>"No, I'm Neera," she replied coldly, "Jak's with Bob. They should be here
> any second."
>
>"They should be here by now," the human said, fretting.

Meanwhile, halfway across the city (as far as you could get, since they were
more or less in the center), a very nervous squirrel sat on the dashboard of
a brown compact that raced down the expressway at a completely reckless 
speed. Since the cops in the area were probably all symps, and since 
squirrels and fireaxes were almost certainly red-flagged items, this was
something of a risk, but since part of their line to the humans was that the
cops would be available for backup, Jak decided not to bring it up. Instead
he sat on the dash, watched for flashers, and worried.

"Shit!" he screeched, as they swerved past yet another semi, "Slow down!" 

Bob grinned, pulled in front of the semi, and slammed on the brakes, 
accelerating just in time to prevent a collision when the truck's brakes
proved insufficient. "Happy?" He snapped, "We're already late."

Jak was so distracted by the speed and the traffic ahead of them, that it
took him a while to notice that, despite the fact that they were back up to
90, the truck was keeping pace. A chill ran through him as he saw just what
the truck was supposedly carrying... and saw a pair of angry looking, shiny
eyes glaring back from the passenger-side dash.

"Um," he said, barely managing to form words over his chittereing, "[chitter]
Can you go [chitter] any faster? [chitter]"

"Lose the truck?" the human asked, "No problem."

Unfortunately, it was. That was no ordinary truck, and they were in quite
an ordinary car.

Jak grabbed his laser and leaped to the small ledge under the rear window.
Taking aim, he tried to burn out the tires -- but the car wasn't steady, the
target wasn't steady, and it was impossible to keep the beam on target long
enough to do the job. He flashed the laser at the cab, but after a few 
initial frantic swerves, the driver realized it was harmless and continued
closing.

They were coming up on the bridge. After the bridge, it was only another
minute or so before they came to their exit, and lead the bunnies right to
the meeting -- or drove on past and missed it. And Jak figured that these
bunnies would probably be exiting at more or less the same spot, if they
were reinforcements for the warren.

"What should I do?" Bob asked, as they topped the bridge.

"Slam on the brakes!" Jak shouted. Take the damn bunnies with them...

"Are you insane?" There was a crunch as the truck rammed them from behind,
and Jak was slammed into the glass. "They'd run over us and barely notice."

"Then get off at our exit, [chitter] and hope they don't follow. Yah!" Bob 
put on a burst of speed and managed to dodge a swipe as the semi pulled past
them. "Although there isn't much chance of that, since they haven't sent out
bunnies to jump us. [chitter] They must be hoping to follow us home..."

They swerved around another clump of cars and managed to make enough distance
before the semi worked its way through to get to the exit without being 
rammed. They rushed up the exit ramp at sixty... and screeched to a halt 
behind a long line of cars.

The bunny truck slipped quietly into place behind them.

"This is not good," Jak said, and jumped down to the pits beneath the back
seats to retrieve his laser, which he'd managed to drop. After carefully
extracting it from the pile of fireaxes, somehow managing not to decapitate
himself in the process, he hopped back up and aimed for the tires, but his 
shot was ruined when the light turned green. "Damn it!"

"Where do I go?"

"Drive past, and we can try to lose it later," Jak said, sounding at least
twice as confident as he felt, "When the others see the bunnies following us 
they'll know to start without us. [flick]"

"But they'll be unarmed!"

"I'm sure they'll think of something. [chitter]" They drove past the store, 
and to Jak's relief no squirrels were visible from the street. Thank Gaia for
that, at least. "Circle around, I want to make sure they see."

It took a while to go 'around', since there wasn't a real block, and with
one-way streets and the highway in the way they ended up circling around 
through three different neighborhoods, the semi dogging them the whole way.
Glinting, grinning teeth were now visible in the window, as well as two pairs
of eyes, and the promise of many more in the back.

Then, as they passed the store for the second time, several rocks fell from 
the overhanging branches and pelted the cab, turning the windshield into a 
shattered mess, and three of the tires blew out. The truck swerved across the 
centerline, demolishing a car, then back into its lane, and past, through the 
concrete barrier and onto the highway, twenty feet below. The crashes and
explosions went on for several seconds.

Bob pulled to a stop at the far end of the overpass, and they got out to
admire the flames from the Gaia-only-knew-how-many-car pileup below. 

"Scratch one transport full of bunny reinforcements, [flick]" Jak said with
satisfaction as he surveyed the destruction. Bob looked slightly sick. 
"Circle around again, and hurry. I'll go tell them you're on your way. We'd 
better leave before the cops show up. [flick]"