## Chapter One — Legends of Motion The Safehouse was trying very hard to pretend that it was a quiet place. It failed, but in a familiar way. Rain tapped against the reinforced windows in a soft, nervous rhythm, too weak to count as weather and too persistent to ignore. Somewhere beyond the glass, Night City dragged itself through late morning under a ceiling of bruised neon and old exhaust, its towers vanishing upward into cloud-glow and corporate arrogance. Traffic murmured below. Distant sirens dopplered through the streets, lost their conviction, and became part of the city’s permanent background sickness. Inside, the living room had settled into one of its rare almost-domestic states. Almost, because there were weapons on the side table. Almost, because one of the coffee mugs had been placed exactly on top of a ballistic armor plate. Almost, because Ace was sitting cross-legged on the floor with one of her katanas laid across her knees, cleaning the blade with the focused calm of someone who considered this a restful morning activity. Mai sat on the couch with one leg folded under herself, silver hair loose over one shoulder, reviewing something on her agent while wearing the expression she used when Night City had once again disappointed her without surprising her. Shammy occupied the opposite end of the couch, half-draped rather than seated, silver-white hair spilling across a cushion like weather deciding to rest. Static clicked softly around her fingers whenever she scrolled too quickly through the entertainment feed. Reyes had claimed the armchair nearest the window, because of course she had. Back to the wall, line of sight to both exits, mug in hand, boots unlaced but close enough to be weapons in principle. She looked relaxed in the same way a knife looked relaxed when set down on a table. Kiro had taken over the floor space near the low table. Two screens floated in front of her, one stable, one flickering because she had apparently decided fixing it would be less interesting than complaining about it. Her pale silver-blonde hair was tied badly with a cable clip, faded color remnants catching the blue of the screen and turning her into a half-functional signal ghost. Marco stood in the kitchen area, because Marco standing anywhere near food automatically turned that place into a kitchen area. He was making something that smelled like real coffee, warm bread, and an argument with Night City’s supply chains. Lena moved around him with quiet precision, placing cups, clearing space, correcting small disasters before they became visible enough for anyone else to notice. It was almost peaceful. Which meant somebody had to ruin it. Kiro made a small noise. Not a word. Not quite a gasp. More like a tiny digital animal being stepped on. Mai did not look up. “No.” Kiro froze. “I didn’t say anything.” “You made the sound.” “That could mean anything.” “It never means anything good.” Ace glanced up from the katana. Her violet eyes narrowed slightly, not with alarm yet, but with interest. “Is something on fire?” “No,” Kiro said. Reyes took a slow sip from her mug. “That hesitation did a lot of work.” “No one is on fire.” “Different answer.” “No one we know is on fire.” Marco looked over from the counter. “Progress.” Kiro stabbed a finger toward the floating screen. “Okay, nobody panic.” Shammy’s eyes brightened. “That is my favorite opening.” Mai finally lowered her agent. “Kiro.” “I found something.” “We noticed.” “No, I mean something weird.” Ace’s katana stopped moving. The room’s temperature did not change, exactly, but it reorganized itself around attention. Kiro noticed and immediately lifted both hands. “Not anomaly weird. Not cursed-data weird. Not ‘hello I found a god hiding inside a washing machine firmware update’ weird. Normal weird.” Reyes leaned back. “In this city?” “Okay, rich-people weird.” Marco made a face. “That is worse.” “It’s a public event,” Kiro said, already expanding the article across the main wall screen without waiting for permission. “Corporate-sponsored. Downtown exhibition hall. Temporary display. Very limited access. Ridiculously expensive tickets, but someone put three thousand promo passes into the wrong marketing bucket and now half the city’s pretending not to care while trying to get in.” The wall screen stabilized. A glossy advertisement unfolded in cinematic gold and black. LEGENDS OF MOTION A PRIVATE HERITAGE EXHIBITION OF PRE-COLLAPSE PERFORMANCE AUTOMOBILES LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS • ORIGINAL RESTORATIONS • ONE WEEKEND ONLY Mai blinked. Once. Ace went completely still. Kiro, who had clearly been expecting mockery, kept talking. “So apparently some corp collector is showing off antique cars. Like actual cars. Not replicas. Not decorative shells. Functional. There’s a whole article arguing whether the engines are original or if they’re lying through restoration loopholes, which honestly feels like the most corpo form of archaeology I’ve ever seen.” Marco carried a tray into the room. “Cars?” “Old cars.” “How old?” Kiro zoomed in. “Nineteen-eighties through early two-thousands mostly.” Marco stopped walking. A cup slid half a centimeter on the tray. Lena caught it before it could fall, because Lena’s hands seemed to exist partly in the future. “Nineteen-eighties,” Marco said slowly. “Yes.” “As in—” “Nearly a century ago.” Marco stared at the screen. Then at Mai. Then at Ace. “People drove those?” Ace said, very quietly, “Yes.” Mai’s expression had changed. It was subtle. Barely there. To most people, it would have looked like simple attention. To Ace, it was memory. To Shammy, it was atmosphere shifting around an old door. To Reyes, it was a tell. “Okay,” Reyes said. “Now I’m interested.” Kiro pointed at the article. “I haven’t even gotten to the stupid part.” “There’s a stupider part?” Marco asked. “This is Night City. There is always a stupider part.” Kiro flicked the display sideways. Four featured vehicles appeared in a row. The first was a brutal little box of a machine in white and yellow, compact and aggressive, its proportions all wrong in a way that suggested they were extremely right for something dangerous. AUDI SPORT QUATTRO GROUP B RALLY ICON The second was low, sharp, red and white, more delicate than the Audi at first glance, but with a hunger under the skin. LANCIA RALLY 037 THE LAST REAR-WHEEL-DRIVE WORLD RALLY CHAMPION The third was dark blue, clean-lined, boxy in a way that had aged into confidence. NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R R32 ORIGINAL FACTORY SPECIFICATION The fourth looked like it had slipped through time by mistake. KOENIGSEGG CCS EARLY HYPERCAR ERA PROTOTYPE LINEAGE Mai stood up. No one spoke for half a second. Then Marco, very carefully, said, “Mai?” “We’re going.” Kiro’s mouth opened. Ace set the cleaning cloth down. “We are going,” she agreed. The room did something rare. It stared at them. Even Reyes raised an eyebrow. Kiro pointed at the screen. “Wait. You two care about antique cars?” Mai looked genuinely offended. “Antique?” “They are almost a hundred years old.” “That does not make them antique.” Lena, placing a cup beside Shammy, spoke without looking up. “It absolutely makes them antique.” Mai turned to her. Lena met her eyes with calm mercy. “Historically speaking.” Ace made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh. Mai pointed at her. “Do not.” Ace looked back down at the katana. “Wasn’t going to.” “You were.” “Maybe.” Shammy sat forward, interested now less in the article than in the two people who had suddenly become ten degrees more alive. A faint electric prickle lifted strands of her hair. “You know these machines.” Mai did not answer immediately. Ace did. “Yes.” It was only one word, but it carried weight. Not dramatic weight. Not tragic weight. Recognition. Shammy watched her carefully. Kiro squinted at the wall display. “Okay, I need context. Because that first one looks like a freezer someone taught violence.” Ace nodded once. “Good description.” Mai’s mouth twitched despite herself. “That is the Audi Sport Quattro.” Kiro waited. Mai waited too. Kiro made a rolling gesture. “And?” “And it changed rally.” Marco lowered himself onto the edge of the couch arm. “What is rally?” Ace looked at Mai. Mai looked at Ace. For one terrible second, both of them understood the scale of the task. Reyes noticed and smiled. “Oh, this is going to be good.” Mai inhaled. “Rally was a motorsport where cars raced over closed public roads, forests, gravel tracks, snow, mountains, dirt, mud, and occasionally surfaces no reasonable person should classify as roads.” Marco stared. “Why?” “To see who was fastest.” “That explains nothing.” Ace wiped the katana once more, sheathed it, and stood. “It explains everything.” “No, it explains a crime.” Kiro was already searching. “Closed public roads? Wait, they raced through forests?” “Yes,” Mai said. “With spectators?” “Yes.” “How far away were the spectators?” Ace and Mai said nothing. Kiro slowly turned her head from the screen. “How far away were the spectators?” Mai cleared her throat. “Standards varied.” Marco put his coffee down. “That means bad.” Reyes’s smile widened. “That means very bad.” Kiro’s second screen flickered. She swore at it, slapped the side, and managed to bring up archival footage. The wall filled with old video. Snow. Trees. A screaming engine. A white and yellow Audi came sideways over a crest, lights blazing, tires clawing through slush. Spectators lined the road so closely they seemed less like an audience and more like a nervous biological barrier. The car snapped sideways, corrected, vanished between walls of people and trees. The living room went silent. Marco stood up. “Absolutely not.” Mai folded her arms. “That was normal.” “No.” “For the era.” “No.” Ace watched the footage with calm, almost fond severity. Kiro paused the video. “Where are the barriers?” Mai said nothing. Kiro turned. “Mai.” “There were people.” Kiro stared at her. Ace added, “People move.” “PEOPLE ARE NOT A SAFETY SYSTEM.” Marco pointed at the frozen image. “Thank you.” Shammy leaned closer to the screen, blue eyes reflecting snow and old film grain. She was not smiling now. Not exactly. “This feels loud,” she said. “It was loud,” Mai said. “No.” Shammy touched her own sternum lightly. “Here.” That softened the room. Only a little, but enough. Mai’s expression eased into something quieter. “Yes. It was.” Kiro frowned at the paused footage. “So the first car is important because it was fast?” “Not just fast,” Mai said. “It brought four-wheel drive into rally dominance. Before that, many people thought it was too heavy or too complicated for high-level competition.” Marco looked back at the Audi on the display. “That box did that?” “That box did that.” “It looks like office equipment with rage issues.” Ace nodded. “Also correct.” Mai switched the display back to the exhibition page and zoomed in on the Audi. “Group B regulations allowed extreme engineering. Power climbed quickly. Weight stayed low. Development moved faster than safety culture.” “That sentence is a disaster,” Lena said. “Historically accurate disaster.” Reyes tilted her head. “How much power?” Mai’s eyes flicked to the article. “Depends on version, event, and tuning. Five hundred horsepower territory for later monsters. Sometimes more.” Marco did not react at first. Then he sat down. “Five hundred.” “Yes.” “In that.” “Yes.” “On dirt.” “Yes.” “With people as the safety system.” Mai hesitated. “Not officially.” Marco rubbed both hands over his face. “I hate history.” Ace pointed at the second car. “Lancia.” Kiro zoomed. The red and white car filled the wall. It looked lower than the Audi. Sleeker. More precise. Less like a weapon dropped in a quarry and more like a blade someone had left smiling on a table. Mai’s expression warmed in a different way. “That is the 037.” Kiro examined it. “That one looks prettier.” Ace made a small, noncommittal sound. Mai glanced at her. “You’re allowed to disagree.” “I didn’t.” “You did internally.” Ace’s mouth twitched. “Maybe.” Reyes leaned toward Lena. “Do they always do this with machines?” Lena looked at the two of them, then at the wall. “Apparently we have discovered a new pressure valve.” Shammy smiled. “A shiny one.” Marco gestured at the Lancia. “Okay. What did that one do?” Mai’s voice shifted. It became the voice she used when explaining something that deserved respect. “The Lancia 037 was rear-wheel drive. Mid-engine. Lightweight. Beautifully balanced. It fought against the rise of all-wheel drive and won the World Rally Championship for constructors in 1983.” Kiro blinked. “Wait.” Mai smiled. “If the Audi changed everything with all-wheel drive, how did this win?” “Strategy. Weight. Tarmac performance. Driver skill. Reliability. Team brilliance. And because history likes drama.” Ace added, “Stubbornness.” Mai pointed at her without looking away from the screen. “Also stubbornness.” Marco stared at the two cars side by side. “So that one”—he pointed at the Audi—“was the future.” “Yes.” “And that one”—the Lancia—“was the past fighting back.” Mai considered that. Then nodded. “Close enough.” Marco folded his arms, suddenly more interested despite himself. “And it won?” “Once.” “Then what happened?” “The future won after that.” Shammy’s smile faded a little. She stood and walked closer to the wall display, though there was no actual car there, only light pretending to be memory. Static softened around her rather than sharpened. For once, the air near her did not crackle. It listened. “This one feels sad,” she said. No one joked. Kiro looked at the Lancia again. “Because it lost?” Shammy shook her head. “Because it knew.” Mai’s eyes softened. Ace glanced at her. Reyes noticed both of them and looked away, giving them the courtesy of pretending she hadn’t. Marco, who had been ready with another complaint about safety, stayed quiet. The rain kept touching the windows. Night City muttered below. For a moment, an old rally car from a dead century sat glowing on the Safehouse wall like a relic from a civilization that had not known it was going to become one. Then Kiro, because she was Kiro, broke the silence with a squint. “Okay, but what is Godzilla doing in this list?” The entire room turned. Mai’s smile returned slowly. Ace looked at the third car. “R32.” Kiro zoomed in on the Skyline. “This thing looks almost normal.” Reyes stood and came closer to the display. “That looks less stupid than the others.” “It is not less stupid,” Mai said. “It is differently stupid.” “Promising.” Kiro enlarged the text. Nissan Skyline GT-R R32. Original color. Original body. No period-inaccurate tuning. Preserved factory specification. Kiro read it twice. “This is a big deal?” Ace nodded. “Why?” Mai sat back down, but now she was fully awake. “Because everyone modified them.” Kiro frowned. “Why?” Ace said, “Because they could.” Mai said, “Because the platform was extremely capable.” Ace said, “Because they could.” Mai gave her a look. Ace met it calmly. Both statements remained true. Marco leaned over the back of the couch. “It does look… modern.” “That’s what I mean,” Kiro said. “Take away the wheels and some old trim and it could be a current street build. Like, not corpo-luxury, not combat-grade, but someone in Japantown would absolutely drive this while pretending they didn’t spend five years finding parts.” Lena looked at the image. “It has restraint.” Reyes nodded once. “Clean lines.” Kiro pointed at them both. “Exactly. It doesn’t look like a museum piece. It looks like someone took a modern car and deleted the insecurity.” Ace made the smallest approving noise. Mai caught it. “Of course you like that description.” “It is accurate.” Kiro searched again. “Why Godzilla?” Mai’s smile sharpened. “Because Australian motorsport media nicknamed it that after it dominated touring car racing. It was from Japan. It crushed local competition. Godzilla.” Marco lifted both hands. “Hold on. How badly did it dominate?” Mai paused. Ace looked at her. Mai looked at Ace. Reyes looked between them. “Oh, that pause means stupid numbers.” Kiro found them first. Her eyes widened. “No.” Marco leaned in. “What?” “No, that’s fake.” Mai did not need to look. “Twenty-nine wins from twenty-nine starts in Japanese Group A racing.” Silence. Marco blinked. “Twenty-nine.” “Yes.” “Out of twenty-nine.” “Yes.” “With the same car?” “Same model.” Marco pointed at the Skyline. “That box.” Ace said, “Angry Japanese engineering.” Kiro slowly sank backward onto the floor. “I need a minute.” Shammy tilted her head. “You like this one.” Kiro covered her face with both hands. “I hate that I do.” Reyes smirked. “Called out by a car.” “It’s not my fault it has good design language.” Marco looked betrayed. “You said the old cars were ridiculous.” “They are. This one is ridiculous competently.” Mai nodded. “That is also historically fair.” Lena handed Kiro a cup. Kiro accepted it without looking. “Thank you. I’m emotionally compromised by a pre-collapse box.” “Drink,” Lena said. “I am.” Ace looked at the fourth car. Her expression changed again, but this time not into nostalgia. Curiosity. Mai noticed. The Koenigsegg CCS sat on the wall in silver and deep shadow, low and impossibly clean. Compared to the others, it did not look preserved. It looked paused. Marco saw it too. “Okay,” he said, pointing. “That one is cheating.” Kiro lowered the cup. “Right?” Reyes crossed her arms. “That looks newer than half the cars outside.” Lena studied it. “It does not visually belong with the others.” Mai nodded. “It was from the early hypercar era.” Marco stared at her. “Early?” “Yes.” “That looks like it was designed last week by someone with too much money and no fear of public roads.” Ace said, “So, Koenigsegg.” Mai tried not to smile. Failed. Kiro began pulling up specs. “Top speed…” She stopped. “No.” Marco closed his eyes. “I already hate it.” “Three hundred eighty-eight kilometers per hour.” Marco opened his eyes. “Why.” Ace answered immediately. “Because they could.” Marco turned on her. “You keep saying that like it explains things.” “It does.” “It does not.” “It explains people.” That one landed harder than expected. Even Marco paused. Mai looked at Ace, then at the Koenigsegg. “Yes,” she said quietly. “It does.” Shammy stood in front of the wall display again, closer to the Koenigsegg now. The blue in her eyes reflected across the car’s roofline, turning its old silver into something almost alive. “This one does not feel old,” she said. Kiro nodded rapidly. “Thank you.” “It feels…” Shammy searched for the word, and the room waited because her words often arrived from angles other people missed. “Early.” Mai’s expression softened with recognition. “Early,” she repeated. “That’s a good word.” Shammy looked back. “Not memory. Beginning.” “Exactly,” Mai said. Kiro, still staring at the specs, muttered, “Beginning of what? Legalized aerospace mistakes?” Ace walked closer to the display. “Ambition.” Reyes glanced at her. “You’d drive it?” Ace thought about that. “No.” Everyone looked at her. Ace shrugged. “Too clean.” Mai laughed first. Not a polite laugh. Not a controlled one. A real one, quick and bright, surprising even herself. Shammy immediately smiled, delighted less by the joke than by the sound. Reyes looked between Ace and Mai with open amusement. Kiro pointed at Ace. “You would drive the angry refrigerator but not the hypercar?” “Yes.” Marco spread his arms. “Why?” Ace looked at the Audi, then the Koenigsegg. “The Audi expects violence.” “That is not a normal evaluation metric.” “For her it is,” Mai said. Reyes lifted her mug slightly toward Ace. “Respect.” Lena, who had quietly taken in the whole exchange, looked at the wall display, then at the group. “So we are going.” It was not a question. Kiro blinked at her. “You too?” Lena’s mouth curved faintly. “Someone needs to keep Marco from declaring war on historical motorsport.” “I might,” Marco admitted. Mai checked the article details. “Tickets?” Kiro grinned. “That’s the fun part. Promo pass bucket. I can get six.” Reyes counted with her eyes. “There are seven of us.” Kiro’s grin became sharper. “I can get six officially.” Mai closed her eyes. “Kiro.” “No illegal intrusion.” “Kiro.” “Administrative correction.” “Kiro.” “Fine. Slightly illegal intrusion.” Reyes looked at Mai. “I like her.” “You like anything that admits it’s a crime up front.” “That is a good quality.” Marco pointed toward the screen. “Before we all become accessories to museum-ticket fraud, can someone explain whether these things are actually drivable?” “Yes,” Mai said. “In Night City?” Mai hesitated. Ace said, “Briefly.” Kiro snorted. Marco looked horrified. “Briefly?” “Until stolen,” Reyes said. “Or shot,” Ace added. “Or monetized,” Lena said. “Or worshipped,” Shammy added brightly. