by ÆGEON DAVIS
Spectra’s DRIFT Level was shit, but I leveled up mine. The question now was, would Spectra let me drive her again? She had been quite the feisty one ever since she ran into me, but in all honesty, I felt like I was wearing her down. She was just a jerk with a heart of gold.
I peeked my head over as she readied herself for Volcano. She plugged her right ear and began to talk, performing a mic check.
“Check. Can you hear me?” she asked.
“Read ya’ loud and clear, sweetie,” Mechanica said.
We all stood near to a section of the Great Nurdle Reef, where the first leg of the Gauntlet took place. We were all ready, and Mechanica inspected the new hinged carbon fiber rear wing she’d created for Spectra.
“Are you sure it will hold?” Spectra asked, shifting down to full vehicle form. “I’m running at much higher speeds now.”
As she dropped to the ground, she bounced a few times on her suspension springs. Her struts fluctuated up and down a few times like she was doing a set of pushups.
“It will hold, sweetie,” Mechanica confirmed.
“As long as you keep an eye on it. Too much crosswind and you can say goodbye to your new addition. Speaking of,” I said. “Let’s see how much Total XP you gained over the Nurdle Reef race.”
My visor outline her stats.
Spectra Saleen2
“Sweet, you have twelve Total XP, Spectra,” I answered. “How do you want me to distribute them?”
She was quiet for a moment, and said, “Just bump me up in my Primary Skill MACH Level by two.”
“Well, I think you should at least level up in your DRIFT Level, since the next race involves—”
“Listen, I don’t need you to be bossing me around. I know what lies ahead, and since I now have the McFly Special Ability, the drifting won’t be that big of a deal.”
I raised my hands up in defeat, and upgraded her MACH Level by two levels.
The announcer said in his trademark borough accent:
My fellow alien species… of the outer galaxy… of Alpha Centauri.”
This time I could see the small bumbling alien planted on a stage that hovered over the water. Under him, rows of spectators of elite spectators cheered for the upcoming event while the platform would follow the racers as they made their way to the top of the Volcano of Virtue.
Now, as you all know… Only a tiny percentage will make the deathly climb… Like two percent of the one percent… up the switchbacks… and into the smoking cinder cone.”
The crowd ooh’d and ahh’d just hearing him explain the deathly feat.
And not only… will they suffer the chance of perishing… but they will be in a direct line of sight… to the… Hillside Scabians!”
I inspected the climbing switchbacks littered with small caves all over the slope. It was like looking at infested mounds of termites back on Earth. The Trixies held a grim expression as they peered up at the volcano side.
“Trixies, can you get us some leeway from your people?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, they don’t barter with us,” Trixie Two said. “However, we can run circles around Spectra to protect her.”
Spectra revved her engine and a ear-wrenching sound shot from her motors under her carbon fiber shell. She made a small hop and twisted her wheels into the McFly hover mode. And like a Sci-Fi fantasy wet dream come true, I squealed under my breath in fan boy excitement, “That’s what I’m talking about.”
The announcer rattled off from his small podium:
All right, Drivers… Time for the countdown… Head to your numbered places.”
As Spectra took her place, she hovered into Pit 3’s position. She levitated in a rhythmic motion as the racers behind her and in front of her spouted insults. She was quiet, which made me thankful—we didn’t need more trouble trying to get ahead. However, I noticed Asta instead of Corvus racing.
“Damn it, where is that asshole Corvus?” I asked aloud.
“He’s probably gambling, or making good on a contract, honey,” Mechanica said.
A fucking contract? I wished he was here so I could show him what a contract really looked like when it was fighting back. I stepped forward, then noticed the Trixies eyeing me.
“We are pleased you want to make him pay for what he did to our brother, but please don’t put your life at risk,” they said, clinging onto my arm. I loved it when they showed me affection, but that didn’t keep the anger from swelling up inside me.
“Don’t worry about me,” I replied. “You gals just get ready to run for Spectra. She will need all the help she can get.”
