The docks dissolved into a haze of weathered, salt-encrusted warehouses as ARIA's navigation carved a sharp westward path, pulling us from the pulsing neon arteries of Los Angeles.
Highways unraveled into serpentine canyons, the Strap Function screaming in overdrive, velocity locked at a sustained 320 MPH. The world collapsed into smeared ribbons of moonlit pavement and jagged cliffs plummeting into the roaring Pacific.
Ozone scorched my throat, slipping past the helmet's filters. G-forces crushed my chest, turning every inhale into a desperate struggle.
Behind us, plasma exhaust etched luminous wounds across the night sky.
Three of them loomed above—silent, omnipresent, their low resonant hum burrowing into bone deeper than the thunder of our engines.
