The first thing Proxy discovered about the flight zone was that steering left no longer meant turning left.

The truck banked, enough that the front dipped and the lava zone rose back into view at a tilt it had no business occupying, and he attempted to fix it, and the fix sent the truck’s front back up past level, and he attempted to fix it again again, and by the end of those three seconds he understood the principle of it and would not be discussing the previous three seconds with anyone.

He leveled the truck and looked at the zone properly for the first time.

It was wide. The prior zones had all been narrow problems, narrows between dunes, water current bands, volcanic rock with lava on both sides. This was open air in every direction, and the race field that had been compressed into a linear formation for every prior zone was now distributed across it like a map of intentions.

Trucks above him and below him and level with him, all moving forward but none at the same height. It was the first time in the race that "ahead" required a direction other than forward.

He counted approximately twelve trucks in the forward portion of the field.

Nyx’s truck was nearby. She had adapted to the flight mechanics faster than he had, which he put on reflex speed and declined to consider anything else.

She was banking experimentally, testing the range of motion, and from what he could observe she had not found any limits she disliked.

He flew closer to her.

"The field ahead has about twelve trucks."

He shouted through the air. The truck was steady while he spoke.

"Mm," she said.

He checked the field again, then said, "Let’s have a truce. Until there is just the two of us at the lead."

Nyx didn’t even consider another alternative.

"Obviously," she said.

He adjusted his truck a fraction. "That’s a yes."

"That’s a very obvious yes," she said. "Tell me who you want first."

He looked at the field. A truck was running at high altitude above them, positioned in a way that felt like a plan in motion.

"The one above us," he said. "Ten o’clock, high."

She was already banking before he finished the sentence.

He watched her truck climb in the way her very high acceleration climbed.

She came at the elevated truck from its right side, the blind side for a driver watching the field below.

[ EMP Pulse ]

The discharge went upwards, reaching the elevated truck at the moment it noticed Nyx’s ambush and began starting up its ability in response. The ability cut off.

The truck coasted, its interruption window large enough that Nyx was already on it, her truck’s side hitting against the elevated truck’s nose and redirecting it out of the way forward and into the empty air below the race.

It wasn’t an elimination, but the truck was sent spiraling downwards.

The next target was chosen by behavior. It was flying at low altitude, well below them, barely above the zone’s implied limit, and the front was not pointed forward. It was pointed up. It was waiting for something to descend into range.

"There’s one more bitch below us," Nyx said, before he could. "Left."

"Con..? Confirmed," he said.

She descended.

He kept his altitude and position, which put him on his aim. The truck started to ramp up its speed, expecting to hit its target from a blind spot.

It went for the one it could see. Nyx came from the one it couldn’t.

The crash sent the low truck into a banking roll it had not planned, and it flew without direction for dozens of seconds. Proxy glimpsed onto the mirror being splattered from the inside in what could only be vomit.

Forward, two trucks flew side by side, one drifting left, one drifting right, the distance between them obvious enough to be a strategy.

Proxy put himself into the middle of them.

[ Brace ]

The left truck, unaware of the ability use, attempted to hit his truck on the side. It took the rebound of the impact and spiraled downwards, without control.

Nyx went wide of the right truck, came around it from above, and the right truck had to choose either between helping his partner or continue forward alone. Before it could make up its mind, Nyx had its wheels smash on the truck cab, forcing it downwards into a spiral.

Then the ex-boxer appeared.

He had been somewhere in the mid-field with the unhurried patience he had demonstrated since the starting grid in the desert, and he had apparently made the decision the flight zone was his opportunity to push forward and take the lead.

He came from above and to the right, the charge visible as the flat white glow Proxy had last seen at a desert starting line..

Proxy went left. Ram cut through the space he had been in and continued past him.

The ex-boxer did not return. He pulled the truck forward with the patience of someone who had known this might be the result and had already decided to try again later.

He dropped back into the mid-field.

Still in the race.

Proxy noted this and looked forward.

The zone boundary was visible now. The field ahead had thinned.

Four or five trucks were ahead of them at various heights, the distance between those trucks and the zone boundary shortening at a fast rate.

Then the ambient light changed.

The open air ahead had weather in it that had not been there thirty seconds ago. Clouds started to form, wide and dark, building in the upper airspace like something the race had not bothered to advertise in advance.

Then the sound arrived. A behemothic, guttural roar that made it obvious there were more than just trucks in this zone.

It came from inside the clouds, which meant it came from all of them, which meant whatever had created it was larger than a specific direction could contain.

Proxy looked at the clouds. He looked at the part of them that had not yet decided to be clouds.

"I swear," he said, "if it is dragon."