The streets are empty...
Low fog skims the sidewalks under a gray stew of a sky...
It's slightly fuzzy.
Slightly...
Surreal, even.
There's no cars parked here...
Except for one.
A 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang.
Deep metallic silver with it's sculptured side panels ending in air scoops...
All cock and balls, it sits alone in this cool morning dawn.
An old school totem to speed and style.
Through the misty morning, in a leather coat and jack boots, he's early 30s, with the vaguely whimsical confidence of a shimmer that refuses to fade.
This is Bradley Sentry, whom they call Flash.
It's his auto-boosting notoriety that made him known.
Flash approached the Mustang, gathering awe like a desert crash survivor finding an oasis.
But then, a Pontiac Firebird pulled up next to him.
Shining Armor: "Are you gonna steal it, or kneel down to it and pray?"
He's still enthralled by it.
Shining Armor: "I know, I know...It's Eleanor, it's pretty slick."
As Shining Armor drove off slowly, Flash looked back and forth, suspiciously, and he then reached into his pocket, pulling out a Slim Jim.
He skimmed the door jam with the snack, and popped the button and opened the door.
A screwdriver in the other pocket, a butterfly knife to the ignition.
Flash also looked around in his pockets, a ratchet, then a gizmo.
Kind of like a socket wrench, he pressed it on the key slot.
The 289, 320-brake horsepower V8 rumbled in the engine bay like a jackhammer on concrete.
He pulls a cassette tape from the pockets of his jacket, and slaps it into the radio.
Bruce Springsteen's "Ramrod" wailed through the coaxials.
The look on his face of supreme satisfaction and anxiety all rolled into one, was priceless.
He slots in behind Shining Armor's '86 Firebird, then behind Brad, Twilight Sparkle in a '81 Z/28.
Just like that, the fore and aft car provide a small escort.
Out of nowhere, came a police cruiser.
Twilight went to a diversionary tactic, speeding ahead of both Flash and Shining Armor.
She raced through a stop sign, and pulled over.
The uniformed officer walks up to the side door.
Twilight Sparkle: "Is there a problem, officer?"
Policeman: "Yes, you're under arrest."
Twilight Sparkle: "For running a stop sign?"
Policeman: "For Grand Theft Auto."
And off went Sparkle's smirk.
We go back to Flash in the Shelby, as four police cruisers tail him, sirens wailing.
Through the drowsy early morning streets, the silence is shattered by the sound of the sirens blaring from the police cruisers.
Brad pins the gas, the tachometer is at redline, the chase is on...
YOU ARE READING
Gone in a Flash
ActionRetired car thief Flash Sentry departs from his former trade in Long Beach, California. Over the course of his absence, his younger brother, Beauregard Sentry, is brought a deal by Chrysalis, an underground crimelord. She proposes Beauregard a deal...
