Robin carefully observed the door that was decorated with many blue lines in his vision. He tried to understand which parts belonged to the lock and which were additional security measures. Quickly he identified the different systems and understood their assembly …mostly.

‘Without the ability to manipulate the energy on the other side, like Jim was controlling the little metal balls, this is useless. All I can tell is that the door is locked and booby-trapped twice…ugh’ He sighed, all his advancements and training couldn’t help him in this situation.

‘Well, time for plan B.’ He focused his senses inside the room and quickly found what he was looking for. Careful to not miss anything, he searched a bit longer before he canceled his mutation and turned to Jim.

“Are you done?” He asked, “I have made the preparations for plan B already.”

“Hehe, don’t fret it. You are already doing awesome stuff, even without being able to manipulate energies!” Jim chuckled and stepped to the door.

“How many?”

“Only one, no weapons or at least none that is powered. I’ll keep watching.”

Jim grunted and simply knocked at the door. Meanwhile, Robin switched back to his enhanced vision and saw the floating body-heat generator only move a bit. Whoever was on the other side tried to play dead.

“You will have to be a bit more convincing…by the way, from where I suspect his head to be, it is either a child or a Mohait.” Robin shrugged.

“Fine…” Jim said and knocked again, “Oi, open up. It’s me and we have to hurry a bit, there isn’t much time left before the duel begins.”

Robin saw the floating body-heat generator coming closer and another object appeared in his sight.

“He’s opening the door, but powered on an energy gun. Roughly here…” Robin explained and showed Jim at which place he could expect the gun to be after the door opened.

They heard a few clicks from the door, before it slowly swung inwards. Robin mimicked the movement of the gun on the other side the whole time. The moment the lock was open, Jim tapped into his mutation to yank at the pistol, while shoving the door with a sudden but powerful push at the same time.

Inside the room a Mohait was tumbling backwards over the floor. His nose was bloody and his fluffy tail looked a bit ruffled. The grimace on his face showed his displeasure and anger…well, they always have a pretty strange look, but deducing from the situation, Robin was pretty sure the man wasn’t wearing a happy face right now.

While Jim picked up the gun, Robin sprinted towards the Mohait that tried to stand up and knocked him out with a well aimed punch to his temple.

“You always dreamed of doing that, didn’t you?” Jim mocked him and closed the door.

“...I just had to make sure the training with Patience paid off!” He came up with lame excuse and took a look around.

“That girl showed you how to beat up midgets?” Jim laughed, “At least own up to it, you saw your chance to not be on the losing side of a ‘fight’ for once, that’s all!”

“We should start, right?” Robin ignored the jabs and changed the topic back to the problem at hand.

They stood in a room that was one part office, one part bedroom and one part workshop. All in all pretty messy and Robin had to think of Slice’s laboratory. Together they went to a desk where a computer was running. To the side were two joysticks placed and the display showed data of the duel’s track, ship information and some stuff about routines that could be turned on or off.

“Please tell me, that’s what you were expecting! You know how to use this?” Robin asked without the playfulness from before. If they messed up and this was just some Apex staff doing his proper job, they would be royally fucked.

“Yup, what you see here is a system that grants something like a remote access to bio-technology upgrades. You should leave and join the spectators, I’ll lock the door and prepare to give you quite the show!”

Robin walked back to the door and checked the hallway once with his mutation, before he slipped out.

“Thanks mate, I really owe you for this one.” He said and vanished.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

***

As Robin watched Niu powering up her ship and the reporter introducing the event to his community, he once again was a bit overwhelmed by the rapidly escalating situation since yesterday.

After he had his talk about their future with Happy, he offered her his support in beating Hopewing on a whim. He began to explain his history with the Cetro from TechnoBlood and what kind of compensation they demanded. While she was once more surprised by all the shit that Robin apparently attracted, like a magnet for bad luck, she was hit quite hard by the accusations of Hopewing being a cheater.

Robin had to describe in detail what he learned already and she wanted to hear his findings from his senses at least five times. For Niu, cheating was one of the worst things someone could do in the racing scene. It kills all the fun and therefore takes her most loved way to enjoy her life.

