CRASH TEST
by Christopher Burke

Unless I'm mistaken, and I'm usually not, over six hundred amateur inventors nationwide were killed last year in their quest for some new state-of-the-art dohickey, victims of their lust for fame and financial security in this insecure world. Research and development have a high pricetag attached. But, inexplicably, such tragedies fail to divert others from their own perilous destinies.

Tinker was one such electronic alchemist. He had earned his nickname by tinkering with various automotive technologies -- acceleration, braking, handling, weaponry, defense systems. And while he had not yet had any explosive failures, it was amazing that he was still alive. Of course, it was amazing that I, too, could still be counted among the living, considering my morbid curiousity which brings me to his lab even when common sense says to stay away.

When I pulled up and walked through the door this morning, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, worse than when I was dodging the wolf pack on Flatbush Avenue. Kent had gotten there ahead of me. Tinker was in his office on the phone. It all seemed harmless enough.

"Hi, Sean. You seen this mornings headlines, yet?" Kent removed the paper he had tucked under his arm and tossed it to me. I caught it in the chest. "Look who made page one."

"COP SHOT IN ABORTED DRUG BUST," it read. Briefly, the story went on to say a sting operation went awry, and the target got away. The "stingee" was a petty crook named Nick Slater, someone I once knew. Not to say someone I once liked.

"No one important." I discarded the paper in the trash can. "So what's this amazing discovery Tinker wants us to witness? Future historians want to know."

Kent shrugged his shoulders. "From what little he told me, it seems that he has come up with a gasoline additive that increases octane performance. He claims it raises the top speed and acceleration, while reducing gas consumption. At least on paper."

This surprised me. Harldy anyone used gas engines anymore. Although they were still easy enough to scrounge up, the outrageous price and low availability of oil kept anyone from using them. "Where'd he get the gas from?"

Kent shrugged again. "Beats me. Knowing Tinker, he probably drilled through solid bedrock and pumped it up himself."

I decided not to let the mystery of the test fuel's origin bother me. Tinker's tests always caused enough troubles for all of us. And speaking of all of us, I noticed that someone was missing. "Where's Pooky? She's usually the first to arrive anyplace."

"Maybe she knows something we don't. I'm waiting for Tinker to get off the phone so I can call her."

Tinker held the phone in his hand but was not talking. It was an old-style audio-only job with an attached speaker, which was turned off at the moment. He didn't use visiphones since he was rarely in his office and portable visies were too clumsy to lug around the shop. Besides, not transmitting a visual signal meant the guy on the other end couldn't see the faces Tinker made. At the moment, he was just nodding his head a lot, and contorting his face into several frustratated expressions. He was not going to be in a pleasant mood.

"Why don't you use the phone in his car?" I asked, gesturing to the back room. "He usually installs one in his test car so he doesn't miss calls while he's working."

"Good thinking. I'll be back in a minute." Kent disappeared through the door as Tinker hung up the receiver and came over to greet me.

"Who was on the phone?"

"My mother. She wanted to make sure I had an umbrella. Her toe is bothering her, which means it's going to rain." Tinker's mother never approved of her son's occupation or for technology in general. With fourteen hundred satellites in orbit, sixteen cable channels, and even a few local electronic datanets all devoted to the weather, she still relied on her meteorological corn.

Tinker sat down on his workbench. "Where did Kent go?"

"He went to call Pooky on your car phone."

Tinker's eyes opened wide as if they were trying to pop from their sockets. "I haven't finished fixing the car. There's a short in the ejection system." The two of us rushed to the back room. "Kent! Don't climb in!"

As Tinker touched the doorknob, there was a rumblimg noise followed by what sounded like a rocket firing and a loud crash. When he opened the door, the smoke cleared away, revealing the car, minus the driver's seat, and a shattered skylight. There was no sign of Kent.

Tinker walked under the hole in the roof, sidestepping a falling piece of glass. "I just had that thing replaced, too."

As sorry as I felt about the skylight, I felt worse about Kent, Tinker's first victim of the day. I started to run outside when I heard a loud moan behind me. Standing before Tinker and me was Kent's apparition, coming back to haunt us. I was about to throw myself at his feet and beg for mercy when the spectre fell against the car with a resounding thud and a cloud of dust. Kent must have fallen or jumped out of the seat before it took off.

