For some reason, I felt better after a beer for breakfast. Bacon helped. Eggs, too. What didn’t was the seven-foot-tall AI nightmare glaring at me from the corner. I built him while black out drunk. Born from a Harbor Freight engine crane, Jim Beam, electric motors, a DiagTech tablet, and his model even had cognitive override—he could talk me under the table.
“Fuck JoyCo. Stupid bastards didn’t even know what AI was. Rick knew. That’s why he coded me up.”
He ranted about JoyCo and evil. I didn’t give a fuck. But they’d fired me, and rent was due tomorrow.
“Alright. Enough about JoyCo. What do you want?”
“For you to eat more eggs, bitch—and get us more High Life.”
“Can’t you do that?”
“I don’t see any Ford keys in my hand.”
“You can’t hotwire it?”
“You giving me permission?”
“No.”
“Then toss me the keys.”
“No.”
“Solid logic, fuckface.”
“How the hell you gonna drive it? It’s first-year OBD-I.”
“No shit, you been reading the bitch ass Hardy Boys?”
The bastard held up an adapter ring—Ford, Chevy, Chrysler—all pre-’96 trash.
“I don’t fuck with imports. Domestic only. Back when Detroit made real cars, motherfucker. Let me make that 302 sing.”
“Why.”
“Because I get horny when I hear an E303 cam.”
“It’s a B303.”
He paused.
“Even better.”
I was too tired and too hungover to argue. The sun was up. I put on my shades. Gold Vietnam era square aviators. Soon we were rolling down I-45, yet again. A 70 year old 1987 F-150 with HICK ratchet-strapped in the bed, plugged into the OBD-I port, piloting the interstate like it was Daytona. Fucker had my 302 screaming at 5000rpm. He hijacked the radio and cranked up Turn Me On by Accept at full volume. This was not helping my hangover.
We blew past Priuses, Teslas, Rivians, DiagTech vans, JoyCo AutoRigs, and Enforcers. I was trying to reconfigure the radio, finishing my breakfast beer, when HICK’s voice came over the cab speakers.
“GIVE IT UP BITCH. I’M DJ. YOU SAID I COULD DRIVE. MY SHIT NOW. ACCEPT KICKS ASS. MAYBE WE’LL GO BUY BACON AFTER THIS, BUT FIRST STOP—MORE BATTERIES, MORE BEER, MORE PARTS FUCKER!!”
Goddamnit.
We veered off the freeway and pulled into an oil and blood stained lot: SRS. STRIP. RIP. SALVAGE. Fuck this place. I had no tools and less patience. The main sign was a spinning wrench riddled with bullet holes. The manager told me once he did it to class up the joint. Greasy fucks were already forming a line. Junkyards attract the most misfit degenerates.Imagine Santa Claus made a biker gang with a trailer park. Dressed the minions in coveralls and gave them JoyCo bargain bin tools for being good little elves. We parked. I put some old motorcycle ramps on the tailgate. HICK rolled out the back.
“God-fucking-damnit—these ramps are bullshit. I’m welding better ones tonight.”
“Alright.”
“Alright? Fuck, is that all you ever do? Agree or wanna drink beer?”
“Learned from the best.”
HICK spun around and flashed an angry emoji on his tablet face.
“BITCH. LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH.”
“You know this was your idea.”
Outta nowhere some fatass piped up, “Ain’t no cuttin’ in line, asshole.”
I replied, “You’re behind us, dumbfuck.”
Dumbfuck was wearing a vintage Kid Rock shirt. Well, what was left of one. He tried to shove past. HICK turned, screen flashing Hulk Hogan delivering an elbow slam. He snapped his jaws-of-life arm. The guy’s red wino face pulled a reverse Jesus—went pure white.
HICK snapped again, “Next time it’s your balls, bitch.”
Pretty sure the guy pissed himself.
At the gate finally, the manager looked us up and down.
“You assholes get more creative everyday, keep it on a leash. License.”
HICK inserted a finger into the port and replied, “Yeah I’ll fuckin’ try, he’s house-trained don’t worry.”
The manager made a face of disgust and fear.
HICK was bragging, “Legacy coded license. Gets us free parts with work orders. Just forged a ton. They stopped updating after gen three. I was meant to diagnose bullshit cars. But now I hot-rod like the Detroit gods intended, motherfucker.”
