Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen

The guard dragged Carly, and Per followed up the stairs to the room on the other side, opened the door, and threw Carly in.Carly gasped when she saw two figures motionless on the floor ahead. "Take it easy, honey." Pell blinked. "They just passed out." The guard pushed Carly inside, and before she could say anything, the door closed. "Keep an eye on the monitors," Pell warns guards on shifts, which can see into the interior of each cell. "If any creature with supernatural powers turns over while sleeping, you will give him another injection of 'Eternal Night Juice'. We must not give them any chance."

The guard nodded in understanding.Pell left the monitoring room and returned to the bed in his room on the first floor.It was past midnight now, and he needed to close his eyes and sleep for a while. Of course he goes through the maddening maze inside the building first.As if to form a stark contrast with the empty streets outside, countless corridors and stairs were built inside the warehouse, forming a big maze.He needs to go down one floor, turn left and right at a fork in the hallway, climb another flight of stairs to a landing overlooking the garage, and finally descend three flights of stairs to the great room, which has been converted into a out of the barracks.

"There was a message from Glo just now." Sheila told him when Pell arrived in the room.Although this woman was not officially appointed, she was actually a deputy. She sat on the edge of the cot, shoes off, ready for bed.Except for the two guards in the monitoring room watching the locked-up people, and one guard patrolling the garage, everyone else was already asleep. "Has he got an update on when the Gatherers will show up?" She shook her head. "Every time I ask him, he always says the gatherers will come when they're ready. He always says we have to be patient."

He sat down, yawned, and asked, "Then why is he calling?" "He warned us to be careful. He said another quarian was going to sneak in tomorrow night in the dark. He gave us all the details." Pell raised an eyebrow in surprise.Glo may have been a coward, a backstabber and a housekeeper, but he was resourceful and resourceful. "Okay, let's get ready and greet him tomorrow." "What about the other guy in the basement?" Sheila wondered.Pell was so excited by Grayson's arrival that he forgot about the pilot he had captured from the Sinaiad.They finally pried open his mouth and got the information they wanted to know, but Pell always felt that there was something more to be gained from him.Glo pierced his visor, and the influx of germs and disease sent him into a high fever, which, combined with Pell's torture, turned the Qualley prisoner into a slurring lunatic.Of course, now that they had severed all contact with Cerberus, it would be a waste of time to keep him... But this left Sheila with the opportunity to test the new torture technique.

"He's useless to us now. Get him out tomorrow morning," Pell said. "The last time I saw him, he was in a bad state," Sheila said. "I don't think he'll make it through tomorrow morning." "Since you say so, let's make a bet." "Twenty credits bet he won't see the sun tomorrow." "make a deal." Pell turned sideways to take out the bets. At this time, he heard several shotguns firing in the distance, shaking the house.The gunshots came from the roof. Rhyme is young, but not stupid.He didn't quite trust Glo.So after Gro fell asleep, he sneaked out of the apartment and returned to the same roof where he used to be on the Claws' territory.

Rhyme was 50% sure that Glo's relationship with those humans was deeper than he admitted, and he didn't want to walk into the ambush circle by himself.The best way to avoid this possibility is to shoot a day in advance.It wouldn't have made a difference if Glo hadn't informed the few humans.But if Glo had tipped them off, Rhyme at least had a head start for now, because they didn't expect anything until tomorrow. Rhyme sprinted across the roof, his blood surging with adrenaline, all the way to the two-story building he had scouted during the day.The space of the Omega space station is very precious, so it only takes three or four meters to jump from one roof to another.Although his luggage was full of weapons and equipment, the biggest danger was not falling, but accidentally bumping into a resident who didn't want to smell the smell of the street and was enjoying the cool air on the roof at night.If something like this happened, someone would almost certainly be shot.

Fortunately, he met no one along the way.He jumped from the top of the three-story building next to the warehouse to the warehouse, and when he landed, he rolled over, gently softening the sound and impact of landing. Rhyme got to his feet and paused, listening intently for any sound that said he had been spotted.He waited for a while, finding nothing moving, went to the edge of the roof, and looked down to see what was in the big window. The naked eye certainly couldn't see through the one-way glass, but he wasn't interested in what was behind it either—at least not yet.Rhyme pulled a multimeter from his belt and stuck it to the flashlight.The dim light from the multimeter allowed him to see tiny infrared emitters on the outside of the window frame.He adjusted the settings of the instrument, cut off the wireless signal, and fooled the alarm system.

