"How's it going, Joe?" Mike from tires asked.
Joe was a skitzo. Well, a sufferer from schizoaffective disorder, as his therapist would put it. Joe sat at the break room table, a novel in one hand, a stir stick in the other, slowly stirring a cup of joe. He put the book down, covers up, saving his spot. "It's a terrible day, Mike. Got a dentist appointment in an hour. My head hurts. I can't focus on work. I got 300 more remote key fobs to program and Chad is breathing down my neck about it. The wife is upset and I don't know why. And I really don't like dentists."
"You go to the place across the street? I've gone there before. That dentist is ruthless," Mike said. He put a buck in the vending machine and punched some numbers. A tuna sandwich dropped down the chute. "Well, you always got your book, right?"
"Can't focus on that either. My therapist doesn't like me reading. He said I don't do well separating reality from fiction. Says it gets me too agitated."
"Your shrink? Fuck him. If you like reading books, read books. What do you got there?" Mike asked, peeling open the tuna sandwich.
"Spy novel. The dentist..."
"You know what I do at the dentist? Just think about something else. While you're there in the chair and they're drilling away, just think about anything other than being at the dentist with a bunch of hooks and scrappers crammed in your mouth. Pretend like you're not even there. Think about your book."
"Thanks Mike. You know, there is this scene where Agent Corsica, he's a rogue American spy who has to deliver a secret cipher back to American soil? Well, when he is being tortured by the mad doctor Bonesaw, Doctor Bonesaw, I think he's in cahoots with the Japanese mafia. But when he has Agent Corsica tied to a chair, to take his mind off the pain Corsica just touches his fingers together, very very lightly, and he focuses on the sensation of his thumb touching his index finger and while he's doing that-"
"Alright, Joe. Well, I got to... I'm going to eat this in the shop. I got my soda there so..."
"Okay, Mike. Thanks for talking."
"Yep. Gotta go. Good luck at the dentist though," Mike said and left.
Joe went on stirring his joe. He talked too much. That's why people didn't want to hang out with him. He was an idiot. And a skitzo. He drank the coffee. His therapist said he wasn't supposed to have caffeine either. Mike had one thing right though. Fuck that guy.
"Hi, Joe," the dental hygienist, a nice woman, prettier and happier than his wife, said. "All set?"
"Yep. All set," Joe said. He wasn't here. He wasn't here. He wasn't here. Mike had two good ideas. a) Fuck his therapist. b) Don't think about being at the dentist.
"Dr. Murphy will be in here in just a minute, and then we'll get started, okay?" the hygienist said.
"Yep. I'm ready," Joe said, being anything but ready.
The chair leaned back. The light angled down into his eyes. Joe was sweating through his shirt. He touched one finger tip to another.
Doctor Bonesaw entered the torture chamber from behind Joe's head. Joe couldn't see the maniac but he could hear his cackling laugh.
His voice sounded like a snake's hiss. "So, Joe. Are you ready to tell me the secret cipher decoding combination? Or do you need... persuasion?"
Touching thumbtip to fingertip, Joe ignored the sound of the buzz saw starting up. He knew he could block out the pain, if he could focus.
"I have ways of loosening your lips. Now open that maw and tell me the combination!"
Joe wrestled against the arm restraints keeping him down in the chair. There was a tray of scalpels and saws not far from his right side. If he could just slip his hand through the cuff...
"If I can't get your tongue to talk, it's no good to me in your mouth! Open up and let me rip it out!"
Joe pulled and his hand came free. With lightning reflexes, he grabbed a scalpel, twirled around in the chair and threw the knife end over end through the air. It landed blade first in Doctor Bonesaw's right eye. The doctor screamed and bled and clawed at the impaled eye socket.
Joe unstrapped the cuff restraining his other hand and he was loose. Still, the doctor and his henchmen stood between Joe and the only door out of the torture chamber. Joe turned and looked at the window next to the chair. They were hundreds of feet up, but it was his only option.
"Well doctor, this is where we part ways," Joe said.
As henchmen ran across the room to tackle him, Joe took a short running start and jumped through the pane of glass. It shattered into a sparkling explosion. Joe left the chamber, his feet just inches from the outstretched paws of the chasing henchmen.
