Full Torque

By Bernard Bayede

Daylight robberies plague the City of Ngelosi on the paradise like island of Azania, South Africa. When one of these robberies result in his mother ending up in the hospital, Max McKay decides to return to the city he was exiled from. His mission: catch the bad guy!

Unfortunately, Max quickly discovers that a lot has changed since his departure and his mission will require him to do the one thing that he could not do before: win the Crown. But in order to do that, he must contend with old advisories like Moodswing and Shade, and new ones like Auto One Racing Champion, Glenwood Jacobs

With the stakes at an all-time high, can Max overcome the odds and prevent a repeat of what happened last time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bernard Bayede
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005251376

Bernard Bayede

Bernard Bayede is a South African author with a taste for out-of-this-world stories of science fiction and fantasy. Born and raised in beachside province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Bayede has taken his love for sci-fi and fantasy and combined it with an African setting. Bayede has already published his first three books, The Bowman's Apprentice and Other Stories; Ignighted and Planet of the Rings. He is currently working on his fourth book (a sequel to Ignighted) and fifth book, Planet of the Rings Volume 2.

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Bernard Bayede

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Copyright Sphu Kubheka

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For My Future First Born.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE: Homecoming

CHAPTER TWO: Cold Front

CHAPTER THREE: Azania’s Greatest

CHAPTER FOUR: Resultant

CHAPTER FIVE: Business Suits and Racing Suits

CHAPTER SIX: The First Generation

CHAPTER SEVEN: Scene of the Crime

CHAPTER EIGHT: A Christmas Nuisance

CHAPTER NINE: Cause and Effect

CHAPTER TEN: Kingdom Come

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Dark Reprise

CHAPTER TWELVE: Caleb Steel

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Shark Tank Casino

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Back in the Saddle

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Apprehended

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Revival

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: High Noon at Twilight

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Stand/Off – Part II

CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Showdown

CHAPTER TWENTY: No Going Back

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Dying Hard

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Lethal Attraction

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Long Live

EPILOGUE

About the Author

PREFACE

Max knew what was at stake and didn’t relent on the accelerator. He followed the twin-cam race car as it drove right through the glass doors of the old Ngelosi Airport. This is ludicrous, thought Max. There is no way that this was going to turn end well. Nonetheless, Max followed as close as possible, only thinking about his mother lying in that hospital bed because of these guys.

They’d driven right onto the old runways again which finally gave Max enough space to get alongside The Twin-Cam. Remembering that this wasn’t a race, Max pulled a card out of Christina’s deck and edged his tires towards the other vehicle. Realizing that Max was not bluffing, The Twin-Cam steered away and headed straight for a parked fuel tanker. Max realized what was about to happen and immediately turned away as The Twin-Cam rammed into the tanker and exploded.

PROLOGUE

It was a bright hot day in the City of Ngelosi, Azania; notably hotter than the rest of South Africa which was already known for having very hot festive seasons. This was why it was strange for Nosipho McKay to be sipping away at a hot cup of coffee in the middle of an otherwise empty internet café. Of course, it was the emptiness of the café that Nosipho was after.

Nosipho had never really liked the festive season and it wasn’t because of the heat but because it made her feel lonely. Ever since telling her boy to stay with his father (her estranged husband) in Australia almost four years ago as well as the university where she worked closing shop for the holidays, Nosipho was left with little to do except watch other families enjoy spending time together.

This was why despite being in a busy mall, she was in a café which notoriously didn’t do much business at this time of the year – what with all students and businessmen on holiday and their menus not catering for the season. It gave her somewhere to sit in peace and read the newspaper in solitude outside of her house on Scully Road.

As Nosipho looked out at the view of Ngelosi through the double volume window, she thought about that house and how empty it was now that her son was no longer around. Of course, it was her fault that he wasn’t here even after being given a second chance at this parenting thing when he was sent back to Azania from Australia just seven months ago.

It was her fault that, despite having Max around, she’d spent so much time at the university that she’d barely seen him his entire stay. It was her fault that after being suspected of street racing that she’d agreed with Harbour High School to expel him. And it was her fault that after being expelled, she’d sent him to the mainland to ‘keep him out of trouble’.

While she knew that Max himself carried enough blame on his own shoulders being the one who was street racing in the first place, the truth was that if she’d been around more often, then she could have kept an eye on him like she was supposed to. Nosipho was still in her own headspace when she heard the screaming.

Nosipho’s attention was immediately drawn away from the window and towards the entrance. While she had no interest in heading towards the screaming, there was only one entrance to the café, and it faced the main concourse area of the mall. But as Nosipho stepped out, she was happy to see that the commotion was on the ground level of the mall, one floor below.