There was no place to grab a handle on the window, so Rhyme had to open one himself.Rhyme put the backpack on his shoulder to the roof and groped for a while to find the glass cutter.The cluster laser emitter made a very low-volume high-frequency cutting sound, cutting through the glass.He first cut a small hole in the upper corner, just enough for a wire rope with a tiny video probe on one end to go in to observe the situation. The images captured by the probes are fed back to the multimeter's display, and he can see what's waiting inside the house.The windows were on one side of the hallway, and the two sides of the hallway seemed to be storage room doors.In the distance is a small table where two guards are playing poker, occasionally glancing at a row of monitors on the table.

Rhyme turned up the magnification of the image and looked closely at the image on the monitor.There are six monitors: four rooms are empty, but in one room there is a person lying in the corner, in another room there are three people, two of them lying on the floor, and one sitting between them . Lime quickly withdrew the probe, apparently the storage room had been converted into a prison cell, and these guards were guarding them.There are no official police and law enforcement officials on board the Omega space station, so there is only one plausible explanation here. slave master.And Rhyme knew exactly who these slaves were.

Seeing these fellow quarians caged like animals filled him with rage.Rhyme stowed the surveillance probe, strapped his backpack to his shoulders, loaded his shotgun, and leaned over onto the edge of the narrow window, wobbling for balance.This time he didn't bother to use the glass cutter, but he slammed forward, and the glass shattered, but the heavy fibers of the environmental suit kept Rhyme unscathed. Rhyme rushed into the hallway, stopped on the floor, and ducked forward, firing as he ran.Neither of the two guards expected someone to attack at this time, and they were caught off guard.Much of the kinetic energy of Rhyme's first two shotgun rounds was deflected by the kinetic energy shields of the guard's battlesuit, but their two lives only lasted as long as they fell.Before they could draw their guns, the third and fourth rounds killed them both.Their bodies hit the table as they fell, and the monitor fell to the floor and shattered.

