Volume IV May 2024
Hey, new month, new issue of tight beam, this like last month, will be another short issue, so like in the previous release, I will also include a short story here, called “Clear conscience.” Which is a cannon event within The Descendant Saga universe. It’s not an excerpt from any of the books, but it does take place in the universe, and while it’s not a major plot point, it adds a little flavor about the character Max.
Beyond that, I have only a brief summary of April’s progress. I have a standalone, semi horror novel set in The Descendant Saga universe that I have been hand writing. The first third to half of the book was written, by hand in 2021 and 2022. Over March and April I have copy typed the handwritten part of the book, and am now adding new content to the story again. I’m not sure when/where it fits in the timeline, as it’s got its own characters and is an unrelated story set in the same sphere of events as the main books series. Altar of Scales, on the other hand, has been pushed back another two or three weeks. I was out of town on the weekend the freelance editor was supposed to finish the manuscript. I sent her a simple email saying something along the lines of “Hey, sorry if I don’t reply right away, I’m out of town.” So, she just moved Altar of Scales to the back of the que, and now were looking at a date sometime in the middle of May. I don’t like it, but that is what it is. I have been researching self publishing stuff in the meantime, but that is where the affairs are now. Without further ado, for your reading pleasure, I give you…
Clear Conscience
Max had suffered through all he could stand. His mind was full and his thoughts were racing. His shoulders were tight and knotted. He had spent the day just as he had spent most days, outdoors, under the sun, laboring to build structures in this wondrous new world. It was full of trees, life and greenery and he wanted nothing more than to explore it. Yet still, he felt trapped in his own body. His heart raced and his mind squirmed in his skull like a street dog trapped in a kennel. He needed out.
Max donned his jacket, tightened the buckles on his boots, stuffed his fists into his gauntlets and slammed his helmet down over his ears. Dressed in his riding gear he headed out into the parking lot. He didn’t know where he was going, but he was going somewhere fast and with purpose. His boots slapped down on the pavement with a rhythmic clack, clack as he marched through the rows of the parking lot. Passing the other vehicles, aisle after aisle of big metal cages. Things that locked you in, held you down, trapped the occupants inside. He finally came to a stop when he found the vehicle that was his. Not a car, or a truck, not a cage on wheels, but a steed of steel and chrome.
He lingered for a moment, his shadow draped over the saddle, feeling better already as his eyes caressed the machine, the artwork. The flare of its fenders, the aggressive angle of the front fairing like the scrunched brow on a perturbed face. The glint of the chrome. He inhaled deeply, still detecting the scent of his new tires, a faint whiff on the breeze like a forgotten candle still burning in the other room.
Max cinched the chin strap on his helmet tighter as he threw a leg over his steed. Lifting the machine up off its kickstand with his legs. Pinching the gas tank with his thighs as he fished the key out of his jacket’s pocket. He settled onto the seat, transferring his weight to the leather, steel, fiberglass and rubber beneath him. His mind already felt more relaxed. The focus giving him a purpose, easing his stressed flailing. With the key pinched between his fingers, he slid his hand over the curve of the gas tank, slowly, gently, as one would expect him to caress the lover he had chosen the motorcycle over. Pinching the key between his thumb and middle finger, he slipped it into the ignition switch between the handlebars and rotated it to unlock the forks.
The grave voice of a woman he quickly realised was Constance seeped into his helmet. Constance was a powerful both in body and spirit. She was everyone’s aunt. Her personality just the right mixture of compassion and tough love to make all who knew her feel protected, motivated, intimidated and encouraged. Her voice managed to be both stern and concerned. “You’re crazy for riding that thing.”
Max looked at her over his shoulder as she stood with arms crossed at the edge of his parking space. Max leaned back into the seat, letting the changing center of gravity and the imperceptible slope in the parking lot’s surface pull him and the machine backwards out of the grid of parking space into the lane. He planted his heels to stop the motion when he and Constance were level with each other. They locked eyes for a moment, hers full of concern and judgment, sprinkled with a hint of curiosity. Or was it jealousy?
