"What's with you and cars, dad?" Marie Concord was a shadow in the middle of her father's sprawling garage where a man, in his middle ages stood proudly before about a dozen different vehicles, all polished to perfection with not a scratch or dent in sight. Marie had placed a hand on her hip, pushing her short brown bags out of her face. Her pale face glistened with sweat from the heat that bore down on her from behind and she contemplated tying her black t-shirt in a knot on her stomach to let some of the heat escape her clothing.

"So what did you did you call me out to show me?" She had a feeling that it would be something her mother would not have approved of should she still be alive today. The man who stood before the cars turned to smile at her with a jolly expression and as he gestured insistently toward a car that was parked to the far left side of all the others. Marie, of course, didn't recognize the make or model but she could tell already that it was nothing at all like today's vehicles. Just like all the rest in her father's garage.

"Another gas guzzler dad? You know they're not good for the environment." She shifted her weight and crossed her arms nonchalantly as she peered at her father with a disapproving stare.

"What? No! No, Marie! No-look look—" He continued to point excitedly as he made his way over to the vehicle, still smiling at her all the way. "Racing stripes! They don't make them like this anymore." He ran a finger down the middle of one of the back stripes that stretched vertically from bumper to bumper over the canary yellow car that had obviously just been buffed and polished just like all the rest of the cars. "Come on, Hun! It's cool! It's a Comaro." He added enthusiastically.

Marie just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "It's a dinosaur, dad." She huffed, wiping a line of sweat from her face as she felt it run from her temple to below her jaw.

"What? This is vintage, Hunny. You can't get anything like THIS anymore." He opened the car door and leaned over the steering wheel. Marie could hear a dull click as he popped the hood. "Come here and look at this engine." She heard his muffled voice from within the car. He lifted his head over the steering wheel to beam at her through the wind shield and she squinted as reflections from the setting sun's rays bounced into her vision off of the small blaring disco ball that hung off of the rear view mirror.

"Wh- No dad. No. I don't want to come look at the engine." Marie sounded irritated now. "Why do you keep blowing your money on useless old junk? Okay, there are plenty of nicer and less expensive and more useful cars out there for you to buy and you keep finding things in junk yards and bringing them back to fix them."

"Well hey, these are worth a lot of money these days Ma—"

"Do you plan on selling them, Dad?" She practically snapped as she interrupted him, obviously disturbed by the summer heat and her father's apparent decision to by yet another vintage car at an obviously ridiculous price. Her father's smile seemed to falter just a little bit.

"Well no but…" He stared at her for a moment and she could tell by the slightly confused expression on his face that he was disappointed that she had not been more supportive of what he had been so eager to show her. "Com'ere!" A smile suddenly spread across his face again and he waved her to come forward as he closed the hood again. "Come sit in it. You'll like it, I promise." He beckoned her forward again Marie gave him a skeptical sort of look as she took a few hesitant steps forward before finally cross the garage to where her father was beside the car. She stood beside him as he held the door open for her and took a moment to stare at the nice black interior.

"Go on!" He gave her a little pat on the back. "Get in! Get in!" She turned back to her father who looked just as cheery as he had when he called her out to see it in the first place and she felt a pang of guilt for ever making that expression go away in the first place. So she gave a little sigh and stepped forward to get into the driver's seat.

THUD!

Marie gave a little yelp as she jumped back way from car as the door that her father had been holding open for her barely missed her as it slammed shut. She looked startled for a moment before shooting an angry scowl at her father.

"What the hell, Dad!" She snapped. "You almost hit me! Do you want me to get in or not?" To her surprise, her father didn't look amused or entertained at all. In fact he seemed just about as confused was she was annoyed. He frowned a little as he reached forward to open the door again for her.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart," He said gesturing for her to get in again. "It must have slipped away from me. Go on. Look inside." Marie glared at her father for another moment before taking another step to get into the car just as she had before and she ended up hopping to the side again, bracing herself on the car's frame as she nearly fell over when the car door slammed shut again

THUD!

"What the HELL is up with this thing?" She scowled at her father again, once again noticing how bewildered he seemed as he ran his fingers threw his dusty brown, thinning hair. His cheeks puffed out like they usually did when he was thinking and the thinking was doing him no good.

"Sorry about that, Marie," He said leaning down to look inside, now apparently debating on whether or not he should open the door again. "Well… it's vintage. It's probably got all sorts of kinks and malfunctions. They didn't make them like they do today."

Marie glared down at the car as if it had somehow offended her and she crossed her arms over her chest again. "Hmph…" She snorted a little and took a few steps back, toward the garage door again. She squinted once again as the sun's rays poured directly into the vast garage and through all the windshields, the globe on the offending car's rear view mirror deflecting light into her eyes once more.

"Yeah well…You could have bought something that DOESN'T have kinks and malfunctions. Maybe something you could actually drive." He turned her back now to leave the garage, with only a little glance back at the camaro before continuing back toward the house.

"Or that I could at least drive."

"So what is it? With your dad, I mean. My mom saw him driving another one of those ancient death machines down the street again a few days ago. Those things should really be illegal." Marie was wandering around the kitchen, looking in cupboards as the speakers over-head projected her friend, Angela's, voice.

