by Austin Aslan
Lake, thought Mace. “Hey, helper person,” he said. “How long does it take Event Horizon to morph from ground to air and then from air to water?”
EACH MORPH TAKES EXACTLY 1.64 SECONDS
Mace neared the end of the runway. An airplane flew overhead, rising, aborting its landing. “And how much time is needed between morphs?” he asked.
NO ONE HAS EVER TRIED
BACK-TO-BACK MORPHS BEFORE
“Oh, great,” Mace said. “Well, there’s a first for everything.” He popped the clutch into high gear and slammed the morph-to-air sequencer. Mace held his breath as the jet engines growled awake. Event Horizon picked up speed, sprouted wings, caught lift, and retracted its wheels into its underbelly—all within seconds.
With a sickening pull at his gut, Mace was suddenly airborne, sailing over the airport fence and blowing the Hayden Lake sign out of the ground. Mace felt more power stirring behind him than he could have imagined. He pounded the light display again, trusting the machine to respond before he flew into the side of the mountains.
WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
The wings retracted. The wheels remained tucked. The afterburner snapped off as quickly as it had fired up. A turbine began to churn. Mace dropped from the sky like a bomb . . .
. . . and pierced the dark surface of the lake.
Make every morph—!
He struck bottom.
Matter.
The smart foam already gripped his body tightly, but nothing could save him from the shock of such a quick stop. He gaped for breath with flattened lungs.
Too shallow! He should have known better. This was a reservoir, for crying out loud, not the ocean.
He heard an ominous crack. The cockpit began to fill with icy black water.
Mace gulped back a scream.
Within seconds, the water was up to his waist. He couldn’t believe how cold it was! He thrashed but the smart cushioning only tightened its grip. He needed to get out of here! He was going to drown! “What do I do? I need to eject!”
DIAGNOSTICS ARE FINE
YOU JUST NEED TO PRESSURIZE THE CABIN
THE CRAFT DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO SEAL
“But I heard a crack.” Mace was frantic now. The frigid water was closing around his neck. It was so cold. He couldn’t draw in a proper breath.
PRESSURIZATION WILL TAKE CARE OF IT
PUSH THE GREEN ICON NEXT TO YOUR RIGHT ELBOW
Problem was, Mace couldn’t see anything below the surface of the rising water. It was black as tar down there.
He took in as much air into his lungs as he could and stuck his head underwater. He could see the dim glow of lights along the lower control panels. Panicky and terrified, he cast around for something green by his right elbow. There. He saw it! But he was still immobilized by his seat. His left arm couldn’t reach that far. He craned his right arm around, instead, twisting his wrist, and glanced the glowing icon.
Jets of air roiled through the cabin. The water level lowered. He let out his pent-up breath, and within seconds, the cabin was bone-dry and he was being blasted with warm air from the vents.
He laughed but couldn’t control his nervous shaking. That had been terrifying.
“All right. Let’s get out of the water,” he told himself.
He tried the steering wheel and the pedals. The craft sprang into forward motion, scraping at first along the bed of sediment below. The handling was just as tight and responsive as it was on land. Only difference was he could move up and down as well as from side to side. Mace noted that this was probably a good opportunity to get a feel for flying Event Horizon. As eager as he was to get back on land, he took an extra few moments to familiarize himself with the controls.
Advancing through murky blackness, he reached the far shore of the lake and found himself partially emerged. “Great,” he realized. “I’m a beached whale.”
He remembered TURBO races he’d watched. Submarine-to-ground morphs usually involved a ramp—and a fair amount of speed. The trimorpher needed momentum and a bit of lift to allow the wheels to lock into place.
“Let’s try this again.”
He reversed the turbines, backed into the water. When he punched forward this time, he gave it all he had.
Event Horizon shot up through the surface, ramping off a sandbar. Mace toggled the roadster. By the time the craft hit the ground, it was on wheels.
No red-and-blue flashing lights in front of him anymore. The proximity sensors were silent. That was an improvement. But the authorities would be arriving from the highway any second. He glimpsed a road sign indicating the way toward Denver. He took to the nearest pavement, whipped a fast left turn, and gunned it down the street to meet up with the highway leading into the city.
