Gyrus

Chapter Twenty-Two: Winging It

So much had happened in the last seventy two hours.

The world had flipped without giving me any prior notice and my sometimes-boring-but-always-safe life had been swept out from under me. It would have been more distressing if I didn't have the intellect to understand that I'd been born with the tools to survive. I wasn't just Wong Daley anymore, Asian-British kid with the quick quips and criminal inclinations. I was a Knight - a part of an ancient secret society of freaks - on the trail of a rogue police officer to avenge the death of a girl I had never really considered a friend.

Sounded like something transplanted straight out of a noir fairytale.

I ruminated on this as I floored the acceleration on the police sedan I had stolen from Glenview's detectives, with the help of Zoe and Norman, Witch and Soothsayer. The car purred and the speedometer's needle inched past the end of the measurement arc, I had crossed one sixty kilometres per hour, and the thin green line on the GPS tracker that showed how far we were from Mohave Valley was barely an inch long. I glanced at Norman and Zoe in the passenger seat, pure horror etched on their faces. They were not at all amused at how fast I was pushing the car. 

"WONG!" Zoe screamed.

"I know what I'm doing." I replied with a laugh, and concentrated on the road.

And I did know what I was doing. Adrenaline coursing through me cleared my head, giving me lightning quick reflexes. It felt like the whole car was an extension of my body. Just as I could sense hunger from the yawning in my belly, every single engine rumble or exhaust purr sent my nerve endings alight with new information. All the feedback I was getting taught me how to push the car to its limits, the same way I would push my body, using its subtle responses to time my accelerations or how fast I shifted gears. I immersed myself in the process, drowning out everything but the sound of the engine and the tires, and the wind rushing past the wound up windows. We'd spent nearly two hours on the road, headed for Mohave Valley, the last spot his car had been spotted. Less than fifty miles after the valley, Route 40 split, feeder roads heading southwest and south-south west, according to the map. Williams had almost two hours on us, but I was sure he wouldn't drive past hundred kilometres per hour with the car in that condition, and I pushing one forty to make up for the lag. If I didn't catch up with him before he got to wherever he was going, we would lose him entirely. 

I was speeding so fast that I almost crashed the car when the white Fortuna PD truck came into view. I strafed the car out of the truck's line of sight, expertly cocooning us between two family vans. I swerved out of the side lane back on to mine and floored the acceleration. The sedan keened as it shot forward covering a mile in four minutes. 

"What the hell are you trying to do?" Norman yelled at me, his face pressed to the grate that separated the driver and passenger seats. 

I stiffened, suddenly enraged at how stupid he was being, leaving the safety of his seat. The car was going so fast anything that wasn't bolted down could become a projectile with the slightest swerve.

"GET BACK IN YOUR SEAT, STRAP YOUR FRIGGIN SELF IN AND MINIMISE YOUR SURFACE AREA! IF YOU HAVE TO CURL INTO A FRIGGIN BALL, DO IT!"

"He’s spotted Williams," I heard Norman say to Zoe as they followed my orders after gauging the severity of the situation. I reached over and buckled myself in and readied for the chase. I slowly increased the acceleration, putting the sedan into fifth gear, making it keen even more. The car directly in front of me swerved out of the way as I shot forward. I cringed as I watched the driver lose control and spin the car sideways, climbing over the curb that bordered the highway and careen into the uneven dirt plain beyond. I turned my focus back to the road, shutting off Zoe's panicky screaming and continued my chase. I pounded my horn as I shot forward, startling the slower vehicles out of my way into the slow lanes. We edged towards him slowly, covering the distance between us. He suddenly swerved to the adjacent lane, causing the car behind him to screech to a halt. The halting car was immediately rammed from behind by the next car, and the next and the one after it. I swerved out of the way at the last minute and pressed forward as the cars around us slowed, trying to dodge the pile up.