A/N: Not exactly the canon cars. But, more story.
Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy
Chapter Twelve: Visored
The Porsche's engine screamed, the tires screeched, harmonizing, as Sarah slalomed around corners, past cars.
Ellie kept look-out behind them for Shaw's black, powerful convertible, a Dodge Charger, but no such car was in view.
They had spoken little for the first few frantic moments of the drive. Sarah's urgency was contagious; Ellie caught it immediately. Sarah lifted her foot, settled the car into traffic. "Still nothing, Ellie?"
"Nothing. Nothing. He doesn't seem to be behind us anywhere. Who is he? This...Shaw?"
"Your dad hasn't mentioned him?"
"No, it was Beckman who told me he was in DC. Neither Chuck nor I knew it."
Sarah glanced for a second at Ellie. "No, that's wrong. Chuck knew. I've hardly talked to your dad since he came with us to DC, but he made a point of telling me, just after Shaw was Intersected, that he had talked to Chuck. — Did your dad know you were coming to see me?"
"No, I just got restless in that apartment Beckman installed me in, and I felt like you and I had unfinished business. I don't even know where Dad's been since we got to DC. He got in one car and I got into another.
"Dad's never said your name to me and I never mentioned you to him. I was afraid he'd defend you — and he and I haven't ever communicated much...or well. I didn't want to break the fragile-feeling detente we had while he was in California."
Sarah scanned behind them in the rearview; Ellie turned and looked. "So, what have you two talked about?"
"The damn Intersect. Theory, all theory, though, no practice. Abstract estimations of successes and failures. It was like working with a neurology colleague, not my dad. Modeling. — But then, he's not ever seemed much like...a dad. He never told me anyone else had been Intersected."
"Maybe he thought you'd met Shaw? If you never talked about my visit...Shaw was supposed to talk to you but...after how things went...I left him and Bryce in the car."
Ellie's eyes grew. "You had Larkin outside? If you had brought him in...I hate that smug son-of-a-bitch."
"Well, brace yourself. We're on our way to see him. I suspect your dad will be there too."
Ellie shook her head. "Why are men such pricks?"
The corner of Sarah's mouth twitched up. She realized Ellie was watching her and they both laughed.
Ellie finished laughing and looked back, then back at Sarah. "You said you've seen Chuck? He gave you the panda?"
"Yes, but not in person. It was in my car when I left the zoo. I went there to meet someone, to meet someone about Chuck." Sarah handed Ellie her purse. "The note I got — with the veggie pizza I offered you — is in there."
Ellie opened the purse and turned to Sarah before looking inside. Sarah nodded, ducking her head. "Go on. I've told you it all now."
Ellie put her fingers in the small purse. She found the piece of paper and took it out. She read the note then stared out the windshield.
"Did I miss something, Ellie? Is it a code? Does it mean something to you?"
Ellie shook her head. "No. It's just — I know this handwriting. At least, I think I do. It's my mom's. But that's impossible!"
Sarah almost lost control of the car as she passed a slow-moving dump truck. She whipped ahead of it, narrowly managing to get back in her lane before oncoming traffic hit the Porsche head-on.
"Your mom?"
"I can't be sure, but she had...distinctive handwriting...As a girl, I tried to copy it…"
"The woman who I met at the zoo. She was helping Chuck. She did not sound young, not old either. Could it be?"
Ellie shook her head again, looking at the note. "Jesus, what's happening, Sarah?"
"I don't know. But I think it has something to do with Meadow Branch."
"What's that, a bank?" Ellie looked behind them again.
"No, not a bank, a suburb. Chuck and I had a mission there…"
Sarah told the story, highlights, and lowlights only. Ellie listened. "So, Chuck's had more than Dad's Intersect in his head?"
"Yes, but he withstood that Fulcrum version. I'm guessing, given the clues he's provided me, that the same thing has happened again, not exactly, but close. I think Chuck has the...an...Intersect again. The Ring's. And I think they believe the implantation worked — but it didn't. I don't know how your mom fits into all this. But I never got a look at her. Could she be part of the Ring?"
