Room 508 to Baltimore, Friday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy studied herself in the mirror, frowning slightly. She had done a lot of stuff as Banzai, but trying to infiltrate the mafia in disguise was a whole new level of scary. If she messed up, the Ukrainians would know a lot more about her than she really wanted them too--like what she looked like, as just one exciting example. But this was an opportunity she couldn't pass up; they were recruiting locals under the guise of a motorcycle drag race, with the top performers invited to a very exclusive party--so exclusive that no matter how hard she tried, Kathy couldn't get the location. Over the past year, she'd managed to create a decent circle of street-level informants and yet no one could tell her anything besides what was 'public' knowledge: an illegal drag race, with plenty of money to be made from betting, and an excellent afterparty for the winners. That was it.

It was all very frustrating as hell.

Even the race itself was frustrating. If it had at least been a drag race with cars, Kathy might have been able to put her Driver's Ed experience into play...somehow. She was still lacking a car, but she would have at least known how to race. Ish. Maybe. But this was a motorcycle race, and Kathy had one hour of experience driving one of those from several years ago. That would get her exactly nowhere. If she had more time, she might even have been able to appeal to Parker or Eliot for help, but she'd just gotten the message that everything was going down tonight.

Kathy didn't often swear, but this whole situation deserved quite a hearty "God dammit!"

Her current plan was to dress like a biker bunny, head to where the race was going to take place, and hope to insinuate herself in the group that got brought to the party. Yeah, she could foresee no problems with that, sure.



[Primarily for one, but open to the roomie beforehand if she so chooses. Everything that happens after they leave the island is NFB for distance.]

Comments

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"Uh-oh," Oleksiy said. "Looks like your girl doesn't think I can win."

[rebelseekspizza]

"She gets a little squeamish sometimes," Dante said. He wandered back towards his bike. "I got this. You go hang with the rest of them."

Was he taking this opportunity to smack her on the ass?

... well, they'd met, right?

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy squealed. If he asked later, she'd say she did it to sell the persona. Yup. Just for that reason alone.

"Kick his ass, baby," she said, strutting over to the crowd like he'd directed. Remember this moment, Dante. She would never be this obedient again. "You know how it gets me going when you do."

Her plan should have been to firebomb this plaza from orbit. That would have been a much better plan. Next time, that would absolutely be her plan.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"Aww, ain't that cute," Oleksiy said, immediately dismissing Kathy as soon as she was out of his immediate vicinity. She was hot, but unimportant in the grand scheme of things. "Tell you what. You beat me, you not only get to come to the party, but you'll get the VIP treatment. Drugs, booze, girls. Whatever you want. You'll be like a Mikhaltsos for the evening. And, who knows? Maybe there'll be an interesting business opportunity in it for you, too."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante slid his leg over the bike and settled onto it like he'd been doing this every day of his fucking life-- same went for the smirk he threw after Kathy, before fixing it on whatshisface with a decidedly heavier amount of malevolence.

"Works for me," he said easily.

... He might even take advantage of it, if he could without letting Kathy know. Eh. Deal with that later.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Oleksiy gestured to have his bike (http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/honda-1300-slammer.jpeg) brought over to him, accompanied by a hulking, tattoo'd brute of a guy and a beautiful, leggy blonde wearing little more than some decorative strips of fabric and a smile. Her smile was directed at Oleksiy, but her eyes roamed over Dante with interest.

From her spot in the crowd, Kathy was dodging handsy spectators and grinding her teeth.

"Half mile, from here to the gas station and back," Oleksiy declared. "It's a regular road so it's up to you to dodge car, hookers, whatever. If you crash, no one but your girl will give a fuck."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You think this entire lot's gonna start crying if you bite it?" Dante said, with a smile that showed entirely too much teeth.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"You better hope I don't," Oleksiy said with a smile of his own. It wasn't nearly as demonic as Dante's, though he gave it his best shot. "Petruso here knows how good I am at riding and might jump to some nasty conclusions about how I ended up crashing. Fuck the rest of what these assholes do, souka. He's the only one you need to worry about."

Oleksiy hopped on his bike and revved the engine, then pulled the blonde in for a wet kiss, free hand traveling over her in a very 'look what I have, this is mine' kind of show. "You ready for this? Say goodbye to your girl now. You might not have a chance to talk to her by the time you putter in."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante glanced in... the general direction Kathy had disappeared in. Eh.

"Some of us aren't that worried," he said brightly.

He kicked the gas pedal of his bike in gently. Just to make a little noise. He hadn't taken the brakes off yet, after all.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

"Kaya, do the honors," Oleksiy ordered as he moved his bike into position and imperiously gestured for Dante to do the same.

"It's Kelly," the blonde sulked, but walked in front of the motorcycles, pulling a pair of red scarves out of...somewhere. It was hard to tell where in her skimpy outfit she could have hidden then.

"Ready!" she called in a voice loud enough to be heard over the ambient noise of the crowd. "Get set...GO MOTHERFUCKERS, GOOOO!"

Oleksiy barely waited for the first go, tearing off into the street.