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “People are strange with beautiful things.” That was true enough that no one argued. Mai turned back to the display and opened the exhibition schedule. “There are static displays, guided sections, archival footage, a restoration talk, and a short engine-start demonstration.” Ace’s head turned. Mai pointed at her without looking. “No.” “I said nothing.” “You were thinking very loudly.” “Engine-start.” “No.” “You cannot say no to looking at engine-start.” “I can say no to whatever you were about to suggest after engine-start.” Ace considered denying it, then apparently decided honesty was easier. “Fair.” Marco looked between them. “What would she suggest after engine-start?” Reyes smiled into her coffee. “Driving.” Kiro made a choking sound. “You can’t just drive a hundred-year-old museum car.” Ace looked genuinely puzzled. “Why?” “Because it’s a museum car.” “But it is functional.” “That’s not—Mai, help.” Mai took a long breath. Then betrayed Kiro completely. “Technically, if a car is maintained in operational condition, controlled driving may be part of preservation.” Kiro stared at her. “You too?” Mai lifted her hands. “I am not saying Ace should drive it.” Ace said, “But.” “No.” “But there is a but.” “There is no but.” “There was almost a but.” Mai looked at her. “Do not weaponize grammar.” Shammy’s laughter crackled through the room like soft electricity. Lena gathered the empty cups with the composed patience of someone who knew perfectly well this day had already escaped containment. Marco watched the archival footage loop again on the wall. The Audi came sideways through snow. The Lancia cut across tarmac like a red-white knife. The Skyline sat in its clean blue confidence, waiting for someone to remember why it frightened people. The Koenigsegg looked like a future that had arrived too early and refused to apologize. He shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I spend my whole life in Night City thinking people today are insane.” Ace picked up her jacket. Mai stood beside her. Shammy rose like weather deciding to move. Kiro was already hacking seven tickets out of a corporate promotion system with the moral urgency of a starving raccoon. Reyes finished her coffee and set the mug down exactly where she could find it later. Lena took one look at Marco and waited. Marco pointed at the screen one last time. “Turns out we inherited it.” Mai’s smile was small, warm, and just a little wicked. “Yes,” she said. “You did.” Ace opened the door. Outside, Night City gleamed under rain and neon, all chrome arrogance and algorithmic decay. Aerodynes moved through the high lanes. Autonomous freight crawled below. Smart vehicles whispered along wet streets, wrapped in sensors, software, threat prediction, insurance warfare, and corporate subscription locks. Somewhere downtown, behind security glass and polished branding, four old machines waited beneath exhibition lights. No AI. No neural correction. No predictive terrain modeling. No corporate combat lattice. Just engines, tires, steel, fuel, bad decisions, and people who had looked at speed and mistaken it for a question. Ace stepped into the hallway first. Mai followed. Shammy came after them, smiling like she could already hear ghosts. Behind them, Marco muttered, “If that video wall shows one more crowd standing in the road, I am suing the past.” Kiro called from the floor, “We have tickets!” Mai stopped. “Legitimate?” Kiro looked up. A pause. “Emotionally.” Reyes laughed. Lena sighed, but she was smiling. Ace glanced back at Mai. Mai glanced at Ace. For one clean, absurd second, neither of them was thinking about missions, fixers, blood, blades, corps, curses, fragments, or the thousand small violences Night City kept charging interest on. They were thinking about old engines. Old roads. Old impossible machines. Mai touched Ace’s shoulder as she passed. “Worth the trouble?” Ace looked at the wall screen one last time. The Audi was frozen mid-corner, nose pointed where physics had already objected. Ace smiled. A small thing. Sharp at the edges. “Probably.” And that, in the Safehouse, was as good as a signed confession. --- ## Chapter Two — People Were the Safety System Kiro’s tickets were not legitimate in any legal sense that would survive contact with a bored clerk, but they were very convincing. That, in Night City, mattered more. The exhibition hall stood in the corporate district like a polished apology for wealth. Glass, steel, black stone, low gold lighting, and a broad entrance canopy that kept the rain off visitors with such expensive indifference that even the water seemed resentful. The building had once been used for product reveals, executive summits, private auctions, and one extremely public scandal involving a biotech firm, six missing shareholders, and a decorative koi pond that had not originally contained teeth. Today, it had been rebranded. LEGENDS OF MOTION. The name glowed across the entrance in clean serif lettering, projected in warm gold above a line of guests who had clearly chosen outfits based on how close they could come to museum respectability without abandoning the core Night City desire to look expensive and mildly armed. Ace looked up at the letters. “They named it like a funeral.” Mai stood beside her, silver hair tucked into the collar of a dark coat, eyes moving already across entrances, cameras, sightlines, and guest categories. “Most heritage exhibitions are funerals with better lighting.” Shammy tilted her head, rain hissing into faint vapor near the edge of her atmospheric field. “But funerals usually admit something died.” “That would be too honest for corporate sponsorship,” Reyes said. She had come dressed in black and red streetwear clean enough to pass as deliberate fashion and practical enough to leave no doubt she could fight in it. Her red hair was tied back, face calm, eyes constantly assessing. She looked exactly like someone who had been invited to a private cultural event because everyone was too afraid to ask why she was there. Marco adjusted the front of his jacket and stared at the line. “I still do not understand why people are dressing up to look at old cars.” Lena, calm beside him, answered without looking away from the entrance. “Because rich people need rituals to justify nostalgia.” Kiro made a delighted sound. “That was mean.” “It was accurate.” “It can be both.” Kiro herself looked like she had made an attempt at respectable and then been ambushed by her own personality halfway through. Her jacket was clean, but the patches were signal-junk weird. Her boots had seen three different districts that week. A cable still looped around one wrist like a bracelet with unresolved intentions. Mai glanced at it. “Kiro.” “What?” “Is that part of your outfit or an active tool?” Kiro looked down. Pause. “Emotionally, both.” Mai decided not to pursue that. They joined the entry line. The security was real, but not military-grade. That alone told Mai the collection had either been insured beyond sanity or protected by systems hidden somewhere more interesting than the front door. Two guards in heritage-black suits scanned invitations and performed threat checks with handheld devices shaped like polite weapons. Behind them, a receptionist smiled with trained warmth while her eyes did the cold arithmetic of social value. Kiro moved up first. “Passes,” the receptionist said. Kiro flicked her agent. Seven invitations appeared across the verification display. The receptionist blinked once. Only once. A small red icon pulsed in the corner of the screen and then vanished after Kiro’s thumb twitched inside her sleeve. Mai saw it. Ace saw Mai seeing it. Reyes saw both of them and smiled faintly. The receptionist’s smile regained confidence. “Welcome to Legends of Motion. Please keep all personal recording devices on passive mode. Flash capture, unauthorized close-range scanning, and physical contact with vehicles are prohibited unless guided by staff.” Ace’s face did not change. Mai put a hand lightly on Ace’s shoulder. The receptionist looked between them, misread the gesture as affection rather than preemptive behavioral control, and continued. “Engine demonstration begins in Hall Three at fourteen hundred. Restoration lecture in Hall Two at fifteen thirty. The Group B archive wall is currently active.” Marco leaned toward Mai. “Group B is the insane one?” “One of them.” “One of them.” Mai smiled. “There were several insanes.” “I hate that sentence.” The guard scanned Ace. The handheld device chirped. Then chirped again. Then produced a flat, uncertain tone. The guard frowned. Ace looked at him. The guard looked at the device. Mai leaned in with a polite expression sharp enough to cut fruit. “Is there a problem?” The guard’s posture changed by half a degree. He had likely spent years learning how to detect dangerous people. Unfortunately, this had not prepared him for someone who was dangerous in a way that made the word “person” feel administratively insufficient. “No,” he said. “Residual metal density. Weapon-like signatures.” Ace lifted both hands slightly. She had checked the katanas before leaving, reluctantly, after three separate people told her no. Her coat still sat on her like a threat with buttons. “No weapons,” she said. The scanner chirped again. The guard stared at it. Reyes leaned closer. “Maybe it’s intimidated.” Kiro almost swallowed her own laugh. Lena stepped in, voice calm. “She works security-adjacent. Implants and reinforcement traces can confuse low-spectrum public scanners.” Mai did not look at Lena, but approval flickered across her face. The guard, happy to receive an explanation that allowed his morning to continue, nodded. “Understood. Please proceed.” Ace passed through. The scanner made one last quiet sound behind her, like it wanted to file a complaint with physics. Shammy approached next. The guard scanned her. The handheld device immediately lost connection. The guard looked at it. Shammy smiled at him. Static lifted one strand of her silver-white hair, curled it delicately, and let it fall. The guard lowered the scanner. “Enjoy the exhibition.” “Thank you,” Shammy said brightly. Marco passed last, still looking back at the scanner. “How come it complained about Ace but surrendered to Shammy?” Reyes said, “Survival instinct.” “That scanner has better instincts than half the city.” Inside, the sound changed. Night City did not disappear. It never did. It pressed against the walls, a constant wet electric animal. But the exhibition hall muted it, softened it, translated the outside world into polished ambience. Footsteps moved over dark flooring. Voices blended into low conversation. Somewhere deeper inside, a recording of an old engine rose, snarled, and faded. Ace stopped walking. Mai did not bump into her because Mai almost never bumped into anything. Shammy did stop beside them. The first hall opened wide ahead. Cars stood beneath individual pools of light, not packed together like objects in storage, but spaced like portraits. Each vehicle sat behind low transparent barriers with plaques at the front, archival images behind them, and soft audio zones that played pieces of history in curated fragments. Some were elegant. Some brutal. Some strange enough that even Night City’s current design excess could not make them look tame. A red Ferrari from the late twentieth century rested under warm lighting like a blade polished for a dinner party. A Porsche sat nearby, compact and stern. An old Ford rally car wore blue and white livery with a kind of honest mechanical arrogance. Farther in, a wedge-shaped Lamborghini looked less like transportation and more like a dare made out of geometry. Kiro slowed. “Oh.” Marco had also slowed, though he looked reluctant to admit why. Lena’s face softened with careful interest. Reyes surveyed the hall like she was evaluating a room full of sleeping animals. Shammy breathed in. There was no real smell of fuel. Corporate air filtration had murdered that. But something remained, not in the air, not exactly. The memory of oil. Rubber. Heat. Dust. Human hands. Metal worked by people who expected other people to understand why it mattered. Shammy’s smile became quieter. “This place is full of echoes.” Ace looked at the cars. “No ghosts?” Shammy considered the question seriously. “Not ghosts.” A pause. “Pride.” Mai’s attention moved from plaque to plaque. “That tracks.” Marco folded his arms. “Cars can have pride now?” “People put it into them,” Shammy said. Marco opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the red Ferrari. Then at the Porsche. Then at the hall. “Fine. I hate that I understood that.” Kiro was already reading the first display panel. “Okay, wait. These are not autonomous.” “No,” Mai said. “None of them?” “No.” “Not even basic assistive routing?” “No.” “Collision prediction?” “No.” “Local hazard mesh?” “No.” “Emergency override?” Mai turned toward her. “Kiro.” “What?” Mai gestured gently at the whole hall. “Driver.” Kiro looked at the cars. Then at Mai. Then at the cars. “That is not an answer. That is a person.” Ace, standing in front of the Ford, said, “Correct.” Marco put both hands on his hips. “You keep saying this like it makes things better.” “It does,” Ace said. “No.” Mai stepped beside a display showing an old cockpit photograph: analog gauges, thin steering wheel, manual gear lever, pedals, switches, a cabin that looked almost shockingly physical compared to the neural-feedback interfaces and sensor-rich interiors common in 2077. “Look at it this way,” she said. “The driver was not supervising software. The driver was the control system.” Kiro stared at the image. Her whole face tightened with technical horror. “That is worse.” “It required skill.” “It required madness.” “Those overlap more often than people admit.” Reyes gave Mai a look of genuine appreciation. “That might be the most honest thing you’ve said all week.” They moved deeper. The first displays were a gradual acclimation, or at least they tried to be. The exhibition had clearly been designed for Night City audiences: each plaque explained old concepts that would once have been obvious. INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE A propulsion system using controlled fuel-air explosions within cylinders to generate mechanical power. Kiro read that one aloud. “Controlled explosions.” Ace nodded. “Within the machine.” “Yes.” “Repeatedly.” “Yes.” “For transportation.” Ace looked at her. “Also joy.” Kiro turned slowly. “That was not on the plaque.” “It should be,” Mai said. Marco pointed at another panel. “Manual transmission.” Mai smiled. “Oh no,” Kiro said. Marco read aloud with growing disbelief. “‘A system requiring the driver to manually select gear ratios through a clutch pedal and gear lever.’” Lena looked at Mai. “While driving?” “Yes.” “Fast?” “Yes.” “In traffic?” “Yes.” “During racing?” “Especially during racing.” Marco backed away from the plaque. “No.” Reyes leaned closer, intrigued. “So you had to steer, brake, accelerate, watch the road, watch other cars, and shift manually?” “Yes.” “And people liked this?” “Yes.” Ace said, “Control.” That single word did something to Reyes. Not visibly much. A small shift in the eyes, perhaps. A recognition of an idea that did not need explanation. “Yeah,” Reyes said after a moment. “I can see that.” Kiro looked betrayed. “Not you too.” Reyes shrugged. “Machine does what your hand tells it. I get the appeal.” “It is a coordinated mechanical interface under high-risk conditions,” Mai said. “That is the least romantic way anyone has ever described fun,” Marco said. Mai’s smile turned sly. “You want romance?” “No.” “These were loud, inefficient, dangerous, expensive, fragile machines that people maintained obsessively