He fell with the shards of glass twinkling in the daylight like a million drops of rain. He tumbled end over end, out of control, the concrete of a parking ramp rushing up to meet him.
Joe had one chance. He eyed window ledges as they zipped by his head, one after another. One of them would have to work. Joe grabbed his boot, undid the knot and yanked the laces free. Holding one set of laces in his teeth, he quickly undid the other and pulled them free as well. He was running out of free fall. He had to work fast. A few more knots and he had it: a miniature lasso! Knowing the military grade lace would bear his weight, he readied the lasso and aimed for the next window ledge. Only a few stories from the ground, he made his throw. It caught and Joe swung in an arch, his lace-less boots just inches above the concrete parking lot surface!
"Ow! What the hell?" Doctor Murphy said. "Jane, look at this. He threw a hook into my leg. It's stuck in my skin."
Jane was going towards the shattered window. "Oh my god! Is he okay?" She leaned against the frame and looked out. "Joe? Are you okay?"
Joe was in the parking lot, his shoes untied and cuts all over his forearms and head from smashing through the glass. Almost like he didn't hear the hygienist at all, he ran as fast as he could, unpracticed, uncoordinated, injured and shoes untied.
Jane turned back to Doctor Murphy. "What do we do?"
"Look at this, Jane? He stabbed me with a cleaning tool and jumped through our window. I am not taking anymore nut job clients ever again. Call the cops!"
One quick check over his shoulder confirmed Joe's suspicions. Doctor Bonesaw had teamed up with the yakuza boss Katana Kamakura. Six of his lethal assassins, dressed in black from head to toe and armed with a dozen edged weapons each, charged out of Bonesaw's torture complex. One of the ninjas hit six successive handsprings towards Joe. Another cartwheeled. Another vaulted ontop of a car, pulled a dirk from inside his midnight gi and threw it at Joe.
Joe leaned back and the steel spike whizzed past his face and lodged deep into a "No Exit" sign. A piece of red silk dangled from the dirk. In detailed calligraphy, it read, "Boss Kamakura would like to talk."
Joe knew what Boss Kamakura meant by "talk." The pack of ninjas were already gaining on him. Joe bolted past the "No Exit" sign, deeper into the parking ramp complex. He slid across the roof of a Corvette, caught the fender of a Cadillac and vaulted clear over that.
There was a short half-wall bordering the ledges of the parking lot levels. There was a ten feet of chasm between one level and the next. Joe sprinted, put one foot on top of the half-wall and jumped. He sailed through the air, his arms whirling to keep balance and momentum. More steel dirks shot past him in mid-air. The chasm was too wide; he could see it now. He was going to fall again, and he was all out of shoelaces. Joe stretched out his arms and fingers. He caught the far ledge by the pads of his fingertips and hung on. As he dangled above another hundred foot drop, the ninjas closed in. Joe did a pull up and threw his body up back into the parking ramp surface.
Joe kept running. The ninjas were wasting no time. When his pursuers came to the chasm, they jumped too. Three of them made it over. Three of them screamed as they plummeted deep into the guts of the ramp.
"Sir? We'd like to talk," the police officer called to Joe as he scrambled through the CVS parking lot. He had managed to tumble over a grass median between the dental office and the pharmacy lot where the officer waited for him outside his squad car.
Joe gave the officer one look. His eyes were glazed over and peeled wide open. Joe panted, but said nothing. Then he took off running like a spooked deer. An awkward, slow, galloping, wounded deer.
"Sir?" the officer called after him as Joe ran towards the highway.
A frontal assault seemed insane, but Joe figured it was his best shot. Boss Katana Kamakura's hi-tech fortress was dead ahead. If he could make it through the laser system defense grid, Joe had a plan that just might work.
The ninjas were still behind him. He didn't have much time to formulate his strategy. His timing through the laser system defense grid had to be perfect. Joe crouched by a steel barricade, checked over his shoulder for the ninja, watched the flashes of the laser system defense grid for just a second, then made his move.
He charged into the laser system defense grid. A laser zapped inches behind him. Joe paused and a laser zapped just in front of his toes. Joe took off again. He spun and dodged another laser blast. He sprinted again and let another series of lasers overshoot him. One more layer of the laser system defense grid and he'd have access to the yakuza boss' motor pool. Joe dove over one laser and somersaulted under the last.
