Worlds Collide: A Cars Fan Fiction

Love and Battle Plans

Zane woke feeling sunlight on his face. It was a dream, he told himself. I'm going to open my eyes and be at home, in my room. Either Lee or Jack is going to knock on the door any second to wake me up for chores. 

He opened his eyes. He and Hector were still in their Cozy Cone, with the sunlight coming in through the little window. The clock on the wall read seven-thirty. He couldn't deny it; this wasn't a dream.

Hector was still out cold, so Zane put on his back pack. He opened the door (which opened surprisingly quietly) and slipped outside. He knew that Nikki was an early riser, and would probably want breakfast. He began walking towards her Cone, but was stopped by someone calling his name.

"Your name's Zane, right?" He turned to see a purple car he recognized from the night before.

"Yep. Sorry, but I never got your name."

"Ramone, man. If you're looking for your friends, Nikki and Elsie are in the Sheriff's office. They're trying to figure out how to get your friend out of that lab. And how to get you home. I don't know where the other humans are."

"Hector's still asleep, and I'm guessing Zhara is, too. They've never been early risers. But I'd better get to the Sheriff's office. I'm not great at battle plans, but..." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a handful of energy bars. "They probably want breakfast."

He put all but one of the bars back into his bag, then turned back to Ramone. "Any chance you can show me the way?"

"Follow me, man, and try to keep up." The car began to drive slowly through the town. Zane took a moment to inhale his energy bar before following him. 

"So, tell me about yourself. How do you and the other kids know each other?"

"We're all from the same neighborhood, so we all kind of grew up as friends. Nikki and I have known each other the longest." 

He started to think, almost involuntarily, about his favorite memories of Nikki. All of the summer days they'd spent with water pistols and ice pops in her backyard. The way her perfect teeth looked when she laughed. That time she'd stayed home from a rock climbing trip to help him study for a math test. 

"She's...kind of like my closest friend. She's brave, cool, fun, confident, she cares about people, and she's really nice...and..."

He realized what he was saying and looked at Ramone. The purple car was grinning at him. Zane felt his face go red. "Anyway, I know that she and Elsie can figure out a way to get us home." He started to walk faster, clutching the straps of his backpack and trying to avoid looking at Ramone.

"Zane," the car said, almost teasingly. 

"Can you please pretend that I didn't say any of that? Please?" He'd never told anyone how he felt about Nikki. And he just rambled about it to a total stranger? What was wrong with him?

"Zane." Ramone sounded more serious this time. He didn't want to, but he turned to face him. He drove a little closer. "I know that look. That's how I still feel every day with my wife, Flo. Don't hide your feelings, man."

"It's no use, though." Zane admitted. "She wants to be a famous mountain climber one day. She's shown me every mountain she plans to climb once we graduate. I can't hold her back from her dream! And...even if she wasn't planning on climbing the tallest mountains in the world...what would she see in someone like me?"

"Listen, Flo was a showgirl when we met. She traveled with a famous group of performers. But after we met, she chose to stay with me, here. Love is powerful; sometimes you just need to be willing to say the right thing at the right moment."

"How will I know what to say, though? And when to say it?"

"You'll just know, man. You'll just know."

"Mornin' Zane!"

The two were startled by the sound of Mater shouting from the Sheriff's office. Elsie poked her head out from behind him, smiling.

"Good morning," she signed. "I'm hungry."

"Good morning, Elsie!" he called to her. "Don't worry, I've got food!" He started to jog over. He tried to put Ramone's words out of his mind, but they wouldn't go away.

He tried to act casual as Nikki came out of the office to take the energy bar he gave her. She eyed the bar's label before she opened it, and smiled when she read that it was peanut-butter-and-chocolate.

"My favorite! Thanks!"

"My pleasure," he responded, hoping that he wasn't blushing. 

"Now that you've eaten," the town sheriff interrupted, "let's tell Zane about the plan you've come up with so far."

"Right," Nikki answered, her pupils shrinking. They always shrank when she was trying to focus. She followed Elsie over to the map on the wall, where they'd clearly been busy trying to locate the compound.

"The compound is on the other side of the first mountain in what's known around here as Cadillac Range. Walking there will take hours, but with the help of the cars, we should be able to get there in thirty minutes. 

"The real trouble is getting up the mountain. But, if the scientists can get up to and down from the lab so quickly, then they must have some sort of elevator or something. Once we've found that, we'll need to figure out where they're keeping Abbey, as well as anything that can help us get home."

Elsie held out a piece of paper for Nikki to read. 

"'It won't be easy. We don't even know where in the lab she's being kept, or how many scientists will be there. What we need is a way to distract them.'"

Just then, something moved outside the window. Zane looked out, quickly joined by Elsie. A large firetruck, who they remembered was known as Red, was watering flowers next to the statue of the town founder.

Elsie grinned, held up her notebook, and quickly wrote down her idea.

"'Fire.'"