Page 193 of Fatality

I throw the car into gear and pull away. One hundred and ten miles an hour, maybe more. I don’t give a fuck.

I cut off some perfect little rich asshole's car. They lean on the horn.

I ignore it.

My hands are white-knuckled around the wheel, blood dripping onto the leather.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I’m still in the Upper Layers. I’m still too close to her world.

I need to breathe, I need the noise.

Now.

I weave between cars, my reflex booster and ocular augmentations making every gap, every angle, every calculation effortless.

The other drivers swerve violently, yanking their cars out of my way.

It’s not enough, I need more.

The stab wound doesn't matter. My hand doesn't matter.

I need to kill whatever the fuck woke up inside me the moment I thought she was dying—the moment I met her.

I jerk the wheel and slam the chassis of my Charger into the rear of some expensive car that fucking floats.

Anti-gravitational cars aren't impossible. Rich assholes just like pretending they cracked the laws of physics.

A grav-core beneath the chassis generates a counter-field that tells gravity to go fuck itself. The core keeps the car hovering while vector thrusters take care of steering and acceleration.

Smooth, quiet and efficient.

Boring as hell.

They're expensive to build, even more expensive to maintain, and the moment the core starts drifting out of calibration, you're looking at repair bills big enough to make most people cry.

That's why I still drive on wheels.

Tires bite asphalt.

I can feel every crack in the road through the steering wheel.

I know exactly when the rear's about to step out because the whole fucking car talks to me.

Anti-gravs float over everything, insulated from the street like they're too good to touch it.

That's the Upper Layers in a nutshell. Always hovering, never getting their hands dirty.

The car barely fucking moves.

I clench my jaw and wrench the wheel, driving the chassis into the back of the floating car again, crushing its rear end.

The driver loses control, swerves across the road, and slams into a utility pole displaying the time. The clock glitches once before dying.

The driver is alive and unharmed. Already calling the Enforcers.

I roll my eyes.