Chapter Twelve

Hugo draw the blinds, and a heavy silence settled into the foyer. The crunch of tires against asphalt indicated the slow approach of the tC, and Hugo looked at Alex. "Get to your boss," Alex said. "He's gonna need you." Hugo nodded and drove to the back of the building.

Alex pulled the guns out from under his side panels and cocked them as the tC approached and then knocked on the door. The tension was so thick Alex was worried it would slow his bullets and allow Montgomery time to escape or cause anyone else harm.

The knock came again, and again, and then he heard a wail of rage, and Montgomery drove himself through the door and drew a pair of guns. "Well, well, well," he said as a smirk appeared on his face. "Someone is home."

Alex narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want, but you're too stupid and stubborn to give it to me. You're so damn unwilling to hand over your girlfriend."

Alex opened fire, and Montgomery responded in kind. The two cars wove through each other's shots, and in his mirrors, Alex could see clusters of Hugos, Trunkovs, and Gremlins lining the foyer's back wall, guns drawn and at the ready. He could also see that the front door was still open. In one of the most suicidal moves he'd made to date, he shot toward the door. His mind flashed on the chase through Tokyo, but he pushed all thoughts from his mind and wove through traffic with Montgomery on his tailpipe.

Some of the cars that noticed him let out shocked cries that he paid no attention to, and he turned a sharp corner into an alley and jumped over a dumpster. Montgomery kept close behind, and Alex's mind was racing for ideas as to how to lose his pursuer. He turned another sharp corner, blinked as he tried to get his bearings, and the second the asphalt shifted to grass, he turned left as hard as he could.

Montgomery coughed and swerved back and forth through the dust, and Alex realigned himself and turned right as hard as he could. The two continued like this across the park, until finally, Alex heard no one following him. He slipped quietly into an alley and waited, but no one seemed to be approaching his hiding place. He let out a soft sigh of relief and turned to the left.

He spotted the tC, or some car like it, in his mirrors, and turned to face it. A black and gold Mitsubishi was trying to get away from the tC, and for an instant, he locked eyes with Alex. Alex drew his guns again and took aim. In two shots, the tC lost its two back tires. The Mitsubishi slipped around the tC as he struggled to turn himself around. "You just saved my life," the Mitsubishi said.

"Seems to be my habit lately," Alex replied. "Where you headed?"

"Away from here."

"Go south. You can get to Chicago before sunrise, but be careful around the lemons. I'll try to put in a good word for you, but I dunno how far it'll get you. Not all of them are good listeners."

"Thanks."

The two slipped side-by-side and drove through the streets of Detroit. "So, what brings you here?" Alex asked.

"Hiding from that psycho," the Mitsubishi replied. "You?"

"Meeting. About that psycho." The Mitsubishi nodded slowly. "Hey, if you're hiding from the psycho, then maybe what you should do is find Finn McMissile, Zundapp's buddy."

"Think I'll do that, and I've got a good idea where to go. Question is, can I get there without triggering a mob war?"

"I think so. We've got bigger fish to fry than a few travelers."

"Thanks," the Mitsubishi said after a moment. "For saving me."

Alex shrugged. "Like I said, I've been doing it a lot lately." The Mitsubishi smiled. "You take care of yourself, okay?"

"I will."

Alex nodded to the Mitsubishi, who returned the gesture and drove southwest, toward Chicago. Alex smiled, shook his hood, and turned a corner, glancing in the mirror to see that the tC wasn't following him.

He slipped inside the meeting house, and immediately lemons fired questions at him. He shot backward, into the wall, as they pressed in on him. "Get away from the kid," a Gremlin snapped, though it took a minute for the voice to penetrate Alex's panicked haze. When it did, he recognized Curby cutting through the crowd. "The kid's gonna have an engine attack. Back off." The lemons fell silent and rolled back. Curby turned to Alex and studied him closely. Alex swallowed and took a few deep breaths. "You okay?" Alex nodded. "What happened?"

"Montgomery," Alex managed. The lemons erupted into a flurry of whispers, and Curby hissed again.

"C'mon."

Alex followed Curby across the foyer and into a room in the back of the building. Victor, Ivan, Alex Hugo, and Vladimir were packed into the small room along with a few personal guards, and all eyes fell on the pair as they entered. "The son of a bitch is here," Curby said.

