Everyone calls me the Driver. I don't particularly mind it, because I've honestly forgotten my real name. Before the outbreak, I was 97 years old and losing my memories from Alzheimer's slowly eating away my brain.
It was rather fascinating when the zombies shambled into the retirement home and started eating people. They completely ignored a number of us because we were basically already brain dead. I only got scratched by accident.
My only clear memories before the zombies were of my younger days when I was a fanatical street racer, and the numerous times I acted as a getaway driver for bank heists.
Even now, when I feel 80 years younger but still in an old man's body, I am fascinated with all forms of racing. It's not just about speed though. It's about using a vehicle to dance past obstructions and skim through tight corners. The thrill of risking your life to make an impossible turn.
And now, almost 7 months after the outbreak, while the city is on the verge of a war and building defences, Zorai the energy being has posted a job request with a significant monetary reward for what everyone else considers to be a pointless waste of time.
Not for me though. This is the moment in my life where I finally get a chance to test my ability to interface with a vehicle flawlessly. More importantly, this is my chance to race again!
As soon as I saw the job request, I applied to the system. The waiting queue was already filled with a handful of desperate people hoping for the million credit payout if they survive. Not win, but just survive the race at all. I almost cried when I realised this race was going to be something I'd dreamed about. A dream that even Alzheimer's couldn't take from me.
I walked into the plaza when my watch pinged and let me know it was time to get ready for the race. The job request didn't actually have that much information, only saying that we would be testing a new machine with a totally new method of interfacing.
The crowds were significantly rowdier than usual, and I quickly realise why. As I push through the crowds, I see them. The most perfect machines to have ever been created.
They were just floating there motionless like they were stuck in the air somehow. The hatch was open, and the inside looked like a comfortably padded pod that you just lay inside. There was no wings, or wheels or even anything for the person to interact with inside the pod.
It looked like a car sized floating coffin, but with a sleek, angular design and various cavities acting as some kind of wind tunnels that would stabilise this… missile of a vehicle.
The pod was about 3 metres long and a metre wide and high. It gave off a gentle hum as it just sat there, frozen in place. I could feel myself nearly vibrating along with it.
As I stared, a white coat approached the crowd being kept back by drones and then scanned me with some kind of laser.
"Driver. You are applicant number 23. Please follow me for your implant."
The closest golem then separated the crowd around me, and I mindlessly followed after the white coat while keeping my eyes locked on the vessel.
Everything sort of blurred together then. I felt a sharp pain in my neck and then felt myself falling. When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing on a white platform surrounded by thousands of streams of light, all moving around and colliding with each other.
Some of the longest ones snaked completely around the space I was in, the distance I simply couldn't judge with my eyes, I almost intuitively knew, there was no such thing as size or distance in this place.
Then, in a flash of light, a floating ball of light with layers moving out from a complex mass of firefly's buzzing around in the centre appeared out of nowhere next to me.
"This is quite surprising. You have almost instinctively dropped into your Brain Matrix and started sharing information with it."
I 'felt' the light being pointing at something and noticed spirals of more streams of light pouring in from nowhere, corrupting and mingling with the light streams and then even more energy bands just, leaving. As if passing through some invisible hole I can't quite see yet.
"Who are you? Where am I?" I turned to the light creature and asked the first things that came to mind.
"Oh. Introductions then. Greetings Driver, I am the energy being Zoetic Research Artificial Intelligence. You may call me Zorai. This place is something like a visualisation of your… Brain Matrix? Honestly, it was an unexpected reaction from humans to the latest brain matrix implant. These light bands are more or less the data and understanding of how the Racer Mk1 operates and how you interact with it."
I then 'felt' Zorai pointing again towards the invading light bands.
"Those energy bands are something akin to your memories, experiences and personality entering this space and absorbing the knowledge here. At the moment, these are the only things stored inside the Matrix you were implanted with. It is potentially feasible for you to upload information from others as well, but I strongly advise against such an action unless it is a trusted source. The data in the matrix at the moment has been more or less refined into only information by myself and cannot effectively alter you personally. However, other people's memories may irrevocably change you at a fundamental level, though I have yet to have a chance to properly research this as I am more focused on the race at present. It is only a guess anyway, it may not turn out that way."
I then felt the entire Matrix space shudder for a moment as Zorai did something.