He didn’t hold back, driving fast, faster, testing his own limits. The controls were intuitive, familiar, but he was still getting a feel for real-world handling. He took the curves with greater ease each time, zipped around other cars on the road, shot forward toward the city lights, the miles blending together.
He couldn’t believe how quickly he reached the outskirts of Denver.
A strange throbbing met his ears. Mace cast his gaze upward. A police helicopter had drawn even with him and was tracking his moves.
“Okay, friendly texting guy, I’m here. Denver’s kind of big. Can you give me more specifics?”
A map materialized on one of the displays, showing his current location and providing a suggested route.
HEAD SOUTH THROUGH DOWNTOWN AND MERGE
ONTO I-25 TOWARD COLORADO SPRINGS
Really? Mace thought. The police were above him. He could go very fast, but he could never outrun a dispatcher who could radio ahead to new units.
The throbbing sensation doubled. Mace flicked his eyes upward again. A second chopper. This one read News Channel 4.
Oh, nice. The morning news. Should I wave to my parents?
The streets of Denver were quiet, but not empty. Mace dodged traffic. He saw a cluster of cop cars gathering far down the wide street. That was a mistake on their part. He executed a sharp left turn then jogged right again. Like a rabbit, he realized he needed to make his path random.
“This is a TURBO race,” he told himself, unable to suppress a grin. “And I’m going to win it.”
He made his way through downtown, artfully rerouting whenever the police tried to corner him, confounding the whirlybirds above as he entered the canyon streets towered by skyscrapers. He readied to execute a sharp turn, but instinct cautioned him. Continuing straight instead, he was able to confirm his suspicion: a wall of three cop cars approached at high speed along that avenue. The dashboard proximity alerts chimed.
He zigged onto Stout Street. Oncoming cruisers rushed forward to head him off. Time to zag! They closed in. He bolted the wrong way up Eighteenth, doubled back. The Ritz-Carlton lobby driveway caught his attention. I’ll spring my own trap, he thought. He pulled up to the lobby doors, two cruisers tailing him, two cruisers coming at him. He peeled away, trapping all four cop cars in a nose-to-nose knot as he slipped between the oncomers. He was Pac-Man on a power pellet, the flashing blue ghosts his helpless foes. Finally, he gunned it down an empty stretch of Broadway and veered onto I-25.
His tires were balding; he could feel them slipping on the road surface. He remembered a Prix qualifier only two months ago, in which “Grizzly” Jack Adams went too many laps without changing tires—and ultimately slammed Ursa Major into a retaining wall while coming off a sharp bank in the track. “I better take a pit stop,” he joked.
He gathered speed, shifting through gear after gear. “I’m free and—nope.” There was a problem up ahead. A sea of red and blue clogged the way forward about a mile or so down the highway.
“Um, ideas?”
TIME TO GROW SOME WINGS
Yes. Mace exhaled. “I thought you’d never ask.” He barreled toward the roadblock. Cop cars raced up the next on-ramp and flanked him. He remembered the staggering thrus
t he had felt upon fleeing the airport, knew to anticipate it this time.
He pounded the morph-to-air icon, felt the g-forces push his body back into his seat, felt that strange weightlessness that comes with leveling off, and like that, he was rocketing over the Denver skyline and waving the police goodbye.
But Mace wasn’t in the clear yet. The displays lit up. A “rival craft” was riding his wake. He laughed. Apparently, Event Horizon wasn’t programmed to distinguish police helicopters from trimorphers.
“RENEGADE CRAFT, YOU’RE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER DENVER AIRSPACE,” came an amplified cry from behind. The police. “LAND IMMEDIATELY OR WE’LL BE FORCED TO BRING YOU DOWN.”
Mace nudged the throttle forward. The police chopper matched his speed.
“LAND NOW. OR YOU’LL BE DEEMED A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE STATE OF COLORADO AND BE SHOT DOWN.”
Blown out of the sky? “Not cool!” Mace told the cockpit. “Help!”
The text reply was as concise as the plea had been.
