Here goes nothing. I step in the pixie array of colored lights. Some are from the engines of the machines starting up around me. Some are from the paparazzi. Some are just there. I'm ready. I step up beside my machine the Red Gauge Trans Am. My jumpsuit shines the light right back and clings to me like a protector. I get my helmet and turn on the visor display. The door opens with a click. The Red Gauge is a regular trans am design with a beefed up stove to handle four charges of platinum Xavergunt Nitro capsules. I still drive like the pros used to back during before the age of fire when everyone dropped their frakking nukes and blew everything to hell. That was my dad's drivers ed. The aftermath of the apocalypse. I click the door handle and it opens with a hiss. Just because I ride like the old pros doesn't mean I don't update my ride. I've got the best frame I could get for the Red Gauge. And that goes for most of the rest of my ride. As I climb into the drivers seat, my jumpsuit squeaks a little as I move and the seat compresses with a whisper as I sit down. I toss the keys upward in a flip and grab them in midair with my right hand and jam them into the ignition. The rest of the racers already have their machines started. I'm the last on the starting line. As if that isn't foreboding. I key up the Red Gauge, and feel it rage to life in an instant like a flash fire. I never get used to the roar that starts both me and my ride up. It's good, because that jars me into focus before the race. I'm ready.


I feel the rumble through my body as I rest my right hand on the clutch and my left hand on the wheel. It's good. It's a connection. It's almost time to start. My nitro entry port is on my left, and the five foot pedals are at my feet. One pedal for all wheels and then a pedal for every wheel individually. People call me bat s*** crazy for driving like I do. Fine by me. I've got all eight gears functioning judging by the monitor linked to my visor display. I tell the helmet to do a final diagnostic. All systems are ready. The countdown from ten is about to begin. All weapons and tactics are legal in the semi-finals. And I see a hell of a lot of those weapons loaded and ready to shoot some poor sucker bang, zoom, to the frakking moon. That won't be me. The announcer androids come out with the colored flags to announce the race will start soon. We don't use humans for that anymore. They kept getting run over and turning up dead. Somehow people frowned at that. Now the monitor is lowered. It's beginning. There's a hover tank to my left, a battle bike in front of me, and a track runner to my right. The runner has a standard jet boot and suit combat configuration. But this guy looks like he uses elctro blades. And maybe some regularly illegal concentrated steroids. The battle bike looks like a ride rambo would sell his soul for, and the tank seems solid, but not so fast. He's probably planning to burst attack on his surrounding when the race starts. I'm ready on all levels for them to try something. The numbers on the float board count down from 10. And the final digits come now. 3… 2… 1… And I kick the frakking gas so hard Jackie frakking chan would be impressed. The tires squeal for a split second and then my needle on my speed gauge climbs steadily to the opposite side. The Trans Am shifts slightly left then right as it grabs traction, and I'm gone. I let the track runner and battle bike go at it and take 10th place. The tank seems to be aiming long range electro mortars at the lead racers instead of the burst I anticipated. Good luck pal. I hit 90 MPH 3 seconds after stomping the gas and keep gaining speed. Here comes the first challenge. There's a dimwit with a nice ride that doesn't know how to keep the track to himself. I kick on just the right pedals to make certain wheels go faster than the others and I do a drift around him as my car continues to go in a straight line. I don't even have to turn my wheel to drift in this ride. He's awe struck as I do a second donut around his ride, and then hit 150 as I peel out of there probably leaving some dust in his hanging mouth.


The four inertial dampeners installed are working still and they lets me go inhumanly fast. I grab a nitro capsule from the dash board holster from it's slot and flip it between my thumb and index. The hatch to my nitro port clacks open. In you go baby. The lid seals itself and the nitro capsule shut. Then I flip the first of four charge switches. Popping a nitro is the best frakking feeling that exists. You don't peel out, and you don't squeal as you accelerate to a borderline impossible speed. You just get fast in an instant. And the those behind you can only gawk. I feel the front end of the car buckle and tremble for a half second as the nitro hits the engine. And then I'm frakking gone. I hit 462 MPH. And I'm not done yet. It's a straight line to the next segment of the track. And I pass 4 more cars on my demon run of speed. The visor display tells me that it puts me in 6th. I can do this. There's now three groups of racers. The two I'm approaching at rocket speed, the 5 behind me, and the four fighting at the head of the pack. I come up on the first ride of the next group and it's a long rider build. These things are made for drifting and speed. I see the body is long, sleek, lifted off the ground, narrow, and dark purple as I get increasingly close to it. And then there's three light flashes as he launches three seeker missiles my way. I keep pushing the gas down as I get the most I can squeeze out of the end of my rocket ride. The Red Gauge is normal sized compared to most monsters I see on the tracks. But that's what I need. The nitro keeps me at a constant speed and I pull behind him and swerve to his left then hit three of the gas pedals to balance myself at an angle facing him to drive straight under him. This time when I grab a nitro, it's a fluid motion and I don't have time to waste savoring it. It feel a half second delay before the nitro hits the engine and then I'm underneath his rig passing underneath, and hitting two of the pedals to drift my car under him and finish with my angle straightened out. The missiles followed me as I boost. And they followed me right into the long rider. I let the flash and the rumble behind me know that there was a hit.


