Because of the climactic showdown between the tow truck, Axlerod, and McQueen, hardly any papers mentioned the battleship that blew up in the River Thames.
Eyewitnesses, many on the Tower Bridge, claimed the ship started the fight by launching rockets at two cars on the docks. But the largest explosion reached a height of at least 500 feet, visible from miles away. All nearby landmarks went on alert, either evacuated or locked down, only to be informed hours later that it was not a terror attack - rather, the explosion had been caused by a British government operative.
Windows, lamps, any glass within a one-kilometer radius had shattered. Riverside buildings flooded. The docks, used by tour boats and the occasional fisher, were now a large crater cordoned off with a floating wall and police tape.
The unhappiest vehicles in town were the ones that found ship parts in their homes, penetrating the ceilings or littering their front doors. Debris had even been recovered from a construction site. Several trees looked like crime scenes.
Dave closed the police report, staring blankly at his desktop. In the weeks since this investigation began, his files had become an disorganized, overwhelming mess of pixels. PDFs, photos, voice memos, screenshots piled up on top of each other, and most didn't even have names anymore - irritating, but not so unbearable that he would spend five hours wrangling them back into order. After all this madness was over with, they would all go into the trash folder anyway....
"Now, I haven't seen you seethe like that," Vivian said between sips of tea, "since Shiftwell implied you were recently divorced. Care to explain?"
Dave let out a long sigh. Rain had begun to fall, so he and Vivian had taken refuge in a cozy café. Aromas filled the air - coffee, tea, pastries. Pop music played softly from a small Bluetooth speaker on the counter. Vehicles chatted and chuckled every few seconds.
"Everything about this is... wrong." Dave gestured out the window. Across the street was a boarded-up building. Water damage. Records showed it had been a card shop. And while he despised those trite, useless holiday cards that would only gather dust in a year's time, he pitied the person who had lost their business. "This plot hurt more than just celebrity race cars. It threatened more than the Queen of England. It had a real impact on real cars."
"Are you saying the Queen isn't real-"
"I'm saying, this is being sensationalized right and left. The news likes name-dropping all the racers and billionaires, but notice what they haven't focused on? People who live here. All the ones just... caught in the crossfire. The ones we have to interview, whose livelihoods were negatively impacted. And C.H.R.O.M.E. doesn't care that much about helping the civilians - our main focus is keeping them quiet."
"That is how we help them, isn't it? If they don't complain about spies, the Lemon syndicate won't try to recruit them. They can't be forced to give up information."
"Odds are, the Lemons wouldn't hunt them down at all. The ones that aren't in hiding are too busy cleaning up their own loose ends, and the legal drama with the oil platforms... In any case, C.H.R.O.M.E. wants to cover themselves and McMissile. They don't actually want to fix their mess. It's not about how many people were hurt."
"Well, no one was really hurt. Sure, loss of property and such, but it's not like any civilians died." Vivian looked at her notes again, then snickered. "Hey, since when did you care about noble causes like social justice? What happened to 'we're all specks of dust waiting to die?'"
"I still stand by that. I'm just irritated with people using their meaningless time on this planet to perpetuate even more meaningless things. And covering up the very real damage that we caused, just to make ourselves look better to the CIA, PSIA, MSS, Mossad, ASIS - what's the point in that? Nothing changes. We'll stay in diplomatic relations, but under the hood we all hate each other. And even if we fire every agent associated with the WGP, what's to stop them from taking their incompetence somewhere else?"
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
The World Grand Prix Collateral Committee
फैनफिक्शनThe mission: track down every vehicle with sensitive knowledge/physical harm because of the World Grand Prix spy shenanigans. Then bribe them into silence- or wipe their memories. And find out what the heck went wrong to begin with.