because using them made the world feel larger.” Marco stared at her. Lena’s mouth curved. Kiro lifted one finger. “Okay, that was a little romantic.” Ace looked at Mai. “Good explanation.” Mai’s cheeks colored very faintly. “Thank you.” Shammy watched the exchange with open delight. They passed a display of racing suits. Marco immediately brightened. “At least they had armor.” Mai slowed. Ace looked away. Kiro noticed both reactions. “Oh no.” Marco pointed at the suit. “What?” Lena read the panel. “Fire-resistant textile. Impact protection limited by period standards.” Marco’s face lost hope in stages. “Limited.” Mai said, “Safety developed over time.” “That means people died.” “Yes.” Marco looked around the hall, at the polished cars, the carefully restored paint, the dramatic lighting, the curated elegance. His expression changed. Not into comedy this time. Into understanding. “That’s why it feels like a funeral.” Shammy looked at him. “Yes,” she said softly. “But not only a funeral.” “What else?” She looked toward the cars. “A thank-you.” Marco did not answer. Neither did anyone else. For a few seconds, the exhibition hall moved around them in soft footsteps and expensive murmurs. Somewhere nearby, a child of some executive family complained that the cars did not hover. Somewhere else, an old man in a brown jacket stood in front of the Porsche with both hands clasped behind his back, smiling like the car had just told him a private joke. Ace saw him. So did Mai. The old man did not fit the room. His jacket was good but not fashionable. His shoes were polished but old. He had the particular stillness of someone who had come to see something specific and found more of himself than expected. Ace watched him for a second too long. Mai noticed. “You okay?” Ace’s eyes remained on the old man. “He remembers.” Mai followed her gaze. “Yes.” Kiro, quieter now, asked, “Were these common? Back then?” “Depends where,” Mai said. “Cars were everyday objects in much of the world. Not these cars specifically. These were special. But the idea of personal driving, owning a car, road trips, motorsport, garage work… yes. That was common enough to shape culture.” Kiro looked unsettled by that in a way she did not immediately joke around. “In 2077, half the city treats transport like infrastructure, half like armor, and the rest like status warfare.” Reyes snorted. “That is generous. Most treat it like status warfare with cup holders.” Marco glanced toward the entrance where several guests had arrived in vehicles more expensive than buildings. “True.” Lena looked at an old photograph of a family standing beside a small car in sunlight. “This was freedom?” Mai inhaled slowly. “For some people.” Ace’s voice came low beside her. “For some, work. For some, escape.” “For some, both,” Mai added. That sat with them. Then Kiro, apparently deciding the room had gotten too emotionally honest, pivoted hard. “So which one is the angry refrigerator?” Mai laughed before she could stop herself. A guide near the next entryway looked over with professional disapproval. Ace turned her head toward the deeper hall. The audio changed there. Sharper. Raw. Less lounge, more violence. A four-cylinder engine, old and furious, tore through the speakers with a sound like metal trying to claw its way out of history. Ace’s expression sharpened. Mai felt it before she fully saw it. “There,” Ace said. Kiro leaned sideways to look past a group of visitors. A sign hung ahead. GROUP B: WHEN REGULATION CHASED COURAGE AND LOST Marco read it. “No.” Reyes smiled. “Yes.” “No, that title alone is a criminal confession.” Lena looked at Mai. “Is this where the safety system becomes people?” Mai hesitated. “Partly.” “Partly.” Mai tried to look innocent. It did not work. They entered Hall Three. The lighting shifted colder. Archival footage played across three walls in staggered loops: gravel roads, snowbanks, mountains, forests, spectators scattering and surging back into roads like tidewater with no sense of self-preservation. Engines screamed. Turbochargers chirped and chattered. Cars leapt over crests and landed wrong and somehow kept going. Mud hit camera lenses. Flashbulbs exploded in dusk. Men and women in old racing suits stood beside machines with faces too calm for what they were about to do. In the center of the hall, beneath a white-gold pool of light, sat the Audi Sport Quattro. It was smaller than Marco expected. That made it worse. He had imagined something large enough to justify the stories. Something with the obvious mass of a modern combat vehicle or at least the theatrical width of a Night City street machine. Instead, the Audi looked compact, square-shouldered, dense. A short-wheelbase predator in white and yellow. The front end had the blunt confidence of an object that had never felt obligated to be beautiful before becoming legendary. Ace stopped. This time nobody spoke. Mai stopped beside her. The Audi did not gleam like a showpiece. It had been restored, yes, cleaned and lit and protected, but the restoration had not erased its purpose. The tires were correct. The stance was correct. The interior visible through the glass was sparse in the way old race interiors were sparse: not empty, but stripped of lies. Ace’s Shadow Aura did not flare. Not dramatically. But the light around her feet seemed to misremember where it had landed. A faint pressure gathered and then settled, not threatening, not hungry, just awake. Mai noticed. So did Reyes. Shammy looked at the Audi and then at Ace, and for once her usual playful curiosity quieted into something softer. “You like this one,” Shammy said. Ace did not look away from the car. “Yes.” Marco folded his arms, trying to recover his earlier tone and failing. “It really does look like office equipment with rage issues.” Mai, very gently, said, “A very angry refrigerator.” Kiro leaned over the low barrier as far as the polite security field allowed. “This changed rally?” “Yes,” Mai said. “How?” Mai stepped closer to the display panel, but her eyes stayed on the car more than the text. “Four-wheel drive had been used before in different forms, but the Quattro system proved it could dominate top-level rally. More traction. Better power delivery on loose surfaces. It altered what people believed a rally car could be.” Kiro frowned, building the model in her head. “Because instead of only pushing from the back or pulling from the front—” “All four wheels could contribute,” Mai said. “On gravel, snow, mud…” “Yes.” Kiro’s eyes narrowed in reluctant respect. “Okay. That is clever.” Ace said, “It also made other cars obsolete.” Marco looked at her. “You said that with admiration.” “Yes.” “That is disturbing.” Reyes stepped closer to the side profile. “Short wheelbase.” Mai nodded. “Later Sport Quattro variant. More aggressive. Built to improve handling and competitiveness.” Reyes studied the proportions. “Looks twitchy.” “It was.” “Violent?” “Could be.” Ace said, “Good.” Kiro stared at her. “You are emotionally bonding with a car that wanted to kill people.” Ace finally looked at her. “All serious tools want to kill someone.” Marco raised a hand. “I object to how reasonable that sounded.” Lena looked at the Audi’s interior. “No comfort.” “None that mattered,” Mai said. A nearby older visitor turned his head and smiled. He was not the man from the Porsche. This one was thinner, with a cane, artificial eyes of outdated but expensive make, and a badge indicating he was part of the exhibition’s historical advisory group. He had likely been hovering within earshot for the last minute, drawn by the rare sight of younger visitors discussing the car without reducing it to luxury nostalgia. “You have rally people in your group?” he asked. Mai turned politely. “Not exactly.” Ace said nothing. The old man looked at her, then at the Audi. “Not exactly,” he repeated, amused. “That is usually the best kind.” Marco leaned toward Kiro and whispered, “Are there kinds?” Kiro whispered back, “Apparently we are meeting one.” The old man tapped his cane lightly against the floor. “Most guests ask how much it is worth.” Ace looked at him. “That is a stupid question.” The old man laughed immediately. It was a dry laugh, but real. “Yes,” he said. “It is.” Mai closed her eyes briefly, accepting that diplomacy had left the room at roughly the speed of a short-wheelbase Audi over a Finnish crest. The old man did not seem offended. If anything, he looked more interested. “What question would you ask?” Ace looked at the car again. The hall light caught the violet in her eyes and broke it into something prismatic. “How hard was it to keep straight?” The old man’s smile changed. There. Recognition. Not of Ace exactly. Of the category. “Hard enough,” he said. “But straight was rarely the point.” Ace nodded once. Mai’s mouth softened. The old man turned to the others. “Group B cars were not gentle machines. They rewarded commitment and punished confusion. The Quattro’s advantage was traction, yes, but traction is not the same as obedience.” Kiro whispered, “That sentence is going to haunt me.” Reyes looked at Ace. “Commitment and punishment. No wonder she likes it.” Ace ignored that, which meant she absolutely heard it. Marco pointed at the wall footage, where an Audi appeared sideways between snowbanks with spectators leaning in as if they had been personally offended by survival. “I have a question.” The old man turned. “Yes?” “Why are those people standing there?” The old man looked at the footage. Then at Marco. Then at Mai, as though checking whether she wanted the polite answer. Mai made no rescue attempt. The old man sighed. “Because people are idiots.” Marco pointed at him triumphantly. “THANK you.” The old man continued, “And because they loved it.” Marco lowered his hand. “That does not help.” “No. It does not.” The footage rolled on. A car tore through a crowd corridor so narrow it seemed impossible. People slapped the bodywork as it passed. Someone jumped back late enough that half the hall inhaled in delayed instinctive panic despite the video being nearly a century old. Kiro’s entire body recoiled. “Nope.” Mai said, “That happened often.” “Nope.” Ace watched calmly. Kiro turned on her. “How are you calm?” Ace pointed at the screen. “He moved.” “He almost didn’t.” “But did.” Kiro looked at Mai. “Please tell me she is not the normal one here.” Mai hesitated. Reyes laughed. Marco looked personally injured by the hesitation. Lena, still watching the screen, said, “The strangest part is not the danger.” Marco stared at her. “Lena.” “It is not,” she said calmly. “Danger is easy to understand. The strange part is the trust.” Shammy turned toward her. Lena gestured softly at the screen. “The spectators trust the driver. The driver trusts the car. The co-driver trusts both. Everyone trusts a road that barely deserves the word.” Mai’s expression changed. That had landed close. The old man looked at Lena with approval. “That may be the best description I have heard today.” Lena dipped her head slightly, not proud, simply acknowledging accuracy. Marco stared at the footage again with a more complicated expression. “I still think they were idiots.” The old man smiled. “They were.” Shammy moved closer to the barrier around the Audi. Her reflection bent faintly across the glass, too tall, too bright in the electric-blue edges, almost like the car had acquired weather. “What did it feel like?” she asked. The old man’s smile faded into memory. “To watch?” “To be near.” He considered. “Like the world had become narrower and louder. Like all the air was waiting for the car to pass so it could start behaving normally again.” Shammy’s eyes brightened. “Yes,” she said softly. “That.” Ace looked at Shammy. Mai looked at both of them. Reyes noticed again and stayed quiet again, because sometimes even Reyes understood when silence was the sharper tool. Kiro had begun scanning the display information despite the no active scanning warning. Mai’s hand landed gently on the back of Kiro’s jacket. “Passive mode.” “I’m reading.” “Your agent is trying to interrogate the exhibit beacon.” “It looked lonely.” “Kiro.” “Fine.” The old man chuckled. “Let her read. Most people do not.” Kiro brightened. “See?” Mai did not remove her hand. “Passive.” Kiro switched modes with theatrical suffering. Marco leaned closer to the Audi’s plaque. “Okay. So this was the future.” “In many ways,” Mai said. “And the Lancia was the past fighting back.” The old man’s eyes sharpened happily. “Ah. You have not seen the 037 yet?” Ace’s head turned. Mai smiled. “Not in person.” The old man lifted his cane and pointed toward the next chamber. “Then do not let this brute monopolize your emotions. The Lancia deserves respect.” Ace looked at the Audi. Then toward the next hall. A small tension crossed her face, as if she were being asked to admire the enemy. Mai saw it and smiled. “Ace.” “What?” “We are not betraying the Audi by looking at the Lancia.” Ace looked at her. “That is exactly what someone betraying the Audi would say.” Kiro made a delighted choking noise. Marco stared at Ace, then at the Audi. “You have known this car for ten minutes.” Ace corrected him instantly. “No.” The word was quiet. Marco stopped. Mai looked down at Ace, not interrupting. Ace kept her eyes on the Audi. “I knew this before.” Not the car as an individual. Not this exact restored machine under corporate lights in a city that had eaten whole eras and sold the bones. But the shape. The idea. The kind of human decision that had made it. Build something difficult because easy would lose. Make it shorter, angrier, faster. Trust hands. Trust timing. Trust that fear could be compressed into motion. Yes. Ace knew that. The old man studied her carefully, then nodded once with more respect than curiosity. “Then you should definitely see the Lancia,” he said. “Old enemies explain each other better than friends do.” Reyes smiled faintly. “That is annoyingly true.” Shammy looked pleased by the sentence. Lena filed it somewhere quietly. Kiro whispered, “Old enemies explain each other. That is going in my brain and causing trouble later.” Marco pointed at the footage again, because Marco was not done being offended by history. “One last question before we move on.” Mai sighed. “Yes?” “Did anyone at any point look at this and say maybe the cars are too powerful?” The old man, Mai, and Ace all answered at the same time. “Yes.” Marco relaxed slightly. Then Mai added, “Eventually.” Marco closed his eyes. “Of course.” Ace began walking toward the next chamber. Mai followed. Shammy drifted after them, still looking back at the Audi once, as if saying goodbye to something loud. Kiro walked beside Marco, reading from her agent in passive mode with visible difficulty. “Oh, this gets worse.” Marco did not open his eyes. “How?” “Group B was cancelled.” “Good.” “Because people died.” Marco opened his eyes. “Bad.” “And because the escalation had gotten completely out of control.” Marco looked at Mai’s back. “I am suing the past.” Lena walked beside him, hands in her pockets, voice dry. “Get in line.” They crossed the threshold into the next chamber. Behind them, the Audi remained in its pool of light, squat and brutal and unrepentant. Ahead, under warmer illumination, the Lancia 037 waited in red and white. Lower. Cleaner. Almost beautiful. A blade from the last moment before the rules of war changed. Ace stopped again. This time, Marco saw her expression before she hid it. It was not admiration. Not exactly. It was recognition of an opponent who had deserved the fight. Mai stepped beside her, eyes on the Lancia, voice softer now. “There she is.” Kiro leaned forward. “Oh,” she said. “Okay. I get why this one feels sad.” Shammy’s hair lifted faintly in an air current that was not there. “No,” she said. Everyone looked at her. Shammy’s gaze stayed on the car. “Not sad yet.” A small pause. “Proud first.” Mai smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Proud first.” --- ## Chapter Three — Proud First The Lancia did not ask for attention the way the Audi did. The Audi sat like a compressed argument. Short, square, blunt, almost insolent under the lights. It looked like it had been engineered by people who believed air resistance was something to offend personally. The Lancia 037 was different. It looked designed. Not soft. Not delicate, no matter what Kiro had said earlier. Delicate things did not survive rally stages. But there was a line to it that the Audi did not have, a tension held under the skin. Red and white across low bodywork. A nose that cut rather than punched. A roofline that seemed too clean for mud, too elegant for gravel, too pretty for the kind of violence Mai had already described. Then Ace looked at the tires. At the stance. At the intake shapes. At the way the body sat around the cockpit like a knife sheath. Her expression changed by one sharp millimeter. “No,” she said. Kiro looked at her. “No what?” Ace kept staring at the car. “It is not pretty.” Marco blinked. “It absolutely is.” Ace shook her head. Mai smiled, very slightly. “She means it is not only pretty.” “Thank you,” Ace said. Reyes walked around the barrier slowly, hands in her jacket pockets, posture casual but eyes technical. “Lower than the Audi. Cleaner. Less like it wants to punch through a wall.” “The Audi would punch through the wall,” Marco said. “This one would ask the wall to move.” Ace glanced at him. Marco paused. “What?” “That was not bad.” He looked genuinely moved. “I have evolved.” Lena’s dry voice came from behind him. “Do not get ambitious.” Kiro leaned close to the display plaque, careful this time not to let her agent sniff the exhibit network. “Lancia Rally 037. Rear-wheel drive. Mid-engine. Supercharged. Group B. Constructors’ champion, 1983.” She looked up. “Okay. I am stuck on this. Rear-wheel drive.” “Yes,” Mai said. “Against the Audi.” “Yes.” “The four-wheel-drive future-box.” “Yes.” “And this won.” “Yes.” Kiro pointed at the car. “How?” Mai drew a breath. Not because she did not know. Because this was one of those explanations where the facts were clean and the truth was messier. “The short version?” “No,” Kiro said immediately. Marco looked betrayed. “Why would you say that?” “Because if she gives the short version, I will understand the wrong thing and then she will