Joe rolled to his feet and saw Boss Kamakura's fleet of hi-tech hi-speed hovercrafts spread out before him. The ninjas behind him would never make it through the laser system defense grid. If he could stay hidden long enough to hotwire one of the hovercrafts, he could escape with the secret cipher decoding combination safe inside his mind. Joe crouched low and ran to the door of one of the faster looking vehicles. The hovercraft door and ignition were digitally encoded, but Joe had the equipment he needed to crack the encoding. He pulled out a handheld computer device and got to work.
"Agent Joe!" Boss Kamakura's voice boomed from a hundred unseen amplified loudspeakers. "You can not escape the killer cuts of Katana Kamakura! Surrender now and give me the secret cipher decoding combination! You wouldn't like what I'd do to you if you don't!"
"It will take more than a handful of your bumbling lackies and a few lasers to scare me, Boss Kamakura!" Joe called out. "Consider this my resignation!"
Chad looked out across the dealership lot and watched Joe climb into a Prius. Mike stood next to Chad, both of them wearing a bewildered expression. Mike sipped his soda.
"Did he just put in his two week notice?" Chad asked.
Mike shrugged. "You must have said something to set him off, boss."
Chad keyed the PA system microphone. "Come inside, Joe. I need you, bud. I got 300 remote key fobs that still need programming."
They watched Joe get behind the wheel of the Prius. It started right up and Joe put it in gear. Beyond the dealership, police and fire were arriving at the scene of the three car pile up on the highway.
"I don't think he's coming in, boss," Mike said and drank more soda.
"Joe?" Chad called again through the PA as Joe drove the Prius off the lot and past the incoming police and fire.
Joe hit the turbo of the hovercraft and rocketed out into the highway. The controls inside the hovercraft's cockpit were unfamiliar to him, but he surmised their functions fast enough. As soon as he was clear of Boss Kamakura's fortress and the wreckage he'd made of the Boss' laser system defense grid, Joe opened up the throttle. The hovercraft thrusted up to its top speed.
He serpentined through the slower vehicles like they were stationary traffic cones. Although the craft was new to him, Joe piloted it like he'd logged hundreds and hundreds of flight-hours. The monolith that was Boss Katana Kamakura's fortress quickly disappeared from sight.
The same couldn't be said for his goons. Enemy hovercraft broke through the traffic behind Joe. Their modified jet engines were too fast to outrun even for a naturally skilled pilot like Joe. Other traffic cleared the speedway and three of Kamakura's pilots closed in on him.
Joe wasn't intimidated. He just had to focus and he could out maneuver these amateurs.
"Agent Joe!" It was The Mindshrinker, broadcasted into the hovercraft via holographic projector! He sneered behind monocle and
mustache. "Your mind belongs to me, Agent Joe. Land your vehicle immediately and surrender to Boss Kamakura's forces."
Joe could feel the subliminal sonic sound waves penetrate his cerebellum. The Mindshrinker had hypnotized Joe before and nearly erased his mental fidelity and free will. Joe crushed his eyes shut, physically trying to block out the psychic assault.
"I won't let you in Mindshrinker. Not again. Never again!" Joe yelled at the holographic head hovering in front of him.
"We have a history, Joe," The Mindshrinker said, his bald head and contorted brow blocking the view of the speedway. "You belong to me.
Your actions are for me to control. Give me the wheel and let me end this futile exercise in evasion."
The subliminal hypnotism was having its effect. Kamakura's hovercrafts were closing in. One craft came alongside Joe, and with a quick veer, smashed into the side of Joe's craft. He almost lost control. The hi-speed hovercraft swooped from side to side. Each time Joe steered and counter-steered and successfully brought the craft back on course.
That was when Joe realized it: he could repel The Mindshrinker's repeated mental barrage. Joe met the hologram eye-to-eye. "I don't have to listen to you anymore, Mindshrinker. Our time together is up!"
Joe snapped shut the flip phone and hung up, the penetrating voice distracting him from his mission went silent.
Across town at the state hospital, his therapist frowned at the light on his speaker phone as it went from green to off. He looked up at his TV to watch the ongoing low-speed chase. One Prius. Six police cars. All going about 35 MPH.