[rebelseekspizza]

Fine with Dante. He was counting on his reflexes to be his ace in the hole, though the ridiculously fast bike he was sitting on wasn't gonna hurt. He hit the throttle as soon as dumbass over there did, and as a result, wasn't more than a centimeter behind within the first few seconds.

Fuck him. Seriously.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Oleksiy's thoughts about Dante weren't any more flattering. He'd expected more of a head start that that. He jerked hard to the right, trying to force Dante off his ass and into a parked car.

[rebelseekspizza]

No dodging that one, sure. But Dante had strength and reflexes on his side-- so he could yank the bike up, skip over the front of the car and land right back on the road.

A couple of inches ahead of Olek-whatever. He smirked at the guy.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

And Dante gained a few more as Oleksiy eased off the throttle to gape at that maneuver. "The fuck are you?" he shouted. "Some kind of fucking trick rider?!"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Just fucking better than you!" Dante called, but he sure as shit wasn't laying off the throttle now.

He slipped the bike between the next set of cars, squeezing in like he'd been doing this for ages. (He hadn't. He just had a unique set of cheat codes.)

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Oleksiy cursed in several languages, jerking his bike to the left to go around the cars. He didn't have enough speed to maneuver through properly and that cost him another half-length in speed.

He hadn't meant to do this so early, but he needed to make up the distance somehow. So with one more bitter Ukrainian curse, he was thumbing the button on the side of his bike, then practically leaping forward, zipping past Dante as the nitrous hit his engine.

"Suck on this!" he screamed as he passed by, gaining a few yards before the NOS gave out.

[rebelseekspizza]

Aw, throwing out your trump card that early? There was still a ton of shit that could happen on a road this busy.

'Course, downside: this bike didn't have any of that fancy NOS stuff, so now Dante had to hope the traffic would do the job. He hit the throttle again, hoping to get another edge of speed, and kept going. "We'll see who's laughing next," he called.

Look, battle banter was not his strong suit.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

You didn't say!

Oleksiy looked ahead and laughed. The gas station was coming up, but right ahead of it was a traffic light already turning amber. Better still, an empty auto transport trailer was slowing to a stop in front of them. Oleksiy was confident he could zip around it and make it through the light before it changed, but the punk-ass kid would be stuck behind a truck at least until the light turned green again. That would be plenty of time for him to hit the gas station and turn around.

Flipping Dante off, he raced around the truck just as the light turned red, making it across the intersection just as the cross traffic started to move.

Your move, dick.

[rebelseekspizza]

What? This guy didn't seriously think Dante was gonna wait for the cross traffic to clear, right? In fact, he could see the truck stopping from further back-- so he'd already shifted around, clearing a bunch of cars and then shooting off right into traffic.

Squeezed his bike through the gaps in the first and second lanes, then-- fuck it.

There were advantages to confusing the fuck out of gravity, like taking your bike up to touch the actual roof of some car, hit an invisible platform of something in the air, then go soaring.

Who needed NOS when you had momentum?

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Oleksiy was driving too fast for him to look backwards, even to gloat. So he missed Dante's feat of aerial gravity-abuse, content in the knowledge that he'd left his competition far behind him--at least until Dante's bright red motorcycle landed on the road ahead of him.

"WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!"

[rebelseekspizza]

'sokay, Oleksiy. There was a counter running in the back of Dante's head that just happily screamed S-savage! at him.

Since Dante was a mature young gentleman, he took the opportunity to flip Oleksiy off-- and then set his bike on a direct course for that gas station riiight up ahead.

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

Shit shit shit. Oleksiy was out of NOS, his RPMs were screaming in the red zone, and his odometer needle was as far right as he could push it and still he was falling behind.

Fine then. If you couldn't beat 'em, cheat 'em. Who was everyone going to believe? A Boevik for the Mikhaltsos, or some punk-ass kid who showed up out of the blue? Fuck that kid--Oleksiy was turning his bike hard to the left so he could spin around and start riding back to the parking lot.

So long, sucker!

[rebelseekspizza]

The smart thing to do would've been to turn tail and follow Oleksiy, but Dante was governed by Rule of Cool, not Rule of Smart. "What the fuck," he snarled, as he rushed through the last remaining few yards, tapped the gas station and turned tail a few seconds later.

"Can't cut it without spinning it, can you, asshole?" he yelled, bike screaming after him. The Ophion hook would've come in handy here...

[hollywoodex-tra.livejournal.com]

This is what happened when you had to wait for your idiot twin to come and explain things!

"You can always give up now, fuckface!" Oleksiy yelled over his shoulder. "Maybe you'll even get to keep your bike this way! Too bad about your girl, though!"

Like he gave a fuck about what Dante thought about him. He intended to win, no matter what it took.

[rebelseekspizza]

In that case, it might be smart if he kept his eyes on the road. That traffic light was looking mighty yellow just now.

Dante gritted his teeth and swerved back into the midst of traffic, trying to gain ground by sticking between the cars. No more trash talk. Just focus.

Kathy was going to kill him if he fucked this up, and that was at least going to sting a little.