Shattered

we go!”
        Holding at a steady eighty-five, the Thunderbird bore down on the van, aimed straight at the center of the green-and-blue advertisement painted on its flank. Seven hundred yards lay between them. Now only six hundred-five, four, three hundred…
        “He isn't going to move!” Colin said.
        “Doesn't matter.”
        “We'll hit!”
        “No.”
        “Alex-”
        Fifty yards from the truck, Doyle wheeled to the right. Tires squealed. The car rushed across the graveled burm, bounced as wildly as if the springs had turned to rubber, and kept on going.
        Doyle realized that he was attempting to pull off a stunt which only a short while ago he had thought impossible. Now, whether it was impossible or not, it was their only hope. He was terrified.
        The car plowed into the grainy white soil that edged the highway, and alkali dust plumed up behind them like a vapor trail. Their speed was cut by a third in the first few seconds, and the Thunderbird lurched sickeningly in the sandy earth.
        It'll stop us, Doyle thought. We'll be stranded here.
        He stomped the accelerator to the floor.
        Although they were still doing better than fifty, the wide tires protested the loss of traction, spun furiously. The car slewed sideways, fishtailed back before picking up the speed demanded of it.
        They passed the Automover.
        Doyle angled back toward the highway. He kept the accelerator pressed all the way down. Through the partially unresponsive steering wheel, he felt the treacherous land shifting beneath them. However, before the sand could capture one or more of the wheels, they reached the shoulder of the road and kicked up hundreds of small stones as they plunged back onto the pavement.
        In seconds, they were doing eighty-five again, heading west, the van behind them.
        “You did it!” Colin said.
        “Not yet.”
        “But you did!” He was still frightened, but he also sounded pleasantly excited.
        Doyle looked in the mirror.
        Far back there, the van was starting after them, a white speck against the whiter land.
        “He's coming?” Colin asked.
        “Yes.”
        “See if it'll go past ninety now.”
        Doyle tried, but the car began to shake and rattle. “No good. Something was damaged when he slammed into us.”
        “Well, at least we know you can drive us around any roadblock he throws up,” the boy said.
        Doyle looked at him. “You've got more faith in my driving than I do. That was pretty hairy back there.”
        “You can do it,” Colin said. Desert sunlight, coming through the window, made his wire-framed glasses look like tiny tubes of light.
        Three minutes later the van was on their tail.
        But when it tried to come around them, Doyle swung the Thunderbird into the left hand lane, blocking the van and forcing it to fall back. When the Chevy attempted to move in on their right, Doyle weaved in front of it and blew his own horn to counter the other's savage blaring.
        For several minutes and miles they played that game with an unsportsmanlike disregard for rules, cruising from one side of the road to the other. Then, inevitably, the van found an opening and took advantage of it, drawing even with them.
        “Here we go again,” Doyle said.
        As if he had cued it, the Automover closed the space between them and brushed the car. Sparks showered up and sputtered out in an instant, and metal whined, though not as loudly or as gratingly as it had the first time that they had collided.
        Alex fought the-wheel. They plummeted along the gravel shoulder for a thousand yards before he could get them back onto the highway.
        The van hit them again, harder than before.
        This time Alex lost control. He could not hold onto the sweat-slicked steering wheel which spun through his hands. It was slippery as a stick of butter. Only when they were off the road, grinding crazily through the ridged sand, was he able to get a good grip on the wet plastic and regain command of their fates.
        They were doing forty-five when they came back onto the road, and they were a few yards ahead of the van. But it caught up with them a moment later and hung beside them until they were doing eighty-five again. The whole right side of the Automover was scraped and dented. Doyle knew, as he looked anxiously at the other vehicle, that