side of the truck and started making his way back to the plane. He had to cling to the framework and swing his way back, hand over hand, almost monkey-like. He was just sliding down into the plane as all the Vultures ran out the other end. Without looking at him, Mo ran out after them, shouting.

“Wait! Come back! We need your weight in the plane!”

She turned and watched in horror as the plane began tipping towards the gorge.

Ben knew from the smell of smoke and gasoline--and the fact that things were catching on fire with alarming speed--that he didn’t have much time. He made a quick search of the plane for his bike. There was no way he was leaving without it.

He found it in the corner, leaning up against the wall. It was off, but the key was still in the ignition. He climbed on, started it up, and made to get the hell out of there just as the truck’s fuel tank exploded.

Racing just ahead of the fireball and pushing the throttle as fast as it would go, Ben went flying out of the plane just as it tipped over into the gorge.

He flew, grinning like a maniac.

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