Redline: Asleep At the Wheel
By atfirstdawn

*Mature content warning
*All characters are copyright of Madhouse, Takeshi Koike and Katsuhito Ishii
*NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with the mentioned characters, video links and images can be found in the description below.


Sonoshee McLaren set down the bowl of strawberries and cream, which had been resting on her naked chest, onto the arm of the sofa she was slouched across; qualifying for and competing at Redline was something that Sonoshee had done before, but the prospect of returning to the event was no less terrifying for her. Redline was a death race, a high speed war from one end of a planet to the other and an event in which Sonoshee and her co-pilot Sweet JP had barely escaped with their lives during their last participation… but this time was different. The Redline war had started early; the deaths of three qualified pilots and the mysterious disappearances of two others had been reported galaxy-wide in frenzied news reports that theorised the identities of the would-be saboteurs; these ranged from an underground cult of disgraced racers, to a lone former champion with a grudge, to the more sinister idea of a military black ops movement; all of these were ridiculous and all of them were possible. Redline events were wars on wheels; it’d be wise to end one before it began and would be in the host planet’s best interest to do so. After all, RoboWorld, the host planet of the last Redline race, still lay in complete ruin several years later.

Winning the last Redline race had brought Sonoshee and Sweet JP galaxy-wide fame and while neither were strangers to the hyperactive, larger-than-life and hysterical media’s spotlight, both Sonoshee and Sweet JP had decided to go into hiding together to live their lives as a couple in love until the Yellowline qualifying race and ultimately, Redline.

Sonoshee licked the small traces of cream from her fingertips and sighed, there was a part of her that didn’t want to race; she had grown accustomed to the quiet life with JP in their cramped and cluttered hideaway home in the middle of nowhere on a poverty stricken moon during the four years since the last Redline. Yet during those four years Redline was all that Sonoshee’s Sweet JP had thought about. JP would burn around the tracks of lesser races on other planets in his modified Transam 2000 whenever he got the chance while Sonoshee would only take part in events every so often. Winning Redline just once had been what Sonoshee had spent most of her young life training for, she had been prepared to give her life to the race just to win; she never thought she would see a second and now she wasn’t sure that she even wanted to.

Sonoshee’s train of thought had begun to frustrate her, the day wasn’t over but with JP racing the Transam 2000 on another planet Sonoshee had found herself all alone with nothing and no one to do. With one deep breath and another sigh Sonoshee let her eyelids slide shut in an attempt to quiet her unquiet mind, and soon her doubts about the upcoming Redline event, her life with Sweet JP and the dead and missing racers all began to fade into an all-encompassing silence and comfortable darkness…  

It hadn’t been the sudden firm grips around her limp wrists, nor had it been the increasingly heavy weight pressing down onto her chest; it had been the sickly sweet scent of the rag that had been thrust over her nose and mouth that had torn Sonoshee from her peaceful slumber and into a panicked state of awakening. With a deep and startled breath Sonoshee inhaled an overwhelming volume of the sickly scent which immediately caused her eyes to ache and her world to dim. There were three of them; two held a wrist of Sonoshee’s each and the third was straddled across her lap holding the sodden cloth over her mouth and nose. They were all of varying race, they were all familiar and they were all strong…

Sonoshee kicked and flailed her legs and bare feet and began to scream in a desperate attempt to struggle free before her world dimmed entirely but the grips of the familiar men were too much for Sonoshee’s rapidly weakening body. Her eyes ached; she could barely keep them open or hear her own muffled screams from beneath the rag over her mouth and nose. Her vision blurred and dimmed one final time as her legs and feet became too heavy to move and her eyes retreated into a familiar darkness in search of respite. Sonoshee felt the thick and sodden rag leave mouth and nose; she exhaled slowly as her world became non-existent…

Stirring and waking once more, Sonoshee opened her eyes to a different world from the one she had left behind; her body remained numb as she woke, leaving only her sense of vision to make sense of her surroundings. Night had fallen and the stars glistened above a familiar forest of trees against the backdrop of a beautiful aurora. Sonoshee had been here many times before with JP, she knew where she was but couldn’t understand why.

With a sudden moment of recollection Sonoshee recalled the three men who had attacked and rendered her unconscious in her home; panicking, Sonoshee willed her body into consciousness in a feeble attempt to regain control of it. As her physical senses flooded her with an uncomfortable constant, the tell-tale signs of forced restraint soon became apparent to her. Her legs and feet moved as one, her arms refused to part or shift from behind her back and her jaw would not close or cease aching. The following realisation that her body had been placed within the open trunk of a car was lost on her as she continued to flail and moan from inside her cramped prison.

