The scream of metal giving way was not a Hollywood explosion. It was a thin, high-pitched shriek, the sound of a soul being torn from a machine, followed by a dull, gut-wrenching *thump* that I felt more than heard, a concussive wave that traveled from the track, through the ground, and up into the soles of my feet.
On the main monitor, the V-Max car, which a second ago had been a crimson spear of defiance, became a funeral pyre. A bloom of orange flame coughed from its side pod, instantly consumed by a geyser of thick, oily black smoke. Its forward momentum vanished. The car decelerated as if it had slammed into an invisible wall of solid concrete, the laws of physics reasserting their dominance over Julian’s shredded ambition.
Maddox didn’t even flinch.
He swept past the coasting, dyi
