The world twirls sickeningly around me as I fight to regain control of the car. Buildings, parked cars and street lights whip past from right to left, a sped-up panoramic view. I’m momentarily blinded by the headlight of the car that hit me before that’s gone too, the skid continuing while I frantically twist the wheel to no avail. I know you’re supposed to turn into a skid, but this seems a little more extreme than that. Do I hit the brakes? Should I stomp the gas and hope it sorts itself out? Does the doc’s car have rear-wheel drive, and is that even a thing I’d want right now?
All of these thoughts clamor for attention in the second that it takes the car to do a complete 360 degree spin, jump the curb and slam broadside into a building. I’m thrown violently toward the passenger’s side of the car, my seatbelt catching me with bruising force even as the airbag pummels me backward into my seat. Glass shatters as the world slams to a halt.
Shocked and dazed, my first thought as the airbag subsides is, “Did the rain get hot?” Almost immediately, I realize that no, that’s steam rising from the front of the car. The hood is bent into a mountainous fold on the far side, both windows over there are smashed in, and the sideview mirror is lying on the seat next to me, having been somehow driven through the window in the crash. The frame bends ominously inward, and it’s clear that those doors won’t open, but fortunately we impacted on the passenger’s side and my side’s pretty much fine.
In fact, I’ve come through this pretty much okay entirely, for once. I’m probably going to have a nice diagonal bruise across my chest and my brain’s a bit rattled, but I’m physically doing well. At least, until Doc Simmons kills me for wrecking her car.
This thought kicks my survival instinct back into gear, and I immediately begin fumbling for my seatbelt release. I’d be an idiot to believe that this was unintentional, which means I need to get out of the car before I get trapped in there by whoever did this. My initial thought is that my bluff has not worked and Ichabot has rammed me, but even as I’m opening the door this idea is falling apart. I’m still something like a mile away from his lab, so how would he know how to find me? Also, he doesn’t seem like the sort to take things into his own hands when he doesn’t have to, so ramming another car doesn’t seem like his style.
The hail has mercifully stopped, but it’s still sheeting rain. When I open the door, I’m instantly re-soaked, negating any warmth I’d managed to gather while in the car. I stumble onto the pavement and look up to see a familiar figure advancing on me, hunched over against the rain.
“Peterson?!” I exclaim, backing up rapidly. It’s hard to see him clearly through the rain, but he looks pretty angry. Also, he just hit me with his car, so that’s a pretty good hint. I scurry behind the open door of the doc’s car, holding it as a flimsy shield against him.
“Everton!” Peterson’s usually even voice is a growl, and his hands are balled into fists. “You vermin. Wrecker! Can’t you go one single day without burning something down or blowing something up?”
As he approaches, I start to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. He’s hunched over, yes, but not just against the rain: his back looks slightly curved. His brow is slightly more prominent than when I last saw him, too, and his jacket is split at both shoulders. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in days, which I know isn’t the case because I saw him this morning. Also, he’s got some significant hair growth on the backs of his hands.
I’ve seen this before. Back when this all started, when I was just manning the night desk at the museum and didn’t have a care in the world. Then some ape-man tore the huge metal door off of its hinges and hurled it at me, giving me my violent and unpleasant introduction to the world of superpowers and the life of a superhero.
That guy, Aaron Lovell, was clearly much farther along than Peterson is. Peterson still looks human, whereas that guy just looked like Bigfoot, not a trace of humanity left. Also, he either couldn’t or didn’t talk anymore. Peterson may be about to kill me, but he’s still able to tell me why. And in a weird way, this is a relief, because the transformation that the nanobots put Aaron Lovell through killed him. They twisted his body too hard, too fast, and his internal systems just couldn’t keep up.
Peterson’s not nearly that far along yet, which hopefully means there’s still time to reverse this. Just one more timer on the desperate countdown to stop Ichabot.
As a further indication that he’s not fully gone yet, Peterson slows and comes to a stop on the far side of the door I’m hiding behind. He leans on the car in a forced mockery of casual behavior.
“There is a building on fire,” he says, gritting out the words, “and if it weren’t for the fact that I recognize the address, you would already be dead. But I will give you exactly one chance to tell me that you have a plan. If it has a chance of working, I will let you implement it. Otherwise, I will rip you apart right here and fix this torn spot where I can feel you in my mind.”
Peterson finishes this quietly menacing speech with a grimace of pain, and I hear the seams in his jacket split farther apart as the nanos continue to forcibly reconstruct his body. He bares his teeth at me, and I struggle for an answer.
“I have a plan,” I say, which feels like a pretty solid beginning. “I — hey, if I tell you, how do I know you won’t tell Ichabot? I need the element of surprise.”
In response, Peterson reaches inside his jacket and draws out his cellphone. While making eye contact with me, he crushes the phone in one fist, simply drawing his fingers together while the phone crumples and shatters like it’s in a trash compactor. He opens his hand and the battered pieces rain to the pavement.
I swallow hard and continue. “Okay. Right. I’ve tricked him into leaving his lab, and I’m going to sneak in while he’s gone and shut everything down. Simple plan. No moving parts. Hard to screw up. Right?”
Peterson stares me down until I stop talking, then lets the silence stretch on a few beats longer. Finally, he shakes his head.
“No good. I don’t trust the basic assumption — that you’ve tricked Amun. I’m ending this.”
He takes a step toward me, and I do the only thing I can think of to do: I slam the open car door into him. It’s like hitting a cement post. He doesn’t even move, and the door rebounds hard enough that my wrists ache.
Peterson stares at me, then grasps the door by the top and side and wrenches it completely off of the car, letting out a bestial roar as he does so. He swipes at me with it, but I leap backwards, sliding over the hood so that the bulk of the car is between us. He circles around toward me, and I scramble up the rainy surface, finding purchase on the bent metal as I scurry onto the roof. From here, I’ve got the most options for avenues of escape.
“You can help me!” I shout back, gaining my footing on the roof. “We can stop him!”
“Ending! This!” shouts Peterson, punctuating each word with a swipe at my feet with the car door. I shrink back against the building, trying to decide which way to run. The choice is made for me when Peterson crouches and leaps onto the roof of the car with me, slashing with the car door as he lands. I duck to avoid it, slipping and slithering off the back of the car as I do so. With my choice made for me, I land on my feet, briefly stumble to all fours and take off running back the way I came.
I hear another roar behind me, and on instinct I duck, tripping myself and rolling painfully across the sidewalk. The car door sails over my head as I tumble, clattering to the ground like a deadly discus another ten yards ahead. People shout in surprise and fear, and only now do I realize that a small crowd has been gathering in doorways to watch us. The city’s going to have a rough time keeping this one under wraps. Just one more thing for Peterson to be furious with me about, I suppose.
I regain my feet and continue running. I’m sure he’s close behind me, but I can only hope that his partial transformation has slowed him down. It certainly didn’t seem to impede him in his jump onto the car, but I need to tell myself something so I can believe that this situation isn’t totally hopeless.
I reach the car door and leap over it. The doc really is going to kill me. I just hope I live long enough for her to take a shot at it.
The Experiment 
You got my pulse rate up! Writing skills!
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Thank you! I appreciate the compliment!
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