The caddy slid sideways across a front lawn and then fishtailed out into the street again, leaving a trail of grass and dandelions on the asphalt.
As he fought to maintain control of the Caddy, Adam scanned the street in both directions.
He had lost them, for the moment, anyway.
He floored the gas pedal and sped off down the street, which seemed like a race track after the off-road terrain of the suburban backyards.
“This is crazy,” he said to the woman who had jumped into his car. “Why would anyone want to kill me?”
Talia looked at him and shrugged. “Because you were cloned.”
Then, with a single swift movement, she opened the door of the car and tried to roll out.
Adam’s painful grip on her wrist pulled her back.
“Why kill me? Why not the clone?”
“Don’t you get it?” the woman asked scornfully. “He got home first. You saw him; he didn’t see you.”
Adam gave her a look. So?
“You’re screwed,” she said viciously. “He’s going to live out the rest of your boring little life and never be the wiser.”
“I’ll make him wiser!” said Adam fiercely.
“If your wife and kid see you and him together, they’ll be killed,” the woman added. She spoke coolly, as if all this murder and mayhem were activities in a summer camp.
Adam was about to respond when, just ahead, he saw a board fence explode into faux-redwood splinters! The SUV crashed through and hurtled into the street, heading straight for the Cadillac.
Do these people have no fear? Adam wondered. He yanked the wheel to the left and barely avoided a collision.
With a scream of tortured rubber, the SUV matched Adam’s turn and hit his rear bumper—once, twice.
Wham!
Wham!
Adam lost control.
The Cadillac swerved into a front yard, and smashed through the door of a—fortunately empty—two-car garage.
Crrrraash!
Adam ducked as a storm of lawn mowers, picnic gear, car parts, canvas chairs, weed eaters, wading pools, old boots, tennis rackets and assorted garage junk flew into the air around the Caddy.
Crrraash!
He crashed through the back wall of the garage just as the SUV was plowing into the front, following his trail.
The Caddy bounced across a backyard, then between two close-ranked rows of trees.
The SUV did the same.
Both cars emerged from the trees into a long pedestrian plaza flanked by glass-and-steel buildings.
Adam floored the Cadillac again, but the SUV was newer, and faster.
* * *
Wiley rolled down his window as the SUV gained on the Cadillac, then pulled alongside. This was the best part of the car chase!
He grinned down the barrel of his foosh magnum, centering the infrared dot on Adam Gibson’s temple, just above and to the front of the left ear.
Foosh!
* * *
Adam ducked at the last moment. He could feel the heat as the blast went inches over his head.
When he straightened up, he saw that the woman beside him had an alarmed expression on her face.
And who wouldn’t—with a cauterized hole the size of a grapefruit through her neck?
She seemed to be trying to say something, which can be difficult when your larynx and spine have both been severed.
Adam had no time to listen anyway. The car was veering off the road and the steering wheel had just come off in his hands. The shot that had almost severed Talia’s head had also severed the Cadillac’s steering column.
Adam tossed the steering wheel out the window and gripped the mangled end of the steering column. He managed to find just enough to hold onto.
Twisting the naked shaft in his massive, powerful fist, he straightened the wheels just before the Caddy hit the curb.
The passenger-side door flew open, and the woman who had been trying to kill him tumbled out.
* * *
Marshall figured out what had happened when his left front tires bounced over Talia’s body.
Whump!
“Dammit, Wiley!” he said accusingly.
Wiley shrugged and recharged his laser magnum. “He ducked.”
“Blow his tires out!” ordered Marshall.
Wiley unbuckled his seat belt and leaned out the window, gun in hand.
“Please secure passenger seat belt,” said the auto voice. “Please secure passenger seat belt.”
“Please shut the fuck up,” muttered Marshall, as he followed the Cadillac down the wide, deserted pedestrian mall.
The Cadillac plowed straight ahead. It threw up two silvery sheets of water as it crossed a shallow pond, then plunged down a wide flight of concrete stairs.
bumdebumdebumdebumumdebum
The SUV was right behind.
umdebumdebumdebumumdebumdebumde
The Caddy bottomed out, striking sparks off the concrete, then climbed a shorter stair into a pedestrian mall covered by a glass roof.
The SUV was right behind.
* * *
Car chase!
Screaming pedestrians ran out of the way as the ancient car, followed by the newer one, skidded around a fountain, then sped out the other side of the glass-roofed mall.
Wiley leaned farther out of the window. His face was split by a wide grin as he gripped his foosh magnum and took aim at the distinctive taillights of the Caddy.
And between them, through the rear window, in the driver’s seat, at the distinctive bull-neck of his quarry. He elevated “quarry” to “target”—as the laser dot found its kill zone.
This was the part Wiley liked best.
The fast car chase!
The long, slow trigger pull …
* * *
Adam saw a flash of red in the rearview.
A laser sight!
He looked in the mirror and saw Wiley, leaning out of the front window of the SUV, taking aim.
The red dot was on the mirror, on the dashboard—then it was gone.
Adam knew it was on the back of his head. Wiley had found his target.
Adam hit the brakes hard!
The SUV was too close. It hit the Caddy’s broad chrome rear fender—Whump!
Damages to Caddy: $122.76 (estimated)
Damages to SUV: $1,254.67 (estimated)
But Adam was after bigger game.
He watched, pleased, as Wiley flew through the air, over the hood of the SUV, over the Caddy, to bounce off the hood, into the street.
Adam floored the gas again.
Wiley slid to a stop, a pile of broken bones, but still alive. He was just struggling to raise his head when the Caddy’s left front wheel hit him, followed quickly by the left rear.
Thump. Thump.
The Caddy’s big soft bias-ply tires left tread marks straight up the gun-thug’s face. The SUV’s tires were newer, AllWeather steel radials.
Krunk. Krunk.
The bias-plies ground Wiley’s face to a paste. The radials made it a smear.