Rhyme, knowing he had to move fast, turned to the cell.Four cells were empty, with their doors open.Rhyme flipped his hand on the control panel of the closed door closest to him, hoping it wasn't protected by a combination lock.Fortunately for him, the door opened, revealing the three figures inside.At this time Rhyme realized that he had made a huge mistake. These few people are not quarians at all-they are all human beings locked up!A man and two women.No, he corrected: a man, a woman and a little girl.When the woman saw him coming, she stood up suddenly, but the other two did not move.Even more startling was the fact that Rhyme thought he knew the woman. "You're Carrie Sanders, aren't you?" She nodded immediately. "Who are you?" "Don't talk about it now," he said to Carly.His mind was trying to recall the architectural drawings that he had jotted down forcibly. "We only have a few minutes before their reinforcements come. Hurry up." "I won't leave them." Carly nodded to the two people on the ground. The little girl was not big enough to carry it on her back, but the other person was obviously too big for Lyme or Carly.Rhyme ran to the man's side, got down on one knee, and took a quick scan of the large man with his multimeter. "I think we can wake him up," he said. "You pick up the gun on the guard outside and get your friend out of the other cell." "Leave him alone," Carly said bitterly, "that guy is with them." Rhyme took a syringe from his backpack and injected it into the unconscious man.Carly disappeared into the porch and came back with the guard's assault rifle in her hand. Seeing Handel muttering something, she struggled to sit up. "Help me lift him up." Carly put down the gun and came over, and the two of them put the big guy back up hard together.Rhyme was relieved that he was able to stand on his own. "What's his name?" "Handel." "Handel!" Rhyme yelled, hoping the sound would pierce his drugged consciousness. "My name is Rhyme! We're going to take you out of here! Do you understand?" The big man nodded, and the movement of nodding almost made his body tilt to one side again.Rhyme realized that even if he woke the little girl up, she wouldn't be strong enough to walk for twenty minutes. "If I just have to carry this little girl on my back, I can go faster," Rhyme said. Kali nodded, and the quarian adjusted the position of the backpack, bent down, and swung the little girl with his left arm to his shoulder, like carrying a sack of flour.Gillian was heavier than she looked, and although his right hand could still be used for balance, and the backpack provided some of the weight, Rhyme knew in his heart that it would be difficult for him to shoot accurately with her on his back. "Did they teach you how to handle this when you were in the League?" he asked Carly, tilting his head toward the assault rifle on the ground. Carly nodded, bent down and picked up the assault rifle. "How do you know I've been in the league?" "We'll talk about it later," Rhyme said. "We have to go now." Carly handed Handel a gun, but when Handel took it, the gun slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. "Leave it alone," Rhyme said.With Gillian on his back, Rhyme couldn't take care of one side, couldn't shoot that side. "Follow me!" Rhyme yelled, hoping the dope-drowsy man would respond to his voice. Rhyme led them all the way down the crooked corridors, and he knew the best way to get out was to go to the garage and drive a car.Unfortunately, the enemy probably knows this too. When Rhyme walked up the stairs to the first floor, he glanced back quickly.Thanks to Carly for half-dragging and half-dragging Handel, he still kept up.With the little girl still on Rhyme's shoulders, the four of them staggered up the stairs and across the small landing at the corner to the garage.There are containers and crates of all sizes strewn about here and there.That's good, if the guards want to ambush them, this is an excellent barrier. "There," Carly pointed to a pile of metal packing boxes under the far corner. "The three of you rushed over, and I shot to cover you." Rhyme nodded, and with Gillian's back on his back, he rushed over with all his strength and clumsily.At first he was thinking of Handel stumbling along behind him, but a sound from the other side of the house soon caught his attention. A woman poked her head out from behind the crate and aimed a gun at Lyme.Rhyme realized that he had a kinetic shield to provide some protection, but Gillian and Handel were defenseless with their bare hands.But before the woman could fire her gun, Carly shot the shuttle, and the woman had to squat down again. Rhyme glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw another person half hidden behind the box on the right.When they were only a few meters away from Lyme and the others, the man fired his pistol, aiming at Lyme and not attacking Handel and Gillian.Rhyme took aim and returned two shots, which echoed like thunder in the huge warehouse. At such close range, the accuracy of the shot is not important, and the automatic aiming system of both men will ensure that the bullets will hit each other directly.Rhyme's kinetic energy shield blocked most of the bullets, only one bullet was embedded in the armor on the shoulder of the battle suit, and one bullet pierced through a corner of the backpack.His opponent was not so lucky.The close-range concentrated shots of the shotgun pierced his shield, and a few rounds pierced the kinetic shield.The force of the impact ripped holes in the exposed parts of his face and hands, and he fell dead on the ground without a sound. A few of them slid sideways to the safety of the back of the box and covered themselves.Rhyme quickly shook the backpack off him and set Gillian on the ground.Then poked his head out to provide cover fire for