WARNING: This chapter may not be suited for those sensitive to:
Suicide
Domestic abuse
Loss of a child/children
If anyone has any suicidal/traumatic feelings, contact your friends, family, 911, a professional counselor, or your national hotline.

A/N: It's been 15 years and 1 day since World Race's Episode I premiered! Feels like yesterday that we saw the Surf Rat who just got his driver's license try to contest with the best of the best.

Also, this chapter will entirely be focused on the Drones' perspective. This was originally meant to have the humans' side but felt like the message between the two sides were different, so I decided to split it in two.

An anonymous Hybrid

Divided, the Drones stood, fraying from the loss of the Hammer. The direction the Drones had taken had led to a similar chaos the world we once inhabited was enraptured in.

How could Annette foolishly believe that we were superior to human society? She merely became the thing that made her join Gelorum in the first place. Everything she had fought for was all for naught, displacing humans into the same madness as before.

To think she tried to hide her surname from us to differenciate the culture she led from the Western world...

One may have the technology to change worlds, but as long as humanity demands hubris and egotism, conflict will remain. And the tragedies of this twisted story will always remind us of our humanity.

In the end, we go from paradise lost.

To paradise found.

ACT III: Tragedies All Too Human

21: Discontent
Racing Drones' HQ
Alina LeBlanc

The televised image of the oil fields and the Hammer's base burned in my brain. The Hammer and her hangar were nothing but a giant, fiery wreckage at the center of the entire flaming oil field. It looked as if a meteor hit the area.

There was an ominous calm throughout the tracks. The sky was clear blue, as if we were still on Earth. Wind was absent as I stepped outside. Very few vehicles were driving on these tracks.

There was a silence that was deafening.

I could smell the vomit that came out of my mouth and every cell in my brain flicker.

I processed the sound of ten gunshots.

A wife on the phone, screaming, you've got to get over here, to a couple of bystanders. My husband's dying!

The sound of police sirens and two rotary engines revving.

I shifted out of my trance as I heard an explosion a quarter-mile away from us.

"This is the third one for the last six hours…" Anna stepped out and put her arm across my back to my side.

"Merde…" I whimpered.

"Alina…"

"I… I just don't know what to do anymore. Everything Annette's tried… it's not enough. I feel like all we did was prolong the inevitable when we became Drones." I extended my mechanical arm forward.

"Look, we've been running all this time," Anna consoled.

"I wish you didn't run with me," I said. "You could have taught literature, but here you are… a Drone."

"Alina, you know I couldn't turn you in," Anna said as she wiped a tear from my face. "You've been through hell and back before I met you. I couldn't bear seeing you in prison."

"I just want all this to end," I said as I wrapped my arms around my lover. "Feels like tragedy always follows us with every step we take."

"Alina, Annette saved us. I'm grateful for this new life she gave us. If we kill the Valkyrie, we could finally be at peace," Anna said almost desperately as she brushed her hand across my hair. "Remember, love is our weapon. We're probably one of the only chances Annette has."

I nodded. "I guess it's kill or be killed."

Einar Johansen

Dimitri threw one of his Rød Squadron recruits, Andreas Scabbia, into a wall. "Get up and fight!" the Russian yelled. "You carry the Rød colors. You are of a superior race, yet you fight LIKE A HUMAN CHILD!" His tone was much angrier, not that it was much better before, as he kicked his squadmate in the abdomen.

Andreas attempted to punch his boss in the face, but the velocity of his attack was too slow and far to easy for Dimitri to intercept. "Why do you show weakness? Do you wish to remove toxicity of humanity from your veins?!"

"The humans just took out the Hammer and its facilities, and you think I'm weak after what just happened?" Andreas shouted.

"All the more reason for you to push yourself," Dimitri said as he inched his face closer to his comrade. "Would you rather be a part of an apathetic society that only cares for gratification and meaningless decadence? Or will you prove that you are nothing of that kind?" he questioned as he kicked him in the stomach.

