Logs:Fast

Fast
Dramatis Personae Ion, Sam, Steve	2020-05-15 "You ready to trust this man with your girl just like that?"
Location <NYC> Harlem
Harlem's gritty reputation has become less and less earned over the past decade or so as gentrification has set in. Its reputation as a hub of jazz and culture, however, is still very much earned -- throughout the years Harlem has been renowned for its contributions to music, from its swing dancing and jazz culture back when speakeasies were prevalent to the many hip-hop artists with Harlem roots in modern day. New York City has skipped spring and gone straight to summer, at least today. Yesterday's high temperature is today's low, climbing to the high 80s by afternoon. Apartment windows have been thrown upon and residents are sheltering in the shade. There's hip-hop music blaring out of an unidentifiable basement storefront, cars double-parked willy-nilly on this side street today. Steve is walking up the block from the subway station, greeting his neighbors when he passes and generally looking at peace with his life at the moment. He's wearing a black t-shirt, blue jeans, and black combat boots, his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, and his ice-blue eyes are scanning the street around him endlessly. Several scabbed-over cuts line his forearms and the back of his left hand, some neatly stitched and most looking nearly healed. Into Steve's peace comes a low growl, quiet at first but steadily growing into a rumble -- never quite the intrusive ROAR of some bikes but a distinctly felt thrum all the same by the time a sleek and heavily modified black and silver Harley chopper (its vanity plate reads WIRED) zooms by him. Hooks a sharp u-turn in the narrow street, pulls back up to the curb by Steve. "Yooooo shit." Ion is in jeans, heavy boots, his Mongrels cut open over a plain white tee; his smile is broad and bright as he leans over to offer one fist out toward Steve. "I heard what you done for my boy the other day with them ugly-ass robo-pigs remind me I get you some beers, huh? Something better, maybe? What you need?" He's looking Steve up and down ASSESSINGLY. "You say a word, I get it." Steve turns to the sound of the engine, a smile spreading across his face. "Hey there." He bumps Ion's fist back. "Flicker should get the credit for that, but since he probably won't want to get beers with you, I will be happy to when it is convenient." He looks Ion's bike up and down. "That is an amazing machine there. I shouldn't be surprised, you have your own shop and everything." "Day our good Doctor get some beer with me I know the world's gone fucked." The tap of Ion's fist comes with a small and harmless static-jolt of energy. He rests his hand back on The handlebar of his bike, patting it fondly. "Yeah, she a good one. Solid. Gotta be, what I put her through. You ride? Bike, see, I can get you bike too. Lots of bike, we got." Steve's smile brightens. "It's good to know that's at least one way the world hasn't yet -- gone!" He nods eagerly. "Yeah, I ride. Or did, way back. Just doesn't seem that long ago to me." He blinks at the offer. "That's -- well, I do miss having a bike, but I wasn't asking you for one. Goodness, you have to run a business and I have to pay rent." "Yeah? You into the classic-classics then. Well!" Ion finally kills his engine, the street still lively with music and conversation but relatively quiet here in the immediate space now in comparison. "-- guess it don't feel like no classic to you, what you ride then? Liberator? You crazy-ass look like a M1 kind of guy." His brows hike, his grin sharpening as he looks from Steve down to the bike below him. "When was the last time you ride then? Please what fun you having these days? You know, we in the future, bikes they go a lot faster? Them sharkpups, they got a couple that fly for real for real. And I roll up here like hey any-damn-thing you want you say a word you like nah, I'm good one beer thas it someone ever tell you it pay sometimes to not be half so polite? C'mere," he's hopping down off his bike, reaching already for Steve's arm to tug him over, "get on." "I only really know the classics, but the modern ones are impressive from what I've see!" Steve warms to the topic, grinning. "Liberator was my regular bike, usually with some experimental mods. I'd ride whatever I could get hold of, though -- borrowed from allies or stolen from the Nazis -- including the M1, which is a remarkable machine. I ah..." He runs a hand through his hair, his smile turning sheepish. "...burned through a lot of equipment." He frowns. "Oh, I haven't ridden since -- well, my last mission in the war, so