"Susan?" he called to his secretary. "I think Schitzo Joe might be our newest in-patient client. I'm going to have to give him all my attention today. Clear my schedule and make sure you mark all this down as billable hours."
Gunfire splattered the highway on either side of Agent Joe's hovercraft. A missile shot over the roof. The enemy hovercraft were closing in around him.
"Speed," Joe said. "I need more speed."
He looked at the various gages and controls. It was all strange and incomprehensible. If he had more experience with the design, maybe he could make some adjustments, a tweak to the fuel oxygen mix or a change in the gear ratios. If he could just focus he was sure he could figure it out.
Another missile sailed past his window and exploded in the middle of the road in front of him. Joe piloted the hovercraft through the flames.
When the flash from the fire disappeared, Joe saw another hologram appear before him. This was the worst villain yet, the criminal mastermind behind Doctor Bonesaw, Boss Kamakura and the Mindshrinker: Lady Evil.
"Agent Joe! You've gone too far this time. I've tolerated your insults and injuries for too many years. I've lost my patience with your insolence. The time has come for me to destroy you and end this ridiculous relationship."
Joe's hovercraft smashed through a highway barrier. There were construction signs on all sides. He plowed through a series of orange cones. A fresh battery of bullets pinged off his rear bumper.
"Are you listening to me, Agent Joe?" Lady Evil's screeches echoed inside his ears. Her face filled up the view of the highway turned dirt-way. The hologram tormented him as if it were reality. "You can't defeat me," she shrieked.
Joe couldn’t defend against her verbals onslaught while dodging missiles and deciphering the hovercrafts' controls. It was too much for him. He couldn't-
"Focus," he told himself. He gripped the wheel with one hand and touched finger tip to thumb tip with the other. He ever so lightly rubbed his prints together.
"Joe. Are you listening to me? Don't ignore me!" Lady Evil carried on.
Only it wasn't Lady Evil. She was no femme fatale criminal mastermind. She was his pedestrian miserable wife. She screamed and normally he would cower.
"Say something to me you weaselly little mental patient!" his wife said through the phone.
"You know, I think I've already talked too much," Joe said. "Goodbye Diane."
Joe hung up. Her voice and the remnants of an imagined holograms dissipated like a warded off ghost. He was cruising through a road under construction in a stolen Ford Prius with a half a dozen cops behind him. If they caught him, he knew they'd drag him back to the state hospital, that he'd lose his job, that his therapist would sink him further in debt, that Diane would be there to make him regret every decision he ever made, and they'd probably bring him back to the dentist to boot.
He still steered with one hand and rubbed fingertip and thumb tip with the other. He guessed he didn't need to do that anymore and put both hands on the wheel. The world around him remained reality. The car's engine was revving hot. The speedometer was bouncing at only 45 MPH. Cop cars were moving in on either side of him. They smashed through another series of signs and road barriers.
Joe looked up. There was a culvert being installed across the width of the road. A five foot trench blocked the entire roadway. He took one look at the car's gear shifter and realized it was in 2nd gear. Had been the whole chase. There was dirt spoiled up on either side of the trench. If he could get enough speed and enough air there was a chance he could make it. Joe slammed the shifter into Drive. The Prius lurched forward. The MPH shot up. As the cops realized his intent, they dropped back and left him to his own fate.
Joe mashed the gas pedal. With white knuckles he wrung the steering wheel. The Prius hit the dirt spoil and nosed up into the air. He felt the back wheels leave the ground and he was airborne for one short glorious moment. The car landed on the far side of the trench, mid-frame. It bounced forward and the front bumper crumpled against the torn up roadway. Joe jostled inside the car but kept his foot on the accelerator. The wheels found the ground and the Prius drove on, the cops and the boss and the therapist and wife all left behind.
Later that night, Joe stopped his new Chevy Impala on the crest of a hill. Another small town lay in front of him, it's street lights sprawled out like the circulatory system of an alien creature. Joe started to wonder what he'd do if it was an alien. Then he rubbed his fingers together and remembered to focus. There was another car dealership in town, which meant it was time for an upgrade. He pulled the handheld remote key fob programmer from his cargo pocket and debated which car starter he'd reprogram. Maybe a Corvette this time. He thought he'd like a Corvette.
And the horsepower would help, just in case Boss Kamakura ever comes back.