Not wasting any time, Nosipho crossed the walkway to get to the other side of the concourse and towards the parking lot. But before she cleared the area, she looked downstairs and was shocked to see what the fuss was all about. Moving at an incredibly dangerous speed, knocking over Christmas decorations were two black motorcycles. They’d screeched to a stop in front of an ATM and dismounted, pulling cables from each of the bikes and attaching them to the ATM.

People were now too mesmerised by what they were seeing to scream, as was Nosipho who was now frozen in place. She watched as the bikers climbed back onto the motorcycles and screeched their tyres to a start. And after a struggle, they managed to launch the ATM out of the wall and began dragging it across the tiled floor with the money-loaded machine sending sparks up off the floor.

The bikers turned towards Nosipho’s direction, but she wasn’t scared as they were still on the ground floor. However, Nosipho heard more shouting behind her and turned around and looked down to see security advancing towards the bikers, successfully cornering them. Now, standing still again, the bikers looked up, directly at Nosipho still on the walkway, and without a second thought, revved their bikes up and started dragging the ATM across the floor again.

Nosipho looked ahead of the bikers and noticed stairs that linked the ground floor to the walkway she was on and didn’t think twice about bolting. She moved as quickly as she could towards the parking lot, running past the doors. For some insane reason, she couldn’t help but wonder about where she put the parking ticket. Ignoring this misplaced instinct, she continued into the parking lot before pausing.

For a split second, she was sure that the bikers had gone a separate way, perhaps favouring going through the rest of the upper floor concourse rather than escaping through the parking lot. But her hopes were dashed when she heard the bikes coming towards her and she started booking it again.

She could see her car just across the access road and almost smiled thinking she’d gotten away when she heard screeching tires in front of her and instinctively stopped before the car ran her over. However, the bikers didn’t stop and instead navigated their way around the car. Unfortunately, while the motorcycles cleared the car, the bikers had failed to account for the ATM they were dragging (or did, but just didn’t care what happened) and the machine smacked Nosipho so hard, it sent her toppling over the windshield of the car and over to the other side!

While the driver finally got out of his car to check on Nosipho, now a bloody mess, Nosipho tried not to move. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her meaning that she couldn’t tell what was broken. However, she did manage to swivel her head just enough to see the bikers on the other end of the parking lot, stopping to examine their handiwork before taking off down the ramp with their unearned money.

As she began to lose consciousness, Nosipho couldn’t help but think of Christmas, particularly the sound of sleigh bells. There was just something so pure and innocent about the sound which contrasted so harshly with the sound of those bikes’ screeching tires and that painful scraping sound from the dragged ATM. This thought oddly brought her to the thought of her son.

She couldn’t help but compare her once-innocent son to the bells and his street racing to those bikes. If only I could get a second chance to bring that innocence back, thought Nosipho. Just one more chance to make my boy into a good man. But these thoughts drifted as blackness took over.

CHAPTER ONE: HOMECOMING

Maximillian Xolani McKay was not an ordinary 17-year-old boy. He was, as his teachers called him, a troubled youth. Between moving three times to three separate places across oceans in the space of six weeks and his run in with police seemingly everywhere he went, it was not a shock that they’d jumped to that conclusion. Of course, Max disagreed.

As far as Max was concerned, trouble didn’t come looking for him, he went looking for it. He was the one that got in trouble for illegal motorcycle racing in Brisbane, Australia. And after that got him ‘deported’ to Ngelosi, South Africa, it was him who once again got involved in underground street racing. Except it wasn’t just any street racing. It was the greatest underground racing he’d experienced in his life.

Unfortunately, that was all behind him. After too close a call with the police and missing enough classes in school to get him kicked out, Max’s mother had decided to send him to Kwa-Zulu Natal on the mainland to start afresh. And start afresh he did with no friends, no extra-curricular activities (that he was interested in) and not much to do when he got back home except farm chores.

Max’s mother certainly knew what she was doing when she sent him to live with his Uncle Isaac and Aunt Nandi – his mother’s sister – who lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere aptly called the Midlands. He remembered visiting the place as a child but hadn’t been back in years. 

Max remembered being fascinated as a kid of how different the two sides of his family were: night and day with his Caucasian father’s side of the family being white and his Zulu mother’s side of the family being black. Nonetheless, they’d both managed to make him feel at home despite the vastly distinct cultures.

As a young boy of mixed race, Max had gotten the best of both worlds. But it was his cousins from both sides of the family that had done the most work in making him feel at home. It was a shame that his cousin Sabelo, who was a year older, was now in his first year of varsity in Johannesburg further isolating Max this time around.

