GanySpeed
Kenton Erwin
I wake up alone, no memories, head throbbing, behind the wheel of a very fast car, speedometer reading 210kph, rocketing along on autodrive, middle of nowhere, bat out of hell. If you haven’t awakened into this situation, you haven’t lived.
Jupiter fills the sky, casting ruddy light on Gany’s brownish-gray surface. At least that’s normal. Car air supply eighty percent, so I’ll likely die from a crash, not asphyxiation.
My arm hurts. Look down. Hypodermic needle in my shoulder! Pull it out. A stimulant? I was unconscious?
“Faster!” cries a voice in my head, coming from an earpiece. “You can’t deliver to the launch at this rate. Speed it up! If you fail, your family dies.”
Family? Shit! I see the self-driving max speed is 210. Search for manual override. Find it. “It wants a goddam code!” I yell.
With no hesitation, my tormentor replies, “8-H-2-S-K-E.” I repeat that to the car, grab the wheel, and mash the accelerator pedal down.
220. 250…253… and that’s all this car can do on flat straightaway.
In our light gravity, the car launches off the roadway at every little bump.
“Are you there?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you doing with me?”
“I borrowed you. Do what I say, and you’ll be OK.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You and your family will die. Horribly.”
“OK,” I say. “What do I do?”
“Drive like hell.”
I’m carving a slalom path around the slower cars that appear and flash behind me in seconds. Faster, faster, I will the car.
Why me? I touch my temple. Bleeding. Ouch! Someone hit me there.
Whack! Object slams against windshield. Right in my face! The plexi cracks. Dark tumbling thing. Bird? I swerve, too late. Almost lose control. Should be dead already.
Wait! We don’t have birds. Oh, yeah. Corporate introduced small pterodactyls for rodent control. More efficient than raptors. How do I know that? How did it escape the domes? Wait - no animal could breathe out there, or fly. Had to be something else. Road debris?
More cars on road! Getting closer to Epigeus. I don’t live there, do I? No. Big crater city like that has many cars. Shit!
“Slow to 180; prepare to exit right.”
“OK. What do I call you?”
“Ed.”
I careen onto Route 9 on two left wheels. Head pounding. Thirsty.
Family? Am I married? Would be nice, but I don’t recall …
Alarm! BEEP BEEP. Red warning light. Voice from car’s radio: “CITIZEN, STOP YOUR CAR IMMEDIATELY. AWAIT OFFICER. VIOLATION.”
“Uh, help? Ed? Hello?”
“Keep driving!’ he says. “I’ll get rid of the officer.”
A jumpheli converges from the left, an illuminated demon making huge grasshopper leaps with rocket assist, coming in over domed fields of engineered beans and corn, grown under huge frames supporting both lighting and irrigation. Wait! I invented that system!
The heli gets close. Lands on road, its wheels complaining at the sudden contact. It’s in car mode now, accelerating to draw even. Guns bristle from its nose and sides.
“CITIZEN! YOU MUST …” its loudspeaker begins, just as an orange ray lances down from above, tearing into the heli. It explodes. Parts rain around me. Gouging chunks up. A car behind me strikes a large piece and catapults into a deadly roll.
Accelerating. 253kph. Fewer cars now.
“Did we get him?” asks Ed.
I can’t breathe. “’We’ didn’t get him, asshole. ‘You’ got him.”
Try to think. Only eighty-one km to the launch center.
Use car to call up planetwideweb. Blocked!
“Ed, why do you need me? And I don’t think I have a family!”
“Yes, you do.” Video of a beautiful woman and two kids pops up; she’s kneeling in a kiddie pool, with high, slow waves, teaching a kid the backstroke. The other kid and I watch from the edge of the pool. Sure looks like we’re a family.
“I don’t remember a family.”
“Your housebot took that video; it’s Liza, Toot-toot, and Sammy. You have amnesia from your head injury.” Another video comes up: Her wrists and ankles are cuffed to a chair, as are the two kids next to her. Blood runs down her face. Kids crying. Liza pleading, “Just do what they say, Jonathan, OK? Save us!”
I’m confused. A woman that pretty wouldn’t marry me.
My ass goes brrrppp; my seat’s squishy. Diarrhea? Really?
Thirsty; my head’s killing me.