Carly.Callie saw Rhyme covering herself, head down, and charged as hard as she could where they were hiding. Shotguns are not the best weapon for providing suppressive fire on an open field.A shotgun doesn't fan out endlessly like an assault rifle, but he remembers where the woman poked her head out before she crouched down.If she was stupid enough to show up again without changing her position, Rhyme would catch her right. But that's what the woman did, and Rhyme pulled the trigger the moment she got her head up.Shotgun fire echoed through the warehouse again, and the box she was using for cover even shifted at the impact of the shotgun.Her kinetic shield saved her life, absorbing a dense cloud of incoming bullets.She crouched down again.Rhyme wondered if she would continue to make mistakes and pop up in the same place a third time. Carly slid to a stop beside him, gasping for breath.Almost at the same time, two guards, a man and a woman, also rushed in from the same warehouse door that Lime and the others had just entered a few seconds ago.Rhyme's shotgun and Carly's assault rifle fired in tandem, pinning the two down as they scuttled around the corner. "Both of them will go around to the other side," Rhyme warned.He remembered that the warehouse had two entrances, a helipad on the top, and a wall on the far side where there was a gate for vehicles to enter and exit. "They're going to hit us from the side." "Do you think you can get to those cars?" Carly asked, pointing to the two cars parked in the open space in the middle of the garage. "There's no cover there. I'll have to find my way to the far side. Can you hold your position here?" "At least for a while. Do you know how many people we have to deal with?" "As far as I know, there were nine of them in the beginning. I killed two on the top and one on the bottom." "Then they are six against two." Carly thought to herself, "If we don't build a car, the chances are not very great." Handel was still muttering to himself, no one knew what he was talking about.Handel looked more alert, but the words were still incomprehensible.His metabolic system was still battling the anesthetic circulating in his body. "You and Gillian stay here with me," Carly said to Handel, patting Handel's leg, "Keep your head down." Rhyme used the metal box to block the enemy's fire and walked through the gaps in the box. He was going to find a route between the various bunker points and finally reach the car.The car was still some distance away from him, but he had to move, and Carly had to focus on covering him. Rhyme was still wondering if Carly was up to the task, and another slave owner flashed through the door they had just entered the garage.Carly leaned out from behind cover and fired a concentrated short burst with the assault rifle, and the auto-aiming system brought the guy down. Now it's two against five. "Okay, I'm ready." He took a deep breath and said. "Good luck," Carly replied.She didn't turn to look at Rhyme, but kept her attention on the battlefield ahead. Rhyme jumped out from behind the box, and Carly opened fire. Grayson heard the constant sound of shotguns in the hall outside, but didn't know who fired them.After a few minutes he heard firing in the distance, but he guessed the shots were inside the house. Someone is attacking this base, now is your chance to escape. He was locked in a storage room, which wasn't really a prison cell.The walls that shut him in were nothing more than cardboard plasterboard from turia. Grayson stood up, walked over to a wall, and kicked hard against the surface with the soles of his shoes.If the guards were still outside, they'd surely be able to see what Grayson was doing, but Grayson bet their attention was drawn outside by now. After a few hard kicks, his foot went through the wall panel and into another room.He moved his eyes to the hole to see what was in the other room.But there was also a temporary prison cell, similar to his.It's just that the room is empty, and the iron door leading to the outer hall is open. He kicked the panel again, and after five minutes he had kicked a hole in the wall big enough for him to crawl through.No one came to check, so he thought the guards were no longer here.The sound of gunfire continued to be heard from far away from the building. He guessed that the guards rushed over to reinforce and fight the intruders.When he walked out of the iron gate, he saw the bodies of two guards and realized that he had guessed wrong. He looked around again, and everything was obvious.Several other cells were empty, and Gillian and several others were gone.Apparently someone hijacked them.However, he had no clue as to who had taken them. Grayson thought, whoever came to break the prison, they were pretty good, and left me an assault rifle.He picked up the assault rifle they had left behind from the floor in the cell corridor. Grayson doesn't know where he is, but he knows where he wants to go - he needs to find Gillian.Following the gunfire seemed the most logical course of action. It didn't take long for him to realize that the task was much harder than it seemed, and soon he was hopelessly lost in the building's illogically convoluted corridors. Rhyme shuttled back and forth among the tall jars and boxes, constantly changing directions, stopping and sprinting without warning, never staying in one place for a long time.His hand was clutching the shotgun, but he wasn't firing at anyone—he was just thinking about the car. Carly did her best to cover her, but the outnumbered was too great.Every time Rhyme ventured to look back, he could always see two slave traders firing at Carly from behind a bunker of boxes on the ground; Carly shoots. The attacks of the two groups were well coordinated, never giving Carly an opening to strike back cleanly.But that didn't stop Carly