5 Toil And Trouble

LUCAS

Gravity. A natural phenomenon by which all things with mass or energy gravitate toward one another. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects.

Renfield XV Sutton defied gravity.

Lucas dug his fingers into the armrest of the leather seat as the car flew in the air past buildings like it would do on the ground. It was practically a bird when it was in the air but gravity affected birds. They have to work against it by flapping their wings to keep them in flight. They push the air down which in turn, pushes their body up.

Renfield XV Sutton also had wings when it was in the air. After activating the flight mode, a resilient screen comes over the doorway before the doors open and curve upwards.

Most of the roads had been widened two years ago when Renfield Sutton, the CEO of Sutton Inc., announced that his daughter had designed a flying car and that it was already in the works.

The car beeped twice and a female voice filled the interior. "Inadequate fit ahead. Slanting..." The seats vibrated. "Brace."

This had been happening every couple of minutes. When he had asked the car to drive home, he told it to take the fastest route available because he was in a hurry. That included a couple of corners and roads that hadn't yet been widened for flying cars.

Lucas took a deep breath as the seat belt tightened against his chest when the car slowly began to slant in the air.

He had received a call from one of his Betas, Ella Snow, after he left the cafe. Two hundred and fifty eight more people had now been infected with the virus. His number one problem was not knowing where the virus came from. To the best of his understanding, the virus spreads between humans through close contact with an infected person.

When the virus started, the people that were infected were isolated. Then more people became infected and they had not been in contact with any infected person. If he knew where it was coming from then he could at least put a stop to it and focus on getting Imani to help him.

After a couple of seconds, the car beeped again and the seats vibrated before it slowly returned to how it was meant to be.

"Destination, Wolfborn. Will arrive at destination in nine minutes forty eight seconds."

Lucas pulled his phone out of his pocket to find several messages from Vinay Sanjana, his second Beta. Most of them were asking if Imani showed up and if she was going to help. He couldn't stop the wave of disappointment that washed over him.

He was composing another e-mail to send to the scientist when the car made three consecutive buzzing sounds as the neon lights in its interior changed from blue to red.

"Warning, Warning. Heading into werewolf territory... Warning, warning. Heading into werewolf territory... Parking."

'Stupid piece of shit.' Lucas scowled as the car slowly dived to the ground and proceeded to park before the neon lights winked out.

This wasn't the first or second time the car had done this. He had gotten it a month ago and it always stopped whenever it got close to Wolfborn. There was no way to disable the action and he knew it was there to spite his kind.

"Sutton," Lucas said and he almost gagged as the name left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

The car beeped and the neon lights came on, a blue colour. "Yes, Lucas," the female voice filled the car.

'Idiot.'

"Take me home."

He completed the e-mail and sent it as the controls at the front of the car came on. It was another one of him pleading with her to respond or show up.

"Drive mode or flight mode."

"Flight mode."

"Flight mode activated. Destination, Wolfborn. Calibrating... Calibrating... Werewolf territory. Proceed?"

He gritted his teeth and ran his hand through his hair. "Proceed."

"Driving to Wolfborn." The car slowly levitated off the ground.

The car was amazing and he loved it but he didn't like it. More specifically, he didn't like the company that created it.

He didn't like Renfield Sutton. To Lucas, the old man was a capitalist and an oppressor. Renfield Sutton was a bastard, plain and simple. He also didn't hide the fact that he hated werewolves and vampires... he actually said it in a press conference. The employee form on the website of Renfield Sutton's companies had a 'what's your specie?' section.

Ticking anything that wasn't 'I'm human' always made the page crash. It wasn't just his company that was like that, three fourth of the companies in Manhattan were also like that. That's why Lucas had created his own company.

Lucas Harrison was the CEO of Harrison Corp., the best 3D printing company in the country. People didn't like to admit it but he knew it was because his company's products always sold out and they were praised on social media. Fodel was the only website to acknowledge his company and for that he loved the website and read it every day.

Humans didn't give the vampires and werewolves a place so he created one for his people. The CEO's of other companies didn't like it but there was nothing they could do about it. The only thing they did was to throw a few attacking comments his way every now and then at press conferences.

Using the Renfield XV Sutton to get to the cafe was only to impress Imani Tallerico because he found out that she was best friends with Lola Sutton, Renfield Sutton's daughter, who was also the lady that invented the car. He was trying so damn hard to impress her but she didn't even show up or reply his e-mails.

"Parking..." the car had dived to the ground and was beginning to slow down. "Arrived at destination, Wolfborn. Caution. Werewolf territory."

The door curved back into place before the resilient screen slid down and Lucas quickly opened it. Ella was waiting in front of the two storey building he called home with a dejected look on her face when he got down.

He was really failing his people and he was willing to do anything to put a stop to the virus.