Chapter 356: My Pit Crew Had a Rocket Launcher and Standards

The head dancer checked her equipment, looked at my pink excavation machine, and asked whether we intended to win a fight or lose a bet at a divorce party.

Three weeks of repairs had given the quarry a cleared industrial loop, remote spectator viewing, and several new warning signs directly inspired by my family. Lukas had passed his follow-up examination, but he stayed at the club with Cherry for the final because wanting an adventure didn’t require rushing straight into my uncle’s revenge attempt.

Lyra and Bridget worked from the protected service platform. The dancers had accepted a two-thousand-credit security contract through the club, and I had paid Horass two hundred fifty for a useful review of the retreat route from his clinic bed.

He included a lecture about a war that apparently began over a badly translated lunch order. Old Mate insisted the tree invented history because real history had refused to date him.

The pre-race footage showed Harden aboard the command vessel. Behind him, the contractor’s grafted hauling beast pulled the weapon platform, its recorded unnatural alterations matching the supplier file we had already received.

The same footage showed an empty catch trench, an ordinary recovery winch, and a sealed escape pod marked with an evidence-destruction warning.

I wanted my uncle to lose all three options.

[System: Take Back the Whole Bloody Evening, mate. Stop the armed seizure, get the workers out, and bring your lot back alive. Fifty-five thousand EXP and a hundred IP for the full job, which gets you to evolution if you actually finish instead of stopping to admire your own bloody footage.]

I would admire it afterward, preferably while charging somebody for the privilege.

The reward appeared before the start. Forty-five thousand already earned, fifty-five available, and a hundred thousand required for the next form. The arithmetic made me eager without making the task smaller.

The inspection also listed two smaller grafted guard creatures on the command deck, confirming the contractor had brought more than ordinary racers.

The first lap began with ordinary machinery and a commentator who now pronounced Moist Tax Deduction as if surrender had become a professional skill.

Harden’s convoy left the race lane at the utility junction.

The workers had been warned and were moving toward the protected exit when the leading platform fired into the barrier. Debris blocked their dry carrier, turning our planned departure route into an actual rescue rather than a reason to abandon one earlier.

I heard the worker counting the people inside the carrier, and the number made the rescue concrete. They weren’t distant symbols of my growing reputation; they were stuck behind the machine I was about to move. I repeated their location to the dancer crew before touching the next control, because winning a public argument wouldn’t fix crushing somebody by rushing the turn.

Lyra called their position. Bridget moved with the dancer crew to the alternate service access while I brought my machine around the inside turn, using the controls I had practiced instead of pretending rage granted driving experience.

The grafted beast lifted its head toward my window.

That gave me the eye contact Bio-Recall required. I used the skill on the confirmed unnatural target, and the terrible hauling creature vanished into its absurd compact result before the weapon platform understood it had lost support.

[System: There’s your lunch sorted, mate. Now move the pink bloody tractor before the serving tray lands on you.]

I strongly preferred meals that didn’t arrive beneath several tons of gun.

My fifteen-minute cooldown began. The platform kept falling because destroying the beast hadn’t deleted metal, momentum, or consequences.

I drove the guide sled toward the catch trench shown in the inspection. The load needed a turn from the recovery winch, but an armed operator controlled the gantry above it.

Bridget opened her portals across the same dry service space, letting the head dancer reach cover on the operator’s flank. No shot vanished into a magic shield. The dancer used the new angle to force him away from the controls while the worker reached the winch.

Lyra used her own portal pair across the blocked corridor to move the stranded workers into the cleared exit, staying beside the destination until the last person crossed within the eight-second window.

My job remained moving the heavy sled where the winch could redirect it. I hated that the sensible part of the plan depended on my least impressive skill, which was remembering what the trainer had said about braking.

The frame swung into the empty trench instead of our utility gate.

The dancer crew stopped the guard creatures during the boarding attempt; one died on the service deck, while the other retreated into a secured cargo bay.

Harden abandoned the command vessel the instant his borrowed investment stopped looking recoverable. His escape pod fired into the open water while the remaining operators surrendered to the paid crew and the quarry security team arriving behind them.

I watched him go with a fury the cheering didn’t touch.

Then Lyra called to say the workers were clear, Bridget confirmed the service platform was secured, and the last of our team reached the protected dock without anyone missing.

Old Mate paid the full objective once those facts were real.

[System: Fifty-five thousand EXP and a hundred IP, mate. One hundred thousand of one hundred thousand, four hundred thirty-five IP, and an evolution waiting for you someplace that isn’t currently full of falling industrial rubbish.]

I wanted the new form immediately. I wanted Harden more.

The shark solved the second problem before I could decide which desire was worse. Its huge shape passed beneath the departing pod, nudged it away from the open channel, and carried it toward the club district as if returning a toy I had thrown badly.

The pod’s warning beacon still flashed. The salvage crew caught it at the exterior service berth and disabled the automatic scuttle circuit through the manufacturer’s rescue control before anyone opened the hatch.

Harden came out alive, coughing behind his emergency breathing mask, and found himself in the custody of the same people he had tried cheating.

I reached the club after sending the girls my return confirmation. Through the berth glass, my uncle saw me and started offering money he didn’t have, while a new evolution window opened across my sight and asked whether I wanted to become something that could taste a lie.