Market Forces

Chris gri

He saw the flare in Vasvik’s eyes.

‘Yeah, that’s it, Truls. Back the fuck off. Go file a report or something. You came and asked, and I turned you down.’

‘You’re a fool, Chris. You’ve pissed away your marriage, pissed all over your wife—‘

The Nemex came out again, smoother this time, and he jammed it under Vasvik’s chin.

‘Hey. That’s my fucking business.’

The ombudsman smiled with one corner of his mouth. He went on talking as if the Nemex wasn’t there. ‘—and now you’re going to piss your life away too. Just to make Carla Nyquist cry over your corpse.’

Through gritted teeth. ‘I told you—‘

‘And she will.’ Vasvik saw the change in his face, and reached up for the Nemex. He curled his fingers around the barrel and pushed it away.

His eyes were icy with disgust. ‘Yeah. She’ll cry for the next ten years of her fucking life over you, Chris. But then, she would have done that anyway. Whatever happened. Whether you were dead like you’re going to be, or just dead inside like you already are.’

Chris gave him a fixed little smile and stowed the Nemex again.

‘Get out of my way.’

‘My pleasure.’

Vasvik stood aside and watched him climb into the Saab. The engine awoke with a rumble like distant thunder. Chris closed the door and put the car in gear. As he let out the clutch and the Saab began to crawl forward, something in the ombudsman’s face made him crank down the window.

‘Oh, yeah, Vasvik. Speaking of millions, I forgot. You heard they’re going to make a movie about me?’

‘Yeah.’ The Norwegian nodded sombrely. ‘I heard. Make a great ending if you and Bryant managed to kill each other both.’

Gravel crunched under the wheels. ‘Fuck you.’

‘No, really. I’d go and see it.’

He hit the turn for the ramp going too fast, ignored the bounce and accelerated down onto the motorway. Vasvik’s offer was gone, like Vasvik himself, like conscious long-term thought, bundled up and flung out behind him, flapping on the road in the rearview. Over and out of reach. There was only the road ahead and his hold on the car around him. The Saab snarled throatily to itself as he picked up the centre lane and flipped on the comset.

‘Driver Control.’

‘This is Chris Faulkner, driver clearance 260B354R.’ His voice was even in his own ears. He felt a quickening of the joy in the pit of his stomach. He felt armoured. ‘Inbound on M11 for partnership challenge. I’m looking for the duel envelope.’

There was a brief pause. He wondered suddenly if any of the same crew that had worked the gangwit car-jack fiasco were on today.

‘Got you, Faulkner. You’re about twenty kilometres off the northern edge. We will advise when you breach. Leave the cha

‘Traffic?’

‘Executive traffic has been disallowed until nine-thirty. You have two automated bulk transporters currently inbound within the envelope, moderate loads, and maintenance vehicles at junction eleven. Please note that collateral damage to said vehicles is not permitted within the duel protocol.’

‘Noted. So where’s Bryant, then?’

Another pause. You could hear the outrage.

‘That information is classified under duel protocol. Please do not request it again.’

‘Noted. The sense-of-humour failure, I mean.’

‘Please also note that selective jamming is in effect within the envelope. You will be unable to receive outside transmissions other than our own.’

‘Thank you, Driver Control. I have done this before a couple of times.’

He settled into his speed. The overgrown margins of the motorway flashed past on either side in a bumpy green blur. The asphalt fed thrumming under his wheels and fled in his wake. The sense of power grew, feeding off the caffeine and adrenalin. Dying suddenly seemed a long way off, a ridiculous rumour he didn’t believe, something he wouldn’t get round to.

Reality was the road.

He hit the duel envelope, tore through it at a hundred and sixty. Driver Control squawked the fact, whole seconds late. Peripheral glimpses of huddled vehicles on the bridge and ramps. Police lights, news crew vans and a rising boil of activity as the Saab slammed past them. He thought he felt the lenses of the cameras swing hungrily to follow.

No, you’ve just had way too much coffee.

A slightly hysterical laugh sat behind the thought. He forced it down and watched the hurrying perspective of the road, keyed up for the evening-blue flash of Mike’s BMW. His speed sank to a more cautious hundred and thirty. The ghost of strategy floated up behind his eyes. Retained knowledge of the route from the blow-ups, sense of how Bryant drove.

Bryant! He gri

Come on, you motherfucker. I took Liz off you, now let’s see about that pretty blue car. Let’s see about your plastic.

Lopez. Barranco. The men and women in the gunship-tortured highlands of the NAME. But most of all Bryant, Bryant and his craven fucking, keep-the-rain-off-me need for Hewitt and Notley and all the rest of it.

He mapped the faces over - Bryant into Quain. Just another murderous fucking suit. Just another—

The Saab hammered down towards junction ten. The first of the automated transporters blew up in his vision, nailed to the centre lane. Chime from the proximity alert, as he swung the Saab out and past. Gut-deep satisfaction as the car swayed and then straightened out under his hands. The high metal wall slid away on his left and he swung back in.

The road ahead—

Impact!

He was still swimming in the warm gutswirl of car control. Flash of twilight blue in one wing mirror, metallic screech of impact from the rear. Jolt of the crash, the seatbelt webbing grip across his chest. He braked instinctively, remembered the transporter and slewed the Saab hard right. The automated vehicle’s collision alert split the air, blaring banshee outrage above and behind him. He didn’t have time to see if it had braked. Mike Bryant’s BMW shot past on the left, shedding speed and hauling across to stay with the Saab. Forcing the duel, right here, right now, right under the grille of the transporter.

He swam the blind spot, Chris knew numbly. Shadowed the automated vehicle from the front until he spotted Chris in the depths of the wing-mirror, falling back on the left as Chris overtook right, timing it on instinct, pi

Even drunk, even like that, he’s the best I’ve seen.

He’s harder and faster than you—

Chris saw the BMW coming side-on and hauled over savagely. The two cars met with a shriek. Flayed paint and sparks in the crushed air between. Counterforce tried to push them apart again. Chris kept the clinch, steering against the other car so the grating scream ran on like nails down a blackboard. Bryant rode it, forcing him back and closer to the central reservation. The BMW’s greater weight was telling, the plan loomed massively clear. Side impact at this speed would smash the barrier down but not clear it. The wreckage would kick the Saab into the air like a toy.

Options.

Behind them somewhere, the automated transporter came on, an unknown quantity Chris didn’t have time to look for.

Desperation crept out, flicker-tongued in his guts.

He floored the accelerator, but the BMW’s nose already had him blocked. Bryant had locked with careful malice, a half metre ahead of neck-and-neck, enough to cut off any escape forward. Now, through both side windows, he looked over at Chris and ripped a cocked thumb across his own throat. He was gri

Chris hit the brakes with everything he had.