NOVEL WEB Chapter 2: Live and Let’s Drive
Chapter 2: Live and Let’s Drive
*HONK HONK HONK* Manic honking was all Abeona could hear.
She muted the tablet she was using to monitor Wheeler. “Probably best to give him a few minutes to calm down.” She muttered.
“For who to calm down?” asked a flat voice coming from behind her.
Abeona turned towards the source of the enquiry. Sneering at the unwanted sight before her. “Adiona, come down here to ruin my day as usual, have you?”
Adiona’s tone and expression didn’t flinch at the jab. “Don’t be like that dear sister, that’s not the way you should be speaking to your supervisor.”.
“Yeah? Well, I’m busy right now, so buzz off” Abeona shot back.
“You’re busy?” Adiona chuckled “Doing what? Watching those silly cartoons again?”
“It’s called ANIME” Abeona yelled, “Also no. For your information, I am actually hard at work.” She turned her attention back to the tablet in an effort to ignore her sister’s presence.
Adiona grabbed her sister’s shoulder and spun her around, “Don’t be like that, I mean, I even went out of my way to make your job more like those dumb shows you watch”.
“By adding that stupid ‘they must get hit by a truck to get reincarnated’ stipulation?” Abeona spat. "Gee, thanks for making my job so much harder.”
“You’re welcome.” Adiona flashed a false smile, before returning to her usual deadpan demeanour. “Your performance hasn’t been up to par you know.... not that I expected you to do any better.”
Adiona continued her needling, “You should really do something about your hair too, so many split ends.” To emphasise the point, Adiona ran her hand over her own perfectly quaffed hair.
Abeona didn’t respond, trying her best to ignore her sister’s prodding.
“You know what’ll happen if you don’t start showing some positive results soon, don’t you?” She gave a somewhat sinister smirk. “I mean I would hate if I had to shut down your little ‘Isekai department’.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“No worries about that, because I’m about to turn this whole thing around.” Abeona declared smugly.
“Oh, do tell?” her sister’s voice was tinged with curiosity.
Unmuting the tablet, Abeona showed it to her sister, whose jaw dropped as she processed what was on the screen.
“YOU TURNED A HUMAN INTO A TRUCK?”
Abeona smirked, muting her tablet again “Yep.”
“You can’t do that!” the usually controlled Adiona was shaking with outrage.
“Where in the rules does it say I can’t exactly?” Abeona’s expression indicated she already knew what the answer would be.
Adiona swiftly pulled out her own tablet, desperately looking through the rulebook. Surely there had to be something? Adiona had created rules for every eventuality she could have conceived relating to this project.
After a few minutes, she whispered a defeated, “It... doesn’t”. Her sister had well and truly outplayed her.
“HA!” Abeona punched the air in triumph.
Regaining her composure, Adiona shook her head, “I know how irresponsible you can be, but I never imagined you’d pull a ridiculous stunt like this.”
“You say irresponsible, I say innovative.” quipped Abeona.
Adiona made a few swift taps on her tablet. “Yeah, well your little ‘innovation’ is officially banned from now on.” She shoved her tablet, showing the now updated rules, in front of her sister’s face.
Abeona stuck out her tongue, “AWWWW, spoil sport.”
“Knowing you, if I didn’t update the rules, we’d have an army of trucks infused with human souls roaming the earth within a week.”
Adiona was staring daggers at her sister as she scolded her. She could see from the guilty look already dancing over her sister’s face, that her suspicions were spot on.
“If only I could apply the rule retroactively.” Adiona sighed.
“But you can’t, but you can’t.” chanted Abeona mockingly, in a sing-song tone.
“You’re right,” Adiona shook her head again, pinching her brow “My hands are tied.”
“Ooohh kinky.” Abeona quipped.
Adiona then got immediately in her sister’s face. Her eyes burning with cold contempt “But believe me, I will be monitoring this situation VERY carefully.”
Before Abeona could respond, her sister turned, then marched off abruptly, her nose in the air.
“OH... she is PISSED!” Abeona giggled to herself. Before refocusing on her own tablet. “Right, Wheeler should have calmed down by now.” she thought as she unmuted her tablet, returning to her mission.
The incessant honking had indeed finally grown silent, as Wheeler was coming to terms with his bizarre predicament. Like it or not, he was a truck now. He was slowly getting a sense of his new body. Switching on his headlights, revving engine, operating his windscreen wipers, everything happened with a mere momentary thought. It all took no more effort than it had taken to raise his arm or turn his head back when he was alive.
Was he technically alive now? He certainly wasn’t physically human, but he could think. He could feel. Was this life of sorts?
His musings were then interrupted as Abeona’s voice came crackling in, once more interlaced with radio static.
“Wheeler, you done freaking out and ready to get rolling and go yet?”.