Realizing that Kent was still with us, I grabbed his arm and hoisted him to his feet. Using every ounce of his strength, Kent raised his right arm and slugged me, knocking me down. He stood over me a moment. "'Use the phone in the car,' he tells me," he said, before limping out of the shop.

Back in the design room, Kent dusted himself off as I checked for loose teeth. The test had to be pushed back while Tinker welded a new seat. I hoped that the extra time would give Kent a chance to cool off.

"Honestly, Kent," I pleaded, "Tinker didn't tell me about the short in the ejection seat until after you launched it."

He gave me his death glare. I figured that I had better change the subject. I glanced at my watch and saw how late it was. "Gee," I said, "I wonder what's keeping Pooky."

Kent perked up quickly. He looked at me with his eyebrows close together and pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the back room. "I don't know, Sean. Why don't you call her and find out? You can fly on by her house while you're at it."

Obviously, he was not in a forgiving mood.

After a few moments of tense silence, the front door opened. I hoped it was Pooky; she has a way of defusing a situation. When she can't calm one of us down rationally, she resorts to shoulder rubs with her magical ebony fingers, guarenteed to turn the tensest individual into tapioca pudding.

Instead, three men walked in. Two were carrying assault rifles, and one had a sawed-off shotgun. Give me the good old days when people only toted pistols for self-defense. And people wonder why the highways are so dangerous!

The guy with the shotgun removed his helmet. I was quite shocked to find Nick Slater under it.

"Nobody move!" Slater ordered.

We had no choice. As a general rule, I carried only the grenades pinned to my vest, prominently displayed as a highly potent deterrent. The general rule, of course, is that I couldn't shoot a watermelon off William Tell's head if he were standing 3 feet away. However, pulling a grenade would have taken out the entire room.

Kent usually carried an Uzi for good luck, but figuring that he would be amongst friends for the afternoon, he had left it on the floor beneath his chair.

It took a moment for Slater to notice at whose head he was aiming his shotgun. "Sean! How've you been? Haven't seen you since the accident."

"That was no accident," I spat. "You drove Katie off that bridge." I might have forgotten to mention that Slater was also my brother-in-law, proof that my little sister sometimes lacked good judgment. Our common bond, however, was apparently not sufficient reason for him to lower his weapon. In fact, quite the opposite occurred; he held the weapon higher.

"I had nothing to do with that, and you know it. You were there." The red in Slater's face drained away as he brought his emotions under control. He gave a chuckle, adding, "I still don't believe you jumped off the Verazano after her."

Not one to let his personal relationships get in the way of business, Slater stepped back without lowering the shotgun. "I'm not here to talk family. Where's Tinker? He has something of mine, and I want it back. Plus punitive damages."

Kent and I looked at each other. "What does Tinker have?" I asked.

"Fifty gallons of gasoline."

Slater fit the description of a man who would use old-fashioned internal combustion engines. In his line of work, you want to get the hell away quickly. You can't get that kind of power from the steady currents flowing through electric motors. Stealing gas from a guy like Slater would be sheer suicide for anyone. Tinker would have to be plain nuts just to think about it.

We were dead men.

"How do you know that Tinker has it?" I asked, trying to buy some time.

"It was a payment for something he installed in my car. It didn't work, and I was almost detained by several unruly gentlemen in blue suits. I had to leave behind some valuable merchandise. Enough chit-chat. Call Tinker out here. Now!"

That is one hazard of an inventor's work: if you didn't kill yourself making a mistake, sometimes someone else would do it for you. However, this scenario had one further complication: Slater was looking down his sight at me, and I hadn't done anything... except had a sister.

"He's not going to hear me from out here while he's working."

Slater grinned. "That's no problem." He stepped to the side of the room and waved his hand. His two goons opened fire on the door to the back room, sustaining it for several seconds. Splinters flew everywhere.

"Tinker!" Slater bellowed. "We have some unfinished business to take care off." He looked back at me and Kent and gave an even more twisted grin. "Your friends and I were just talking about it."

A few moments of silence passed, making our captor quite visibly anxious. I just hoped Tinker had something useful with him back there, like one of those new multi-shot portable lasers. Or maybe he could give Slater something that would backfire in his face.