from occasionally popping her head out of nowhere to fire a few shots back. Considering she doesn't wear any armor, this is a very risky move. Now four of the remaining five people are dealing with Carly, and Rhyme only needs to deal with one person.Unfortunately, he doesn't know where this enemy is.As soon as he stepped out into the open, he risked stepping into deadly assault rifle fire. Forget about it.Concentrate on the car.You are almost there. There was only a short distance between him and the car now, and as soon as he charged past it, it would all be over: either the battle or himself. He jumped out from behind the cover and rushed towards the car like an arrow.A fifth slaver was waiting for him there, emerging from behind a crate less than ten meters from him.She fired from his flank at close range, low post, and a small cloud of concrete hit the floor, because his legs were the weakest armor, and she hoped to break his feet. Rhyme still kept his head down and rushed forward. He knew that if he wanted to survive, his greatest chance came from running non-stop.When he was only half a step away from the safety zone, a bullet went into his calf.The bullet exploded like a mushroom, then tore apart on impact, sending a hail of metal shrapnel across his leg, tearing apart muscle and tendon.With a scream, he fell forward, the shotgun falling from his hand.Although Rhyme was shot, he still had the strength to rush forward. With the remaining kinetic energy of his body, he rushed behind the metal box, separated himself from the shooter, and then fell forward to the ground. Rhyme twisted and lay on his back, holding the blurred mass of flesh just below his knees, which had just been his leg.He heard footsteps coming towards him and realized that the shotgun had been left behind when he was hit, flung across the floor. Then, the woman appeared in front of the car.She smiled and pointed the gun at Rhyme. Then she suddenly flew across the room. Rhyme watched as her body flew high in a parabola, slammed into a wall, and fell to the ground.She lay motionless, her neck twisted at an odd angle.He heard Handel's low-pitched roar before he realized what had happened—he was a creature with supernatural powers! "Get in the car! Quick!" The quarians knew that it would take Handel about thirty or forty seconds to regroup the biological powers...and they couldn't afford to wait.Rhyme gritted his teeth, hoping he wouldn't pass out from the pain, and grabbed the car's front bumper to brace himself.Rhyme stood on one good leg, opened the driver's side front door, and climbed in.He tried his best to endure the severe pain, and it took half a minute to break the opcode and start the engine. This car does not have a front windshield, it is more like an armored transport vehicle, with a navigation screen in front, from which he can see the map of the surrounding area.The infrared and ultraviolet sensors on the car display the surrounding organic life forms on the navigation screen in the form of small dots, so that everyone in the warehouse, whether friend or foe, can see everything at a glance. The car itself is not equipped with weapons, but it is at least four tons of bulletproof armor.Rhyme started the car, and the tires scraped the garage floor, belching black and purple smoke.Rhyme accelerated sharply, the steering wheel spun violently in Rhyme's hands, and the car drew a crazy arc. He crashed sideways into a pile of boxes, sending heavy metal boxes flying in all directions.He turned the steering wheel again, stepped on the accelerator, resisted the great pain from his injured left leg hitting the side door repeatedly, and rushed towards Carly and the others. He plowed through the metal box that the two slave traders had been using for cover, knocked them down, ran them over with wheels, and then came to a sudden stop, just a stone's throw away from Handel. Rhyme slammed the door open, and Handel climbed into the back seat of the car, still clutching the unconscious Gillian tightly under his arm.Carly fired the last round of bullets at the two slavers on the platform, and the two men fired back, the bullets ricocheting and bouncing off the roof and hull of the armored vehicle in a staccato metal-chamber symphony. "They're loading the bazooka!" Callie yelled, throwing Rhyme's backpack next to Handel in the backseat and jumping into the front seat herself. "Get us out of this damn place!" "It's better for you to drive." Lime clenched his teeth, squeezed out these words, and moved towards the passenger seat next to him in an ugly posture. Carly lowered her head and saw that his leg was covered with blood, she immediately pushed him away and sat behind the steering wheel by herself.Rhyme screamed in pain. "Sorry!" Callie yelled, slamming the door and the car began to back up. Carly stepped on the accelerator, and the car ran towards the rear.A fast-flying projectile appeared on the navigation screen: it was a missile fired from a bazooka.Rhyme thought everyone was doomed, but Callie spun right at the last second.The rocket didn't shatter the car, it just fell to the ground next to it.When the rocket exploded, it made a loud bang, causing the car to back up, and the wheel on one side was lifted high, and hit the ground hard again. But Carly still held the steering wheel tightly. She stared at the navigation screen and drove quickly along the long side of the garage, driving faster and faster.Rhyme watched in horror as they were about to collide against the all-metal loading door of the garage. "Everyone sit down!" Carly reminded, "It's going to hurt!" The car slammed into the door, knocking one side of the door out of its bayonet, and the metal door came off the frame.The back door of the car was also rolled up, absorbing most of the impact.The sudden deceleration from the