Sergeant Tonio walks me out of the interrogation cell, through the claustrophobic hallway of offices, through a locked door marked “CLEANING” and over to an elevator I don’t recall ever using during my time in the force. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever even entered this room before. “It’s not really for cleaning,” he snickers, with the forbidden juvenile glee of a boy sneaking his dad’s microdrive of cosplay porn to the school Teleworld Immersion Pod lab. He pushes the elevator’s only button, a down arrow. The door opens and DINGs, revealing a disappointingly normal and old-school elevator interior. He steps inside and I cautiously follow suit.
“Come on, Blake,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder and giving it a hearty squeeze as the shaft vibrates wildly and begins to lower. God, it’s hard to describe two guys in an elevator without it sounding like erotica. “You can’t pretend that you’re happy right now. Sure, you’ve got a little extra spending money, and a top floor office in Pembroke Towers, but… look, I know you. Remember when we’d go drinking, not because we had to, but for fun? The Blake I got to know then wouldn’t be happy sitting on his fat ass all day, drinking to forget the fact he’s living off of past glories and going nowhere. I’ve abused my power once or twice and gone through your case history at your, ahem, ‘self-employed’ new ‘detective job.’ Most exciting shit you did was throw a Bible Belt ‘family values’ Senator in the slammer for possession of Dubcom-Darkworld child-on-animal porn. Not much compared to taking down the head of the Wild West Syndicate single-handedly, is it?” The door finally opens, revealing darkness except for a row of blue lights across an industrial grate that it appears is supposed to be a walkway.
“Nice dungeon.”
“You’re not the kind of guy to be content with just surviving, or with living on yesterday’s glories,” he continues, guiding me across the walkway and down a steel staircase where things get even darker. He pulls out his Telaphone and turns on its integrated flashlight, which proves to be much needed. The further we descend, the more the overhead lights fade and the more completely we’re enveloped in total darkness. “You’re the kind of guy to be drifting around, guns-a-blazin’, taking down an evil terrorist cult. And that’s what I can offer you.”
“I HAD that,” I snap, “then you crushed my damn ca--”
“Blake,” he snaps back, guiding me hurriedly across the dimly lit concrete storeroom floor. “You underestimate old Tony! Telecom doesn’t have my balls in a jar.” We reach a wall with a large, storage-locker-like steel door in the front, one of countless such pods lining the wall as far as I can see in the darkness both ways which, granted, isn’t very far. “#65” is spray painted on the front in a military-like stenciling. He lifts the green steel door and reveals nothing but more darkness. I glance at him with the classic “if this isn’t going where I think it is I’ll kill you” face of a 16 year old girl whose dad leads her to the garage for ‘one last present.’ He smirks and hands me a set of keys. “Push the bottom button, you glorious jackass,” he says softly, the excitement in his voice practically boiling over as he struggles to maintain a dramatic whisper.
I push the button and what happens next stops my heart. Familiar shark-like halogen headlights tear through the darkness, engulfing me with their glorious artificial flames. The sound of the godly V8 engine rumbles to life, shaking the floor with its sheer boner-inducing power. I hear a faint splash in the distance as every pair of panties in a five mile radius are simultaneously drenched, my own included. “Drive” by classic New Wave legends The Cars begins blaring through the stereo inside, just like it was when I left it. Then comes the best part—an otherworldly high pitched whining sound as the very space around us seems to distort and glitch out like a screwy old video game, leading up to a blue glow emerging from under the massive hood scoop as the air returns to normal and the sound becomes a phaser-like warble.
“The Zero Point Energy Turbo,” I mouth, unable to even vocalize my excitement.
“We all had too many memories with the damn thing to let it go to the scrapyard,” Tony explains, crossing his arms in self-satisfaction and grinning ear to ear. “Not just you, Blake–the damn thing had practically become our mascot. Yeah, we’ll get slapped with a hell of a fine if they find out we’ve got her back on the road, but you’ve got the money. Well… we’ve got the money, since we’re paying… if you sign on and take care of our little problem for us.” Tonio does something on his own NeurOS and the aging motion sensor lights in the storage chamber finally flicker to life, revealing Baller in all her sleek, black, topless-catgirl-mermaid-made-out-of-fire-painted-down-each-side glory. “We even kept the license plates updated. ‘B-number four-LLER,’ A fucking classic. We knew we’d need this again someday.”
Filled with adrenaline and joy I hadn’t felt since that night five years ago, I walk slowly up to the front of my monstrosity and circle it, absorbing every delicious detail I’d spent so many suicidal drunken nights remembering and mourning. I throw the driver side door open, slide in, and take a deep breath... I lift my trembling hand and press it to the dashboard as a holographic woman with black hair, glasses, cherry red lips and a tight black latex business suit appears floating on the other side of the glass, smirking maniacally. “Welcome back, Master Blake,” she says in the perfect, sexy British accent from the Sexy Spy DLC, crossing her perfect holographic legs and motioning to the driver’s seat. To MY driver’s seat, with the glorious multicolored stains from the legendary aftermath of the NautiCon 2088 cosplay afterparty. Tears escape my eyes. Sexy, manly tears. Testosterone tears.
“We’ve also been playing around with your custom dash-Tela,” Tony continues, motioning to Veronica. “We’ve figured out a way—should you desire—to take all the personal data synced to your current Tela, copy them to Veronica, and sync her to your Telephone as well in all her hacked, British, jailbroken glory--the only jailbroken one in the world, you goddamned savant. You can keep your current Tela as backup in your NeurOS, of course.” He grabs the keys from my hand and spins them round on his finger. “But, this is all assuming that you’re willing to sign back on with us for this mission and, should you succeed and clean up your act/BAC successfully, sign back on… for good.”
“Man, fuck you, Tony,” I snap, wiping my eyes and violently snatching the keys back. “Fuck you sideways–you know I’m in.”