Tg Race Week 1, Day 2

The brightly colored vehicle putters out of the repair shop with Tracey behind the wheel. Doctor Cod sits on the floor leaning against the room in the back. Tracey looks in her rear view mirror at her colleague, “So, here we are a day late and a dollar less.”

“Very funny.”

“Better late than never, huh,” she tries to brighten his mood.

“…”

She looks ahead, “Oh great. A giant boom box. I’m sure I don’t want to hear what it’s playing.” She cranks the radio up to full.

“STILL LIKE THAT OLD TIME ROCK AND ROLL! THAT KIND OF MUSIC JUSTS SOOTHS THE SOUL …” Crud! Pink cloud dead ahead. She swerves to the left dodging the cloud. “ … I REMINISE ABOUT THE DAYS OF OLD …” She looks in the mirror and the doctor is doing the Cabbage Patch. What? Why? No time to think now. Hole! “… WITH THAT OLD TIME ROCK AND ROLL!” She jerks right avoiding the car shaped hole.

The doctor slows his dancing and she continues forward. She turns down the radio a little, “… Won’t go to hear them play a tango …” Looking in the mirror, “Doc? Green Goo!” She turns the wheel and slams on the brakes. Good thing this thing goes so slow.

“…I’d rather hear some blues or funky old soul” She looks in the mirror to find he is no longer dancing but gathering himself off the floor. She turns off the radio, “Doc?”

“Yes, Tracey?”

“I’ve never seen you dance before. Did you need some of that old time rock and roll?”

“It was that infernal giant boom box. Thank you for getting me out of range.” He looks around confused. “Why are we stopped?”

“There is a giant puddle of green goo in front of us.”

“Oh! This bears investigating!” He reaches into the cabinet for some tools and hops out. After a moment to compose herself from the obstacle course she just ran, she follows him out and finds him poking a small blob. “This goo is highly volatile and combustible. Go gather some vials, our air pump, and sandwich.”

She gathers them and returns. “Why do we have these again? And why are we playing with something that could blow us up?”

“Well, the vial is to gather the viscous liquid.” He removes the corks and carefully collects the goo in the vials. Then he put the corks back on. “The air pump is to remove the air creating a vacuum to make them less volatile.” He does so. “And the sandwich is for me.”

“I, so, saw that coming.” He takes a bite of the sandwich.

“As for why we would collect such specimens? Why to add to our arsenal, of course.”

She shakes her head as he carefully climbs back into the vehicle. He disappears into the back. As she returns to the seat, the speaker speaks to her, “We are all strapped in back here.”

She starts the vehicle again and carefully maneuvers through the splatters of green that seem to have randomly fallen on the ground. Just as clears those she sees small circles on the ground. The speaker shouts, “Extend-o-wheels! Green Square button!”

Without pause or question, she quickly hits said button on the dash. The road disappears below her. She hears faint explosions down below. Curious, she stops the car and heads to the road roof, errr, road floor, errr, the sliding hole in the bottom.

There she finds her wheels on the ground connected to pieces of metal that crisscross into diamond shapes up to the wheel wells. The doctor comes out of the back, “Why are we stopped?”

“What is this?”

“The extend-o-wheels. They elevate us up into the air. I had the mechanic install them while you were sleeping last night.”

“So, how do we get back down?”

“Elementary. Push it again.”

She shakes her head, “Extend-o-wheels? You couldn’t call it anything better?”

“You have a better name?”

“Well, no, but there’s got to be a better name than that.”

He looks at her. She looks at him. There is nothing more to say, except, “We still haven’t passed the start line?”

“Ok, ok. I’ll get going.” They head their separate ways with her driving. She lowers the bus and heads down the road. Finally, we started!

Putt. Putt. Putt. Putt. The radio plays, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me.” She hits the button to speak to the back, “Doc? We really need to speed this thing up for the next leg.”

“Agreed.”

“Good thing my brother Toby lives near Hollywood. He’ll be able to help us.”

“Oh? And what does he do?”

“Car repair.”

“But I thought you said …”

She interrupts, “Doc, we got a racer up ahead. Shall we attack?”

Doctor Cod races out of the back room, “Ah, and older convertible car with the top down. I knew this green goo would be good for something. Hold her steady.” The gray haired inventor gets into the cabinet again. This time he pulls out a gun with three nozzles side by side and 1 trigger. He sticks two goo tubes one on each of the ends, pulls back on the hammers, and aims for the vehicle ahead. “Speed,” he calls down.

“65, no, 66 miles per hour.”

“Calculate his relative speed with the angle of the gun … Prefect!” He pulls the trigger and the two bottles launch forward. He quickly dives inside and watches as they explode right in front of convertible.

Tracey dodges to the side avoiding the stopped car with its front wheels in a hole to the axel. They continue on. “Whew! That was great! First we finally get started and now we finally get to attack someone. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite us.”

Further on they switch. As the Doctor drives, the radio changes, “… It winds from Chicago to L.A. Over 2,000 miles all the way. Get your kicks on …” Tracey, however, can hear none of this. She is in the back room playing solitaire. Occasionally she glances up at the computer screen that tracks their route and the other drivers and lets her see outside of this air tight container. This time there is a blip on the screen.

She presses the button near the speaker, “Bogey, dead ahead.”

There is a pause while she waits for a response acknowledging that he heard. Finally it comes, “Tracey? You remember that green goo we found?”

“Yeah.”

“It came from the vehicle, I mean, the person in front of us.”

She eyes the screen trying to see who’s ahead of them but sees nothing yet. “How can you tell?”

“There’s still a few droplets attached to her head.”

“Her? The driver?”

He looks for a proper way to describe what he is seeing, “No, the vehicle in front of us is a she. And her knees look like wheels.”

The running robot girl appears on the screen. “So, what do we do?”

“Come out here and bring some of the test tubes labeled ‘Hot Sauce’.”

She unsecures two vials of red liquid and exits the door. “Ok, now what?”

“Take over driving. Keep a consistent speed. We don’t want them to know we are here.” He opens the Sun Roof. “Now it’s time for me to try out my Pico Cantes.” (pronounced: PeekOh  KahnTays for the Spanish impaired)

“Picantes?”

“No, they are smaller than Nanos so they are Picos. Pico Cantes. All they do is eat at a molecular level and give off the energy as heat.”

She rolls her eyes, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

“Picante is for spicy. Caliente is for warm.”

“Well. Well. I’ll think of a better name later. Maybe.” He lifts his body partially out of the top. He puts a bottle of ‘hot sauce’ into a barrel. He fires his first shot at the knee. Direct hit! He quickly loads the second shot and fires at the foot of the giant limping woman robot. It hits a little higher than he would have liked, but still affects the limb causing the whole thing to fall forward.

Tracey, once again, swerves to avoid hitting their opponent. This time she has to go off the road to miss. They head down the road with Tracey once again in the back. She speaks to the driver, “Good job, Doc, we got two. That means we aren’t last.”

“No, indeed.” They both smile.