Guiding cars

“Five minutes...longer if my driver is willing to take a few directions. I'm sure you have my telephone lowjacked now, so just follow the breadcrumbs.”

I hung up the telephone.

“Take the off ramp,” I told him. “I know that traffic is going to slow down, which would make it easier to abduct us, but the suspension is good on this thing, right?”

“Better than average,” he said.

He pulled sharply to the right, cutting a car off, and a moment later we were on the off ramp.

***

The more my mind was working with traffic routes and possible ways to escape, the calmer I felt. It was invigorating, and I wondered what it would be like to settle into these feelings all the time. No issues with self esteem. No guilt, anxiety, anger or shame. Just pure reason. No more sleepless nights dreaming about black eyes and mouths with too many teeth. Just pure planning.

All three vans had changed directions to follow us.

“Go up onto the sidewalk,” I said. “And drive over the lawn outside that bank.”

He followed directions perfectly, and even though I almost bit my tongue we were quickly moving out into side traffic with horns blaring behind us.

“What the hell?” Panacea demanded.

“PRT vehicles have reinforced internal structures. They're designed for this kind of things. If it was the Merchants following us, they might have upgrades, but it's going to cause damage to their vehicles. If their axle falls off, then we're home free.”

I could hear gunfire from behind us as the third van caught up with the first two.

“Also, I figured that was going to happen.”

It was probably a dick move for the people who were caught in between, but it looked to me like most of them were doing their best to get out of the way. The gunmen weren't paying any attention to them, even though it looked like there were at least ten cars trapped by traffic so they couldn't move.

Being completely rational was awesome. I was sure that I wasn't going to feel guilty when it wore off.

***

Rational