by Austin Aslan
“Dad, stop talking,” suggested Carson.
“Brown trout turn their most yellow during spawning season. Anyway, yeah, she’s a speedboater. A skimmer. No underwater antics for me. Too dangerous for my tastes.”
“Okay,” Mace replied. Mace could see Mr. Gerber’s love for the sport was legit. There was magic in it for him. Mace knew the feeling. How could a guy this nice be the father of such a tool?
“I’m shooting for a win.” Mr. Gerber winked. “The top placers tomorrow get a chance to enter the San Fran Pro-Am. That’s a big opportunity. If an amateur pilot goes on to place in San Francisco, against the pros, they’re automatically entered into a special wild-card Gauntlet Prix spot. Long shot, but what a dream, huh?”
That’s interesting, Mace thought. Not his concern, though. Tempest had gone around those channels. She’d already bought her way into a Gauntlet Prix berth. But it was nice to imagine a hobbyist climbing their way to the top, too.
“Tell your pilot to stay out of my way tomorrow, eh?” Robert winked again. “I’ve got an all-new engine in here. Rolls-Royce Pegasus X-90. Class D. Top of the line.”
“Wow,” said Mace, genuinely impressed. “That’s, like, honestly the most powerful engine on the market.” What in the world is he doing with that much kick? marveled Mace. He’s likely to kill himself out there! “You plan on breaking Earth’s orbit?”
“Naw. But I wouldn’t be the first civilian to try.”
“You trim the thrust performance on that thing, right?” Mace was serious. “Please tell me you do.”
“Of course I do!” Robert came clean. “Do I look like I’m crazy?”
Mace kept his mouth shut, but Carson filled the silence. “Dad, you are crazy.”
Mace took a step back. “I’ll, um . . . I’ll keep an eye out for you on the road tomorrow,” he said.
“All you’ll see is a yellow blur.” Robert smiled confidently.
Mace imagined what the Brown Trout would look like as he blew past the old man somewhere on the highway before they left Manila. You’re absolutely right, Mace silently agreed.
Chapter Twenty
“Please give a warm welcome to Robert ‘Fly-Fisher’ Gerber, and Brown Trout.”
The crowds clapped politely somewhere beyond the canvas walls of Tempest’s team tent. Introductions of each TURBOnaut were underway and would culminate any moment with the announcement of Mace and the other two late “mystery” entrants.
“Brown Trout?” Aya asked the group, hidden away in their waiting area. “Someone named their racer after a fish?”
Mace held back a laugh.
“It’s an amateur event.” Ahmed shrugged. “What do you expect?”
The four of them were huddled around a card table, seated in a tent near the plaza where the race would soon begin. Mace was glad to be hidden. Aya sighed, remembering back. “It’s like a kid with a new pet. I had a turtle once. I named it Elephant.”
“See?” said Ahmed. “I had a pet rooster named Marilyn Monroe.”
“Yeah, but these aren’t little kids with dumb pets,” Aya argued.
“Sure they are,” Henryk fired back. “At least these rich yokels get to name their vehicles,” he grumbled. “And paint them.”
Tempest had insisted her mentees all remain anonymous during this race. Their helmets would never come off, and they would have no names. She would allow the winner to choose the paint colors, but she would be naming the vehicles and choosing his or her racing names herself. For now, they all were black, and only white numbers—eighty-three and eighty-eight—distinguished the boys’ vehicles.
The announcer was moving down the list. “And next we have another retired pro. Welcome Fat Man, pilot of Radioactive.” The applause continued.
“What would you call your ride?” Mace asked Henryk. “Dasher? Dancer? Prancer? Or Vixen?”
“What will I call my ride,” Henryk corrected. “I’ve got it all picked out. I’m thinking gold and silver for the colors.”
“So, you’re going to name her Bling Bling?” said Mace.
His eyes met Aya’s and caught her smile. He remembered how much he missed her laugh.
“No,” stammered Henryk. “It’s going to be Mjölnir. Thor’s hammer.”
“That’s actually kind of cool,” Mace admitted.
“I’d go with Lotus,” said Aya. “Lavender and green—like a lotus flower on a lake.”
“What about you, Mace?” Henryk asked.
