Marco sat beside her. He didn’t turn on the TV. He didn’t talk about leaderboards or lap times or the ghost that still haunted the Monte Carlo tunnel.
You can’t outrun yourself.
He looked at the screen—at the frozen image of his own digital ghost, still perfect, still young, still winning. And for the first time in fifteen years, he understood something the game never taught him.
Lap two: better. The rhythm returned. The nitro management, the perfect drift angle, the split-second decision to ride the curb on the final straight. The ghost of his younger self shimmered ahead, ten meters, then five, then—
Marco “El Fantasma” Vega didn’t race for glory anymore. Not really. The trophies from the 2011 World Tour sat in a cardboard box under his sink, collecting dust next to a leaky pipe. He raced because the canyon roads of the Sierra Nevada remembered his name, and tonight, they were calling him back.