The Start

What I find in today’s time is; music helps. The songs I reference are from another time long ago; a timeless list of classics that take us back to something we remember from our youth or causes someone younger to look it up and become a fan. Music has always played a big part in my life and has actually shaped my life. 

This is one of my three fiction stories on GD that I’m writing simultaneously. It might sound strange but when you write you sometimes come to a spot that needs more than you have to give at the time; hence, The Start.

When I hit another block I started writing ‘Something Different’ which allowed me the clarity to go back to The Start. Then came the bug; nothing I relish but it has brought school shootings to zero; the whole reason I started this series.  I’d encourage you to click on me, RJC, and see my other stuff; one of the four is Nonfiction if you really want to get to know the guy who writes what you read. RJC.    

Niki’s POV:

I was pissed when Parker called me. He said, Ryan was in negotiations with HBO to do; Eddie and The Cruisers III. A mini-series. He was looking at fifty-five million and a cut worth untold millions. He still had the CMA’s, soundtracks for the DC Documentary, and Nikita had been moved to a warehouse in Woodinville, not knowing what was going on. In the movie, there were to be seines in the car and the interaction Dean had with her. RJ opened the door and sat in the seat surprising me because the doorhandle had fingerprint recognition. His hand ran over the dash as the screen came on and I got in on the other side. I saw the avatar look at him,

“It’s been six hundred and seven days, Stud.” I think I saw a tear.

“I am so… sorry, Nikita. Can you start the car, please?”

“Voice recognition authenticated.” And the car started. A computer couldn’t tell it wasn’t Dean. She did facial recognition, voice recognition, fingerprints; Nikita was convinced. 

“So, baby? If we disengage the speed control parameters; how long to Leavenworth?”

“Traffic is light, conditions are clear and dry, One hundred-two minutes. I do not recommend disengaging speed control parameters; you do remember the last time?” And Ryan dropped a gear and we were off.

“I remember, Nikita? I’ve missed you too.” And he kissed his fingers then pushed them to the screen. “Baby? My favorite playlist, if you please.” And the music started, his head rested back and we hit ninety-five headed up US 2.

The shit that was happening right now? I was gobsmacked. There were similarities between them. He sounded like Dean, looked a lot like him, and tricked a state of the art computer. I was becoming more and more convinced. 

 I’d never been to this sleepy little village and we ate brats with sauerkraut and beer at a sidewalk café. I don’t know if it was the car or the way his hair blew with the window down, the casual way his wrist rested on the steering wheel, or the sound coming from him as he sang along with Deans’ favorite playlist.

“Taffy Store?” and his hand reached for mine. I nodded.

We had only taken a hundred steps and he dropped my hand attempting to put his in my right back pocket and damn me, mine found his left. We walked down Main Street looking in all the windows of the touristy shops really getting to know each other. The back pockets on my jean won’t hold a man’s hand and after all his trying he just pulled it out leaving his thumb and kind of cupped my cheek.

We grabbed bags filling them with different kinds of taffy; me on one side and RJ in the sugar-free section. I never knew there were so many different combinations of Taffy. A hundred and seven dollars in taffy.

When we walked out his hand found my upper right cheek carrying what must have been at least, twenty pounds of overpriced Taffy on his left shoulder; and my hand slid around the waistband of his pants hooking my thumb in a belt loop. He kissed the top of my head as we walked to the Ice Cream Stand.

“She won’t let us eat this in the car.” I told him sitting down.

We sat in the grass, knees to knees. I knew what he was thinking; what was always in the back of his mind. “You know, I was there, too?” I don’t know why I said it. Yes, I do.

I did close my eyes, didn’t actually see what he did, but he knew exactly what I was talking about. He licked on his ice cream and pulled mine over to sample it. I watched him look around, people and kids, people with dogs; it was like he deflated.

He turned, pointing a finger, “That could be our room, if you want to stay the night, Niki. And I don’t want to talk about him.”

I thought and wondered; our room. What did that mean? This would be a big step, he seemed to be honest, would he give me and would I take from him? I couldn’t.

“Nathan, or Robby?” I asked sucking at the end of my waffle cone.

“That’s fuckin mean, Niki.” And I could tell. “Let’s go.”

“Nikita, start the car.”

“Voice recognition authenticated.” And the car started.

We were coming down the west side of the pass when Nikita asked, “Mr. Chancellor?” And Ryan said yes. And Nikita cut the engine.

“What the fuck, Baby? Start the car. You bitch; start the fuckin car.”

“Voice recognition; not authentic.”

“Nikita?” I asked with a raised voice and her avatar looked at me.

“Voice recognition authenticated.”

“You hacked my tablet, didn’t you?” And her arms rested folded across her chest.

“Google Dean Adam Cooper.” And her screen went dark.

Ryan and I looked back and forth at each other waiting. She appeared on a white screen, looked back and forth between us, and I put my hand up high on RJ’s thigh because he was going to do something stupid.

