Abovian Grand Prix
2nd of June; Race BeginningOkay. In fifth. Jean behind me, so we can support one another. Got to make the most of 2 and 3, outpace anyone who I haven’t caught on the start/finish straight.
Okay. Let’s do this.Ryker runs his hands across the steering wheel even as he sees the first of the lights above him blink on. Beneath him, Coalescence thrums, the Chase Cutter’s myriad systems humming in anticipation of the coming battle.
I have a fastest lap at this circuit. I’m coming off the back of a near-win. I qualified well in the wet
, for Imagination’s sake! Everything is pushing me forward.
Now I just have to bind it all with me.The last light glows red. Ryker grips the steering wheel with his thumbs, his fingers rising and falling in a single wave before coming to rest; he presses the throttle firmly down, trembling in anticipation of the moment that the PA-AS system registers a lack of that light.
He takes a breath.
So it begins.
From the instant that the lights go out, Imagination’s strands are his to Coalesce. Ryker Lane surges forward, jumping Toralmintii in the first moment and diving to the inside of Digri’s competently-starting McPahan. Cruisin’s better power off the line carries him further forward – but Coalescence is beside him, holding him to the track’s left while Lucifer and Jean slot in behind, the two UHSGV-3s line astern into the first corner.
“Yes!” Ryker lets out a laugh of exultation even as he draws in the Coalescence once more, turning his focus forward towards the Eelandii car of Rustom Ibuna. Smiling, single-minded, energy pumping through him, he wills his Chase Cutter on, gliding through Turn 2, carrying the speed into the long Turn 3, closing, closing,
closing all the while until the UHSGV-3’s front wings sit close to the Filindostani’s gearbox. Ryker narrows his eyes; even as Rustom shifts his line away from Turn 3’s first apex to cover the inside, he holds true, blazing cerulean light caressing Vilitan carbon fibre as he draws alongside, the sheer power behind him driving him on! He redoubles his concentration, preserving all of the momentum that he can as they fall past the corner’s second apex, the track flowing like a river.
That ecstatic transcendence, that oh so elusive feeling, begins to mist across his mind.
Into the fourth corner. The UHSGV-1 might have fallen back here. Not so the UHSGV-3; Coalescence’s directional Imagikinetic convertor near slingshots them around the corner’s outer line. Ibuna’s car cannot do the same, the Chase Cutter’s presence denying him the natural outward swing. Still alongside, Ryker calls upon all of his daring from his Cityprix days, all of his experience of WGPC, everything that took him to Season 15’s title and everything that he learned beyond it. He holds the accelerator as far down as he is possibly able.
And, as he and Coalescence leave Turn 5, Rustom Ibuna follows.
Cheers burst forth from Nexus Racing’s garage. Ryker, meanwhile, presses two buttons on his steering wheel. In the moment that it is visible, projected onto his helmet’s visor, he assimilates the view from his rear camera.
“Ready to support Jean whenever, Martin!”
“Understood; I’ll give you word.” His race engineer’s eternally soft voice rings above the rumble of the tyres, the whirl of rotating electromagnets and the rush of the wind; across the bridge they dash, darting through 6, 7, 8, then along the back straight, blasting at full tilt up to Turn 7A. Ryker laughs once more, an expression of pure joy, as he brushes the apex of the kink and then, as he had done so many times in Practice and Qualifying, slows only just enough to slide the car past the tenth corner of 8A.
Imagination, I love
those two now!
Okay, up to 9A. Calm. “Ryker, hold and empower into final turn.”
“Copy!” The press of a button…
Actually, I’ve got enough room… Here, Jean, have a bit now! …and the turn of a dial.
Round 9A, gentle
– and on! Yeah, little slower. Okay, time to repay last week. There’s Ibuna – don’t sweep in, don’t sweep in, don’t sweep in…
NOW!The rear wing opens; the front wings recline; the side pylons align themselves to the wind as the Coalescence begins – weak for but a moment, then as mighty as ever. Even as it happens, Ryker watches his rear view; the white/brown car behind is now close, now a touch closer – but an incandescent blue shines behind it, a glow that returns to its normal strength even as the gap between the front Chase Cutter and the VTGP itself normalises – and as it closes it still grows a little brighter – and then Mercer-Daly is upon him, striking past Ibuna’s flank, Lucifer a momentous cerulean inferno, first alongside and then past the Filindostani!
Ryker grins. “Good enough?”
Martin’s voice is melodious. “More than. Now, let’s do what you can do on these tyres.”
Lap 8Ryker feels the gentle
thump of the new tyres as the robotic platform finishes its work, dropping the UHSGV-3 down to set off; its AI kicks in, driving him forward, released into the pit lane proper. The lack of input gives him the time to calm and Martin time to speak.
It’s not good news.
“Unfortunately, Jean has had a problem,” he intones. “We are unsure as of now but believe it to be localised within the front-left motor; he’s currently running on two wheels.”
Ryker winces. “Sorry to hear… Any chance of it happening to me?”
“From what I hear, it seems unlikely.”
“Okay… No strategy changes?”
“None. Watch out for Dimitrianov behind you as you leave, though you should have better pace than him, and do what you can to make your tyres last.”
“Gotcha. Thanks, Martin.” Imagination’s glow reasserts itself as Ryker leaves the pits, swooping down past Turn 1, pushing the accelerator, the Coalescence gathering once again.