"I hate you…" As Dimitri walked over to kick Andreas again, the latter swung his feet and tripped Dimitri. Andreas then got up, grabbed Dimitri by his collar, then threw him angrily at his Oh-Nine.

"Only the hatred of humanity can unite our forces, comrade," Dimitri said. "We are above. The humans are below."

"This is… this is too much," Heather whispered to me in a disgusted tone.

Other Hybrids were watching the monitors on the buildings as they began broadcasting Annette's speech in the wake of the destruction of the Hammer.

"My people," she began in a stilted manner. "It-it is with great sorrow that we've lost one of our most important weapons…" She looked nervous and unfocused, as if she was a desk worker flinging open file cabinets and tossing around papers to find the right files. "B-but we cannot afford to let the four drivers continue on the tyrannical legacy of humanity." Her breaths in between could easily be heard, as if she was suffering from asthma, even though a Hybrid's lungs were supposed to be mechanical. "We will be shifting focus on the Ragnarok program. Our most elite forces have contested against those drivers. Once we have the Valkyrie's head on a platter, it will be checkmate for humanity. Hail Gelorum."

Even her signature praise to our former leader felt forced, almost slurring through those four syllables.

Cries of "Hail Gelorum" across the city were much weaker and unenthusiastic than months ago. Only Dimitri's cheer remained as strong as it was; the other members of Rød Squadron felt like it was more obligatory than believing in a future.

"What a bloody joke," one of the Drones muttered.

"The more I hear her stupid voice… makes me want to shank that bitch."

I sighed with much contempt as we walked away and walked towards our cars. "How can anyone keep on fighting after what just happened?" Tom questioned.

"How can we even stay loyal with Dimitri and Annette running this shitshow?" I questioned. "We've been losing each battle left-and-right; how can anyone fight like this at this point? Svart Squadron were members of the Ragnarok program for God's sake!"

Heather snickered quietly.

"What?" I asked calmly, raising an eyebrow.

"If Annette heard you say God's name, she'd be fuming," Heather explained.

"I'll say this," I said with a cynical tone. "I have no faith in Annette. Claims she could wipe out our memories with the touch of a button, yet we saw Lindroos and Lau in the surveillance footage. She doomed the Drone army from the start when she added human elements to the Drones."

"Are you suggesting…?"

I looked at the etchings of Karma and Taro again in my Oh-Nine. "You know what we have to do."

Heather and Tom nodded without hesitation.

Unknown facility, formerly Highway 35's Volcano Leg
Harrison Lau

Ever since the Hammer was destroyed, more Hybrids were joining our forces. Jari proposed we would have to relocate our base of operations due to the volatile nature of the volcanoes. Within seven hours, about one-hundred of them fled to us.

"After they took me, all that I hoped for was to find my place here," one Hybrid sitting on a bench said to another. "Huh. Guess I'm still searching."

"I still miss her," another Hybrid crouching in one of the corridors said to his friend.

"Kennedy?"

"Yeah. I don't know what she'll think of me after all this…"

"I fell in love with a Hybrid shortly after the Valkyrie's attack," the other said. "The databanks said she died in the Chrome Realm, but I saw her body in the execution grounds."

I walked into the operating theater and saw Straussberg, who was laying on a medical table, getting her new limbs installed. I crouched down next to her left side.

"You don't need to comfort me," she said to me.

"Can't have you escaping," I informed.

Straussberg turned her head away and sighed. "Even if I tried, there's no point. We've lost this war the moment the Valkyrie showed herself."

"Things would have been different had we just lived as an isolated society," I responded. "Annette shot herself in the foot with her ambitions. Maybe she's right; humans are far from the saints they see themselves as. And I know Maila's one of the worst examples. If I was the Chancellor, I'd just let them die off than go to war."

Straussberg sat up once her limbs were attached to place. She fidgeted her mechanical hands, then looked at me.

"What I do know," I said, "is that we are much less different than we think. Annette's dream of a utopia is impossible."

"You were a member of Dimitri Harkov's squadron?" Straussberg asked.

