Chapter Thirteen

Axle slipped to the side and allowed the nearly two dozen assorted cars, most of them lemons, to enter. Once they were inside, Finn turned toward him and said, "This is our escort," with a gesture to the lemons. "An extraction team has been sent after Alexa," he gestured toward the magenta sportscar, who was parked next to to an aquamarine Pacer, "and while we've won this round-"

"They'll be back. Yeah, I know the drill," Axle said. "You want us to contact the girl's parents, get her somewhere safe, maybe enroll her in the nearest school or somethin'. Keep a low profile and such."

"Exactly. Can you do that? We'll take care of contacting her father."

"There's no school for the racing season," the aquamarine Pacer added, "so we don't need to worry about that."

"Well, she can stay here until we get something worked out," Axle said.

"Alright," Finn replied. "May I borrow your phone?"

CARS

"What? Where? Huh?" Lightning said into the phone in his hotel room.

A sigh could be heard on the other end of the line, and Finn replied, "McQueen, someone has been sent to retrieve your daughter, and they were earlier than we anticipated. Something of a fight broke out, but the Professor was true to his word and enlisted help for us. Your daughter successfully held her own and is safe with Axle Redline."

"Put her on. I wanna talk to her."

"Alright."

"Hey, Dad," Lexie said.

"Hey, baby girl. Heard you got into a fight," Lightning replied.

"Yeah, I did, but thanks to this mysterious Professor's friends, we took care of it. Nobody's seriously hurt, as far as I know, and I know for a fact nobody's dead."

"That's good."

"Well, I probably could go around the circuit with you, or I could stay here. Either way, they're gonna find me eventually."

"They?"

"Yeah, the ones who're tryin' to get me, and I'm not talkin' about the 'they' all those paranoid freaks talk about. I'm talking real cars here."

"I know you are, baby girl. I overheard Finn say it's harder to track a moving target, so you run the circuit with me, and we'll just mix it with a cross-country road trip, take our time getting to all the races, so we're not spending a week swarmed by press."

"Okay."

"Now, for the next couple days, you just stay with Finn and Holley, okay?"

"Okay, Dad."

"I'll call you tomorrow night so you can stop by and get ready for the race."

"Sounds good."

"Well, I've gotta go. Good luck, baby girl."

"I'd wish you good luck, too, but you don't need it."

"Night."

"Night."

Lexie hung up, and Lightning sank onto his chassis in relief.

CARS

"Now, tell me about the gun thing," Lexie said, turning to Finn.

"Don't worry about that. You were designed with those. They've been with you your whole life." Axle pulled a tire from a crate, drove toward her, and detatched her wheel. "You have other weapons, too. Several more guns along your side panels, one in each of your front rims. Your hubcaps can be razor sharp Frisbees. There's an electromagnetic pulse emitter in your engine, even. Judging by your track record, no pun intended, your systems are triggered by instinct rather than conscious mechanisms, which makes sense. One of our objectives was to ensure that you could be able to keep yourself alive."

Axle began putting the tire on her rim. "Can I learn to control this stuff?" Lexie asked.

"Of course. Once this Montgomery business is resolved, we'll introduce you to your onboard computer, where you can learn more about the processes that drive the Ceres, also no pun intended."

"Could you be careful?" she asked Axle, who nodded and tapped the tire into place and began to pump it full of air.

"Another few minutes or so and you'll be good," Axle said.

"Thanks."

Alex drove into the garage and said, "The guards are posted, and the heads of the Four Families know about what happened. Word's on it's way to the Professor."

"Excellent," Finn replied.

Lexie gave Alex a more thorough once-over than she had in the park. "Where'd the scars come from?" she asked.

"I had a horrible infection when I was a kid," Alex said. "I had to have my engine replaced."

"I heard about that. It must've been bad, to warrant an engine replacement."

"Well, it wasn't done by a licensed doctor. The Professor did it. Uncle Tubbs told me about it when I was older."

"Zundapp told me the same thing, in essence," Finn added. "It's rather unusual, as his trade is weapons rather than medicine, but one Ceres stuck between good and evil is better than two."

"Ceres?" Lexie asked.

"Does that sound familiar?"

"I...I think so."

"Look, it's getting pretty late," Axle said, tapping Lexie's tire one more time. "Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow."

"Good idea," Lexie replied. "Do you have a guest room?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Alex, Holley, go with her. I'll keep first watch," Finn said. Axle led Holley, Alex, and Lexie to the back of the garage, which led to Axle's apartment. Lexie looked back at Finn, whose eyes were fixed on the door, and then down at the concrete floor, and finally at Alex, directly in front of her.

Lexie slipped in between Holley and Alex in Axle's guest room, and she closed her eyes.