Jack Hammer The Road That Shouldn’t Exist
Porkchop knew something was wrong before Jack Hammer had traveled fifty feet into the Racing Realm. The portal had dropped him onto a narrow strip of black pavement suspended above a canyon so deep that its bottom disappeared into darkness. Towering walls of jagged rock surrounded the track, illuminated by an orange sky that seemed to glow without any visible sun. Jack Hammer’s exposed engine rumbled beneath the long hood as Porkchop eased forward, studying a roadway that looked less like a racetrack and more like a trap waiting for somebody stupid enough to enter it.
A flash behind him announced the arrival of Tork Maddox in Hollowback. Tork immediately saw the same problem. Sections of roadway ahead were moving independently, sliding sideways into the canyon walls before reappearing seconds later somewhere else. Entire pieces of the track vanished without warning, leaving enormous gaps hanging over empty space. “Don’t move until we figure this out,” Tork warned over the radio. Porkchop watched another hundred feet of pavement disappear and gave Jack Hammer a little more throttle. “Yeah,” he answered, smiling as the engine responded. “I don’t think this place plans on giving us that much time.”
The portal behind Hollowback suddenly collapsed into a point of white light and vanished. Almost immediately, the section of pavement beneath both cars began shaking. Porkchop glanced at Tork, slammed Jack Hammer into gear, and buried the accelerator. The massive rear tires grabbed the pavement and the Metal Maniacs machine launched forward. Tork swore over the radio before Hollowback accelerated after him. Whatever this Realm was planning, they had just run out of time to think about it.
When the Realm Started Moving
The first section of track began sliding away as Porkchop approached it. A thirty-foot piece of roadway moved toward the canyon wall, opening a growing gap directly in front of Jack Hammer. Tork yelled for him to slow down, but Porkchop kept his foot planted. The long-nosed Metal Maniacs car reached the edge just as the opening became too wide to cross normally. Jack Hammer launched into the air, its heavy body hanging over the canyon for several terrifying seconds before the front tires slammed onto the moving platform. The suspension compressed violently and the rear end kicked sideways, but Porkchop wrestled the steering wheel straight and kept moving.
Hollowback landed behind him moments later. Tork demanded to know if jumping onto a moving road had actually been Porkchop’s plan. “It worked, didn’t it?” Porkchop replied. Before Tork could answer, the canyon walls opened around them. Massive mechanical arms unfolded from hidden compartments in the rock, each carrying a rectangular steel block large enough to knock a car completely off the track. The first one swept across the roadway directly in front of Jack Hammer. Porkchop barely avoided it. A second came from the opposite direction and slammed into the driver’s side, sending Jack Hammer spinning across the pavement.
Metal screamed as Porkchop fought for control. Jack Hammer’s rear tires caught, and the car straightened only a few feet from the edge. Instead of slowing down, Porkchop accelerated. The Realm had made its first mistake. It had hit Jack Hammer and discovered that the car could take it. Porkchop grinned as another mechanical arm moved into position. If the Realm wanted a fight, he had brought exactly the right machine.
Jack Hammer Fights Back
The roadway narrowed as it entered the canyon, leaving barely enough room for Jack Hammer’s wide rear tires. Mechanical arms attacked from both sides while sections of pavement continued disappearing without warning. Tork moved Hollowback ahead and began watching the timing of the obstacles. There was a pattern: left, right, pause, then left again. Tork told Porkchop to follow his line and wait for each opening. For several seconds Porkchop actually listened. Then he saw another steel block swinging toward them and decided he’d had enough of playing defense.
Porkchop accelerated past Hollowback and aimed Jack Hammer directly at the obstacle. Tork shouted at him to move, but Porkchop turned slightly and struck the block with the reinforced front corner of the car. The collision threw him hard against his harness, but Jack Hammer kept pushing. Tires screamed against the pavement as the exposed engine roared. The mechanical arm bent backward until its mounting assembly tore away from the canyon wall. The enormous steel structure spun into the darkness below, taking another moving arm with it as it fell.