"Yes."

"When I saw Harkov's training methods, I believed he was the model Drone for our utopia. I could never believe we would end up being fearful after Maila's first rampage. When I confronted her sister, I saw a calm, collected figure. Everything I wished the Drones would have been. Everything I wished my children would be."

I put my hand on Straussberg shoulder. "Dimitri's the reason I went rogue."

"I hope what you're doing is not a lost cause," Straussberg said quietly, almost at a despondent whisper as she stared at her hands.

"Kendra, I have a friend here that I'm sure you've met," I told her.

"It's Brian Kadeem, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Gelorum and Annette did a number on him. And he's a…" I looked down, remembering how I had disappointed my fellow World Race drivers upon being outed as a CLYP spy. "He's a friend."

Brian Kadeem

Jari walked into my cell, followed by the same female rogue Drone that accompanied me, carrying a hovering operating table.

"Brian," Jari said as his assistant unlocked me from my restraints and carried my body to the table. "Straussberg's here."

As the two Drones guided me through the hallways, I saw more and more Hybrids walking by, often chattering about their discontent with Annette.

"I heard Annette's last name is Christ. That's why she doesn't use it," one said.

"I heard she bombed that speech. I've heard better speeches from my high school commencement."

"I bet she's a worse driver than Gelorum."

"I heard a rumor that Annette was present in the memory banks the day Gelorum died. She must've killed her."

In the operating theater, I saw Kendra Straussberg sitting on the table with Harrison by his side.

"Congratulations, Brian," Harrison said. "You're finally getting your freewill back."

I watched as the machinery began detaching the remains of my severed limbs. Knowing that there were more rogue Hybrids patrolling this facility, it would not be surprising if they went on a manhunt for me if I escaped.

"What has become of our race?" I asked Straussberg. "How could any of these people betray Annette like this?"

Straussberg sighed. "We've lost because we are still human. We'll never change. Conflict will always brew as long as we have autonomy. I know you want your people to come to you, become Drones themselves. What's happening in your home is probably no different in this world."

"If only the Valkyrie didn't appear," I said bitterly, yet anxiously, breathing heavily as the machinery connected my right arm, which clenched a fist. "We were content, Straussberg. We had… we had a future!"

"I believed it too," Straussberg said. "But I can't deny it any further. I know you can't."

"Brian…" Harrison walked to my left side. "If you think you could lead your people as Drones, you are no better than Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler. They've tried what Annette tried. And they've failed for the reasons we've failed."

"I'm not like those tyrants," I said.

"Before they died, I used to beat my children," Straussberg said. "I wanted them to live up to the Straussberg bloodline and not live like the underclass outside of Luxembourg. I beat my trainees the way I beat Donovan and Damien. But even I was insecure if I could kill Maila or not. This is the path Annette took us, and we've lost this war because of it. I'm sure Maila had a different way… from what I saw from her sister."

Upon seeing Straussberg becoming humble for the first time since Annette introduced me to her, it felt like the world was going to explode. Just hearing Straussberg say that we had lost burned into my brain.

After the final limb connected to its stump, I did not bother sitting up I could have punched one of the Hybrids and ran off, but instead, I simply just looked at the volcanic landscape in the window. "I want Rana in my arms again…" I said weakly. "My people…" I looked at my newly-installed arms. "They'll rather die than see what I've become." I closed my hands and whispered, "a monster."

"I've talked to some of the people that fled to us," Jari said to me. "I've missed the trails of Helsinki. The camping trips to Lake Bodom with my friend, Markku. I know one Hybrid who's son was born in Lebanon. You're not the only one that wants to return to human life."

As I wandered the halls, I noticed that many of the rogue Hybrids were similarly venting their longing for their past lives.

"I was just about to race in the Grand Prix. They were about to set up a race in France. Such a beautiful country."

"I'm going to propose to Lau that we organize some group sessions."

"I wasn't able to meet my son in the hospital..."

Will we truly be able to return to our old lives? I wondered.