“Nikita? Google RJ Chancellor.” And the screen went dark again.

Dean really did bond with this car, spent time getting to know her as she did him, and she wanted RJ to be Dean. Everything told her he wasn’t but she wanted Dean and logic was pushed aside as Nikita reunited with the one she had missed for over six hundred days.

Ryan’s POV:

“Am I yours, now?” She asked looking at me.

“You’re mine.” Niki said.

“Understood. Voice recognition authenticated.”

I realized Nikita was state of the art, three years ago, and AI was incorporated into her programming. “Baby?” And she looked at me.

“Voice recognition authenticated. RJ. Ryan James Chancellor, III.” 

“Will you start the car, please?” And it started.

I reached down picking Niki’s hand from my lap and kissed it. The car shut off and the screen went black. We waited only using eyes and head motions not knowing if she could still hear or see us. This car was Dean Cooper’s and he was all that in the day.

The glass was special; couldn’t be broken with a sledgehammer. Car security included an electrical charge to the metal of her body. It was airtight and basically ‘The Beast’ in a sixty-five Mustangs Body. We waited, wondering, if she was going to suffocate us, maybe start the car only to drive us off a cliff, or electrocute us.

The screen came back on and Nikita looked at me shaking her head back and forth. “You are not an honorable man. You are married and a married man shouldn’t hold her hand or kiss it. What do you have to say for yourself? And you?” As she looked at Niki.

I started, “There are times when a man has to tell the truth; be honest about what’s on my mind. Yes, I love another but, I love another, as well; it doesn’t mean I love one more. She knows I can’t be hers and I know she’d never try; there’s just this place in me that only she can fill; can you blame me, Nikita?”

‘So you’re saying, you’re, Torn Between Two Lovers? Nice try.” And she looked at Niki.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“What do you have to say about yourself, Nikita? What do you see when you look at him? He passed your facial and voice recognition, fuckin fingerprints. Did RJ trick a computer?” and she folded her arms.

“Can you two settle this later? Can you start the fuckin car or not?” And it started.

I kept looking over at her; the avatar. The color had come back on the screen again. “Can you put the playlist back on, Baby?” And the car filled.

“Why am I here?” She asked.

“The Stud.” And my eyes got wet as the music got softer. “A movie is being made about his short life. He was special.” Niki told her.

“Why am I here?  Why was I offline?”

“Your battery went dead; I didn’t know, Nikita.” Niki assured.

“They put me in a box and brought me here. Why?”

“Car. You are the costar.” I told her.

“Nikita? You need to show me something. The day you and Dean drove from Rugby to Bismarck; what happened?” Niki asked close to tears.

“He disengaged the speed parameters again. He was sad.”

“Show me.” Niki asked and Dean, fuckin, Cooper, came up on the screen.

He totally understood this car, didn’t see her as a computer, saw her as something he made friends with, and he trusted her.

We watched the vitals of the car, speed, temp of all the fluids, RPM’s, tire pressure, and a whole bunch of other shit run banner like across the top of the screen. Dean’s hair was blowing because the window was down. “I cannot maintain this speed. Emergency protocol engaged.” And I watched the top of the screen slow from one hundred and forty-one miles an hour.

“You shut him down?” Niki asked.

“Primary function. Protect, Stud, at any cost. Emergency Protocol.”

“Resume, Nikita.”

When she hit over-ride, Dean and Nikita hit the brakes at the same time and in the forward camera, all you could see was dust. “Nikita, Offline; Cooper 2 4 6. Initiate”

“Primary function, Emergency Protocol over-ride.”

The screen showed his face, the tears that formed in his eyes corners; I felt them in my own. “Shut yourself off, Nikita, please.” He begged.

Now I had to pull over. I watched him when she refused. I remembered what it was like when I was his age never knowing what it would have been like, Dying. “Emergency Protocol Over-ride.”

Dean broke down. Niki and I watched as a kid eighteen years old, a legend, cried. It made me think about what I’d been through, what he’d been through, and what every soul we’d helped had been through.

I watched as he pulled himself together, possessed the wetness from his eyes, ran his hand under his nose, “Start the engine, Baby.”

“Emergency Protocols Engaged.”

“Understood.”

He talked to her like a friend, shared feelings, told her what was in his mind. It was so… raw, personal, that I won’t go into it.

I wouldn’t say the day was wasted, my schedule was slammed, but what I gained today was priceless. It molded everything I did in the studio, my voice, I just felt different.

From your Author:

I have said and will again; thank you to authors who post in a timely manner. I saw today Bjorn allowed an Author to post two chapters on the same day. Bravo!!! I might have started this; maybe not? I never want you to wait for the next installment and I tried to post every other day but, shit happens.

I like to read and will sometimes wait because I don’t want to go back two or three months to catch up. I feel the need, Ryan’s, Renegade, Readers. The last week has been hard. I won’t respond to you and will share in my Authors notes in the Next Chapter of ‘The Bug.’ 

RJC