Joe was a skitzo. Well, a sufferer from schizoaffective disorder, as his therapist would put it. Joe sat at the break room table, a novel in one hand, a stir stick in the other, slowly stirring a cup of joe. He put the book down, covers up, saving his spot. "It's a terrible day, Mike. Got a dentist appointment in an hour. My head hurts. I can't focus on work. I got 300 more remote key fobs to program and Chad is breathing down my neck about it. The wife is upset and I don't know why. And I really don't like dentists."
"You go to the place across the street? I've gone there before. That dentist is ruthless," Mike said. He put a buck in the vending machine and punched some numbers. A tuna sandwich dropped down the chute. "Well, you always got your book, right?"
"Can't focus on that either. My therapist doesn't like me reading. He said I don't do well separating reality from fiction. Says it gets me too agitated."
"Your shrink? Fuck him. If you like reading books, read books. What do you got there?" Mike asked, peeling open the tuna sandwich.
"Spy novel. The dentist..."
"You know what I do at the dentist? Just think about something else. While you're there in the chair and they're drilling away, just think about anything other than being at the dentist with a bunch of hooks and scrappers crammed in your mouth. Pretend like you're not even there. Think about your book."
"Thanks Mike. You know, there is this scene where Agent Corsica, he's a rogue American spy who has to deliver a secret cipher back to American soil? Well, when he is being tortured by the mad doctor Bonesaw, Doctor Bonesaw, I think he's in cahoots with the Japanese mafia. But when he has Agent Corsica tied to a chair, to take his mind off the pain Corsica just touches his fingers together, very very lightly, and he focuses on the sensation of his thumb touching his index finger and while he's doing that-"
"Alright, Joe. Well, I got to... I'm going to eat this in the shop. I got my soda there so..."
"Okay, Mike. Thanks for talking."
"Yep. Gotta go. Good luck at the dentist though," Mike said and left.
Joe went on stirring his joe. He talked too much. That's why people didn't want to hang out with him. He was an idiot. And a skitzo. He drank the coffee. His therapist said he wasn't supposed to have caffeine either. Mike had one thing right though. Fuck that guy.
"Hi, Joe," the dental hygienist, a nice woman, prettier and happier than his wife, said. "All set?"
"Yep. All set," Joe said. He wasn't here. He wasn't here. He wasn't here. Mike had two good ideas. a) Fuck his therapist. b) Don't think about being at the dentist.
"Dr. Murphy will be in here in just a minute, and then we'll get started, okay?" the hygienist said.
"Yep. I'm ready," Joe said, being anything but ready.
The chair leaned back. The light angled down into his eyes. Joe was sweating through his shirt. He touched one finger tip to another.
Doctor Bonesaw entered the torture chamber from behind Joe's head. Joe couldn't see the maniac but he could hear his cackling laugh.
His voice sounded like a snake's hiss. "So, Joe. Are you ready to tell me the secret cipher decoding combination? Or do you need... persuasion?"
Touching thumbtip to fingertip, Joe ignored the sound of the buzz saw starting up. He knew he could block out the pain, if he could focus.
"I have ways of loosening your lips. Now open that maw and tell me the combination!"
Joe wrestled against the arm restraints keeping him down in the chair. There was a tray of scalpels and saws not far from his right side. If he could just slip his hand through the cuff...
"If I can't get your tongue to talk, it's no good to me in your mouth! Open up and let me rip it out!"
Joe pulled and his hand came free. With lightning reflexes, he grabbed a scalpel, twirled around in the chair and threw the knife end over end through the air. It landed blade first in Doctor Bonesaw's right eye. The doctor screamed and bled and clawed at the impaled eye socket.
Joe unstrapped the cuff restraining his other hand and he was loose. Still, the doctor and his henchmen stood between Joe and the only door out of the torture chamber. Joe turned and looked at the window next to the chair. They were hundreds of feet up, but it was his only option.
"Well doctor, this is where we part ways," Joe said.
As henchmen ran across the room to tackle him, Joe took a short running start and jumped through the pane of glass. It shattered into a sparkling explosion. Joe left the chamber, his feet just inches from the outstretched paws of the chasing henchmen.