“Or allow,” Mechanica said with a raised eyebrow.
Now that we have appropriated all bets… Ready your Drivers. Get set. Go!”
Spectra’s engines fired up hot and thrusted straight to her McFly hover mode. A fiery blue energy burst from each of the four mods in unison. The force started to tip her over, but she corrected her balance and wedged her way in between racers.
A small lip led up from the beach to the switchbacks. Each one carved into the mountain side at a mile’s length. About halfway up, I recognized the diamonds from before called the Shuffle Crystals. My only hope was when we hit them, our brackets would land on back on McFly and not to an Ability that screwed us over.
The Trixies held hands and bent over, folding panels over their tight bodies. I gritted my teeth in sexual frustration just admiring their… assets. A single rider seat folded out their curvy spines which left me confused at first since the plan was to have each clone run around Spectra while protecting her.
“Why are you enabling ’Twin Connection’?” I asked.
“The switchbacks will be easier to drift on four wheels,” they said in unison. “Wanna ride us?”
I smiled and looked at Mechanica. She nodded, then shifted herself into her tow truck vehicle mode. “Listen, honey. Spectra’s gonna’ need all the help she can get whether she likes it or not. So, get up there.”
She unfolded her two side braces that dug into the ground and extended her long tow cable arm. Twirling it around, she hooked onto the Trixies and pulled the slack tight. “Now, hold on while I give you a lift up onto the track.”
My eyes widened in terror as I fastened my helmet and griped the Trixies handlebars with all my might. Mechanica lift us up and I balanced myself on the swinging quad cycle. She made a small swing backward, and then she thrusted us up into the air. My ass dug into the Trixies seat until flying past a few switchbacks. I then felt the top of the arc and lost any liquid left in my gut as we fell.
Mechanica must have had thrown us five or six switchbacks up. Five racers came barreling by and we just barely dodged them. The Trixies gassed their engines and spun their wheels before we landed. We shredded rocks, mud and anything under us. I stood with my back arched, bent knees, holding tight as we fishtailed getting our traction. It was like every derby racer game I had played as a kid, and I fucking loved it.
“Woooo hoooo,” I yelled out.
In the middle of all the action, my LIVE XP gauges skyrocketed up in values, pooling into my Total XP.
Lorean Michaels3
VWOOOOOOSH! VWOOOOOOSH! VWOOOOOOSH!
Three cars passed us in a flash.
Up ahead I saw the first bend in the course. I pressed my weight into the Trixies, compressing their shocks, and did a small hop into the air. Leaning my body just right, I was able to veer us diagonally as we landed. Our four tires slid with perfection as we drifted around the tight corner. My ability in sensing what to do inside the corners was more clear than before, and I owed it all to upgrading my DRIFT level.
“Spectra is behind us,” I yelled out, catching sight of her in my Visor. Her position in the race read Pit 5. She was halfway there.
“We know,” the Trixies said from their dash. “We will need to gain speed if you want to stay with her.”
Before I could say another word, there she was aside us. Her McFly hover additions sprayed the mud from under h
er, speckling any prime white paint visible. Her handling was garbage, and she was slipping and sliding all over the track. We kept up our pace gunning the full one hundred meters.
“We’re gonna split now,” the Trixies said, morphing their frame into two separate racers. “Get on me!” Trixie One ordered.
I hopped my body onto Trixie One and hung on for dear life.
Trixie One veered to the left of Spectra while Trixie Two went right. Each one began encircling Spectra like a steady orbit of two rotating moons.
“Make sure you stay with me,” Spectra hollered out just as she took the next switchback.
She bounced and slid so far she ran Trixie Two off the road.
“Hey, watch it!” I called out, ready to jump on Trixie Two if I had to. If she went tumbling down the hillside, I knew I could at least get us to safety.
“My McFly hover mods are shit,” Spectra fumed. “I’m all over the place.”
“It’s not the hover mods,” I countered. “Your back end is too loose. You need to shift back to your road tires for this track.”
