Three Furs, One House
#3 of Three Furs, One House
Chapter 4 - The New Chevelle
The day before James' and Charlie's anniversary, I finally put my wrenches down for the last time. The Chevelle was done, fully upgraded and ready to rock. With a few last minute engine tuning tweaks, I could finally say that I was ready to hand the keys back.
My paw ran over the smooth bodywork of the car, brushing over the hoodpins and the grille. I have to admit, this was the sexiest car I'd ever built. Ever.
I climbed through the now-bolted-shut doors and settled into the driver seat, the new key clutched in my paw. I took a deep breath and slid the key into the ignition, footpaw hard on the clutch before turning it.
The brand new V8 engine came to life with an earth-shaking growl. The entire car vibrated from the intense power. My paw threw down the handbrake, buckled up the new five point harness and grasped the gear stick. I short-threw the stick into first and eased off the clutch until the idling engine caught and pulled the car forward.
I set my paw on the brakes and brought the car to a gentle stop. I barely needed any pressure on the race-spec carbon ceramic rotors and calipers to halt the ton and a half of vehicle.
I grinned at the massive power of the car. The last time I dynoed it, the meter had read seven hundred and seventeen horsepower and almost seven hundred torques.
I let off the brakes and clutch again until the car had rolled out of the garage built into the HQ of Wolfpack Motorsports. I idled the engine in the parking lot, listening to the deep bass rumble.
"Let's see what she's got," I said to myself.
My left paw mashed the clutch, my right pinning the accelerator down to about six and a half thousand RPM. Then my left footpaw sprang off the clutch.
The clutch discs snapped together with a slight clunk as all the power from the engine went flying down the driveshaft to the two fat rear tires.
The rear wheels instantly spun up, creating a huge cloud of white smoke that enveloped the car. The engine roared. The tires screamed.
I had to fight back a massive shit-eating grin as the car melted its own tires. The Chevelle took off, leaving a pair of solid black tire marks that trailed on until the car hit the asphalt of the main road.
I eased off the gas at the road, letting the car coast up to the light.
The hood stretched out in front of me, black and white with a vivid, blood-red logo on it. The Chaos Theory logo. The logo was the words Chaos Theory with an anarchy symbol for the 'A' and a peace sign for the second 'O'. The entire logo was dripping blood, fat red drops cascading down the hood.
Charlie had handed me a sheet of paper with that exact logo on it. It had been my job to put it smack on the hood.
As I sat there at the light, a bright yellow Ferrari rolled up next to me with a skinny, tanned human in the drivers seat.
"What's that you're driving, you mutt?" the human called over to me.
"A 1970 Chevelle SS with a supercharger! All you have is a four point three liter V8!" I shouted back.
"It's Italian!" The human put his foot down, making the Ferrari scream at redline. When it died down, I smiled.
"Is that all you got?" I shouted, planting my right footpaw. The engine roared, shaking the whole car. The exhaust was not quite loud enough to shatter glass, but it definitely made the human wince. I was fine; I'd folded my ears back just as I hit the gas.
The light was still red when the ringing in his ears died down. I laughed and blipped the engine again twice, the universally recognized signal for street race.
He revved his engine once in reply. I smiled as I saw his free hand went to the dial on his wheel, the manettino switch. I could almost see him turn it all the way to CSToff.
I had no such dial. All I had was my paws and a huge American V8 muscle car.
My right paw shoved the gearshift into third gear. I glanced over at the human, briefly, and growled, showing my razor sharp teeth.
He winced. At that exact moment, the street light went from red to green.
My footpaws switched out, left coming off and right on. The engine roared again, the torque enough to physically bring the entire front end of the car off the ground in a sustained wheelie. The Ferrari behind me shrieked, doing its best to catch me, but I was long gone before he even made second gear. It was a small yellow dot in my rear view mirror when I checked.
I grinned. Its first outing and it had scorched a Ferrari F430.
'That's enough fun for one day,' I thought as I made a sharp u-turn to head back to the garage.
My tail couldn't help but wag as Charlie led a blind-folded James into the garage at the headquarters for my team, around the cars and new parts. Charlie's tail was going ballistic behind him, wagging so hard that I feared it might fall off.
"What the hell is this? And where are we?" James demanded.
"It's a surprise, babe," Charlie said soothingly.
"I'm hoping it's the Chevelle that I haven't seen in a week."
I had to try very hard to stifle my laughter at that comment. He was fishing, definitely. There was no way he knew what I had done to the Chevelle, at least, unless he had been spying on me and his mate. As far as he knew, the Chevelle was in some shop in Harbor City.
I held up a paw to stop Charlie and James about ten yards away from the canvas covered Chevelle.
Charlie shot me a grin that I returned, and I spoke for the first time.
"James?"
James whipped his head around, trying futilely to spot me through the thick blindfold.
"Ricky? Where are we?"
I raised my eyebrow at Charlie, silently asking him if I could tell him. He nodded.
