As the group made their way out to the garage, Ditzy Doo asked an, in hindsight, obvious question:
“Mr. Cole, why is it called a ‘Garage’?”
It took the human a second to parse the pegasus’ question.
“Oh, well… I think it’s from a French word meaning ‘To Shelter’. So in this case, it means a structure that protects a vehicle from the weather.”
“Okay.” With that odd comment, Ditzy flew ahead to where the Elantra waited.
As Sunny Skies approached the human machine, she sensed no magic, nothing at all that would seem to indicate that it could move with the speed and purpose the reports on Mr. Cole’s first entry into her world had described. It sat, or maybe “crouched” was a better word. The overall shape was like a squared-off water droplet, with the middle humping up to indicate where the passengers and cargo would sit. It had four wheels of a type she had never seen, a spoked metal center with a rubber ring surrounding it like a donut. The construct’s darkened glass windows seemed blank, featureless, and the crimson stripe on its side served to emphasize the thing’s sloped stance, making which end was the front very clear. At the front, a blank space covered in a grating gave the impression of a large nose, while the space below seemed to resemble an underslung mouth, and the four rings in groups to two on either side of the “nose” looked like eyes. Subconsciously, she edged around it, giving the machine a wide berth.
Smiling slightly at the unicorn mare’s reactions, Cole silently thumbed the remote in his pocket. Sergeant Stormcloud noticed the human’s subtle movement, and hid a smirk. Earth Mover had sensed the human’s intention almost as he moved his hand, and hid her own reactions as well.
With a sound almost like a winding sneeze, followed by a roaring growl, the thing before Sunny Skies, Came to life. There was no better way to describe exactly what she was witnessing. It had started with the rings surrounding those ‘eyes’, as well as the silver lines below them, flashing to life. That alone had been unsettling, but the click and hum that followed were even more ominous, the awakening had proceeded almost too fast to fully grasp. Within a few scant seconds, the inert conglomeration of metal, rubber, and glass had gone from a dormant thing, to a very much alive one. The growl faded down into a quiet rumble, almost like the purr of some large beast, and Sunny Skies took a moment to compose herself.
“Mr. Cole,” she began, turning to sternly regard the human who stood behind her, and off to one side with an innocent look on his face. “Please refrain from startling the unprepared with your machine. It gives an unprofessional impression.”
“Thank you for the advice, Miss Skies,” the human replied smoothly, not missing a beat. “I’ll be certain to keep that in mind.”
“So,” the human continued, now addressing the entire contingent. “Who wants to ride first?”
Trixie Lulamoon and Balance Wheel had been conversing about the intricacies of mass production when the Elantra had rumbled to life, but both ponies paused as they took in Sunny Skies reaction.
“Well, seems our guest wasn’t expecting that.” Balance Wheel commented offhoofedly.
“I’ll say,” Trixie agreed, as the human asked the group who wanted to ride first. Trotting forward, the unicorn mare raised a forehoof. “I’d like to go, Mr. Cole.”
The human grinned, “Well, walk around to the passenger side, and we’ll get started.”
After taking a moment to explain which side was the passenger side, and getting Trixie strapped in, Cole took his place behind the wheel, and closed his door. With a press of a button, the human lowered his window, and called out to Earth Mover: “Earth Mover, would you open the doors, please?”
The changeling disguised-as-a-unicorn gave a brief nod, and trotted over to the large carriage style doors. As the others moved back, Cole reached down with his right hand, and threw the Elantra into gear. After a glance at his passenger, he eased off the brake, and let the vehicle ease into motion.
Trixie was more than a bit nervous, but her time as a showmare had made her more than capable of masking any trepidation she felt as the machine she found herself strapped into rolled smoothly out of its resting place, and into the mid-afternoon sunlight. The area in front of the converted stable had once served as a guard exercise and training yard, nearly a thousand strides square. Now that they were out in the open, Trixie could see what some of the equipment in the trailer Cole had brought with him had been. Laid out in a discernable pattern were a series of orange cones. They formed a lane that ran around the outer edge of the yard on two sides, and then doubled back on itself at one corner, to describe a series of, from her perspective, a jumbled mass. Trixie could guess that they formed a set of curving paths that would have been obvious if she had seen them from above. There were also clear start and end points clearly marked, and large arrowheads at each turn indicating which direction the driver should go.
As they approached the start of the course, Cole turned to his sole passenger, and asked: “Slow, or fast?” The unicorn mare in the seat across from him looked at the course, then back at him.
“Medium.”
The human smiled thinly, and pressed the pedal gently.
The 2.0 liter inline-4 cylinder engine responded with a growl, and the Elantra surged forward smoothly. 10, 20, 30 KPH, and the machine continued to accelerate, until it was rolling along at a relatively sedate 45KPH.
As Trixie looked out the windows, she saw her surroundings moving by at about the same speed as an average pony running flat out. The cones passed by either side of the vehicle at a relatively steady pace, but she could sense that the human’s machine had a lot more power Cole could call upon. Turning, she regarded the human for a moment.