"What?" Vladimir asked. "How?"

"Okay you know how every car is born with four wheels?" Alex began. Vladimir narrowed his eyes at him, and Alex returned the gesture.

"Okay, fellas. The world's goin' to hell. We don't need to help," Curby said, moving as if preparing to break up a fight. "I'll call Tubbs, tell him it's not safe here, and then we've gotta find somewhere else to go."

"Nowhere's safe. He can go anywhere, follow us to wherever we go. If he finds out we up and left, he'll follow us, because he knows we know the Professor. He's gonna try to get to the Professor and whoever he worked with on this project of his. I think the Mitsubishi I met earlier might have something to do with the project, too. That was why Montgomery was there, trying to rough him up a bit."

"What?"

Alex took a deep breath and explained everything that had happened, and when he finished, the group of lemons exchanged looks, and a heavy silence settled into the room. "I...I think I'll call the Professor."

"No," Curby said. "I'll do it. You stay here and get some rest, or try to."

Alex nodded reluctantly, and Curby drove out of the room. Alex settled into a corner, and as the adrenaline in his body dissipated, he settled onto his chassis and waited.

CARS

Lexie closed her eyes. Something was wrong; she could feel it in her gas tank. After a moment, she drove out of the cone and over to the pay phone. She called a number and waited, and finally Alex said, "What's up?"

"What happened?" she asked.

"Excuse me?"

"What happened tonight?"

"Is somebody dead?"

"You tell me."

"What are you talking about? What happened?"

"That's what I'm asking you. All I've got to go on is a feeling in my gas tank. You just happen to be the first person I thought of to call, and the feeling in my gas tank tells me that you know something, so out with it."

He sighed heavily and said, "Okay, but listen to me. This is really, really bad, what happened tonight. Montgomery showed up at the meeting house in Detroit, where Curby, Trunkov, and Hugo are camping out."

"What?"

"Montgomery's here, in Detroit."

"Are you okay? Has anyone been shot?"

"We're fine, all of us, the dons especially."

"Did he disappear again?"

"Seems that way, though he probably went to a tire store. I shot out his back tires to save some tuner car."

"Which tuner?"

"Black Mitsubishi with gold down the sides."

"That's Shorts. He's connected to Finn and the Professor. They worked together with Montgomery's spy Alan deCarteran to build me. Then they busted me out, dropped me off here, and the rest is history."

"Okay, so it was okay for me to talk to him."

"Yeah, and you might see him again."

"You think?"

"It's likely, considering."

"Okay."

"So did anybody tell Finn or the Professor?"

"Curby went and called the Professor."

"Okay, good. So what do we do now? Wait around for him to show up?"

"I don't know, Lexie. I don't know."

"Somebody has to, and it looks like I'm asking around."

"Still wanna talk to Montgomery, make him tell you all he knows?"

"Hell yeah. I'm gonna figure out what he wants, and nothing short of death is going to stop me."

"Holy crap are you tough."

"I've gotta be. I'm in this war, and I'm gonna come out alive or not at all."

Alex laughed. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"Yeah. Apparently I'm a one car army."

"Be careful what you say. They're watching everything we say and do."

"I know."

"Be careful, okay?"

"You, too."

"I will."

"Okay." Lexie hung up and turned toward Route Sixty-Six. The yellow traffic light was blinking over the street, revealing with each flash the cable and patch of road where the corpse of George Townsend had been discovered just days before the Grand Prix was supposed to start originally.

She watched the blinking yellow light for several minutes, thinking of the murder, Alex, Montgomery, deCarteran, and the word Ceres, but mostly Alex. The way his scars looked in the setting sun, his familiar aquamarine color, the way he chased a magnet across Tokyo in order to save her.

She sighed and settled onto her chassis, closing her eyes and allowing a soft smile to play on her bumper.

The smile faded when she thought back on what she was getting into. Alex was a Pacer, a member of one of the Four Families, and somehow she had the sense that once she got in, she couldn't get out to save her life. Lexie wasn't sure she wanted that, but she wasn't sure if either she or Alex could get out at this point.

She took a deep breath and turned away from the light, driving back to the Cozy Cone.