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The rest of the lap went smoothly and Kurt raced through the start/finish line with a nine-second lead on the robot car.
“One down, four laps to go,” Kurt said.
* * *
• • •
FROM THE ELEVATED viewing stand in the pit area, Han watched his ten-million-dollar robot car chase Kurt around the track. To his chagrin, the second lap was even worse than the first. By the time they crossed the line, Kurt was ahead by more than ten seconds.
He glanced at Gao. “There must be something wrong with the car,” he said. “How is Austin beating it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Gao replied. “Austin had five laps to warm up his tires. Our car is racing on cold rubber. It has less grip in the turns and the computer is keeping the speed down. By lap three, we’ll be equal footing. We’ll catch him by lap four and pass him on the front straight. By the end of the race, our car will be twenty seconds ahead of him. It won’t even be close.”
“You’d better be right,” Han said. “I don’t like being embarrassed. Take the safety protocols off just to be sure.”
Gao looked at his boss questioningly and then did as he was told. With the flick of a switch, the automated car was instructed to ignore its safe operating parameters and win at all costs.
36
FROM THE COCKPIT of Kurt’s car, the third lap seemed to go much like the first two. But by the start of the fourth lap, he could see that the robot car was gaining on him. The glare of its headlights had become constant in his mirrors. Four diamond-white pinpricks announcing that the hunter was closing in on its prey.
The brilliant white lamps did more than aggravate. They were affecting Kurt’s night vision, causing his pupils to constrict and limiting his ability to see past the swath of his own headlights.
As lap four went on, the lights grew closer and Kurt’s driving became less precise. He was a little wide on turns one and two and caught the rumble strip badly in the chicane.
Aggravated with himself, he stomped the gas early and hard coming out of the next turn and almost spun the car out of control. The emotionless computer following him made none of those mistakes and the gap between them dropped to four seconds.
“Right thirty,” the navigator said. Kurt iced his own emotions and got back to driving as he had been before. He cut the wheel smoothly, sped through the turn and rode the gears higher into the red this time before shifting.
The robot car continued to close the gap.
The two cars thundered down the back straight toward the dangerous curve. The robot car’s nose so close to Kurt’s back wing that the lights were no longer in Kurt’s eyes. It was drafting him now and getting ready to slingshot by. And there was precious little Kurt could do about it.
“Come on,” Kurt said. “Get around me if you’re going.”
“Left seventy, off camber.”
The turn was coming up fast. Kurt needed to brake. He cut to the inside of the track and hit the brakes.
The robot car did the same, but Kurt had hit the brakes earlier than the automated car had planned to. The nose of the robotic vehicle crashed into the back of Kurt’s car.
Kurt was shoved forward and sent off line. His car slid for a second, but as Kurt adjusted the wheel, the tires regained their grip and the Toyota straightened with a whiplashing snap and stayed online.
With his foot to the floor, Kurt cruised around the wide horseshoe at the far end of the track and then onto the front straight once more.
The robot car had fallen back after the impact but was gaining on him again, though not as quickly as it had done the last lap. The impact had damaged its nose and affected its aerodynamics. As far as Kurt could tell, his own car was unhindered.
He raced along the front straight, roaring past the pits and then the viewing stand. He stole a glance at Han and his assistant up on the platform. “Reckless human drivers . . . my eye.”
* * *
• • •
UP ON THE PLATFORM, Han was almost foaming at the mouth. “I told you not to lose this race.”
Gao was monitoring the telemetry. “Nothing I can do about it now. You wanted the safeties off, that’s the danger.”
“Pass him, Gao.”
