Pursuit

En route to Death Valley

October 31st, 11:00pm

I glided over the freeway at 140 miles an hour.

My one and only time to drive a Porsche, and I wasn't even able to enjoy it fully.

Behind me pursued Demon, Snide and Serene, in whatever car they had been able to convince a transient to give up. They were managing to pace me, which they shouldn't have been able to do, really... which just led me to believe that the Guidelines had been well and truly revoked, which meant that I was well and truly screwed, and probably the only thing that was keeping me alive was the ring and the ghost of the program left over from before. I considered turning on the radio, just to see if I could figure out what the rest of them were doing, but decided against it, as there was nothing that I could do about it anyway.

Porsches are a wondrous thing, the final evolution of a vehicle built for raw performance. Like a cheetah, it is very specialized, very beautiful and ultimately adapted for its particular purpose and environment.

The Porsche is made for driving. Especially, fast driving.

At speeds above 120mph, the human brain does odd tricks to try and compensate, since it cannot handle all the visual information flooding in through the optic nerve. Other cars that I had driven in the past had their share of shakes and trembles as speeds approached the triple digits, but this car was very different. The acceleration was smooth and easy, giving me the impression that I had not even begun to tax the engine, that there were reserves that I could use if I was just a better and braver driver. In some strange contravention of everything that I thought I understood about the physics of automobiles, the farther I pushed the accelerator, the more solid and steady the drive became, the car getting lower and more intimate with the road. Reality skipped in and out as if I were a rock dancing along the surface of a lake, and I had a rush like no other -- I didn't want to stop, didn't want to slow down, just wanted to push the car to the envelope and continue my mad dash for distance.

The stress and speed had combined to propel me into the right zone for driving. It was some odd inversion of highway hypnosis. Instead of being oblivious to the environment, I was hyperaware, processing every bit of information that streamed into my mind, registering everything in my environment around me with a cold detachment. I could feel the heat of the car slowly being sucked out through the windows, hear the wind hitting the windshield and buffeting off the back window, smell the faint scent of the leather seats. The shift stick was warm, now, and even though I knew exactly how it would feel to hold it in my hand and take it through the gears, I didn't touch it; I would stay in sixth gear, accelerator pushed down into the floor, there was nothing that could catch me while I sat in here, the king of my kingdom of one. I was the Bhudda of speed, the Zen Master of the automobile, the untouchable wind. I was as motionless as a statue but entirely in the moment, with no wasted motion and no spent energy, and other than occasional twitches of my hands to make adjustments to steering, the only thing that I needed to do was move my eyes to obtain the information I needed. Flick eyes up -- yes, my pursuers are still there. Look at the console -- 23.2 miles to go. Look back at the road -- still clear, no one ahead. Back to the console -- half tank of gas. Back to the road -- barely register a dim streak as a bug approaches the windshield and flys overhead, saved by fluid dynamics and the streamlining of the car. Through my peripheral vision, check the seat next to me -- yes, I still have the plastic bag, still reading its now ironic and brightly colored motto: "Happy toys for happy times."

The time stretched out. We could go on like this forever, I thought. In the car I was invincible, and we would just proceed like this, ever and ever, go around the world, two cars chasing around the world and permanently locked in some insane merry-go-round of a chase. But I looked down at the console, and saw that I had 16.8 miles to go until this was over.

Along the edges of my consciousness I could feel Demon trying to probe, but the static and the distance and the speed all combined to fend him off, although I knew that couldn't last.

I had mapped this all out before, with maps and calm resolve and bright daylight, but I had failed to take into account how different everything looked at night at speed. I was hoping that I didn't miss the landmarks that I had committed to memory when I had visited this place before, because then the chances of me surviving this would drop from just-above-zero to zero.

At last, on the right side of the road I saw the billboard that marked the first step, and I looked down at the odometer and mentally added 1.2 miles. The road curved to the right, nestling along a large hill... which cut off the view of the road for the past few miles, and this is exactly the spot that I had picked the day before. I swung the steering wheel over to the right as I took a hard turn at almost a hundred miles an hour. The car complained, allowed itself a slow and controlled skid, established traction, and in my state of oneness with the car and the road I actually accelerated into this insane turn and whipped down the turnoff, and for a moment despite everything all I could think was: Jesus Christ, what a car.

I went down the road for about 10 seconds, slowed down to a slow creep, turned off all the lights, and hoped fervently that they wouldn't detect my turn, would instead continue down the road and I could put off this encounter for another day, another week, another year...

I could hear and feel the three of them as they passed the turn off and continued to barrel down the road. I opened my mouth and breathed as quietly as possible, trying to hear what was happening out on the main highway. I counted to ten, slowly, heard a brief squeal, and then nothing until I counted to thirty... and then I saw their car, a shiny black Mercedes-Benz, slowly backing up towards the turnoff. There was something eerie and deadly about its unhurried pace, and for some reason it reminded me of the way that large black tarantulas creep along to their pray. They reached the turn off, the car proceeded backwards while turning and pointing in my direction, and the glare of the headlights hit me just as I heard the automobile accelerate towards me.

I hadn't thought that they would have fallen for it, really; if I could sense them that clearly, they could probably sense me as well. At this point we were into the final endgame, and there was not going to be any way that I could avo id the showdown. A push of the accelerator converted the Porsche's creep into a convulsion and then speed, and I continued down the turnoff. I went as fast as I dared, but this road was low quality and was not made for high speeds. The car bounced with the bump and crevices of the road, fluctuating as they sought to keep the frame level, and after only a brief span of time I saw ahead the bright square reflections of yellow hazard signs, warning me that the road ended here.

I brought the car to an abrupt stop, tires emitting the white noise of encounters with hundreds of small pebbles as dust billowed up behind me. I grabbed the contents from the bag in the passenger seat, opened the door, and jumped out of the car as I heard the car behind me also come to a squealing stop. I ran down the nearby slope, trying not to panic. Turning an ankle at this point would kill me as surely as a gunshot.

I realized with a chill that I hadn't planned this out right. Everything looked different in the moonlight, and I had to pick the exact right spot, or else all my preparations were for naught. I looked down at my watch and fumbled for the button that would turn the backlight on, which is amazingly difficult when you are trying to run down a rocky slope and not break your neck, and even worse the damn backlight kept going off after every ten seconds, which meant that I had to keep hitting that button and trying to read the GPS coordinates, all the while trying to keep enough distance from my pursuers.

I looked back, and saw the three of them calmly following me. They probably knew as well as I did that there was nothing around here, that there was no one to save me this time, and they were in no particular hurry. They enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, especially when it was someone that they had wanted to harm so much and so passionately. Serene was almost dancing down the slope with anticipation, which didn't forebode well for me, while Demon and Snide were implacably picking their steps among the rocks.

I reached the sand, and checked my watch, and saw that I only had 30 more yards to go. I ran as fast as I could up a nearby dune. Running in the sand sapped every bit of momentum that I had, and half-deliberately, half-accidentally, I fell in the sand and had to crawl along on all fours for several yards before I could get up again. I struggled up to the top of the nearest dune, and then halted, stooped in the sand, exhausted from my efforts. I turned around to face my fate.

They reached the sand, and walked over it without problems, as if the desert was as solid as a neighborhood sidewalk. They spread out slightly as they approached me. Snide stopped in front of me, Demon stood to my right, and Serena to my left. I stood up to face them, as much to make me feel psychologically better as much as a question of tactics.

Click, click, click.