The story

Raya Quinn grew up under a car. Her father ran Quinn's Garage, a two-bay shop behind the Street district's laundromats, and while other kids learned to ride bikes, Raya learned to bleed brakes.

His last project was a wreck he bought at a harbor auction: the shell of a Hyper GX, burned out, written off. Father and daughter rebuilt it over five winters, bolt by bolt. He never drove it finished. When he died, he left the GX's key to Raya.

At nineteen she took that car to the Strip, where the races run long and the money runs deeper, and nobody could touch her. Six weeks, undefeated. Then a driver in a black helmet rolled up beside her. No name, no face, no voice. The crowd called him The Ghost. He wanted pink slips.

She should have said no. She said yes. The lights went green, the GX bogged, and three hundred people watched The Ghost drive her father's car off the Strip. Raya walked home. It is a long way from the Strip to the Street.

Nobody brings their car to the girl who lost her own, so the garage went quiet. Raya kept the shop, the tools and one thing The Ghost did not take: the key, on a chain around her neck.

Three years later she sees you at a red light. A cheap hatch, bald tyres, an exhaust held on with wire, and a launch so raw and so fast that she follows you to the next light to see if it was luck. It was not.

The Ghost only races names, and hers is the one he already beat. But a new driver, built up district by district, crew by crew, boss by boss, could make enough noise to reach the end of the Strip. So she makes you a deal.

She builds. You drive.