Okay… Can’t drive hard on these – need to preserve the life. Make up the ground later, Ryker.
Wait a moment oh Imagination that’s Dimitrianov RIGHT BEHIND ME Martin said he’d be there he meant RIGHT THERE
A push on the accelerator becomes a near stomp, the Coalescence intensifying to all of its strength – and Ryker, for that moment, cannot keep a hold of it, cannot guide it. Into Turn 2 and the back steps away, the Chase Cutter careening around the corner’s apex. In the first half-second, Ryker’s panic rises to a fever pitch.
In the second, it vaporises; determination burns it away. In the third, he spins his wheel rightward, aligning the front wheels and the dynamic Imagikinetic thrust with Coalescence’s direction of travel. Then, past the fourth, he guides it gently back as the corner itself turns, sliding with the minute control of an ice skater on their near-frictionless blades.
That, after all, is what he did for a year in the First City.
Finally, a seeming eternity later, breathing hard and sweat on his brow, Ryker and Coalescence plough forward again. Dimitrianov looks to the outside; then he tucks in.
“Is everything alright, Ryker?”
“Fine, Martin! Don’t worry!”
Okay, focus
, Ryker! Just… Focus.He takes a breath.
On he goes. And so Dimitrianov does not merely pull back – Ryker channels the Audioslavia of two years ago to run lap after constant lap. He conserves the tyres and, more importantly, he conserves himself.
Lap 34“Okay, Ryker – you have these H-1s to the race’s end. We’re targetting the lead; Ibuna, Toralmintii and Digri will all have to pit again, so you will only need to overtake Tripathi, who is on a one-stop strategy and lapping slowly. Keep the gap to Dimitrianov, Jean and Talvela behind you and you
will win this, Ryker; push as hard as you can.”
The Nimban driver nods, twice, letting out a puff of air. “Got it, Martin; thank you!”
Okay. This time. This time!And, leaving the pit lane for the second time, he
drives.
Lap 42Coalescence sears down the start/finish straight, its fiery light a beacon. Ryker himself remains focussed; the euphoria, glorious and blinding, brushes at the edges of his consciousness, but no more.
He draws to one side and, though Tripathi challenges it, Coalescence is inexorable; Ryker sweeps it back to the other, powering down the straight.
I have the lead again. Now I just need to keep it.Ryker turns the corner, accelerating away.
I can’t know what’s coming. It might turn out like it did in Filindostan; I might have some horrible accident, some mechanical failure – anything. He looks to the road ahead, and he smiles.
That’s no reason to stop pushing, though. That’s never a reason!
If I fail, I have the strength to stand again and fight, from myself and from others!
If I fail today, I know that there will be a day that I will not!
And until that day and beyond it, I will not falter once more!Ryker Lane takes a breath. Then he lets in the euphoria – and he shapes it, letting it fuel him but not letting it become him. He truly thinks and feels.
And he drives.
An End and a BeginningThere is no horrible accident or mechanical failure. Instead, Ryker runs the last laps of the WGPC 17 Abovian Grand Prix in solitude. He passes backmarkers, monitors the gap to Dimitrianov and Terho, speaks with Martin once every so often; there is no last-minute challenge, no daring assault.
Instead, Ryker Lane, twenty-three years old, youngest of a line of champions, driver of a car fuelled by the very substance of his nation, conqueror of the streets of the First City and the tracks of the world and one who fell and rises amongst the latter, first Coalescer of Nexus Racing, he who is empowered by himself and by others and holds that power within, crosses the finish line at Lintulahti International Circuit for the sixty-ninth time seventeen-and-a-half seconds before anyone else does.
In short, he wins the race.
He navigates the next minutes with just as much rapidity as he did the track. He looks to the seats and waves past his DIADEM to a segmented crowd that are undoubtedly more subdued than they would be if Terho had been victorious but seem perhaps a touch more jubilatory than might be expected otherwise. He hears Jean’s voice through his communications and, though he screams so loudly that it nearly deafens him, he cannot help but laugh along with him. One of the marshals waves him over and hands him the Crux and Stars and, after a shouted, somewhat high-pitched, “Thank you!” he holds it aloft, bathed in Coalescence’s Imaginational glow. He enters the pit lane and comes to a rest before the central sign of three, clambering out of his car to stand atop it, bowing his head, raising one hand to his chest and the other, clenched, to the sky.
Then he rushes to his team. Victoria is the first to reach him, pulling him into a joy-filled hug and leaning up to kiss the brow of his navy-blue helmet, to the cheers of all those gathered. Martin, Gertrude and Timothy are the first to join her, practically bowling him over in their haste, and soon the whole team crowds around him, lifting him into the air atop their shoulders. It’s only after a full minute that he offers some fairly weak protests to let him down – right into Terho, whose own embrace is just as elated.
Finally, he’s ushered to the podium, where he climbs to (almost trips over) its highest step. There, he shakes the hand of an Abovian dignitary, whose name he quickly resolves to find out afterwards, and holds aloft a trophy, his face beaming. And, finally, as he stands there,
the anthem of the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System begins to play. Below, his team hum, sing, tap along, all adding their swelling harmonies to the piece as is custom.
And, as he hums his own, Ryker stares down at them.
‘Together Unto Possibility’.
Imagination.Tears prick at the corners of his eyes as, finally, he lets the euphoria wash over him.