No time to think, just react.
Mashing the accelerator to the floor, the force of the engine thrusts me back into the seat as the powerful Avatar AVX springs forward, reeling in tail lights from the darkness of the road straight ahead. In seconds, a vehicle a hundred yards away is suddenly just a car length in front, its red taillights slipping to the right and disappearing as I whip the Avatar around and past.
“Darcy!” In the passenger seat beside me, Sean Higgins stomps the floor in a vain attempt to slam on an imaginary brake. I wonder whether his anxiety springs from the blinding speed of the seven hundred horsepower sports car or the fact that a female is behind the wheel.
A bright yellow Ford pulls onto the road just ahead, oblivious to my Avatar eating up the street behind it. I slam the brake pedal, jam the clutch to the floor, downshift and swerve left, flying past a shell-shocked driver.
Numbers on the digital speedometer blur: sixty-four … eighty-five … fifty-three … forty-seven … fifty-eight.
My heart beats wildly; my mouth feels dry as dust.
In the mirror I see the SRT Viper chasing us reflecting our moves; a pair of headlight dodging left to right, right to left across all three lanes.
From the moment I sat at the wheel of the Avatar AVX, this car felt special – the way the interior wrapped around me in the driver’s seat and its accelerator pressed my body back into leather. I wish I could enjoy the experience now, but this ride could turn deadly any second.
In spite of the Avatar’s overwhelming power, the Viper gains rapidly. In heavy traffic I can’t maintain a speed above sixty miles per hour for long. Slashing through slower vehicles, I alarm drivers as I scream past, causing them to pull aside, making it easy for the two men in the Viper to follow.
“Darcy!”
A giant semi straight ahead. I spin the wheel, nearly side-swiping a Jeep on the left, then pull a hard right avoiding a pickup truck. I race past and brake hard, downshifting and barely miss becoming part of the backseat of a red Camaro. Swerving left, I find myself behind a Chrysler 200. I felt sure I had put pavement between the Viper and me, but no such luck. With the advantage of following in my tracks, it now looms just a car length behind.
Suddenly the Chrysler ahead ahead turns right and I see clear road.
Downshifting, I pound the accelerator, our bodies slamming leather as the V-12 roars and speedometer digits blur. Nothing can match the acceleration we feel. Looking back, I see the Viper trapped behind a gaggle of cars. The yellow eyes in the rearview mirror grow small.
An exhilarating three minutes pass before Metropolitan Parkway dead ahead, the intersection empty but traffic signals burning bright red. With the Viper now gone from the rear view mirror, I kill the Avatar’s lights and put it into a four-wheel drift, screaming into an illegal left turn. Tires shriek against pavement and the car suddenly heads west, leaving Gratiot Avenue behind.
Thirty seconds pass before I switch the lights back on and slow to avoid attracting attention.
As the Avatar resumes normal speed, I glance sideways at Higgins. The agency vice president who had pissed me off a few hours earlier by referring to the Avatar as “a real man’s car” now appears shell-shocked. His eyes are deer-in-the-headlights wide and as we pass under a street light I see that all color has drained from his face. His lips are moving, trying to form words, but without sound.
I speak first.
“You’re right. This is a real man’s car.”