So now, when Max wasn’t at the prestigious Michaelhouse learning about similes and calculus, he was on the farm, baling hay, chopping firewood, or milking cows. And there was no street racing to be found up in these hills. Max had been sure to ask around and it was as boring as it sounded.

Even the beckoning of the holidays wasn’t enough to lighten Max up as it had already been a week since schools closed yet it didn’t feel like the festive season at all. It didn’t help that there were no Christmas decorations within kilometres of the place.

After he’d finished collecting the eggs the chickens had just laid, Max went inside. His Aunt and Uncle’s house was an old but sturdy place held up by immortal red face bricks and looked like it had been around since World War II. It was a three-bedroom house with only one toilet (if one didn’t count the long drop outside). Aunt Nandi was busy at the pot making stiff maize meal when Max walked in.

Got the eggs, Mamncane.

Oh, good job, my boy. Now we’re all set for breakfast for tomorrow.

Max did admittedly find it charming how an entire breakfast was made just with the farm livestock. Max looked at the pot Aunt Nandi was stirring and wondered about the meat that was going to go with it. What’re you making, Mamncane?

It’s phuthu to go with the amasi that we’ll be having. She watched him roll his eyes. Now Max, don’t start complaining. You know that we don’t like having food go to waste. And with that milk in the fridge now sour, this is the only way we can finish it.

I know that Mamncane. It’s just that we’ve had amasi four times already this month. And it’s only the ninth of December. While Max had been surprised to find that he liked the taste of the sour milk meal (especially after adding a little sugar) he didn’t like eating it as often as they did.

Well, if you hadn’t collected so much milk last weekend, then we wouldn’t have this problem, now, would we?

This frustrated Max because she was right. In fact, it had been his frustration that had led him to over-milk the cows, and out of some misplaced sense of spite, no less. Now the milk was beginning to go sour. Before he could complain anymore, his uncle walked in. Isaac Zama was a down-to-earth guy that also had a presence that commanded the room. He’d grown up a farmer and knew everything there was about farming.

Aunt Nandi greeted him with a smile. Ah, you’re back. I take it you got everything you wanted from the butchery. Max just brought in the eggs. When Uncle Isaac didn’t respond, Aunt Nandi knew something was wrong. She switched off the pot and went to him. S’thando sami, what’s wrong?

Uncle Isaac gestured for Nandi to sit down in the sitting room. When Max also asked what was wrong, he gestured for his nephew to do the same and swallowed hard before speaking. Nandi, it’s Nosipho. Something’s happened.

Hawu Nkosi yami, what? What happened?

There was some kind of accident at the mall, and she got hurt.

What!? said Aunt Nandi and Max in unison. How bad? asked Max.

She’s in the hospital in Surgery. He turned back to his wife. Now the only thing I know for sure is that she’s not going to die. But her injuries, there’s no way of knowing how bad they are until they’re finished.

While Aunt Nandi began to cry, Max’s mind spun as he wondered what kind of accident could have happened at the mall. What happened? he finally asked his uncle after he’d consoled his wife.

We can talk about that later, son.

I’m not your son, he said with a little too much snappiness. "I’m her son, he recovered. So, I want to know what happened to my mother."

After making it so clear why he was entitled to answers, Uncle Isaac swallowed again and answered. There was a robbery, Max. Two men riding motorcycles rode into the mall and stole an ATM before attempting to escape through the parking lot which was when they ran over your mother.

Max latched onto one word in particular. "Attempted? Does that mean the cops caught the guys?"

No, they got away.

Max’s mood suddenly changed. Is he telling me that these two whack jobs ran over my mother and not only got away with that but also with their robbery? Max was furious but decided to bottle his fury and instead stormed off to his room. He wanted to hit something. A part of him was surprised by this considering how much he loathed that she was an absentee mother. Yet there was a part of him that wanted to go to her, run into her arms and beg that she be okay.

Max’s mind was racing, and his emotions were all over the place. He’d somehow gone from anger to heartbroken to guilty. He somehow felt that it was his fault for not being there. Maybe if I’d been there, then I would have been the one in that mall and she wouldn’t be hurt. Max’s mind continued to race but after realizing that he was getting nowhere, he decided that he needed to put his mind to work.