I could tell Spectra considered what I was saying, as she let a moment pass. The blue fire stopped burning from her hub caps and she dropped, turning her wheels back to normal. As they hit, I could tell she had more control. At least she was driving straight now.
We were about to meet another corner bend in the course.
BOOM!
Dirt and part of the wall exploded just behind us. We took the corner and drifted in sync, but not quickly enough. Another explosion hit.
BOOM!
“The Scabians are bombing us!” Spectra yelled out.
“They are Scabian land mines,” Trixie One yelled out, making one full revolution around Spectra. “Avoid them by looking for the small red dot emanating from their center.”
I looked ahead and saw another Scabian mine dug deep into the dirt. A small dot shone from the center.
“Up ahead. Your 2 o’clock,” I yelled out to Spectra, but she didn’t hear me until the last second.
She swerved left into Trixie One and I. Almost crushed against the cliff side, I hit the brakes and pulled back. I looked up and saw Trixie Two circling her way around the front of Spectra.
BOOM!
The bomb went off and Trixie Two flipped axle over axle over the edge.
“Noooo!” Trixie One screamed.
I grabbed handlebars tight and whipped us over to the edge to look down onto the switchbacks. Trixie Two was rearranging back to an alien form while she hung from Mechanica’s tow cable. She waved, notifying us she was okay.
“She’s good,” I said. “Mechanica has got her.”
“Thank god,” Trixie One exalted. She pulled up to Spectra as we took another bend.
My adrenaline was surging, and I felt my XP rocketing up as I tried to get fancier. I drifted and encircled us around Spectra at the same time.
“Nice move,” Trixie One said.
Up ahead, the next mile looked clear at first, but then I saw a racer. This five-wheeler had giant teeth extending from her tires that allowed her to skip the drifting all together and cling to the mountain with ease. My Visor scanned her stats, and I saw her ability was called Teeth of Titan. It listed her in Pit 5.
“The Shuffle Crystals are ahead,” Spectra said. “What are her other Abilities?”
Alora Akura4
“She’s a Xoian,” I yelled out. “Her abilities are Mag Wheels, McFly, Teeth of Titan, and Tar of Terror.”
Alora Akura struck the dazzling Shuffle Crystals, and they broke away, spewing the rainbow-colored liquid on her. Her active brackets began to shuffle around her Special Abilities. When the bracket finally landed, it fell on McFly.
Alora Akura5
Alora’s five wheels unfolded from her hulls and flipped over, emitting the familiar blue energy from the hub caps. She started slipping and sliding all over the place, unable to keep the traction she wanted to on the muddy track surface.
We were moments away from the Shuffle Crystal array. As Trixie One and Spectra each hit, I saw our abilities randomize. Trixie One’s bracket thankfully landed back on her original. Spectra’s brackets shuffled around and locked onto ‘McFly.’
Shit.
Spectra Saleen6
Spectra’s began to lose control as she veered across the track. She just missed Trixie and I, as we passed her on the outside. I fixated on what was ahead of me: another bend that climbed to the right. I pressed down hard into Trixie One and rebounded her shocks up, catching a slide into a perfect drift rounding the corner. Spectra bumped into the rock wall, but her tough carbon fiber paneling held up.
She swerved back toward the cliff side. My body took over, and I leapt off Trixie One into Spectra. My helmet locked into place, and I could feel every essence of Spectra. Just before we went over, I yanked the vehicle back. The controls were looser than the Trixies, almost feeling like it had a delay in response. I focused on how the McFly mods handled and compensated for the lag in control.
We rocked back and forth like we were on gliding on water.
“What are you doing?” Spectra screamed from her dash.
“I’m helping us win,” I said, watching up ahead. Another bend was coming. Trixie One and Spectra hopped into a drift in perfect succession. I managed her controls, and she didn’t fight back. I swiped on her Total XP and brought the points to her DRIFT Level, bumping them two levels up.