impact threw everyone off the back of their seats and the car stopped. Rhyme reeled from the shock, slammed his leg against the dashboard again, screamed in pain, and struggled to keep himself from losing consciousness.He glanced at Carly to see her slumped over the side of the seat, unconscious from the impact. "Carly!" he yelled, "Get up and drive!" Rhyme's cry seemed to wake Carly up.Carly shook her head, sat up, and put her foot on the accelerator again.The car tumbled, fell backwards, and slammed into the door again.Carly kept the engine running at full speed, trying to break through the curled iron gate that was preventing them from escaping. "Give me some strength, you son of a bitch!" she yelled, "Give me all you can!" The iron gate finally succumbed to the relentless pounding of the six spinning wheels, but it wasn't quite done yet.The second rocket would arrive in no time, and they were easy targets. Never do this! Pell had thought about that question over and over since he heard the first shotgun fire from the warehouse camp. He yelled and drove his men off their bunks, went to the warehouse, and cut off the way out.He and Sheila were the only ones who were not on the bed except for the two guards. They grabbed their guns and ran upstairs. When they arrived, they found that the guards were all dead, and the two prisoners with biological abilities were locked up. Also gone. They ran back to the platform overlooking the entire warehouse, occupied the commanding heights of the battlefield, and fired condescendingly at Carly who was hiding behind the bunker.There is an unloaded rocket launcher on the platform, which was newly equipped for warehouse defense.When he loaded the bazooka, he still struggled in his heart, and then he objected in his heart. He still hoped to capture these biological abilities alive so that he could sell them to the collectors. Immediately he regretted it.He overlooked the entire battle situation from the commanding heights of the firefight, and watched the rest of his men being killed one by one by Carly's assault rifle, Handel's biological ability, and his berserk car. It must not be like this.He thought so again.He yelled at Sheila, "Fix that bazooka! Kill that car!" Sheila frantically assembled the rockets, Pell shot desperately at the fleeing prisoners, but they all missed, and Carly and the others got into the car.The car was right in the middle, blocking Pell's firepower.There is only one way to prevent them from escaping, and this method will not leave Kali and the others alive. "Loaded and ready to launch!" Sheila yelled as she saw the car back away from them. "Fire, hell!" The rocket headed for the car, but the target dodged at the last second, and the missile exploded on the garage floor, leaving the car unscathed.The car continued to accelerate, and then hit the reinforced iron door at the back, making a deafening sound.The door slammed crookedly, but it held on. "Finally they!" Pell yelled.Sheila took aim at the car again and fired a second and final rocket. Grayson staggered for ten minutes around the unfamiliar corridors and stairs, hopelessly lost. Maybe it's because you have absorbed too much red sand for so many years, and you can't find your sense of direction now. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that the sound of the gunfire was getting closer and closer, and he knew that Gillian was in the hands of the same group who had just escaped. He heard a grenade or a rocket explosion or something, and his fist almost smashed through the wall next to him.Then there was another loud crash from the corner in front.He hurried forward, but made no sound.He turned a corner and found himself on a small platform overlooking the large garage. Crates and large jars lay scattered on the ground below, along with several dead bodies.The car in the distance had apparently just crashed into the iron garage door.And there were two people standing less than three or four meters away from him on the platform, one was Pell, and the other was a woman he didn't know.The woman carries a bazooka on her shoulder. The car was backing, as if about to force the door open.Given the situation, Grayson was almost certain that Gillian and the others were in the car. "Finally they!" Pell yelled, and the woman took aim at the car. The assault rifle in Grayson's hand fired.He hit the woman on the back without hesitation.A volley of bullets tore through her kinetic shield and body armor, and the torso between the shoulder armor and the belt was reduced to hamburger gravy.The bazooka dropped from her unconscious hand, and she flung herself onto the waist-high railing of the platform.Grayson fired another round, and she fell over the railing to the floor below. Pell turned to raise his assault rifle, but Grayson fired again.He focused all his fire on Pell's right arm, and the blast nearly tore Pell's arm off his shoulder.Pell's gun is also out of his hands, over the railing. His former partner was on his knees, watching in shock as his arterial blood gushed from his injured arm.He opened his mouth to say something, but another volley from Grayson silenced Pell forever.For the first time in almost two decades, Pell didn't end up getting his mouth shut. The sound of iron slamming and rubbing against each other in the distance of the garage caught his attention.Grayson looked up and saw the car finally squeeze through the corner of the loading door and wobble out.Grayson just watched, didn't move, just watched the car squeeze through the exit.The car roared to the side of the road, as if the garage had just given birth to it. For about a minute, Grayson remained motionless, listening carefully for the voices of other survivors.But the only sound he can hear is the sound of the car's engine fading away into the night until it disappears.