she was facing the wrong way. She should have
braked, but instead she tried to correct her
position. Obviously she hadn’t been expecting
the hit.
“What are you doing?” she shouted at him.
“Winning,” he replied, smiling as he saw
her hit the broadside of STR33T_WIZE’s pod
on the rearview monitor. In his efforts to avoid
the crash, STR33T_WIZE bumped Z1P_ZAP,
pushing her into the edge of the track. She
bounced back but at an angle that forced her
to cross the track sideways. She lost a lot of
ground to the other racers.
Hitting ECHO had worked better than
A11_4_ON3 had expected. He thought she
would have driven straight off the track. There
was no visible wall keeping them in, just the red
line on the ground, but her bounce had actually
worked better. Not only had he bumped
himself into perfect position to accelerate and
get the inside track, but she had accidentally
taken out her whole team—perfect.
The map screen displayed the positions
of all the players in the race. ECHO was now
13
