12/08/21 Snippet, TINSEL RAIN.

“BOOTLEGGER REVERSE, MISTER SULU!*”

*Classical reference. #commissionearned

The gun felt a little sluggish after the third shot, so I dropped it in my lap and grabbed the wheel with both hands. My plan was to hit the stop-pedal, which would shake whatever it was up there off the roof, but I must have hit the go-pedal instead, because suddenly I was zooming down the road so fast the needle was approaching 55. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I hit that number. The car would explode, or something? There was something in the Lore about speed and exploding cars. In fact, I suddenly remembered that there was a lot in the Lore about exploding cars. It’s a miracle any of the Old Americans ever lived to old age.

But if I didn’t like going fast (I was going to run out of straight street soon, so I wouldn’t be doing it for long), neither did the monster; it started hammering on the roof again, but this time it sounded more like the thing was just trying to hold on. So I shoved the go-pedal again (it’s got a real name, but ‘go-pedal’ was how I learned it); and, just as the needle was about to hit the Boom Speed I took my foot off and twisted the wheel, hard.

Yeah. In the Lore, what was supposed to happen then was: the car would go in a full 360 degree turn, then come to a complete stop while the critter on the top of the car would go flying. I would then make a quick quip before I leaned out the window shot whatever-it-was with one of the missile tubes the Old Americans always kept in the back. Only I didn’t have one of those, so that’s where it started to go wrong.