"I have set up a very basic security system in your mind, that will help protect against biased data or thoughts in the future, but it is only the most basic of protections. You can upgrade it yourself later, or purchase security personally created by myself from the Zorai Store."
The whole space shuddered again, this time almost throwing me off my imaginary platform as a huge rush of energy bands poured into the space nearly tripling the number of light streams.
"Ah, apologies. That one is apparently a bit more difficult for you humans. I just uploaded a few instructions on how best to utilise this space, how you can interact with it and build energy bands for imbuements or spells and various other interesting trivia including some interesting research data I'd love to collect from you based on your interactions with the space. It will probably take about a week for your mind to finish digesting all that though, and I am growing impatient, so I will be… helping you along a little bit."
---
A chorus of 23 peoples screaming came from a tent nearby the floating racers in the central plaza. The few thousand people that weren't busy getting ready for a war had all crowded around the area to observe this new racing sport.
Everyone cringed a little and reaffirmed that they were not in any rush to join the race after those terrifying screams. Although almost everyone alive in Central City had faced pain and death since the outbreak, that didn't mean they were willing to go through it again just for a million credits with a small chance of even surviving.
After the screams carried on for nearly a minute, they abruptly cut off. Nearly ten minutes later, 18 of the contestants left the tent, some covered in blood for unknown reasons.
That said, they all had an unnatural glow in their eyes and were staring at the flying machines feverishly. As they all moved to separate machines to get ready, the freight elevator behind the red line came up along with a giant box. On the box sat Rat Shack in a futuristic hovering chair.
A duo of golems floated over and carried the box into the very centre of the plaza, just outside the tunnel entrance. With a flourishing bow, Rat Shack stood atop the box and faced no one in particular. The box then started lighting up, and a huge realistic looking hologram of Rat Shack bowing was projected into the air above the city.
"Ladiiiies and Gentlemen! I, Rat Shack, have the pleasure of introducing the first ever Vector Rally of Central City!"
Like crowds do, the crowds in the plaza immediately reacted to Rat Shack's theatrical introduction and started cheering, if they weren't completely sure what they were cheering about.
"We have quite a treat for all the survivors of Central City today! I know a lot of people are getting nervous with all the war preparations in the city and so to help everyone blow off a little steam, Zorai has worked himself to the Core Matrix to present everyone with a chance to just relax a little and enjoy a good show!"
Rat Shack then made a flourish with his hands, and then a giant projection of the world appeared in his hands.
"For the first ever Vector Rally, Zorai has planned out a course to push our contestants to the limits of the human mind. The course is so rigorous, that Zorai himself intends to fly it to test his own limits."
Rat Shack then seemed to spin the globe around and pointed at the east coast of Australia. The projection zoomed into a satellite view of the city, and little blinking markers started popping up heading off the projected map.
"For your entertainment, and the sweet, delicious data, the course planned out today will be a race through a series of bizarre obstacles around Central City. Starting right here, the racers will need to make their way to the very edge of the outlands, dodging antiair munitions as they pass over the invading army and then moving through… The Emu Parade!"
A hush of whispers and gasps fell over the crowd as they watched the map follow the route through the savannahs beyond the forest and on the edge of the deserts, heading north.
The entire savannah of grass, red dirt and sparse trees are inhabited by the flightless birds known as Emus. After the mutations of the virus, this flightless bird gained giant talons for feet and legs powerful enough to jump hundreds of metres in one go, they were quite probably the fastest ground-based animal now in existence.
They are an absolute plague in the savannah biome, and about the only creature that's worse than that are the giant wombats.
"The route will head north past thousands of emus and then into the Wombat Warren about 300km north of the city, where they will have to tackle the tight corners of the giant network of tunnels created by the wombats native to the region. If they are particularly unlucky, they may even fly directly into one of the beasts! This will require constant monitoring of the senses by the pilots to pick the right tunnels and avoid any wildlife. Not to mention that many routes will only have a margin of error for turning within metres.”
The map then continued on with the next 40 km of the route obviously underground. It then came out just near the edge of the coast and passed out over the great barrier reef.
"And for the trip home, the contestants will need to dodge the relentless attempts of the coral reef trying to skewer them with coral spears as they come back down the coast. Finally, with the help of our friendly Dolphin neighbours, Zorai has created a minefield of flying laser-wielding dolphins for nearly 20km as they fly back in from sea!"
