Diego was in the front office, dealing with a customer. Ray heard voices coming in through the open window. The customer was angry about something. Money, probably. It was always money.
Perfect timing.
Ray stepped into the Graveyard.
He closed his eyes and activated Machine Sync. He just opened himself up to it, allowing the ability flow out. The sensation spread through his awareness.
Most of what came back was white noise. The mechanical equivalent of flatline. The bikes were so damaged that even their main parts were ruined. Frames were broken and engines were seized by corrosion.
Ray moved deeper into the yard.
He walked past a moped with no front wheel. A scooter missing its entire engine bay.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then he found something.
A faint pulse. Ray froze. He turned his head trying to know where it was.
There. In the far corner, buried under a pile of old tractor tires.
The pulse called to him.
Ray approached the tire pile carefully. The tires were huge and taller than him. Getting them moved would be impossible.
But he could see a gap. Right at the bottom. Where the tires didn't quite sit flush with the ground. Something was underneath, and Machine Sync was telling him it mattered.
Ray got on his hands and knees. The concrete was hot enough to hurt. He ignored it and crawled into the gap, squirming through the small space between tire and ground.
His hand hit metal. He grabbed it and pulled.
Scraaape.
Something moved. Heavy and stuck. Ray braced his feet against the bottom tire and pulled harder.
Scraaape. Clunk.
It was small frame meant for a kid, or something close to it. Ray dragged it slowly through the gap until he could see what he found.
It was a total wreck. The frame was rusted and the paint had peeled away to reveal bare metal. It had no wheels, engine and seat. The handlebars were bent at an angle that would have made riding it a geometric impossibility. One footpeg was missing.
But Ray recognized it. From late nights browsing racing forums when sleep wouldn't come and the monitor was his only companion.
A Polini 911 Mini-Moto.
A racing bike for kids. This one looked like it had been raced hard, crashed, and then abandoned under a stack of tires.
The system notification appeared without him asking.
[ITEM SCANNED: POLINI 911 MINI-MOTO FRAME]
[CONDITION: SEVERELY DAMAGED]
[COMPONENTS PRESENT: FRAME, SWINGARM, TRIPLE CLAMP]
[COMPONENTS MISSING: ENGINE, WHEELS, BRAKES, CONTROLS, BODYWORK, SEAT, EXHAUST, WIRING]
[ESTIMATED VALUE: €0]
[ESTIMATED RESTORATION COST: €800-1200]
[RECOMMENDATION: SCRAP FOR PARTS]
Ray read the recommendation and smiled. The system didn't understand. This wasn't about money. This was about possibility. About taking something broken and making it whole.
About proving that second chances were real.
He took the frame with his hands and started dragging. It was heavier than it looked. All that metal, even though it was rusted, had weight. Ray's muscles protested immediately.
Diego was still arguing with the customer. Ray could hear the conversation getting heated. Good. Just stay distracted. Don't look out the back window.
The bushes behind the workshop marked the edge of the property. Beyond that was a riverbed that was usually dry, except during the worst storms. The bushes were thick and overgrown.
A Perfect hiding spot.
Ray dragged the frame toward them. His arms ached him badly.
But he didn't care.
He had spent eight years watching his body fail him. And now he was dragging a fifty-pound bike frame across a yard in Spain while the sun tried to cook him alive.
The thick bushes hid the frame as soon as Ray pushed it in.
Ray collapsed next to it, breathing hard.
He lay on the ground and started laughing.
"You're ugly," Ray said to the frame. His voice was raspy from breathing hard. " A piece of shit."
He reached out and patted the rusted frame.
"Just like I was," Ray continued.
His hand stayed on the frame. He felt the Machine Sync feeding him information he was still learning to interpret. The frame was solid and its geometry was right. It was built for racing in every way. This had been a real bike once and it could be one again.
"I'm going to make you a champion," Ray said. "I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what I have to do. You are going to race again."
The system notification appeared again.
[HIDDEN QUEST DETECTED]
[PROJECT LAZARUS: RESTORE THE POLINI 911 TO RACING CONDITION]
[DIFFICULTY: EXTREME]
[ESTIMATED TIME: UNKNOWN]
[REWARD: 50 SKILL POINTS, TITLE: "MIRACLE WORKER"]
[ACCEPT QUEST?]
Ray didn't hesitate. "Yes."
[QUEST ACCEPTED]
[CURRENT PROGRESS: 0.01%]
[COMPONENTS ACQUIRED: 1/47]
[GOOD LUCK. YOU'LL NEED IT.]
That last line felt personal. He just lay on the ground, hiding in the bushes behind his father's failing workshop, with a rusted frame that was worth nothing and meant everything.
He needed forty-seven components. The wheels, brakes, an engine, controls, suspension parts, bodywork. The list went on. And he had zero euros to his name. Diego was fifteen thousand in debt. Sabrina was fixing patches on clothes to make them last another season. There was no money for a kid's racing bike.
Which meant Ray had to get creative.
He thought about the Graveyard. All those dead bikes. Surely some of them had parts he could use. Wheels from one, controls from another. Mix and match until something worked. It wouldn't be pretty, but racing wasn't about pretty. Racing was about crossing the finish line first.
But the engine. That was the problem. Mini-motos used specific engines. You couldn't just attach whatever engine you happened to find. The mounting points had to match. The power output had to be right. Too much of power and it would destroy the frame.
Ray's mind started working through possibilities. What had engines similar to what he needed? What could be adapted?
Chainsaws.
Chainsaws used small two-stroke engines. Not the same as a mini-moto engine, but close. Same basic technology. Similar displacement. With enough mechanical knowledge, which he was now earning through the Ghost Garage session, he could make it work.
He just needed to find a chainsaw.
Ray pushed himself up to sitting.
"I need an engine," Ray said. "Which means I need to go hunting."