Global Fallout – 8 Hours After Jeddah GP
It isn't just a story anymore.
It is a war.
Across the world, from Tokyo boardrooms to Zurich law firms, from London betting syndicates to New York newsrooms, Harinder's leak — branded "The Z-Alpha Files" — spread like wildfire. The IRC held an emergency press conference, and its chairman, Castalino Piere, looked ten years older than he had during the previous week's regulation hearing.
> "We have launched a full inquiry. Every team, every partner, every affiliated system is now under review. Effective immediately."
A reporter shouted from the crowd,
> "Was Charlotte Reid's death avoidable?"
Piere hesitated. Then said the words that cracked the illusion:
> "Yes."
---
Vaayu GP Motorhome – Post-Race Silence
There was no celebration.
The champagne bottles sat unopened.
Sukhman had removed his race suit but refused to leave the garage, still sitting on a foldable crate beside his car. His face was unreadable — caught somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.
Nandini stood behind him, arms crossed, watching him wrestle with the storm inside.
> "You're the first Indian to win Jeddah," she said softly.
> "Does it even matter?" Sukhman asked.
He held the gloves tighter.
> "If the others had raced without interference… would I still have won?"
> "Don't ask that question, Sukhman. It'll eat you alive."
> "Charlotte never got that choice. It's wrong."
The words sat heavy between them.
---
Meanwhile – Interview with Erik Holtz
Erik leaned against the back wall of the paddock, helmet off, sweat still glistening. He rarely spoke after races. But when the microphones came, he didn't shy away.
> "You were supposed to be the target," one reporter said.
"How does that feel?"
> "Like I've been asleep for years," he replied.
"I used to think losing was just part of the job. But maybe I wasn't losing. Maybe I was being made to lose."
> "Do you think Sukhman was involved?"
> "No. He drove like a man on fire today. That was all him."
He paused. Then added quietly,
> "I think we both drove for something bigger than a podium today."
---
Raghav – Behind the Firewall
In a secured Vaayu GP conference room back in India, Raghav took a breath and leaned forward on a call with IRC's cyberforensics division.
> "We warned you," he said.
"Months ago. Harinder spotted anomalies in Charlotte's crash data. And again in Diego's. You told us not to pursue it."
> "We were under pressure," came the nervous reply.
> "From who? Helix? Digital Escrow? Who owns who anymore?"
The IRC rep didn't answer.
Raghav closed his laptop and stared out the window, muttering,
> "Then we'll just burn it all down ourselves."
---
Harinder – The Ghost Among Crowds
He changed hotels again.
Every few hours, a new identity.
His face was now clean-shaven, hair dyed, posture altered. He was becoming good at being no one.
But inside? He was burning.
Because he knew something the others didn't.
Z-Alpha wasn't the endgame. It was just one gear in a far bigger machine. The conspirators had plans beyond sabotage. They had learned to treat racers like assets, the races like markets, and data like currency.
He dug deeper.
His cracked phone blinked. He linked it to a military-grade VPN, bouncing through nodes in three continents.
A hidden logbook emerged.
Encrypted… but familiar.
He decoded a section tagged:
> PROJECT MIRA
Inside it? Driver behavioral analysis logs. Personality-matching algorithms. Neural sync triggers.
And test subject files:
> Subject #001 – D. Montoya (status: inactive)
Subject #005 – C. Reid (status: deceased)
Subject #007 – S. Singh (status: active)
Subject #008 – E. Holtz (status: active)
Subject #011 – J. Tan (status: active)
Subject #012 – R. Deshmukh (status: active)
Harinder nearly dropped the phone.
They had been experimenting on the drivers through live telemetry feedback loops.
And Sukhman was still on that list.
---
Nandini & Sukhman – En Route to Brisbane For Finale
The flight was unusually quiet.
Sukhman sat beside the window, watching the clouds. He hadn't slept since the race. He couldn't stop thinking about all the small signs — the throttle lag in Doha, the weird tire readings in Brasilia, even the momentary loss of traction in Monza that nearly sent him into the wall.
It wasn't his imagination.
They had been using him. Studying him.
> "You okay?" Nandini asked.
He nodded but didn't speak.
Then, quietly:
> "Did you ever suspect?"
She hesitated. Then gave the only honest answer she could. "No. But I'm ashamed I didn't."
"No you shouldn't. You were not even here. I should be ashamed of. Even before her accident Charlotte mentioned about it. I thought it was her paranoia. (He gasps) If I did pay attention..."
"Stop blaming. Just focus on what you have to do. Okay? Please. Whole team depends on this final race."
Sukhman nods.
---
Zurich – BlackPath Facility
The building was emptying.
Key executives were vanishing. Hard drives removed. Servers wiped.
But Harinder had gotten there just in time.
In the basement level of the BlackPath Zurich office, under another identity, he stood in front of a glass-walled room filled with stripped-down car control modules.
He wasn't alone.
A man in a three-piece suit stood at the opposite end — older, eyes cold.
> "You're the one who cracked Z-Alpha," the man said.
> "And you're the one who sanctioned Charlotte's death."
The man shrugged.
> "Casualty of evolution. If you think racers matter more than systems, you're still living in 1986."
> "I think truth still matters."
> "Then you'll die for it."
Harinder didn't flinch.
> "Maybe. But not before I shut every one of you down."
He left behind a small flash drive in the server port.
Ten seconds later, a virus activated.
Within minutes, BlackPath's Zurich data centers collapsed.
---
Global Reactions
Diego's family released a statement demanding a public hearing from the IRC.
Charlotte's brother wrote a scathing op-ed titled "My Sister Was Not a Glitch."
Jia Tan offered public support to Harinder's actions:
> "He did what no one else had the courage to do."
Callum Graves, meanwhile, accused Vaayu GP of "hacking the season."
But the final blow came from a leaked IRC internal memo:
> "Z-Alpha may only be the surface. Continued investigation required into Project Mira and potential brain-response interference programs."
---
Mira's Core – What It Truly Meant
In a classified IRC cyberfile, now in Harinder's possession, Mira was revealed for what it was:
> A neurological feedback loop.
Designed to adapt racing AI by mapping real-time brain patterns of elite drivers — without their consent.
It monitored stress, instinct, risk-taking behavior. Then rerouted that data into control systems and predictive software.
Which meant the sabotage wasn't random.
It was adaptive.
It learned from Charlotte's panic.
It learned from Diego's fatigue.
It was learning from Sukhman's bravery.
Harinder whispered to himself,
> "They didn't want champions. They wanted prototypes."
---
Next Target: New Delhi
Raghav got the alert first.
Tejas Motorsport had shifted regional HQ temporarily to Delhi — too close for comfort.
And now they were hiding something. A clean-up team. A missing telemetry engineer who vanished mid-transfer.
He called Harinder.
> "There's one more server hub."
> "I'll be there," Harinder answered.
> "You sure?"
> "I've never been more sure."
Then he called Sukhman.
> "I need your help. One last ride. Ready for Brisbane."
Sukhman didn't hesitate.
> "Already am."
---
End Scene – Two Warriors Reunited
Late night. Rain in Brisbane.
A familiar knock at a motel door.
Harinder opened it.
And there stood Sukhman — duffel bag in hand, exhaustion in his eyes, but a fire in his voice.
> "Let's finish this."
Harinder smiled.
"Together."
"Yeah. Together."
The war for the soul of racing wasn't over.
But for the first time, the good guys weren't just running.
They were chasing the shadows back.