The front door started opening quietly behind Slater's henchmen. It was half-way open when a loud clap of thunder drew everyone's attention to it, blowing Tinker's surprise entrance. In a confused moment, the goons trained their assault rifles on Tinker, Kent lunged for his Uzi, I pulled a grenade from my vest, and Tinker jumped into the room with an old, slightly rusted bazooka on his shoulder. Slater, whose shotgun was still aimed at me, laughed at Tinker.

"Put that thing down before you hurt yourself," Slater told Tinker. "Even if that rusted hunk of metal still works, it would blow up the entire building." He noticed the grenade in my hand, ready to drop if he shot me. "And I seriously doubt that that is an explosive grenade."

The five-way deadlock did not break until a minute later when the front door opened again and Pooky stepped right into the middle of things. Slater turned his attention to her for only a moment, but that was long enough for me to move. Slater noticed and pulled the trigger, the shot missed and took out a large section of the wall.

I threw the grenade into the center of the room where it exploded into a cloud of smoke, and got down low before the shooting started. After some scuffling, shooting, and a scream or two, two bodies crashed to the floor.

The smoke cleared revealing that the two goons were sprawled out in the dust. One was dead from a shotgun wound to the chest; the other was knocked out by the force of a bazooka along side his skull. Kent was crouched behind a table with his Uzi ready. Tinker was behind a desk, having discarded the bazooka for a more practical submachine gun.

Slater was standing behind Pooky with his left arm around her neck and his shotgun leaning against the right side of her head. Because he was half a foot taller, Slater's head was exposed, and Kent contemplated taking the shot.

"I have no problem with killing her," Slater warned as he slowly made his way to the workshop and locked what was left of the bullet-ridden door behind them.

Tinker headed out of the building to get in the back way as Kent started to pick the lock. I tied our unconscious assailant with a tow chain and took his assault rifle. The roar of an engine brought Tinker running back. Kent jumped away as Tinker shot off the lock.

As we opened the door, Slater fired two rockets at the side wall from the launcher mounted on the engine hood. Tinker ran into the room as his car sped off through the smoldering breach. He found himself standing under the shattered skylight watching as his experiment -- and Pooky -- was driven away. His anger was punctuated with an explosion of thunder and was not doused by the heavy rain that fell on him.

I ran for my car with the assault rifle still in hand. Tinker grabbed his umbrella and joined Kent. The car wasn't so important, but we had to help Pooky. And Slater was not someone who could be taken lightly.

Sheets of water fell from the sky. It was the kind of thunderstorm that took everyone by surprise -- except mothers with corns. The roads were slippery, and visibility was near nil, but Slater could be made out up ahead. On dry roads, his gas burner would make my electric engine look like a hamster on a treadmill, but he wasn't likely to take a chance and kill himself in this downpour.

Nevertheless, accelerating at a slow, steady pace left me pounding the dashboard in frustration. Tinker's car dwindled in size in the distance. It seemed Tinker finally had a success, but at Pooky's expense.

A list of ways to help Pooky ran through my mind. Lucky had fired the driver side ejection seat; the passenger seat was still armed. As I reached for the radio to tell Pooky, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, killing that idea. The ejection seat would be fried in this storm.

Slater got on the Belt Parkway. I followed with Kent and Tinker not far behind. The eastbound lanes were flooded, and our side wasn't much better.

About all I could see of the stolen car were the taillights shining out of the darkness. The gap between us was closing; Slater was being more cautious than I expected. Then I saw the sparks coming from the side of the car.

"How do you stop this thing?" Slater's voice came over the radio, filled with as much terror as anger. "I'm riding the brakes, but the engine ain't slowing down. Nothing's working."

Tinker must have added something to slow his car down -- a drag chute, retro rockets, a sea anchor -- something. Carefully, I picked up the radio. Doing 90 in the rain, I wasn't happy about taking one hand off the steering wheel. "Tinker, where's the switch for the drag chute? And why is it speeding like crazy?"

"That thing was meant for the test track," he answered. "And there is no switch. Becasue of that little setback earlier, I didn't have time to add a chute or adjust the brakes. I'm looking through my design notes for ideas."

Scotty, I thought, we need less power.

"You better come up with one fast, Tinker, or the girl and I have both had it." The words echoed in my head. Were it not for "the girl," I probably would've shot the car's tires and let it crash.