Think, idiot, think; why do they need me? An android could do whatever I could do.
It’s hard to avoid slower cars at this speed. My ass and head throbbing.
I notice a bundle in the back seat. A series of curves approaches. I slow the car to 210kph, engage autopilot, and twist to examine the bundle. My movement unleashes a torrent of poop smell, my butt burning from the acid.
I remove black fabric and find bricks of some dark substance, plastic-wrapped, with little cables plugged into each one, running into a motherboard.
A bomb!
Throw it outside? Maybe, but moving it might trigger it. Disable it? But how?
Car pitches into curves, tires complaining. Forget the bomb.
My wrist tracker! Kidnapper left it on my arm: Ancient model; counts steps, sleep. But, has other functions. Accessing recent messages: My name is Jonathan. I live in Adad, a city in one of Gany’s larger craters. I seem to be single. Sorry, Liza—I knew it, you AI fraud. Oh, shit, my doctors say I’m sick; too many years’ radiation from working in the fields in defective suits. I’m a VP at Agriputics, soon to retire. Soon to die, apparently. Headaches, thirst, and diarrhea, common signs of radiation poisoning.
Query: What ship launches within the next hour? The Canaveral Jane, bound for Callisto and Europa, then return in five days. Cargo? Soybeans, corn, farming equipment, plus a family of four. Ship owner? Agriputics.
“This is a farming moon,” I announce, finding more memories. “There are only two large corporations here. Agriputics and Moonsantoo Interplanetary. Everything else is supportive to them. You’re not with Agriputics—if you were, you wouldn’t need to kidnap me to deliver to them…”
“Talk less. Drive faster.”
“So you’re with Moonsantoo, or else you’re fighting both companies, like a terrorist.”
Silence.
Use my tracker to log into Agriputics C-suite server; hard to do while driving so fast; Brrrpp—more diahrrea? GODDAM IT! So thirsty. Searching… the family aboard is my CEO, her spouse, and kids.
Ah. So my tormentor wants me to blow up my own company’s ship, and kill me and my CEO in the process. I scan the news: There’s no mention of terrorism on Gany. Think. Moonsantoo’s profits are down. But … really?
Tear off earpiece. Stick it under my wet butt. Use my tracker for emergency call to Agriputics switchboard. Wait forever for transfer to CEO Admin. Voice recognition. Describe kidnapping, unconsciousness, thirst, diarrhea, dead cop, bombing our ship. They understand. Verifying, researching. Continue driving, but slow down, they say. We’ll call off the cops chasing you. Hold tight, they say.
Waiting. Waiting. Easier to drive slower, but so thirsty. Head throbbing.
Office calls back. “We confirm Moonsantoo threat. Instructions: Enter spaceport at Gate Seven. It’ll be open, unguarded. Park at this location (see map, attached). Police on their way. No SCABA in your car? Take deep breath, run like hell across lot to unmarked silver truck—that’s us. Will have a nurse waiting. Will launch ship early, unscheduled so your bomber won’t know, to get it out of there before your bomb arrives. Will take you to hospital if you don’t blow yourself up first. Good luck.”
I laugh as I see where I’m told to park: Right in front of Moonsantoo’s spaceport headquarters--all eight floors of it. Agriputics has a sense of humor: I believe this is yours?
Put the earpiece back on just as bomber tells me to drive fast up to the ship and park at launch tower. I say, “OK. I’m three klicks out.”
Our ship rises majestically from the surface, early. A silver needle pushed by fire. A safe launch. Gany-gone!
I park in front of Moonsantoo’s doors. Inhale a huge breath. Run to silver truck. Strong nurse pulls me into its tiny airlock. Truck speeds away. As we exit, in the distance a swarm of police cars approaches.
I smile because my hand is wrapped around the car’s key fob. Oops, no one’s driving that car anywhere. I’m still wearing the earpiece. I tell the bomber, “OK, Ed, I’m at the ship! Now what?” In just seconds, a massive fireball rises from the Moonsantoo building. Then the blast wave hits and rocks us hard. “Woohoo!” yells our driver. While toweling off my dirty stinking ass, with that IT gal across from me stifling a laugh, I think what a day this is turning out to be.
