Pixar owns Cars. The end.
Holley had not gotten enough sleep the last few nights, the dark bags under her eyes serving as evidence. Her second semester, at least for the academic portion, at the Academy was coming to a close. This meant finals, term papers, and a seemingly never-ending pile of review to do.
Thank Chrysler for caffeine, she thinks to herself as she drives to the campus' Starbuicks to pick up some much needed coffee for herself and her room mates. At least we have a week off from classes to study.
Soon enough, the entrance to the oasis of cars who pull all-nighters comes into view. She is just in time to see one of the workers flip the sign to "OPEN."
"Good timing…" Holley smiles tiredly. She starts to drive forward, but no sooner than she rolls forward an inch, the pavement drops out from underneath her. She gives a slight gasp as she falls a few yards before landing on a hard surface. Looking up, she sees the clear June sky just before the pavement closes up again.
If this happened anywhere else, Holley would have been very worried. But here at the Academy for C.H.R.O.M.E, she just grinned as she feels the floor beneath her shudder and move downwards.
Finally! she thinks to herself. This must be taking me to the next stage of training! Her excitement at what is to come next spikes Holley's adrenaline and the purple Jag couldn't be more glad for that. I'm probably going to need all the energy I can get.
Soon enough, the lift Holley is on enters a large hanger-like area. The walls are painted black, though parts of them seem to give off a teal-colored glow giving the room a very high-tech look. Looking around her, Holley sees numerous other cars arriving on other lifts. Her lift reaches the floor and Holley drives forward, taking in more details of the hangar. Once she is fully off the lift, it retracts and becomes part of the ceiling as do the other lifts that carried the other cars down.
"Hey Holley," a cherry red Porsche 911 Carrera says as the cars who have just… dropped in start to gather in the center of the hangar.
"Hello Story. Any idea what is going on?" Holley asks the American from her art history class.
"Not really…" Story answers as a pair of large, metal doors slide open revealing a group of slightly older model cars. Holley recognizes a few of them as teachers from around campus, mostly those who taught the spy-aspect classes. The others, though, she has never seen before.
"Good afternoon," a silver 1965 Bentley S3 Continental says as he drives into the hangar. "And welcome to your next stage of training here at the C.H.R.O.M.E Agent Training Academy. You may all call me Agent Cartez. I, along with the other agents here, will be overseeing this stage in your training."
"Agent Cartez?" the Porsche asks.
"Yes…" he says, looking at her. "Miss Fredrickson?"
A slight look of confusion crosses the cherry red car's features before she continues. "Where is the rest of our class?"
"Well, simply put, there is not enough room for everyone here," Cartez responds.
Holley looks around in confusion. The hanger they are all parked in looks, to her at least, large enough to host a high school homecoming dance and still have plenty of room. "I don't understand," she says.
The Bentley smiles. "Well, then let me elucidate that for you Miss Shiftwell. Agent Gibbs?" he says, turning to look at a navy blue Emerycraft.
"Yes sir?" she says.
"If you would…"
"Of course," the Emerycraft says and drives over to a control panel.
"What we are currently parked in is the Academy's Holo-dome," Cartez explains as he drives slowly around the group of trainees. "We mentioned this on your first day, yes? I thought so. Now, this Holo-dome and the technology contained within is highly classified. You are not to speak, write, or in any other way communicate about the technology or HD to anyone outside of C.H.R.O.M.E. Is this understood?"
"Yes, sir," the students reply.
"Good. Now, with that out of the way… Agent Gibbs? Paris, s'il vous plait."
There is a collective gasp from the gathered cars as the City of Love appears right before their eyes, complete with the smell of fresh baguettes and a gentle breeze. Right behind Cartez is the world-famous symbol of France, the Tour d'Eifel.
"Miss Shiftwell? Could you be so kind as to touch your tire to the Eifel Tower for me?"
"Sure…" Holley says. What exactly is the point? It's just light. My tire will just- she thinks to herself., stopping short when her tire meets resistance. "How? It's this just…light?"
"In a sense, yes. It's hard light though. A bit complex to explain, though," the Bentley says.
Holley could almost swear that she heard a car towards the back of the group mumble in an awed tone something about if you were to rub your frame on it, it would feel like a warm sun beam shining on you.
"This is part of the reason why we can't have too many cars in the HD at once," Cartez explains. "If there are too many in here, the computer can't uphold the hard light. So if hills were involved in the terrain you were to be training on and too many were in here, you'd fall through the hill to the floor of the dome. Of course the number of cars that can be in here depends on how long the simulation will be running." Paris disappears as quickly as it appeared, leaving the Holo-dome looking the same as when they first entered.
"Amazing," Holley says simply.
"Quite. Now, here is the main reason. Computer. Gatling gun, Holley Shiftwell."
"Request acknowledged," a computerized female voice reports.
Looking down at her frame, Holley sees that on either side of her a gun is sticking out from her frame. "More hard-light technology?" she enquires.
"Of a sort," the Bentley says. "Shoot me."
"Wha- sir?" Holley says, clearly confused and concerned for the metal state of Cartez.
"I promise, it won't hurt me. Shoot."
Holley squints, ready to quickly close them should the result be tragic. She turns to face the car. She shoots.
Cartez disappears in a flash of neon-teal light.
"Oh my Ford…" Holley whispers to herself, the guns retracting into her sides. A short second later, the old Bentley reappears near the center of the hangar. He drives over casually, as if nothing big just happened.
"And that is the main reason we can not have too many cars in the dome at once. Too many, and the re-spawning program won't work effectively."
"Re-spawning?" a car asks, this time the cherry red Porsche.
"To help create a more… life like testing and training environment. If you are hit by one of the computer-generated weapons, the program will either remove you from the dome into a separate room or to a central location if you are doing an exercise that includes 'lives.'" He grins sheepishly. "I don't quite fully understand it myself. But don't worry, it won't hurt."
"It's more effective than using paintball to train," Agent Gibbs offers from her spot in front of the computer monitors.
"And those can leave some dents," Cartez grimaces, remembering his own training pre-holo technology. "Now we know that you have finals to study for, so we put together a fairly quick training for today."
After a few minutes of explaining how to utilize the Holo-dome weaponry and a definition of "Hunter Mode", the teachers and agents exit the hangar. A few seconds after the door bangs shut, the program kicks in.
Holley takes in the scene. An oil rig in the middle of the ocean. She activates her first weapon of choice, a tazer.
"Bring it."
A/N- Yeah, lots of fun hiding little Easter Eggs in there for all of my readers. There's quite a few in this chapter... let me know what ones you caught if you want to!
This chapter contained TheStoryologist's cameo! She correctly identified Kim as being inspired by Kim Possible from the Disney Channel show of the same name.
If you have any suggestions for a chapter, I'm all ears. Well...eyes I suppose since I would be reading your suggestion :P
Please review!