“Go where?” Wheeler asked. Even with his headlights on, all he could see though his windscreen was corrugated metal in every direction.
“Onwards of course!” yelled the goddess.
“INTO A METAL WALL?” he shouted back, emitting a very loud and long honk in the process.
“Oh right...” Abeona sounded somewhat embarrassed. “Let me just... hang on... the button should be on here somewhere... wait... AH HA! BINGO!”
Sunlight streamed in as the shutter in front of Wheeler rose, revealing he had been inside some kind of large cargo container. As his vision adjusted to the gleaming glare, he could see an expansive road stretching out ahead of him.
“What are you waiting for dummy? Let's GO GO GO!” Abeona insisted. With that Wheeler revved his engine, threw off his brake and erupted full speed ahead out of the shipping container, onto the long, empty stretch of road ahead of him.
As he pelted alone the empty open highway, the first thing that struck Wheeler was how it all felt. He could somehow feel all of it. The wind whipping against his grill, the road underneath the rubber of his tires. The exhilaration of the speed as he darted along unimpeded. It almost made him believe that maybe, becoming a truck may not be so bad.
“THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” He yelled, his horn once more blaring, this time in delight, signalling his overwhelming joy to the world.
“Oh yeah” Abeona bragged, I packed this truck body with all kinds of features “GPS, haptic feedback, cup holders”.
“Why would I need cup holders?” a confused Wheeler wondered out loud.
“Who doesn’t need cup holders? I’ve got cup holders too you know?” Abeona responded.
Wheeler was baffled by that unexpected revelation “You do?”
“Yeah, my bra, it holds my C cups.” The goddess started laughing a little too hard at her own joke.
“Riiiggghhht.” he ignored her quip, instead focusing once more on the sensations enveloping him as he continued to drive forward”.
“This is awesome, I can feel the road under my tires”. Wheeler was giddy with excitement. His momentary joy was short lived “EEEWWWWW!”
“What happened?” Abeona asked.
Wheeler was spluttering like he had swallowed a fly, smoke puffing out his exhaust in bursts. “I just felt a bug get squashed on my grille”.
“Oh yeah, you can feel everything. You’ll even be able to feel people’s bodies go squish when you hit them too” The goddess noted.
It took a second for Abeona’s comment to register. Once it did, Wheeler broke so sharply he was lucky he didn’t flip himself over. Had there had been any cars behind him, a pile-up would have been all but guaranteed. “Wait.... what the....”
*HOOONNNKKKK*
“Hey language mister!” Abeona scolded.
“People’s bodies going squish?” Wheeler’s headlamps flashed, his doors flew open and shut. His vehicle even began rocking, propelled the hydraulics as he recalled the specifics of what he was here to do.
“You forgot didn’t you” Abeona teased.
“I don’t want to kill anyone” Wheeler insisted.
Abeona sighed, “I told you you’re not ‘killing’ them, you’re transporting them”.
“To their deaths!” Wheeler shot.
Abeona sighed, “No to a new life in another world. With a teeny, little stop-over though the afterlife sure... But after that, it’ll be the Isekai fantasy life you, and maybe they, have always dreamed of.”
“Fine!” Wheeler huffed, a puff of smoke bursting from his exhaust. “Which way to the nearest large crowd?”
For the first time since they met, a slither of concern entered Abeona’s voice as she uttered a single word, “Why?”
Wheeler explained his plan, “Mass transportation, I run though a large crowd, get as many as I can in one go. Your numbers go rocketing up, and this nightmare is over and done with as soon as possible.”
“WOAH WOAH, pump the brakes you psycho, it's not that simple.” Abeona was taken aback how quickly Wheeler’s kill switch had flipped.
“Why not? Explain!” Wheeler demanded.
Abeona began rattling off her concerns, “One, I can’t process that many people at once, I’m on my own here. B, I can’t send just any dumbass who just happened hit by a truck.”
Wheeler was becoming increasingly frustrated “Why the *HONK* not?”
Abeona continued her ranting. “BE-cause, you need to be a particular sort of person to survive in the other worlds. If I send any rando, they’ll get killed by a slime or something within five minutes and be right back with me.”
Wheeler would have rolled his eyes, had he had eyes to roll, instead he flapped his wipers. “I’m guessing that wouldn’t help your numbers”.
“No... it wouldn’t” the goddess confirmed.
Wheeler felt completely at a loss. “Look can you give me some alone time to think please? I need to clear my... head, or whatever I’ve got instead of a head now.”
Abeona took a while to respond but eventually relented, “Fine” although Wheeler could tell though her tone the situation was anything but fine. Annoyed? Disappointed? Sad? He couldn’t quite tell, but he could tell she wasn’t ok with this development.
With that Abeona fell silent, leaving Wheeler alone with his thoughts.
After taking aa few moments to collect his thoughts, Wheeler set his GPS, then slowly began driving to his destination, home.