NightRacer

Chapter 1

His car died somewhere between the old defense base and the small town of Providence. He stared at the warning lights on the dashboard, watching them fade away, listening to the growing silence, and clinging instinctively to the security of the cabin. The fuel pack was completely drained after a week of endless driving-not a drop of energy left in its veins. He'd been driving furiously, taking side roads, back roads, country roads, just barely avoiding rocks and ditches, and always aiming for someplace beyond the horizon.

Scans were not getting any results. He would steer for twenty hours or so, then switch to auto-drive, scan until falling sleep, wake up and scan again, drive, scan, sleep, hands clenching the steering wheel, eyes on the road, mind hypnotized by the flow of the undulating grass, an army of little green blades stabbing at the sky. After days of this unending view, he slipped into a semiconscious state, sailing carelessly through a fog of spores, warning messages, and old memories, driving against the wind, scanning, sleeping, driving, scanning again, refusing to stop, and the hell with everything else.

When the stream of messages got maddening, he turned off the speech system and kept driving, trying to squeeze the remaining fuel to the last drop-to get out of it as many miles as possible.

He could only guess his location and had no idea what the day of the week it was. Judging by the sun, he was driving west and it was evening. New Arizona, or NAZ as it was commonly known among colonists, wasn't too different from Earth. Days were a little shorter, the sun was a little redder (with only a smudge of bloodshot), and the dark rain clouds seemed to have an extra shade of green in them. Everything else was the same-rocks, wind, dust, rain, and a wasteful expanse of sky.

When the car's engine finally stopped late at night, NightRacer passed out from the exhaustion. He slept with his head on the steering wheel, drowning in sweat, and he had a dream, or it could've been an old memory, or it could've been both.

The official theory is that you can't see yourself dead in a dream. It's just not possible. People can't see themselves dead. Contrary to this theory, Racer saw himself dead in a dream once, when he was only three years old. He dreamed that he was in his parents' old house, and somewhere in the back, he found a door to a hidden room, and inside he saw a space no bigger that a closet that was full of thin, gray mold. The fungus covered the walls and the floor and the ceiling, and suddenly it was so tall that it looked like a forest, and it grabbed him. Then he saw himself standing in that room, dead, completely covered in mold, even his face and his eyes, and there was no more space for the fungus to grow, and it was eating itself, and it was dying.

Long time ago, NightRacer forced himself to disremember this dream. Now it had returned.

***

He was still dreaming, but he was also awake, and he wondered at the changes in the landscape. All over the place, the dark green fields were turning gray. The tide was turning. After years of expanding and killing everything in its path, the Devil's Prairie was finally folding back.

NightRacer got out of the car and plucked a blade of grass-a hooker. It had a tiny implement at the end, like a hook, for clinging, and a pouch of spores in the middle, like it was pregnant. He rubbed the blade's soft part between his fingers. It had a sweet aroma, and it felt moist and squishy-and more fragile than usual. It felt like the fungus from his dreams, and he threw the slimy bead away and wiped off his fingers in disgust.

Something had been bothering NightRacer for a long time, and now it finally surfaced. He was AWOL, and that complicated his plans. According to his estimations, he hadn't crossed the limit, which meant he wasn't yet a deserter, but it was just a guess. His com had been off for some time, and he could have missed the warnings.