Chapter Ten

"Where are we going?" Electro asked.

"To a safe house," Finn replied. "But it has to be an unofficial one, especially of our theory is correct."

Holley turned away from the computer, toward Finn. "What about our contact?" she asked.

"I'll meet him up after we drop you two off."

"Us two? Why?"

"Because right now, I can only trust you, Richard, and a few others, Mater included. This situation is too sticky to trust anyone else, or leave him unsupervised."

"It was deCarteran, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and I have a feeling deCarteran isn't as willing to kill as he's trying to have us believe."

"What do we do?"

"Run a records search on Jackson Dalloway. May as well learn what we can before we land."

Holley did, scanning the screen as results appeared. "We have entrance records, expulsion records, transcripts, police reports, and, oh, this is interesting. He appears to have officially changed his name and signed up for the academy using a false age."

"Older or younger than he actually was?"

"Older."

"Why?"

"Not a clue."

"Any record on his name before he changed it?"

"Alan deCarteran, according to this."

"Curiorser and curiouser, Finn said, forgetting proper English for a moment," the Aston Martin muttered. "Who were his parents?"

Holley ran another search and then said, "No clue. He was adopted out of the foster system and ran away before the ink could dry. Several years later, he chooses hte last name deCarteran for himself, crafts the alias Jackson Dalloway, also for himself, switches back and forth between the two, and was adopted again under his original name."

"By whom?"

"Again, he ran away before the ink dried, changed his name, falsified his age, and signed up for the academy."

"I can see the logic behind that. Someone that detatched would make a good field agent."

"That seems to be about it, though, because he obviously had trouble the first time around and had to try again under his other name."

"And yet, Montgomery employed him. The question is, why?"

"They're gonna kill me," Electro screamed.

"That's it. We have to get to the bottom of this," Holley said.

Finn approached Electro and asked, "Why do you keep saying that?"

"It's true. They're gonna kill me, and they're gonna put me through the chop shop."

"Do they want something?" Electro lapsed into silence, his wide, terrified eyes staring into space. Finn returned his attention to Holley and said, "Give him some time before you try to get answers out of him. We want him to feel safe first."

"Roger that," Holley replied with a brief nod.

"We're on approach," Siddeley said over the intercom.

"Excellent. Holley, if anything happens, your first goal is to get the both of you out alive." She gave another curt nod. "And don't let Montgomery talk to you too much, if at all. If I'm right, we're working against him now."

She gave him a strange look, but she said nothing. "Prepare for landing," Siddeley said. Finn drove into his chair, and the plane descended.

CARS

"Alright, Finn, we're here," Holley said over the communication system.

"Excellent," Finn replied. "Stay in contact, and be careful."

"Right-o."

Finn turned a corner, switching his communicator off, and drove toward a hotel. He approached the receptionist and said, "Excuse me, I'm looking for Richard Daniels."

"Oh, yes," she said. "One moment, please." After a brief conversation with someone on the phone, she added, "Room four fifteen."

"Thank you." He drove down the hall and into the elevator, pressing a button. When the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, he drove down the hall to Room four fifteen. He tapped on the door in a specific manner, and Ice answered with a sigh of relief.

"Thank the Manufacturer," Ice said, rolling to the side to allow Finn to enter.

"What happened?" Finn asked, turning toward the yellow tuner.

"Montgomery."

"Did you talk to him again?"

"No, but I can't get him out of my head, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm afraid I'll open the door and he'll appear out of nowhere and try to kill me."

"I hope not."

"How's Electro?"

"Under Holley's watch in an unofficial safe house."

"He'll be okay there. It's a waiting game now."

The soft hum of an engine could be heard in the hall, approaching the door. "Not for long," Finn replied, arming himself for battle.

Someone tapped on the door.

CARS

Axle drove with no sense of direction or time. He wanted to go somewhere, have a direction and purpose, but it failed him. His thoughts were elsewhere, specifically the time he'd made a similar aimless drive.

Torque's words echoed through his mind. "What the hell did you do? I love you, I spend my life protecting you, and you get me drunk so I'll talk?" Axle closed his eyes, trying to force the words to the back of his mind, but the entire memory flooded his mind.

He'd driven out in the middle of Torque's rant, down a random road, in a random direction, as fast as he could and not caring if he got caught. He remembered the world having a nonexistent quality to it, as if he were dreaming. Except he somehow knew he wasn't. He was having a nightmare.

That argument, over the night before, when Axle's curiosity got the best of him, was the last time Axle saw Torque alive.

Axle pulled over and settled onto his chassis, his eyes closing. Tears threatened to escape him, but he fought them as hard as he could. He felt something inside of him collapse, forcing air out of him and breaking his will for the fight he was trying to keep up. "Oh, Ford, what did I do," he whispered, shaking his hood. Tears streamed from his eyes down to his fenders, where they hovered momentarily before falling to the dirt beneath him.

He thought he heard a V8 engine in the distance, but a look in both directions revealed that the road was deserted as far as the eye could see. "Okay, Axle, you need to get a hold of yourself. First you talk to ghosts and now this?" he demanded of himself. "You've gotta figure this out or else you'll go insane." But he couldn't bring himself to drive. The sound of the engine returned. "Yep, it's official. Axle, you are now jets-in-the-belfry insane."

"And let me guess. I'm a hallucination," a painfully familiar voice said. Axle's eyes widened when his gaze met that of the speaker.