The roar that followed the hover car's launching from the start line was absolutely deafening. It was not just the sound of high-performance engines; it was the violent scream of raw, unbridled power echoing off the subterranean walls of the tunnel as they bolted towards the entrance. The spectators on either side becoming no more than a blur.
Silas reacted with mathematical perfection. His sleek Nova-Wraith shot off the starting line as if fired from a magnetic railgun. There was no wasted kinetic energy, only flawless, silent acceleration that immediately put him in the lead. Behind him, three other challengers lunged forward into the dark, neon lit tunnel.
The first was a hulking, modified industrial crawler wrapped in rusted armor plating, spewing thick clouds of black exhaust. In third, was an aggressively tuned twin-pod hovercraft glowing with a sickeningly bright neon-green underglow. The fourth was a chaotic, asymmetrical street-bike hybrid boasting massive lateral thrusters that threatened to melt anything beside it.
Right on their heels, the Cherry Bomb 86' tore into the fray. Roxi slammed her foot on the accelerator, its engine roaring like a beast. The cherry-red and matte black muscle car left a trail of fire behind it as it gained ground on the twin-pod in front of it. From the driver's seat, she let out a wild, adrenaline-fuel shout, perfectly matching the explosive energy of the race.
Jaxen sat ready in the driver seat of his machine. His eyes were locked on the rapidly shrinking taillights of the pack. He took a deep, steady breath, feeling the familiar, comforting weight of the custom steering wheel in his palms. His instincts were sharp, entirely focused on the chaotic trajectory ahead. He dropped his hand to the primary thrust lever and pushed it forward with a smooth, deliberate force.
Nothing happened.
The engine did not roar, it stuttered. The thrusters did not engage as they were supposed to. Instead, a sickening hollow click echoed inside the cramped cabin, followed immediately by the complete death of his dashboard. The vibrant holographic displays, flickered wildly, violently flashing red before dying out completely. The Svalinn sat paralyzed on the start line as the roar of the other racers faded into the tunnel towards the opening at the end.
No. Not now, Jax thought, his heart slamming against his ribs. He maintained his stoic exterior, but a cold wave of panic washed over him. He was a sitting duck. If he did not move, Silas would automatically win. Vicenzo would collect on the massive wager.
"Jax!" Socket's voice shrieked through the encrypted helmet comms, completely shattering the sudden silence. The energetic mechanic sounded utterly terrified. "Jax, what is happening? My remote telemetry just flatlined! Did the core have a breach? Are you venting plasma?"
"The core is stable, Socket," he replied, his voice remarkably calm despite the catastrophic situation unfolding. He rapidly flipped a series of manual toggle switches on the ceiling panel, praying for a spark. "I have zero power to the primary ignition sequence. The dashboard is completely dead. I am still stalled on the starting line."
"That is impossible!" She cried out, the heavy sound of her flatbed rumbling in the background. "I double-checked every single connection after we repelled those chrome goons! Wait. The temporary bypass cable, the primary housing might be compromised. Its secondary relay for the starting sequence could be loose!"
Jax immediately knew she was right. He looked down at the central console. Taking the time to properly unscrew the protective panel, locate the loose relay, and manually reattach the delicate wiring. Five minutes later, which felt like an eternity in the fast paced world he lived in, got the component fixed and closed the panel, and screwed it back in.
"Socket, brace your audio receptors," he warned sharply. He raised his right fist, wrapped tightly in his weather-beaten glove, and brought it down with tremendous, punishing force directly on to the center of the dashboard casing. The physical impact echoed loudly inside his cockpit, barely muffled by his helmet. He hit it a second time, putting his entire weight of his shoulder behind the strike, violently jarring the internal components.
On the third brutal strike, a loud, familiar whine began to build deep within the rear chassis. The dashboard abruptly flared back to life, bathing Jax's face in an intense, unstable violet hue. The Cinder-7 core violently engaged, shaking the entire interceptor as the molecular structure stabilized just barely within safe parameters.
