Disqualification Tablet, Chapter Three

Split-seconds of cannoning on at maximum burn carried our heroes round the Veirls along the wall of the tunnel and unto the night like a scarlet dart. Here the geography of Disqualification Tablet underwent a marked change, for on either side of the track as it wound its way close to the planetoid’s plane, the unmistakable traces of a lost city were rapidly starting to rise. Joe wondered whether it was mere manufactured scenery, or if there might once have been actual life on this outlandish world? Great nocturnal arachnoids perhaps, capable of clinging to their sheer-surfaced habitat and negotiating its perpetual dark, and true to this theory there was something of an insectile feel to the architecture itself, gargantuan hives with interconnecting spurs glooming black against the star-studded sky in Acheldama’s penumbra.

A missile outstripped Joe inches from his chassis and detonated amidst the ruins, thereby supplying a drum-solo which kicked off a new symphony of imperilled life and desperate action to rock that dead landscape. Joe and Flashtease threw their heads back over their shoulders to see Mile Hunts, dreadful in the smoky illumination of his own projectile, bearing down upon them. Even the lower half of him was reason enough to move or be mangled, for his massive mashing tyres were turning the track to rubbly spray which flew out before and behind, and his suspension jangled like so many crushing traps, and the demonic eyes that were strobe-lamps glowered through the gloom to pin his prey. All this however was merely the means by which the upper lobster ensured swift and uninterrupted access to those who had wronged him, and just as soon as his objective was within reach, it would be the hefty claws and snapping fanged mouth that brought Mile Hunts’s present business to a close.

Neither Joe nor Flashtease had any illusions about tackling head-on that which would so manifestly go through them like tinfoil. Room to manoeuvre was urgently indicated for a counterattack, so punching up the overdrive our heroes strove to put distance between themselves and their hideous pursuer even as the latter’s second rocket demolished a bridge-like spar which straddled the road ahead. Flashtease ducked the racer under this falling debris to maintain a narrowing lead, while seconds later Hunts hit the rocky heap now lying in his path and ground straight through it without faltering.

The anthill environs were growing ever more densely-packed, as though what had once been the hive-nexus might be near. This factor made evasive action increasingly difficult for our heroes, and to add to their problems the vengeance-crazed crustacean on their tail had started scraping up chunks of the lost city and hurling these boulders in tandem with the missiles he fired. The latest such volley compelled Flashtease to desperate measures, and cutting his gyro-stabilizer he heaved back on the handbrake with all the might in his small body. The car flipped directly, throwing both its occupants against the dashboard, and for a crucial second twirled a-tiptoe on one of its sidelights. Great stones and lethal ordnance crashed safely through the emptiness surrounding this ungainly posture, wherewith Flashtease and Joe rode out the full revolution to land rightside-up and keep going.

“Sometimes works in Flashball,” panted the young pilot.

“Please disregard my earlier objections to your stunt-driving,” Joe told him thankfully, though he knew they were fast running out of options. Indeed, since a few more heartbeats would bring Mile Hunts into pincer-range of their exhaust-pipes, it was looking like time for the last resort. Joe however had not predicted this would come guised as a blue-white bolt smashing into the slipstream, to part him from his interlocked adversary and fling the pair of them onto chaotic divergent courses amid a scream of brakes.

As Flashtease wrested the racer’s trajectory back to midway, Joe’s gaze shot heavenwards. From out of the domed dusky rooftops swooped a midnight-blue single-seater with an unlikely guardian-angel pulsing radiance at the helm.

“Cast your mind back, Earthling,” shrilled Contamination, “and you might recall I mentioned something about this!”

Already Mile Hunts was very much his old self again, so Joe saw well enough it behooved them to be just as prompt. Contamination with his internal fast-breeder pushed to the point of meltdown was as good as a healthy dose of fuel-injection for his suicide-machine, and riding it out he boomed over the hostile carapace and drew flank-to-flank with Joe. Flashtease stayed the course while our hero rose from his seat, one arm uplifted as he turned into the tailwind and Contamination alongside him mirrored the motion. A dual-carriageway of light, the outbound lane burning gold and its contraflow a shocking blue, raged back along the blurry hive-fronts and on either side of bloodthirsty Hunts vanquished the dark. He with seared shell and mutilated radials crashed through the road-barrier and somewhere in the lost city bit the dust.

Joe and Flashtease sped on, but Contamination lacking a friend to hold him steady mid-engagement pranged the track and went down amid a terminal clangour and a trail of sparks. Glimpsing this in his rear-view Joe immediately set about another switch, and the moment he had plonked Flashtease’s Grindotron souvenirs back on the passenger-side he commenced turning the wheel hand over hand, bringing the racer summarily about.

“I might have known,” muttered the Mini-Flash. “Never mind that he says really mean things…!”

Joe thrust his open hand over the top of the car-door. “Come, Contamination!” he hollered. “You may cross that finish-line yet!”

A luminescent white talon and Joe’s firm fingers clapped around neighbouring wrists as our hero hauled his rescuer up from the wreck of one vehicle and swung him into his own, even while closing the circle to point his headlamps in the direction of journey’s end once more. A few quick contortions so that Flashtease was sitting on Contamination’s knee, and they were underway.

“Such a noble gesture,” the latter sneered to Joe, by way of thanks. “And one which will mean the grand total of nothing, should you go on to lose. So see to it that you don’t, human, I’ve no intention of looking as ridiculous as you!”

If that was the way it was, then Joe supposed he had better not disappoint. Disqualification Tablet had made a true contribution to his studies by showing him much about what driving meant in this galaxy. But if he was going to take home the prize that had brought him here in the first place, Disqualification Tablet now needed to see what driving meant to Joe. He popped the clutch.

END OF CHAPTER THREE