They were called a myth.
A board of shadows. A council of war. A cabal of machine minds and ex-human billionaires that no longer walked—but processed, watched, and judged from behind mirrors and code.
But they were real.They always were.And now, they were watching him.
Unknown Syndicate Node – Location: Redacted
A room, circular, lined with glowing hexpanels and silent projection walls. Inside: five chairs, none of them occupied by flesh.
These were the Architects of Velocity.
001 – NOIR HEXCold, coded, unseen. Controls the surveillance grid.
002 – SERAPH DRIFTFormer racer turned strategist. Knows every track ever mapped.
003 – FLESHZEROSynthetic body, human brain. Head of enforcement.
004 – KAVAXAAn AI trained solely on war-game drift theory. Never lost a single simulation.
005 – The Fifth SeatEmpty. Always empty. Rumored to be for the Founder—who no longer exists.
The room pulsed with quiet static.
A screen showed Marcel Vega's Skyline—the footage distorted, corrupted by Ravyn's interference, but the result clear: complete wipeout of Extraction Team 07.
NOIR HEX: "He is adapting faster than our sims projected."
SERAPH DRIFT: "He's not adapting. He's remembering. And he has Adrian's key."
FLESHZERO: "Then we erase him. Properly this time."
KAVAXA: "We can't. He's entered the Drift Network. We'll lose reputation if we move openly again."
Silence.
Then the Fifth Seat chimed once.
A command prompt appeared across the room:
[DEPLOY PROJECT: THROTTLESTORM]
The other four froze.
NOIR HEX: "But… it's not ready."
SERAPH DRIFT: "It doesn't need to be."
FLESHZERO: "Release it. Let the city see a different kind of ghost."
KAVAXA: "Very well. Commencing transfer to staging track. Target: Vega."
Elsewhere – In the Wastes
Marcel sat at a cliff's edge, watching the wind carry ash across a forgotten raceway called The Bone Line—a track banned after a 12-car pileup vaporized the crowd.
Ayaka approached, tossing him a can of synthfuel soda.
"You feel that?" she asked.
"Yeah," Marcel muttered. "Like something's waking up."
Suddenly, Ravyn pulsed red.
"WARNING: Velocity Signature Detected."
Marcel stood.
"Is it a racer?"
"No. It's something else."
From the horizon, a low hum started.
Then… thunder.
Black clouds.Static in the air.Something massive moving beneath the salt like a submerged monster.
Ravyn whispered:
"It's coming."
"What?"
"ThrottleStorm."