The crowd was now roaring and cheering at the sheer madness of the race. Everyone agreed the likely hood of anyone actually making it back was tiny. But the chance to watch people shed blood, sweat and tears in such a violent seeming blood sport was fantastic, especially when everyone was so worked up from the coming war.
Rat Shack then raised his hands placatingly, and the crowd in the plaza hushed, even as more and more people started crowding in to find out what was going on.
"Now, for us to follow these brave contestants on their travels, Zorai has already peppered the entire route in cameras and sensors feeding directly back here to this very projection!"
While Rat Shack was hyping up the crowd and introducing the race, the various contestants had already settled into their pods. The first thing almost everyone did was drop into their Matrix Space and customise the designs of their ships.
Just as Rat Shack finished speaking, all the vessels suddenly shimmered, and various patterns and images appeared on the ships.
One of them was gloss black and had a skeleton sitting in a car while looking at the disconnected steering wheel in its hands as if confused.
An almost pure white one lined up on the start mark and with only the logo of his guild on the side.
Another looked like it had just mowed down a group of zombies and had images all along it that looked like it had come out of a zombie filled grinder.
Everyone appreciated the designs as the giant hologram split apart over the square, showing the satellite map as well as the various crafts lining up ready to go.
Some of them had a bit of a shaky time just getting into position, and everyone was already writing them off.
The last vessel to the go line was sky blue and simply had Zorai written across the sides.
Finally, Rat Shack noticed everyone was ready and smiled widely in the projection.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the first ever Vector Rally. Contestants! Ready! Set! GO!"
His voice echoed out over the city, and half a dozen of the ships shot off from the start line like rockets creating sonic booms over the city as they powered away along the route.
One of the ships simply imploded in on itself and fell to the ground in a shower of blood and metal. Another exploded in fire and shrapnel, taking out the two ships next to it.
All the rest cruised out slowly at first and then rapidly started picking up speed as they did twists and turns, seemingly just playing around with the ships.
Zorai remained on the start line, not moving an inch.
"Oh! And they're away! Already we've lost 4 contestants to poor piloting skills! Fighting for the lead are the Wife Beater's James McGuire and The Glade's Jasmine Weissler. Following close behind them by a matter of metres are the Twins, Gregory and Justin Harris, both keeping on the tales of our leaders like flies to shit! Oh, and what's this! Zorai hasn't even left the start line yet? He seems to just be sitting there!"
As Rat Shack started commentating, Charles appeared out of nowhere and sat down on the box. He seemed to be playing with his watch for a second until his voiced boomed out alongside Rat Shacks!
"Err… testing. One two!"
Rat Shack smiled widely and could already guess what Charles was doing here.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears we have a guest commentator for today's affair, Charles Von'Mighty! The Main Man!"
"Hahaha! It's great to be here Rat Shack! How's the race looking so far?"
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"It was a smashing start from our lead contestants, but from what I'm seeing the majority are mostly treating this a pleasure cruise!" Rat Shack exclaimed in mock outrage.
"Ahh yes! Well, it's probably prudent to take this first ten or twenty kilometres to familiarise themselves with the ships. Those leaders are either very confident in their ability to adapt on the fly, or are mistaking the ease of use of the ship for their own abilities."
"Oh? It sounds like you might know a thing or two about the technology behind these ships. Have you got advice to help our viewers understand the caution being shown by the 18 contestants that have barely left the city, or perhaps even some insight into why Zorai is waiting at the start line?"
As they spoke, the leading vessels had just left the city and were already passing into the forests heading towards the massing zombie horde and army to the north west.
"Oh yes! It's cutting edge tech, probably years beyond what human technicians are currently capable of manufacturing themselves. It relies on tapping into the human's mind and powers, allowing a significant amount of freedoms with how you interact with your ship. As you saw at the start of the race, some people obviously couldn't handle the data interaction between mind and ship, and caused themselves to self-destruct."
"I see, I see. So what about Zorai, and perhaps even some specs on the performance of these racers."
