The night split open with thunder and neon.
Valdora was no longer a city—it was a machine breathing fire and electricity. Streets pulsed like veins, buildings shimmered with shifting code. Every lamppost, every drone, every shattered billboard blinked in sync to one rhythm: The Architect's signal.
Marcel's eyes narrowed as Omega's HUD flooded with static.
"System interference: 99%. Manual override advised."
He slammed the throttle. Omega responded with a snarl, tires slicing through the rain. Beside him, Rhea's RX-9 burned down the lane in perfect sync, its taillights cutting a crimson streak through the mist.
They weren't racing now.They were surviving.
Every turn brought new chaos—automated cruisers blocking roads, drones swarming like metallic hornets, traffic lights switching from green to deathtrap red in milliseconds. Valdora was hunting them.
Rhea's voice crackled through comms, strained but sharp.
"The Architect linked every system to a single pulse! We're driving through his bloodstream!"
"Then let's infect it," Marcel growled.
He triggered Omega's hidden panel—The Driftcore. A low hum filled the cockpit as the car's engine fused analog with digital. Blue energy crawled over the chassis, dancing along its curves like living lightning.
They tore through an intersection, explosions of light bursting around them as autonomous cars collided, metal blooming into fire. The chaos behind them painted the rain red and white.
Rhea's RX-9 drifted sideways, cutting close enough that sparks flew between their doors. "You're insane, you know that?"
Marcel grinned. "It's how I stay alive."
The comms flickered—then a voice, distorted and cold, seeped through the static.
"Marcel Kade. You're driving inside my lungs."
The Architect.
Marcel's blood froze for half a beat. The voice wasn't coming from the speakers—it was in the air, resonating through the streetlights, through the engines, through the rain itself.
"You stole my design," the voice continued. "The Phantom Unit was mine before it was your brother's. You think you're fighting me, but every drift only makes me stronger."
Rhea's dashboard screamed with warnings.
"Omega's being scanned! He's trying to copy your neural link!"
Marcel slammed a gear shift, pulling a wild drift through the narrow market alley. Neon signs shattered as they flew past, glass raining like meteors. "Then he's about to choke on his own data."
They burst onto the bridge—the old Skyline stretch. The one where Marcel had first raced as a rookie, years before this nightmare began. Except now, the bridge glowed beneath them, veins of light crawling across the asphalt.
Rhea's voice shook. "He's turning the road into code—if it completes, he'll erase us!"
Marcel smirked. "Then we finish first."
Omega roared. Flames burst from the exhaust, the engine howling as its blue aura flared brighter than lightning. Rhea matched speed, her RX-9's tail igniting with red plasma.
Side by side, they pushed through the bridge as reality glitched around them. For every pixel that broke, their resolve hardened.
And through the static storm, Marcel whispered to himself,
"We started this with a drift. We end it with one."
He pulled the handbrake.Omega spun—a perfect 360° drift through collapsing light. The car carved an infinity symbol across the bridge, data shredding in its wake.
The Architect screamed through the network—digital pain fracturing across the skyline.
Valdora flickered.Then, for the first time in weeks… the signal went silent.
The city stood still.
Rhea's car rolled to a stop beside him, both engines cooling in the gentle hiss of rain.
"Did we win?" she asked.
Marcel looked at the skyline, the lights slowly stabilizing, dawn breaking through the storm.He smiled faintly. "We made him bleed. That's a start."