Conflict

Part 3, Chapter 13

Chick's weapon fell to the ground harmlessly, sheared from its base with a single well-aimed shot. Izzy shoved it away and fired another shot to detonate the loaded ammunition. The ground tremored as the fireball dissipated to reveal the shattered remnants of the launcher. For a moment, the only sound was the echoes of the explosion off the canyon wall and the hills in the distance.

Then Chick tried to move. Flustered, Izzy snapped her attention back to him. Before the Buick – or whoever was controlling him – could make sense of what happened she whipped out an instrument that looked like a tuning fork and pressed it against his side. He yelled as arcs of electricity passed from the device to his body, but quickly fell silent and still.

Lightning, having taken shelter, peered out from behind Strip's wing. The scent of fresh ozone wafted through the air, reminiscent of an electrical fire.

"Is he dead?" McQueen asked timidly.

"Unfortunately, no," Izzy grumbled, putting the tool away. "But he's not waking up any time soon either."

"Is he really wired?" Strip asked his sister, though he was confident of the answer.

"Hmm." She poked around underneath Chick's exposed paneling with the barrel of her gun. "Yep. Same as what we've seen before. They must have upped the range on their remote guidance system, though. For someone to have control over him way out here? I gotta say, that's impressive."

"So he's not trying to kill me?" Lightning asked. "It's someone else?"

"Well, that time, anyway," Strip answered. "Stephen must have been listening in, figured out he wasn't gonna fight back anymore."

Lightning sat silently for a moment, considering it. Chick's actions finally made sense to him, to a sickening degree. In order to protect himself and prevent being controlled by the Ford CEO, Chick was willing to kill. He didn't necessarily want to, but that seemed the lesser of two evils from his perspective. Chick held a resentment toward Stephen unlike anything he could imagine. Combine that with selfish ambition and anything would be better than handing himself over to the likes of a lunatic again.

"Alright, yeah, so what now?" Izzy asked, turning toward her brother. "You convinced me not to kill him. What do we do with him now?"

Strip shrugged. "Call up one of the corporate jets. Get someone down here to pick us up and take us back. Then we'll see if Rick can't unwire him. We'll figure it out from there."

Izzy sighed and looked at Chick's motionless form with disgust. "I never thought I'd see the day when I didn't pull the trigger. All this time and..."

She looked back to Strip. "Why? Why do you care what happens to him? After everything he's done?"

"I don't," he answered as honestly as he could. "If I'm bein' truthful here, I'd care less how he lives his life. That ain't none of my business. But this, this is bigger than all of us. Whether we like it or not, we're the only ones that can do somethin' about it. I'm just tryin' to do the right thing. That's all."

Izzy looked down at the ground and gave an unconvincing half smile. "You know, sometimes I miss the good ol' days. Everything seemed so black and white back then."

"It'll be over soon," Strip said calmly. "We'll find our way out."

She nodded and looked at Lightning. "You did good, kiddo. Thanks for the help."

"Ah, well," Lightning shrugged it off. "I didn't really do anything."

"You led him out of town and then stayed out of the way," she told him. "That's more than I was hoping for, at least on such short notice. You've had a heck of a day."