He fell with the shards of glass twinkling in the daylight like a million drops of rain. He tumbled end over end, out of control, the concrete of a parking ramp rushing up to meet him.
Joe had one chance. He eyed window ledges as they zipped by his head, one after another. One of them would have to work. Joe grabbed his boot, undid the knot and yanked the laces free. Holding one set of laces in his teeth, he quickly undid the other and pulled them free as well. He was running out of free fall. He had to work fast. A few more knots and he had it: a miniature lasso! Knowing the military grade lace would bear his weight, he readied the lasso and aimed for the next window ledge. Only a few stories from the ground, he made his throw. It caught and Joe swung in an arch, his lace-less boots just inches above the concrete parking lot surface!
"Ow! What the hell?" Doctor Murphy said. "Jane, look at this. He threw a hook into my leg. It's stuck in my skin."
Jane was going towards the shattered window. "Oh my god! Is he okay?" She leaned against the frame and looked out. "Joe? Are you okay?"
Joe was in the parking lot, his shoes untied and cuts all over his forearms and head from smashing through the glass. Almost like he didn't hear the hygienist at all, he ran as fast as he could, unpracticed, uncoordinated, injured and shoes untied.
Jane turned back to Doctor Murphy. "What do we do?"
"Look at this, Jane? He stabbed me with a cleaning tool and jumped through our window. I am not taking anymore nut job clients ever again. Call the cops!"
One quick check over his shoulder confirmed Joe's suspicions. Doctor Bonesaw had teamed up with the yakuza boss Katana Kamakura. Six of his lethal assassins, dressed in black from head to toe and armed with a dozen edged weapons each, charged out of Bonesaw's torture complex. One of the ninjas hit six successive handsprings towards Joe. Another cartwheeled. Another vaulted ontop of a car, pulled a dirk from inside his midnight gi and threw it at Joe.
Joe leaned back and the steel spike whizzed past his face and lodged deep into a "No Exit" sign. A piece of red silk dangled from the dirk. In detailed calligraphy, it read, "Boss Kamakura would like to talk."
Joe knew what Boss Kamakura meant by "talk." The pack of ninjas were already gaining on him. Joe bolted past the "No Exit" sign, deeper into the parking ramp complex. He slid across the roof of a Corvette, caught the fender of a Cadillac and vaulted clear over that.
There was a short half-wall bordering the ledges of the parking lot levels. There was a ten feet of chasm between one level and the next. Joe sprinted, put one foot on top of the half-wall and jumped. He sailed through the air, his arms whirling to keep balance and momentum. More steel dirks shot past him in mid-air. The chasm was too wide; he could see it now. He was going to fall again, and he was all out of shoelaces. Joe stretched out his arms and fingers. He caught the far ledge by the pads of his fingertips and hung on. As he dangled above another hundred foot drop, the ninjas closed in. Joe did a pull up and threw his body up back into the parking ramp surface.
Joe kept running. The ninjas were wasting no time. When his pursuers came to the chasm, they jumped too. Three of them made it over. Three of them screamed as they plummeted deep into the guts of the ramp.
"Sir? We'd like to talk," the police officer called to Joe as he scrambled through the CVS parking lot. He had managed to tumble over a grass median between the dental office and the pharmacy lot where the officer waited for him outside his squad car.
Joe gave the officer one look. His eyes were glazed over and peeled wide open. Joe panted, but said nothing. Then he took off running like a spooked deer. An awkward, slow, galloping, wounded deer.
"Sir?" the officer called after him as Joe ran towards the highway.
A frontal assault seemed insane, but Joe figured it was his best shot. Boss Katana Kamakura's hi-tech fortress was dead ahead. If he could make it through the laser system defense grid, Joe had a plan that just might work.
The ninjas were still behind him. He didn't have much time to formulate his strategy. His timing through the laser system defense grid had to be perfect. Joe crouched by a steel barricade, checked over his shoulder for the ninja, watched the flashes of the laser system defense grid for just a second, then made his move.
He charged into the laser system defense grid. A laser zapped inches behind him. Joe paused and a laser zapped just in front of his toes. Joe took off again. He spun and dodged another laser blast. He sprinted again and let another series of lasers overshoot him. One more layer of the laser system defense grid and he'd have access to the yakuza boss' motor pool. Joe dove over one laser and somersaulted under the last.
