NEO-FWLS 2.1 - Death Before Yielding by Stefan Gagne And on the seventh day, God made the automobile. And it was Good. That's what my bumper sticker says. Alright, so automobiles aren't mentioned ANYWHERE in the bible. Even so, mankind has elevated the production of vehicular transport to a divine level. Every casing is fitted perfectly. Ritual layers of paint are added, creating the perfect blend of color. The engine rumbles and roars like the breath of a mighty beast, as the muffler spews forth the fumes of hell and ozone depletion. This was the definition of the word CAR. Cost me quite a bit of money, but it was worth it; I got the most dependable, sturdy, and above all FAST car out there. I performed weekly worshipful sacrifices to keep it clean and moving along. Once a month, it was treated to an oil change and new battery to suck juice from. The car hungrily laps up these fluids of life like honey and nectar. I treated it better than I treat my own children. All it had to do was get me from point A to point B. This is no easy task on earth nowadays. We've got 2000s of major cities, with vast networks of highways, superhighways, underground tunnels, bridges, overpasses, underpasses, rotaries, turnstiles, and even some self-morphing roads which add lanes to ease the flow. None of it works. If you'd like an accurate vision of the earth's sparkling futuristic transit system, first cook up fifty four pounds of spaghetti as one incredibly long, twisted, tangled strand. Next, put seventy five thousand ants on it, each crawling over each other and pushing fellow ants out of the way to get nowhere quickly. All I can do to stay sane in this mess is to keep a well-maintained car. Fortunately I work in my home city, so my commute is just down a few normal blocks and intersections to the office. However, since I am a career auto accident attorney to the rich and famous (never trust a 16 year old music pop idol with a license) I have to travel across-planet occasionally. I had my wife pack up a large lunch and a few twinkies, with extra cream filling, to put in the back seat. I brought a few changes of clothing, and some money, as well as a double-barreled shotgun for any would-be carjackers. I kissed my wife 'n kids goodbye, and fired up the vehicle. The sun gleamed off the well-polished hood, as the tires warmed themselves to optimal riding conditions. The bumperbag inflated to the correct PSI. Thank god the Detroit wizards realized that airbags are more useful OUTSIDE the car; now I can plow through anybody who gets in my way without danger. Only the finest technology for my baby. I shifted the engine into reverse and pulled out of my driveway, sliding along the suburban lanes. There it was : the huge I-270 sign, a looming green marker of foreboding doom. The gateway to hell, the point of no return. Hate the highway, love the car, I always say. I slammed it into 17th gear and rocketed into the fray. My car bounced off of a few creeps attempting to merge into the 25th lane, causing a spin-out or two and a bumper banger behind me. I didn't care; I just wanted off of the highway as soon as possible. I gunned the engine past the 110 MPH mark, the normal speed limit. Nobody really pays attention to the limit. It's every man for himself. I weaved through fourteen lanes or so, following the route memorized by many passings which would take me to Hollywood. Take I-270 to the Reagan cutoff, head down the subpass and swerve through the undertunnel to I-78, where you immediately cross five lanes in two hundred yards and head up the spiral ramp back to I- 270. If you don't make the five lane crossover in three seconds, you'll miss the ramp and have to circle around through the next three crossovers until you can try again. Back on I-270 (neatly missing the ten lane bottleneck... yeesh, only TEN lanes? Are they insane?), I cruised along, cutting off a few losers and maneuvering into the left three passing lanes. Wouldn't you know it? Just my luck, three road slugs are hogging the passing lanes! These are a bastard breed of driver that sputters along at 70MPH hour to conserve gas and plays Adult Contemporary at top volume with the treble cranked up. They usually wear large hats as well and have air fresheners shaped like little trees. I considered pulling out the shotgun and deflating a few tires to clear the way, but they'd probably just swerve out of control like the cheap sunday drivers they are and cause an accident. So, I sat, gripping the stick with white knuckles, waiting for these snails to get the hell out of my way. Several other drivers gave up on