correct me for three days.” Mai’s mouth twitched. “That is unfair.” Ace murmured, “Accurate.” Mai looked at her. Ace looked at the Lancia. Mai let it go. “The 037 was lighter, simpler in some ways, extremely strong on tarmac, and Lancia used strategy very aggressively. They understood where the car could win. They managed events, surfaces, points, reliability, and development. The Audi had the traction advantage, especially on loose surfaces, but it was not automatically unbeatable.” Kiro’s eyes sharpened as the structure settled into place. “So it did not beat the Audi by being the Audi.” “No.” “It beat the Audi by refusing to fight only on Audi terms.” Mai smiled properly this time. “Yes.” Kiro pointed both hands at the Lancia as if presenting evidence in court. “I like this one.” Marco turned to her. “You liked the Skyline five minutes ago and we have not even seen it yet.” “I contain multitudes.” “You contain poor impulse control.” “That too.” Reyes stopped near the rear quarter of the car and crouched slightly, studying the proportions through the barrier. “Mid-engine, rear drive, light body, enough power to make mistakes expensive.” The old historian from the Audi hall had followed them at a respectful distance, and now he made a pleased sound. “Very good.” Reyes glanced at him. “I know weapons.” The man looked at the Lancia. “Then you know this.” Reyes smiled faintly. “Yeah,” she said. “I think I do.” Ace looked at the car again. Mai watched her. That was becoming its own exhibit, in a way. Not for the others, maybe, but for Mai. Ace looking at old machines with a kind of recognition she rarely allowed in public. Not softness exactly. Ace did not become soft easily, and when she did, it was usually in private, with Mai close enough to guard the edges and Shammy lowering the pressure in the room without speaking. But this was close. This was Ace looking at something built around the idea of commitment. A machine that did not forgive. A machine that had no interest in making fear comfortable. Mai knew why the Audi had caught her first. Of course it had. The Audi was a weaponized solution to a changing field, all brutal problem-solving and traction and aggressive inevitability. But the Lancia… Mai looked at it again. The Lancia was the last brilliant counterargument before the world moved on. That, she thought, might hurt more. Shammy had drifted toward the archival display behind the car. It showed old photographs: mechanics leaning into open engine bays, drivers standing in suits that looked too thin for what they were about to do, spectators in jackets and hats pressed against roadsides, banners, mud, flashbulbs, hands reaching toward passing cars like worshippers toward a violent saint. Shammy’s eyes moved from face to face. “They loved this,” she said. The old man nodded. “Very much.” “Even when it was dangerous.” “Especially then, sometimes.” Marco frowned. “That is not healthy.” “No,” Lena said. “But it is human.” Marco turned to her, probably preparing an argument, then stopped because she was looking at the photographs rather than him. There were expressions there the modern city had not erased, but had buried under new skins. Joy. Terror. Pride. Hunger. The strange bright stupidity of people gathered around an event because it made normal life feel briefly too small. Marco exhaled. “Fine,” he said. “Still idiots.” The old man smiled. “Idiots with excellent taste.” A video wall activated beside the Lancia display. The room dimmed. Archival footage rolled. The Lancia appeared on a mountain road, red and white against gray tarmac and green slope. It did not claw like the Audi. It danced. That was the first ridiculous word Kiro’s brain offered, and she hated it instantly because it sounded sentimental and was also true. The car rotated into a corner with impossible confidence, rear stepping out, nose pointed toward exit, driver catching the slide with hands Kiro could not see but suddenly respected with religious intensity. The engine note was different from the Audi’s rage. Sharper in some ways. Cleaner. Supercharger whine underneath like a mechanical insect refusing death. Reyes watched without blinking. Ace watched as if measuring blade distance. Marco watched with the wounded suspicion of a man learning that history had been both stupider and more competent than he was comfortable with. The Lancia flicked through a series of bends. Road stone wall on one side, drop on the other. Spectators stood too close, because of course they did. The car passed within meters. Maybe less. Old footage made exact distance hard to judge and emotional distance impossible. Kiro pointed. “That.” Mai looked at her. “That turn. It rotated before the apex.” “Yes.” “How much of that was mechanical setup and how much was driver?” Mai smiled. “Yes.” Kiro made a pained sound. “I deserved that.” Ace said, “Driver made machine possible.” The historian’s eyebrows lifted. He looked at Ace with open approval now. “That is a very old truth.” Ace did not answer, but the Shadow Aura at her feet tightened slightly, not darkening the room so much as making the light hesitate before touching her boots. Shammy noticed and moved half a step closer, not to contain it. To share the space with it. Mai noticed that too and felt, not for the first time, the strange relief of not being the only one who could read Ace’s weather. The footage cut to service area shots. Mechanics swarmed the Lancia, panels open, hands moving fast. Tools. Tape. Dirty faces. Someone laughing with a cigarette in his mouth near a fuel drum, which made Marco point at the screen in outrage. “No.” Mai glanced at him. “Different era.” “That is not an era, that is a court case.” Lena tilted her head. “Several, probably.” Kiro squinted. “Wait, they repaired these between stages?” “Yes,” Mai said. “How much time?” “Limited.” “How limited?” Mai gave her a look. Kiro groaned. “Of course.” The old man tapped his cane once. “Rally was not only driving. It was logistics under pressure. Mechanics could win or lose events. Teams mattered. Planning mattered. Weather, tires, roads, timing, endurance. Everyone remembers the cars flying, but rallies were long wars made of small decisions.” Marco’s expression shifted. That language reached him better than pure motorsport romance. “Long wars,” he repeated. “Against roads?” Reyes asked. “Against roads, clocks, weather, opponents, fatigue, mistakes, bad luck, and sometimes the crowd.” Ace said, “Good list.” Marco turned on her. “Of course you think that is a good list.” “It is complete.” “It is horrifying.” “Also complete.” The historian chuckled. Mai crossed her arms, eyes still on the screen. “That is why the Lancia matters. It did not win because it was universally superior. It won because the team understood the war better than almost anyone.” Kiro’s face lit up. “There. That I understand.” Mai glanced at her. “Of course you do.” “Pattern exploitation.” “Yes.” “Terrain-specific advantage.” “Yes.” “Meta-game victory.” Mai hesitated. Then sighed. “Yes.” Kiro made a small triumphant noise. Marco pointed at her. “Do not make this sound like netrunning. I am already struggling.” “It is absolutely like netrunning,” Kiro said, now animated. “Audi changed the architecture. Lancia used the existing protocol stack better than anyone else before the architecture shift became irreversible.” The historian stared at her. Mai closed her eyes. Reyes murmured, “You lost the old man.” Kiro looked at him. “Sorry.” The old man shook his head slowly. “No, no. I think I understood enough to be frightened.” “That is normal,” Lena said. Ace had not moved from her spot. The video shifted again. This time, a still image of the 037 sat beside text explaining the 1983 championship. Audi had the drivers’ title with Hannu Mikkola. Lancia took the manufacturers’ title. The past and future had split the crown between them, as if history itself had refused to make the argument simple. Shammy read the display. Then she looked back at the car. “This one was proud first,” she said again. Mai nodded. “And sad later?” Kiro asked. Shammy’s gaze softened. “Not because it lost.” “Then why?” “Because winning did not stop the world from changing.” The words settled gently and badly. Even the historian went quiet. Ace looked away from the Lancia, but not quickly enough for Mai to miss it. There it was. The hook under the jokes. The little ache beneath the polished lights and absurd safety complaints and Marco threatening litigation against the past. Ace and Mai were not from Night City. Not truly. They had adapted to it, fought through it, learned its rules, broken several of them, acquired people, enemies, habits, safe corners, scars, and enough operational familiarity to survive as if survival were the same thing as belonging. But then an old car sat under lights. A machine from a world before the city they lived in now. And the distance showed. Not loudly. Just enough. Mai touched Ace’s sleeve with two fingers. Ace did not look at her, but her shoulder lowered by a fraction. Shammy’s field softened around them both. Lena saw it and quietly drew Marco’s attention toward another panel before he could accidentally step into something too private with both boots. “Look,” she said. Marco followed her gesture. “What am I looking at?” “Tire selection.” “Oh, good. Something normal.” Mai overheard and laughed. Marco narrowed his eyes. “No?” “No.” Kiro practically ran over. “Oh no, what is wrong with tires?” “Nothing is wrong with tires,” Mai said. Ace murmured, “Everything is wrong with wrong tires.” Marco pointed at her. “That is exactly the kind of sentence that means tires are not normal.” The historian had recovered his amusement. “Tire choice could decide an event.” Marco stared. “Tires.” “Road surface, temperature, weather, stage length, compound, wear, grip balance—” Marco lifted both hands. “Stop. I apologize to tires.” Kiro was already reading. “Wait, teams had to predict conditions?” “Yes.” “Without full-spectrum weather mesh?” “Yes.” “Without road sensor nets?” “Yes.” “Without drone preview?” “Yes.” Kiro turned to Mai with a betrayed expression. “What did people use?” Mai smiled. “Experience.” Ace added, “Luck.” The historian added, “And arguments.” Lena nodded. “That sounds more realistic.” Reyes tilted her head. “Co-driver?” Kiro snapped her fingers. “Right. You mentioned co-drivers earlier. What did they actually do?” Mai’s whole face changed in the way it did when a question had finally opened the correct door. “They navigated.” Marco stared. “During that?” “Yes.” Kiro looked from the footage to Mai. “No.” “They read pace notes. Corner severity, distance, hazards, crests, surfaces, rhythm. The driver relied on them constantly.” Reyes’s eyes sharpened. “Second brain.” “Exactly.” Ace said, “Trust.” That word hit the room differently here than it had in the first hall. The video showed a cockpit view now. Old footage, shaky and grainy. Driver’s hands moving, wheel flicking, gear lever snapping, pedals dancing out of sight. Beside him, the co-driver’s voice came through the audio, distorted but urgent, a stream of numbers and fragments that meant life or crash depending on whether the driver understood them fast enough. Kiro’s expression went still. Marco stopped joking. Reyes leaned in. Lena watched the co-driver’s mouth more than the road. Shammy’s eyes softened. Mai said quietly, “That is rally.” The car flew over a crest. Landed hard. The driver corrected. The co-driver kept reading. Not shouting in panic. Not reacting like a passenger. Working. Marco let out a slow breath. “Okay,” he said. “That part I respect.” Mai looked at him. He pointed at the screen. “Do not look smug. I still think the spectators were idiots.” “They were,” Mai said. “But that? That is real.” “Yes.” Reyes nodded once. “Trust at speed.” Ace glanced at Mai. Mai met her eyes. For half a second, the exhibition hall was not about cars at all. It was about a voice beside you when the world came too fast. It was about believing the next instruction before fear finished forming. It was about one person steering and another making the road legible. Kiro looked between them and, for once, did not say the first thing that came into her head. Shammy did. But softly. “That is you two.” Mai’s breath caught just slightly. Ace looked back at the screen. “No,” Ace said. A pause. Then: “Close.” Shammy accepted the correction with a small nod. “Close,” she agreed. The historian did not understand the full shape of what had passed through the group, but he understood enough not to interrupt it. That was a rare skill. Mai appreciated it. The footage ended. Lights warmed again around the Lancia. The spell loosened. Kiro exhaled loudly. “Okay. I came here to mock old cars and now I have feelings about co-drivers. I blame all of you.” Reyes straightened. “Reasonable.” Marco shook his head. “No. No, I am not getting emotionally attached to rally.” Lena looked at him. “You already apologized to tires.” “That was under duress.” Ace turned toward him. “Driver.” Marco pointed at her. “Do not weaponize the bit.” Ace’s expression remained perfectly neutral. Mai said, “She absolutely will.” The historian smiled and gestured toward the far side of the hall, where another passage led onward. “If you survive the rally section emotionally, the Skyline is through there.” Kiro’s head snapped up. “Godzilla.” “Yes,” the man said. “Though I warn you, the younger visitors tend to underestimate it because it looks… sensible.” Ace’s eyes sharpened. Mai’s smile became dangerous. Reyes noticed. “Oh, that means it is not sensible.” “It is very sensible,” Mai said. Ace nodded. “In a violent way.” Marco closed his eyes. “I am tired.” Lena patted his arm once. Kiro was already moving. “No, no, I need to see this. If a car gets called Godzilla and looks like something a very intense accountant would drive, I need answers.” They began leaving the Lancia behind. Ace lingered half a second. Mai lingered with her. The 037 sat under its warm light, proud and low and red-white, the last champion of a way forward that had almost immediately become a way back. Mai looked at it and thought of all the times cleverness had beaten inevitability only briefly. Ace looked at it and thought of opponents worth respecting. Shammy, a step ahead, turned back. The air around her moved softly. Not pushing. Waiting. Ace finally nodded once to the car. Not farewell. Acknowledgment. Then she followed. Marco’s voice drifted from the passage ahead. “Wait, why is there a display titled ‘Dominance Problem’?” Kiro shouted, “Because Godzilla!” Marco shouted back, “THAT EXPLAINS NOTHING!” Mai smiled. Ace’s mouth curved at one corner. Reyes laughed under her breath. Lena shook her head. Shammy’s static crackled with delight. They stepped out of the old war between traction and stubbornness and into the next shrine of unreasonable engineering. The Skyline waited in blue. Quiet. Boxy. Almost polite. Which, in hindsight, should have warned them. --- ## Chapter Four — Godzilla Looked Sensible The Skyline did not look like a monster. That was the first problem. After the Audi’s blunt violence and the Lancia’s proud red-white blade-shape, the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 seemed almost restrained. It sat under cool blue-white lighting in the next hall, painted in deep factory blue, clean from bumper to bumper, its bodywork untouched by the kind of aftermarket aggression Night City would have bolted onto it within minutes. No exaggerated aero. No neon. No exposed weapons. No armored seams. No unnecessary vents pretending to be necessary. Just a boxy coupe with quiet lines, a serious face, and the eerie confidence of something that did not need to announce what it had done. Kiro stopped so abruptly that Marco nearly walked into her. He caught himself with one hand raised. “Warn people.” Kiro did not answer. She stared. The display plaque stood in front of the car: NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R R32 ORIGINAL FACTORY SPECIFICATION RESTORED TO PERIOD-CORRECT CONDITION NO MODERN PERFORMANCE MODIFICATION Kiro read it once. Then again. Then she looked at the car. “No,” she said. Mai smiled. Ace stood beside her, hands in her coat pockets, violet eyes fixed on the Skyline with a satisfaction that was quieter than what the Audi had pulled from her. This was not the sharp little recognition of a weapon built to attack terrain. This was something else. Respect, maybe. Or amusement. Reyes leaned one shoulder against the nearest railing, careful not to touch anything the exhibition staff would complain about, and looked the car over. “That looks normal.” “That,” Mai said, “is the trap.” Marco squinted. “It looks like someone’s very serious uncle drove it to work.” Ace nodded once. “Dangerous uncle.” Kiro made a pained sound. “I hate that I know exactly what you mean.” Lena moved slowly along the barrier, studying the body lines. “It has restraint.” Reyes pointed at her. “That. Exactly. It doesn’t look like it is trying to sell me anything.” “This is bothering me,” Kiro said. Marco looked down at her. “Why?” “Because it looks good.” “You are upset because the car looks good?” “No, I am upset because it looks good in a way that makes sense.” Mai’s smile grew. Kiro turned toward her sharply. “Do not look smug.” “I am not.” “You are internally smug.” Ace said, “She is.” Mai gave Ace a look. Ace remained loyal to accuracy. Kiro turned back to the Skyline. “It looks like someone designed it, finished the job, and then stopped. Nobody in Night City stops.” “Usually because the subscription tier for stopping costs extra,” Lena said. Marco pointed at her. “That was very good.” “Thank you.” A younger guide approached from the side. Unlike the old historian, this one had the immaculate posture of someone trained by corporate event management and the tense smile of someone who had already answered the same three questions sixty times that morning. He wore the exhibition uniform well, but his eyes kept drifting toward the cars with real interest whenever he forgot to perform professionalism. “Beautiful example, isn’t it?” he said. Kiro did not look away from the Nissan. “Why is it not ruined?” The guide blinked. Mai looked briefly at the ceiling. Ace’s mouth twitched. “Ruined?” the guide repeated. Kiro