"- baby!"

Tasìa maneuvered the Alfa Romeo HybrClydis to ride mere inches beside the inner fence to prevent the hovercraft from flanking her.

The giant flying hauler would have to come from the passenger side where she could level a gun to defend herself.

A voice from overhead blasted through the Alfa Romeo. It addressed her by her nom de pilote.

"Prima Vaquera, please acknowledge."

The voice was human in tone and registered in its vocalization none of the artifice of the skellabot.

Tasìa flipped the speaker to public intercom and high volume.

"You have some nerve," she began. Her anger grew. "Your car is getting badly beaten and you are canceling on me? Breach of contract, motherfucker!"

A softly whispered 'ay ay ay' perforated the space above her before the man's voice blasted through the air once more.

"Prima Vaquera, er, Senora del Alma-Gris, this is Mani Montrose. Senior Director of the Vida Escondida Autonomous Authority's Recreational Automotive Services, I'm going to have to ask you to slow down, quit your evasive maneuvers, and stop. We need to commandeer your vehicle for further investigation."

Tasìa shook a fist out her side window at the hovercraft.

"Like Hell!"

Even angry, part of her mind was tuned to how well the hovercraft followed her in pursuit. The reaction time of its response versus any change up she made.

She once more zagged out just passed the thin center point line. Tasìa dropped her speed in half, and then accelerated once more as she steered the HybrClydis back to the inner fence.

The hauler stayed tight above her throughout the three essential test points. She winced as she realized what it meant.

Damn!

The hauler had her position locked in. Mani need not do a thing to keep tightly aligned with the HybrClydis.

A rising staccato static that sounded like bullets flying caused her to jump. It was merely Mani Montrose clearing his throat.

"Your fight or flight reaction is understandable, but given the circumstances, I need you to calm down."

What?

Did he just ask me to calm down?

Tasìa tilted her head and glanced up to guage where she could find an angle to shoot Mani in the face.

Yes. It was doable.

To make it happen she could use an upcoming center lane ramp to tilt her vehicle to lean on the driver's side wheels at approximately fifty degrees to get the shot lined up.

Before executing the plan, Tasìa felt she owed him at least a fair warning. She tried diplomacy.

"I need you to take a piss, and leave me the Hell alone!"

She shouted.

The hovercraft flew silently and maintained steadily above her, and he gave her no immediate response.

The silence felt awkward as the ramp began to line-up on the geo-display with the HybrClydis. A long, cool second passed before he spoke again.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

When he did his voice sounded as if he was shouting out of a stack of Marshall amps.

"If you prefer escalation to cooperation we can do this that way too but it wont bode well for your adjudged culpability."

As she studied the lanes ahead of her for the deadly maneuver she planned, Tasia surmised that she could immediately follow up the fight with a quick getaway from the track.

After the next turn there was a divider grip used by the mag-spheres to reach a repair station on a high hill connected by a turnpike that lead out into the main highway that she could exploit to her advantage.

She hesitated. Some of Mani Montrose's words began to register.

'Given the circumstances', 'adjudged culpability'?

Was she letting the hot-headed side of her personality take over when a cool, detached professionalism was needed?

She did just tell the man to take the piss, and considered it a restrained, diplomatic response.

She was planning to murder the man over the inconvenience she was facing.

Hot-headed Tasìa reminded herself.

We still don't know what they want, and I sure as shit am not going back to prison!

Before she executed the plan to floor it to obtain lift from the ramp, she decided to slow down to buy some time to find out what was going on.

"Just what in the Hell do you mean, 'given the circumstances'?"

Mani Montrose chuckled and he kept his tone of voice leveled, in a light, amused mode.

The previous blast of amped effects was gone. They were now just having a conversation.

"I'm glad you are now asking that question."

Tasìa sensed this was how he went about managing things when he really needed to talk someone off the proverbial ledge.

Uh oh! He has reason to think I am a nutter.

"Go on!"

"There are four hundred pounds of explosive materials packed in your HybrClydis. Did you not notice the extra drag?"

Extra drag? Truth be told until she swiped it out of Annebél's garage she had only driven it inside a Quick Mart parking lot. Tasìa noticed nothing more than that little wiggle that was exposed during the test.

Ah, shit on me!

She finally caught on.

The explosives explained the wiggle, and the shock finally hit her. She was driving a bomb.

Tasìa lost her breath and gasped. Her hands now felt too light and dainty to handle the vehicle. Her breathing too nervous to counter with a meditative state.

"Please, carefully decelerate and pull the vehicle to the side. We will lower the carrier transport and load the vehicle on it. The investigation may take several days to complete. Please note as well, Prima Vaquera, you may be held liable.

"However, given your membership is in good standing if you do not possess a lawyer to represent you, we can arrange for one, certainly a well rated one, to be appointed if you are found culpable in these circumstances."

A lawyer?

Tasìa reflexively stuck out her tongue in a scowling repose at the thought. Her only previous dealings with that side, the boring side, of the law were the seventy-two hours between her capture and when her sentence was adjudicated.

She barely remembered the woman who represented her. That attorney wore a blue skirt of thick cloth canvas that would have looked severe and formal even back in the day on Tasia's Mother Superior.

To balance out the attire, her lawyer wore a frilly white blouse made subdued by the fabric's monotone, and her hair was wrapped up in a tight bun.

Tasìa remembered the clothes that the lawyer wore vividly as if the attorney was in the room with her, but the attorney's face and name? Tasìa had nada to go on in her recollection.

She was too busy at the time plotting an escape attempt from the pre-sentencing holding station to pay the attorney any attention.

"You still with me, Prima?"

She bobbed her head to the side at the sight of three mag-racers zooming by her. She regained the strength of grip in her hands.

She could speak once more.

"Yeah, pits coming up. I'll park it. Listen, Mani. I had no idea the explosives were there."

Freakin' Annebél!

"It is not my place to render judgment one way or the other. I'm only here to provide services to our clientele and do so to my best ability. We have capable and consummate professionals who will conduct that investigation and eventual evaluation."

Tasìa made the rational assumption that Annebél removed the explosives before the brawler drove the Alfa Romeo HybrClydis to Asunción.

What possible reason did she have to reinstall the damn things!

There was no Javierra family left to impress with a car bomb exploding outside of their mansion. Just Augustus who was still recovering and Sal who was still in hiding.

Tasìa cursed her friend up a blue storm as she drove up into the pit.

The huge hovercraft lit up its flood lamps. Tasìa could barely see well enough to park inline between the soft blue lights that now directed her into the pit.

Hell with it! That is their problem.

She thought as she turned off the ignition.

Tasìa grabbed her satchel, her brand new PA, and a water bottle from the passenger seat. She scooted out of the vehicle.

Mani Montrose's voice was now low and flat as if he got what he wanted, and was now bored with dealing with her.

"Prima Vaquera, we will contact you once a determination has been made."

The double click meant the hauler's intercom was no longer in service.