"We're at my team's headquarters."
James's face adopted a surprised look. What kind of surprise could be had here?
I nodded at Charlie to remove the blindfold. His paw reached behind James's head and untied it, allowing the fabric to fall away.
James squinted at the sudden rush of sunlight and threw his arm up to shield his eyes.
We waited a minute for him to recover, then his eyes focused on the canvas shape before him.
"I knew it! It IS the Chevelle!"
I grinned and wrapped my paws around a fold of the canvas near the hood, Charlie on the rear end on my side.
"One," I said.
"Two," Charlie said
"Three!" we both said simultaneously, ripping the cover off the car.
The fabric billowed around the car, hiding it for a moment before we dragged it out of the way.
The Chevelle stood in sharp relief under the spotlights of the garage, bodywork polished to a gleam. The Chaos Theory logo stood out in stark contrast to the black paint with the white racing stripes.
"You put that on there?!" James yelled.
For a second there, my tail and ears started to droop. I feared that we had made a mistake in putting the logo on the hood.
My fears were quickly relieved when James pounced his mate, wrapping him in his arms so tightly that I thought he was trying to strangle him for one wild second.
"Oh my god, I love it! That's so awesome!" he shouted.
I laughed. Alex was at home, unfortunately unable to see James's reaction to my work.
"You think that's awesome, wait til you hear it! Charlie, throw me the keys!"
Charlie's eyes darted around the room until they alit on the keys, sitting on a rolling chest full of tools. He snatched them up and tossed them to me.
I caught the keys and depressed a button on the fob.
With a slight whirr, the windows lowered. James's eyes bugged out of his face.
I laughed again and climbed in through the window Dukes of Hazard style. "The doors are bolted shut, but if you don't want that, I can undo them for ya."
"Dude, that's fucking awesome! Leave it!"
I shrugged and slotted the key into the dash. My foot pushed the clutch all the way down and I turned the key.
The engine came to life with a loud roar. The exhaust was so loud that James jumped.
"DUDE!"
I cracked a wide grin and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.
The engine flooded with power, emitting an almost painfully loud exhaust note. At half redline, the supercharger kicked in with a whine comparable to that of the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst.
James broke away from his mate and rushed to the car, tenderly setting his hands on the driver side door. He looked in through the window, eyes scanning every inch of the interior.
He took in the new head unit, the carbon fiber trim, and the Sparco racing seats with five point harnesses.
"Is this our car?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"It was. And technically, it is again."
"Huh?"
I grew tired of shouting over the exhaust, so I killed the engine and got out through the window.
"I modified this car so much that there's only one original part still on it, and that's the chassis. Everything else is carbon fiber and titanium and aluminum and leather. Even the glass isn't glass anymore. It's lexan."
"Wow."
"The engine has a supercharger now, and I've upgraded the displacement, cams, exhaust, and all the other parts. It's got more than seven hundred horsepower now, and almost seven hundred foot pounds of torque."
"That's fucking crazy!"
"Yeah? If you thought this thing was fast before, now it can break two twenty."
James's jaw dropped. Such a thing had been unheard of. But such was the power of Wolfpack Motorsports' seemingly unlimited budget.
I stood back and let him examine the car. His eyes traced over the bodywork. I'd been so slick that had I not told him, he probably never would have known that the modifications had been that extensive. He ran a hand lightly over the lip spoiler on the trunk lid that I had put there to keep the rear end down. My tail wagged behind me, pleased that I had created something that someone else had loved that much.
Finally, James tore his eyes away from his car and brought them to bear on me.
I fidgeted, suddenly feeling quite awkward to the spotlight. He stepped up to me, his face unreadable.
Suddenly, he flung his arms around me and hugged me with all his strength. I let out an 'oof' at the force of his hug.
"Ricky, you are so awesome! I mean, I don't have the words to describe how awesome you are!"
My tail wagged again. "It's nothing, man... It was all Charlie's idea. He thought you'd get a kick out of it."
With that sentence, James detached himself from me and pounced on Charlie again.
"Ricky, help!" Charlie said as he went down, pinned by his excited mate.
I just sat there and laughed. There was no way I was going to get involved in this.
Finally, James picked himself and Charlie up. Charlie's fur was all messed up from rolling around on the ground. Still, he had an ear-to-ear grin across his face.
"You guys wanna try her out?" I asked.
"Oh hell yeah!" They said at the same time.
"The keys are in it."
The two of them piled into the car, James in the driver's seat and Charlie next to him. The engine fired up again and I heard a lot of tire squeal as the car pulled out of the garage. I waved from behind them as they disappeared, and when they were finally out of sight, I killed the lights and went home. It had been a long day, but I was happy. Everything had worked out exactly as I'd hoped. I couldn't help but crack a smile at that.
As I drove home, the dim street lamps casting their faded glow over the gritty streets of Harbor City, I began to look forward to tomorrow...