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Everyone chooses their own ghost to teach them how to drive these cars. Even
Jolanda accepts the lesson. She’s not pretentious enough to think that she
already knows everything, especially not about her specific car today. For
all she knows, there might be a secret button behind the steering wheel that
dispenses banana peels. Still, it seems rather pointless for the rest of
them to even try, given her experience. Her only meaningful contender is
Zelda, but Zelda is a risk-taker. She’s more likely to push it too far, and
end up dying in the act, even if she was in the front until it happens. She
hasn’t even driven that much in her life, because it places her in too much
control, which isn’t thrilling enough.
Elise feels like she’s struggling with it the most, even though she
technically has the secondmost amount of time behind the wheel. She’s
listening to her ghost—as much as she can listen to a hologram that
can only grunt and say a few single-syllable words—but she is not
internalizing the lessons. She keeps looking over at the others,
particularly when their stationary work is done, and they move on to the
practical. She doesn’t want to start. She doesn’t wanna do this. It goes
against how she learned it.
The rules were what drew her to learning antiquated skills in the first
place. She almost wishes she had never tried driving at all. At least she
would start at zero, but now she has much to unlearn. Not that she has any
chance of winning anyway. Why risk it? Why place herself in danger when it’s
hopeless? Can all seven of them move forward as long as they stay ahead of
the other 17? Again, “what are the rules!”
Elise’s ghost frowns. “The rules are that the first six racers move to the
sudden death challenge. The rest are killed, or in the case of the automated
cars, deleted.”
“Wait, you can talk?” Elise questions. “Why have you not been talking until
now?”
“You didn’t need me to talk before. Now you do,” the ghost explains.
“There are seven of us. That number was chosen so at least one person will
be killed today. But then the subsequent sudden death challenge will kill
everyone else.”
“Sudden death doesn’t mean what you think it means,” the ghost goes on. “I
cannot elaborate, but if six players win the race, all six will continue on
the hunt.”
Elise shakes her head. “That’s not good enough. We came into this together.
Even Miracle is part of the team now. We all deserve to
stay together.”
“It was never going to be fair,” he reasons. “That’s what makes it
challenging.”
“Such a wise, dead pirate,” Elise muses.
The ghost nods. “I see you at the wheel. You’re more at ease than the
others. Even the pro over there looks nervous. I know she has her reasons,
but you could actually win this. You have a perspective that none of them
does. You lived like the ancients. Don’t underestimate that. They still
don’t understand the threat of death, but the skills which you dedicated
your life to studying were all developed by fleeting creatures.”
“I’m still not faster than she is, nor braver than any of them,”
Elise argues.
The ghost shakes his head. “Again, car racing was conceived by mortals.
Anyone can push a button with their foot until it stops and leave it there.
You know when to let up. You trained from resources made by people
who would die if they didn’t know that.”
Elise sighs. “I don’t know if I wanna win. A part of me wants to gather
everyone up and ask them to quit so we leave with our memories intact. I
don’t wanna lose them.”
He smiles. “If your bonds are real, you can make new memories later.” Maybe.
Here endeth the lesson.
Elise decides not to do any practice driving before the race. She’s not
confident in herself, and is not enthusiastic. Her friends look ready and
determined. They may not know the restrictions on the results. She’s not
gonna tell them. She’s a liar.
They’re at the starting line now, at the edge of the dome, pointed towards
the wall. When those giant metal doors open, they have no idea what they’re
gonna find. One thing they have going for them is that all seven of them are
sharing the second row. Only two cars are in front of them, which gives them
something to fight against without it feeling impossible from the start.
It’s a huge track. Since the engineering bots weren’t limited by an
audience, they were free to make it as wide as they wanted. They’re probably
not even going to be driving in circles, or at least not one single circle.
Elise looks to her right at Minotaur, who doesn’t react. She looks to her
left where Colley notices. He frowns at her kindly before refocusing on the
road and gripping the wheel tighter. She has to protect these people. She
doesn’t want to lose her memories of the ones she has grown to love, but she
would rather it be her than any of them. They all committed more to this.
They deserve to see it through. She’ll be fine.
The light is red, and has been for the last few minutes, but now it blinks.
It blinks faster and faster and faster until it turns yellow. Two cars down,
Miracle gives a false start, but she manages to roll back to where she was
while it holds at yellow for a few more seconds. The two lead cars take off,
and only then does the light turn green, which is either cheating, or
one of the rules that Elise failed to hear when she was feeling down.