Tork called him insane, but Porkchop was already lining up the next obstacle. Jack Hammer wasn’t a precision machine built to dance around trouble. It was heavy, powerful, and stubborn, which happened to describe its driver pretty well. Porkchop smashed through another arm and forced a third into the rock wall. For the first time since entering the Realm, the track ahead stopped moving.
Then warning lights appeared across Jack Hammer’s dashboard. The engine temperature was climbing. The steering pulled sharply to the right, and something underneath the chassis had begun grinding against the pavement. Porkchop’s smile disappeared. Jack Hammer could take punishment, but even a Metal Maniacs machine had limits.
Then the canyon opened in front of him, and he realized the Realm had saved its worst surprise for last.
Sixty Yards of Nothing
The roadway ended at the edge of the canyon. On the opposite side, another section of track continued toward a glowing portal, but between the two pieces of pavement was approximately sixty yards of empty air. There was no bridge, no hidden platform and no alternate path that Porkchop could see. Tork pulled Hollowback alongside Jack Hammer and stared across the gap. Even he seemed temporarily out of ideas. Behind them, the roadway began disappearing section by section, eliminating any possibility of retreat.
Tork insisted there had to be another route, but Porkchop was already backing Jack Hammer away from the edge. He knew the car wasn’t the fastest machine in AcceleRacers. It wasn’t lightweight, sophisticated or especially aerodynamic. What Jack Hammer possessed was torque, and Porkchop intended to use every bit of it. When Tork realized what he was planning, he ordered him to stop. Porkchop laughed. “If this doesn’t work, tell everybody it almost did.” Then he buried the accelerator.
Jack Hammer charged toward the canyon. The damaged engine screamed as Porkchop shifted through the gears. The steering wheel vibrated violently in his hands and sparks poured from beneath the chassis, but the car continued accelerating. At the final moment, Porkchop aimed toward a raised piece of broken pavement near the edge and hit it at full speed.
The world disappeared beneath him.
For several seconds Jack Hammer seemed suspended against the orange sky. Porkchop could see the opposite roadway approaching, but not quickly enough. The front tires barely cleared the edge and slammed down hard. The suspension collapsed, the car bounced sideways, and one rear tire slipped over the canyon. Porkchop held the accelerator down and felt the remaining tire grab. Jack Hammer dragged itself back onto the roadway and finally stopped in a shower of sparks.
Across the canyon, Tork stared at him from Hollowback. Porkchop keyed the radio. “See? Plenty of room.”
Tork’s answer was short. “I hate you.”
The Message Beyond the Finish
Jack Hammer limped toward the portal with a damaged suspension, battered body panels and an engine that sounded like somebody had dumped a toolbox inside it. Porkchop didn’t care. The car was still moving, and as far as he was concerned that meant Jack Hammer had won its argument with the Realm. Tork eventually found another route across the canyon and caught up several minutes later, something Porkchop immediately promised to remind him about for the rest of his life.
They were almost at the portal when Porkchop noticed something lying beside the track. He stopped and climbed from Jack Hammer. The object was a triangular piece of polished silver metal, completely untouched by the dust and destruction surrounding it. A strange symbol had been engraved into one side. Porkchop turned it over in his hand before Tork approached and suddenly became serious. He had seen the symbol before. It belonged to the Silencerz.
That made no sense. There were no Silencerz cars in the Realm, and the metal didn’t look as though it had been torn from a wreck. It looked as though somebody had deliberately left it there. Tork turned the object over and found three words etched into the opposite surface.
THE REALMS ARE CHANGING.
For the first time all day, Porkchop had nothing sarcastic to say. Somewhere deep inside the canyon, the mechanical structures began moving again, even though the race was finished. Tork carried the silver object back to Hollowback while Porkchop climbed into Jack Hammer and forced the battered engine back to life.
The two Metal Maniacs disappeared through the portal.
Far away, inside another Racing Realm, a metallic silver car sat motionless in complete darkness. No driver could be seen through its purple canopy. For several seconds nothing happened.
Then the cockpit of Iridium began to glow.