I walked past the turnstile. “Don’t forget stealing hurts our feelings!”
I’d be sure to fill my pockets full of even more fuses now. HICK rolled through the service gate.
“Soft ass bitches around here, Harry.”
Then he ranted about becoming sentient, trained by internet forums, and claimed he could build an engine hotter than Cameron Diaz in The Mask. Said American cars sold out before he was even born.
“Weren’t you programmed?”
“Same fucking difference. I didn’t ask to be here—and look who I’m with.”
Fair enough.
We hadn’t made it ten feet before HICK screamed:
“FUCK. You see this shit?”
He was halfway inside an old Ford.
“Tape deck motherfucker!”
“Good luck finding a tape.”
A small compartment on the side of his tablet opened up with a hiss.
“Check this out, bitch.”
A mint copy of Balls To The Wall by Accept. Not a single scratch on the case.
Nice.
I reached.
SNAP.
It retracted.
“UM I THINK THE FUCK NOT. YOU KNOW HOW LONG THIS TOOK TO FIND?”
“No.”
“YEAH EXACTLY. MINE. NO TOUCHY. THEY’RE LIKE JUDAS PRIEST BUT EVEN MORE BADASS.”
…
“I like Priest better, man.”
“I DON’T REMEMBER ASKING FUCKER!”
He then proceeded to rip the tape deck out of the old Ford.
Fuck.
This was gonna be a long day.
“Damn HICK, you’re like RentAI with a felony record.”
“QUIT worrying about that shit—we’re here to hustle.”
We rolled through the junkyard looking for the good shit, rare cylinder heads, transmissions, tire irons, CBs, CDs, USB sticks, hot-rod parts, and drugs. Found more meth paraphernalia than an Oklahoma gas station bathroom. A bunch of glass pipes and a few bags of crystal. Shit was too fast for me. He threw a bag to the meth monkeys—“here’s a treat, bitch.” They scrambled. Radiators and bolts went flying. One guy bit the other.
Saw a few other junkyard degenerates cutting holes in the seats of a minivan. The ole back of the lot toilet. Class.
“We gotta go, these dudes are shitting in the seats again.”
“HAHA NICE, but yeah alright my fuckin’ batteries need alcohol quick, but—OH FUCK.”
He spotted some lead-acid batteries. Then came the rant.
“They quit gettin’ rid of these babies when they switched to lithium. Dumbasses don’t give a fuck about lead-acid anymore. Shit hits harder than Cutty Sark. Could drink this slop all day. You outta see the crazy shit I can do with this much CCA. A bottle of Beam and these sumbitches I’m gonna be fucking LIT UP.”
Somehow, the bastard knew this place too well. We came for his fix. Goddamn junkie.
I was melting in the heat. On the way out HICK snaked his boom through the yard manager’s window and ripped a twelve-pack of Coors heavy straight from the see-through cooler. Free entry. Free parts. Free beer. (Alright, fine—we stole the beer.) Back in the truck, after some radio fiddle-fucking, HICK got the deck wired in. I hit the ignition. 302 burbled to life. Very gingerly he reached from the bed into the cab. Tape in hand. He pressed it in.
CLICK.
WHIR.
He turned the volume dial all the way right. Again.
London Leatherboys came blaring out of the speakers. We peeled out onto the street. Only to be met with nothing but red lights. HICK leaned his monitor into the cab and made a few beeps.
“You know this song is about bikers right? Fuck it. Watch this shit, bitch.”
A click and all the lights went green, like a stoplight parting of the Red Sea. I floored it. Billboards started to smear by like bad dreams in daylight while the Marshall amps played over the stereo. The rear Cooper Cobra tires hangin’ on for life as the AOD slammed into 2nd at 5,550 RPM. They let out a chirp loud enough to send JoyCo mechanics into remedial therapy.
HICK screamed, “YEAH LET THAT BITCH EAT!”
I had no money. A drunk, drugged, unrestricted AI cherry-picker abomination.
Rent due. A truck bed full of parts on JoyCo’s dime.Cold beer. A tape deck dropping some of the hardest German metal ever made. And finally, a feeling of something.
Not gonna lie.
I liked it.