The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

“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.

Ku

rt 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.