Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 20

THE CIRCLE OF ANGRY people hemmed in tighter around Petar, cutting off a quick escape. A screech of tires announced the lead police cruiser as it swung off the highway ramp. Half a dozen more chased it.

Petar scanned the faces and bodies surrounding him, looking for the path of least resistance. He didn't want to hurt anyone. At his feet, a mountain shifted. Speedbump was getting up.

Daisy Dukes was jeering from his left shoulder. All hundred and two pounds of her. It wasn't a direct line to the rig, but close enough.

Five seconds.

As Speedbump rose shakily to his feet, Petar took advantage of his lack of balance and jabbed a foot behind him, then gripped him by the shoulders and shoved. Uttering a cry of surprise, Speedbump wheeled backward and caught on Petar's outstretched foot. With the slow-motion start that only comes from a great weight in the moment before gravity takes hold, Speedbump tilted. He practically creaked like a redwood on the way down.

With a shriek, Daisy Dukes hopped out of the way to make room for the trucker's flailing body. It struck the ground with a hard thump and Petar was leaping over him in a dead sprint for the 18-wheeler.

He was out of time. The lead police cruiser shot onto the rising ramp that led to the parking lot with a scream of protesting shocks. It screeched to a stop directly in front of Petar. Without breaking stride, Petar lept and slid across the hood. He caught the eye of the surprised trooper climbing out of the driver's seat, then kicked shut the swinging passenger door as he slid past before the trooper's partner could get to his feet.

The convoy of flashing cruisers slid into a rugged semi-circle around the lead car. Voices rang out, shouting at Petar to stop. A pistol barked. Sparks rang off the semi's sidewall. Keeping his head low, Petar closed the remaining distance and shot into the safety of the rig's cab.

The window shattered as a round tore through it.

Well, relative safety.

Petar ducked down in the seat and ran his eyes over the dashboard.

Uh-oh.

Two more shots hammered into the rig. Petar risked a glance and saw a garden of pistols sprouting over the roofs and hoods of the gathered cruisers.

Petar scanned the dashboard again. Steering wheel, gearshift, gas pedal, brake pedal. That much Petar understood. Only there was a third pedal. Petar understood the idea of clutch transmissions, but only from a brief descripion in a book in his father's library.

That was going to be the easiest part.

Behind the wheel, the dashboard resembled something Petar more expected to see in a spaceship. Eight gauges were spread across a shiny wood panel. Left of the gauges were several pull-push knobs, and right of them was another panel set at a thirty-degree angle that was covered in a bank of switches. A short instruction card was pasted in their midst. Petar gave it a cursory inspection.

Fifth wheel. Differential locks. BTL control. Rear suspension.

Petar understood Greek. This language was incomprehensible.

Another shot pinged metal, followed by a megaphoned order to step out of the vehicle. He'd have to wing it.

"Here comes Sally," Petar muttered under his breath.

He jammed his foot down on the far-left pedal and slid the gearshift back a notch. Gave it some gas. An ear-splitting groan rent the cab, followed by the scream of metal on metal.

Petar slid the lever to its original position and tried a different direction. He noticed that the diagram on the gearshift's knob had more than a dozen positions mapped out. He sighed. Should have just taken off on foot.

The police outside realized that Petar was attempting to make a run for it, and a volley of gunfire pelted the cab's walls. Rounds tore through the metal door, missing Petar by inches. Another verbal warning. Come out with your hands up. Petar got the impression that he'd be riddled with bullets the second he showed skin. He tried again.

This time the squeal was softer, and the truck gave a lurch. Petar gassed it, but the rig seemed to be stuck on something. Emergency brake. The words drifted out of his memory of the Infiniti. He scanned the cab, looking for a lever. Began slapping the switches at random. The CB radio over his head crackled to life. Lights flickered in the sleeping bay behind him. No good. It was a big truck. The brake would be big too.

Another round of gunfire. Something hot bit into his shoulder.

There! A yellow, diamond-shaped knob below the switch panel. Petar pushed it in and felt something thump in the machinery under his feet.

Let's try this again.

This time, the truck lurched forward with a roar of igniting fuel. He was rolling. Petar floored the gas pedal, but the truck was slow to gain momentum. He tried shifting again. Gears rasped. The truck jumped and snarled. And he was accelerating. Petar swung wide around the island of pumps, following the path Jem had traced in the SUV. Shifted again. His arm was getting heavy under the shoulder where he'd been hit. He had to use both hands to spin the massive wheel.

The police cruisers had parked in front of the exit ramp, and Petar wasn't sure he had enough speed to knock them out of the way. As the cab swung around to face them head-on, a thunder of pops sounded from the makeshift roadblock. Petar ducked below the dash just as the windshield exploded inward. Thick chunks of glass rained over his head.

Still picking up speed, Petar barreled straight at the cruisers. He got a weird surge of power from the massive engine rumbling under his feet, like the feeling he used to get riding hoverrangers across the plains of Volos as a boy.

The officers kneeling behind their cars began looking nervous. A sheriff jumped out of the way, and like his movement was a switch, the rest dove after him.

Petar thundered closer, still gaining speed. But not enough, not yet. If he was going too slow, he'd just crash into the cars and get stuck. Then he'd be a sitting duck. Reversing in this thing would be tantamount to flying to the moon, as far as Petar was concerned.

Closer. The officers had repositioned beyond the crash zone and were leveling their firearms at the big rig. The crowd from earlier was still clumped, watching Petar's progress with expressions bordering on fascination. Speedbump was shouting.

Petar wasn't going fast enough. He tried to shift into a higher gear, but something went wrong. The truck let out a harsh, ear-rending squeal. Petar quickly jammed the gearshift into the center of the box and the rig kept rolling on its momentum. Even so, it was slowing. There was only one thing Petar could do.

At the last second, he spun the steering wheel to the right, launching past the police cars and barreling over a five-foot grassy hill to the ramp below. The cab hung in the air for a moment, then plunged down the slope. The momentum pulled the fifty-ton trailer over the lip of the embankment, and that crushing weight drove the cab straight into the ground.

Sparks from the front fender bounced over the truck's hood and a plume of smoke rose from the radiator grill. But the engine kept on roaring. Petar wrenched the gearshift into first and let the trailer's momentum push the truck into an onward roll. With a final, earth-shaking thump, the rear tires went over the embankment and landed on solid pavement.

Petar wrenched a hard right to turn in the direction of the road, and for a hair-raising second, the cab's two right tires left the ground. Then they came to, and Petar upshifted with the whole rig pointed toward the eastbound ramp where he'd watched Jem speed away just minutes earlier.

He wasn't going to get away that easily.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 21!