Car Chases

The explosion at our hotel was on the news the next morning. They said it was a gas leak which caused the explosion. That… is definitely one of the worst cover ups I’ve heard of.

Someone tried to kill us. Not many candidates for who.

There, um… there… and there were people in that hotel when the explosion happened. The blast took out the entire floor we’d been staying on. Most who were on it… they’re dead. Just because we happened to be at the same hotel as them. If we’d never gone there… we could have slept in the car, we’ve done it before, we didn’t have to put those people in danger….

And that wasn’t even the end of it…. Things got worse from there.

Soon as morning hit, 330 tried calling Lucy. Didn’t get a reply. We drove to their office fast as we could. Place had been ransacked by the time we arrived. Front door was torn off the hinges, and everything inside was a mess. There was a man, someone I’d never seen before, in the back room, searching through a stack of papers. When he saw us come in her cursed, and pulled out a gun. 330 vanished from my side and appeared behind him; grabbed him and slammed his head into a wall, then twisted his gun arm until I heard a snap. Pulled the gun out of his hand and threw him to the floor.

“Are you with Lupine?”

He groaned in response. 330 pulled the trigger, shooting less than an inch from the man’s face.

“I said, are you with Lupine?!”

“Yes! Yes, dammit!”

“Where are the two who work here?”

“I don’t kno-”

330 fired again, even closer. “Where are they?”

“I-57! They were heading south on I-57!”

She kicked him in the face once, and ran towards the door. “Get back in the car!” She already had the engine started by the time I’d gotten in my seat.

Being a helpless passenger to breakneck speeds is becoming something of a regular thing to me. Probably not a good sign. Doing it down a city street, though… that’s insane. The way she was cutting through traffic… and all those red lights we went past… and that one time we went on the sidewalk for a bit…. I’m amazed we didn’t die. Police tried to stop us, but whenever sirens came up behind, 330 would flicker for a moment (causing my heart to jump into my throat because there was that one second where no one was driving the car) and suddenly the patrol car’s tires would blow out.

Didn’t take long to find Matthew Larsen and Lucy. They were the ones having the high speed car chase with the two black SUVs on their tail.

“Take the wheel.” Was the only warning 330 gave me before she vanished, and I had to jump over to the driver’s seat to stop from crashing into a light pole. Once I regained control, looked out the window and saw that 330 had appeared on top of one of the SUV’s hood. She fired several shots into the SUV, then appeared on the other’s hood, where she repeated the process. Both were swerving off the street when she appeared back in the car, this time in the passenger’s seat.

“Follow Matthew’s car.” She instructed, and that’s what I did. Followed him for an hour, as their car twisted randomly through the city streets. Finally stopped inside a parking garage.

Matthew got out of his car pretty quickly, and strode forward towards us. Lucy came out after him, but stayed with their car, leaning on it for support. 330… didn’t even bother with the door. She just appeared outside.

“Alright, what the hell’s going on?” Matthew said. “Some goons tried to jump us at our office, then we got chased halfway through the city by those vans.”

“CIA’s moving back into the city.” 330 said.

Matthew nodded, apparently not surprised. He put a toothpick in his mouth and chewed on it furiously for a few moments before spitting it out. “Just not the same. Anyone got a cigarette?”

330 flickered, and suddenly was holding a packet which she offered to Matthew. Still not showing any outward signs of surprise, he took a cigarette from the packet and lit it.

“Mr. Larsen, you said you’d quit!” Lucy said.

“Quitting only lasts as long as people aren’t pointing guns at me.”

That sentence seemed to be all Lucy had in her, and she slid to the ground, trembling slightly. I think I recognized some of the signs. Went over to her, while 330 and Matthew talked business.

“This your first time dealing with this sort of thing?” I asked.

Lucy nodded. Alright, so… what would 330 do next? …. Alright, so, what would 330 do next, other than flirting with her?

“I know it sounds weird.” Good, good, Lucy was the one doing the talking. I could listen. I’m great at listening. “This is what my job’s supposed to be about, right? I’m supposed to be used to this?” She took several breaths. Seemed to calm her down; the trembling stopped, at least. “I’ve never dealt with this! All I’ve ever done is help with investigations and cover ups! I handle the paperwork! No one’s ever shot at me before! I’ve never had to use my gun! The only reason I got this job was because of my parents! I-I-I-” No, I was wrong, she wasn’t calming down.

“Lucy!”

“Yes Mr. Larsen?”

“Did you get the plate numbers on the cars that were after us?”

“Yes Mr. Larsen!”

“Look up anything you can on those. And try to get in contact with the other agents in the city, see if they’re alright. Get rid of your phone as soon as you’re done.”

“Yes Mr. Larsen!”

Lucy’s panic disappeared as she threw herself into those orders. “I thought I could introduce her slowly to this.” Matthew said. “Make sure she only encountered low level eldritch beings, keep her out of danger, until she was ready for it. It never works out like that, does it?”

“Oh, I dunno.” 330 said. “Throwing them into the chaos can be kinda fun. Ain’t that right, Lisa?”

“I don’t recall my first run in with the supernatural being all that fun, 330.”

“Oh, come on. I got to shoot Grendel in the face! There’s nothing more fun than that!”

“I’ll have to take your word for that.”

During their discussion, Matthew and 330 had come to a course of action for us. Matthew detailed it so: “A while back, I bought a small house in the city, in case something like this happened. Completely off the records, using my own money, so it should give us a few days of safety before we’re found again.”

“You planned for the CIA to attack us?” Lucy asked.

“Not them in particular, but yes, I planned for something similar. You hafta remember kid, when I was growing up in this agency, things weren’t always as polite between everyone as they are now. We’ll get to the house, and then you,” he pointed at 330, “can explain to me why this is happening, since you seem to know a lot more than you’re telling. Then we get in touch with the people back in Washington and try to get them to call this mess off. We’ll take your car, cause I’d bet anything that ours is bugged. That clear? Good. Let’s get moving.”

-Lisa