[La Divina]: 115.Nebur

Nebur and the Great Hover Car Chase

It was his brat cousin Egroeg’s naming day, and in the haste of preparations, someone had forgotten the pig. Of course, pigs were rare to come by now. And they were much smaller than they used to be. But a pig was a pig, and without one, there would be no feast for Egroeg’s name day. Personally, Nebur thought his brat cousin was being given the worst name in the Fountain clan. Before he could announce this to anyone who would listen, though, his father shoved the keys to the hover car into his hands and told him to go get the pig. Nebur forgot all of the name business at one and ran off in search of Reivaj to gloat. And to invite him along, of course.

The butcher house was some 65 kilometers off, and Nebur figured they’d be back in an hour or so, just in time to roast the pig for the feast. He was excited as he inserted the key and entered the driver’s code. He and Reivaj had just gotten their licenses and already they were being trusted to drive on the expressway!

The limit on the express was 110 k an hour, but the Kryptonite was brand new and so above that, right?

“Oye, Mano!” Reivaj warned. “You’re going, like, 160 k!” But he was laughing. Nebur pushed it.

165...

170...

“Loco!” Reivaj wasn’t laughing anymore. “There’s a cop behind us!”

Nebur whipped his head around. Sure enough, a cop hover was behind them. But it wasn’t flashing its lights just yet. He pushed the float command and let the Kryptonite fall back to 112 k just as their exit came up.

While the butcher climbed the ladder to unhook the pig from the ceiling, he elbowed his cousin in the ribs. “You were scanboxing, mano! Thought that cop was gonna catch me!”

Reivaj handed the money to the butcher and threw the pig in the back seat. “Let me drive!” he insisted. Still laughing, Nebur handed over the key.
They entered the express, Nebur still laughing at his cousin’s earlier display of cowardice.

“I’ll make you scan, just watch!” He disabled the float and swung into the fast lane, bringing the Kryptonite up two feet into the air and pulling 150 k.

“Okay, okay,” Nebur managed through laughter. “I believe you. You don’t have to try to outdo me.”

155...

175...

“Mano, there’s seriously a cop behind us. Orale! I think it’s the same one from before. Cut the cheku before he pulls us over. We could so lose our licenses for this, mano.”

“Don’t worry,” Reivaj countered. “He won’t catch up.”

The Kryptonite was pushing 185 k.

“Watch out!”

They had suddenly become the fastest car in the lane. Madly, Reivaj swerved right and pulled up two more feet. His foot slipped on the controls and the Kryptonite took a nose dive. Behind them, the cop hover’s lights were flashing.

“We. Are. So. Locked!” Nebur gripped the handle above him and braced himself. The Kryptonite was pushing 190 k now, and Reivaj was desperately punching the flaot command, to no avail. “Left!” Nebur shouted, seizing the wheel and pulling them out of a hover bus’s path. The cop hover was coming up fast.

The Kryptonite took another dive, grazing the rail below. Thankfully, the speed has stopped rising, but Reivaj was panicking. Nebur seized the wheel again and the Kryptonite’s main computer shut down and the whole thing went flying ten feet into the air, bumping against the hover bus and bouncing off of a speed limit sign (still 110 k) before crashing into the rail.

Later, Nebur’s mother would thank God for the high quality crash salvation system. Nebur and Reivaj were sandwiched between front air bags and side air bags and inside out airbags. The Kryptonite wasn’t doing so well, though. The windows had all exploded, showering the rails with fragments of glass. The back gravity force support was dead, the front lights were crushed, and the roof was about to collapse.

“Mano? You okay?”

A muffled reply came from the driver’s seat, and the doors popped open. Nebur and his cousin rolled out.
The cop pulled up, lights still flashing.

Nebur’s hand flew to his back pocket. Surely the cop was going to arrest them, take away their license?

Instead, the man was looking at them in shock. Confused, Nebur stole a glance at his cousin. Reivaj was covered in blood. Stunned, he looked down at his own bloodstained clothes. He looked at the remains of the Kryptonite. A mess of blood and flesh was plastered to what was left of the back window.

It took a minute for Nebur to fully understand the shock on the man’s face.

When he did, he burst out laughing.

“Cheku... it’s a pig... a pig!”

The cop had obviously thought there was another person in the back of the car.