“Okay, Ryker.” Martin’s voice is soothing, as always, coming over the radio on the warmup lap. Ryker relaxes in his seat as his car weaves, his race engineer’s intonations a familiar and comforting presence. “Final checks have not brought up any new issues, so you look set for racing. Is the HUD working well so far?”
Ryker smiles. “Beautifully, Martin; Victoria truly is fantastic at this sort of thing. Tell her that I say thanks. Again.”
The Nimban has been in the simulator for much of the previous day, working with Gertrude’s Head of Programming on the Heads-Up Display for his helmet. A small projector mounted inside his helmet shines light onto the visor, forming a ghostly image that augments his view of the track with predictions, calculated by a huge supercomputer back at HQ (that had been Imagination-linked to a transmitter in the garage to avoid propagation delays that would render the thing useless) based on past driver behaviour and data drawn from the Chase Cutters’ sensors of track conditions and current car positions, of the lines that a driver is expected to take. The work in the simulator, also done by Marika, has mostly been to customise a number of variables: the distance at which a car’s lines should be added to the display by the device and the colours of the overlays, for example.
“I will be sure to do so. Now, we’ve been over the plan for the race’s start yesterday, I know, but Timothy wants to go through it with the two of you again to ensure that there aren’t any misunderstandings.” Ryker rolls his eyes behind the helmet. “Patching you through to him and Marika now.”
There is a short pause before Guard’s voice manifests itself on the radio. “Marika, Ryker. I’m going to briefly say again what we discussed yesterday, just to be sure that all of us are clear of what we’re doing. If there is anything that either of you don’t understand, give the word and I’ll resolve the difficulty.”
“We expect you both to accelerate off the line more quickly than Terho does, given our automated starting system and the recent power and chassis upgrades, which will easily bring you, Marika, into touching distance of him. Your job will be to swing to the inside and pin Terho to the wall; that should force him to brake very early when he comes to the first corner. Pass him if you can there, but, if you can’t, keep him firmly against the side of the track into the second corner and make him do the same again there. You should have the advantage into Turn 3.”
“All of that will leave you vulnerable to attacks from drivers behind you. Preventing that will be your job, Ryker; keep Marika’s flank covered and use her attack as an opportunity to gain ground yourself. You should be able to get past when she does.”
“It doesn’t matter to us where the two of you end up relative to each other so long as you both get past Terho and neither of you crash - that’s the goal here. We’ll keep the communication and translation link between the two of you open, so adapt the plan if you need, which your helmet upgrades should help with, but be sure to let the other know if you do. Is that all understood?”
“Sounds good to me,” Ryker replies; Marika’s response is also affirmative.
“Good luck, then, you two. Enjoy yourselves out there.”
The feed to the Project Manager cuts off just as the two Nexus Racing drivers pull up to their places on the grid. Ryker grins hungrily.
Round two, Talvela.
"Well then, Marika, it seems that we're working together this time around. Shall we see whether we can knock the championship leader down to size?"
1:24:51.853 +0:00.000
1:25:33.437 +0:41.585
1:25:48.641 +0:15.204
1:26:08.636 +0:19.995
+1 Lap +0:46.743
+1 Lap +0:03.622
+1 Lap +0:16.139
+1 Lap +0:03.496
+1 Lap +0:00.686
+2 Laps 
Ret. Lap 41
Ret. Lap 39 
Ret. Lap 28