The six of her friends take off, but Elise throws her car in reverse, and
punches it. She slams into the four cars behind her. They fight her, but she
doesn’t let up. It would appear that the humans were given superior vehicles
to race with. They go down relatively easy. Once the four of them have been
sufficiently destroyed, her job is still not over. She still has thirteen
more to take care of. So she puts it in drive.
She zips into the dark. It’s only lit enough for her to see where the walls
are, and maybe other cars. She’s in the back, though, so she doesn’t have to
worry about them anymore. At least she didn’t think so. There’s a small fire
up ahead. One of the cars has already crashed without Elise’s help. She has
to swerve around it, but immediately has to swerve again because of the
second car involved in that crash. They’re both bots, though, so it’s
fine. Two more down, eleven to go. She can do this. She can stop them all.
Elise flies out of the tunnel, and onto the road. They’re in a desert. The
track is narrower here, so it’s a good thing she was already in the middle.
The others aren’t as far ahead as she thought they would be, probably due to
this bottleneck. She still can’t let up, though. She maintains her speed,
and catches up to the rear car. She saw this maneuver in an educational
video once about what not to do, but she thinks she can recreate it.
She drives right up and wedges the front of her car into the back of the
bot. Now it’s just spinning its wheels. She drives it over and slams it into
the barrier. She ends up pointed in the wrong direction, but she doesn’t
have time to get turned back around, so Elise just drives backwards for a
bit while she catches up with the others.
There we go. Now she’s with a huge group of bots. The problem is, Rage is
here too. Three of them have created a line, which she can’t pass. Every
time she goes for a gap, they cover it, so she has to try again. She’s being
too gentle and patient with them. Elise doesn’t have that issue. She crashes
her rear bumper into two of the cars at once. Only one of them skids and
hits the barriers, but it’s enough to let Rage pass. As she’s doing that,
Elise goes after the other two, stopping them both before the next tunnel.
The track is narrower yet. Only two cars could potentially drive side by
side. It’s also no longer always flush with the ground. They’re in a winter
wonderland, driving on an elevated track as it snows. The road becomes ice.
Fortunately everyone up ahead is smart enough to go slower here so they
don’t just fly over the edge. Elise loves this opportunity. She’s literally
knocking bots off left and right. Before, there was a chance for them to
come back with a vengeance, but not here. Talk about sudden death.
All of the human cars are still going, but none of them is even close to the
lead bot. It seems to have no problem with the ice at all. Someone has to
put a stop to it. There are only two bots left. If she can stop them, the
others don’t even have to drive fast anymore. They can coast to the finish
line safely. Frustratingly, the penultimate bot is the smartest one. It
knows what she’s trying to do, and out-maneuvers her every time. It’s also
stronger than the other bots. She manages to get right next to it, but when
she rams the side, it barely moves. Then Elise looks over. Another car has
joined them.
It’s Jolanda. She has positioned her car on the other side of the bot.
There’s so little space, they have it pinned. As difficult and
counterintuitive as it is, and without being able to talk, the humans slow
down to a complete stop. Still without talking, Elise lets go and drives on
ahead several meters. Jolanda turns the wheel, and knocks the bot over the
edge.
Elise backs up again. “Get back up to the front! Only six people can win!”
“I know!” Jolanda shouts back. “My ghost told me about that!”
“I’m sacrificing myself!” Elise shouts.
“I’m sacrificing myself!” Jolanda volleys.
“You’re the only one who can stop the final boss! Go do it!”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that!” Jolanda jerks her head forward.
Its the final bot. It’s pointed towards them at the top of the hill, where
there’s another tunnel. It’s revving its engines menacingly, so they
instinctively rev back.
“I’m gonna kill him!” Jolanda volunteers.
“No, I will!” Elise insists.
They both take off. The bot takes off too for a game of chicken. This is
ridiculous. Only one of them has to die in order to make the math work. It
just makes sense that it’s Elise. Jolanda can not go on with the
knowledge of having lost this race. When they reunite on the other side of
this hunt, someone will tell her, and she will be devastated. Elise will not
care. She has to be the one to do this. She takes a deep breath. There
hasn’t been much ice for a few hundred meters, but she knows something
Jolanda probably doesn’t. Her teachers taught her about something called
black ice, and how to spot it.
To Jolanda’s likely confusion, Elise slows down just enough to get behind
Jolanda, then bullies her way back on the other side. At the right moment,
she gently nudges Jolanda towards the barrier, not hard enough to hurt her,
but it does stop her in her tracks. Elise’s car, meanwhile, hits the ice,
and goes crazy. She starts spinning counterclockwise, utterly
uncontrollably. She can’t even tell where anything is anymore, but she feels
the powerful slam of the crash, and for a split second, the sharp twinge of
the blade as her helmet cuts off her head.
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