[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bwC1zJE49U&list=PLCuEH5Tl2B8qq-98aYCRPmsG16PXUmPRd&index=10[/youtube] Before Petrukov could get in, the garage door slammed down. The rest followed, making him feel like a cornered mouse. He should be afraid. That made sense. So, why wasn’t he? His muscles are tense, his stomach flutters, his skin trembles but it’s not due to fear. It’s the thrill. The excitement. The fear of being afraid that runs through his nervous system. He hates this. How the odds excite him more than they frighten him. The flutter of adrenaline in his chest. How his heart beats so fast that his rib cage feels like it might break. It’s as if everything before this was a hazy daydream. A jolt from the back knocks him out of his stupor. Damage readings, blinking inside his iconoclast, pop up and mark out a portion of the Jury Rigg as burning red. A quick glance makes him slightly worried. He’s built the chassis to take punishment but even carbon-laminated steel has its limits. There’s more dull thumps that follow, sparks combining with shrieks of metal to form a single drawn out sound that reminds him of a rope being pulled to its seams. The Jury Rigg’s audio receivers pick up the words of the Herald’s leader, who speaks about him casually as if he’s an animal in a slaughterhouse. “ Aim for the wheels and we’ll drag him from out the back.” Familiar words from long ago slither into his ears, above the belching groan of the exhaust. He remembers the cold chill of the Ni-Cola in his left hand. The feel of flesh sticking to metal. His car parked right next to OverDriver’s Monica. They’re both sharing crappy instant-ramen and then, out of nowhere, when Detroit just begins to set, he says the words. [i]“ There’s two endings for people like us in this world, Demon. Dying quick or dreaming quick. I’m not sure which one comes first.” [/i] He thumbs the gear stick, fiddling with it, deciding his next course of action. As if he has a choice. Petrukov was trapped away from him. The Ark hated him. He was trapped within this shithole of a city trying to claw itself out from futility. They wanted to drag him out? He’d let them drag the Demon out. He shifts into reverse gear, ripping out the front of the Jury Rigg embedded in the garage door before chucking the stick left and swinging it into a high third. He sends it into a sweeping pendulum drift before pushing the gear forward into first and sending the Jury Rigg zooming forward in a blazing trail. The first Herald slammed wetly into his windshield, cracking the right upper glass. The second became a road bump under his wheels. They’re just meat to him. Everything outside the car is a blur of gunfire and flailing bodies. Inside the air-conditioned filter-scrubbed interior is his world. His second body. He whips the wheel to the left and shatters a Herald’s spine from behind, sending the merc crawling on the ground like a newborn. The brakes squeal, the extra momentum swinging his helmet right and left. He’s staring face to face with the leader. His Octadactyl grips the wheel tightly with its titanium paddings, leaving a shallow indentation in the carbo-olymer framework. There is only anger now, an ocean that fills his lungs and makes his head light and hot. There is no man in front of him. Only a target. His boots slams down on the accelerator and the Jury Rigg burns forward, a half-ton blur of blood-spattered steel and eth-fumes. 50 kmh. He closes his eyes. 100 kmh. His heart beats in anticipation. 150 kmh. [i]“ Swim, Keah. Swim away” [/i] He gasps, rising out from the tide of rage, and pushes on the brake, just barely managing to avoid the leader. The interior of the car begins to feel like summer, the roof above his head glowing like a hotplate. He turned to the right, the laser raking a trench across. Then, something that sounded like a wet balloon popping rang his eardrums as he could barely make out the shrill alerts from his helmet. WARNING. WARNING. FRONT LEFT TIRE IN CRITICAL CONDITION. FRONT LEFT TIRE IN CRITICAL CONDITION. The Jury Rigg, for the first time, spins out of control, his grip of the wheel loose and slack. The ruined. Maneuvering with three wheels is easier than maneuvering with two. It feels like sailing in the Atlantic with only a lifebuoy and two spoons for paddles. He’s not sure whether or not he’s driving or a passenger along for the ride. His mind soon fills in the patterns for his vehicle’s drunken chaos as he slightly turns the wheel to the right, swerving past a trio of Heralds that blast at his bullet-riddled doors with wild abandon. Keah doesn’t question his luck when the garage doors open again in unison. All he focuses on is Petrukov and Lovecraft standing out in the open, the Pirate Queen looking paler than ever. To his left, the Bannerlord was in the midst of the firefight. The bullets currently raining down on the both of them left him little choice. He brushed past a Herald, the sideswipe leaving the merc tumbling and clutching his hip in pain, thundering towards the shellshocked form of Petrukov and Lovecraft. “Maám, get in. We can still get you out of here. The election matters more than a dea-” Keah’s head flinched as his right side mirror exploded into a puff of glass and metal. He was more worried about whether there would be a Jury Rigg left to repair rather than how much it would cost to repair his ride after Petrukov’s botched deal. The side door clicked open with a screeching whine, Keah waiting for both of them to get in. “ Lovecraft, I only got three wheels left.” He pumped up the gearstick to first and squeezed the accelerator, the engine purring gently in response. “ Make sure it doesn’t get below that number.”