Psycher Chronicles

Setting The Stage

(Jasmine)

What do you do when your eyes tell you something is clearly wrong, but all your instruments and technology tell you everything is acting as it should? That was today's experiment that Misha was having Jasmine perform right now.

Vroom!

The supercharged engine of Misha's Grant-ourismo roared to life. Just hearing the vehicle roar to life was enough to cause chills to run down Jasmine's spine. Better still, Misha was right there in the passenger seat, watching the youthful exuberance come to life on Jasmine's face.

"What?" Jasmine asked, suddenly feeling awkward by the odd smile that filled Misha's face.

"Nothing, I just didn't know you would be that excited by this little exercise," Misha replied.

"Excited, look I don't know if you know this, but Grant here and I we have this bond," Jasmine cooed as she finally let her deep secret be known. That or she finally voiced her thoughts to her friend.

At that Misha just smiled, "you know, you might be able to in time, but that bond isn't there just yet."

For a second Jasmine paused, almost wondering if Misha was just joking with her, pulling her chain. Of course, it wasn't possible for a person and a machine to bond, right? Yet, staring at Misha it was clear that she was either suddenly very good at joking, which she never exhibited signs of. Or she might actually mean it? No, that couldn't be it, there was no way. Yet, Jasmine had learned one thing of recent, never doubt Misha's anything when it comes to mechanical devices and electronics, so maybe?

Still this look of confidence in her words seemed to strike at her, which only made her suddenly realize how awkward this moment had just become. Wanting to salvage something from this pause, Jasmine responded.

"Okay, now what exactly are we supposed to do here?"

"You are to drive around as fast as possible, in a safe manner and wait until we get pulled over by corrupt cops." Misha stated flatly. Jasmine paused, waiting for the punchline, a punchline that seemingly would not come.

"Wait, you are serious?" Jasmine responded, a flare of anger filling her voice as she tried to understand what exactly Misha was implying.

"Yes, you drive around, at speed, but make sure to drive safely, and wait until an officer flags us down."

"Wait, didn't you say that not all the cops here are bad, that it was just a few with high connections?"

"That's right," Misha replied and stopped talking. Hearing that response Jasmine just bit her lower lip for a second, before continuing.

"Well don't you think that we might have a chance of getting picked up by some of the quote unquote 'good police'?"

"We do, but that won't be a problem."

"It won't?"

With that Misha just shook her head, "they are all assigned to the city, and we are going to be on the roads leading outside of town."

Jasmine paused and stared at Misha, suddenly the opportunity to drive her Grant was not as appealing of an opportunity as it had been moments ago. But there was something to this, something deeper. Weeding out corruption, while getting to drive Grant as fast as she wanted.

"You are going to pay my speeding ticket if and when I get one, right?" Jasmine asked, still questioning her teammate's odd sense of action.

"Yes, if there is a ticket, I will take care of it," Misha stated in her odd way that Jasmine had learned meant don't push for more.

"Okay, and why are corrupt cops going to be on this backroad?"

"Simple, they are going to be looking for drug runners driving quickly along the back lanes, and they will definitely say they smell weed and ask to search the car. Do not grant them permission, but don't resist when they force you out anyways." Misha replied, there was a coldness to her words as she seemed to know the future that was about to unfold.

Suddenly, Jasmine felt a pit form right in her stomach, one that told her she was about to do something stupid. Then again, after all the other tasks she had done with Misha, this one felt mildly benign by comparison.

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"Okay, so we are just going out of town, driving quickly and then turning back?"

"Yeah, joyriding as it were," Misha quipped, clearly only having read about joyriding and never truly experienced the sensation herself. With that revelation, Jasmine just stared at Misha. For her part Misha just stared back and finally asked, "what?"

Chuckle.

At that question, Jasmine just smiled and shook her head trying to add words to what she was currently thinking. "You know, just when I think I've figured you out, you go and throw a new wrinkle my way that makes me realize you are more innocent than you should be."

"Innocent?" Misha asked, a flare of something entering her voice. Seeing her less than positive reaction, Jasmine just smiled and placed her hand comfortingly over Misha's arm.

"It's a good thing, even with you out here purposefully messing with corrupt police officers, you have this natural innocence to you that is inspiring."

"I do?"

"Yeah, so I'll ask again. Do you want to do this, go down this path of weeding out corrupt cops? Or do you just want to go on a joyride?"

There was a pause, when Misha finally responded, "can't it be both?"

Chuckle.

"Fair enough, let's do this, but know we can't actually get arrested."

"We won't," Misha stated without any hesitation. For a second Jasmine thought about calling her out on that, but decided it was best not to poke Misha. Odd things happened around her. Good things, well mostly good things, but odd nonetheless.

"All right, let's go."

Vrroom.

With that, Jasmine pressed down on the pedal letting Grant roar to life humming and purring as if he had silently been waiting for Jasmine's touch. Her fingers laced around the wheel, as she began to back out of her dorm parking spot. Grant for his part was smooth and precise as always, maybe even more so than usual given that Misha was here. Not that having Misha in the passenger seat should cause any changes, but everything seemed to work a bit more smoothly when Misha was involved.

Misha put on her digital sunglasses, the ones that could access the internet, even while speeding along in a moving vehicle, and their vehicle was moving.