Jupiter fills the sky, casting ruddy light on Gany’s brownish-gray surface. At least that’s normal. Car air supply eighty percent, so I’ll likely die from a crash, not asphyxiation.
My arm hurts. Look down. Hypodermic needle in my shoulder! Pull it out. A stimulant? I was unconscious?
“Faster!” cries a voice in my head, coming from an earpiece. “You can’t deliver to the launch at this rate. Speed it up! If you fail, your family dies.”
Family? Shit! I see the self-driving max speed is 210. Search for manual override. Find it. “It wants a goddam code!” I yell.
With no hesitation, my tormentor replies, “8-H-2-S-K-E.” I repeat that to the car, grab the wheel, and mash the accelerator pedal down.
220. 250…253… and that’s all this car can do on flat straightaway.
In our light gravity, the car launches off the roadway at every little bump.
“Are you there?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you doing with me?”
“I borrowed you. Do what I say, and you’ll be OK.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You and your family will die. Horribly.”
“OK,” I say. “What do I do?”
“Drive like hell.”
I’m carving a slalom path around the slower cars that appear and flash behind me in seconds. Faster, faster, I will the car.
Why me? I touch my temple. Bleeding. Ouch! Someone hit me there.
Whack! Object slams against windshield. Right in my face! The plexi cracks. Dark tumbling thing. Bird? I swerve, too late. Almost lose control. Should be dead already.
Wait! We don’t have birds. Oh, yeah. Corporate introduced small pterodactyls for rodent control. More efficient than raptors. How do I know that? How did it escape the domes? Wait - no animal could breathe out there, or fly. Had to be something else. Road debris?
More cars on road! Getting closer to Epigeus. I don’t live there, do I? No. Big crater city like that has many cars. Shit!
“Slow to 180; prepare to exit right.”
“OK. What do I call you?”
“Ed.”
I careen onto Route 9 on two left wheels. Head pounding. Thirsty.
Family? Am I married? Would be nice, but I don’t recall …
Alarm! BEEP BEEP. Red warning light. Voice from car’s radio: “CITIZEN, STOP YOUR CAR IMMEDIATELY. AWAIT OFFICER. VIOLATION.”
“Uh, help? Ed? Hello?”
“Keep driving!’ he says. “I’ll get rid of the officer.”
A jumpheli converges from the left, an illuminated demon making huge grasshopper leaps with rocket assist, coming in over domed fields of engineered beans and corn, grown under huge frames supporting both lighting and irrigation. Wait! I invented that system!
The heli gets close. Lands on road, its wheels complaining at the sudden contact. It’s in car mode now, accelerating to draw even. Guns bristle from its nose and sides.
“CITIZEN! YOU MUST …” its loudspeaker begins, just as an orange ray lances down from above, tearing into the heli. It explodes. Parts rain around me. Gouging chunks up. A car behind me strikes a large piece and catapults into a deadly roll.
Accelerating. 253kph. Fewer cars now.
“Did we get him?” asks Ed.
I can’t breathe. “’We’ didn’t get him, asshole. ‘You’ got him.”
Try to think. Only eighty-one km to the launch center.
Use car to call up planetwideweb. Blocked!
“Ed, why do you need me? And I don’t think I have a family!”
“Yes, you do.” Video of a beautiful woman and two kids pops up; she’s kneeling in a kiddie pool, with high, slow waves, teaching a kid the backstroke. The other kid and I watch from the edge of the pool. Sure looks like we’re a family.
“I don’t remember a family.”
“Your housebot took that video; it’s Liza, Toot-toot, and Sammy. You have amnesia from your head injury.” Another video comes up: Her wrists and ankles are cuffed to a chair, as are the two kids next to her. Blood runs down her face. Kids crying. Liza pleading, “Just do what they say, Jonathan, OK? Save us!”
I’m confused. A woman that pretty wouldn’t marry me.
My ass goes brrrppp; my seat’s squishy. Diarrhea? Really?
Thirsty; my head’s killing me.
Think, idiot, think; why do they need me? An android could do whatever I could do.
It’s hard to avoid slower cars at this speed. My ass and head throbbing.
I notice a bundle in the back seat. A series of curves approaches. I slow the car to 210kph, engage autopilot, and twist to examine the bundle. My movement unleashes a torrent of poop smell, my butt burning from the acid.