"I have ignition," Jax stated, immediately grabbing the steering wheel. Without waiting for Socket's relieved response, Jax slammed the thrust lever forward. The Svalinn-7 launched off the stating line with terrifying ferocity. Pushed back into his seat by the sudden acceleration, he made quick time getting to the end of the tunnel and onto the streets of Neo Mont Delmore. Though, he was still a solid ten seconds behind the pack, a massive deficit to overcome, but the race was far from over.
As he shot out from the tunnel, he was entirely swallowed by the shadows of the towering buildings around him, illuminated by the flickering neon signs and advertisements that covered their exteriors. The air rushing past his canopy was thick with the falling sheets of rain. The repulsor discs on the interceptor kicked up water from puddles as he flew by them. Its engine core threw heavy torque to its repulsor discs.
Ahead of him, the streets began to twist and turn unpredictably. This was where Jax excelled. He did not rely on pre-programmed route maps or clinical algorithms. He felt the subtle vibrations in the steering column, listening to the agonizing scream of the discs on the bottom of his machine, and let his instincts guide his hands. As he drifted through a sharp right-angled turn, the rear of the Svalinn missed the concrete barrier by mere millimeters.
Miles ahead, in the pristine, luxurious Nova-Wraith, Silas was experiencing a completely different race. The cabin was perfectly silent, insulated from the violent noise of the streets. He tested his fingertips lightly on the controls, his calculating grey eyes scanning a complex array of real-time telemetry displays. Navigating the treacherous curves with clinical, robotic precision. He did not feel the thrill of the speed; he only saw variables smoothly resolving into absolute certainties.
He tapped a secondary screen, bringing up the rear-facing scanner data. The Cherry Bomb fighting aggressively with the three amateur racers, but his focus was entirely on the unique energy signature of Jax's machine. He watched the data feed closely. At the start, he noticed that Jax had stalled. A cruel, arrogant smile crept across his face, he was sure he already had this race in the bag.
Although the telemetry showed he was finally moving, the ten-second gap was mathematically impossible to close against a driver of Silas's caliber. "You are finished, Trace," he muttered to himself, his voice dripping with condescension. "You should have surrendered the garage when you had the chance. Vicenzo will enjoy putting you to work in my chop shop." He pressed a specialized button on his console, sending a heavily encrypted ping into the city's automated transit grid. It was time to introduce a new variable and permanently eliminate the stragglers behind him.
Back in the depths of the neon canyons, Jax was pushing his machine far beyond its recommended safety limits. The violet flames erupted from his thrusters illuminated the dark streets, adding a brilliant light to the surrounding neon. Making him look like a comet shooting through the void of space. He was moving so fast the glowing circuit board advertisements blurred into continuous ribbons of bright, chaotic colors.
As he rounded a massive, sweeping left turn, the thick smoke of the industrial crawler finally came into view. Jax had caught the back of the pack. The rusted crawler was occupying the absolute center of the street, making it a dangerous obstacle. To its right, the street-bike hybrid was desperately trying to find a clear passing lane, its lateral thrusters violently kicking up sparks against the buildings next to it.
Jax closed the distance in seconds. The driver of the crawler spotted the glowing violet interceptor in his rear view cameras. Rather than holding his line, the crawler maliciously swerved to the left attempting to completely block Jax's ability to pass and crush the Svalinn against the buildings.
Instead of panicking, his piercing ice-blue eyes tracked the crawler's movement. He downshifted aggressively, causing his engine to howl in protest. Without breaking entirely, he jerked the steering wheel hard to the left, aiming directly for the curved, angled concrete wall that was coming up fast. As he engaged the secondary magnetic repulsors built into the undercarriage the Svalinn drove up the curved wall, defying gravity for a brief moment. Jax rode the vertical surface of the wall, passing the crawler. The G-force pressed against his chest, making it profoundly difficult to breathe for a passing moment.
