Add another scene courtesy of Cobalt
And singing Tachikoma
Kohran's accent might be hard to capture...
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
And singing Tachikoma
Quote:510kph. Give or take. That was Mackie’s estimate.
He timed the markers flashing past. It wasn’t that hard once he knew the distance between them. He was passing just shy of three every 2 seconds.
His hands were locked rigid on the steering wheel. EGT was slowly edging towards the dangerous end of the temperature scale. It was a race between fuel exhaustion and the turbine melting.
Either one ended up in a high-speed wreck.
A knock on his window snatched his attention. He blinked, then smiled in deep relief. He knew he was safe when he saw his sister cruising along beside him.
His sister’s visor popped up and open, revealing her smiling face, just in time for his phone to ring.
“Hey..... we’re going to rescue you. Just sit tight and don’t crash it.”
He offered his thanks, to whatever God’s would claim it.
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The tachikoma were singing as the drove.
Time to face the day,
Time to make it snappy
But you know first you gotta make it out of bed.
They formed a digital harmony, perfectly in sync and in tune, seperated only by the microsecond differences in acoustics caused by their positions in the tunnel. Synthetic voices resonated off the walls.
They were happy. They were useful and they got to show just how useful they were.They got to make sure everyone saw how useful they were and just what Tachikoma-kind were capable of.
You couldn’t do this with a motoroid.
Hello Mister Sunshine
Today you’re gonna be fine
Cos you know sunny skies are always right ahead.
Take on the day with a one-two punch....
They rounded the curve to be met with a Land Rover parked in the road, camera crews milling around it. They shared a thought, one agreeing to peel off and wait behind for a few seconds, while the others swept passed, dodging around without losing speed.
It stopped opposite the all-wheel-drive, spinning to a halt in front of the producer.
“Hey!... You can’t stay here. You’ll get in the way,” it announced, in its own chirpy voice.
“We’re moving the caravan to evacuate,” the producer responded, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat.. It was big, blue and armed. And was way too cheerful for something with guns.
“Hurry up!” the second tank called back with its radio. “You’ll fall behind. We only have a ten second margin of error left.”
It stood for a few milliseconds, calculating whether it was better to spend time encouraging the humans to move out of the way, or leave them to it and risk not making it in time.
“Bye!”
It waved once, before whizzing off to catch up.
“Time to Point Charlie-10, 99476 milliseconds.”
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It took a few seconds of standing dumb for the producer to get his composure back. The diesel engine in the four wheel drive growled as it waited.
“Alright, keep going. Landy’s out of the way. We can move the caravan... get them shuffled around and back in in time. Three minutes people!”
The presenter sighed in resignation and turned to face one of the cameras to offer an excuse for the ultimate failure. “Our producer is still new. Anyone who is in any way familiar with our program, knows exactly what’s going to happen next.”
The camera tracked back to the parked Ferrari.
“Hopefully nothing important would be harmed.”
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“That monster really gonna keep up?“ Kohran asked over the radio.
“Watch me.” Lebia replied, mentally engaging pursuit mode and flooring the throttle. With a roar like a triumphant Lion, the turbine was let off the leash to deliver all 2250 kW of power it produced into the drivetrain. The speed on the HUD quickly rose from 320 kph to 480 kphmph, 3.5 metric tonnes of armour and engine hunkering down through adjustments to the aerofoils. With the turbine scream reverberating off the walls, the Tumbler punched through the air of the tunnel pushing itself up to 523 kph
“An’ catch up?” Kohran wondered.
“What else does a Tumbler normally have Kohran?” Lebia replied flatly, more of her concentration taken up by monitoring the Tachikoma chasing the Griffon, the tunnels around them, the telemetry from the Highway Star, the com-net the Tumbler was the node for, and the Tumbler itself.
“Tell me you’ve a jet in that thing.”
“And an afterburner” There was a twinge of amusement in the blonde hacker’s voice. “Engaging super pursuit mode. “ Lebia notified the net, before triggering the reheat.
The hot air from the turbine radiators was suddenly squeezed by deployed baffles just prior to exiting out of the huge exhaust, and aerosolised fuel injected. Pressure and heat combined to ignite the fuel in the same way a ram-jet worked. A shock diamond formed behind the Tumbler as Lebia was pressed into her seat like the hand of an angry god was trying to squash her like a bug. The force eased off almost immediately, but not before the Tumbler covered most of the way to 600 kph.
“Time to intercept: 103 seconds.”
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Kohran's accent might be hard to capture...
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?