After she was finally somewhat convinced, she gave additional insights to the impending ramifications of exposing Hopewing. As he was Apex’s mascot, she was pretty certain the company knew of his scamming, but they had to make sure that it didn’t get smeared too, when shit hits the fan. They still wanted the Apex Cup to continue and therefore were more than willing to help the company keep its vest clean.

That evening Jim also arrived on Ruca II, together with all other guests, and they quickly got him aboard. He could provide much additional information on how this all works from a technical perspective and helped in creating a plan. Robin only had to find the control room for the whole scam-setup from Hopewing and get them a chance to expose the illegal activities.

That was how he came to sit here in this PTV, together with a dude from the news and the person in charge of this Apex-event, waiting for the instigated show to unfold. He watched as the counter ticked down until it finally hit zero and the two ships shot ahead.

‘I really hope this works out!’ Robin thought as fear and anxiety gripped his heart.

***

Hopewing on the other hand had no fears at all, he wasn’t even nervous - only annoyed and really, really pissed.

“Those damn fuckers, do they really think I won all these races by pure luck? Its fucking skill…and some backup support. But definitely no luck - what do they hope to achieve? The damn midget of the Alaris family - if she hadn’t such a big name as backing, I would have Apex kicked them out even before the finals.” The man cursed under his breath while he waited for the timer to run out.

“This must be something personal for her and the boy just went along with it to put me in a situation where I couldn't back down from a challenge. Ah damn imbeciles and bumpkins, I’m really looking forward to leaving this damn system once and for all!” He shook his head and finally concentrated on the track: 30 seconds remaining…

“Oi, Jeralop, how is the connection doing?” he asked over a private comm channel but didn’t get an answer.

“Jeralop? Are you sleeping or what?” - nothing.

…20 seconds remaining…

Hopewing gave all his systems a quick check and everything seemed fine. He had a connection to the control station and all, but why was that damn Mohait not responding?

“I’ll personally see to it, that you get your ass kicked so hard, that you’ll fly from this fucking moon all the way back to Rucasur faster than any ship we have!” Hopewing snarled over the comm and finally saw a small notification from the control station pop up in his vision, informing him that all systems were ready.

…5 seconds remaining…

Hopewing gripped his joysticks and gave the vixen in the other ship a last glance.

“I’ll not just win, I’ll fucking crush you!” He growled and pushed his Jolt V3 forward the moment the timer ran out.

Immediately he positioned himself in front of Niu and flew along the straight like a flash. He had to fight hard against the g-forces, but since it was a short track, he didn’t have to be careful with his resources and could go all out. Only when he hit 412 m/s did he stop his acceleration. The long, sharp turn was rapidly coming closer and Hopewing flinched once - was he too fast for even the remote control to get him around the curve?

Nahh... he pushed the thoughts to the back of his head and cheered a bit after he realized how far ahead of Niu he already was.

‘You will not be able to ever raise your head again, girl! I’ll show you how much you are lacking!’

With a mental note, he activated the remote access for the control station. The AI-system would take over a part of his neural system and use his bio-enhancement to micromanage his movements to steer the ship. As the turn came closer and closer, he prepared himself and closed his eyes.

“Argh..fuck…” He cursed as the system sent electric pulses along his nerves to jerk at his arms and hands. Hopewing’s mind barely registered the maneuvers his ship made to guide him along the track. He only felt the piercing pain as his nerves began to burn and rupture under the strain…

Should be over in a second…

Any moment now…

“Argh…what the hell?” Hopewing forced himself to open his eyes as the pain just didn’t want to subside. It never stayed for so long and his body wouldn’t be able to bear the strain for much longer.

But the system kept sending pulses into his neural system, grilling him slowly and painfully from the inside. Just as Hopewing was about to pass out, he saw the skin on his arms rupturing and blood spill out en masse, only then the pain in his neck finally stopped. No more electricity was pumped into his body.

Muddleheaded he realized that his ship had come to a stop but couldn’t spare much attention to that, as he had to focus on his mutation to not bleed to death right here and now.

While he slipped in and out of consciousness, he suddenly heard the canopy of his ship getting unlocked from the outside. Opening his heavy eyes once more, he looked in many shocked faces and a flying camera drone.

“What the fuck…?” Hopewing began but luckily was finally embraced by darkness, as his mind went into temporal shutdown.