Hedy the gremlin didn’t react at the sudden detonation of her co-applicant. She was already running for the front of the garage. She leaped and grabbed the chain, pulling the door open. “As soon as it appears, jump in! You come in last place, you die just like Waldrip Chris! Me, too, so get your asses in gear! Only one of you touch the steering wheel or controls. You can’t drive two heats in a row, and there’s only two of you! Don’t come in last! Do whatever you can to not come in last!”

Before either of us could react, a giant wheel appeared, plopping into existence over the soupy remains of the exploded gremlin. There were a hundred-plus spots on the round apparatus, and each spot consisted of a vague cartoon silhouette of a vehicle. I only had time to see a few before it started spinning. One was a literal school bus. Another appeared to be a Hummer. These were all Earth-based vehicles of various sizes. I caught sight of what looked like a moped followed by a massive dump truck.

“Do we need speed?” I called. “Or something armored?”

“You get what you get,” Hedy called as she struggled with the door. As she pulled it up, a black asphalt road was revealed. It was dark outside. Multiple shapes were emerging, both driving and walking as they pulled up to a line. “The track conditions and hazards are gonna change each time! First three races will all be paved!”

As the wheel turned, the countdown timer suddenly froze with twenty seconds left. The dungeon loudspeaker crackled to life. The wheel continued to spin.

A familiar voice called out into the garage.

You’re all going to die. You should already be dead. You idiots should have all taken deals. You did it to torture me, didn’t you? Why are you fighting it? Why? Why are you still alive? Why am I still alive? Why won’t you let me die?

The button remained pressed for several seconds, and we could hear the sound of her just sitting there, bubbling.

Everything hurts.

There was a blare of feedback, and then the intercom cut off.

“Uh, Carl,” Donut asked. “Was that the ‘kill, kill, kill’ lady?”

“It was,” I said.

The wheel slowed.

The loudspeaker crackled a second time, but this time it was clearly Zev’s voice. She sounded harried as if she’d had to dive for the loudspeaker.

Uh, hello. Everyone. It looks like we have just over 5,500 crawlers who survived Faction Wars and decided they wanted to continue on. That means there was almost 15,000 who took a deal, which is fantastic, and a record. The system AI has asked me to tell you to ignore what’s happening on any other floors and to—and this is a quote—“Focus on the floor like everything is normal. Because everything is normal. Ignore all those armies trying to literally vaporize the solar system. F-you if you think overwise.” Uh, okay, okay. “Fuck you if you think overwise.” What my, uh, colleague was trying to say just before is, this is the tenth floor. The floor is called “Don’t come in last.” I guess you can figure out what that means. The floor will consist of seven heats, or races, starting with nine teams each.

You’ve been split into teams no bigger than four, and if you’re solo, you’ve been teamed up with one or two other crawlers. It looks like the final number of teams is exactly 1,800, which is a lot more than we originally planned as you can imagine. And since every track is different, we’ve had to allow the AI to design most of these tracks. So, uh, keep that in mind.

As Zev spoke, the wheel slowed. The choices all came into view. Snowmobile. Something I was pretty sure was a library bookmobile. The Popemobile. It kept slowly moving. A forklift. Some sort of military missile launcher. Zev continued.

Your vehicle or creature will always be 100% repaired or healed between races as long as your garage attendant remains alive. At the end of each heat, you will be able to choose an upgrade for your vehicle or creature. If you come in first place in a heat, you can choose three regular upgrades or one Golden upgrade. At the end of the fourth heat, everyone gets one Golden upgrade of their choice. Also, if you come in last . . . well, second to last, then the audience gets to vote for your upgrade. You’ll always get a hint of what the next heat will be, and you’ll need to pay attention because you might need an upgrade that will help you survive the next environment.

“Oh shit,” I said as the wheel hovered over what was either a floor polisher or a goddamned Zamboni. It clicked one more time before settling on the square shape of a box truck. A box truck with windows.

“Carl, what is that?” Donut demanded.

The wheel disappeared with a pop, which caused more Waldrip Chris bits and gourd pieces to splatter. The truck crunched into place, bouncing up and down on squeaking shocks.

I sighed. “It’s a food truck,” I said.

It did not have the exact same shape as the silhouette. This was much more . . . festive than the image on the wheel.

“Is that a real gun on the top?” Donut asked.

“I don’t think so.”

The colorful, gleaming truck appeared to have come right off the assembly line. It was about twenty feet long. It was, at first glance, a typical large-sized food truck. At least the body of it was. It was basically the same body of a package delivery truck, but presumably with a small kitchen within. The now-familiar logo of a chicken with a fedora and red tie was painted on the side under the bullet-hole-ridden logo.

Big Shot Chicken. I’d never heard of the restaurant chain before we’d entered the dungeon, but Donut and I had spent some time stuck in a Big Shot Chicken safe room on the second floor while we’d been trapped by the rage elemental. The whole restaurant was, apparently, a small chain from somewhere in the Southwest of the United States. A chicken restaurant with a 1920s-gangster theme.

The truck was clearly a modern model, though the front was replaced with a faux-1920s-style hood made to mimic a prohibition-era truck, complete with curved fenders made of shining chrome and round fluted headlamps. The whole front had kind of a plasticky, fiberglass look that gave the impression that maybe this food truck wasn’t really meant to be driven at all, and it normally sat at an amusement park or state fair somewhere, more for show than mobility.

Which gave me a very, very ominous feeling.

The most distinctive feature of the truck was the massive clearly plastic tommy gun on the roof of the thing. The gun’s most distinctive feature—the gigantic round drum magazine—partially obscured the windshield to the point where the truck would be dangerous to drive. This pretty much confirmed what I’d already suspected. That this thing wasn’t street legal.

I hoped it had an engine.

Zev spoke with more urgency.

You may attack other vehicles, but you cannot steal them. You can’t use movement spells such as Teleport on your vehicle, and you can’t use movement spells to bring yourself into the vehicles of your opponents.

We’ll have more details soon! Use your garage attendants! Every heat must have a different driver, so only one of you touch the steering wheel or hold the reins, especially if it’s just two of you. Also, try not to kill more than one team because if more than two teams don’t make it to the finish line⁠—

The speaker abruptly cut off.

The timer continued to tick down.

“Get in! Get in!” Hedy called. “Only one person drive!”

“Carl, how am I supposed to drive this thing!” Donut demanded as I rushed into the driver’s seat. There was no passenger’s seat at all. Just a gleaming metal floor with a no-slip mat. There was no divider between the front and the back, and a brand-new aluminum kitchen filled the back space.

I turned the key, and, thankfully, an engine rumbled to life. A good, healthy engine.

“Hang on,” I called.