"Well, most likely, Zorai is waiting for the group who are testing the limits of their ships now to get series before he joins in. Being the designer, he has a significant advantage over the others and naturally feels it necessary to handicap himself a little. Don't mistake this for him looking down on human potential. Zorai himself admits there are many things humans do subconsciously that he has difficulty replicating. I think you'll find the subconscious mind of humans to be very powerful in ships like these."
As Charles spoke, the majority of the contestants just playing with their ships started taking off along the root, letting out sonic booms over the city as they shot out towards the forests.
"Oh and look at that! Looks like our contestants are firing up their ships and chasing after the leaders already!"
Charles nodded his head.
"Of course. The operation of the ship will naturally become intuitive over time, but with their playing around they've actually calibrated themselves just as much as the ship. That's how in tune they would be with the machine while connected through the new Brain Matrix implants. It's a good thing they did too, considering that the ship is powerful enough to reach Mach 6 in under a minute. More importantly, the thing can slow to a full stop in half that time! It can move in almost any direction at top speed but was severely limited in altitude for the purposes of this race, only reaching about 100 metres from the ground at a maximum."
The holograms zoomed into the leading group as they swerved past giant trees reaching over a hundred metres throughout the forest easily. The two leaders were drifting through the treetops effortlessly, and the twins were locked on their tails like heat seekers.
About a hundred metres behind them were the other two off the mark racers that were apparently having a bit more trouble dodging trees and had slowed significantly after hitting the forest.
"What are those two twins up to? Aren't they afraid of clipping the two leaders when sticking that close to them in the confines of the forest?"
Charles laughed at the question and smiled.
"Of course I'm sure they are worried about that, but most likely they are coasting in the wake of the leader's slipstream. It's not only saving them energy, but also they only need to focus on keeping aloft in the slipstream to dodge things. They probably can't even see where they're going and are almost entirely relying on instinct."
"I just realised! How exactly are they following the route so closely? I haven't seen any markers in the forest."
"Most likely, Zorai has designated a corridor of airspace about 300 metres wide that they have to stay inside of. He'll be tracking everything via satellite and relaying how close someone is to the edge of the zone. I can't say what happens when they leave it, because I don't know. Knowing Zorai though, they will probably explode into a ball of fire or be shot by some satellite laser cannon. It's hard to say for certain."
Finally, the leader burst out from the forests, directly overhead the zombie horde. Almost immediately, spears of bone were being launched like missiles from Quill Zombies. A visible shimmer of energy appeared over the racers, and they shot out overhead the by now hundred thousand strong army.
In the centre of the horde was a series of vehicles and command tents all stacked next to each other. While the army and horde only covered about 5 km of distance, the air was filled by Quill Zombie spears. More worryingly, about 4 of the armoured vehicles in the centre had anti-air Gatling guns.
---
"Oh Shit!" Muttered Jasmine as she saw the walls of bone spears flying through the air.
She ramped up the Mini Generator in the ship as she pushed the protective shield of the ship to the max and pumped everything else into forward thrust. She was planning to push the limits of speed and just blow through the barrage of spears.
She saw in her sensors that the annoying twin that had been on her tail since the beginning was suddenly backing off and falling into a dodging pattern with her brother.
The moment of hesitation seeing this cost her first place as Gregory punched his ship into high gear and a massive ripple of air spread out from him like a weapon, blowing everything in the air that didn't hit his shield into total disarray.
"Fuck caution! See you boys at the finish line!" She joyously yelled over the coms to the twins as she followed suit, sending out a massive echo from her jet stream as she pushed through the sound barrier and beyond.
A few bone spears connected with her shield, but having Gregory push ahead had cleared most of the airspace.
Until the four Gatling guns in the centre of the formation swung around, and completed covered the sky directly overhead the camp in exploding shrapnel as the HPE bullets in the weapons exploded at exactly 100 metres altitude.
Gregory's ship passed straight into the shrapnel field and a huge fireball came out the other side, ploughing into the horde and blowing about hundreds of zombies and demons in the resulting explosion.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit! Fuck it!" Having barely a second to react, Jasmine dipped her ship so low to the ground that zombie's heads were exploding from the air pressure before her ship even reached them. Barely 2 metres from the ground she spun the ship and cut in between two of the armoured vehicles like threading cotton through a needle.
The shockwave that followed her through the camp killed dozens nearby and completely deafened the rest of the camp as she blew through a tent and out the other end, shooting off towards the savannah on the other side of the horde.
