“Geez, that’s loud!” observed Deecus as the three men stood by the two idling Harleys. “How’d you ever get this far?”

          Ted laughed. “They only sound like  that because we’re inside. These babies have got five  extra pounds of glass in the mufflers, and one of our boys specially designed the baffles. When they’re outside, you can barely hear ‘em at 50 feet.” Ted glanced at the closing electric door,  leaned over and cut the ignitions on both bikes. “Better?”

          Deek shook his head. “You guys have some serious balls - especially in this state!”

          “What state are we in again?” spoke up the third man in the trio, his voice muffled by the black full-face helmet.

          “You’re still in the state of Paranoia,” Ted smiled. “Deek here is genuine finest-kind, Benny. You know we wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t!”

          “Christ!” observed the helmet. “Again with the names!” But he shrugged and removed the helmet, exposing a weathered face haloed with short grey hair and beard. “Gimmie a smoke.” he nudged his buddy.

          “Boy, you fellas sure live dangerous!” grinned  Deek, removing the bung screw from one of a half-dozen beat up 55 gallon drums  in the corner of the dusty garage. “You might wanna wait until we’re finished here!”

          The wizened Deecus peered over his wire rim glasses into the drum, and carefully inserted an old crank handle pump. He motioned to the bikes. “Who’s first”?

          Benny, shrugging out of his leather coat, spoke up, “What’s the date on that stuff?”

          “Date or Octane?” asked Deek, emphasizing both words as he handed over the nozzle to Benny. “Probably ‘09 on the date, mebbe 100 on the octane. “When we were still dong the drags we were hitting up small airports for Avgas as much as the petro-depots. For some reason the security was higher on the depots. Go figure...” He began to turn the crank as Benny watched.

“You must have some awfully good connections to be popping this here stash!” Deek motioned to the drums. “Last I heard, black market was $60 a liter!”

          “What other market is there?” smiled Ted, lifting his fiberglass saddlebag lids to reveal two  polymer bladder fuel tanks where normally large batteries would have been.

          Deek shrugged, pausing in his cranking as Benny handed the fuel nozzle to Ted. He tapped the side of the drum. “What’s the payload on them suckers?”

          “Mine’s about 40 gallons, Benny’s is close to 50. We don’t plan on stopping like this more than we have to!”

          “Gawddamn renegades!” chuckled Deecus. “Gallons! I can dig it!” Pointing to the dusty fridge in the corner. “Grab us a beer out of the box! This felony fueling is some thirsty work!”

Like Europe, metric was mandatory. Dealing in archaic weight was a state offense, but not nearly the ball-buster of  riding a petroleum fueled motorcycle

          Benny found his way through the clutter to the fridge, pausing to lift the corner of a tarp from the edge of the handlebars it covered. His eyebrows raised a bit. “Buell?” he asked.

          “Yup.” Deecus nodded from across the garage. “Pre Millenium!”

          Benny grinned. “Is that like a Thunderbolt or something?” He wandered back with the beers as Ted finished topping off from the second drum and handed the nozzle back to Deecus, who grinned and said, “More like greased lightning! What did you boys think we used to drag around here? Volkswagens?”  Pulling a clean rag from a drawer, he mopped his forehead and wiped the grime of his labors from his hands and fondly nodded towards the tarp. “Been over two years since she’s been fired up. I need to turn her over when the next big thunderstorm comes thru...” his voice wandered off.

          “Come on, buddy,” said Ted. “We’ll buy you a late dinner...”   

          Ted’s wristwatch beeped promptly at 4 pm, and he and Benny shrugged off the light sleep they’d been enjoying on the worn couch and chair in Deek’s old house. “Rise and whine!” he grinned at Benny, who’d slept in his leathers and would no doubt be the crankier for it. “It’s rush hour!”  He zipped his way into his riding gear, and wandered over to the table where a note instructed the pair to take the waiting bag of sandwiches with them.

           A quick glance by Ted confirmed there were bottles of water in the sack, and he picked it up as Benny opened the door to the garage. The pair had decided before leaving the East Coast that evening driving was the way to go, as the  traffic volume of workers fleeing  their work masked the noise and heat signature of the two ‘cloaked’ Harleys. As with most ‘work’ scenarios, there were enough legacy officially permitted petro-vehicles to mask the bikes’ exhaust from the roadside sensors, and  out of the metro areas the surveillance wore off gradually.  The primary danger of the countryside was from infra-red spotters and carbon-sniffers both mounted and portable,  as the gas-burners gave off more heat and carbon monoxide than EPA certified vehicles.  Very occasional Petro-Patrol units, which could match the speed of the outlawed bikes on the ground, were spread thin and only presented a problem in close proximity.

           The bikes were fitted with camouflage of sorts. Stainless aerodynamic covers shielded the exhaust pipes from casual notice, looking to be the heat dissipaters they replaced. The fuel tanks had the required Hydrogen warnings, and the hybrid certification certificates affixed to the tags appeared to be genuine to all but the closest inspection.  RFID readers didn’t pick the ‘certs’ radio signature up at much over ten feet, so the phonies had never been a problem.. Other than the occasional puff of smoke from the well-maintained bikes, the only other dead giveaway was the odor to the rear, as the remnants of burnt fossil fuel were  programmed to trigger a variety of government sensors in public.  Allowing a Police unit to follow too closely was a guaranteed bust on vehicles such as the pair rode, but thank Willie in this age most law enforcement was automated.

          Checking that the aluminum lightweight survival blankets they occasionally used after dark, not so much against the evening chill as to cover their hot bikes against heat signature recognition from overflying FLIR units - precise enough to differentiate between Hydrogen and hydro-carbons - the pair rolled out into the industrial sunset towards the left coast,  still some 1400 miles - if you remember that term - away.

