Skyts

DON'T STOP

You're already going too fast to think it through. Good. Thinking is slower than you are.

The wall on your left is a floor if you commit. The gap ahead is a shortcut if you fire now. The corner is free if you go down into it and let it throw you out the other side.

And when you've already jumped, already know you're short and there's nothing left under you — burn the dash. Thirteen metres, gone in a fifth of a second, at three times the speed you were cruising at.

It doesn't leave you fast. It leaves you there. Then you're back to earning it.

TIME TRIAL — JUST YOU AND THE NUMBER

The track is yours. Nobody to race, nobody to blame.

Your best run stays behind as a ghost and sets off again every time you do — half a second ahead, doing it better, never once hesitating. Catch it. Then go make it faster and start losing to yourself all over again.

RACE — FIVE OTHER PEOPLE, ONE CLOCK

Up to six on the same line, and the clock belongs to the server, not to you.

Nothing restarts. You fall, you get up, and it's still counting — so a race isn't won by whoever never falls. It's won by whoever loses the least getting back up.

They're beside you the whole way as ghosts. You don't hear about the metre where you lost it afterwards. You watch it happen, while it happens.

PARCEL — FORTY-FIVE SECONDS, THEN IT GOES OFF

One bomb on the track. Whoever's carrying it is the slowest thing out there, and everyone behind them knows exactly where they are.

One touch and it changes hands. Hold it too long and you're the one who was holding it.

Dump it on someone. Take it back at the worst possible moment. Run it through the gate with nothing left on the fuse and hear it stop. Five bombs a match — most deliveries takes it.

The fastest runner doesn't win this one.

THE ONLY THING THAT'S FAIR IS THE TRACK

It does exactly the same thing every single run. Every laser, every drop, every second of it.

So when it goes wrong, there's nobody to blame, and you already know it. You just want to go again.