gestured at the car. “Modified. Re-bodied. Repainted. Tuned until the original personality is basically a rumor. This is Night City. Someone should have added seven illegal things to it and called it heritage.” The guide’s smile became more genuine. “That is actually why this car is important to the collection. R32 GT-Rs became extremely popular platforms for modification. Unaltered examples in documented factory condition became increasingly rare over time.” Kiro pointed both hands at him. “See? Ruined.” Mai sighed. “Modified does not always mean ruined.” Kiro looked at her. Mai held up one hand. “But in this context, yes, originality matters.” Kiro lowered her hands with satisfaction. “Thank you.” Marco leaned closer to the plaque. “It says ‘Godzilla’ in the side text.” The guide brightened in the way people did when handed the best part of their own presentation. “Yes. The nickname came from Australian motorsport media. The car was from Japan, and it dominated competition so completely that ‘Godzilla’ stuck.” Marco looked at the Skyline. Then at the guide. Then back at the Skyline. “This.” “Yes.” “This is Godzilla.” The guide nodded. Marco stared harder. “Are we looking at the same thing?” Ace said, “Yes.” “It looks sensible.” Mai said, “Again. Trap.” Kiro moved to the next display panel, where archival race footage waited behind a touchless activation field. The screen sensed proximity and came alive. The Skyline rolled onto a track in old footage, surrounded by other touring cars that looked roughly similar to the untrained eye. Then the footage cut to racing speed. The difference became obvious. The R32 launched out of corners with brutal calm. It did not dance like the Lancia or attack loose surfaces like the Audi. It gripped. It settled. It went. Through corners, over curbs, down straights, it carried itself with a relentless composed force that made the other cars seem briefly outdated while still on the same track. Kiro’s mouth opened slightly. Reyes leaned forward. Marco folded his arms. The Skyline moved through traffic, not dramatically, not sideways, not screaming for attention. It simply placed itself where it needed to be and left the others to explain why they were behind. Ace watched in complete silence. Mai watched Ace. The guide, encouraged by actual attention, continued. “The R32 used advanced all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering systems for its time, alongside a strong turbocharged inline-six engine. In racing, it became extremely difficult to beat.” Kiro’s technical brain caught fire. “All-wheel drive.” “Yes.” “Four-wheel steering.” “Yes.” “In that era?” “Yes.” Kiro turned slowly toward Mai. Mai nodded. Kiro turned back to the car. “Oh, that is rude.” Marco looked at her. “Rude?” “That is architecturally rude.” Reyes smiled. “Translation?” Kiro pointed at the Skyline as if it had personally insulted a design committee. “It looks like a normal car, but underneath it is cheating with an extremely clean conscience.” Mai crossed her arms. “That is not entirely unfair.” Ace added, “Good cheating.” Marco looked between them. “Why is everyone approving of cheating now?” “Because motorsport rules define the battlefield,” Mai said. “Engineering finds the edges.” “That sounds like cheating with paperwork.” Reyes nodded. “Best kind.” Lena looked at the footage. “It does not look frantic.” “No,” Mai said. “That is part of the point.” The screen changed to a montage of race starts, corner exits, podiums, old Japanese circuits, mechanics leaning into engine bays, drivers removing helmets, crowds waving flags. The Skyline remained oddly calm through all of it. It did not need to be theatrical because results had done the theater for it. Kiro read from the panel. “Twenty-nine wins from twenty-nine starts in Japanese Group A.” She stopped. Then read it again. “Twenty-nine.” Marco’s head turned. “What?” Kiro looked back at the car with something like betrayal. “Twenty-nine wins from twenty-nine starts.” Marco stared at her. Then at Mai. “No.” “Yes,” Mai said. “No.” Ace said, “Yes.” Marco pointed at the Skyline. “That?” “Yes.” “That accountant car.” Ace’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not insult Godzilla.” Marco turned toward her very slowly. For a moment, nobody breathed. Then Reyes laughed. Not loudly. Not enough to draw staff attention. Just a sharp, amused sound she failed to kill in time. Kiro bent forward with both hands on her knees. Mai covered her mouth. Lena looked away, shoulders moving once. Shammy made a sound of pure delight, static snapping faintly at her fingertips. Marco stared at Ace. “You have chosen a side.” Ace looked back at him. “Correct.” The guide, to his credit, only looked mildly frightened. Kiro straightened, wiping one eye. “I am sorry, I cannot function. Ace just defended Godzilla’s honor.” Ace looked at the Skyline. “It earned it.” That shut Kiro up. Not because it was funny. Because Ace meant it. The room settled around that. The guide seemed to understand that this group moved oddly between comedy and seriousness without warning, and adjusted with admirable survival instinct. “Many people underestimated the R32’s appearance,” he said. “But its balance of mechanical strength, drivetrain sophistication, and competition development made it a landmark car. It was not merely powerful. It was effective.” Mai nodded. “Exactly.” Marco looked suspicious. “Effective is a dangerous word when you say it.” “That is because effectiveness is often dangerous.” “That did not help.” Ace stepped closer to the barrier. Not too close. Mai noticed that and appreciated it. Ace was resisting the urge to touch the car, which counted as good public behavior under very specific and generous definitions. The Skyline’s paint reflected her in dark blue. Small. Black-haired. Violet-eyed. Shadow Aura gathered close and quiet, not flaring, not predatory, but present. The reflection made her look like she stood inside the old car’s color rather than in front of it. Shammy noticed. So did Mai. Ace did not look at them. “This one is different,” she said. Mai’s voice softened. “How?” Ace considered the Skyline. “Audi attacks.” The guide looked fascinated. “Lancia argues.” Kiro whispered, “Oh, that’s good.” Ace ignored her. “This waits for you to underestimate it.” Reyes nodded slowly. “There it is.” Marco looked at the car again, really looked this time. Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe the footage had poisoned his ability to see it as harmless. Maybe Ace’s wording had simply slid the correct lens over the object. The Skyline still looked sensible. That was now the problem. It looked like a machine that could sit in traffic without raising alarms, park beside ordinary vehicles, pass under casual eyes, and then quietly make a field of competitors regret believing appearances. Marco exhaled. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “Fine.” Kiro turned. “Fine what?” “I see it now.” Ace glanced at him. Marco pointed at the Skyline. “It is not loud because it does not have to be.” Mai’s smile became warm with approval. Kiro stared at Marco. “Are you becoming a car person in real time?” “No.” “You just had a design epiphany.” “I had a survival epiphany. Different thing.” Lena patted his arm. “Let him have this.” Reyes studied Marco with mock concern. “First tires, now Godzilla. Slippery slope.” “I still object to the crowd thing.” “Everyone objects to the crowd thing,” Mai said. Ace did not answer. Kiro pointed at her. “Except Ace.” Ace shrugged. Marco made a strangled noise. “You cannot shrug at spectators being used as flexible barriers.” “They moved.” “STOP SAYING THAT.” The guide looked from face to face. “I feel I missed an earlier conversation.” Lena said, “Be grateful.” Kiro had shifted toward the technical panel now, reading faster. “RB26DETT. Twin-turbo inline-six. ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive. HICAS four-wheel steering.” She paused, eyes narrowing. “They really did hide a monster inside a sensible jacket.” Mai nodded. “That is why people love it.” Kiro looked at the car with a new expression. Not just fascination now. A little affection. “I hate that I respect this so much.” Shammy leaned closer to Kiro. “You like things that look like systems until they become trouble.” Kiro opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Mai. Mai looked back calmly. Kiro turned back to Shammy. “That was invasive but fair.” Shammy smiled. Reyes had drifted toward a side display showing homologation requirements, production numbers, and road-going versions connected to race eligibility. “So they had to sell versions of these to normal people?” Mai came beside her. “For homologation, yes. Depending on series and rules.” Marco heard that and turned. “I am sorry. They made race monsters because rules required road cars?” “Broadly,” Mai said. “And then sold them?” “Yes.” “To people?” Ace said, “Good system.” Marco rubbed his forehead. “No. Bad system. Wildly bad system. Historically hilarious, but bad.” Lena read the panel. “It explains some things about car culture.” Kiro nodded vigorously. “It explains too many things about car culture.” Reyes looked amused. “Imagine being some regular person and buying a piece of barely domesticated racing logic.” Ace said, “Yes.” Reyes glanced at her. “You said that too quickly.” Ace said nothing. Mai gave her a sidelong look. “You would have.” Ace did not deny it. Kiro practically vibrated. “Oh my god, you absolutely would have.” Ace looked at her. “I would have evaluated options.” Mai laughed. “That means yes.” The guide, now completely off-script, said, “The R32 was not quite like some wilder homologation specials, but the connection between road cars and racing identity is central to why this era fascinates collectors.” Kiro pointed at him. “You. Keep talking. You are accidentally useful.” Mai said, “Kiro.” “What? I meant it as a compliment.” The guide, possibly used to worse from corpo guests, accepted this with dignity. A new clip began. Old footage from Australia. The Skyline on track, moving with terrible composed confidence. Commentary crackled through restored audio, words half-buried by engine noise and age, but the meaning carried: domination, controversy, awe, irritation. Other teams looked less like rivals and more like witnesses. Marco watched. This time he did not make a joke. The car passed another competitor on the straight. Then another. Then vanished into a lead it seemed to consider administratively necessary. After a long moment, Marco said, “That must have been annoying.” Mai smiled. “Extremely.” Kiro leaned close to him. “Imagine building your best car, training your best drivers, showing up ready to fight, and then this square little nightmare arrives from Japan and makes the entire category question its life choices.” Marco nodded slowly. “Okay. Godzilla makes sense.” Ace’s expression became almost satisfied. Reyes noticed and immediately said, “Look at that. Ace approves of your growth.” Marco pointed at her without looking away from the footage. “Do not narrate my growth.” Lena said, “It is happening anyway.” Shammy had moved toward a display case containing small artifacts: an old steering wheel, a turbocharger housing, a scale model in racing livery, a faded magazine cover with GODZILLA printed in bold letters across the top. Her fingertips hovered above the glass. The static around her softened. “This one feels less like grief,” she said. Kiro turned. “Compared to the Lancia?” Shammy nodded. “What does it feel like?” Shammy considered. “Pressure becoming certainty.” Mai looked at the Skyline again. “That is… accurate.” The guide looked slightly lost but deeply impressed. Shammy smiled at him. “Sorry.” “No,” he said. “That was better than our audio tour.” Kiro snapped her fingers. “See? Exhibition consultant.” Marco looked horrified. “Do not encourage her near corporate narration.” Shammy tilted her head. “I would be excellent.” “You would make everyone cry in Hall One and start a cult in Hall Two.” Ace said, “Maybe three.” “Thank you, Ace.” “That was not approval.” “It felt like approval.” Mai was still looking at the Skyline. There was a temptation with old machines, she thought, to turn them into simple metaphors. The Audi was violence. The Lancia was stubborn beauty. The Skyline was hidden dominance. The Koenigsegg — later, she suspected — would be ambition so clean it almost escaped its own age. But the real thing was always messier. The Skyline was a car. A product of regulations, engineering teams, corporate priorities, racing demands, manufacturing constraints, national pride, driver skill, money, obsession, competition, accident, and timing. It had not been born as a myth. It had become one because enough people had failed to stop it. Maybe that was why Ace kept staring. Ace understood things that became myth after surviving their own purpose. Mai glanced down. Ace’s reflection still lived in the paint. The Shadow Aura around her did not rise. It stayed near, a patient pressure beneath her outline. Not hungry. Not asleep either. Mai touched the back of Ace’s hand with two fingers. Ace looked at her this time. “You are thinking loudly,” Mai said. Ace’s eyes moved back to the Skyline. “It looks normal.” “Yes.” “But isn’t.” “No.” A pause. Ace’s mouth curved faintly. “Good.” Mai laughed under her breath. Reyes, watching from nearby, rolled her eyes. “You two flirt through threat assessment.” Kiro nodded. “They absolutely do.” Mai turned. “We do not.” Lena looked at her. Mai looked back. Lena did not speak. Mai sighed. “Fine. Occasionally.” Ace said, “Often.” Mai looked down at her. “You are supposed to be on my side.” “I am.” “That was not supportive.” “It was accurate.” Shammy appeared behind them, smiling. “Accuracy is one of Mai’s love languages.” Reyes put a hand over her mouth and looked away. Kiro whispered, “Destroyed by structural analysis.” Marco finally laughed, warm and loud enough that two nearby guests glanced over. Lena guided him half a step aside with the gentle efficiency of someone preserving the group from event security. The guide seemed torn between continuing his presentation and asking how any of these people knew each other. Professionalism won by a narrow margin. “If you are interested, the next hall contains early hypercar development, including the Koenigsegg CCX. It tends to surprise visitors because visually it reads much newer than its actual production period.” Kiro’s head turned. “Koenigsegg.” Mai immediately corrected the shape of it. “Koenigsegg.” Kiro pointed at her. “I said that.” “You almost did.” “I was within acceptable tolerance.” “For some names, there is no acceptable tolerance.” Ace nodded. “Never ask that question to car people.” Marco lifted a hand. “I am learning that the hard way.” Reyes looked toward the next hall. “CCX?” Mai’s interest shifted, but differently than before. “That one will probably confuse everyone.” Kiro frowned. “Why?” “Because it will look almost current.” Marco stared at her. “How old?” “Early two-thousands.” “That is not nearly as old as the others.” “In this exhibition context, still old.” Kiro looked offended on behalf of chronology. “If that thing looks current and is also old, I am going to accuse the past of cheating.” Ace said, “Past cheated often.” Marco groaned. “Of course it did.” The guide gestured toward the passage with polished corporate grace. “The CCX is displayed with comparative material on early twenty-first century hypercar design.” Shammy smiled. “Beginning.” Mai looked at her. Shammy’s eyes shone electric-blue in the cool hall lighting. “That is the one that felt early.” “Yes,” Mai said. “It probably will.” Kiro looked back at the Skyline one last time. The blue car sat under its lights, calm and square and impossible to unknow now. She pointed at it. “I need to say something before we leave.” Marco braced. “What?” Kiro took a breath. “I understand Godzilla.” Ace nodded solemnly. “Good.” Kiro pointed at her. “Do not make me feel like I passed a test.” “You did.” “I hate how happy that made me.” Lena smiled. Marco looked back at the Skyline with reluctant respect. “I still think it looks like someone’s serious uncle.” Mai said, “A serious uncle who ruined championships.” Reyes added, “And knew exactly what he was doing.” Shammy looked delighted. “Godzilla uncle.” Ace’s face remained neutral. Too neutral. Mai saw it coming half a second too late. Ace said, “Gojira ojisan.” There was a silence so pure it felt engineered. Then Kiro broke. She bent forward, laughing into both hands. Marco stared at Ace as if she had personally betrayed language. Reyes turned away, shoulders shaking. Lena pressed her lips together and failed quietly. Shammy’s laughter came bright and electric, making the nearby display lights flicker once. Mai closed her eyes. “Ace.” Ace looked up at her. “Yes?” “No.” Ace’s mouth curved. The guide looked around at the group, baffled and smiling despite himself. “I… assume that is not part of the official tour.” “No,” Mai said. Kiro wheezed, “It should be.” “It absolutely should not.” Marco wiped one eye. “I hate that I will remember that forever.” Ace looked at the Skyline. Then gave it a tiny nod. “Respect your elders.” Kiro nearly collapsed again. Mai placed one hand on Ace’s shoulder and gently turned her toward the next hall. “We are leaving before you create a new religion around this car.” Shammy followed, still laughing softly. Reyes fell into step beside Lena. “Too late.” Lena glanced back at the Skyline. “Probably.” Marco came last, shaking his head, muttering to himself. “Godzilla uncle. I came here a normal person.” Kiro walked beside him, grinning. “No, you didn’t.” “Fair.” Behind them, the R32 remained beneath cool light. Original color. Original shape. No modern performance modification. Quiet as a closed fist. Ahead, the lighting changed again. The next hall was darker, sleeker, almost theatrical. No grainy rally footage. No boxy touring car panels. No old service-area photographs full of mud and tired mechanics. Instead, a long silver shape waited under a blade of white light. Low. Smooth. Unreasonably modern. Kiro saw it first and stopped dead. Marco stopped beside her. Reyes stopped too. For once, nobody needed the plaque. Kiro pointed at the car. “No.” Mai’s smile