Agent Tyrel Reeves grimaced as Xin Shu was clotheslined for the fourth time. After losing two bikes in the first lap, Reeves had found the dead-man switch in the Ducati's program to enable a power brake and idle when it no longer felt pressure in the saddle.

"You okay there, rookie?" Reeves asked. Shu groaned but sat up and answered.

"Ugh! My Unbreakable skill just got maxed and armor and healing are on the cusp."

"Alright kid, shake it off and get your bike. We've still got two laps to go. The others hung back to set a picket line for the leads, Utopia and Luna AI. We've got to push forward and get that hovercraft going."

"Are you sure it will start without the full team completing the first round, Mister Reeves?"

"Jesus kid, just call me Tyrel or Reeves like the others. I don't know, but if we don't try, we'll be stuck in third. There are only two seats in the hovercraft, driver and gunner. So, I'm betting we can have outriders with these Ducati for the next round. Luna is sticking together. This is our chance to get ahead of them. Now, stop stalling and get to your damn bike!" Reeves barked. He stewed as Shu ran after his bike in the brush.

This is the last team match for a whole bunch of us. I need to make sure Shu's ossification stenography is updated to ensure we get a full report on our findings so far. The whole place already has enough violations to warrant a cease and desist with a full forensic dive to find all their DAIE article violations. If rumors are true about how brutal level three is going to be, I'll bet my badge this so-called "Builder" will be getting some jail time and these unregistered AIs will be reformatted.

Shu finally powered out of the brush and Reeves gunned his thrusters, yelling over his back.

"Stay on my six, kid. No more fucking around. You ditch again and I'll make sure it's on your probation review!"

Reeves smiled grimly as the white-faced recruit pushed himself to stay on Reeve's tail. With an evil laugh to himself, Reeves throttled into high gear and tore out of the jungle.

Max was relaxed as the recessed lights flashed past, the only visible indication of his high rate of speed as he drove his bike with his overdrive thrusters engaged. He banked hard, climbing the hex tunnel's walls and looping over the top to avoid the blocking pylon.

He patted the special grapple gun affixed to the side of the bike. After his risky maneuver to save Leah, he'd quickly designed and printed some cruder versions of his grappler weapon in the form of a gun. All the bikes were upgraded on the fly with adhesive-mounted winch anchors and holsters for grapplers.

Fortunately, the team hadn't needed to repeat Max's save from earlier, but they had managed to use them to unseat some opponents that tried to block their path. Max's intuition was pinging him. The hex tunnels were murderous enough with the twists and turns, adding the random barricade blocks was overkill. Max's reaction time and ExaVision were plenty to avoid those. He pushed himself to go faster. Exiting the hex tunnels was a prime ambush tactically.

The exit was coming fast, and Max's hackles rose. He wasn't concerned for himself, but rather for his lagging teammates. He continued his barrel roll so he would exit upside down. Even though his senses didn't "see" anything, he was convinced that a trap was waiting. He sliced downward with his vorpal exo-blade and felt the monofilament snap.

Max emerged with his time frame rate maxed. He acquired targets and shot his ambushes using his augs, weapons, and the hidden Tesseract arsenal. Maser beams, K-gun rounds, electric bolts, mini-gun shots, and focused EMP pulses landed out.

Two attackers fell back while the beams and bolts disrupted trip lines, blockades, and mines as Max spun out of the tunnel. Super-human accuracy delivered a fusillade that precisely and efficiently targeted all the enemy and their prepared ambush.

It was the New Boston team again! Max clicked internally at the bad blood that Xavier's challenge bet had gained. As Barry and his team fell behind, they adopted the tactics to down opponents instead of trying to make up ground. The pair of enemies fell back under Max's fire, throwing up shields and smoke.

"That right, Barry! Run along or I'll hold you down for Xavier to get another tag on you!" Max called to the retreating forms. He circled once as his team cautiously flew out of the tunnels.

"Free and clear! Another ambush busted!"