"Yeah…"Angela had called about an hour before and Marie kept switching from speakers to hand held as she made her way through the house. She was starting to lose interest in making any more conversation this late at night. "My dad is probably going to be solely responsible for single handedly destroying the o-zone layer." She made a little joke as she removed a box of crackers from one of the cupboards. She pressed a button on the side of the wall and it slid shut again. The low growl of an appliance could be heard as the air was vacuumed from the cupboards, as was typical in modern day kitchens. Her dad had only JUST had them installed.

"I know, right?" Angela continued, "Oh hey! I got these new pajama bottoms! They're so cute. There's little turtles and—"Marie looked down at her own pajama bottoms. She had had them for years and they were just about the only pair she wore. They were pink with little blue monkeys all over them and she loved them. Angela always insisted that she buy different ones and she suspected that was what she was trying to do now. Marie just gave a little shake of her head and opened her box of crackers as she let her friend ramble a little more.

"Uh-huh…." She muttered as she shoved a cracker in her mouth and leaned over on the counter. "Hey listen, Angela I'm gonna—"

"MARIE, TURN ON THE NEWS!"

"Jesus, Angela!" Marie cringed a little with a hiss. "Keep it down, my dad's sleeping." But it didn't seem that her friend heard.

"Listen to this!" Angela's voice was replaced then by that of a very matter-of-fact sounding woman muffled over the telephone receiver. Marie rolled her eyes and set her box of crackers down.

"Angela com'on. My dad really is as—"

"No no! Listen Marie!" Angela could barely be heard over what she now recognized to be a news reporter's voice. Marie's scowl vanished and was immediately replaced with a little wonderment as she finally took a moment to listen to what she was saying.

"—was the space station's last transmission only one hour ago before NASA lost all contact with the their astronauts stationed there on the moon. As of now there is no report of whether or not anyone survived the un-detected asteroid and it will be another two weeks before another shuttle arrives to investigate. Until then, we'd like to extend all of our thoughts and well wishes to the families of the astronauts who have gone missing and we can only hope for—"

Marie has been so engrossed in the news report that Angela was passing on to her that she only just noticed the sound of a revving engine that was coming in through the kitchen's open window. She dropped her box of crackers very suddenly as she realized that her father was still in bed and froze in shock as she realized that someone was driving one or her father's cars.

"Oh...Oh shit! Angela I gotta go! I think someone is stealing a car!" She called over the receiver, as she bolted through the kitchen toward the front door.

"Wha—that's impossi—"

"Can't talk! Gotta go!" She slapped her hand over another button on the wall and her phone call was disconnected as she darted around the corner and wrenched open the front door. Sure enough, as her bare feet slapped against the cool concrete of the stone steps that led down into her long driveway, her father band new vintage car was leaving the garage.

"Whoa! HEY!" She started sprinting toward it. She didn't really give it a second thought. To someone with more sense it would have been prudent to consider that someone who was robbing you could be armed and probably dangerous. Her father would be so heartbroken if this car disappeared now though. "You think you're gonna get away with that!? It's VINTAGE!" She used her father's word as she continued to sprint toward the car which seemed in no particular hurry to leave. Her feet slapped against the pavement and to her horror she heard the scrape of her toes as she stumbled over her own feet and toppled forward, raking her hands into the pavement as she failed to catch her crash to the ground.

Water rushed to her eyes as a stinging sensation presented itself in her hands, hip and knees. She grit her teeth in pain as she pushed herself up again to sit on her rear, holding her hands out in front of her, afraid to touch the rips in her pajamas and t-shirt to examine the damage elsewhere. "Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!" She swore, infuriated and embarrassed as she looked up again, expecting to see the tail lights of her father's camaro all the way down the drive. He was going to be JUST heartbroken.

Marie didn't see what she thought she would however. Instead it seemed to have turned on the time as now as she sat on the pavement, wincing as her hands and knees throbbed and stung with cuts full of dirt and pebbles. She was staring into the headlights, her eyes wide with terror was she was sure now she had made a mistake by trying to chase the perpetrator. They were now going to run her down and probably kill her. "Oh Gaaawd…"She moaned to herself as she tried to keep the tears brought on by stinging agony from her eyes. "Look, just take the car!" She moved to push herself back to her feet so that she might make it back to her front door and she would have succeeded if it weren't for what followed next.

If she were blind then Marie was sure that she would never in her life be able to place the sound that she heard that very next moment. A series of mechanical groans, moans and whispers followed by the unmistakable clank of metal as she looked up to watch her father's car unfold….Literally. Her jaw fell slack in horror as the little yellow car stretched out as if someone has just cut a bunch of holes into a folded piece of paper and now it was a snow flake. A very frightening snow flake. Eventually it came to be recognizable as a giant metal man as two big, bright blue orbs peered down at her on the pavement. Marie was not able to bring herself to her feet as of that moment. The metal had contorted itself into a face and those orbs were unmistakably a pair of eyes. Her own eyes seemed to widen even more as she recognized her father's car doors folded backward onto the metal man's back as if they were a set of perfectly matched wings.

And then...It spoke to her.

"You've hurt yourself." The metal man set his metal hands on his metal hips and spoke to her in a voice affected by tone and pitch just as a human's. Though, it sounded as if he were speaking over a very mechanical intercom. Marie took in a gasp of air and she didn't notice as she head slowly began to shake back and forth. It continued. "Are you in need of assistance?"

"…HOLY SHIT!"