The Rising Sea

36

From the cockpit of Kurt’s car, the third lap seemed to go much like the first two. But by the start of the fourth lap, he could see that the robot car was gaining on him. The glare of its headlights had become constant in his mirrors. Four diamond-white pinpricks announcing that the hunter was closing in on its prey.

The brilliant white lamps did more than aggravate. They were affecting Kurt’s night vision, causing his pupils to constrict and limiting his ability to see past the swath of his own headlights.

As lap four went on, the lights grew closer and Kurt’s driving became less precise. He was a little wide on turns one and two and caught the rumble strip badly in the chicane.

Aggravated with himself, he stomped the gas early and hard coming out of the next turn and almost spun the car out of control. The emotionless computer following him made none of those mistakes and the gap between them dropped to four seconds.

“Right thirty,” the navigator said. Kurt iced his own emotions and got back to driving as he had been before. He cut the wheel smoothly, sped through the turn and rode the gears higher into the red this time before shifting.

The robot car continued to close the gap.

The two cars thundered down the back straight toward the dangerous curve. The robot car’s nose so close to Kurt’s back wing that the lights were no longer in Kurt’s eyes. It was drafting him now and getting ready to slingshot by. And there was precious little Kurt could do about it.

“Come on,” Kurt said. “Get around me if you’re going.”

“Left seventy, off camber.”

The turn was coming up fast. Kurt needed to brake. He cut to the inside of the track and hit the brakes.

The robot car did the same, but Kurt had hit the brakes earlier than the automated car had planned to. The nose of the robotic vehicle crashed into the back of Kurt’s car.

Kurt was shoved forward and sent off line. His car slid for a second, but as Kurt adjusted the wheel, the tires regained their grip and the Toyota straightened with a whiplashing snap and stayed online.

With his foot to the floor, Kurt cruised around the wide horseshoe at the far end of the track and then onto the front straight once more.

The robot car had fallen back after the impact but was gaining on him again, though not as quickly as it had done the last lap. The impact had damaged its nose and affected its aerodynamics. As far as Kurt could tell, his own car was unhindered.

He raced along the front straight, roaring past the pits and then the viewing stand. He stole a glance at Han and his assistant up on the platform. “Reckless human drivers… my eye.”

Up on the platform, Han was almost foaming at the mouth. “I told you not to lose this race.”

Gao was monitoring the telemetry. “Nothing I can do about it now. You wanted the safeties off, that’s the danger.”

“Pass him, Gao.”

“The car will make another attempt on the back straight, but Austin is putting in his fastest lap yet. He’s a quick study.”

“Perhaps we should stop helping him, then,” Han said.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Shut off his navigation system.”

“He’ll be waiting for the announcement and drive right into the wall,” Gao said.

“He wanted to prove humans can outdrive machines. Let him prove it on his own.”

Gao took a deep breath. “You kill him here and his government will grow suspicious.”

“Not if it’s an accident.”

“Wen told you to keep him alive!” Gao argued. “To use him as a scapegoat.”

A wave of fury erupted from Han. He grabbed Gao by the collar. “Do as I say! Shut off the navigation.”

Released from Han’s grasp, Gao looked out over the track. Austin was making his way through the chicane and toward turn four. He waited a few seconds and then switched the relay to the off position.

Kurt knew Han’s car might try to take him out again, but he never considered stopping the race. He was determined to beat Han now more than ever.

He raced hard through the familiar turns on the front side of the track, operating with a mix of patience and restrained aggression. His orange and white Toyota carved a perfect line this time and it flew up the hill at a furious pace.

“Right fort—” the navigator said, the announcement oddly clipped in the middle.

Kurt dove into the turn, let the inside wheels hit the rumble strip to help him through it and left the apex of the curve at nearly full speed. Hitting the back straight, he spun the engine to its limits, letting the tachometer wind into the red as he blazed through the night.

The orange and white strips on the side of the track flew by at a dizzying pace. The lights shimmered on Nagasaki Bay and the robot car came on from behind, tracking him down and closing in with each fraction of a second.

