Chapter 2 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 2 — The wheel; a food truck

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 1 — Chandra; the garage · Next: Chapter 3 — Heat one; Prepotente's warning · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

Hedy the gremlin didn’t react at the sudden detonation of her co-applicant.

Summary

Hedy hauls the garage door open onto a dark asphalt road and shouts the rules — last place dies, she dies with them, only one of them may touch the controls, nobody drives two heats in a row — as a hundred-slot wheel of Earth vehicles (a school bus, a Hummer, a moped, a dump truck, the Popemobile, a forklift, a missile launcher) spins over Waldrip Chris's remains. With twenty seconds on the timer the loudspeaker carries Cascadia, bubbling: 'You’re all going to die. You should already be dead. You idiots should have all taken deals. You did it to torture me, didn’t you? […] Why won’t you let me die?' and then 'Everything hurts.' Zev dives for the microphone: just over 5,500 crawlers stayed, almost 15,000 took deals, a record; the AI's message is to focus on the floor 'like everything is normal' and ignore the armies trying to vaporise the solar system. The floor is Don't Come in Last: seven heats of nine teams, 1,800 teams in all (so many that the AI designed most of the tracks), vehicles repaired between heats while the attendant lives, an upgrade per heat, three or one Golden for first place, a Golden for everyone after the fourth heat, the audience choosing the upgrade of whoever comes second to last, a hint of the next track each time; you may attack vehicles but not steal them, no movement spells onto or into vehicles, a different driver every heat — and, cut off mid-sentence, 'try not to kill more than one team, because if more than two teams don’t make it to the finish line'. The wheel stops on a box truck with windows: a Big Shot Chicken food truck, the gangster-chicken logo from the second floor's safe room, a plastic Prohibition hood, and a giant plastic tommy gun on the roof whose drum blocks half the windshield. It has an engine. Carl takes the wheel; Donut has no seat.

Characters

• Carl — Takes the wheel of a food truck with a tommy gun blocking the windshield.
• Princess Donut — No seat.
• Hedy — Shouts the rules: last place dies and she dies with them.
• The System AI — Cascadia, over the loudspeaker: 'Why won’t you let me die? […] Everything hurts.'
• Zev — Dives for the microphone: 5,500 stayed, 15,000 took deals; focus 'like everything is normal'.

Locations

• The garage and the cul-de-sac — The garage door opens on a dark asphalt road and a hundred-slot wheel.
• The Caves of the Screeching Death Manatees — Heat one's track; the Navitron names it in the next chapter.

Motifs

• The tenth floor — Seven heats of nine teams, 1,800 teams; a driver per heat; 'if more than two teams don’t make it to the finish line'.
• The Big Shot Chicken truck — The wheel lands on it: the second floor's gangster chicken, a Prohibition hood, an engine.
• The crawler count — Almost 15,000 took the deal, a record.