gone_byebye | (no subject)

Ray thought the maneuver over, fingers rippling absently along the edge of the wheel as he laid the procedure out in his mind. "Kind of like a backwards, advanced form of what my driver's ed teacher used to say to do to get out of a skid. Turn the wheel in the direction of the skid to bring the car out of it- but in this case we're trying to follow through with the skid and power it up when we face the direction we want to move in."

"Very similar," Kitt agreed. "Much like a skid, it's easiest when the road is wet, but in such a case, it's harder to control. Here, there shouldn't be a problem with control once you've achieved the skid in the first place."

"All right," Ray said. "I think I've got it straight in my head now. And my marks picked out... Shall we try it?"

There would be no hand-over-hand attempts this time, he was sure of it.

"Of course," said Kitt. Ray still had control. Kitt just gave instruction and collected statistics. And he estimated that Ray had over an eighty percent chance of being at least partially successful on his first attempt, if not wholly so.

It wasn't so much a question of control, so much as it was- to Ray's way of thinking, at least- a matter of manners. No sense just hauling someone's controls around without getting permission first.

At any rate, Ray nodded. He closed his eyes for just a moment, breathed in deeply, then opened his eyes and stepped on the gas. He was concentrating a lot harder this time than he'd done with the initial ninety-degree practice run- mostly because he had no desire to screw up again. At least he was getting used to the forces involved in the acceleration- it would be tricky to stay stable during the turn, though-

Oh. There. The post was coming up. He pulled his foot from the gas and mashed down on the brake, trying to modulate his force as Kitt had said to do even as he threw the wheel hard into its turn.

It was a move Kitt was very used to. When the wheel was turned, the rear skidded beautifully, past ninety and toward one-eighty. The bumper scored the post at the side of the runway, sending up splinters, but Kitt didn't mind. After all, MBS had its uses.

"You'll need to accelerate," Kitt said as the car nearly straightened at the one-eighty mark.

Ray didn't bother answering. That would've taken up too many neurons. His foot came off the brake and down on the gas again, slamming the pedal for all he was worth.

And the car shot off in the direction it had come, and this time, the numbers climbed even faster - over one hundred-- two hundred, in just a matter of a few seconds.

Ray wasn't looking at the speedometer. At least, not straight off. It took him a moment to realize the landscape was seriously blurry.

He looked.

"!"

Maybe it was time to ease off on that gas just a smidge, neh?

As he did, Kitt slowed. He was privately amused.

In front of Ray, the mode dropped from "Pursuit" to "Normal."

"...That likely turned a few heads," Kitt said mildly.

"Yeah... um... yeah." Ray swallowed. "Sorry. Freaked a little bit there. Uh... I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't get so enthusiastic about the accelerator, huh."

Kitt eased the brake on, mode changing to "Auto." "You didn't harm anything, except that post," Kitt said. "And I doubt the damage to that will have to be repaid."

"Oh, good," Ray said, relieved. "Wow. That was incredible... No wonder Bonnie's so proud of you guys."

(( OOC: I gotta gobed now, I fear. ))

"Thank you," preened the supercar. They always did so well when complimented.

((No problem. *L* See you around.))

Hey, Ray saw no reason not to get enthusiastic about really impressive technology.

"You're welcome," he said. "Can we try it again? I'll be more careful this time."

That was a sentence with which he was all too familiar.

"As I said before, as many times as you need to. But before we do, is there anything specific you'd like to learn?" He, after all, knew all of the tricks that Detroit hadn't even dreamed of yet.

"Hm. Well... getting run off the road isn't as much of a concern when your mass is as much as Ecto's, since it's not as if anything smaller can really force you off. Wouldn't mind learning how to recover from an out-of-control spinout, though, since all it takes is a smash from the right angle at the wrong time and under the wrong road conditions to send even a big vehicle spinning. Oo, speaking of spinning, Bondurant's anti-kidnapping course description said they taught the same PIT maneuvers that cops use to immobilize a fleeing suspect's car. That sounded like fun."

"Those are simple enough," Kitt said, putting those in mind to attend to. "But it's more than one day's work. A day of driving is exhausting to anyone, even when it's not plain highway driving. I won't try to say it isn't. Especially with the trials this sort of thing can have on your musculature. I don't want your arms to be sore tomorrow.

"But I can also teach you primary and advanced evasion, which might come in handy."

Ray nodded. "Fair enough," he said. "My arms aren't likely to be as sore as other people's necessarily- the proton throwers we use in my work buck like firehouses, and we have to control them if we don't want to set a building on fire- but I take your point. The evasion would be good stuff, though. That's probably the most important."

"Bracing for recoil isn't exactly the same as precise driving manoeuvers," Kitt pointed out. "But I do believe we should set some sort of time limit for today. We can always pick up another time."

All the same, Kitt began mentally structuring the rest of the lesson.

"Works for me. I could do with some lunch anyway, and Egon's always telling me I overdo things."

"Then you should go for some lunch," said Kitt, "while I plot the rest of the lesson. I would like to meet Doctor Spengler, but that can be put off for after this trip."

Ray nodded. "Not a problem. We passed a Nathan's on the way here. Can I get you anything? Not necessarily food or automotive parts, but reading material or something? And I wouldn't worry about meeting Egon- he might be at the Firehouse by the time we get back."

Kitt assured him, "I'll be quite fine. There's something I'd rather like to try besides. Bureaucratic computers and I don't exactly get along, but I'd like to see if I can still access the police databases."

Which would be quite a fun trial.

"In that case," Ray said with a smile, "don't let me distract you. You'll be spending your time far more productively than I will, most likely."