Joe rolled to his feet and saw Boss Kamakura's fleet of hi-tech hi-speed hovercrafts spread out before him. The ninjas behind him would never make it through the laser system defense grid. If he could stay hidden long enough to hotwire one of the hovercrafts, he could escape with the secret cipher decoding combination safe inside his mind. Joe crouched low and ran to the door of one of the faster looking vehicles. The hovercraft door and ignition were digitally encoded, but Joe had the equipment he needed to crack the encoding. He pulled out a handheld computer device and got to work.
"Agent Joe!" Boss Kamakura's voice boomed from a hundred unseen amplified loudspeakers. "You can not escape the killer cuts of Katana Kamakura! Surrender now and give me the secret cipher decoding combination! You wouldn't like what I'd do to you if you don't!"
"It will take more than a handful of your bumbling lackies and a few lasers to scare me, Boss Kamakura!" Joe called out. "Consider this my resignation!"
Chad looked out across the dealership lot and watched Joe climb into a Prius. Mike stood next to Chad, both of them wearing a bewildered expression. Mike sipped his soda.
"Did he just put in his two week notice?" Chad asked.
Mike shrugged. "You must have said something to set him off, boss."
Chad keyed the PA system microphone. "Come inside, Joe. I need you, bud. I got 300 remote key fobs that still need programming."
They watched Joe get behind the wheel of the Prius. It started right up and Joe put it in gear. Beyond the dealership, police and fire were arriving at the scene of the three car pile up on the highway.
"I don't think he's coming in, boss," Mike said and drank more soda.
"Joe?" Chad called again through the PA as Joe drove the Prius off the lot and past the incoming police and fire.
Joe hit the turbo of the hovercraft and rocketed out into the highway. The controls inside the hovercraft's cockpit were unfamiliar to him, but he surmised their functions fast enough. As soon as he was clear of Boss Kamakura's fortress and the wreckage he'd made of the Boss' laser system defense grid, Joe opened up the throttle. The hovercraft thrusted up to its top speed.
He serpentined through the slower vehicles like they were stationary traffic cones. Although the craft was new to him, Joe piloted it like he'd logged hundreds and hundreds of flight-hours. The monolith that was Boss Katana Kamakura's fortress quickly disappeared from sight.
The same couldn't be said for his goons. Enemy hovercraft broke through the traffic behind Joe. Their modified jet engines were too fast to outrun even for a naturally skilled pilot like Joe. Other traffic cleared the speedway and three of Kamakura's pilots closed in on him.
Joe wasn't intimidated. He just had to focus and he could out maneuver these amateurs.
"Agent Joe!" It was The Mindshrinker, broadcasted into the hovercraft via holographic projector! He sneered behind monocle and
mustache. "Your mind belongs to me, Agent Joe. Land your vehicle immediately and surrender to Boss Kamakura's forces."
Joe could feel the subliminal sonic sound waves penetrate his cerebellum. The Mindshrinker had hypnotized Joe before and nearly erased his mental fidelity and free will. Joe crushed his eyes shut, physically trying to block out the psychic assault.
"I won't let you in Mindshrinker. Not again. Never again!" Joe yelled at the holographic head hovering in front of him.
"We have a history, Joe," The Mindshrinker said, his bald head and contorted brow blocking the view of the speedway. "You belong to me.
Your actions are for me to control. Give me the wheel and let me end this futile exercise in evasion."
The subliminal hypnotism was having its effect. Kamakura's hovercrafts were closing in. One craft came alongside Joe, and with a quick veer, smashed into the side of Joe's craft. He almost lost control. The hi-speed hovercraft swooped from side to side. Each time Joe steered and counter-steered and successfully brought the craft back on course.
That was when Joe realized it: he could repel The Mindshrinker's repeated mental barrage. Joe met the hologram eye-to-eye. "I don't have to listen to you anymore, Mindshrinker. Our time together is up!"
Joe snapped shut the flip phone and hung up, the penetrating voice distracting him from his mission went silent.
Across town at the state hospital, his therapist frowned at the light on his speaker phone as it went from green to off. He looked up at his TV to watch the ongoing low-speed chase. One Prius. Six police cars. All going about 35 MPH.