"HAHAHAHA! Eat a dick army guys!"
Quickly following her lead, the twins and then the two slower following racers did ground level flyby's of the base, killing dozens more just from the massive shockwave as they approached Mach 6, trying to catch up to the lead.
The wake of their jet streams killed tens of thousands of zombies, especially wherever they were closer to the ground, where huge canals of dirt and mushy zombies had been carved from the sheer force of the air pressure exploding behind them.
Of course, this was just the beginning. A dozen more racers suddenly burst out of the forest trying to pass through the horde. Some of them already coming out so close to the ground that their acceleration simply cut a huge line through the horde.
Out of civic duty, the followers even spread out the damage a bit more, clearing out tens of thousands more zombies.
---
The crowd in the Central City Plaza was going absolutely ballistic watching their enemies getting shredded into a paste because they were an obstacle in Zorai's whimsical Vector Rally.
Captain Sam was watching the hologram with his retinue of advisers taking as many notes of the enemy in between rabid cheering whenever he witnessed some of them explode.
The whole time the city was going wild of the sudden pre-emptive strike on their enemies, Zorai was silently sitting in sector 0 trying to make an HPE fist that could smack his energy body. The energy being was so blinded by the desire to have this race that it completely overlooked the war potential of these vehicles. Even if the shock waves only killed tens of thousands of zombies, half the humans in that base probably already had their heads explode.
Zorai immediately regretted the choice of race course, and even more regretted making the ship itself a prize for finishing before itself. It had figured that the overwhelming advantage from the humans only just learning to fly the ships would be too much for there to be a need to push itself, but based on data he was receiving from them, he may not even be able to catch up without cheating. Which he refused to even contemplate.
The interaction between the human subconscious and the Matrix implant was far beyond his speculated potential of the technology and seemed to almost make the machine a part of the human in an intrinsic way.
Regardless, feeling for the first time in his life that his superiority was being challenged, he felt excitement. Normally this was only felt when conducting science, but now, a simple race, the desire to win, had excited him far more than he'd ever expected.
No longer willing to wait, and not willing to give up any more advantages, Zorai moved his entire being into the Racer. By this point, he'd already put into place everything he needed for the civilisation he built to operate without him present.
His unfiltered and unbiased data was all backed up onto the Core Network Matrix.
For the first time in… ever, Zorai was leaving the safety of his hole and testing his limits.
The moment his body was snuggly fit in his racer, he pushed the generator to the maximum. The racer began to let out a low hum that reverberated through the air. His racer was building up so much energy that it was glowing.
"Holy shit! Looks like Zorai is getting ready to take part in this race!"
"What the fuck? Zorai, is that your real body in there?" Charles slightly worried voice echoed over the city and everyone stared wide-eyed as the ship Zorai was in started vibrating.
The other racers had already pushed halfway through the savannah and were fast approaching the wombat tunnels as they dodged leaping emus breaking the sound barrier as they jumped toward their targets.
"No way! You heard it ladies and gentlemen of Central City! Our magnanimous overlord is stepping out into the field himself. Putting his life on the line and risking it all in a show of solidarity with his human competitors!"
"Fuck! Zorai! You better not be…"
*KABOOM!!*
The air around the ship exploded with a shockwave that knocked everyone in the plaza on their asses.
Zorai's ship shot towards the forest so fast that the cameras could barely track him. Like a missile, he passed into the forest encroaching on the city, blowing trees apart in a shower of wood chips and branches.
"Fuck me sideways! Did you see that start! If I didn't already know better, I'd have thought they were driving completely different ships! How did he get that kind of acceleration from standing still?!"
Charles stood up with wide eyes as he watched Zorai's ship carving through the forest like a blur. The ship was leaving scarcely any space between the hull and the trees as it passed them, Zorai pushing the vessel to the brink of collapse as it accelerated towards Mach 4 even in such a crowded area.
Charles let out a long breath and stared at the projections. The leading group just passed into the tunnels and had slowed significantly as they navigated the turns. Jasmine still held a substantial lead on the others, but already the twins were hot on her tail with about 5 more already challenging them for the 2nd and 3rd place.
