Arrival: Chapter 1.14 (Kayla)

As Kayla came to the hangar and saw people mounting on the bus, she gave her ID and was given a ticket, “Bus two,” the guard said. 

“Oh, I have my own ride, that’s fine right?”

“So long as you get there.” The guard shrugged. 

Kayla grinned from ear to ear. She had been practicing that expression a lot so she knew it would look right.

Steve the driver was waiting outside, cleaning her father’s brand new Porsche, removing the empty food wrappers of Kayla’s road snacks, and trying to remove the fur from the seats.

“We can take the Porsche,” she declared. 

“What about the bus, young master?”

“First off it’s miss now, second busses suck, they’re crowded and it probably smells like dirty unwashed teen B.O. in there!” Kayla answered, “Move aside, I’m driving.”

“But—” Kayla snatched the keys from his hands. “Sir—”

“It’s Miss Kayla now,” She said, practically shoving him into the backseat. 

Kayla rode along, going only twenty mph above the speed limit, and dodging around slower cars, the wind gently caressing her fur. In the backseat Steve kept admonishing her for her careless driving, getting more and more annoying by the second. It wasn’t her fault he drove like an old granny heading to church! What’s the point of a stealing, ahem, borrowing ‘daddy’s’ Porsche if she couldn’t even attempt to crash it. 

As she came to a red light, another sleek sports car smoothly slid into place next to hers, a model she didn’t recognize, certainly nothing available on the market. Inside she spotted a young black boy, he looked at her, she looked at him.

He raised his sunglasses and grinned, making his engine roar a few times.

A Challenge! Kayla had always wanted to do a little bit of street racing, the road was practically deserted anyway! She met his challenge, revving the Porsche’s engine.

In the back the driver recognized what was happening; “Please, no, sir—” Too late. The light turned green and both drivers hit the accelerator as hard as it would go. 

Kayla and the other driver raced through the streets, a long straight line of highway for two miles. Although she pushed the Porsche to maximum performance the boy’s beast of a car beat her. He turned into the Ravenhold lane, much to her surprise and she followed.

They parked in front of the gate of the school, in a little roundabout where cars could turn around if they had to.

The boy came out of the car, giving her a good look at him; a tall  light-skinned black boy, with piercing blue eyes, light brown afro-hair puffed to one side and kept shaven close to the scalp on the other. He wore white pants, a tan sweater and over it a colorful African print jacket. 

The boy sat on the hood of his car grinning at his victory. Kalya hopped out of hers, grinning widely and tail wagging. She barely paid attention to Steve as he came out of the back seat and vomited all over the asphalt. 

“I concede! Your car’s real fast. What kinda car is it?” Kayla asked, looking at it carefully. It had a horse logo but it wasn’t a mustang. 

“It’s a Dongola,” the boy said, full of confidence, an Afrikans accent to his words, “All mainstream tech, thorium powered, the pride of African engineering!”

“Ah, one of those Union cars.” Kayla walked around it, looking it over, “Engineering and mechanics aren’t really my sciences but I can appreciate a beauty in those categories when I see one.”

“And it might be cheating,” the boy admitted, “She’s a top-tier experimental racecar and you have a stock model.”

Kayla let out a good natured laugh.”Definitely cheating.” 

The boy popped open the hood where a micro thorium nuclear reactor laid, Kayla had read about them but never seen one live. “And she’s carbon neutral unlike that gas guzzler.” he then bragged. 

“You sound really proud of her. Work on her yourself?”

“I did! It was my first official job for the bureau of consumer engineering.” He smirked.

“Nice! You from the Union then?” The Union was one of those new countries, an “African technological dictatorship” or something along those lines according to her father’s newspaper headlines, politics weren’t Kayla’s favorite subject. “I’m Kayla by the way. Kayla Walker.” Kayla held out a paw for a shake.

He shook it, “Born and proud! I’m Charles, Charles deKlerk”

Kayla’s eyes widened, “deKlerk? like the deKlerk?” Hector deKlerk was the ultimate ruler of the Union. He fashioned himself the Grand Technocrat or something. 

“Yes,” Charles sighed, “that deKlerk, he’s my father. Now you said you are  Kayla Walker, the Kayla of Walker Pharmaceutical? I’ve read some of your work.” He smiled.

Kayla’s tail wagged again, it was rare anyone outside of the pharmaceutical industry had heard about her! “Really? Of course, of all my projects I’m most proud of my new body!”

“It is quite the achievement, so beautiful and masterly crafted.” Charles answered, evidently flirting a tad, not that Kayla minded. “Shame about the ethics and science board throwing a fit over unsanctioned and illegal chimerization, but fuck them, it’s your body.” 

