Chapter
1
No time to
think, just react.
Mashing the accelerator to the floor, the force
of the engine thrusts me back into the seat as the powerful Avatar AVX springs
forward, reeling in taillights from the darkness of the road straight ahead. In
seconds a vehicle a hundred yards away is suddenly just a car length in front,
its red taillights slipping to the right and disappearing as I whip the Avatar
around and past.
"Darcy!" In the passenger seat beside
me, Sean Higgins stomps the floor in a vain attempt to slam on an imaginary
brake. I wonder whether his anxiety springs from the blinding speed of the
seven hundred horsepower sports car or the fact that a female is behind the
wheel.
A bright yellow Ford pulls onto the road just
ahead, oblivious to my Avatar eating up the street behind it. I slam the brake
pedal, jam the clutch to the floor, downshift and swerve left, flying past a
shell-shocked driver.
Numbers on the digital speedometer blur:
sixty-four...eighty-five...fifty-three...forty–seven...fifty-eight.
My heart beats
wildly; my mouth feels dry as dust.
In the mirror I
see the SRT Viper chasing us reflecting our moves; a pair of headlights dodging
left to right, right to left across all three lanes.
From the moment I sat at the wheel of the Avatar
AVX, this car felt special -- the way the interior wrapped around me in the
driver’s seat and its acceleration pressed my body back into leather. I wish I
could enjoy the experience now, but this ride could turn deadly any
second.
In spite of the Avatar’s overwhelming power, the
Viper gains rapidly. In heavy traffic I can’t maintain a speed above sixty
miles per hour for long. Slashing through slower vehicles, I alarm drivers as I
scream past, causing them to pull aside, making it easy for the two men in the
Viper to follow.
"Darcy!"
A giant semi dead ahead. I spin the wheel, nearly
side-swiping a Jeep on the left, then pull a hard right avoiding a pickup
truck. I race past and brake hard, downshifting, and barely miss becoming part
of the backseat of a red Camaro. Swerving left, I find myself behind a Chrysler
200. I felt sure I had put pavement between the Viper and me, but no such luck.
With the advantage of following in my tracks it now looms just a car length
behind.
Suddenly the Chrysler ahead turns right and I see
clear road.
Downshifting, I pound the accelerator, our bodies
slamming leather as the V-12 roars and speedometer digits blur. Nothing can
match the acceleration we feel. Looking back, I see the Viper trapped behind a
gaggle of cars. The yellow eyes in the rearview mirror grow small.
An exhilarating three
minutes pass before Metropolitan Parkway appears dead ahead, the intersection
empty but traffic signals burning bright red. With the Viper now gone from the rear view mirror, I kill the Avatar’s
lights and put it into a four-wheel drift, screaming into an illegal left turn.
Tires shriek against pavement and the car suddenly heads west leaving Gratiot
Avenue behind.
Thirty seconds pass before I switch the lights
back on and slow to avoid attracting attention.
As the Avatar
resumes normal speed, I glance sideways at Higgins. The agency vice president
who had pissed me off a few hours earlier by referring to the Avatar AVX as “a
real man’s car,” now appears shell-shocked. His eyes are deer-in-the-headlights
wide and as we pass under a streetlight I see that all color has drained from
his face. His lips are moving, trying to form words, but without sound.
I speak first.
“You’re right. This is a real man’s car.”