The nomads chasing me had a few bikes capable of almost keeping up with me but with my rate of acceleration I was going to leave them behind so, in desperation, they increased the volume of lead they were throwing at me.

Part X

An explosion bloomed behind me and was quickly lost in my rear view, another direct hit from a well placed HESH round from the Glock X390. I gave out a whoop and opened the bike to a dizzying 250 KPH.

Have you ever been in a firefight on the ruins of I-5, about 200 km from the ruins of Oakland? No? I really suggest trying it if the chance ever presents itself. It's a shit tonne of fun.

The nomads chasing me had a few bikes capable of almost keeping up with me but with my rate of acceleration I was going to leave them behind so, in desperation, they increased the volume of lead they were throwing at me. This in turn increased my adrenaline and the heart in throat feeling I had as I kicked my speed up to 275 kph. I had an internal sonar/radar implant connected to a HUD which seemed to be directly wired into my reflex boosters so I was unconsciously making manuoevers that were simply impossible. Instant course changes as I dodged other drivers stupid enough to be on this stretch of highway, leaping over debris, going around craters. The world should have been a blur, impossible for me to react too but I was so boosted it almost seemed as if I were moving in slow motion. I could actually see bullets coming at me and was able to move around them.

Let me back up a bit and explain how I got in this situation since the last time I told my tale, I was leaving behind my old arcology with the rapidly cooling remains of my old body bleeding messily.

After getting off the link with Mad Mary I hustled down and out. I had long ago established control of the cameras in the halls and stairwells of the arcology, those that worked, and turned them off with a thought as I made my way downstairs, moving at a rate of speed my old body wouldn't have been capable of at all, let along sustained as I doing. I made my way to a side entrance and noted the alarm was already off. I guess that where my mystery assassin made her egress.

That was confirmed by the very low slung, jet-black, custom made motorcycle parked by the door. This thing looked like a panther, crouched and ready to pounce. I've never seen such an impression of speed and power from a parked vehicle before.

There was a smoking body on the pavement next to it. Some idiot street rat who tried to boost the bike and discovered the anti-theft system the hard way. I reached out with my wi-fi and found a heavily encrypted node on the bike which opened at the touch of my signal. My mind instantly linked with the built in VI and information streamed across my cyberoptics.

"Jesus." This thing was deadly and fast. Built in stealth technology, deployable micro-missile launchers, integral front and rear assault rifles and a few other nasty tricks. "Who the hell were you?" I asked out loud of my erstwhile assassin.

The bike turned on with a high pitched whine that quickly faded into silence and lights pulsed on the instrument console. More data scrolled across my HUD and suddenly my mind...partitioned.

That's the only way I can describe what happened to me. Part of my brain linked with the bike, forming a bond so complete and...intimate, that I gasped. I was the bike. I could feel power just waiting to be unleashed. The other part of my brain remained separate from the bond and was still scanning the street, scanning wi-fi signals, looking for threats, and generally doing the normal stuff the brain of a highly enhanced, cyber-assassin does when it's possessed by the animas of a former overweight, male netrunner.

OK, freaked now...I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I felt like I should be close to, if not, panicking, but that same emotional bluntness I felt upstairs in my former flat was happening again, as if I was being insulated from normal emotional response.

Feeling steadier I slid onto the bike and settled into the seat, feeling it mold itself around me. As I touched the handlebars a targeting reticule filled the field of vision on my left eye and data started scrolling as it started "pinging" various objects around me, assessing them for threats.

I reached out with my wi-fi and snagged a data stream, sending a query to a mapping service I used, and plotted the fastest route from Oakland to the East LA portion of the LA-SanFran Metro.

Yep, the interstate.

Shit.

The interstate system is, at best, anarchy. Nomad gangs, CHIP, and various corporate tac-teams have turned I-5 into a warzone. Normal, run of the mill folks, like the me I kind of used to be, stay the hell away from it. If I'm very, very lucky I'll be able to avoid tangling with anyone during my 640 km trip.

With that thought I accelerated the bike away from the arcology that used to be my home and headed for the nearest on-ramp.

I wasn't very, very lucky...

Part XI

Which bring me to the part of the story when I describe how the hell I was in a running firefight with the Crimson Wolves nomad gang.

What's a nomad gang, you ask? Ever see an old, pre-Collapse, 2D movie called Road Warrior? That's a nomad gang. Modern day outlaws traveling the back roads and interstates of our decimated world. At least that's the romantic notion. The reality is they're a bunch of over-chromed cyberpsychos in customised vehicles acting as highway robbers of the worst kind. Heavily armed and armoured cars, trucks, bikes, and the odd aerodyne, all traveling together, making trouble for anyone who crosses their path. They make war against other gangs, Highway patrol, Corporate security, and the occasional citizen desperate, or mad enough to use the highway system. The Republic of California has a long history of highway madness which only got worse with the collapse.