"Susan?" he called to his secretary. "I think Schitzo Joe might be our newest in-patient client. I'm going to have to give him all my attention today. Clear my schedule and make sure you mark all this down as billable hours."
Gunfire splattered the highway on either side of Agent Joe's hovercraft. A missile shot over the roof. The enemy hovercraft were closing in around him.
"Speed," Joe said. "I need more speed."
He looked at the various gages and controls. It was all strange and incomprehensible. If he had more experience with the design, maybe he could make some adjustments, a tweak to the fuel oxygen mix or a change in the gear ratios. If he could just focus he was sure he could figure it out.
Another missile sailed past his window and exploded in the middle of the road in front of him. Joe piloted the hovercraft through the flames.
When the flash from the fire disappeared, Joe saw another hologram appear before him. This was the worst villain yet, the criminal mastermind behind Doctor Bonesaw, Boss Kamakura and the Mindshrinker: Lady Evil.
"Agent Joe! You've gone too far this time. I've tolerated your insults and injuries for too many years. I've lost my patience with your insolence. The time has come for me to destroy you and end this ridiculous relationship."
Joe's hovercraft smashed through a highway barrier. There were construction signs on all sides. He plowed through a series of orange cones. A fresh battery of bullets pinged off his rear bumper.
"Are you listening to me, Agent Joe?" Lady Evil's screeches echoed inside his ears. Her face filled up the view of the highway turned dirt-way. The hologram tormented him as if it were reality. "You can't defeat me," she shrieked.
Joe couldn’t defend against her verbals onslaught while dodging missiles and deciphering the hovercrafts' controls. It was too much for him. He couldn't-
"Focus," he told himself. He gripped the wheel with one hand and touched finger tip to thumb tip with the other. He ever so lightly rubbed his prints together.
"Joe. Are you listening to me? Don't ignore me!" Lady Evil carried on.
Only it wasn't Lady Evil. She was no femme fatale criminal mastermind. She was his pedestrian miserable wife. She screamed and normally he would cower.
"Say something to me you weaselly little mental patient!" his wife said through the phone.
"You know, I think I've already talked too much," Joe said. "Goodbye Diane."
Joe hung up. Her voice and the remnants of an imagined holograms dissipated like a warded off ghost. He was cruising through a road under construction in a stolen Ford Prius with a half a dozen cops behind him. If they caught him, he knew they'd drag him back to the state hospital, that he'd lose his job, that his therapist would sink him further in debt, that Diane would be there to make him regret every decision he ever made, and they'd probably bring him back to the dentist to boot.
He still steered with one hand and rubbed fingertip and thumb tip with the other. He guessed he didn't need to do that anymore and put both hands on the wheel. The world around him remained reality. The car's engine was revving hot. The speedometer was bouncing at only 45 MPH. Cop cars were moving in on either side of him. They smashed through another series of signs and road barriers.
Joe looked up. There was a culvert being installed across the width of the road. A five foot trench blocked the entire roadway. He took one look at the car's gear shifter and realized it was in 2nd gear. Had been the whole chase. There was dirt spoiled up on either side of the trench. If he could get enough speed and enough air there was a chance he could make it. Joe slammed the shifter into Drive. The Prius lurched forward. The MPH shot up. As the cops realized his intent, they dropped back and left him to his own fate.
Joe mashed the gas pedal. With white knuckles he wrung the steering wheel. The Prius hit the dirt spoil and nosed up into the air. He felt the back wheels leave the ground and he was airborne for one short glorious moment. The car landed on the far side of the trench, mid-frame. It bounced forward and the front bumper crumpled against the torn up roadway. Joe jostled inside the car but kept his foot on the accelerator. The wheels found the ground and the Prius drove on, the cops and the boss and the therapist and wife all left behind.
Later that night, Joe stopped his new Chevy Impala on the crest of a hill. Another small town lay in front of him, it's street lights sprawled out like the circulatory system of an alien creature. Joe started to wonder what he'd do if it was an alien. Then he rubbed his fingers together and remembered to focus. There was another car dealership in town, which meant it was time for an upgrade. He pulled the handheld remote key fob programmer from his cargo pocket and debated which car starter he'd reprogram. Maybe a Corvette this time. He thought he'd like a Corvette.
And the horsepower would help, just in case Boss Kamakura ever comes back.