No time to
think, just react.
Mashing the accelerator to the floor, the power
of the engine thrust me back into the seat as the Avatar AVX sprang forward,
reeling in taillights from the darkness of the road straight ahead. In seconds
a vehicle a hundred yards away was suddenly just a car length in front, its red
taillights slipping to the right and disappearing as I whipped the Avatar
around and past.
"Darcy!" In the passenger seat beside
me, Sean Higgins stomped the floor in a vain attempt to slam on an imaginary
brake. I wondered whether his anxiety sprang from the blinding speed of the
seven hundred horsepower sports car or the fact that a female controlled the
wheel.
A bright yellow Ford had pulled onto the road
just ahead, oblivious to my Avatar eating up the street behind it. I slammed
the brake pedal, pushed the clutch to the floor, downshifted and swerved left,
flying past a shell-shocked driver.
Numbers on the digital speedometer blurred:
sixty-four...eighty-five...fifty-three...forty–seven...fifty-eight.
My heart beat
wildly; my mouth felt dry as dust.
In the mirror I
saw the Dodge Viper in pursuit reflecting my 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 wished
I could enjoy the experience now, but this ride threatened to turn deadly any
second.
In spite of the Avatar’s overwhelming power, the
Viper gained rapidly. In heavy traffic I couldn’t maintain a speed above sixty
miles per hour for long. Slashing through slower vehicles, I alarmed drivers as
I screamed 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 spun the wheel, nearly
side-swiping a Jeep on the left, then pulled a hard right avoiding a pickup
truck. I raced past and braked hard, downshifting, and barely missed becoming
part of the backseat of a red Camaro. Swerving left, I found myself behind a
Dodge Durango. 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 loomed just a car length behind.
Suddenly the Durango ahead turned right and I saw
clear road.
Downshifting, I pounded the accelerator, our
bodies slamming leather as the V-12 roared and speedometer digits blurred.
Nothing could match this acceleration. Looking back, I saw the Viper now
trapped behind a gaggle of cars. The yellow eyes in the rearview mirror grew
small.
An exhilarating three minutes passed before
Metropolitan Parkway appeared dead ahead, the intersection empty but traffic
signals burning bright red. With the Viper now gone from the rear view mirror,
I killed the Avatar’s lights and put it into a four-wheel drift, screaming into
an illegal left turn. Tires shrieking against pavement, the car suddenly headed
west, leaving Gratiot Avenue behind.
Thirty seconds passed before I switched the
lights on and slowed to avoid attracting attention.
As the Avatar
resumed normal speed, I glanced 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 appeared shell shocked. His eyes were
deer-in-the-headlights wide and as we passed under a streetlight I could see
that all color had drained from his face. His lips were moving, trying to form
words, but without sound. I spoke first.
“You’re right.
This is a real man’s car.”