GO FASTER
“You asked for it. Faster it is.” Mace increased velocity. Red lights lit up the interior. Screens all over flashed:
PROJECTILE DETECTED
TAKE EVASIVE ACTION
This had never been part of the simulator.
Mace veered far to the left. He heard a crackle, felt a menacing reverberation, and saw the angry, precision flames of a missile glance off his hull.
“No more messing around.” Mace punched the throttle all the way forward. His speed seemed to double.
“CEASE AND DESIST!” The threat was quieter now.
He gave the lever another push, and the pulsating sensation of Denver PD’s helicopter grew faint behind him.
The checkered flag was his.
He turned in wide arcs, danced, rolling into graceful flips, rising and falling swiftly just for the sweetly sick weight it put on his stomach.
Mace Blazer, TURBOnaut.
ALL RIGHT, RENEGADE,
FLY LOW TO STAY OFF RADAR
“Hey, I almost got blowed up. Let me celebrate, will ya?”
YOU’RE HEADING TO MONUMENT VALLEY IN ARIZONA
YOU’LL SEE BLUE LANDING STRIP LIGHTS LEADING STRAIGHT TOWARD THE FORMATIONS
LAND AND DRIVE INTO THE ROCK
Mace read the message several times. Monument Valley was a day’s drive away from Denver. A long day. But not today. Not in Event Horizon. Half an hour later he was over the stately rock formations and the wild, open expanse of the Arizona desert. A landing strip lined with flashing blue runway lights led dead into a rock wall.
An uncomfortable revelation came home to roost: No autopilot. “Oh. Um. I have to land this thing?” he asked. “For reals?”
A light display flickered to life against the front canopy window. Relief poured over Mace. Landings in the mall’s simulator were second nature, and these new light dials and gauges felt familiar. He just had to keep his altitude, rate of descent, and alignment within the given margins. No sweat. He’d done it countless times before—and most of those times, he’d nailed the landing.
He made a few calculated adjustments to account for crosswinds and air density, and touched down as a roadster. “Like playing a concert violin . . .” He’d started to congratulate himself but the heavy landing blew out the baldest back tire. He bounced, rattling his teeth. The craft careened off-kilter. The rhythm was gone. The panel lights were freaking out. A towering rock face closed in at what felt like hundreds of miles an hour. He was sure he was about to die. Mace braced for impact, but the headlights caught the movement: a hole in the rock wall yawned open. In an instant, he found himself skidding down a long tunnel, slowing, twisting and turning. The vehicle felt like it was coming apart at the seams. He settled to a stop in the middle of a cavernous, empty garage.
The space looked rather similar to the hangar he’d originally broken out of—a mere forty minutes ago. His seat released him. The canopy opened. He stole a breath of air, half expecting to choke on poisonous Martian gasses.
Nothing happened.
He hoisted himself out, hopped onto the concrete, and waited as he heard the rock-wall entrance groan shut behind him.
Then, footsteps on concrete.
A slender figure just slightly taller than Mace appeared before him out of the dark, dressed in black.
“’Sup,” tried Mace, extending a lonely hand. “Are you Friendly Texting Guy? Sorry about the tire. And, er, the shocks. And the belly. And the paint job.” He winced.
“Welcome, Mace Blazer.” The stranger’s voice was muffled by the glass of a black helmet, polished and gleaming against the lights. Swirled grooves on the helmet formed an insignia that Mace recognized: a star being consumed by a void disk, with cones of X-ray radiation emanating from it.
Mace froze. Was it possible? Could this be Event Horizon’s TURBOnaut, who had vanished decades ago?
“Are you—” He gulped back the dryness in his throat. “Are you Quasar?”
The figure stiffened. “I haven’t been called that in a long time.”
“Awesome,” Mace said, his voice echoing in the cold of the chamber. “Wait. How do you know my name?”
“I’ve been testing you all year, Mace.”
“Me? Seriously?”
“Yes. Very seriously. Now welcome to your final exam.”
Chapter Eight
“No way,” Mace said. His addled brain was starting to put the pieces together. Touch-screen displays . . . that’s why my prints were on file. . . .