As soon as he cleared the massive vehicle, he smashed a button on the right side of the cockpit wall making the secondary repulsors expel a burst of energy, kicking the Svalinn off the wall and dropping his machine back onto the street violently. He quickly upshifted, rocketing clear of the stunned crawler and choking on the dust kicked up from his landing. The violet hue from his engine core faded into the distance through the haze.
He was rapidly approaching the street-bike hybrid that was able to snake past the crawler when it had attempted to smash Jax against the walls moments before. All of a sudden, a blaring emergency siren echoed throughout the streets. Directly ahead, the automated transit grid was starting to violently malfunction. A heavy steel barricade began to rise up through the street. A large unmanned cargo train diverted off its scheduled path, entirely blocking the racing corridor. It was a lethal trap that had to of been triggered by Silas.
The rider on the street-bike panicked, locking up his brakes. His repulsors lost traction against the wet asphalt, his rear end beginning to fish tail back and forth. The bike spun violently out of control, crashing hard into a pile of barrels and bursting into a spectacular ball of yellow fire. Thrown clear, the rider slid safely into a drainage ditch, but his race was over.
Jax, however, had absolutely no time to break. The massive cargo platform was moving rapidly across the street, leaving only a tiny, shrinking gap between the bottom of the platform and the slick asphalt. He did not hesitate. Relying entirely on raw, unthinking instinct, he cut the power to his repulsors, dropping the Svalinn onto the pavement. Still maintaining its speed with the rear thrusters propelling it forward, he aimed for the narrowing gap.
He slid under the massive steel platform. The noise was apocalyptic. A terrifying shower of bright orange sparks exploded all around the Svalinn as it passed through. For two agonizing seconds, he was entirely enveloped in the shower of burning metal and the deafening screeching from the scraping. As he shot out the other side he hit the reset toggle, and the repulsors erupted back to life. Lifting the machine back into the air and stabilizing his wild trajectory. He had survived the obstacle.
"Holy hell, Jax!" Toni's voice exploded through encrypted comm channel.
Jax looked ahead. Toni, Roxi and the Cherry Bomb were drifting beautifully through the final curves of the sector, followed close by the twin-pod hovercraft. Roxi was pushing the muscle car to its limits, her fierce and reckless driving style a stark contrast to his or Silas's own style. "I see you guys. Did you like that?" He replied with a laugh, and a smirk touching his lips as he wiped a drop of sweat from his brow.
"That was insane! And you call us crazy." Toni replied. "I am tracking your telemetry. We thought you were dead back there at the starting line," she continued with a laugh, the intense relief incredibly obvious in her voice. "I should have known better. You are too stubborn to let a little mechanical failure get in the way of our partnership. But you missed a lot of the fun up here."
"The real fun is just about to begin now," Roxi's voice chimed in, her tone sharp and pragmatic. "Silas is still leading the pack, and that annoying twin-pod is riding our bumper. We are about to exit the lower-sector and cross the bridge. The first leg of the sprint is almost complete." She finished, a loud smash filling in the space her words left.
Jax checked the dashboard, the engine temperature was running dangerously hot, but the core was holding steady. They had successfully navigated the chaotic lower Sumps, but the real challenge was looming just over the horizon. "Socket, what is your status?" He asked, seamlessly switching channels.
"I am holding position at the maintenance alcove just past the bridge," Socket answered promptly. Her voice was much calmer now than it had been at the beginning of the race. "I saw your maneuver under that cargo platform. That was completely insane, Jax. You are lucky the interceptor didn't get decapitated."
"Luck had nothing to do with it," Jax replied stoically. "Prepare the heavy thermal paste. I might need the rolling pit stop sooner than anticipated. The roughest part of the canyons are coming up next."
As the Cherry Bomb, being tailed by twin-pod and Jax's Svalinn-7 blasted across the bridge, the lights of the lower Sump's began to fall away. The torrential rain battered their windshields as they accelerated, all three of the machines being pushed to their limits. The roar of the engines echoing off the bridge and into the chasm below. The first brutal leg of the sprint was officially complete, but the nightmare was just waiting in the shadows ahead.