Part 30 – ‘Based’ on a True Story

So I had headed home, with only the knowledge that the forces of this warlord Bob had slain even the mighty Steve. I thought long and hard as I drove this pathetic new Ares I had been so unfortunately stuck with. And with no guidance on what kind of a larger vehicle I should take, perhaps I would soon die out here in wretched 0.0.

I went to random driving, waiting for the next passerby to come out and destroy my pitiful car. My spirits were in the pits. Perhaps my DISCORD alliance would fall before it became strong enough to defeat the madness of Empire, or discover such secrets to life such as how indeed our bodies got to the hospital in time before death, or where those damned post-it-note popups came from.

As I drove from intersection to intersection, block to block aimlessly I suddenly came across the oddest thing. It was a POS, but the gate was left wide open! There was no password there at all! There was the tower still powered with lights running, and a Corporate Garage Array locked next to me. Parked besides it was the ugliest tank I’ve ever seen, one of those Matari Typhoons. I wasn’t impressed by such wrecks before, but it certainly had to have been better than my Ares. I bailed out of my little car, brushing aside a post-it note about ‘your car may explode if you bail’, and ran for that new ‘Phoon.

A guard poked his head out and saw me suddenly, strapping into that Phoon. He gasped in shock, trying to level his weapon upon me… but as we were both still within the POS walls, he was strangely unable to shoot, or even consider holding an aim on me! How convenient that was.

As the ‘Phoon started up, I immediately sensed something odd about it. While she was no looker and often the most confused vehicle on the road, something was most certainly unique of this one. Perhaps it was the ‘Low Grade Snake’ rims, or the ‘Domination 100MN Rear spoiler’, but this one seemed… unorthodox. The all-nanofiber interior certainly made things different. How different became immensely clear the moment I even thought about touching the gas pedal, and crashed through the POS wall at the better part of two hundred miles per hour.

Tingles ran up my spine. Perhaps it was excitement. Perhaps it was relief. All the more probably, it was the acceleration forcing my brain out my ears as the Phoon continued to accelerate, moving faster than any battletank should, or most small jet aircraft. This was everything I had wanted. She was fast, able to take hardship, hard hitting as well as nigh unkillable short of a small army set out to hunt it. It was exactly the kind of vehicle that ignored all sense of decency for the sake of making other people miserable.

Speeding off for the home station, the pieces of a real plan for the endgame started to fall together. Now that surely my followers had renamed our station, I would need to learn from the strategy of the well known ‘Thugswarm’ gang that was well known.

I would need to find an enemy, and throw waves and waves of my own men at them until they gave up from frustration.

Bob as they call him, would need to be first.