The helmet nodded. “The simulator. You’re one of the top players in the world, so of course I’ve had my eye on you. But anyone can excel at a game. I’m looking for those few who show true passion for the sport. Event Horizon has been on tour all year, nearly everywhere I’ve placed a simulator. The super fans always insist on sitting within the cockpit. Your prints activated her. And when you successfully started her up, that was your golden ticket for a chance to come to the chocolate factory.”
Mace’s mouth hung open. A response snagged somewhere in his throat, but never materialized. Willy Wonka? Is that you?
“You have a black eye,” the muffled voice behind Quasar’s visor said. “Should we test for concussion? Did you hit your head on your water entry?”
Mace didn’t understand, then he remembered his fight with Carson. That was today! He shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s nothing. That’s from a whole ’nother . . . lifetime.”
“Come with me,” Quasar said, and marched down a hallway. Lights came on, revealing a long concrete corridor that descended into the mountain. But Mace stood frozen in place. He glanced around the hangar numbly, his eyes resting for a moment on the trimorpher he’d just flown here, on his own, with half a state hot on his tail.
Concussion. Yeah. “Carson rattled my brain loose, that’s what happened,” he told himself. “This is all a dream.”
He pinched himself. “Ow!” he said.
He sprang after the masked figure. The hallway was long. The lights clicked on as Mace approached and off after he passed beneath them. It made for an odd, slow-strobe-light-like sensation. Quasar did not slow down for him. “There’s a lot of theories out there that you’re dead, you know,” he said, catching up to the pilot.
“Rumors,” Quasar replied. “But still, for all intents and purposes, Quasar is dead. Better that way.”
Mace didn’t know what that meant, or how to respond. He had to trot to keep up. He thought of another explanation . . . a scarier one. This could be a trap. But . . . why?
“Let the record show I correctly guessed I’m being punked,” he declared.
“Did you fly here tonight in a cardboard box?”
Quasar had a point. The escape from the airport had really happened. No way that could have been a stunt. He’d been in Boulder. Now he was here.
They passed through a sliding door into a warmly lit room with a glowing fireplace. Quasar gestured for him to take a seat in one of the leather sofas, but i
nstead Mace sat stiff at the edge of a chair, unable to relax. Quasar waited patiently as a man dressed in a tux entered with a silver tray holding a pitcher of water and a glass filled with ice cubes. He poured Mace a drink, set everything on a glass-top coffee table, and departed.
“Thank you, Raymond,” the masked host said.
Mace and Quasar sat in silence as Mace sipped his water. The quiet felt cozy, welcoming, familiar.
“You have a butler,” Mace observed.
The black-helmeted figure tilted its head. “Yes, I have a butler. I also have chefs, a cleaning staff, a battalion of lawyers, houses all over the world, several yachts. Those paintings behind you: they’re original Picassos and Van Goghs. But I keep my best artwork at the villas. You should see the Monet over my Monte Carlo bed. And I own a fleet of vehicles that can transform from air to land to sea. Is my wealth really what you’re most interested in?”
“So, okay, I’ll bite: Why am I here? What’re you doing all this for?” Mace asked. “Since you already have everything anyone could want?”
“Everything but the perfect pilot,” Quasar snapped back. “I want you to race for me.”
I want you to . . . Mace’s body tingled. He felt warm behind the ears, but he grew still, sinking into his seat. His breathing calmed. “Race? For you?”
“The Gauntlet Prix. I aim to win this year’s Glove.”
The world’s premier sporting event. No, not event. Extravaganza. “Wait. The Prix? This year?”
“Yes,” Quasar said flatly, as if not used to answering questions.
“But why not race yourself? You’re a legend!”
“Flattering. I would. But I lost an eye in the crash. I have no depth perception. Winning the Glove in my condition is simply not possible anymore. . . .” Quasar trailed off.
Mace lost himself for a moment trying to imagine what the person behind the opaque visor looked like.
“But I’m only twelve. I don’t even have a driver’s permit.”
“Mozart was doing piano music for kings and queens when he was twelve. What’s your point?”
“Um, that I’m not Mozart?” Mace asked.
“He wrote ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ you know.” Quasar paused. “It’s the same tune as the alphabet song.”