The old me, Johnny the fat netrunner, would never have taken the highway but I wasn't the old me. I was a lithe, deadly assassin with so many ways to kill people I hadn't figured all of them out yet.

Rounds whipped by me as I blew down the highway at near on 300 kph, dodging almost contemptuously. Despite myself I was having fun running and gunning. I'd only dreamed of doing something like this before and now I was living the dream. I let out a laugh and drove around a pile of wreckage that exploded behind me as one of the faster nomad bikers launched a missile at me.

The part of my brain not linked with the bike shot out and scanned for VR nodes behind me and found several. I snapped my wi-fi out and let loose with a Hammer program, smashing through their weak encryption, and seized control of one of the gangs armoured trucks. With a thought I jammed the wheel to the right and into two bikes running escort. At the speeds they were traveling they damn near disintegrated. At the same time I aimed at the vehicles in front and opened up with a roof mounted chain gun. Bikes and cars in front came apart as some 4000 rounds tore through armour and people. There was a series of explosions and suddenly the Wolves were down about half a dozen of their cars and bikes.

I turned and aimed one of my guns behind me and fired once, an armour piercing sabot round went through the grill of the vehicle I had under VR control and exploded, taking out two more of their bikes and suddenly the Wolves decided they had other places to be.

I laughed and holstered the Glock and continued on towards East LA.

Part XII

LA was dangerous before the collapse, East LA especially. Now it was downright deadly. That said I think there was something about the sight of a small Asian-American woman wearing skintight armour, carrying an arsenal and riding a bike that looked like a stealth fighter that gave off a distinct "don't fuck with me" look. People got out of my way and did everything they could to leave me alone as I rolled down Whittier Blvd towards what used to be Woods Avenue Park. I read the signs posted on the side of the road:

"You Are Now Entering a Free-Fire Zone. This Area is Not Patrolled by the LA County Sheriff's Department. Calls to 911 Will Not be Answered."

The same warning flashed across my optics and with it a small prompt:

"Enter Urban-Warfare mode?"

Urban-Warfare mode? What...the...hell?

I responded with a mental "yes" and the warning and prompt vanished. The targeting reticule enlarged and began scanning the area for threats, returning a great many of them. The genie guns at my sides both clicked once as the safety disengaged and I felt the world slow down as additional reflex boosting kicked in. Adrenaline flooded my system and I suddenly felt as if I could pick up and throw a car.

Jesus, this is addictive. I don't know what my facial expression looked like but the two cholos in a custom lowrider suddenly got the hell out from in front of me.

I turned down a side street and stopped. As I swung off the bike another message flashed in my optics:

"Anti-theft engaged - lethal measures."

There was a ping in my VR and an overlay came up. I opened a window into cyberspace and saw a message waiting for me. Mad Mary's face appeared, looking grim. "OK, babes, you made it this far so that's something. I'm giving you one chance to get in. Johnny knows the code for this side door and how to enter it. He is, I might add, the only one, other than me. I doubt anyone would have taken the time and effort to torture him just to get the location of my safehouse and the code to get in so I'm giving you the chance to enter the code and walk in the door. Any sign of netrunning and I open up with my defenses and if you are Johnny, you know how deadly they are." Mary's image vanished.

I walked up to the door and another window opened in my optics as I half-entered virtual space. A keyboard hovered in front of me. I "reached out" with my VR interface and typed in the 24 digit code that opened the door and bypassed Mary's defensive systems which were indeed, very lethal.

There was a beep and the door opened, lights coming on in the hallway beyond. I walked in and closed the door behind me, hearing the locks engage. I popped a Stealth subroutine and looked into Netspace and saw the red and black lines indicating that Mary had not actually disengaged her defensive systems. There was a click in the air as she engaged a speaker. "OK, test number dos. What month and day was it that Chang introduced us?"

I smirked. "It was Choi that introduced us and it was 15, August."

"Not bad, OK - test the third: what's my favorite Star Trek character?"

"You hate Star Trek - you're a Star Wars fangirl and Mara Jade is your favourite character. You dyed your hair red five years ago and have spent the past three trying to figure out how to make a real lightsaber."

The silence, to my enhanced and boosted reflexes and subsequent dilated sense of time seemed to stretch on forever."OK, no one else knows that. I'm disengaging the stuff that was aimed and about to kill you. You know the way around, I have your poison of choice stocked. Relax and wait for me and get ready to explain how the hell you've gone from a fat, balding, transgendered netrunner into China doll killer Barbie."

Yeah, that's quite the tale...