Chapter Fourteen

Lightning groaned and tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt too heavy for him to do anything with them. He reached out with his tires, striking another tire with one of his own. "Ah, ciao, Sleeping Beauty," the owner of the tire said. "Francesco was a-wondering when you'd wake up."

Lightning groaned again, and this time his eyes fluttered open at his will. "Where the hell are we?" he mumbled.

"Francesco a-has no clue."

"Great. We have no idea where we are, so how the hell do we get out of here?"

"Maybe we're not supposed to."

"Well, we can't just die down here, or up here, or wherever. We need a plan." Lightning stretched out his back tires, finding them bound with rope, and he spun his wheels as fast as he could.

"McQueen, I knew you were desperate to be fast, but I didn't know it was this bad."

The rope around his right back tire snapped, and his left back tire slipped out of its bonds. Lightning fell to the floor, landing on his tires. "Try it, Francesco," he said.

"This feels like it is-a too easy."

"How would you know?"

Francesco sighed. "This is what they do," he said in a small voice. "They make you think you're going to be okay and going to get out alright, and the second you make an attempt at it, they're on you like wild dogs."

"I thought this was a crazy revenge scheme."

"It is. They knew the British cars would try to protect me if something happened to someone in my family, and then they could do whatever they wanted, or needed, or whatever it was, with them out of the way."

"Then we need to get you out of here. We need to get Finn and Holley out of here."

"And the tuners?"

"We need to find them and get them out of here, too, because I have a bad feeling about this whole situation. Go ahead, Francesco, spin your wheels and we can get out of here."

Francesco complied, but it took him a little more effort to wear at the rope enough for it to snap and set him free. He landed on his tires and asked, "Now what do we do?"

"Look for a door."

The two racecars drove around the room, which they found was quite small and devoid of a lightswitch, tapping the walls for a hollow spot. It was Francesco who found it and beckoned Lightning over, where they looked for a way to open the door. Lightning began pressing buttons randomly, again and again getting the code wrong, until finally, some twenty-odd minutes after Lightning coached Francesco into freeing himself, he got the code right and the door opened.

The racecars drove out of the room and picked a direction. Lightning switched on his headlights. "So, where are those British cars?" Francesco asked.

"No idea, but if we can track down that yellow tuner, Ice, we could have a chance of finding them before anything bad happens."

"And how do we do that?"

"Well, he should be fairly easy to find, I hope."

"You're hoping now, McQueen? Oh, wow, this is bad."

"We could die. We might not have anything to do other than hope. Now, let's go find a car."

CARS

Wingo switched on his headlights, illuminating most of the room the tuners awoke to find themselves in. "So much for playing superhero," he said.

"I had to do something, okay?" Boost replied. "Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing."

"Okay, enough," DJ snapped. "Stop fighting and start focusing. Are we or are we not going to die down here?" The other three tuners were stunned into silence by DJ's sudden change in style, so much so that for a long while no one said anything. Finally, it was DJ himself who broke the silence. "Somebody get Ice on the horn."

Boost found himself complying almost immediately, and he also found himself relieved by the fact that Ice actually answered with his characteristic, "What up?"

"Hey, man, where you at?"

"Yo, Boost. What happened to you?"

"It's kinda complicated. Where you at? Maybe you can get us out of here."

"It's funny. I got a couple racers on the grid, roaming around the facility, probably lookin' for me. I'm tryin' to intercept 'em right now."

"You know where we're at?"

"I've got you guys up on the screen right now, alongside the racers."

"'Kay, man. I don't think we're goin' anywere, so..."

"Look, I'm gonna find you guys, and we're gonna finish what you guys started."

"Don't bail on us this time."

"I don't know if I'll have a choice. CHROME is in danger."

"Just get us out of here and we'll save CHROME." With that, Boost hung up. "Let's hope this guy's on his way and we can get out of here."

CARS

"Finn, what're we going to do? For all we know, there could be a virus which could wipe out the systems of every spy in the world," Holley said.

"That I doubt, but not too seriously," Finn replied. "Remember what Boost said about the plot?"

"Very well, thank you, and speaking of which, he's two days early."

"Better sooner than later."

"And in case the lemons have done worse to them than just capture them to with them what they pleased at a later date?"

"If that's true, then we'd better act quickly. Any way you can cut the ropes?"

Holley deployed her wings, which startled Finn slightly, and he could feel the heat from her afterburners as she tried to pull at the ropes, hoping to break them. Just when he thought he couldn't take the heat any longer, the ropes finally snapped under the stress. Holley dropped to the floor, and Finn rolled off the control panel, careful not to press any buttons, lest their demise should be hastened. "Now," he said, "either they're really stupid or that was too easy for a reason, and I seriously doubt the former. Next question: what were they really planning to do with us?"

"Get us lost and separated, most likely, in order to weaken us. They've done it before, haven't they?" Holley replied.

"Other enemies of ours have, yes. Something tells me the destruction of CHROME doesn't hinge on our lives. They could've captured Arnold Shwartzenegger and Sir Mater, strapped them where we were, and it wouldn't have mattered."

"So we're doomed no matter how this works out."

"Pretty much, unless we have enough time. Could you run a quick check?"

Run a quick check Holley tried to do, but she found herself locked out. "Can't get anywhere," she said. "Any ideas?"

Finn opened his mouth to answer, but he was stopped by the sound of knocking. He turned toward the door and rolled over slowly. He tapped the door in a specific way, and the knocking returned, apparently also in a specific way. This seemed to satisfy Finn, because then he opened the door, to the yellow, heavily modified tuner. "Good to see you again, Richard," he said, a little too flatly, Holley thought.

"I'm gonna need a little help finding your 'backup'," he replied, all business. "Right now what's left of it is opposite ends of the building, and two of them are on the move."

"Those two are the safest, then. The others?"

"Locked in a storage chamber."

"You go find them, and I'll look for the moving targets. Holley, stay here and radio me if things get worse." With that, they sped off in search of their targets.