Max reached up with a hand and slapped his visor. Slamming it down hard over his face, making a seal around the chin bar on his helmet. The reflective, polarized shield falling over his face like a portcullis. He hit the start button with the thumb of his other hand. The freedom switch.
The screech of the electric starter motor was short-lived. It snuck past almost unnoticed as the engine coughed to life. The opposed cylinders fired, an odd lope. As if each piston was trying to climb over the one before it. The tingle and gallop of the engine between his knees sent goosebumps through Max as he shivered with excitement as the power caressed him.
Constance shook her head and stepped around Max. Continuing her walk across the parking lot. He waited a moment longer to let the engine warm-up. Soon the pistons settled down and the exhaust note smoothed out to a purr, a rumble like that of a large predatory cat. Motionless, yet still full of power, grace, and vicious speed.
Max wheeled out the rest of the way and cranked his handlebars to the side as he aligned the bike with the road. He didn’t know where the road was going to take him, but he was going to get there fast. With his left hand, he pulled in the clutch as he held the brake lever with his right. His heavy left boot came down and stomped on the shift lever. Pushing the transmission out of neutral and down into first gear. The click and rattle of his gear change making the whole machine twitch beneath him. Max grinned under his visor, fogging it with his anxious breath. He looked over one shoulder, then the other, making sure the coast was still clear of traffic.
With no one else in sight, he let off the break, let out the clutch, and rolled onto the throttle. The big cat purring inside his exhaust started growling and then yowled as his idle at hundreds of revolutions per minute quickly turned into thousands from his tail twisting grip on the throttle. He went shrieking down the aisle of parked cages. Coming to the end of the row quickly, he had to pull the clutch back in and lean on the brakes to slow for the turn. He pointed out of the parking lot onto the access road. He was free again and had all the pavement on the planet at his disposal.
It took Max another five minutes to work his way through the facility to the main gate. He passed through with a nod from the guard at the gate. Just outside was his first stoplight of the day. Marking where the jurisdiction of the military installation ended and the civilian world began. Max and his machine idled at the stoplight as a handful of cars trickled past. Max bounced his left foot on the shift lever impatiently. His bike locked down in first gear as he waited for the light to change color. Like a racehorse confined in the starting gate, waiting for launch. Just asking for someone to let him go, to set him free.
The light changed color, and the traffic stopped. Max released the clutch, lifted his foot and gave it a fist full of throttle. The purring idle erupted into a droning howl as he crossed the intersection. The front suspension unloaded as the weight shifted backwards under the acceleration. His speed and RPMs increasing, as his engine climbed up into the power band. His fingers finding the clutch and the toe of his boot snaked in under the shift lever and he pulled it into second gear, then third gear. Slithering through traffic as if it wasn’t moving.
Now he was free. No longer regulated by the strict and unforgiving military doctrine. The civilians were in his world now. Max didn’t have to stop for anything, so long as there was fuel in his tank. For no one else was as free and unbridled as he was. By the time he reached fourth gear, he was already out of sight from the installation’s main gate.
It was a perfect mesh of man and machine. His hands clenched and twisted, his feet stomped, his knees clung to the textured pads on the sides of the gas tank, as his spine warped and twisted, shifting his weight from one side to the other. Leaning way out in a turn, knees extended like an insect’s feeler reaching out to tap the ground now and then, just to make sure it was still there. The plastic pucks of his knee-high boots feeling the road, telling him how much more room he had, how much farther he could take it. He stayed tucked in, low behind the sharp angle of his minuscule windshield. Oozing through the pre-rush hour traffic like a predatory cat slinking through the grass. Traveling at close to twice the posted speed limit.