The team roared around the curve, pushing hard to ascend the final stretch for round one. The initial launch point, and the hovercraft for the next round, came up fast. As Max hit the perimeter, a message was projected onto his Aug display.

[Objective 1: Speed Round Ducati race - completed. +250xp.]

[Death Race Leaderboard update: Utopia 750, ACME 600, LUNA AI 500, DAIE 300, Shanghai Surprise -300, New Boston -700]

[Objective 2: Heavy Vehicle Round - Hovercraft. Unlocked. Find the path to the target. Avoid or overcome environmental challenges. The first Team to deliver heavy vehicles to the target zone: 500 pts. Disable opponents' heavy vehicles: 100 pts. Loss of Vehicle: -200 pts (vehicle self-repairs dependent upon damage 10-60 min, unlimited).]

"By the way, Thanks for clearing that trap, Max. My reaction time just isn't as good as yours!" Charlie exclaimed.

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"No worries! It was fun. Those guys aren't very creative. Ready for round 2?" Max asked.

"You know it. Alright! Xavier, do you still want to drive? I'll be the gunner. Max and Leah, let's keep some bikes so you can scout ahead." Charlie called out. Leah spoke up.

"The cargo space is pretty big. We can park the extra bikes in it. Never know when we might need another."

The team scrambled forward. Charlie and Xavier parked their bikes in the hovercraft cargo bed. Xavier ran forward to start up the big craft while Charlie locked the bikes down. The hovercraft's cargo bed came with retractable moving straps. Max and Leah circled the encampment, alert for any sign of the Luna AI team that dogged their heels the entire round.

"Whoop!" Xavier crowed as the GenDyn systems booted up and the internal air fans kicked in levitating the heavy vehicle on its inflating nano-weave cushion. The large craft groaned and dragged forward at a sedate thirty kilometers per hour.

"Shit! Can't that junk pile move any faster?" Max groaned.

"Ugh! Sorry guys! I'm doing my best, but this is redlining the thrusters. Maybe we can build some speed when we're on the ramp down the plateau." Xavier countered. After a moment he spoke again, "Uh, guys. I've got a grid target but no route. The target point isn't along the bike loop; it's deep inside. I think we need to find the best path.

Max and Leah looked at each other with concern as Xavier shared the target point on their team world map. Without another moment's hesitation, they both rocketed toward the ramp down. They coordinated a shared mesh of drone scouts to extend their mapping.

The hovercraft was large and slow. They would need a path without obstructions and find it before the hovercraft made it down the steep embankment. The pair raced ahead, their bikes weaving through the obstacles as they scanned the terrain.

Max and Leah's augmentation sense and connectivity to the drones were put to the test, as they navigated the treacherous landscape. They relayed their findings back to Xavier so he could chart the best course. Max had mapped a clear path that suddenly was blocked by a line of mangrove trees.

"Watch out, Max! I got this." Leah yelled. Max boosted his bike into motion as a series of Leah's darts riddled the tree line. Max ducked behind the Ducati's fuselage as he recognized the color coding of the darts. The mangrove erupted in conclusive flames as the explosive darts ripped the swamp trees apart. Max opened his line to the group chat.

"Keep on trucking, boys. Path 4.2 just opened up. This one might go all the way. Not too much farther to go."

"Good timing, Max. Good job on the mangrove, Leah! I've been dropping motes in a daisy chain as we've traveled and I just sighted Luna AI behind us, about 4 clicks back. It looks like they're using our path. I dropped some trees to block our cleared path using these guns. This thing's 0.50 Cal machine gun rocks. I haven't had this much fun since my mech support days."

Charlie seemed in good humor. The comm line, despite AI-assisted filtering, still had a lot of the background whine from the vehicle turbo fans. The line clicked open again and Charlie spoke.

"Oh! Hey, I figured out what that mystery capacitor array you won off Kane does. It takes a while to charge up, but it spools out a cloud of ionized foglets. This is a new one for me. The foglets seem to charge up with a high EM shield and they have high albedo refractors as well. It should give some shielding from laser, EMP, and even low-energy ballistics. This might come in handy. I feel like a sitting duck with our slow speeds."