Then I hit another demon run as my car is fully straightened out. I just hit 694 MPH. I feel unstoppable. The speed gauges needle starts to lick the under side of the red section of the speed gauge. There's a reason my ride earned the name the Red Guage. And I'm about to show all those in front of me why. I keep going out on a demon run, and go straight past the hydroterra rig who veers off into the river that begins outside the track on our left to take a shortcut. Little does he know shortcuts won't do him any good. Speed is all you need in a race like this. Plus the frakking mines left by the racing committee don't help him either. Another flash and rumble behind me lets me know what happened. I glance at my current speed on my visor display. I've hit 720 MPH as the nitro ride ended. It's time to take the final four ahead of me. The final stretch comes after this curve. I pull up behind two hover blade bikers duking it out at inhuman speeds as they turn with the track. I have to pass em', but I can't get hit by one of them. An electro sword or knife would rip through me and my ride like a hot synthodairy block. I get ready to make my move. I have to save my last two nitro for the two other machines in front, and then for the final stretch. I angle my car towards the right by hitting four pedals in rapid succession, and I stomp on the gas. I accelerate directly to the right of both racers and pour on the speed. My needle is well into the red now. I'm at 795 MPH now. The inertial dampener 1 out of 4 is buckled, but I'm still good. The biker closest on my left notices me and veers completely towards me abandoning his sparring partner, and he swings at me in a wide arc with his electro broadsword. I expected this and I lift my foot off the gas for only a second, which is just enough to drop me barely a few inches from the end of his swing's arc. As he falters and tries to recover his balance from missing, I see a gap between the two bikers barely big enough for me that's about to vanish. And that's just what I need. I hit two more gas pedals to angle me to the left now , and I pop my third nitro while I adjust my angle again as I enter the gap to handle the turn of the curve. I feel the gap closing at the same time I feel the nitro kick in. But as I get my nose into the gap, the second blade biker on my left pulls out and then throws and emp grenade directly at me in the drivers seat. I yell at the top of my lungs over the roar of the speed "OPEN WINDOWS!" And the grenade barely kisses the top of the dropping window as it barely makes it all the way through to the other side of the inside of my ride. The grenade sails into one window and out the opposite window, hitting the first blade biker who's now on my right. He bails out as his ride shuts down on him. This all happens in the course of 4 seconds. I speed through the gap with no time to spare. And I'm off scott free on my nitro ride. I feel the speed rushing just outside and against my windshield. Just waiting for the other of my 3 inertial dampeners to buckle so it can instantaneously crush every bone in my body into powder and making me part of the drivers seat. I love defying it. I love using it. I love feeling it. I love the speed. I'm standing toe to toe to nature by breaking the physically possible speed that a terran can hit. The final stretch begins as the turn straightens out, and I begin to pull up behind the final two.


It's a straight ride and I'm at 978 MPH. I've got my engine screaming and raging as hard as it can, and my last nitro capsule silently tells me it can push it harder. I oblige the nitro capsule to fill its unspoken promise to me and pop it in the nitro port. Then I feel the final kick as my engine screams even harder with rage, pain, and excitement at hitting unimaginable speeds neither of us could have dreamed of. And I floor the frakking pedal to the frakking floor. I hit the fastest I've ever hit. 1348 MPH, and gaining still. And as the speed kicks in I lock the wheel in a straight position and use both of my hand to flip off the two rigs I zoom between and under. I hear the announcer in my ear yelling with excitement and shock that I've hit an unheard of speed for a Trans Am. I see red bleed onto my visor display as two more inertial dampeners collapse and I'm left with my last barely holding. I see the sides of the track in my vision blur into a monochrome smear as I fly towards the finish on a level I've never hit. A level that I fear. A level that's new. A level that I'm known for raising. The end of the Red Gauge. I've earned the name I share with my ride. I hit 1800 MPH, and I'm gone. I see the line, and then it vanishes under my wheels in a fraction of a second as I become a blur myself. Im in first. In so many meanings of the the word. And I've won. And the last dampener fails right as I hit the anti-speed rocket propelled systems. And I feel myself crack. It crashes over me like a wave that bleeds through my windshield. And I feel the speed's anger. I feel its power. I feel nature's anger. The speed hits me.