On the Town

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five...

She grinned, gripping the wheel, and cast Logan a sidelong glance from her seat. "Just don't cry when you lose."

Four, three, two, one... GO!

There was a screech of tires as she went zipping down the road, eyes glued on Logan's silver-blue car ahead of her. She followed right on his tail, bumper-to-bumper, until he and one of the computers went swiveling into a building on a crooked corner. Ha, rookie mistake. what kind of person would do something like that, right? >> << Jane slammed on the brakes, pulling hard on the wheel, and went sliding around the corner to pull ahead of the rest of the pack. "Maybe I should start that NASCAR career, huh?" she called over the rumble and roars of virtual car engines.

Logan didn't answer. The steering wheel had already corrected what he hadn't done, and he was back on the road in no time...a good 5 seconds off the rest of the pack. A bar was filling up on the right side of his screen, though. That had to be good, right? He wasn't last, either, as the car he crashed into was lamer, sputtering behind him off his own pace. He should be fine. He only had to move one car at a time. The graphic appeared, howver, and he realized they'd finished one lap already. There were three in the race.

One lap down, and she had a solid first. Well, mostly solid. The CPUs nipped at her heels, lightly bumping into her fender and always staying just within view in the corners of her screen, fighting to overtake her in the crooked streets, but she managed to maintain her lead. That was a good start. Logan was catching up from the earlier all-too-familiar blunder, weaving through the slower cars in the pack, but she didn't pay any mind. He'd been in dead last. It wouldn't be easy to recover.

Right?

That bar was getting pretty full. With each passing moment, with each drift he made successfully, with each back-of-the-pack car he passed, the bar got larger. The final lap began, and it got completely full. It began blinking a hot white. Logan decided to press to button in the middle of his steering wheel, as it had begun to blink as well.
Suddenly, his car lurched forward, his wheel shaking as it accelerated past car after car. Before he knew it, his car tapped the back bumper of Jane's, and he was second. He smiled slyly, as if that was his plan the entire time.

The wheel vibrated in her hands to simulate the collision, and her blue-and-white Mustang went lurching forward from the impact. Her grin turned into a gritted frown. "Do you really want to play rough?" she called over the virtual engine. It was the final lap. She just had to hold onto this lead for a little more than half a minute, and then she'd win.

As he began to catch up, almost driver-to-driver, she suddenly spun the wheel to the side, smashing into him. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Aggression was key in snatching victory and carving your own destiny!

His car skidded to the side as he was pushed, but he kept steady, turning the wheel back-and-forth in a brief moment of panic. He recoiled and slammed the side of her car into her side. They were coming up to the last turn. He hoped her bar wouldn't fill up by then...