that's a year and some change now." His pupils dilate slightly and his breathing comes quicker, but his smile comes again easily enough. "Yeah, I saw Shane's -- hoverbike? She's a beauty." He doesn't flinch away from Ion's grasp, expecting the shock from the contact, does not hesitate to mount the bike, either, his smile going wider. "You know, my ma did tell me, but then she also swatted me anytime I was impolite." He flexes his right hand experimentally around the handlebar beneath it, wincing, though he does manage it. "I have some fun, now and then." Then, looking at Ion with a glint of excitement in his eyes. "How fast?" The door to one of the crumbling adjacent brownstones opens up, disgorging onto the stoop one Sam Wilson, dressed in slacks and button-down from the day's work (though his top buttons have been undone in concession to being comfortably at home now) and a cold beer in hand, phone in the other as he thumbs through his texts. His brows are raised, a small smile pulling at one side of his mouth. "Didn't know you rode." He leans up against the railing at one side of the stairs, eying the motorcycle. Eying Steve. "You ready to trust this man with your girl just like that?" There's a light amusement in his words, beer tipped out towards Ion. "That's bold." "Your ma she sound like a wise woman. Woulda got along with mine, I bet." The shock is there -- small, again. Brief. There is no key in the ignition -- no visible place for a key, in fact. Ion's fingers trail lightly against its dash, which comes back to life before he climbs back on behind Steve. "Trust got nothing to do with it. We 'bout to have a real good time, you gonna see." His laugh is a deep rumble of a thing, too. "Fast." Steve waves to Sam with a bright boyish excitement that he hasn't shown often these last few months. "Sure did! Never anything this fancy, but other than all the -- computer parts, seems the principle's the same." He looks over the instrument panel, wiggles the clutch experimentally with his left hand and the brake with his right, tests the pedals lightly, too. That's all the reviewing he does before shifting the bike into gear and twisting the throttle -- none too lightly. The souped-up engine thrums loudly and the chopper surges forward, leaving a smoking layer of rubber beneath its rear wheel. Steve's eyes go wide-wide, and he only narrowly avoids the car in front of them to zip down the wrong side of the street, which is admittedly less cluttered with casually stopped cars. Just then, a Ford Focus turns onto the block into his lane -- their proper lane. Steve shifts into the next gear and cranks the throttle all the way up to clear the parked cars on his right before swerving to avoid the oncoming one (whose driver is frantically slamming on their brakes). This works, perhaps better than he had expected. His whoop dopplers dramatically as they blaze past Sam, the bike still accelerating steeply all the while -- directly into the corner of the block. (Over on the stoop, Sam has raised his phone. His eyebrows, too. Below his breath there's a very quiet string of curses.) Ion's laugh has turned gleeful. His smile is bright and if he is at all alarmed by any of this, it doesn't show in the grin that splits his face wide. "What I tell you, huh? Fast!" His hand is slapping his own thigh, delighted as they barrel towards the oncoming truck. His other hand rests lightly on the grabrail beside him, shoulders shaking with amusement as they hurtle towards the corner. He whoops louder, bright and amused, as the building approaches. "Boy, you having fun y--" The words cut off into a slam. A heavy jolt, a searing shock of pain. Everything goes black. For the space of a heartbeat (and the space of an eternity) there's only a crackling -- searing -- lightningstorm of blinding jolting nothingness -- -- and then the world spits them back out again, Ion's laughter and the thrum of the bike both still rumbling through Steve. Harlem has shifted and gone -- instead there's the skeletal underside of a bridge, the lapping dirty water of a riverbank beside them. "{Damn, friend, you ready ready. People say I have no chill but you like go go go.}" There's a bright approval in Ion's cheerful Spanish. He claps Steve on the back. "So you wanna go again then, yeah?" Steve comes to breathing hard, his hands gripping the handlebars hard, canted in the direction he had intended to turn to avoid the wall they clearly did not actually crash into. He twists around, his gaze wild-eyed and bewildered. Whether understanding dawns or not, his smile returns at the slap of Ion's hand on his back. "You bet I do." This time, he crosses himself first.