For her part Jasmine too put on her own pair of sunglasses to block out the setting sun. It was a shame, barely five PM, classes had just closed out along campus and it was already starting to get dark out. Not yet, the sun still fought its way through the clouds and dense wintery atmosphere, but it was clearly losing.

The sun fought its way through the clouds, in the way aggressive toddlers might take down and lasso in a wayward father on a particularly enjoyable afternoon of roughhousing. Just thinking back to such times caused a moment of sadness to fill her.

"You okay," Misha asked, concern clearly written on her face. This was new, or at least Jasmine didn't remember Misha being as able to pick up on minor ticks in her facial features like this before.

"Yeah, just thinking about things," Jasmine responded, not thinking that now would be the time to tell others about her still fond memories that she had of her time with her father.

"If you're worried about getting caught, don't worry, I'll make sure no records survive."

"Survive?" Jasmine asked, thinking that this was an extremely odd term of phrase to use, especially as it came to records.

Pausing, Misha seemed to think, as she did her eyes rolled to the right under her glasses as if translating her thoughts from one language to this one.

"Yes, survive, as in they will not be around once we are done," Misha confirmed, nodding her head as she did.

For a moment Jasmine could swear she saw the unmistakable sign of some type of font scrolling across Misha's lenses, but that was quickly dismissed. The letters she saw definitely looked foreign, as they were part of a language that Jasmine didn't quite know or could decipher from what she saw. It was now that Jasmine realized something about her.

"English isn't your first language is it?" Jasmine asked.

Shock.

Now it was Misha's turn to look shocked. Suddenly it made sense, the awkward pauses, the name, Misha, clearly not from Brooklyn with that name. No everything pointed to her having immigrated. That was it!

"What? I'm from here," Misha protested.

Hearing her voice and the almost pleading nature of her words, Jasmine realized this might be a sensitive subject. Suddenly, storylines to terrible movies involving beautiful actresses playing the roles of Russian operatives turned American defectors came to mind. With those plot lines in mind everything made sense, the way she had a hard time interacting with people, the way she was sometimes a bit off. Heck, Jasmine knew for a fact that if she had to speak anything other than Spanish or English she would be at a complete loss. Yet here Misha was, translating from one of those harsher languages to English.

Then a more important thing came to mind, as Jasmine realized she might scare off Misha if she was actually a member of a family of spies who had all defected. Then as if a switch had gone off in her mind, even more things came to light. Like the way not one but three different agencies all came to check on Misha during her hiking incident.

There were other things too, things that hinted to her having cut ties with everyone once and run away to reside with Phil. Yes, it was this thought that calmed down Jasmine's racing mind. The thought and fear that Misha might try to run away in the middle of the night, like her mother apparently had when she was seven or eight.

That was when Jasmine decided to do the one thing she knew would save her friendship, she lied.

"Oh, of course, I was just joking," Jasmine stated.

At that, Misha visibly relaxed and let a smile crest her lips. Again, not throwing off Jasmine's bloodhound ability, but it did help her also relax at the idea that her friend would stay.

Focusing fully forward once more, Grant seemed to also relax as a certain frigidity that had taken over the controls was now released as he was once again fully under her control. Pausing, Jasmine didn't know exactly how she knew something had changed, but she could feel that something or maybe some form of automated control had taken over the wheel while she turned to face Misha.

Pausing at that thought, Jasmine tried to see if there were any new forms of automation that one would expect from self-driving vehicles, but there were none. That was the great thing about Grant, he was an older muscle car, one that required precision driving and control. Before she could get too far down this train of thought, Misha spoke.

"Okay, you are going to need to speed up a bit through here," Misha stated.

"Speed up?" Jasmine asked.

VRRRM!

But Grant already seemed to be anticipating the extra pressure from her foot as Jasmine felt the car lurch forward, even as Jasmine felt the pedal just resting forward on its own.

"A bit more," Misha stated, just as Jasmine began to feel comfortable handling the giant vehicle that was now blurring down the road at a brisk, 55 Miles Per Hour, at least that is what the speedometer stated.

That can't be right? Jasmine thought to herself as she stared at the speedometer for a moment longer, then pressing down further, she fully engaged the accelerator causing the whole vehicle to drop down a bit as everything lurched forward in a blur of speed.

Once again the needle raced forward, but seemed to be stopped by an invisible line at 55, despite desperately trying to go beyond that marker. Despite every bone in Jasmine's body telling her that they were clearly doing more than 55 MPH, maybe even twice that given how fast the world seemed to blur around them.

"Here it comes," Misha stated.

At that comment, Jasmine wanted to take her foot off the accelerator. In fact, she could swear she did, but right at that moment the accelerator seemed to slide out from under her foot once more and go down even closer to the ground.

VA-VA-VROOOOMM!

Grant roared a primal roar of a muscle engine roaring to life with defiance.

Then exactly what Misha had stated would happen, what Jasmine had prepared to happen, happened.

RRWOOORRR!

At that exact moment, the siren for a cop car sprang to life, as suddenly the pit that had appeared in Jasmine's stomach seemed to grow even wider.

I think I'm going to be sick, Jasmine thought to herself as she realized she didn't quite know what would happen from here.

Still, she did as expected, she took her foot completely off the accelerator and hoped that the car would seemingly obey her want to slow down.