Novel Excerpt 4: The Vigilante

I'm making myself finish a novel on Fridays.

Excerpt from chapter 1
Excerpt from chapter 2
Excerpt from chapter 3
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As the bank robbers sped down the streets of Miami with multiple police cars racing behind, another figure was emerging unnoticed onto the Intercoastal Waterway. It was a sight not unfamiliar to the people of Miami, a white hovercraft that was a cross between a motorcycle and a jet ski. It glided a couple feet above the water with a sound of air blasting against the surface.

In the blink of an eye, the figure that Miamians had come to call "the Vigilante" launched from the water to hover up a boat launch and onto a side street. A screen in front of the man clad in black plotted a course from where he was to the area of the chase. A quick switch to his own private satellite allowed him to watch the robbers manage to elude their pursuers by a quick set of turns just out of the sight of the police.

His hand on a throttle and the speeder soared from just above the road into the air above the buildings of the Miami neighborhoods. He watched the car disappear into a parking garage. No other vehicles emerged by the time he got there. Another button and three wheels emerged from the bottom of his speeder and the vehicle went electric.

The garage was mostly empty, but he sneaked up on a van just as its back door closed. Next to it was the getaway car he had seen on satellite. But before the van could start, the Vigilante shot an electromagnetic wave that shorted the van's electrical system. By the time the driver emerged, he was standing ready with a machine gun full of tranquilizer darts.

The driver fell to the ground before he even knew someone else was there. When the back of the van opened, the two inside were greeted with a quick round of tranquilizer fire as well. The fourth man on the passenger side managed to get out before the Vigilante could get to him. Before he was back to his speeder, the man had jumped three stories down over the side of the parking garage.

The men would be unconscious long enough for the police to get there. The Vigilante tossed a magnetic tracer onto the van, sending a familiar signal to the police, while he went back into hover mode and sped in the direction of the lone escapee, his gun strapped around his shoulder. There was barely enough room for him to launch out the side of the garage too, hitting the throttle as he shot out.

The man was not in sight, but a quick review of the satellite image of the last minute showed that he had headed to the south and stolen a nearby motorcycle. He had knocked the rider off while she was driving down the street. A moment later and he was in hot pursuit. Pedestrians a few streets down watched first the motorcycle go speeding through a red light, quickly followed by the hovercraft about fifteen feet up in the air, far enough up to fly over the traffic.

Now the electromagnetic pulsar switched to laser mode, as the Vigilante used the eye controlled visor in his helmet to aim it toward the tires of the motorcycle. On the first shot, the tire of the motorcycle blew and the assailant went flying through the air onto the ground. Thankfully, the man only scraped himself up.

In a moment the Vigilante was hovering near him, the man looking up in pain but with nowhere to go. One shot with a dart and he was unconscious, just in time for a police car to arrive. A brief glance at the policeman, and the Vigilante soared off to return from whence he came...