Rider

Chapter 1-New Car Smell

Midkiff Settlement-Main Island

Midkiff Honda

514 Miles Away

Five Hours Later

Max Thomas

Living on an island in the middle of the ocean certainly has its perks. My personal favorite is that there's a bunch of caves about twenty miles from my house that somebody decided would be a cool place to put a restaurant. Great food and a great view of the ocean, it was the perfect take to place the significant other in your life out if you just wanted some alone time. Sure was my girl's favorite. The weather is nice most of the year too, depending of course on who you asked. Spring, fall and winter were pretty much all the same, cooler weather, clear skies, light winds and sunsets that could take your breath away. Summer tended to be rainy, foggy and a bit warmer than a lot of people around here cared for, but there was something about misty fog and rain falling off the leaves of trees that had been here since the first settlers landed on the island thousands of years ago that brought about a certain inner peace that I could only get in a few places. Speaking of the island, what could be said about the island of Midkiff that hadn't already been said before? Meh....a lot, none of it was good really. Anything you could get to grow in the dirt up here was tough, tasteless. Anyone who had grown up here? Even more so. Moreover, everyone here seemed to be of the persuasion of, I'm not interested, don't bother me. Made talking to people somewhat mind numbing, trying to make small talk at a cash register? Forget it, you gonna get cussed at. Want to ask to ask your neighbor where he got those cool wheels on his new car from? Nope. Get lost. Got someone you wanna ask out? Good luck. In addition, there were a bunch of clowns in black uniforms that carried guns always around any public building. Mercenaries, hired by the local government to help our rather small military with security, since they'd been being harassed by the Insurrectionists and an entity that was only ever known as "The Order". Eh, more on that later.

Know what? Come to think of it, one thing that really does suck is the lack of options here. Being one of the most remote planets in Frigidaire Space means that what we have is what's mandated by the Council of Occupied Space for inhabited planets. Wanna go to Stewarts Foods to get your favorite cheese? Though, we don't have that here because there aren't enough people to turn as big a profit as they'd like. Need a bunch of two by fours for some home repair but don't like Chance's Hardware and would rather purchase from Barracuda? Too bad, Barracuda Hardware & Lumber doesn't operate here. There's also only one space port, located on the central island, and of course, the DMV, Tax office and post office are all located inside the space port. So I hope your comfortable driving up to twelve hours one way once a week to check your mail. And of course, this brings me to the fact that there's only one car dealership on the entire planet. That honor goes to Midkiff Honda. So, I guess if you're a Honda guy or a Honda family, which mine is, it isn't so bad, especially since they still offer Honda's entire line up. You can get anything from a 1963 T630 Mini to a brand new 2022 Passport, and either come with all the accessories Honda ever offered. Of course, besides just offering Honda's entire line up, they also had an in house custom shop staffed by some of the best Honda techs in occupied space. Want a wide body, all-wheel drive swap for your 1971 Prelude that comes with a twelve month twelve thousand mile warranty? They can do that, and did for my Dad. Want to go full electric in your 2002 civic hatchback? Well, they did it for the last owner of my Civic, and now the car is mine. I have it. Speaking of custom work, that happened to be exactly why my Dad and I had been sitting in the customer lounge of the dealership for the last two hours. He had closed the deal on a brand new, 2022 Odyssey with all the bells and whistles that Honda offered, along with the custom shop's manual transmission package since my Mom, who normally drove the van, hated automatics. After trading in the old family van, he had gotten quite the deal, if I do say so myself. He had mentioned to me on the way in that his Prelude's transmission was rattling like a maraca, and on the way home he couldn't put it in gear, any gear. So now, we were back in the customer lounge. Dad was reading a magazine, and I was watching the mechanics tear my Dad's emerald green Prelude apart. At a point in this process, the tech came inside and approached my Dad.