Spectra Saleen7
We turned the corner. A hundred-meter climb was ahead of us and there sparkled another set of Shuffle Crystals.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I yelped.
“Get ready!” Trixie One confirmed.
Alora hit a Shuffle Crystal first and then us. Our Special Abilities lit up and went wild as they shuffled about. I watched Alora Akura’s stats while her Special Ability brackets shuffled around.
Alora Akura8
“Oh shit,” I yelped. “Not good.”
I confirmed I was still on Fixer while Spectra’s brackets landed on Mag Wheels.
Spectra Saleen9
All I knew was that—at any time—she could spew her Tar of Terror and melt my skin off. We landed back on our Mag Wheels and fell to the dirt. Spectra’s driving profile was different now, handling tighter to the road. I hit the brakes, trying to anticipate a blast of scalding oil that would come our way.
“What are you doing?” Spectra asked.
Then Alora Akura’s tail end unfolded and two small pipes came out. Hot oil blasted out of each pipe and coated the track. I swerved us just enough to avoid the boiling goop.
We rounded the corner, and out of the corner of my Visor window a shape move among the volcano side. My attention broke from the road as I watched a creature settle into a perch of some kind. It gathered a firm stance and raised up a lance-shaped object.
“Uh, Trixie One?” I asked. “I think we are being targeted—”
BOOM!
A shot fired from off the course. Trixie One had expected the shot and received the shot. I looked back to see her tumble from vehicle mode to her humanoid one.
“Shit!” I yelled out. “We gotta’ go back for her.”
“No,” Spectra said, fighting me at the controls. “If we do, we lose.”
BOOM!
Another shot rang out. This time Alora Akura took a hit and flew over us. It tore away pieces of her as she flipped backward. I focused on the controls and hightailed the next drifting corner.
I saw the leading cars ahead. There were three of them left. My heart beat into my throat just thinking we were this close to winning.
“We’re gonna’ follow on their rear and draft each one,” I said.
Spectra was quiet and did not object. We pulled up on Pit 3. She was hovering off the ground but unlike the McFly mods. Instead, three circles were spinning in a chaotic fashion around her wheel track. Similar to one of those Tilt-a-twirl rides at a carnival. Somehow the rotating rings created enough centrifugal force from each indiv
idual spin to lift the craft upward. I watched her as she handled the corners and saw it was superior to the McFly add on we had.
Spectra and I pulled our nose just behind her and already saw the energy needed to keep up with her appear to fall. We were shaking n’ baking this girl all right. We waited for another hundred-meter stretch, and then whipped out from behind her as we blew the next corner. The extra boost was enough to slingshot past and leave her in the dust.
The switchbacks had grown shorter in length. I looked up and saw only one more left. We reached the bend and drifted in textbook form. There were two racers ahead of us, but that didn’t matter. I saw the finish line. Behind us, Pit 3 was right on our tail, trying to draft us in the last second.
I hit the new addition that swung Spectra’s rear wing down, spoiling any beneficial air Pit 3 driver would have used. It was too late for her. We crossed the finish line at third place.
I couldn’t believe we had done it.
14
Mach 3000 Club
After being moved to our respective garage Pit 3, we could not believe the luxuries we found. It was almost as if each team member had their own wing in a huge mansion. In addition, each area was tailored to fit each of the members’ needs. The Trixies got a motorcycle stunt track that encircled the whole garage, Mechanica had an array of new tools to execute her custom upgrades, and Spectra had new modifications to the wind tunnel to allow for A/B performance testing.
For me, I was over the moon when my new amenities arrived. First, I no longer needed to carry around my helmet, as it now was folded into my neck brace. A simple swipe up with my palm facing toward me and the Visor appeared around my head via nano technology.
A small box appeared in my Visor, displaying hundreds of titles of my favorite action movies like a streaming service. Now I could kick back and watch some solid flicks in my down time. It made me think of my father for a bit, but my thoughts were interrupted when I heard a knock at my door.