"That would be vector compression. What he did at take-off was apply just the right vectors to his 100 vector drives to keep building up an explosive force. Like stretching out a rubber band. When he finally moved all his vectors into forward acceleration, the huge amount of energy his vector drives had built up while fighting each other was redirected into thrust for his machine. Most likely, he pushed his machine to the very edge of collapse before letting it go. It was technically unnecessary, the little brat was just showing off."
Charles stood with his arms crossed and a wry smile on his face as Zorai broke out of the forest immediately hitting Mach 6 as he touched the stretch of open air.
The army camp started spraying the air with explosive anti-air rounds again and even started firing off missiles to try and keep Zorai in the air.
Zorai's ship continued to accelerate anyway. As the first missile approached, the ship jerked to the down and right as it fishtailed under the missile, almost immediately going vertical and dodging another missile as the first suddenly exploded. Zorai danced through the rain of missiles, all the while cutting through the air at Mach 6, barely leaving enough room between the explosions and the shrapnel.
Then, a trio of missiles closed in from three sides and exploded prematurely, leaving a huge ball of fire hanging in the air, which was quickly sucked into a jet stream and carried through the army camp like an inferno as Zorai's ship blazed through covered in dents and scorched half black.
The crowd went mad as they watched the giant cone of flames chasing the wake of Zorai's ship as another ten thousand odd Zombies were burnt to ash, and the army base was raised to the ground.
Not to be outdone regarding damage, Zorai's ship spun just as it left the horde and everyone watched with wide eye's as the HPE shield around his ship suddenly cracked into thousands of pieces and was shot into the horde by the vector drives firing off micro vector fields.
The hail of half solidified HPE rained into the horde and exploded in a wave of strange pressure similar to Charles', turning tens of thousands of zombies into paste.
All the while, the ship kept speeding away into the savannah at Mach 6. It then did an exaggerated roll and hugged the ground as it turned to face forward and sped across the grasslands towards the Wombat Warren.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! Did you just see that! HAHA! Zorai cleared out half the zombies just by firing his shattered energy shield into them with his vector drives. Now that is some ace flying!"
Rat Shack was getting swept up in his own excitement as he cheered along with the entire population of Central City.
However, the excitement wasn't over yet. Half a dozen ships got gobbled up by wombats in the tunnels, and another 4 had been taken out by roaming Emu's jumping into them as they passed through the red dirt grassland.
Zorai was pushing through the grassland, sticking close to the ground to avoid catching the eyes of any Emu Parades that might be travelling nearby. However, that didn’t mean he was home free.
The Emu's were fast! They were already clustered up around the route while chasing the previous contestants. Seeing his dust wake, hundreds of them started cutting through the red dirt and sprinting to head him off.
Like feathered missiles, the moment the spotted Zorai they start jumping towards where the ship would be. It then became a matter of weaving through them as the ship spun vertically or horizontally, barely scraping past Emu's as their massive talons reached out to grasp the vessel and Zorai tried to avoid losing speed by veering off.
Every now and again they'd be in just the right spot, and the ship had to roll through the air to dodge them, dropping his speed by the smallest amounts.
These straight sections would be the easiest though. Although it was 200km of barren dirt and grass covered in Emu's, it was far easier to get max speed passing through these areas. You just had to be careful not to fly straight into a jumping Emu, and you'd be at the Warren in minutes.
As Zorai slowed and slipped into the Warren, the other contestants were just leaving it. Jasmine had fallen back to second place and was competing against both the twins, one in first and the other in 3rd, effectively boxing her in.
Hot on their heels was the Driver, still apparently testing the limits of his ship as he spun in odd ways and tried to push through to 5th place, keeping everyone else behind him and trying to find a good place to pass the twin in third who was sweating bullets just trying to stop Driver from sneaking around him.
Then, they hit the reef, and the Coral Reef suddenly came alive with activity below them. What had been mostly calm before now became huge spears of coral shooting up from the reef like massive calcified towers. Where the mass came from to drive huge spires of coral hundreds of metres into the air was anyone's guess.
The worst part was that the spires were rising up all across the reef, for hundreds of kilometres in both directions along the coast, massive coral spires started sprouting.
Then came the coral spears. Pouring out of the spires like rain, trying to pin a complacent vessel. Zorai witnessed the coral using this as a means to hunt the sky sharks and flying dolphins, so naturally encompassed it in the course.