People had had the absolute gall to have Kayla arrested for “breaking laws on genetic experiments!” Her eyes itched from how much she wanted to roll them. Of course she’d been acquitted from all charges eventually, but the ridiculousness of bioconservatives still gnawed at her. “Exactly! Chimerization laws are meant to protect those chimerized against their will! Ethical, consensual chimerization should be treated like any other body modification.” 

“Damn right!” Charles said, “You know if you ever tire of working for corporate profit and with all that red tape I could put in a good word for you back home.”

Kayla laughed as she thought about her father on his knees begging for her to not leave. They both knew damn well it was Kayla that kept the lights on at Walker Pharmaceuticals, “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Charles looked at the empty road, not one bus anywhere in sight. “Looks like we’re way ahead of the others.”

“Guess that’s what we get for racing… unfashionably early.”

Charles took out his keys, “I reckon we have twenty minutes, want to take her out for a ride?”

“Sure.” The driver returns from rinsing his mouth out and approaches Kayla, “shall I take the car to the garage, sir?’

“Ma’am!” Kayla barked harshly.

Charles gave her the keys. “Sir? He must not have gotten the obvious memo,” he took the passenger seat. 

Kayla happily climbed into the driver’s and adjusted the seat.

Charles buckled down carefully. “Just take her easy, she takes some getting used to.”

“Of course, ” Kayla reassured him, from the look on his face he didn’t believe her. Oh well.

“Well, we’ve crash tested it and the nuclear reactor shouldn’t explode on a crash,” Charles joked.

“Wonderful to know!” Kayla said, before flooring it

Kayla took her out of the cul-de-sac and onto the roads, pushing her to her limit and cruising way faster than any other car on the road. A roadside camera caught them, making a big flash. 

“Well, sorry for the ticket, is that going to get on your license?” Kayla said, slowing down. 

“I have diplomatic immunity.” Charles shrugged, “What are they gonna do about it?”

Kayla laughed heartily. After a moment she pulled into the parking lot of a 7/11 to turn around. 

“I’m starving, want to get snacks?” Charles asked.

“Sure!”

They parked and people immediately came and oohed and ahh-ed at the Dongola, almost certainly the best car these people had ever seen. Charles didn’t seem to think twice about leaving the car there unsupervised so Kayla shrugged and followed him inside.

“You’re the expert, what do you recommend?”

“Well you gotta get a slurpee,” Kayla said, then ranking all of the candy bars and snacks from best to worst. 

“Gotcha!” The two went inside and proceeded to raid the shelves of one of everything, then Charles stopped in front of the hot food counter. “yo what the fuck they have fried chicken and pizza? I thought this was like a place where you get snacks and coffee?”

“Yeah, pizza and fried chicken are important American snacks.”

“Big country,” He shrugged, “guess you need that to keep rolling,” He then brought his massive pile of stuff to the cash register. Looking at the man, “They take credit, right?” he asked.

“They should yeah.” Kayla got her own slurpee and snacks.

Charles took out an ultra-elite black pass credit card, the kind reserved exclusively for stupidly rich people like them; a credit card without any spending limit. 

Kayla grabbed her stuff, “I’m guessing you don’t want to eat this stuff in that beautiful car.”

“It’s a self cleaning smart material interior finish,” Charles said, grinning, “but I’m driving.”

Kayla gave him a sloppy, loose salute, “Roger that.”

Charles drove more reasonably, if still fast, back to Ravenhold, the buses had yet to catch up. So the two of them sat in the car, roof open, as Kayla got Charles to try all manners of American snacks; sweet and salty.

“Y’know, America’s pretty chill so far.” Charles mused, a fried chicken drumstick in one hand, slurpee in the other.

“We’ll see how long that opinion lasts.” Kayla laughed, “Though I don’t know much about what daily life in the Union is like… mostly only read about the tech on the news.”

“I mean I dunno, how often does politics come into people’s life, like y’all vote what once every few years and that’s it?” Charles said. “People in the Union; they work, they live, they socialize, and all that stuff you do, we just have a different system of making big decisions based on competency rather than popular support.”

“Well I’d love to visit sometime and check it out.” Kayla smiled. 

“I’d give you the VIP experience, you can even crash at my place, just don’t expect a palace, we turned those into civil service offices.” Charles joked.

“Sounds great!”

As they talked the rest of the students arrived and started disembarking, “Well, time to join the queue then,” Charles said.

Kayla shot her garbage into a trashcan like a basketball, “let’s go! Hopefully we can chat some more sometime. I’d love to hear more about Union tech straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“And I’d love to learn more about America from the pretty wolf’s mouth,” he winks.

Kayla waved him goodbye, a wolfish grin on her face.

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