As it was, Slater was doing his best to control an uncontrollable car. Outrunning police on a regular basis tends to make a guy an expert driver. He had put the shotgun down, needing both hands to keep the car steady. Pooky eyed it but knew she wouldn't reach it before he did, not without removing her seatbelt. And that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Pooky ran her hand down her right leg to her boot. Out of Slater's view, she fingered the handle of her knife and comtemplated drawing the thin, five-inch blade. Surprise would be on her side, but at the moment the victory would be short-lived. Very short-lived. Wisdom told her to wait for a better opportunity to take out Slater.

The chase continued down the Belt toward the Verazano Narrows Bridge. Only half of it was visible through the dense cloud cover. The illuminated roadway disappeared into darkness midway over the Narrows like a passage to nowhere. It appeared as though every car driving across would fall off without reaching the other side. That reminded Slater of the day Katie died. He burst out laughing.

"Did you ever hear about how my wife died?" he snickered.

Pooky clutched the knife handle but restrained herself from drawing it. She knew the story, and Katie, very well and didn't find it the least bit amusing.

"My wife was the temperamental type." Pooky shut her eyes and turned away, but Slater continued to tell his version of the incident. "You know, always flying off the handle at the drop of the hat. So one day about two years ago, she goes tearing out of the house before I can stop her. Now, our other car was in the shop, so I couldn't follow her.

"So I'm left standing there on the front porch in my bathrobe when who comes driving up but good, old Sean and one of his pals. They take off after her without stopping to pick me up, and they follow my wife up the Verazano.

"Suddenly, she swerves to the right and crashes through those old barricades and plummets into the Narrows. Now, I always had a suspicion that Sean wasn't totally right upstairs, but that day he removed all doubt. Before his buddy could restrain him, he jumped in after her."

Slater gave a quick glance to Pooky. She growled at him. "You see, I wasn't there. I had nothing to do with it."

Pooky stared at the bridge until they passed it. "Kate," she thought, "I'm gonna kill him. If we get out of this alive, I'm going to kill him."

Our cars were even by the time Exit 1 shot by and we sped up the ramp to the Gowanus Expressway. The road was bumpy; the highway hadn't been maintained for a number of years.

Third story windows buzzed by. The clouds darkened to near black. Not surprisingly, most of the streetlamps were not working. I managed to position myself in front of Slater and gently apply the brakes. It felt like I had been hit by a truck when he slammed into me, but both cars were decelerating. Once I convinced myself that everything would be fine, I allowed myself one moment to relax.

That's when I saw it.

Barely visible, about twenty yards ahead, a large metal plate lay across the road. It was at least an inch thick and stretched across two lanes. Unable to avoid it, I gripped the wheel, clenched my teeth, and prayed.

My tires lost their grip of the road, and the car spun out, coming to a stop on the highway median. As my head cleared, I heard a loud crash. My heart nearly jumped through the windshield.

Tinker's test car had slammed through the rusted retainer, crumpling it on impact. The car teetered head-first over the edge, held up only by a scrap of railing pinned against the passenger door. The rear wheels were still spinning about two inches above the pavement ready to drive off the edge.

"Sean!" Kent's voice came over the radio. "What happened? We heard the crash. We'll be there in a minute."

I didn't respond. I leapt from the car, with the assault rifle, ejecting the ammunition as I ran. The rain hitting my face was hard and cold.

The only way to get to Pooky was to get Slater out first, unfortunately. Slater's door was open, but he wasn't trying to get out. Neither of them moved. I leaned over the rail and stuck the barrel into the car.

"I'll be dead in a minute!" Slater yelled. "You don't have to hurry it."

"Grab the barrel!" I could barely hear myself with the rumbling above.

Slater stared at the gun. "Turn it around!"

There was no time to argue, so I spun the weapon in my hand and stuck the butt into the car. He leaned out, took hold. Although I had braced myself, I still slipped slightly as he pulled himself up to the highway.

When I tried to turn back for Pooky, Slater refused to release the assault rifle. "Let go," I yelled. Slater held tight and reached for the trigger. "It's not loaded. Let go!"

Pooky screamed. I released the assault rifle just as Slater gave it another hard yank. He flew backwards and landed on his brains. The car, meanwhile, had slid further over the edge.