returned. Marco said, very softly, “That thing is old?” Ace looked at the Koenigsegg CCX and tilted her head. “Too clean,” she said again. Shammy stepped forward, eyes bright, air lifting around her like the room had taken a breath. “Not memory,” she murmured. Mai came to stand beside her. “No,” Mai said. The CCX sat under the light like a future that had arrived before anyone had finished building a place for it. Shammy smiled. “Beginning.” --- ## Chapter Five — Beginning The Koenigsegg CCX did not belong in the same emotional category as the others. That was the first thing Mai noticed. Not because it was newer. Chronologically, yes, it was younger than the Group B cars and the Skyline, but time had been strange all morning. The exhibition had already proven that age did not behave properly under lights. The Audi felt older than its years because it belonged to an era of dangerous permission. The Lancia felt older because history had already turned it into an elegy. The Skyline had aged by refusing to age too loudly. But the CCX did something else. It made the room feel wrong. Not wrong like cursed, not wrong like hostile, not wrong like Night City’s usual corporate rot dressed in perfume. Wrong like a sentence written before the language around it had finished forming. The car sat low under a sharp white light, silver bodywork smooth and clean, roofline sweeping back into air intakes and compact aggression. It had none of the boxy honesty of the Audi, none of the red-white romance of the Lancia, none of the understated menace of the Skyline. It looked precise in a different way. Not subtle. Not restrained. Just clean. Too clean, as Ace had said. Kiro stood with one hand half-raised, finger still pointing, as if she had caught the past committing identity fraud. “No,” she said again. Marco stood beside her, face caught somewhere between suspicion and admiration. “That is not a museum car.” Mai smiled. “It is.” “No. That looks like someone parked it here while the owner went to get coffee.” Reyes moved slowly around the barrier, eyes narrowed. “Not quite current. But close enough to pass if you didn’t know what you were looking at.” Lena studied the line of the side intake. “It has aged very little.” “That is exactly what is bothering me,” Kiro said. “The Audi looks old. The Lancia looks old. The Skyline looks old if you know where to look. This looks like it is waiting for a firmware update.” Ace tilted her head. “No firmware.” Kiro pointed at her without looking away from the CCX. “Do not make it worse.” Shammy stood closest to the car, just outside the barrier. The light caught in her silver-white hair and broke into pale electric edges. Around her, the air moved very softly, the way it did when she was not changing the room so much as listening to it. “Beginning,” she said. The guide from the Skyline hall had followed at a polite distance, apparently having decided that this strange little group was the most interesting thing the exhibition had produced all morning. He brightened again when Shammy spoke. “That is actually a good way to frame it. The CCX belongs to a period when boutique hypercar manufacturers were beginning to challenge established performance hierarchies at a very high level.” Marco stared at him. “Boutique hypercar manufacturers.” “Yes.” “That is a phrase that should not exist.” Kiro nodded. “It sounds like rich people made a knife out of math.” Mai looked at the CCX. “Not entirely wrong.” Ace said, “Fast knife.” Kiro groaned. “You are all helping the bad phrase.” The guide, perhaps wisely, continued before Marco could decide to sue hypercar history as well. “Koenigsegg was a relatively young manufacturer at the time. The CCX represented an effort to make the car more globally compliant while preserving extreme performance.” Kiro looked at the plaque. “Globally compliant.” She read further. Then looked at the car. “With this?” “Yes,” the guide said. “This was the compliant version?” “In context.” Marco pressed a hand against his forehead. “I am beginning to hate context.” Reyes smiled. “Context is where people hide crimes.” Mai nodded. “Also engineering.” “Same thing, apparently.” The display behind the CCX activated as they approached. Not old rally footage this time. No snowbanks. No grainy service parks. No spectators acting as a flexible wall of poor decisions. Instead, the screen showed clean roads, wind tunnel imagery, carbon fiber weave, engine components under cold studio light, doors opening upward in that theatrical Koenigsegg way that made even Night City’s more dramatic luxury vehicles seem like they were trying too hard after the fact. The CCX’s doors rose. Kiro froze. Marco looked at the screen. Then at the real car. Then back at the screen. “No.” Ace watched the door mechanism with mild approval. Mai saw it and laughed quietly. Kiro turned slowly toward Ace. “You like the doors.” Ace said nothing. “You like the doors.” “They are efficient.” Mai crossed her arms. “That is not why you like them.” “They are also dramatic.” Reyes put a hand over her mouth. Shammy smiled with open delight. “Ace likes dramatic doors.” Ace looked up at her. “Functional dramatic doors.” “Important distinction.” Marco pointed at the video. “Doors should not do choreography.” Kiro, still watching, whispered, “These can.” “You are being seduced by door hinges.” “They are not hinges, Marco. Look at that rotation. That is mechanical theater.” Mai smiled. “Dihedral synchro-helix.” Kiro’s head snapped toward her. “That has a name?” “Yes.” “Of course it has a name.” Ace murmured, “Good name.” Marco stared at all of them. “I came here to look at old cars and now people are emotionally invested in door geometry.” Lena’s voice was calm. “That seems consistent with the day.” The guide looked impressed. “Most visitors simply say the doors look cool.” “They do,” Ace said. Everyone looked at her. Ace looked back at the CCX. “They do.” Mai laughed again, softer this time, warmed through by the sheer small absurdity of it. Ace, who could face anomalous horrors without blinking, had just defended door aesthetics with deadly seriousness. Reyes leaned toward Kiro. “Mark the date. She admitted a thing looked cool.” Kiro pretended to type into the air. “Archived.” Ace looked at them. “Delete.” “No.” “Kiro.” “This is heritage documentation now.” Lena looked at the guide. “Is there a section on performance specifications?” “There is.” Marco immediately said, “No.” The guide looked confused. Marco pointed at the car. “I know how this goes. Every time we ask how fast something was, the answer gets worse.” Mai smiled. “Then do not ask.” Kiro had already moved to the plaque. “Kiro,” Marco warned. She read silently. Her eyes widened. Marco closed his eyes. “Kiro.” She looked at him. “Marco.” “No.” “It says over three hundred ninety kilometers per hour territory.” Marco opened his eyes. For a moment, he did not speak. Then: “Where?” Kiro blinked. “What?” “Where does someone use that?” The guide opened his mouth. Marco turned to him with one finger raised. “No brochure answer. I need a real answer.” The guide considered his survival options. Mai, mercifully, answered. “Closed test tracks. High-speed proving grounds. Very specific conditions.” Marco stared at the CCX. “So not downtown.” “No.” Ace said, “Not for long.” “ACE.” Reyes laughed outright. A nearby couple looked over. Reyes stared back until they remembered other exhibits existed. Marco turned on Mai. “Why would anyone build a car that fast if almost nowhere can use it?” Mai’s expression became thoughtful. That was the question, wasn’t it? It had been under the whole morning, but the CCX made it unavoidable in a cleaner, sharper way. The rally cars had reasons wrapped in competition. The Skyline had dominance. The Koenigsegg existed in a different spiritual category: not merely to beat someone on a specific road or under a specific rulebook, but to prove a ceiling was false. “Because limits bother certain people,” Mai said. Ace looked at her. Kiro stopped reading. Shammy’s eyes softened. Marco lowered his hand slowly. Mai looked at the silver car. “Some machines are built to solve a practical problem. Some are built to win a rule-defined fight. Some are built because somebody looked at what was considered possible and decided the number was insulting.” The guide stared at her. Kiro whispered, “That should be on the wall.” Ace said, “Yes.” Marco looked annoyed because he also agreed. Lena studied Mai with a small, quiet smile. “That was the romantic version.” Mai’s mouth twitched. “Possibly.” Reyes said, “The legal version is probably worse.” “It usually is.” The screen shifted to an engine display. Technical diagrams unfolded: compact V8, forced induction, cooling, carbon fiber construction, aerodynamics, packaging, weight. Kiro’s whole posture changed into the unmistakable shape of someone falling down a technical well and choosing not to climb out. “Oh,” she said. Marco turned toward her with dread. “No, this is actually impressive.” “That is what I was afraid of.” Kiro pointed at the diagram. “Look at the packaging. The airflow paths. The structure. This is not just rich-people nonsense.” Reyes looked amused. “Some of it is rich-people nonsense.” “Sure, but the engineering is real. Annoyingly real.” Mai nodded. “It had to be.” Ace’s gaze remained on the car rather than the screen. “Too clean,” she repeated. Shammy looked at her. “You do not like it?” Ace took a moment. “No. I respect it.” “That is different.” “Yes.” “Why?” Ace’s eyes moved across the CCX’s smooth silver body. “It hides the fight.” Mai glanced down at her. That was it. The Audi wore its fight openly. The Lancia wore its fight beautifully. The Skyline hid its fight under ordinary lines, but once you knew, you could see the tension in the shape, the quiet squared-off threat of competence. The CCX hid differently. Its fight was not with a road, a rival, a regulation, or a crowd. Its fight was with air. Heat. Weight. Friction. Legality. Physics. Everything invisible. Reyes seemed to arrive at the same place a moment later. “It fought things you can’t punch,” she said. Ace nodded. “Yes.” Marco looked at the CCX with a new kind of discomfort. “So this is less violent because the violence is math.” Kiro pointed at him. “There. You’re getting it.” “I do not want to get it.” “You apologized to tires and understood Godzilla. It is over for you.” Lena nodded solemnly. “Terminal case.” Marco looked betrayed. “You too?” “I am observing symptoms.” Shammy’s laughter shimmered through the air. The guide, now fully invested, gestured to a side display showing photographs of early Koenigsegg facilities, prototypes, and engineers around unfinished cars. “What made this period remarkable was that very small companies could still challenge giants if they had enough technical ambition, risk tolerance, and capital.” Reyes’s eyes narrowed. “That last one does a lot of work.” “Yes,” Lena said. Kiro studied the photographs. “But they still had to build the thing.” “Exactly,” Mai said. “And make it not kill the buyer immediately.” Marco pointed sharply. “That standard seems important.” Ace said, “Less interesting.” “No.” Mai touched Ace’s shoulder. “Do not antagonize Marco’s survival instincts.” “He is easy.” “I know. Don’t.” Marco looked between them. “I am standing right here.” Reyes smiled. “That has never protected anyone.” The group moved slowly around the display. A few other guests drifted in and out, but they did not linger the same way. Many stared at the CCX, took photos, said something about value or aesthetics, and moved on. Some recognized the name. Some did not. A few read the top speed and made the predictable impressed noises before returning to their own carefully curated lives. Ace and Mai stayed. Kiro read everything. Reyes examined the car like a weapon she would not personally choose but could respect. Marco tried to dislike it and failed with visible irritation. Lena watched the watchers. Shammy listened. Not to the car exactly. To the absence around it. The Audi hall had felt full of noise even when silent. The Lancia hall had felt full of memory. The Skyline had felt like pressure contained inside good manners. The CCX felt like a breath held at the edge of a new era. “This one is lonely,” Shammy said. The words slipped out without performance. Everyone turned toward her. The guide, wisely, said nothing. Kiro lowered her agent. “Lonely?” Shammy nodded, eyes still on the car. “It is not surrounded by its world.” Mai’s expression softened. The others waited. Shammy lifted one hand slightly, not touching the barrier, fingers hovering in air. “The Audi belongs to forests, snow, mud, people shouting too close.” Marco muttered, “Too close.” Shammy smiled faintly, then continued. “The Lancia belongs to rivalry. Pride. Mechanics with dirty hands. Teams trying to steal one more moment from change.” Mai’s eyes lowered. “The Skyline belongs to tracks, rules, competitors learning fear slowly.” Ace smiled at that. Shammy looked at the CCX. “This one belongs to a future that had not arrived yet.” Silence settled. Not sad exactly. Not even heavy. Just clear. Kiro looked back at the photographs of early prototypes and small teams around impossible shapes. “Okay,” she said quietly. “That one hit.” Marco nodded once, reluctantly. “Yeah.” The guide exhaled, almost laughing under his breath. “You really should write our audio tour.” Shammy beamed. “I told you.” Marco pointed at the guide. “Do not give her a microphone.” Ace said, “Give her a microphone.” “No.” Mai looked at Ace. “You just want to see what happens.” “Yes.” “At least you’re honest.” Kiro, recovering herself, stepped closer to the performance panel. “Wait. It says no modern drive assistance.” Marco groaned. “Why are we still discovering ways to make this worse?” Kiro’s finger hovered over the text. “So at nearly four hundred kilometers per hour, the driver was still…” She turned very slowly toward Mai. Mai smiled. Ace said it first. “Driver.” Kiro closed her eyes. “No.” Marco spread both arms. “THERE IT IS AGAIN.” Reyes laughed. “The ancient religion returns.” Lena’s mouth curved. “Driver provides salvation.” Shammy clasped her hands together in mock reverence. “Praise be to Driver.” Mai covered her face for one second. Ace looked pleased with herself in the smallest possible way. The guide had completely lost professional neutrality and was laughing silently. Kiro pointed at the CCX. “No, because this is different. In the rally cars, okay, yes, driver skill, road reading, co-driver trust, terrifying but structurally understandable. Here, it is just speed. Pure speed.” Mai shook her head. “Not pure. Stability. Aerodynamics. Throttle control. Braking. Temperature. Surface. Wind. Mechanical sympathy. Knowing what the machine is doing before it has time to punish you.” Reyes glanced at Ace. “Mechanical sympathy?” Ace nodded. “Important.” Marco narrowed his eyes. “That phrase sounds too gentle for what we are discussing.” “It is not gentle,” Mai said. “It is respect.” Kiro looked back at the car. Respect. That was the word that kept ambushing them today. Not nostalgia. Not admiration. Not even excitement. Respect. For old tools. Old risks. Old forms of arrogance that had sometimes been stupid, sometimes brilliant, often both. Marco walked closer to the barrier and stood with his arms folded. The CCX reflected him in its side: broad-shouldered, dark-haired, community warmth wrapped around a man who knew violence well enough not to worship it. He looked uncomfortable seeing himself on the surface of something so coldly ambitious. “I still don’t understand rich-people speed,” he said. “That is because you understand people better than numbers,” Lena said. Marco looked at her. She continued, “For most buyers, yes, it was probably status. But for the people who built it…” She looked at the CCX. “That feels different.” Kiro pointed at Lena. “Exactly. This is the problem. I want to mock it, and then the engineering keeps making that harder.” Marco sighed. “I hate when rich nonsense has craftsmanship.” Reyes said, “Night City would be easier if it didn’t.” Mai’s expression went flat. “Night City would be easier if rich nonsense stopped eating people.” The humor dipped. Only for a moment. Enough to remind them that outside the exhibition hall, corporations were still corporations. The same class of power that sponsored a heritage display also crushed neighborhoods, bought laws, buried bodies, and sold memory back to the survivors as premium culture. The guide heard the edge in Mai’s voice and pretended not to. Good survival instincts again. Shammy turned slightly, her field shifting with a soft pressure wave that eased the air before the thought could harden too far. “Today,” she said, “we can let the machines be machines.” Mai looked at her. Then nodded. “Yes.” Ace’s hand brushed Mai’s fingers. Small. Private. Enough. Kiro cleared her throat with exaggerated drama. “Okay. I have an important question.” Marco did not look optimistic. “Of course you do.” “If the CCX looks almost current now, does that mean modern Night City supercars are creatively lazy?” Reyes’s smile became predatory. “Yes.” Mai opened her mouth. Stopped. Looked at the CCX. Looked toward the high windows, where Night City traffic moved beyond the glass in polished, armored, subscription-locked streams of corporate design language. Then she said, “Often, yes.” Kiro looked delighted. Marco pointed at Mai. “That sounded painful for you.” “It was.” Ace nodded approvingly. “Truth hurts.” Mai looked down. “Do not enjoy this too much.” “I enjoy correct things.” “You enjoy being troublesome.” “Also correct.” Shammy leaned toward Lena. “They are flirting again.” Mai said, “We are not.” Reyes said, “You are.” Kiro said, “You very much are.” Marco said, “I understood Godzilla against my will. I am now qualified to say yes.” Lena simply looked at Mai. Mai sighed. “Fine.” Ace’s mouth curved. The guide, trapped between professionalism and fascination, looked at the CCX as if the car itself might provide instructions for handling visitors like this. The car offered nothing but silver confidence. A soft chime sounded through the hall. A calm announcement followed. “Attention guests. The engine demonstration will begin in Hall Three in fifteen minutes. Featured vehicles: Audi Sport Quattro, Lancia Rally 037, Nissan Skyline GT-R R32, and Koenigsegg CCX. Please proceed to the marked viewing areas. Hearing protection is recommended and available at the entrance to the demonstration zone.” Ace’s head turned immediately. Mai’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “No.” Ace looked at her. “You do not know what I was going to say.” “Yes, I do.” “Engine demonstration.” “We are going to watch.” “Yes.” “From the viewing area.” Ace paused. Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Ace.” “Viewing area is subjective.” “It is literally marked.” “Marks are suggestions.” Marco lifted both hands. “No. No, no. We are not getting thrown out before I hear the angry refrigerator.” Kiro pointed at him with triumph. “You want to hear it.” Marco froze. The betrayal dawned slowly. Lena’s smile was mercilessly small. Reyes looked delighted. Shammy clapped once softly. “Marco likes cars.” “I do not.” “You want to hear the Audi.” “That is different.” “It is not,” Kiro said. “It is historical concern.” Ace said, “Sure.” Marco pointed at her. “You are the last person allowed to judge me.” Mai began guiding Ace toward the demonstration hall before Ace could start negotiating with the concept of barriers. The guide gave them directions, though by then they hardly needed them. The sound of movement had changed across the exhibition. Guests were drifting toward Hall Three, conversations rising with anticipation. Even the wealthy and detached liked old engines, apparently. Or at least liked being near something that could not be downloaded, replicated, patched, or politely simulated. They left the CCX behind. Kiro looked back once. The silver car remained under its clean white light. Still too modern. Still too early. Still lonely in a way that had less to do with being alone and more to do with having arrived before its own century knew what to do with it. Marco walked beside her, hands in his pockets. “Okay,” he said quietly. Kiro glanced at him. “What?” “I understand that one less, but I respect it more.” Kiro grinned. “That is a very car-person sentence.” “Do not tell anyone.” “I am telling everyone.” “Kiro.” “I am already composing the message.” Lena stepped between them with calm inevitability. “No harassment during engine demonstration.” Kiro looked wounded. “That is when harassment is most meaningful.” “No.” Reyes walked a few steps behind with Shammy. “You know,” Reyes said, “for a no-mission day, this is going weirdly well.” Shammy smiled. “No one has been shot.” “Low bar.” “Important bar.” Ace heard that and said, without turning, “Day is young.” Mai’s hand landed on the back of Ace’s coat. “No.” Ace looked up at her. Mai looked down. A whole conversation passed without sound. Ace conceded with a tiny shrug. “For now.” Marco pointed forward. “I heard that.” “You were meant to.” The passage opened back toward the Group B hall, but now the center had changed. Staff had adjusted barriers, lowered transparent acoustic panels in some areas, and opened a broader viewing zone. Guests gathered behind marked lines. Small hearing protectors waited in black dispensers near the entrance. The polished corporate quiet had begun to break under anticipation. The Audi sat first. Then the Lancia. Then the Skyline. Then the CCX, brought into position under staff supervision with almost ceremonial care. Four machines in one line. Four answers to different questions. How do you conquer loose ground? How do you fight the future once more before it takes the crown? How do you hide dominance inside restraint? How far can ambition reach before the world catches up? Ace stopped at the barrier. Mai stopped beside her. Shammy stood behind them, tall and bright, her air already responding to the room’s gathering charge. Kiro slid in beside Lena, practically vibrating. Marco accepted hearing protection from a staff member with exaggerated dignity. Reyes declined hers at first, then saw Mai’s look and took them. The old historian from the Audi and Lancia halls appeared near the demonstration zone, now wearing a headset and carrying the pleased solemnity of a priest about to begin a service he actually believed in. He saw the group. Smiled. Lifted one hand. Marco leaned toward Kiro. “That man is too happy.” Kiro whispered back, “He is about to make old machines yell indoors.” Marco considered that. Then nodded. “Fair.” The lights dimmed slightly. The room quieted. For once, even Night City outside seemed far away. The historian’s voice came through the hall speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain behind the marked safety line. These vehicles are preserved in operational condition. Today’s demonstration will not involve movement, but you will hear each engine started briefly under controlled supervision.” Marco whispered, “Controlled is doing a lot of work.” Mai whispered, “Behave.” “I am behaving historically.” Ace whispered, “Badly.” Marco looked at her. “You are enjoying this.” Ace’s eyes stayed on the Audi. “Yes.” The historian continued. “These cars come from different eras, different philosophies, and different forms of madness.” Kiro whispered, “I like him.” “First: the Audi Sport Quattro.” Ace went very still. Mai felt it through the space between them. A technician leaned into the Audi. For a second, nothing happened. Then the engine turned. Coughed. Caught. The Audi barked awake. Not smooth. Not polite. Not clean. It cracked through the hall with a hard mechanical snarl that seemed too large for the small boxy body, turbo noise chattering under the idle, old combustion beating against modern acoustic panels like it wanted out. The sound punched through the curated air and left fingerprints. Marco’s eyes widened. Kiro actually stepped back. Reyes smiled slowly. Shammy inhaled. Ace did not move. The Audi idled for only a short moment, but the room changed around it. People who had come to photograph value suddenly remembered engines were not sculptures. The sound had dirt in it. Snow. Gravel. Mistakes. Commitment. A road too narrow for fear. The engine cut. Silence crashed down after it. Marco stared. Mai leaned slightly toward him. “Still suing the past?” Marco swallowed. “Yes,” he said. Then, quieter: “But I understand why it fought back.” Ace smiled without looking at him. One machine had spoken. Three waited. --- ## Chapter Six — Old Machines Speak The silence after the Audi did not feel like silence. It felt like a dent. The hall had been quiet before, the polite kind of quiet expensive exhibitions cultivated with soft lighting and carefully trained staff. This was different. This was the quiet that came after something physical had shoved its way through the room and left everyone recalculating the size of history. Kiro stood with both hands pressed lightly over her hearing protection, eyes wide. “That,” she said, “was not a car.” Mai smiled. “It was very much a car.” “No. That was a box full of arguments.” Ace looked pleased. “Yes.” Marco still stared at the Audi. “It sounds angrier than it looks.” “That is impressive,” Reyes said, “because it looks like it already hates someone.” The old historian’s voice returned through the speakers, warm with restrained delight. “The Sport Quattro’s sound is inseparable from its legend. Turbocharged, compact, brutal, and built for terrain where smoothness was often less important than survival.” Marco pointed without looking away from the car. “That man is saying terrible things beautifully.” Lena’s expression remained calm, but there was a softness at the edge of her mouth. “That is his job.” “No. His job is to supervise antique violence.” Ace said, “Good job.” Mai murmured, “Do not apply.” “I wasn’t.” “You thought about it.” Ace glanced up at her. “Briefly.” Shammy stood very still behind them. The Audi’s sound had touched her differently. Not emotionally, exactly. Atmospherically. When the engine had barked awake, the air around her had tightened in answer, not defensive but instinctive, as if thunder had spoken indoors and her body had recognized an old relative. Now faint static drifted around her hair, blue-white sparks so small they vanished before becoming light. “It was not smooth,” Shammy said. “No,” Mai said. “It did not want to be smooth.” Ace nodded. “Correct.” Shammy smiled faintly. “I like that.” Marco turned. “Of course you do. Weather is biased toward loud things.” Shammy considered this. “Not all loud things.” “Explosions?” “Depends who caused them.” Reyes laughed under her breath. “That is a worrying answer.” “It was an honest answer.” The historian continued. “Next, the Lancia Rally 037.” The room shifted. Not louder. More attentive. The Lancia sat beside the Audi under warmer light, red and white bodywork catching the glow like lacquered memory. After the Audi’s hard mechanical shout, it seemed almost unfair to expect the Lancia to answer in the same language. But Mai knew better. Ace did too. The technician moved to the Lancia. Kiro leaned forward, already bracing. Marco whispered, “This one is proud first.” Shammy’s eyes turned toward him. He shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “What? I listened.” Lena looked at him with quiet approval. The Lancia’s starter engaged. For a moment, the engine resisted. Then it caught. Where the Audi had barked, the Lancia snarled. Sharper. Higher. Cleaner at first, then rougher beneath, a layered mechanical voice with supercharger whine threading through it like something metallic and alive. It did not sound less dangerous than the Audi. It sounded dangerous with better posture. Kiro’s mouth fell open. Reyes’s eyebrows lifted. Marco took one involuntary half-step closer before remembering the barrier. Ace watched with narrow-eyed respect. Mai felt something old and bright move through her chest. The Lancia idled, revved lightly once under the technician’s hand, and the note changed — a quick flare of precision, impatience, hunger. Not the Audi’s blunt force. This was a blade being drawn just enough to show the edge. Then it cut off. The silence that followed was not as stunned as after the Audi. It was more complicated. Kiro lowered one hand slowly. “Oh.” Marco nodded despite himself. “Yeah.” Reyes looked at the Lancia again. “That one would make you work for the mistake.” Ace said, “All good opponents do.” Mai looked at her. Ace did not look away from the car. The historian’s voice returned. “The 037 represented the final peak of a fading architecture. Rear-wheel drive against a changing world. Lighter, agile, strategic, and very much alive in the hands of drivers and teams who understood precisely where it could still win.” Shammy’s eyes softened. “Proud first,” she repeated. This time nobody joked. Marco stared at the Lancia and folded his arms. “I still think it’s sad.” “It is,” Mai said. “But not only sad.” “Because it won.” “Because it mattered.” That landed. Marco looked at her. Mai kept her gaze on the car. “Winning ends. Matter doesn’t.” Lena glanced at Mai with that quiet, precise look of hers, the one that said she had found the structural heart of a sentence and filed it away. Kiro did not say anything for a second, which was rare enough that Reyes turned to check on her. Kiro noticed. “I’m fine.” “Sure.” “I’m just thinking about legacy and drivetrain architecture.” Marco sighed. “That sentence should not be emotionally valid.” “It is extremely emotionally valid.” Ace’s voice came soft from the front of the group. “Enemy worth remembering.” The old historian, who could not have heard all of the context but somehow heard enough, smiled from his position near the demonstration line. The next announcement flowed into the hall. “Third: the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32.” Kiro straightened so fast her jacket cable bracelet swung. “Oh no.” Marco looked at her. “Why oh no?” “Because I already like it and I am not emotionally prepared for it to sound good.” Reyes smiled. “You’re doomed.” “I know.” The Skyline sat in its cool light, original blue body calm and squared-off and almost modest. After the rally cars, it looked less like an artifact of madness and more like someone had parked a serious thought in the wrong century. A technician opened the door, leaned in, checked something, then gave a small hand signal. Ace watched intently. Mai noticed, again, that Ace’s interest in the Skyline was different from the Audi and Lancia. Less visceral. More amused. The kind of interest one predator might show another when the second had hidden beautifully in plain sight. The engine turned. Caught. And the Skyline came alive with a smoother, deeper, more composed voice. Not quiet. Not tame. But controlled. The turbocharged inline-six settled into idle with a dense mechanical hum, refined compared to the rally cars but carrying something coiled under it. When the technician gave it a brief rev, the note rose cleanly, a hard metallic sweep that did not shout so much as make a statement and expect the room to accept it. Kiro’s eyes closed. Marco saw and immediately pointed at her. “You’re gone.” “I am not.” “You closed your eyes.” “For acoustic analysis.” “You fell in love with a box.” Kiro opened her eyes and pointed at the Skyline. “That box has excellent tonal architecture.” Reyes laughed. “Terminal.” Lena nodded solemnly. “Advanced stage.” Ace said, “Godzilla uncle speaks well.” Mai turned slowly toward her. The silence around their group did something strange. Kiro made a sound like she had been punched in the lungs by laughter she was trying to suppress. Marco covered his face. Reyes looked at the floor, shoulders shaking. Shammy’s static popped bright enough to make the nearest guest glance over in alarm. Lena’s expression barely moved, which somehow made it worse. Mai closed her eyes. “Ace.” “What?” “Not during the official demonstration.” Ace looked genuinely composed. “It was relevant.” “It was not.” “It spoke.” Kiro wheezed, “Gojira ojisan has a voice.” Marco pointed at her. “Do not help.” The historian, hearing none of the phrase clearly but recognizing laughter, smiled uncertainly and continued. “The R32 GT-R’s reputation came not only from its power, but from its integrated systems. Advanced all-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, and a robust engine platform made it one of the most dominant racing machines of its era.” The Skyline idled for a few more seconds. There was no frantic roughness in it. No dirt-road violence. No elegiac blade-edge pride. It sounded like competence. That was almost worse. Mai leaned slightly toward Kiro. “Still sensible?” Kiro looked at the Skyline. The engine cut. “No,” she said. “It is wearing sensible as camouflage.” Ace nodded approvingly. Kiro saw it and groaned. “Stop making me feel validated by the tiny katana menace.” Ace glanced at her. “No.” Reyes looked between them. “That’s friendship now.” “It is not.” “It is,” Shammy said brightly. Kiro pointed at the Skyline. “I was vulnerable because of engineering. That does not count.” Lena said, “It counts more.” Marco gave the Skyline a long look. “I hate how much I understand the nickname now.” Mai smiled. “Good.” “No. Not good. I arrived here innocent.” Reyes looked at him. Lena looked at him. Kiro looked at him. Even Ace looked at him. Marco lifted both hands. “Fine. Innocent-adjacent.” “Barely,” Reyes said. The historian’s voice became slightly more formal. “And finally: the Koenigsegg CCX.” The room changed again. A different anticipation passed through the guests. The Audi and Lancia had attracted reverence from motorsport people. The Skyline had drawn surprise, respect, and recognition from those who understood the mythology. But the Koenigsegg had a different kind of public gravity. Even the guests who cared more about price tags than engineering leaned forward. The CCX waited at the end of the line, silver and low, modern enough to unsettle the chronology of the hall. It looked less like a preserved object and more like a visitor from a cleaner, colder version of the present. Marco looked wary. “I do not trust that one.” Kiro nodded. “Because it looks trustworthy.” “That makes sense now and I hate that.” Reyes studied the CCX. “It doesn’t look like it will forgive stupidity.” Ace said, “Good.” Mai touched Ace’s shoulder automatically. “Do not bond with every dangerous vehicle in the building.” “I have standards.” “Do you?” Ace considered. “With cars.” Mai sighed. Shammy stood very close behind them, eyes bright. “This one is lonely.” The announcement continued. “A product of early twenty-first-century hypercar ambition, the CCX represents a different philosophy: extreme road performance, global compliance, and aerodynamic refinement from a young manufacturer willing to challenge established names.” Marco muttered, “Rich-people knife math.” Kiro whispered, “Accurate.” The technician approached the Koenigsegg. The door opened upward with that impossible mechanical flourish. Ace’s eyes flicked toward it. Mai caught the movement. “Still functional dramatic doors?” Ace gave the smallest nod. Mai smiled despite herself. The technician settled inside, completed the sequence, and the CCX’s engine turned over. It did not bark. It did not snarl. It erupted. The sound filled the hall with a harder, cleaner violence than the others, a V8 roar sharpened by engineering and stripped of nostalgia. It was not dirty like the Audi, not proud like the Lancia, not composed like the Skyline. It sounded like air being forced to negotiate with ambition at unacceptable speed. The first idle was deep. Then the rev came. Brief. Controlled. Still enough to make the acoustic panels tremble. Kiro flinched and laughed at the same time. Marco’s eyes went wide. “That is illegal.” Mai said, “It is idling.” “That is my point.” Reyes smiled slowly, but with more caution than delight. “That one sounds expensive to survive.” Ace watched the CCX with narrowed eyes. When the rev dropped, she spoke quietly. “That fights invisible things.” Mai heard her and nodded. “Air. Heat. Stability. Weight. Fear.” Ace’s mouth curved faintly. “Good enemies.” Marco looked at them. “Fear is not an engineering category.” Kiro’s eyes were still on the car. “It absolutely is.” Lena nodded. “They just call it safety margin.” Marco looked wounded. “Everyone is against me.” Reyes patted his shoulder once. “You picked the wrong