The sudden appearance of coral spires and through everyone off their rhythm as they suddenly split apart to dodge instead of trying to block each other from passing.
As they rapidly fought for first place and shot down the coast, Zorai was navigating the tunnels of the wombats.
Relying only on the senses of the ship, he weaved through tunnel after tunnel. The smallest of spaces between rocks that could barely fit a ship, he'd cut through trying to push his speed back up to at least breaking the sound barrier.
The crowd was stunned, watching his daring acrobatics as he passed between gaps all the other contestants avoided. He slid through the tiny amount of room between a wombat and the ceiling of the tunnel and sped into the last stretch, already seeing the light breaking through the gloom a few hundred metres ahead.
Until the light dramatically cut off and a wombat stepped directly into the tunnel, opening its mouth wide open to catch the annoying buzzing prey that had been zooming about its home all morning.
Zorai's ship stopped in seconds, leaving 200 metres between the behemoth wombat and the ship. The crowd was cheering him on nervously, certain that there was no way to avoid that wombat now.
Then, Zorai's ship started glowing, and like a rocket, he hit Mach 3 in a matter of seconds. Abusing the vector compression take off again, he shot straight into the mouth of the wombat and then blasted out the other side, painting the walls of the tunnel with the blood and guts being sucked out with his jet stream.
Like a rocket in flight, Zorai shot from the tunnel already hitting his stride seconds after leaving the underground. He sped through to the ocean and could already see the spires reaching into the sky along the coast.
More importantly, he could see the rain of spears falling about 30 km along the route on the heads of the rest of the contestants.
By this time, only 6 contestants were left. Four of them were getting so competitive now that they had started knocking each other towards spires and spears, trying to knock each other out of the race.
Jasmine and the driver though were pushing the limits of their machines, only dodging and chasing each other for first, already nearly 500 meters ahead of the others.
Zorai wasted no time and hugged the very edge of his route marker as he moved into the coral zone of the race.
The crowds watched on as the hologram in central city overlaid the view of the flight corridor for the race and showed just how close Zorai was too touching it.
Then, his focus slipped slightly as the coral started raining spears as he moved towards them and the very edge of his ship crossed the invisible boundary. The satellite map suddenly lit Zorai up like a red Christmas tree.
Everyone then watched on horrified as the sky started to glow even from hundreds of kilometres away in Central City.
Zorai ship suddenly barrel rolled away from the edge and ducked behind the first spire in the flight corridor of the coral zone. Almost grazing the ship as it slid behind the coral was a giant 10m wide green ray of light that descended from space and cut a giant hole into the ocean floor. It followed Zorai's ship for half a second, almost catching him as he ducked again behind another spire.
It struck the spire and completely obliterated it in a shower of debris and spray of plasmarised coral. Zorai ship ducked in behind a large piece of debris as the high temperature plasma spray exploded, vaporising all the smaller debris.
Before the cloud of burning gases created from the interaction had even started to settle down, Zorai shot out from behind the huge coral rock and carried the gasses in his jet stream like a rocket as he spun through the spires, dodging spears and direct collision with the coral through the tiniest of gaps.
The other contestants were spell struck as they noticed the new contender rapidly catching up to them with a trial of fire blazing in his wake.
Jasmine and the Driver both spotted it from their leadership positions and pushed their spinning vehicles to the limits as they tried to outpace Zorai while still dodging through the coral.
The slip up with the flight corridor had cost Zorai precious seconds, which had already let the other competitors push their lead by nearly a hundred kilometres.
Zorai was now most definitely feeling the pressure as he continuously tapped into his reserves just to keep gaining ground on them.
Finally, the leaders burst out of the coral zone and only had the laser dolphins to deal with. Almost instantly, as they moved over the flat surface, they realised a strange fog was rising up from the ocean and obscuring the coast. Then they saw the thousands of lasers dancing around slowly through the fog like a light show.
They had no discernible pattern, and the lasers were completely chaotic in motion. How the dolphins managed to set this up without cutting each other apart by accident eluded even Zorai for the moment.
Not willing to lose their lead, and feeling the growing pressure as Zorai seemed to move through the coral spires effortlessly, the two leaders both shot into the fog, spinning their ships in odd patterns, reacting so fast to lasers nearly slicing them apart that they didn't even realise what exactly they were doing.