“Can this thing go any faster?” She asked, with a slight challenge in her voice.
“Do you want me to floor it?” Came the steady reply.
“Not ‘floor it’, but a little faster than this. I thought you said this machine of yours had close to 200 horsepower?”
“Faster it is,” was the human’s reply, and Cole pressed the accelerator down.
To the outside observers, the Elantra growled loudly, and smoothly picked up speed, quickly going from the speed of a full gallop, to something no living creature on four legs could match, doubling it’s speed by the time it reached the first corner. As it turned, it seemed to slide for a brief second, before straightening out, and racing along the far wall. As it reached the next, far sharper corner, it slid across the cobblestones, causing a howling scream to erupt from the rubber tires.
Sergeant Stormcloud’s sharp eyes picked up the fact that the back wheels stopped abruptly for a brief second, causing the rear to swing wide, before resuming spinning. He surmised that Cole had done this to force the back end to turn faster than normal, and that this seeming loss of control was intentuional.
Balance Wheel also took note of the human vehicle’s seemingly out-of-control manuvers, but when he glanced over at Ditzy Doo, the Pegasus was studying the speeding machine with intensity, and not concern. Clearly, the vehicle’s movements were not out of control, but by design.
Ditzy Doo, with her slightly higher vantage point -being that she was hovering nearly 25 hoofs off the ground- could clearly see why Mr. Cole’s vehicle was moving the way it was. The human was keeping it dead center between the two rows of cones that marked his intended path. Twice as fast as an earthbound pony could run, and it clung to the ground, inscribing a clear path almost as if it were a train running on a track. Even the sliding turns it was making stayed between those two rows of cones. It was right then that the Ditzy Knew that she wanted to drive like that. It wasn’t even close to the same degree of freedom as flight, but to be able to move like that, in two dimensions, was still impressive. Flight had never been Ditzy’s strong suit, her strabismus making gauging distance, speed, and direction in three dimensions difficult. Corrective lenses would help, but a set of goggles that would fit, and not be lost during high-speed maneuvers were hard to come by. But moving at near flight speeds, inside an enclosed environment, she could just wear ordinary glasses… Below, the human machine executed a pirouette around a ball on a pole in the center of a ring of cones, before exiting into the yard proper, and smoothly coming to a halt.
Trixie put one hoof on her chest, to try to slow her racing heart, as Cole brought the Elantra to a stop. The past few minutes had been… Intense. The human’s thin smile hadn’t left his face, as he expertly used the two pedals, a lever, and the knob in the center console, moving them in precise measures as he spun the wheel under his left hand, and virtually hurled his machine through the rest of the course. She had been securely strapped in, but the anticipated, but unexpectedly violent maneuvers had left her slightly dizzy. As she got her breathing under control, she heard the human beside her take a deep breath.
“So, fast enough for you?”
“…Yes. Yes, I think it was.” It took the unicorn mare a couple seconds to form another sentence. “I enjoyed it. It almost made me lose my breakfast, but it was almost like a good roller coaster.”
The human eyed her strangely, and then nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see how you would compare it to that…”
“What? Didn’t think we ponies would have roller coasters?”
“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, no. But now that you mention it, I suppose you would.”
With that brief conversation over, the human exited the vehicle, and went around to the opposite side to allow his passenger to exit. Once there, Cole found that Trixie had already undone her restraints, and was waiting us he swung the door open. Once out, and on solid ground again, the pair walked back to the waiting members of their group.
Earth Mover was the first to address them. “So, what did you think, Trixie?”
“It was… something. I’d try and describe it more, but it’s almost something you need to experience for yourself to understand it properly.”
As Cole walked up, he addressed the entire group: “So, that’s one down, who wants to go next?”
“Please wait, Mr. Cole,” Ditzy Doo called, as she fluttered in for a landing. “Let’s see if Trixie will be ok.”
“Good idea,” the human agreed, as he saw the unicorn in question sit down. Subtly, he positioned himself to act if his student showed any signs of distress. The thestral sergeant had also taken note of Trixie’s state, and moved a little closer as well.
Meanwhile, Sunny Skies, seemingly ignored by everyone else, had taken a long look at the calmly idling Elantra. The human machine’s speed had been surprising, especially the way it had accelerated. It had also shown itself to be highly maneuverable. It seemed this matter regarding the feasibility of the proposed courier service might just be something worth the investment. Quiclky, the unicorn mare trotted back to the group, and listened as Trixie began to describe her experience.
Balance Wheel listened intently, as Trixie described the sensation of being held in place in her seat, but feeling the entire vehicle move around her. He was especially surprised at how Engaged Cole seemed to be in the actual controlling of the machine, almost as if it were a physical extension of himself. The earth pony looked forward to seeing this in action when he got a turn to ride.
As the conversation wound down, Ditzy Doo put a forehoof in the air, and addressed Cole directly: “Mr. Cole, I’d like to ride next.”