Chapter2

"Oh shit!" The end of my cursing came out as more of a shriek-y scream making it sound more like 'sheet' but I'm sure the cosmos got the gist of my noisemaking. After all, it's not everyday that you get snatched by a giant robot and then shoved… inside it?

All I know is that its hand wrapped around me and dragged me towards its chest and then things started shifting and moving and there was a whole lot of black and silver rushing around me, linking up, morphing and just changing. I couldn't see anything clearly; it was dark. But then a piece of glass shifted across before me and then warm leather slid in underneath me, supporting me. I blinked and I came to terms with the fact that the robot had changed back into a car. And I was inside it. How does one process these things!?

Instinctively I reached out and grasped the steering wheel but it wrenched to one side, tearing through my hands and forcing me to let go.

"Sit still. I'm drivin'," that same decidedly male voice declared causing me to quickly shift my feet towards the seat and away from the pedals. I folded my arms around myself and hugged my body tightly, feeling a strong chill even though the interior of the cab was almost suffocatingly warm.

What the actual Hell was this thing? How can a car change into a robot and vice-versa as well as talk and, apparently, think. And its- his – voice sounded almost humanoid, despite sounding distinctly metallic as well. I mean, was that an accent? Can robots have accents?

My breathing mounted, my palms became sweaty and the road began to swim before my eyes as the car-robot- drove along by itself, the steering wheel turning, the gear stick shifting up and down and the pedals moving in and out as though being manipulated by invisible feet. The lights on the dash all swirled together in a colourful mix of pale blues and I felt distinctly sea sick, even though I had never felt that way in my life. Maybe it was another kind of nausea. Maybe I should start breathing again…

I took in a shaky breath that rattled through my ribs like a lonely ghost. I actually had to concentrate to draw in another one after that, and then another and another. All of a sudden it was like I had some kind of mental affliction that was preventing my body from operating properly. Is this some kind of panic attack?

"Don' you dare expel your bodily fluids all over mah interior," The robot-car said. I stared at the dashboard in bewilderment.

"I'm not about to piss myself," I snapped, my face flushing red at the prospect of it. I may have been scared, but I don't think I was quite at the point yet. If however the robot was to throw me out on the side of the road and point a big arsed gun at my face, well then I would be at risk of wetting myself. Wait, maybe he was talking about vomiting, because the way this guy drives, well, that was becoming a real possibility.

"Oh, cool your vents femme," he grumbled at me. I guess the robot-car could tell that I was having a small panic attack in the front seat. "I ain't gonna hurt you."

I snorted. I couldn't help it. He wasn't going to hurt me, huh?

"You ran me down in the middle of the street," I felt the need to point that small, rather significant fact out to him since he didn't seem to recall. Right on cue my ankle gave a rather obnoxious throb and my butt kindly reminded me that it was going to be a brilliant array of black and blue in the morning.

"Hey now, you were the one standin' in the middle of the street," he retorted and I gaped at… well at the dashboard since it was lit up and about the only thing making sense to me. A sudden rush of queasiness raced through me as I watched the needle on the speedometer gradually tick further upwards towards the higher end of the speed spectrum. I had already seen this guy crash once; I didn't especially want to be inside when it happened again.

"You skidded around the corner like a psycho, hit me and proceeded to pulverise my poor, innocent car," I growled, indignation igniting in my stomach, masking a small portion of my terror but not dispelling it. What right did this bloody robot have to go hooning around, crashing into people and writing off their cars? And why me, of all people?

I grabbed the sides of the leather seat as the sleek little sports car I was in hooked it straight through a set of red lights and weaved through traffic like an absolute mental. He took a corner in much the same way he had taken the one where he cleaned me up, except a little less sideways and quite a bit faster. I pressed my head back into the seat and closed my eyes as I heard a few people yell from the sidewalks. Hopefully nobody picked up my face on a traffic camera.

"You know," I began, gritting my teeth as we slipped through a gap between a bus and a van with all the grace of a NASCAR driver. "for a car you're kind of a shitty driver."

I'm not really sure why I said that. Maybe because I was sick of being thrown around and because I didn't really appreciate being kidnapped by a talking car. I didn't appreciate being run over either, come to think of it. All I know is that I probably should have thought it through before I opened my mouth.

The brake screamed and the steering wheel spun sharply to the left. The car turned sharply in a full one hundred and eighty degree spin and the proceeded to speed away. Backwards. I'm not even joking; he was racing along the roads backwards and weaving through the traffic almost as fast as he was going before. Then he wrenched the wheel again and all of a sudden we were facing straight once more. Somewhere in the mix the seat belt had come down by itself and fastened itself across my chest. It was kind of creepy, like an anaconda had suddenly gotten me in its grips. I wanted to squirm; I hated snakes and the mental imagery I had just given myself was not making me feel any better about this whole event.

All was well for a moment there as we cruised off again, and I allowed myself a chance to relax, thinking that he had to be confident he had gotten his message across. Then the engine revved and I watched the gas pedal as it drifted all the way in until it was pressed to the floor. I grabbed the handle on the door with one hand and the side of the seat with the other. I looked up, terrified that some innocent civilian would be killed because I insulted a robot-car. But the road ahead was almost completely empty and it was long, straight and double lanes.

I think that was very nearly it for my bladder. The car turned on the radio and started blaring music, not familiar music by the kind of rock-pop that is designed to get your blood pounding. It worked. I think I had enough adrenalin pulsing through me at that moment that I could have peed out some kind of new drug. My heart galloped in my chest. I had seen on TV once that people can have fear induced heart attacks and die. Was that going to happen to me? It sure felt like my heart was going to give out at any moment. My hand was wrapped so tightly around the handle on the door that not only my knuckles but my whole hand was white. I think my fingernails dug in and scratched the dark leather seat but the car was enjoying its torment of me too much to make mention of it.

"Jackass," I managed to gasp out as he slowed down. I didn't mind going fast; it was more that I was going super fast in this particular car. The robot made no response but to let out a brief chuckle through the pounding radio.

But even the radio quieted down as he steadied up and pulled in behind a yellow search and rescue vehicle. Something moved in the rear view mirror and I caught a glimpse of a large black truck with the 'GMC' badge on the grill. The three cars seemed to form a kind of convoy even though there was no communication that I could see or hear.

The radio flickered back to life as we pulled into an alleyway, playing the 'Jaws' theme song at a hauntingly low pitch.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I gasped, slamming the heel of my palm against the power button for the radio. There was blessed silence as we pulled in behind an obnoxiously yellow Camaro with two teenagers standing at its front bumper. I squinted at them but couldn't really make out their features, not that I really expected to know them or anything.

The door of the silver sports car-robot opened, the seatbelt retracted and I scrambled out into the cool night air, a ring of vehicles around me. There were five of them, I noted, as I backed towards the other human beings. There was the Camaro, the search and rescue, the black GMC truck and a red and blue semi. Oh, and lets not forget the smart-arsed silver Pontiac I had just climbed out of.

Please, please, please let them not all be giant robotic beings.