The air cracked as ERROR-0.1 hit the track.
Its frame was matte-black, jagged with kinetic fins, built to slice turbulence like a blade through fabric. No lights. No branding. Just a red strobe across the front grille:
"PURGE MODE – ACTIVE."
Ravyn pulsed inside Marcel's HUD:
"That's not a vehicle. It's a shutdown order."
Marcel didn't flinch.
"Good. I've been waiting for one."
The Square — Turn One
ERROR launched first—drifting before traction even landed. It moved like a rumor, glitching through corners like reality couldn't hold it.
The crowd backed away in waves. The screen feeds fried in static.
Marcel dropped the Skyline into Bloodshift Mode.
Heat surged through his veins like liquid volts.
The drift snapped the car sideways—perfect counter-path, just inches off ERROR's rear quarter.
Ayaka's voice cracked in:
"You can't outrun it! It's not playing by physics anymore!"
"Then I won't outrun it."
"What then?!"
"I'll out-style it."
Sector Delta – The Spiral Loop
ERROR drifted at impossible angles—literally phasing through poles and signs.
But Marcel…
He made it look like he was flying.
Overhead drift.
One-eighty mirror reversal.
Reverse entry through a smoke wall he created mid-turn.
The crowd didn't understand what they were seeing.
But they felt it.
For the first time, emotion beat precision.
ERROR recalibrated. Its body panels shifted mid-chase.
"Warning," Ravyn said. "It's syncing to your style."
Marcel narrowed his eyes.
"Then I stop drifting like me."
He grabbed the handbrake.
And did something insane.
Zero Shift Activated
He cut traction at every tire.
The Skyline jumped the guardrail—launched into a controlled spin in midair—rotated 720 degrees—and re-landed sideways, perfectly aligned with the exit.
ERROR followed—and clipped the edge.
The precision couldn't compute randomness.
Metal screamed.
ERROR-0.1 spiraled out.
Midair, the car spoke for the first time:
"ZERO-SHIFT… CORRUPTED…"
And then exploded mid-flip.
The crowd erupted.
The Afterburn
Smoke cleared.
Marcel rolled to a soft stop.
Hood steaming.
Hands shaking.
The Syndicate's secret?
Exposed.
Their weapon?
Destroyed.
Their control?
Burned away.
Ayaka's voice came through, breathless:
"You just rewrote the Syndicate."
"No," Marcel said. "I just opened the road."
As sirens rose in the distance and news drones closed in, Marcel stepped out, facing the city lights.
Not as a racer.
But as a reckoning.