His speed carried him through the streets. The thunder of his exhaust, the music of his people, heard by everyone except him. The thunder of the machine gods echoed behind him, marking his passing, his speed, and the whistle of wind creeping in underneath his helmet blocking the howl and lope of his exhaust from his ears.
In minutes, both man and motorcycle had found their way through the city streets and its stoplights to find the open stretches of the highway, aimed at the dark looming shapes of the mountains beyond.
The sweat was cooling on his collar as Max waited for another light change colors. Giving him a tingle and a chill as his heart rate started to decline again. He watched the stoplight, another go signal, another clear to launch, the only thing separating him from the interstate. The light shifted and once more he was free. Both tires of Max’s bike were already across the line by the time the foot of the man driving the car next to him touched his accelerator. It was an odd, isolated peace, he felt as if he and the bike were stationary. The world turning beneath him, bowing to his speed and skill.
Still, in first gear Max leaned hard to his right, banking onto the merging ramp, continuing to accelerate as he rolled through the corner, the acceleration shifting the weight further rearward, maintaining traction with his rear tire as he rolled up against the mechanical limitations of his throttle.
After leaning so far in the turn, he shifted his butt back onto the black leather of the seat. Tapping the rear brake with his right foot to stand the bike back up straight as he shifted through second gear into third. Accelerating as he closed in on the dashed lines for the merging zone. He was already exceeding the speed of the vehicles on the highway as he made fourth gear and felt the rapid thump, thump as his tires crossed over the seam in the pavement. He slipped between two cars, splitting the lane between them, and lifted his toes still under the shift lever, feeling his way up between fourth and fifth gear without clutching.
The road straightened, the early evening traffic thinned. He grinned broadly beneath the freedom of his helmet. Max forgot all the things that stressed him. Forgot the weight that troubled his soul and confused his mind. He forgot to think, he forgot to worry. His head was clear, and the weight fell from his shoulders as he outran his troubles. His pulse increased, his adrenaline surged, and the wind sucked the sweat away from him. The worry, the pain and the restless exhaustion in his soul went with it. The lane before him cleared, Max smiled inside his helmet. A big unbridled, ear to ear grin full of teeth that he was too nervous around people to let loose. He clutched into sixth gear and twisted the throttle until it stopped against the limiter. His RPM indicator inched higher, the red needle swinging up across the clock-face beneath his chin, the digital numbers of his speedometer beneath the needle danced. Climbing and higher, breaking one hundred and seventy.
Until a light pickup truck changed lanes without using its indicator ahead of him. The distance was shrinking fast. He let off the throttle, clamped down on both front and rear brakes, and downshifted. As the truck’s tailgate drew closer and closer, he downshifted again. He was still going too fast for fourth gear and the engine was bouncing off the rev limiter. The needle tickling the red-line on his tachometer. The engine breaking made him decelerate even faster, compressing the suspension of his front fork. He pushed against the handlebars with his right hand just a tiny bit. The gyroscopic forces of his spinning tires counteracted his motion and made the bike dance across the stripes between the lanes, just like he wanted.
He lifted back into fifth gear and used the extra space on his tachometer to launch his bike through the gap between the small truck and the large truck that it was passing. Once beyond them, Max found sixth again and used the space on his Tachometer to disappear. Turning to a tiny speck of black leather atop a silver motorcycle on the horizon as he zipped away from the sluggish truck.
This was how he emptied his head, how he stopped the worry. He didn’t drink away his problems or use drugs to forget them. He burned petrol. Zipping past other vehicles as if they weren’t moving, leaving them behind with his troubles. The sun sank below the horizon and so did his fears. Max clicked on the headlight, then the wide angle fog lights and kept going. He hadn’t got to the twisties in the mountains yet. The good part still awaited him. As he burned fuel and rubber, both man and machine hungrily devouring the pavement, his mind flushed out the cobwebs and the weight of worry and fear. He meditated on nothing but the road. Max found his clear conscience again.
The Descendant Saga 