I remove black fabric and find bricks of some dark substance, plastic-wrapped, with little cables plugged into each one, running into a motherboard.
A bomb!
Throw it outside? Maybe, but moving it might trigger it. Disable it? But how?
Car pitches into curves, tires complaining. Forget the bomb.
My wrist tracker! Kidnapper left it on my arm: Ancient model; counts steps, sleep. But, has other functions. Accessing recent messages: My name is Jonathan. I live in Adad, a city in one of Gany’s larger craters. I seem to be single. Sorry, Liza—I knew it, you AI fraud. Oh, shit, my doctors say I’m sick; too many years’ radiation from working in the fields in defective suits. I’m a VP at Agriputics, soon to retire. Soon to die, apparently. Headaches, thirst, and diarrhea, common signs of radiation poisoning.
Query: What ship launches within the next hour? The Canaveral Jane, bound for Callisto and Europa, then return in five days. Cargo? Soybeans, corn, farming equipment, plus a family of four. Ship owner? Agriputics.
“This is a farming moon,” I announce, finding more memories. “There are only two large corporations here. Agriputics and Moonsantoo Interplanetary. Everything else is supportive to them. You’re not with Agriputics—if you were, you wouldn’t need to kidnap me to deliver to them…”
“Talk less. Drive faster.”
“So you’re with Moonsantoo, or else you’re fighting both companies, like a terrorist.”
Silence.
Use my tracker to log into Agriputics C-suite server; hard to do while driving so fast; Brrrpp—more diahrrea? GODDAM IT! So thirsty. Searching… the family aboard is my CEO, her spouse, and kids.
Ah. So my tormentor wants me to blow up my own company’s ship, and kill me and my CEO in the process. I scan the news: There’s no mention of terrorism on Gany. Think. Moonsantoo’s profits are down. But … really?
Tear off earpiece. Stick it under my wet butt. Use my tracker for emergency call to Agriputics switchboard. Wait forever for transfer to CEO Admin. Voice recognition. Describe kidnapping, unconsciousness, thirst, diarrhea, dead cop, bombing our ship. They understand. Verifying, researching. Continue driving, but slow down, they say. We’ll call off the cops chasing you. Hold tight, they say.
Waiting. Waiting. Easier to drive slower, but so thirsty. Head throbbing.
Office calls back. “We confirm Moonsantoo threat. Instructions: Enter spaceport at Gate Seven. It’ll be open, unguarded. Park at this location (see map, attached). Police on their way. No SCABA in your car? Take deep breath, run like hell across lot to unmarked silver truck—that’s us. Will have a nurse waiting. Will launch ship early, unscheduled so your bomber won’t know, to get it out of there before your bomb arrives. Will take you to hospital if you don’t blow yourself up first. Good luck.”
I laugh as I see where I’m told to park: Right in front of Moonsantoo’s spaceport headquarters--all eight floors of it. Agriputics has a sense of humor: I believe this is yours?
Put the earpiece back on just as bomber tells me to drive fast up to the ship and park at launch tower. I say, “OK. I’m three klicks out.”
Our ship rises majestically from the surface, early. A silver needle pushed by fire. A safe launch. Gany-gone!
I park in front of Moonsantoo’s doors. Inhale a huge breath. Run to silver truck. Strong nurse pulls me into its tiny airlock. Truck speeds away. As we exit, in the distance a swarm of police cars approaches.
I smile because my hand is wrapped around the car’s key fob. Oops, no one’s driving that car anywhere. I’m still wearing the earpiece. I tell the bomber, “OK, Ed, I’m at the ship! Now what?” In just seconds, a massive fireball rises from the Moonsantoo building. Then the blast wave hits and rocks us hard. “Woohoo!” yells our driver. While toweling off my dirty stinking ass, with that IT gal across from me stifling a laugh, I think what a day this is turning out to be.
Kenton Erwin's had eight short stories and three nonfiction books published. Recently, one of his stories was accepted by Amazing Stories. In 2025 he won First Place in the inaugural Speckled Spectrum Awards, and in 2024 he won Punk Noir's "A Good Death" writing competition. His story "Vbad Vblood" was the featured story in the literary horror journal Suburban Witchcraft. He is active in the Speculative Fiction Writers Association and lives in Richfield, WA, USA.