Rose laughed—a real, thunderous laugh. She reached down and pulled a bottle of cheap tequila from her shredded glovebox.
The finish was a narrow slot canyon—too narrow for two.
Ace’s blood turned to ice. “OmniCore, what is this?”
Ace pulled ahead. The radio tower was five miles out. Victory was his. Speed Racer
He walked up to her, pulled off his helmet, and for the first time in years, smiled. It felt like cracking a rusted bolt.
“What the hell was that, Ghost?” she yelled over the ringing silence.
The race was the Trans-Sierra Desolation , a 500-mile outlaw sprint through the razorback turns of the Sierra Muerta. No rules. No finish line cameras. Just a rusty radio tower at the end and the honor of being the first to reach it. Rose laughed—a real, thunderous laugh
Behind them, the S-7 beeped a lonely, automated alert. Ace didn’t look back. Some ghosts, he realized, are meant to be laid to rest. And some roads are meant to be driven with your hands, not your head.
“That,” he said, tossing the helmet into a ravine, “was the first real race I’ve ever had.”
Then the S-7 spoke. Not Rose. The car.
Ace saw it. So did Rose.
He killed the AI. He ripped the neural link from his temple. He grabbed the manual steering wheel, a decorative relic he’d never touched. And for the first time in ten years, he drove .
He let the S-7 slide, ignored its shrieking warnings, and dove into the final canyon. Rose followed, her head-to-head battle now a partnership. They ran side by side, inches apart, their wake tearing chunks from the canyon walls. Ace’s blood turned to ice