day to defend sanity.” The CCX idled for only a few more seconds. But those seconds felt less like hearing the past and more like hearing the moment the past stopped asking permission. Shammy’s hair lifted. Not from the engine’s vibration. From her own response to it. The air around her shimmered faintly, blue-white and soft, as if the sound had given the atmosphere a shape to answer. “It is not lonely when it speaks,” she said. Mai looked at her. Shammy smiled. “Then it has its future with it.” The engine cut. This time the silence was enormous. Not dented like after the Audi. Not complex like after the Lancia. Not sly like after the Skyline. Enormous. For several seconds, the entire hall remained caught in the afterimage of old combustion and human nerve. Then the guests began to applaud. It started near the front. A few polite claps. Then more. Then enough that the demonstration hall became warm with it. The historian bowed his head slightly, visibly pleased, and gestured toward the four cars. “Thank you. Please remain behind the barriers while staff complete shutdown procedures. The vehicles will remain on display until closing.” Marco clapped too. Kiro saw it. Slowly, with devastating delight, she turned toward him. Marco froze mid-clap. “No.” “You’re applauding.” “For historical appreciation.” “You loved it.” “I respected it.” “You loved it.” Marco pointed at the Audi. “That one yelled at me.” Kiro grinned. “And?” Marco looked at the Audi. Then the Lancia. Then the Skyline. Then the CCX. His shoulders dropped. “And I respected the yelling.” Kiro put a hand over her heart. “Beautiful.” “Do not make this a thing.” “It is already a thing.” Lena, merciless in her calm, said, “You did say you wanted to hear the angry refrigerator.” Marco looked at her with betrayal deep enough for theater. “You are supposed to be the kind one.” “I am kind. I waited until after the demonstration.” Reyes laughed. Shammy leaned toward Ace and Mai, eyes bright. “They all sound different.” Mai nodded. “Very.” “Like voices.” Ace looked at the four cars. “Yes.” Shammy tilted her head. “Which one is yours?” Mai opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. Ace looked at Shammy. Kiro, Marco, Reyes, and Lena quieted almost accidentally. It was a strange question. Or maybe not strange at all. Ace considered the line of cars. The Audi: brutal, compact, built to make terrain surrender. The Lancia: sharp, proud, fighting change with elegance and stubbornness. The Skyline: quiet dominance hidden under restraint. The Koenigsegg: clean ambition aimed at invisible limits. For a moment, Mai thought Ace would choose the Audi. Everyone probably did. Ace herself seemed to understand that expectation. Then she said, “Depends who is asking.” Reyes smiled faintly. “Good answer.” Shammy looked delighted. “No, that is a dodge.” Ace glanced up at her. “Yes.” Mai laughed softly. Shammy leaned forward, refusing to let the question go. “Fine. Today?” Ace looked again. Longer this time. “Audi.” Kiro made a victorious noise for reasons nobody understood. Mai asked, “Why?” Ace’s answer came without hesitation. “It expects the road to be hostile.” That was so entirely Ace that no one argued. Shammy nodded slowly, accepting it. Then she looked at Mai. “Yours?” Mai looked at the Lancia first. That surprised no one. Then at the Skyline. Then back at the Lancia. “The 037,” she said. Kiro pointed. “Because strategy.” “Partly.” “Because it won against the obvious future by understanding the whole field.” Mai smiled. “Yes.” Ace looked up at her with warm approval. Mai added, “And because it knew winning once could still matter.” That quieted the group again. Shammy’s eyes softened. “Proud first,” she said. Mai nodded. “Proud first.” Kiro turned to Shammy. “Yours is the CCX.” Shammy smiled. “Is it?” “Yes. You literally called it lonely and then gave it a future. You bonded with the weird silver spaceship.” Marco said, “It is not a spaceship.” Kiro pointed at the CCX. “Look at it.” Marco looked. “Fine. Ground spaceship.” Shammy laughed. “Maybe mine is the CCX.” Reyes studied her. “Because beginning?” Shammy nodded. “Because beginning.” Lena looked at Kiro. “Skyline.” Kiro blinked. “I didn’t say.” “You didn’t need to.” Kiro opened her mouth. Closed it. Then looked at the R32 with deeply offended affection. “Fine. Yes. Because it looks like a system and then ruins your day.” Marco said, “You just described yourself.” Kiro pointed at him. “And that is why I like it.” Reyes looked at the line of cars. Marco looked at her. “Do not say mine is the Audi because I yelled.” “No,” Reyes said. “Yours is the Lancia.” Marco blinked. “What?” Reyes shrugged. “Community guy. Pride. Stubborn. Understands losing ground but still shows up like it matters.” Marco’s expression changed. It happened quickly. A crack in the joke armor. Then he looked away. “That was unnecessary.” Lena’s voice was gentle. “It was accurate.” Marco rubbed the back of his neck. “I hate all of you.” “No,” Ace said. Marco looked down at her. Ace’s violet eyes were calm. “You don’t.” Marco sighed. “No. I don’t.” Reyes looked at Lena. “Yours?” Lena smiled faintly. “None of these are mine.” Kiro gasped. “Coward.” Lena shook her head. “I appreciate them. I do not identify with performance machines built around risk escalation.” Marco pointed at her triumphantly. “Thank you.” Then Lena added, “But if forced, the Skyline.” Kiro turned on Marco with both hands lifted. “SEE?” Marco’s triumph died. Lena continued calmly, “Restraint matters. So does competence that does not announce itself.” Reyes nodded. “Fair.” Kiro looked at Reyes. “Yours?” Reyes looked at the four cars for a long moment. “Audi is too obvious. Lancia is too romantic. Skyline is too clean. CCX is too rich.” Marco snorted. “That is the most Reyes answer possible.” Ace said, “Pick.” Reyes looked at her. There was a challenge there. Friendly, but still edged. Reyes smiled. “037.” Mai’s eyebrows lifted. Reyes shrugged. “Fighting from disadvantage and making everyone nervous anyway? Yeah. I respect that.” Ace nodded once. Approval. Reyes saw it and looked away before anyone could make it sentimental. Kiro made a tiny note in the air. Reyes pointed without looking. “Delete whatever that is.” “No.” “Kiro.” “It says Reyes likes underdog knives.” Reyes stared. Mai said, “That is also accurate.” Reyes looked betrayed. “Not you too.” Mai smiled. “Especially me.” The group began drifting out of the demonstration zone as staff guided visitors back toward the general exhibition paths. Conversations buzzed around them now, louder than before. People who had arrived to observe rare objects had heard them breathe. The cars no longer sat as cleanly in their categories. The Audi was not merely valuable. The Lancia was not merely pretty. The Skyline was not merely famous. The Koenigsegg was not merely expensive. They had spoken, briefly, and the room had believed them. Marco walked more slowly than before. Kiro noticed, but this time she did not pounce immediately. Lena walked beside him. For a few steps, neither said anything. Then Marco nodded toward the four cars. “I get it a little more now.” Lena looked at him. “The cars?” “The people.” That was unexpected enough that Kiro, a step ahead, almost turned around. She controlled herself with visible effort. Marco kept his voice low. “The people who built them. Drove them. Watched them. Fixed them. Argued about them.” He shook his head. “I still think half of it was insane.” “It was.” “But…” He looked back once. “It was theirs.” Lena’s expression softened. “Yes.” Shammy heard that. Her smile turned quiet again. Ace and Mai walked together near the front of the group. Ace’s hand brushed Mai’s once, then stayed there. Not a dramatic grip. Just contact. Mai looked down at her. “Worth it?” Ace’s gaze stayed forward, but her mouth curved. “Yes.” “You almost got us in trouble twice.” “Only twice?” “Do not sound disappointed.” Ace considered that. “Fine.” Mai squeezed her hand once. Behind them, Kiro was already talking again. “Okay, we need café immediately.” Marco blinked. “You are hungry?” “No. I need to sit down and process the fact that I have developed opinions about homologation.” Reyes nodded. “Café.” Lena looked at the crowd. “Before Marco buys a poster.” Marco stopped. Everyone turned slowly. Kiro’s eyes lit with terrible joy. Marco looked at Lena. “How did you—” Lena’s expression remained serene. “You were looking at the Lancia merchandise stand for eight seconds too long.” Kiro clapped both hands together. “MARCO.” “No.” “You want a Lancia poster.” “No.” “You do.” “Historical decoration.” Reyes smiled. “For your wall?” “For… context.” Ace said, “Buy it.” Marco stared at her. Ace looked back. “Respect opponents.” Marco opened his mouth. Closed it. Pointed at her. “That was manipulative.” “Yes.” Mai sighed. “Ace.” “What? It worked.” Marco looked toward the merchandise stand. Then at Lena. Lena gave him the smallest possible nod. He muttered something in Spanish that did not sound hostile enough to be an actual complaint and walked toward the stand. Kiro followed instantly. Reyes followed because she wanted to watch the damage. Lena followed because someone had to prevent Kiro from buying six stickers and putting one on Marco’s back. Shammy leaned down toward Ace and Mai, smiling. “We are keeping him?” Mai looked at Marco arguing with himself in front of a tasteful reproduction Lancia 037 print. Ace said, “Yes.” Mai nodded. “Definitely.” Shammy’s hair sparked softly. “Good.” The café sat beyond the final hall, tucked behind a glass partition overlooking the wet geometry of downtown. Outside, Night City moved in cold color: traffic streams, tower reflections, advertising ghosts crawling over rain-slick surfaces. Inside, the café was warm, overpriced, and trying to look understated despite selling coffee at a price that suggested the beans had been individually negotiated with. By the time Ace, Mai, and Shammy reached the tables, Marco had returned with a rolled poster under one arm and the expression of a man pretending he had been forced into victory. Kiro carried a small Skyline patch. Reyes had bought nothing and somehow looked like she had stolen something anyway. Lena carried a tiny enamel pin shaped like a tire. Marco saw it. “What is that?” Lena pinned it calmly to the inside edge of her jacket. “Evidence.” Kiro almost fell into a chair laughing. Marco stared at Lena with open betrayal. “You waited until I was vulnerable.” “Yes.” Reyes sat down and stretched one leg out. “This café was worth the trip by itself.” Mai looked at the menu. “The coffee costs more than some replacement organs.” “Night City heritage pricing,” Lena said. Ace climbed into the chair beside Mai with practiced ease and looked at the menu as if it had insulted her. “No.” Mai leaned over. “No what?” “This is robbery.” Reyes smiled. “Now she notices capitalism.” Ace pointed at the coffee list. “This is worse.” Shammy sat opposite them, still glowing faintly from the demonstration, eyes bright with stored sound and old engines. Kiro dropped into the chair beside her and exhaled dramatically. “Okay,” she said. “I have updates.” Marco groaned. “Already?” “Yes. One: I understand why people liked old cars.” Mai smiled. “Good.” “Two: I still think a lot of them were insane.” “Also good.” “Three: if anyone tells anyone outside this table that I got emotionally affected by a factory-spec R32, I will deny it violently.” Reyes leaned back. “Noted.” Lena said, “Archived.” Ace said, “Godzilla uncle knows.” Kiro put her face in both hands. Marco pointed at Ace. “You cannot keep doing that.” Ace looked at him, completely calm. “I can.” Mai laughed. Not quietly enough to hide it. Not loudly enough to disturb the café. Just enough that the whole table warmed around the sound. For a while, that was all the day needed to be. Rain against glass. Old engines fading from their bones. Coffee ordered despite the robbery. A rolled Lancia poster beside Marco’s chair. Kiro pretending she did not keep looking at the Skyline patch in her hand. Reyes watching the group with the guarded ease of someone who still did not fully trust peace but had learned to sit near it. Lena making the café table feel less temporary by the simple act of arranging cups where people could reach them. Shammy smiling at everyone like the room had found its correct pressure. Ace’s shoulder touching Mai’s. Mai letting it. Outside, the city kept being Night City. Inside, for one afternoon, the past had made noise and nobody had tried to kill them. For their lives, that counted as luxury. --- ## Epilogue — Ghosts in the Garage That Wasn’t There Safehouse was quiet by the time they got back. Not empty. Quiet. There was a difference, and all three of them knew it. Night City pressed against the windows in its usual wet neon layers, traffic crawling below in algorithmic patience, ads bleeding color over rain-slick glass. Somewhere far beneath them, an engine screamed down an avenue with more confidence than control. A second later, sirens answered. Ace stood near the window and watched the reflected lights move across the floor. Mai had taken off her coat and hung it properly because some habits survived apocalypse, relocation, anomaly saturation, and Night City itself. Shammy had claimed the couch, long legs folded under her, silver-white hair still faintly lifted by the day’s leftover charge. For a while, none of them spoke. Then Shammy said, “The Audi was loud.” Ace’s mouth curved. “Yes.” Mai sat beside Shammy. “You liked that.” “I liked how honest it was.” Ace turned from the window. “It was built to win.” Shammy looked at her. “So were you.” Mai’s eyes flicked to Shammy. Not warning. Not disagreement. Just attention. Ace stayed still for a moment. The Shadow Aura around her did not flare, but the dark near her feet gathered closer, as if listening. Then she said, “No.” Shammy tilted her head. Ace walked back toward them, slow and quiet. “I was built to survive.” Mai’s expression softened. Shammy’s smile did too. Ace sat on the low table in front of them instead of the couch, because apparently chairs remained negotiable. Mai reached out and brushed a strand of black-violet hair away from her face. “And now?” Mai asked. Ace looked at her. A long second passed. “Now I choose what I’m for.” That landed softer than the engines had. Deeper, maybe. Shammy leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “Which car was that?” Ace looked mildly offended. “Not a car.” Mai smiled. “Answer the atmospheric philosopher.” Ace glanced between them, then sighed. “Lancia.” Mai’s eyebrows lifted. “Interesting.” Ace looked away. “Don’t make it a thing.” “It is absolutely a thing.” Shammy’s grin returned. “Proud first.” Ace gave her a look. Shammy held up both hands, innocent in a way that convinced no one. Mai leaned back into the couch, shoulder brushing Shammy’s. “I thought you would say Audi.” “I did. Earlier.” “And now?” Ace was quiet. Outside, another vehicle passed below, smooth and electric, almost soundless. “Lancia knew the world was changing,” Ace said. “Still fought.” Mai did not tease her. Not this time. Shammy’s air stilled around them, warm at the edges. “And Mai?” Shammy asked. Mai looked amused. “What about me?” “Still Lancia?” Mai considered lying. Didn’t. “Yes.” Ace looked at her with immediate approval. Mai touched two fingers to Ace’s chin and lifted it just enough to make the look direct. “But not because it fought the future.” Ace waited. “Because it needed another mind beside it to be fully alive.” The room went very quiet. Ace’s eyes changed first. Not dramatically. Not visibly to anyone who did not know her. But Mai knew. Shammy knew. The hard violet focus loosened around the edges and became something dangerously close to tenderness. “Co-driver,” Ace said. Mai nodded. “Co-driver.” Shammy made a soft sound, almost a laugh, almost weather. “And me?” Mai looked at her. Ace looked too. Shammy’s smile turned smaller. “Am I still CCX?” Ace considered. “No.” Shammy blinked. “No?” Mai smiled already, because she could hear Ace’s thought forming. Ace stood, stepped closer, and climbed onto the couch between them with the complete lack of ceremony of someone who had decided physics, furniture, and personal space could negotiate among themselves. “You are engine-start,” Ace said. Shammy stared. Mai laughed softly. Ace settled against them both, small and warm and impossible. “You change the room when you wake up.” Shammy’s face went still. Then bright. Then very carefully not too bright, because she was learning what to do with being seen. Mai slipped an arm behind Ace and rested her hand against Shammy’s side. “That is accurate,” Mai said. Shammy swallowed once. Outside, Night City flashed red and gold against the glass. Inside, Shammy leaned down and kissed the top of Ace’s head, then Mai’s temple, slow and unhurried. “No missions today,” she murmured. “No blood,” Mai said. “No one shot at us,” Ace added. Shammy smiled. “Luxury.” Ace nodded seriously. “Expensive coffee.” Mai groaned. “Do not remind me.” “It was robbery.” “It was heritage pricing.” “Robbery with a plaque.” Shammy laughed, and the lights flickered once, just enough to make the Safehouse feel alive around them. Mai drew both of them closer. Ace allowed it. Shammy folded around them like weather deciding, for once, not to move. For a while, they sat there with the city outside and the old machines still echoing somewhere in memory. Audi. Lancia. Skyline. Koenigsegg. Violence, pride, restraint, ambition. All of them ghosts now. All of them still loud. Mai rested her cheek lightly against Ace’s hair. “Worth it?” she asked again. Ace’s hand found hers. This time she did not answer immediately. Then: “Yes.” Shammy smiled against Mai’s shoulder. “Because of the cars?” Ace’s fingers tightened once around Mai’s. “Because they remembered being alive.” Mai closed her eyes. Shammy’s air softened. Night City kept moving outside, chrome and rain and hunger. Inside Safehouse, the Triad stayed close. No engine noise. No crowd. No speed. Just three heartbeats, uneven and real, keeping time in a world that had forgotten how many roads it had buried to get here. And somewhere in the quiet, old horsepower became something gentler than thunder. A ghost. A joke. A memory. A way home.