Max focused on the path ahead as he roared down the swampy paths. The telltale glint of metal alerted him of the target's approach. He whistled and shared his POV. Max's expanded mind quickly understood, but he held his tongue waiting to see who would understand first after him. Leah clicked the line.

"Looks like the third mission just clarified a bit. Sorry, Charlie. Looks like you're going to be a sitting duck for a little longer. Am I wrong or isn't that the missing Mech power pack?"

Charlie's voice when it came was grim. "Son of a bitch! Yeah. This beast Xavier is driving should be able to haul that. Fuck, those things need goddamn cranes to move. These augs are good, but this could be a strain even with all of us."

"Heol?! Charlie, I just realized something else. The Stealth Wing is part of the round three challenge. I need to get back to the plateau and get it. Do you think you boys can handle loading? Am I supposed to provide cover for you or hunt our opponents?"

Xavier piped up, "Just like a girl, running away when heavy lifting is needed!"

Charlie barked, "Stow that shit, X. Leah, go ahead. No time to waste. I'm hoping round three triggers when the hovercraft hits that clearing. If you can, swap your bike for the Stealth Wing, ASAP! I'll feel a lot better, with overwatch support. The Ducati can't hover like that thing can."

"As long as we're in the lead, we don't have to worry about the other team's Stealth Wings. I gotta hand it to Kane, for a minimal investment we are well positioned to win this thing." Max said.

Leah sped off as Max landed beside the massive Mech power pack. He eyed the payload and realized that the bikes in the hovercraft cargo bay would need to go. He summoned the portal to the Tesseract as he dismounted.

He'd salvaged quite a few of the wreckage pieces from the few Ducati crashes. The bike would fit the portal easily, but it wouldn't fit in his hijacked matter compiler. He called out his daemons as he dragged the bike across the portal threshold into the pocket space.

"[Tesla! Did you decompile those Ducati pieces?]" He sent.

The ghostly image of the ascetic Serbian inventor appeared in his Overlay standing in the space near the compiler. The interior of the Tesseract, despite ongoing nighttime sessions to feed it power and grow its size to a new record of 12 meters, was crowded with weapons, salvages, and raw stocks of materials.

"[Yes, indeed. I've managed to gather a detailed molecular plan for 67% of the air bike design. External scans can provide another 16% of the design with a confidence of 80%. However, I should mention that the design doesn't compress like your brother's bike. It won't be printable in our compiler. We would need an industrial-sized machine for it. Also, reverse engineering the design may result in a compilation that's out of order and inefficient.]"

"[Hmm, I can split off an instance to work with you on that. Maybe we can alter the design to enable modular printing and assembly. I'm confident I can achieve the proper assembly flow and perhaps even improve the efficiency. But first, we need to finalize the full copy. Highlight the areas we need.]" Max commanded as he extended his vorpal blade. It was crude, but the machine was too big to fit into the tiny compiler.

Max smiled as Tesla added a VR overlay on the bike to show him the missing sections for the copied design. He activated his vorpal skill and started cutting. He waited a moment for a system notice about the loss of the bike, but none came. He sighed in relief. He'd hoped that, since the first round was over, the loss of the bike wouldn't trigger a replacement penalty. His gamble had worked this time.

He smiled as he hauled the needed section into the compiler. He had plenty of time. Charlie and Xavier would take at least another fifteen minutes to get to the clearing. He could use one of their bikes when they ditched them to make room for the Mech pack. This way he would get his unlicensed copy done and still be able to provide scouting support. Max groaned with a sudden spike of pain.

[Chthonic Block +1, Chthonic block reaches level 9. Warning – this is a custom skill. Leveling progress indicates change to skill but may not reflect improved efficacy. The system app has not been verified.

He felt the whispers in his mind again. They were stronger inside the Tesseract. Even his Chthonic blocking skill struggled to suppress it. Something was changing, the maddening chatter was increasing in intensity. Unsettled but determined, Max resumed working.

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