"Hell, if I know. She just vanished on us one day. She read Chuck his bedtime story, came by and looked in on me, and the next morning, presto-shit-change-o," Ellie snapped her fingers, "we had no mom and Dad had no wife…"
"What did your mom do, Ellie? Because the woman at the zoo, she was a professional, trained spy. Serious."
Ellie stared out the windshield for a few seconds. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Of course, Dad's a mad scientist, and Mom's a fucking spy. — How else can you explain me and Chuck?"
Sarah did not say anything. Ellie was spinning-in-place, a twirling top. Sarah looked up into the rearview. In the distance, four or five cars behind them, was a black convertible, top-up. It swung into the opposite lane to pass.
Sarah knew: Shaw.
There was a distance between the Porsche and the car ahead of them. Sarah punched the gas and she and Ellie both went backward in their seats. Sarah, the car now flying, whipped out to pass the car in front of them. Shaw was still three cars back, but Sarah could hear the low, feral growl of Shaw's engine. Her Porsche was more than a match for his car if turns were involved, but they had entered the freeway as Sarah told Ellie about Meadow Branch.
The Porsche engine screamed again. Ellie was still staring, seemingly oblivious to the life-and-death car chase of which she was part.
Shaw moved into the passing lane and stayed there, the growl of his car more audible as he closed to two cars behind them.
Sarah kept flicking her eyes to the rearview and then back to the road. Ellie was beginning to show signs of understanding. Finally, she turned to look. "I see him, Sarah. He's passing a car. He's one behind us. He's about to pass the next one!"
The Porsche was hurting forward at over 100 mph. Sarah felt more like a pilot than a driver. The center lines were passing so fast they began to seem continuous, not intermittent. Still, on Shaw came, his car gobbling the yards separating them.
Sarah heard a pop and the back window of the car exploded. Ellie screamed and ducked. Sarah swerved. She thought she heard another pop. She checked the rearview. A motorcycle was in the passing lane, all the way over, next to the left-hand solid line. It was coming on fast.
Sarah swerved again. Shaw's car was not far behind them now and Sarah could see him framed in the rearview. His eyes were unblinking; his teeth were bared.
The motorcycle caught up with Shaw. The rider was clothed in black with a black helmet and a dark visor. Sarah thought of Chuck's Darth Vader action figure. Before Sarah could react, almost too fast for her to see it, the rider produced a gun. The rider fired into Shaw's front wheel.
The tire burst, ribbons of rubber flew. The rider shot forward as Shaw's car veered right, into the guardrail. Sparks peppered the air. Metal whined. And then Shaw's car veered left, into the opposite guardrail. The car smacked that guardrail and ricocheted back into the following traffic, the path of a tractor-trailer.
The truck braked, hard, but the driver tried not to jackknife. The trailer swept out behind, to the left, slamming into the guard rail. The truck's bumper crunched the side of Shaw's car and pushed it a distance. Then the Charger slipped off the truck's bumper, spiraling slowly, and went backward into the right guardrail, eventually stopping in a cloud of dust and debris.
Sarah saw it all in the rearview: it happened in mere seconds.
And then she looked left. The motorcycle was beside her, the gun still in the rider's hand. The hand went up, but not to aim the gun. The hand used the gun to push up the dark visor.
"Chuck!" Ellie yelled, leaning down, almost across Sarah, so she could see. Sarah looked at the rider; she knew those brown eyes. The visor dropped and the motorcycle roared past the Porsche.
"Chase him, Sarah!"
"No, Ellie," Sarah said softly, breathless, not just from the chase. "Whatever the hell is going on, this is Chuck's mission; I'm letting him call the shots. — Are you okay?"
Ellie gave Sarah a crazed look. "Okay? Okay?! — Other than being covered in slivers of glass, nearly dismembered on a DC freeway, hounded by a computerized lunatic, saved by my brother who-can't-ride-a-motorcycle — on a motorcycle, just after I discovered my Mom's in DC and goddamn spying, yeah, yeah...fine. Fine and fucking dandy."
Sarah checked behind them. Wind was whipping into the car, Ellie's brown hair and Sarah's blonde blowing.
Still trying to catch her breath, she took the exit off the freeway and headed to meet Bryce, remembering Chuck's eyes.
A/N: More soon.