While the first thing he wanted to do was call his father in Australia to tell him what happened, he realized that he needed to do something else first: research. Because if this was not a one-time thing and there was a trail to follow, then he was going to need something from his father. Max turned on the hotspot on his cell phone, turning it into a Wi-Fi modem, before flipping his laptop open and going to the internet browser. He then began looking for the Azania news sites, specifically those in Ngelosi. It was all of ten minutes before he found what he was looking for:

BRAZEN DAYLIGHT ROBBERIES PLAGUE CITY OF NGELOSI

Following a pattern of robberies, Ngelosi City Mayor, Busisiwe Ndlovu, has called Ngelosi Metropolitan Police Department for answers. Head of Ngelosi Metro P.D. has gone on record to state that the culprits remain at large as of now, but every effort is being put in place to arrest these thieves and lock them away.

This frustrated Max even further. This was not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to know what they were doing about these thieves. He wanted to know about their M.O. and the police’s suspicions on what their targets were. That was the only way they were going to get caught. That’s when Max stumbled on another article. While the website was less known, this one looked more promising:

HITTING LIKE THUNDER, DISAPPEARING LIKE SMOKE

For the past six months, the City of Ngelosi, Azania has been ravaged by a string of robberies that sees the thieves using motorcycles to steal ATMs by pulling them out of the walls and dragging them off. Many online comments have compared these robberies to the Fast and Furious movies where the protagonists steal a vault using a similar technique.

Unfortunately, the Metro Police do not have any leads, nor do they have any way of predicting where the next robbery will take place. In fact, sources close to the police have pointed out that their current focus is eliminating an illegal street racing circle that has plagued the city for far longer.

Max slammed his fists on the table. So instead of going after these jackasses, they’d rather go after my FRIENDS! Max had already ruled out all the guys on the scene, even Moodswing and his friends Goone and Mook. No, the scene ‒ or ‘circle’ as the news was calling it‒ was all about being underground. They thrived on secrecy. These guys were brazen and clearly didn’t care who got hurt on the job.

Having found nothing else except more evidence that the Metro cops clearly had no idea how to stop these guys, Max made up his mind. He picked up the phone and called his father, not caring what time it was in Australia.

Maximillian, said his father with that tone of accusation.

Hi Dad. I need a favour…

*

When the plane touched down, Max found himself feeling a mixed bag of emotions. While one part of him was still upset, there was also a part of him that was afraid. This wasn’t like last time. He wasn’t here because he’d been forced to, he was here for a specific purpose and that was scary for Max. It was the isolation of the whole thing that scared him. And then there was the nostalgia.

Just the memory of arriving in Ngelosi brought chills to Max. Being in the airport alone was enough to bring a smile to Max’s face. While the building was the same, it was notably festive with Christmas songs playing over the P.A. system and tinsel and holly littered about the place. But the most prominent decoration was perhaps the three-metre-high Christmas tree just outside the double doors leading to the Domestic Arrivals Terminal.

The last time Max had arrived in Ngelosi, his mother had arranged for a Maxi Taxi driver named Joseph-Sibusiso Mdluli to pick him up. But Max couldn’t rely on that this time which meant he was going to have to either hail a cab the old-fashioned way or call for an Uber. Fortunately, Max’s eyes had moved from the Christmas tree just in time to catch something unexpected.

Max was sure that he was seeing things, so he had to look twice. But there it was, just as before, his name written on a white board being held up by a stranger. Except, instead of it being Joseph-Sibusiso holding it up, it was a bald African man in his thirties wearing dark sunglasses.

The man was built well and carried himself with a certain authority which came across as a mix of cocky and arrogant. And Max deduced that he was Xhosa from his accent. Maximillian Xolani McKay, welcome back to Azania.

Max could tell just from his tone that this man was not a friend, so he retorted appropriately.  Miss Tevera called me Xolani in Grade Three. My friends call me Max. You’re neither so why the hell are you holding up a sign with my name on it?

I’m the man that’s here to tell you to get back on the plane and return to Durban.

Max almost laughed. First of all, I wasn’t in Durban. Second of all, I’m not going back anywhere. And thirdly, who the hell are you to tell me to go back?

The man swiftly lifted up a Ngelosi Metro P.D. shield as if he’d been expecting the question. And since he was dressed in plain clothes, Max deduced that he was part of the elite Vice Unit. Lieutenant Mlungisi Engelbrecht.

Despite the surname being traditionally Afrikaans, the fact that he was Xhosa and wasn’t Afrikaans didn’t surprise Max. Even aside from Azania being a paradise that knew no colour, South Africa had been free so long that through cross-race marriages and adoptions, this was not surprising at all.

Max broke into a smile. Wow. I didn’t know my presence here warranted a member of the Vice Unit to come all the way out here to meet me.

"It does when we get word that a suspected illegal street