Futurism logo

Enliven (Part I)

What would you do with a hot car, a beautiful woman, and the chance to fight for justice in a world gone even more wrong?

By Skyler SaundersPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
Like
The Miracle Whip

Clouds moved out of the way on this fine morn. Sunshine, like truth being told, illuminated the city of Wilmington, Delaware. Fielder Jakes, teak-colored, sprayed sheen on his curly Afro. He straightened his tie and brushed off his shoulders. His blue business suit spoke of power, achievement, and winning. His red power tie said, “I’ve got this” before he could even open his mouth. With the matching cufflinks in place to make his outfit complete, he headed down from his loft apartment space and entered the garage level. There he saw her. A cocaine white dream with over a thousand horses, sheltered from the recent August Summer rain. The vehicle was a romantic art masterpiece. Its shimmering hardtop belied the fact that it could be converted to allow the wind into the two seater. The quadruple exhaust pipes gleamed like silverware. The body sloped and curved and made jarring lines and muscle like cuts in the frame. All Jakes had to do now was to offer some credits.

“In order to enter this vehicle, you must donate to the Bedpan Cleaning Society.”

Jakes rolled his eyes and sighed. He flashed his smartwatch in front of the monitor. With credits accepted, he again waved his watch, this time over the door handle. The doors opened like dresser drawers, Jakes had to step inside the space and allow them to retract toward him.

"Before you operate this vehicle, you must donate to the Sweet Sacrifice Fund.”

This rankled Jakes, yet he acquiesced. When the machine accepted his credits, the engine roared like a tiger. When it at last did make its way out of the garage, Jakes stopped.

“To exit from the garage, you must pay a fee to the Community Service Corps.”

Jakes paid the fee and flew out from the garage with extreme precision and might. Those thousand horses stampeded when he just stepped on the accelerator lightly. He stopped to fuel up his white vessel.

On his way to his position as credit card company CEO of Jakes Cards he stopped at a red light. A lime green machine with horsepower that matched Jakes white American stallion, pulled up beside him. A blonde woman with blue-grey eyes and straight lines in her cheekbone structure that made her look more like a sculpture than anything, sent him a message through the CarType system. It was set up so that strangers in vehicles could communicate without yelling from their windows within proximity.

“A driver wants to speak with you. In order to talk with this person, you must contribute to the Subnormal Persons Association.” Jakes accepted.

“I don’t want to race you. But I could.”

Jakes raised his eyebrows and retorted: “To enliven the day, yes, I guess we could shoot down a quarter mile. But I don’t think that would be prudent. What’s your name?” he voiced all of this.

“Yania. Yours?”

“Fielder.”

Then Jakes received a message. “To continue with this conversation, you must pay The Mothers of Suffering Hospital.” The amount didn’t matter. He could afford it, the principle of it bothered him, in a mighty way. Fielder just sent a verbal text message to Yania and hung up. He included his number.

“I’ll call you.” Yania said and then sped off like a flash of green paint issuing from a spraycan. He had not noticed the gray sedan that perched behind him.

Fielder smiled. The image of Yania stayed in his mind once he reached his office. There, a note flashed on his desk in digital letters.

“Sir, your car will be impounded in five, four, three, two…”

“No, no, no, no….” Fielder said rushing down to the parking garage at his place of business.

Some police officers had surrounded his car and crawled likes ants, snapping photographs, analyzing the vehicle with computer screens.

“Mr. Jakes, we hate to take you away from your work.” Officer Tisdale asked.

“Yes, thank you. What's going on with all of this, sir?”

“We’ve shown that you’ve been hit by a defrauder.”

“Fraud?” He had of course handled within his company credit card fraud, but this was something completely different.

“We’ve noticed that while you were stopped at the red light, a vehicle had rested on the opposite side of the green one with whom we suspect you were communicating. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“We were considering impounding your vehicle as a safety precaution, but it seems that we can go after this person and you can have your car, Mr. Jakes. It was this pretty lady that actually spotted the car. She may have saved you damage in the long run, sir. You are free to go. Oh, you’ll just have to help the Needy Toothless Association before you leave.”

Yania approached Jakes’ vehicle in her green dream machine.

Jakes talked on the voice messaging system. “You saved me. I appreciate that. What can I do to repay you?” he voiced into her message center.

“You could ask a lady out on a date….” she responded.

“We can talk over dinner, say around, eight tonight?”

“Let’s do it.”

“In order to continue this call, you must credit the Helpless and Pathetic League.”

Jakes yanked the payment system out of his car and sped away.

“You know that the cops won’t like that,” Yania said through the somewhat dismantled system.

“While they’re looking for the fraudster, they’ll think less of the man behind the roadster.”

“Touché.”

“I think that you’ll be able to get rid of the network, too.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“You helped them, didn’t you?”

“Yes….”

“Just try it. Shrug off the whole Mooch System for once. Do it.”

Yania took hold of the car system and disassembled it. “Alright, how am I going to park my car, get into my house….?”

“Look, come to the Riverfront. We can still walk by the water for free, can’t we?”

Yania obliged and met Jakes at by the Brandywine and Christina Rivers.

“We can put an end to this whole thing,” Jakes said, his hand holding Yania’s.

“Soon.”

“The fight is ours.”

“Absolutely.” They stared at the moonlight on the river.

science fiction
Like

About the Creator

Skyler Saunders

Cash App: $SkylerSaunders1

PayPal: paypal.me/SkylerSaunders

Join Skyler’s 100 Club by contributing $100 a month to the page. Thank you!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.