Criminal Record

The Circuit

Clay stared at Zack, “Come on, let’s show you what I have prepared for you.” Clay told Zack. They kept walking around the palace, until they reached the backyard, and Zack was just mesmerized from what he saw. They were standing in front of a large circuit for cars, there were different tracks, hills, and lights. “When did you built all of that?” Zack asked in shock. “Last night.” Clay replied immediately. “Damn, you have been planning. Haven’t had a good night sleep, huh?” Zack asked surprisingly. “Ok, so this how it's going to work. I don’t need to set a time. I just want you to come out alive.” Clay stated.  “I called it the circuit of death.” Clay continued. The sentence freaked the hell out of Zack, he took a deep breath. “Show me the car.” Zack said, and his pupil narrowed, without looking at Clay.

Clay had already parked the four-wheel-drive car in front of the start line of the circuit. Zack got in the car, and clanged to the wheel tightly, taking his breaths sporadically. He looked at Clay through the closed window, and nodded. He turned on the engine, and took his last deep breath, and accelerated. He knew Clay didn’t set a time limit, but he understood that he needed to finish the circuit quickly as a stimulation to the real situation. He also knew that if he didn’t start fast he wasn’t going to get through the circuit. It was terrifying just by looking at it.

Zack was pressing on the gas's maximum, he reached the highest speed of the car, and suddenly he was surprised by police spikes on the first turn of the circuit. He drifted and evaded it, causing sparkles to perform out of the tyres. He recognised a rocky land at close eye sight, and a ramp right after it. He kept the car at the same speed, the car kept bumping, and drifting slightly out of his control. When he was busy controlling the car, he suddenly found the ramp in front of him, he pressed more of the gas to run on the ramp. He was surprised for a fraction of the second when he reached the peak of the ramp and didn’t find a land after it. There was a pit right after the ramp, the car was flying in the air, his heart was pumping like it was going to exit his rib cage, and Clay was spectating and almost lost his nerves.

Zack landed after the pit, after he thought that he was hung forever in the atmosphere. His fear and nervousness couldn’t approbate the order of stopping the car, or slowing down as the worst option, so he continued with the same speed. He took another turn to prevent going off path, this turn was clear, but after it were only simple obstacles that he should solemn through. He tried to path them on a compromised speed, to not lose the mode of reality. While passing the last obstacle post he heard something being fired at him, even Tucker and Elsa were alerted by it. He pulled the brakes and stopped the car immediately, he found something which looked more like a spear passing in front of the car, he couldn’t gain much of a vision at it due to its speed.

He reached the maximum speed of the car again, till he reached the last turn, and found Clay breathing heavily next to him. Zack pulled the handbrake rapidly, and got out if the car panting, and headed, running to Clay. “Approved.” Clay mentioned, he tried to appear calm, but his rapid breaths indicated his increased panic. “What were you thinking? You could have killed me right here.” Zack shouted at Clay, he still couldn’t retain his full control over his respiratory system, his breaths, and also heartbeats weren’t stable nor constant. “Its called the circuit of death for a reason.” Clay said, trying to be sarcastic. “You are kidding, Clay. You are totally kidding, you are out of your mind.” Zack claimed, as he sat down on the floor, resting his back to the car.

He looked at Clay, still with disbelief of what he did. “I had to make sure you were still up to it.” Clay said out of nowhere, to justify the idea of the circuit. Clay reached out his hand for Zack to help him get up, Zack looked at him and grabbed his hand. Clay hugged Zack tightly, and he couldn’t resist the hug back, Clay patted his back, and they headed back through the glass door, to see the rest. “What happened? We heard like this booming from outside. Are you guys ok?” Elsa asked in worry. “Yeah, everything alright.” Clay answered right away. “Yeah, everything alright. Clay was just trying to kill me, nothing unusual.” Zack followed up funnily.

Kaito had just finished his shower, after all of them have taken it, and walked up to them, shirtless. “So, what will we be doing?” Kaito asked a question he knew the answer to. “Go have your shower Zack, meet us at the office.” Clay told Zack, replying to Kaito's question. Clay, Tucker, Kaito and Elsa headed up towards the office. They were eating a snack and left everything for stall until Zack showed up. They didn’t wait a lot until they found Zack coming into the office. “Alright guys, let’s just make this clear. We have made everything theoretical we can, we planned and we practised. The rest is the experimental part, we don’t need to be under pressure, what’s coming next is not in our hands.” Clay said, starting off his speech to release any nervousness among the squad.