Kurt flashed beneath the vacant bridge and bore down on the notorious turn five. The engine screamed in a full wail behind him. His fingers were light on the steering wheel, his foot poised to switch from accelerator to brake at the first instant of the navigator’s announcement.

It took only a fraction of a second for Kurt to realize it wasn’t coming. His eyes spotted the skid marks from the earlier lap. His mind calculating instantly that he was going too fast and getting too close.

He slammed on the brakes. The antilock system prevented a full skid, but an eruption of blue tire smoke filled the track. The harness dug into Kurt’s shoulders and he grunted as he turned the wheel, cutting it harder and keeping his foot on the brake.

His Toyota slowed rapidly but went into a drift. The tire smoke billowed like a bomb had gone off and the wall loomed.

With no other choice, Kurt let up on the brakes and hit the accelerator to get some control back. The car continued to skid but stayed on the ground. The rubber finally grabbed and the vehicle shot forward, toward the inside of the track. It raced onto the infield, nearly clipping the robot car as it flew past him, traveling headlong into the cloud of smoke.

With its sensors affected by the smoke and its safeties turned off, the automated car waited too long to begin applying its own brakes. It shot through the smoke cloud, skidded into the turn and banged the outside wall. The carbon fiber body panels on the right side splintered and flew in all directions. The wing was ripped off the back end. It went flying over the wall like a tomahawk, slicing into the water of Nagasaki Bay. The car itself careened off the wall and slid onto a gravel trap, where it stopped.

Kurt had already come to a stop on the grass of the infield. He was safe and sound and angled just about perfectly to view the last few seconds of the automated car’s wipeout. He saw it come to a stop on the gravel, two of its headlights blown out, the other two pointed toward the track.

Just when it looked to Kurt like the race would be called a draw, the wheels on the robot car spun and it began grinding its way out of the gravel trap and back onto the course.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kurt said.

He fired up his own engine, put the car into gear and punched the gas. The start was slow and sloppy, tearing up seventy yards of turf, before he got the nose pointed in the right direction.

One look told Kurt there was no way he could catch the robot car by getting back on the track and chasing it around the long horseshoe turn, so he took a shortcut and drove straight across the infield, heading for the other side.

Angling for the finish line, he stole a glance across the track. Han’s car was picking up speed but losing parts along the way. They were heading for the same spot from different directions. A collision was imminent.

Kurt kept the gas pedal down, merged onto the front straight and cut across the finish line on a diagonal angle. The robot car, or what was left of it, crossed the line half a second later.

Locking up the brakes once more, Kurt skidded to a stop. The robot car slowed with far greater control and stopped a hundred feet down the track.

Kurt threw open the door, punched the quick release on his harness and stepped from the car.

As Akiko ran up to him, he pulled off his helmet and the fireproof hood. Meanwhile, several of Han’s people rushed over to the ruined prototype that had come in second.

“Are you all right?” Akiko asked.

“Never better,” he said, though he was drenched in sweat and smelled like burnt rubber.

“I can’t believe you won,” she said, grabbing his hands. “You really are mad.”

“I don’t like to lose,” Kurt said. He held up a single finger. “Humans: one. Robots: zero.”

Han and his assistant came down from the viewing platform, looking far less excited. “You haven’t won anything,” Han insisted. “You cheated. You cut across the infield.”

“And you said first one across the finish line wins,” Kurt replied. “I don’t recall any conditions about how we were supposed to get there.”

Han pursed his lips, looking angrily at Kurt. “This mess doesn’t prove anything.”

Kurt grinned wickedly. “I disagree. It proves robots can be beaten. And that humans aren’t the only dangerous outside forces.”

Han bristled at Kurt using his own words against him, but there was nothing he could say to refute it.

A chime toned on Gao’s medallion and he checked a message on the screen. “Dinner is ready. If anyone is still interested in eating.”

Han glowered beside his assistant. He seemed to have lost his appetite. Gao looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Akiko tensed, her free hand inching toward the hidden knife beneath her sleeve. Only Kurt was all smiles.

“I’m famished,” he said with a grin. “Racing works up quite an appetite.”