it and decided to form a new passing lane next to them by rear-ending anybody who didn't want to. There was a bit of high speed bumping, a few traffic insults and obscene gestures were exchanged, but the traffic kept at a sluggish 80MPH. This was not acceptable. I wouldn't make the meeting with my client the colorblind Austrian action star who can't traffic lights at this rate. Luckily, the cavalry arrived, in the form of a bulky lowrider loaded with young thugs. Hydraulic jacks pumping to make the boxy car bounce along the road sinusoidally, it cruised a few lanes closer, attempting to get in the passing lane. The few lanky youths piloting it didn't seem to enjoy the three slowpokes either, so one of them pulled out an automatic rifle and pumped sixty rounds of red-hot read into the rightmost asphalt spud. I cursed and swerved to my right as the car exploded and knocked the other two 'pokes off track. The middle one spun out and flipped over, traffic flowing around the accident like a river around a rock. The one closest to the edge of the highway was pushed over the railing, where it fell about a hundred feet and exploded violently against the rocky terrain below. There was a number of cheers and honks from the drivers, who quickly reassumed normal formation. One of the kids leaned out a window to take a bow. That was the mistake. An eighteen-wheel transport carrying beer to a frat party rocketed by the lane on the passenger side of the lowrider, the front cabin plastering into the kid leaning out of the window. The lowrider skidded sideways, cutting off two lanes. I yelped, slamming the TURBO button. As several cheaper, less option packed models slammed into the lowrider, my rover's computer pumped a small-yet-effective amount of nitro into the engine. The cylinders spasmed, twitching and ramping off a lane barrier. Old beauty leapt twenty feet into the air over the accident, and landed in the empty space in front of it. Then I could just cruse along, laughing at the poor fools that didn't buy the Traffic Survival Options Package like I did. Caveat emptor! Well, it SHOULD have been empty space, but someone apparently tried to cut the mess off as well. I landed on them instead. My undercarriage pulverized the roof of the tin scrap heap below me, crushing the driver. The junkpile awkwardly curved into traffic and hit another car, causing a chain reaction accident. My car was thrown about fifty feet through the air, bouncing off the road and rebounding on the right barricade. I screamed, twisting the wheel as far as I could to the left. What was that about turning into the direction of a skid? Oh. Rats. My four wheels of righteousness spun out of control, as various drivers attempted to avoid my car. One slammed into my back side, as my torso was thrown forward. Yup, should have worn my seat belt today. After a nice trip through the windshield, I slammed into the pavement face first with several painful lacerations. My left eye had redded out completely, and my face was all hot and runny. I stumbled about, as drivers shouted insults at me and dodged the flaming wreckage of my car. I was a pedestrian in the middle of a thirty four lane superhighway. My survival chances were similar to an ant in an elephant stampede. So, I ran (screaming) for the barricade, trying to time my steps with the cars grinding down the road at me. I leaped over the barricade to safety before realizing that this was a fine example of modern architecture in the form of a suspension road and I was one hundred feet up. The ground rushed up to meet me, or I fell down to meet it, the syntax doesn't matter. Either way, I had about two seconds to reflect on life as I knew it before impact. For reasons I can't explain, I thought about shoe polish. Impact. Ow. I couldn't feel my left leg, and my chest was spurting some horrible grey liquid. I tried to crawl away, to move at all, but my remaining leg was going numb. Alright, maybe it wasn't that bad. Sure, I had lost a leg, was probably losing motor control and had an eye poked out, but medicine these days can patch you up quite well, even if you lost all your limbs and your head. There was an emergency phone box on that highway support there, I just had to crawl there, scream for an ambulance, and I'd pull through. Then I could sue those bastards to my heart's content. There was a bit of honking and cursing far above me, and a large flaming object was pushed over the railway. I recognized it as the wreckage of my car before it crushed me and burned me alive. I've got to admit, even on fire, the paint job looked pretty good.