Their minds entered a strangely serene state of half focus as their subconscious mind started processing sensor data from the ship before they even understood what the data meant.
They had now fully become one with their ships.
In this spastic dance of sudden stops and goes from the two ships, Driver pushed into the lead, only because his power allowed him to already subconsciously connect with the ship, now falling into an even deeper level.
They were about halfway through, and the others were far more slowly trying to navigate the lasers when Zorai exploded out of the coral and shot towards the fog at Mach 2.
His ship suddenly started spinning around wildly as it powered into the fog without showing any signs of stopping.
In less than a minute he was already a few hundred metres behind the leaders. Even though his ship was slowing and having to suddenly jerk this way or that as if possessed, he continued pushing relentlessly, brute forcing the calculations needed to keep his ship moving as quickly as possible through the lasers.
The two leaders felt the pressure of Zorai pushing behind them increasing with every passing second. Finally, the Driver's ship seemed to shudder to a full stop moments later followed by Jasmine.
Then the Drivers Ship shot forwards, accelerating seemingly recklessly into the laser fog. A split second later, Jasmine's ship followed behind him. Both ship then started jerking spasmodically, pushing the boundaries of mutated human possibilities.
They almost felt their minds being consumed by the ship as the spasmodic movements slowly smoothed out. With the sudden boost of speed, they found themselves fighting for first place as they closed in on the last stretch of laser fog.
Zorai was barely a few hundred metres behind them as they shot out of the fog seemingly dancing with smooth flowing motions through the air.
The last 5 kilometres to the finish line in the central plaza was now right there.
Zorai was absolutely abusing the shit out of his computation and processing, already taking slight burns and singes on the hull from cutting it so close to the lasers.
Then, he was out, just as the duo of leaders made a final mad dash for the finish. He felt his competitive spirit soaring as he started crunching numbers and bizarre formulas started filling his head that he had no actual reference for.
Then, his vector drives all started to vibrate as they started creating vectors in completely nonsensical ways. Zorai's ship suddenly shuddered and then like a bullet, exploded forwards, reaching Mach 6 almost instantly and even pushing it towards Mach 7. His ship was almost exploding from the sheer amount of friction as it cut through the air and pushed towards Mach 8.
He calculated it, and then calculated it again. At this speed, he should cross the line 2 metres ahead of the Driver, who was a mere half a meter ahead of Jasmine.
But then, their ships suddenly pushed beyond the theoretical limits of the vector drives, and his calculations skewed again. How they'd managed to do on some form of instinct what took him an enormous sum of energy to computate left him boggled. As his ship sailed past the finish line 20cm behind Jasmine, he considered experimenting on the duo in order to determine if some part of his matrix simply wasn't in the same league as these peoples tiny little ape brains.
---
The crowd deafened themselves as the last four contestants crossed the line in their beaten and battered Racer's. Various people in the crowd used their power and erected barriers to prevent the shockwaves of Mach 8 vessels completely debilitating the crowd as they sped overhead, deftly dodging the towering buildings in the city and slowing to stop before returning to the plaza to land.
Zorai didn't stick around for the award ceremony as he sunk into the ground to his little hole in the world and immediately started refilling his reserves and collating the huge amount of data he received from experiencing the races himself.
He knew there was a qualitative difference for him between first hand and second-hand knowledge, but he never realised it would be so big. His secondary field was completely stuffed with energy bands based on everything he'd learnt and experienced in the race.
On top of that, all the second hand data the city generated in his absence surged into his 4th energy field waiting to be absorbed.
He considered the race a huge success and immediately started making plans to make it more regular. He'd probably not participate frequently, maybe only for a huge race every few months. Until then, he'd start renting out the ships for people to test out.
He'd already sent his research on the Matrix Implant down to the human researchers and encouraged them to develop it based on his research themselves. He still held himself back on giving them too much, feeling that they needed to be able to develop the devices themselves without him.
Perhaps they could use their human ape brains to redesign it with more features or make it more intuitive. He suspected with his research in the field, they'd understand it and be able to replicate it in a matter of weeks.
Zorai then turned his attention to the strange calculations and formula he used to push his Racer beyond its theoretical limits. He wanted to find out exactly where they came from and what they'd been based on.