Sonoshee’s rushed thoughts were on JP and what had happened to him and why she had been abducted and bound and gagged and laid to rest in the cramped open trunk of a car... She screamed again and again through the large and solid obstruction in her mouth, each time louder than last until the image of a short foreign man filled her vision.

The short foreign man hadn’t been there during her abduction but his presence in the here and now was just as confusing to Sonoshee, she knew him, he was a friend…

Frisbee, JP’s oldest friend, a short man in a tuxedo with a large bulbous head, pointy elf-like ears and green and purple skin; in the past Frisbee and JP would earn money by rigging races with crime lords, JP would throw or win races in certain positions to ensure that the odds fell in the favour of the crime-lords which had placed their bets on JP’s decided outcome. However, since winning Redline and leaving to live in peace, Sonoshee had thought that those days had been put to rest.

With a confused and helpless expression, Sonoshee listened to what a meek and mournful Frisbee had to say…

“Sonoshee… I… I didn’t want any of this. But debts need to be paid.” Frisbee had lowered his head and trained his eyes on the trilby in his hands. “JP… he needs to win the next Redline. Things are as complicated now as they were back then and that means that the prize money from the last Redline on Roboworld wasn’t yours to spend. Essentially Sonoshee, you’re our insurance. JP needs to race, he needs to win and we need you to ensure that he does.”

Sonoshee’s eyes began to sting under tears of rage and fear, Frisbee was nothing but a spineless coward, it defined his personality and Sonoshee had known it since the day she met him. In that instant Sonoshee had wanted to strangle Frisbee, she wanted to crush his throat and suffocate him but she was helpless to do so and she could do nothing but let the first of her warm tears fall across her cheeks.

“There’s something else too” continued Frisbee as he motioned his hand into his pocket and rummaged around “we need JP to see this…”

From his pocket Frisbee pulled out a small cylindrical device with a lens. Pressing a button which activated a small perpetually green light, Frisbee raised the device to his eye and trained it on Sonoshee. Sonoshee buried her head into the trunk of the car with an embarrassed and aggravated muffled moan.

“I’m sorry Sonoshee, we just need a few minutes of video, for JP’s sake y’know, so he understands this isn’t an empty threat.” said Frisbee in the softest and most reassuring tone he could muster.
 
Sonoshee pulled against her bonds one final time and resigned herself to her captivity knowing that escape wouldn’t be possible for her to achieve, the best she could hope for was that everything would be over as quickly as it had all began.

“Empty threat?” spoke a new voice from behind Frisbee “I say we show Sweet JP a little more than the girl he left behind.”

“Stop it…” replied Frisbee with genuine concern in his voice “She has done nothing wrong, her only crime is knowing JP... and me.”

“Then she knew what she was gettin’ herself into am I right!” boomed another voice as one of Sonoshee’s kidnappers leapt in front of the open trunk of the car.

Grabbing Sonoshee’s hair, the kidnapper pulled her naked body to its knees and held her in place. “Are you getting’ this Frisbee?!”

“I’m getting it…”

“Hey JP!” continued the kidnapper as her groped one of Sonoshee’s breasts with his free hand “Winning Redline aint gonna be easy and as hard as it’s gonna be for you is as hard as it’s gonna be for me with this gorgeous little specimen you’ve gone and left behind!”

Light chuckling from the other two kidnappers filled Sonoshee’s ears as she struggled against the iron grip and fondling of her current abuser.  

Frisbee held tight to the video camera in his hand, its hard plastic shell threatening to break under the rage of his grip. His teeth were clenched, his body ached with anger but he knew he’d be killed if he tried to rescue Sonoshee, he didn’t want to die, as much as he hated himself, he felt comforted by the fact that he was alive… So instead of intervening, Frisbee stood still, alone in his anger and rage as he watched Sonoshee’s kidnappers pull her from the trunk and onto the forest floor. One by one the kidnappers knelt down beside her with their tongues wagging and their other worldly extremities poised… and although he was alive now, Frisbee knew that no matter the outcome, if JP won Redline or not, Frisbee himself would soon be a dead man; killed as collateral along with JP and Sonoshee for failing to deliver the prize money should JP lose at Redline, or killed by JP himself for the sickening act currently being visited upon Sonoshee…