          The metro loop was incredibly busy, but then again metro loops were always congested during rush hours. Thanks to computerized controls and aerial wreckers, the traffic jams of the past were largely just that, and traffic moved smoothly at the mandated speed. Ted and Benny moved their powerful Harleys smoothly from one vantage point to the next in traffic, falling in behind any exempted petro-powered utility or quasi-governmental vehicle they could spot, knowing that type of vehicle masked the true nature of the non-conforming V-Twins. The few other bikes they saw on the road were obviously electro-hydrogen hybrids, and only self-restraint kept the pair from dusting off a few of the crawlers.

          At the far West side of the loop, the pair peeled off from the rotating mass, and headed into the setting sun, still in a fairly healthy flow of traffic. Further out into the suburbs the pair was increasingly solo on the highway, and their senses heightened.

          They constantly scanned the passing surroundings for sensor units and aerial activity.  About 45 miles out, Benny blipped his horn for Ted’s attention, and pointed out a black dot on the horizon. Both riders immediately steered the bikes to the roadside and into a copse of pines. It took them less than a half-minute from the time Benny noticed the ‘copter until they had the foil-faced survival blankets over the silent Harleys. The men silently hoped that the dusk was deep enough that the blankets that covered their illegal heat sources would not produce any visible flash to the chopper.

          Far overhead in the evening sky, the pair saw the contrails and lights of a supersonic aircraft, reminding them that a single trans-continental jet turbine flight put out more petro-pollutants than any few thousand antique street bikes ever could.

          As the chopper receded in direction of the city they’d recently left, and Benny stripped the foil-faced blankets from the bikes, Ted looked fondly at his modified monster, recalling more lenient times. Far in the back of his mind, the rumble of an un-muffled Harley on a hot summer night echoed. A dragonfly with eyes as lustrous as any chrome-steel accessory landed on his hand, bringing his thoughts to the present

          “So, do ya’ think that was a seeker?” Benny asked, still staring off in the direction of the receding dot.

          “Nah,” shrugged Ted, “looked corporate to me.”

          ““Christ, I feel like an extra from Smokey and the Bandit!  So what’s the fine these days?” mused Benny.

          “Last I heard it was still vehicle seizure, $250,000 Federal fine, and two years of community duty.”

          Benny laughed. “So I guess a warning ticket is out of the question?”

          The pair waited a moment, Benny patiently puffing on a cigarette every bit as illegal as the outlaw Harleys, in case the copter made a return trip along the same route, but five minutes later the pair was back on the asphalt at what might have passed for a legal speed twenty years previously. Not simply headed West into the cooling night, they were on a mission. But it was a mission they knew well they may not finish.

          The night highway at 65 mph can be a bit monotonous, so it was the second time Benny chirped his horn and tapped his helmet that Ted caught the gesture and switched on his helmet’s tiny radio. “What’s up?”

          “Behind us...about 2 miles back.” Benny jerked his head back by way of pointing. “We got company.”

          “Ah...probably just good  ol’ interstate commerce...” the reply crackled.

          “Don’t think so, “ replied his buddy. “Single light.”

          Out of habit and caution the pair picked the nearest visual blocker - a long abandoned gas station with a faded country store sign, and eased off the road to the far side of the building, shutting down the Harleys and standing out of view of oncoming traffic. It wasn’t that it was unheard of to see traffic on secondary highways, but almost all traffic used the new Hyper-Highways, where anything imaginable was available at your vehicle window while the entire roadway traveled at the mandated speed.  

          Driving secondary roads was considered a rather unpatriotic waste of energy since Hyper Highways used magnetic pulse assistance, and the mass of the traffic flow only helped the bottom line for the taxpayer.

          But on this once well traveled secondary highway, a single headlight not only approached, but appeared to be shifting rapidly from hi-beam to lo-beam repeatedly. A signal of some sort. Semi-concealed, the two leathered riders watched it draw closer, and listened, incredulously, as the unmistakable sound of a high performance, relatively un-muffled V-Twin split the night air, sending shivers down the spines of both.

          The fantastically illegal machine began to gear down as it approached the dark store, sending clouds of nearby resting birds into the night sky. It rolled into the front lot of the store, revved once and shut down. The rider climbed off and unbuckled a silver helmet.

          “Yo! Guys!” the figure yelled, a bit muffled as the helmet came off. “Change of plans!”

          The dumbfounded duo now realized their pursuer was none other than Deecus on the ‘pre-millennia’  Buell.

          “The clubhouse went down! Fourteen arrests, including your lawyers!”

          “Excuse me?” said Benny of the slack jaw.

          “Yup...” Deek sauntered over. “Took ‘em about 30 minutes to find the petrol and other bikes out at the golf cart building, but your beloved country club is now state property!  The boys were so tickled, they let me drag the monster out to come and tell you!”

          Deecus practically cackled. “Surprise!” And he flipped his wallet open as a stealth police copter and petro-cruiser arrived from different directions.  The gold colored CAPPS card - Citizens Against Petroleum Products - winked in the copters’ floodlight. “Glad you boys didn’t eat those sandwiches! Them GPS locators are kind’a hard to chew!  Sorry boys,  but  I’ll get me another thousand liters out of this!”

          Then the handcuffs were on, the chopper cable slung around the pair’s bikes, and as Ted and Benny sat in the back of the cruiser, Ted simply shrugged. “So what the hell...in two years we’re still  Probates...”

          As the cruiser swung out onto the highway, the lights from the copter picked up the logo on the trunk: Dial 911 - Help Us Protect Your Freedom.