Jumping over the guard rail with my right hand gripping the top rail and my right leg hooked around the bottom, I stretched my left arm as far as it would reach. "Pooky, jump!"

"Don't call me 'Pooky.' I hate that." She was terrified, staring at the street below, and obviously not thinking straight.

"Get out of the car! NOW!"

Pooky snapped back to reality when the car shifted again. She jumped clear as it fell thirty feet to the sidewalk below.

The extra weight caused me to lose my grip of the wet railing, but I managed to grab hold of the highway. I had two choices: either swing Pooky up to the road or brace myself for the fall. Then the car started smoldering beneath us.

Rain and pain turned my right hand pale white. Drops of water rolled across my fingers and down my sleeve. Pooky clung to my other arm, hoping that help would arrive soon.

Instead, Slater came. He had the assault rifle in his hand and a twisted smile on his face. "Funny thing about you, Sean. You like jumping off highways to save pretty ladies." I looked up at him wondering if he might help us up, knowing he'd be more likely help us down. Below us, thicker, darker smoke seeped from the wreck.

"Family is family, but business is business. And my business with Tinker has to be settled. I hope you understand."

He stood with one foot on either side of my hand and raised the assault rifle over his head. His muscles tensed and the butt came down. He jerked it to a stop three inches above my frozen fingers. He had a change of mind, I thought, as he knelt down and reached over to me.

Relief became outrage when Slater grabbed the remaining grenade from my chest. There was nothing I could do without a free hand except leave toothmarks on his sleeve. Pooky fumbled trying to retrieve the dagger from her right boot with her left hand; it fell to the sidewalk below with a soft clang that was lost in the roar of the storm. I prayed for someone to give Slater a good, swift kick. My prayer was almost answered when I heard Kent's car pull up.

"I'll bet that this one isn't a smoker," Slater said as he dropped the explosive grenade two inches from my pinky. "Say hello to your sister for me."

The car doors slammed, and Slater swung around trying to fire the empty assault rifle. Kent blasted him, and sent him backward off the highway's edge. Slater landed on the car he'd stolen in the last crime he'd ever commit. I didn't know if either the bullets or the fall had killed him, but I knew I didn't care.

Kent grabbed the grenade and lobbed it over the other side of the highway. Tinker hauled the two of us back up. We moved away just before the Tinker's test car exploded, filling the air with as much shrapnel as water.

My clothes drenched and my muscles aching, I collapsed in my car and sat there shivering despite the heater. I told the others that I needed to be alone for a few minutes. A few tears were mixed among the raindrops running down my face. They were not shed for Slater.

I was home early that afternoon. Tinker had to postpone his test run until he could double check his calculations and scrounge up a new test car.

No sooner had I closed the front door than my German Shepherd came galloping out to greet me, jumping up and down and yapping happily.

"Hello, Honey. I'm glad to see you, too." She put her front paws on my shoulders and licked my face. "You want to be fed, don't you."

I put a dish of food on the floor, which Honey was ready to swallow whole, and poured a cup of hot tea for myself. Plopping myself down by my desk, I put my feet up, and had my computer autodial an Atlanta-based computer bulletin board system. I always found chatting with total strangers from across the country on whatever forum to be very enlightening and entertaining. But then, I'm also the guy who tells people that BBS stands for "the same old BS with the Bull squared."

After logging on, I found a message in my "mailbox" transmitted not an hour before from a user who tagged herself "Scarlet." It read: "I saw the news. Is it true?" News travels quickly through these electronic networks, especially when it deals with notorious figures and explosive deaths.

I sent a response immediately. "It's true. Come home. Love, Sean." I'd wait until she arrived before giving her the details. Or telling her that her late husband said to say "Hello." I had not seen Katie since the day I drove her car off the bridge, and Kent threw the empty suit of body armor after me. I really missed her.

When I shut the computer off, the phone beeped. I hit the Answer button, but the screen remained dark for lack of a visual transmission. "Hi, Tinker. What's up?"

"Sean, have you seen my formula notes? Those pages fell out of my notebook. Do you have any idea what might have happened to them?"

Honey was already asleep on the floor beside me. She had inhaled her dinner so quickly that she never noticed the scraps of paper mixed into her meal. "I don't know, Tinker. Maybe a dog ate it."

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