He jerked. It was the first time in forever that Henryk had asked him a question. “Um,” he started. He’d put a little thought into this, lately, but nothing had come to mind. The racer he was using—it felt like a rental. Temporary. He didn’t feel right giving it a name. “I don’t have one picked out yet. But I like dark blue and burnt orange as colors, so . . . I dunno.”
“And now,” the announcer’s tinny voice bellowed from unseen loudspeakers out on the street, “introducing our final wild cards in today’s amateur showcase.”
“That’s us,” said Aya.
Henryk waltzed passed them, pressing his helmet down on his head as he exited the tent. “Bye, losers. You can say you knew me when.”
“Nice,” said Mace. “A farewell speech for the ages!”
Aya rose, took a deep breath, and donned her helmet. Her black visor regarded Mace for several seconds. “Come anywhere near me, and I swear, I’ll make you regret it.”
“I was only following orders,” he said.
He wanted to assure her it was true. But at the end of the day, Mace was the one behind the wheel. Cheating had been his call. He owned it—even if he didn’t like it. “But I’ll never do it again.”
“Your words mean nothing to me,” Aya said. She stepped out of the tent. After a moment, he followed.
Crowds along the sidewalks, and clustered everywhere along rooftops and balconies, clapped politely for them. It was a lukewarm welcome, but Mace understood. Tempest had kept their identities secret. Why should anyone care about them?
Ahmed escorted them to their vehicles, parked in roadster form at the back of a line of twenty motley trimorphers, arranged in rows of two all the way down the block.
Mace passed Robert “Fly-Fisher” Gerber on his way, who looked up from his final inspection of Brown Trout to scrutinize the newcomers.
Ahmed helped secure the straps on Mace’s gleaming black helmet and stood back to examine him. His expression was reserved.
“Tempest is already in the air, en route to the finish. But we’ll both be on the wire with you every second. Talk to us,” he said. “We’re your eyes and ears. We’ll pick up on things you can’t see.”
“No danger of being overheard?” Mace asked.
“Nope. All signals are encrypted. Our comms are private. But keep the chatter down anyway, because your vehicle records every transmission. It comes in handy for reviewing performance afterward.”
Mace sighed. “Can I ask you something, Ahmed?”
The engineer set down his clipboard. “Anything.”
“Why is winning the Gauntlet Prix so important to Tempest? She keeps talking about using the sport to get rich. But she’s already got tons of money.”
Ahmed didn’t answer right away. He helped Mace into the cockpit and leaned in to reach the dash himself. He flipped a series of switches in sequence, going over a prerace checklist. “People can have everything,” he began, “and still never have enough.” Ahmed grew serious, searching Mace closely. “But you know better. You race because you love the sport. You race for you.”
“Well, yeah,” Mace confirmed. He thought of that feeling he got every time the engine fired up. It was close to pure joy.
“Good,” said Ahmed. He wiped his greasy hands clean on a white shop cloth pinned to his belt. “Then it’s worth it.”
Ahmed scurried away to help Aya with her final prep. Tempest appeared to Mace over a live video feed on one of his displays. Her black eye patch loomed large as she leaned in close to the c
amera. He could see her private jet’s lounge surrounding her.
“Watch your entries. Remember, you only get three pit stops. In and out. Keep your touchdowns smooth. It’s a long run. Don’t blow your shocks early.”
“Understood,” Mace said.
“Understood?” she mocked. “What’s going on, Mace? Where’s your adrenaline? Henryk is so amped he’s just about yanking his steering wheel from the socket. Aya looks like a soldier going to war. But you . . . I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Mace said.
“You stay on the radio, you hear?” she told him. “This is a cakewalk. If you can’t win this, you don’t stand a chance at the Gauntlet. Still, we have a ‘Golden’ opportunity today to practice a few things.” She winked at him with her one good eye.
Mace’s stomach did a flip. He looked away, fidgeted with a dial. The canopy began to close.
“Mace. Listen to me,” she said. “My father always told me: you either take a seat at the table, or you’re on the menu.”
She lifted her eye patch and tilted her rotten grape of an eye in his direction.
Surprised, Mace looked away.
“When I was young, I was like you. I was idealistic. My reward: I was sabotaged. They ripped my life out from under my feet that day. I vowed after that to always be the first to strike.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” he asked.
“Who do you think could pull off something like what happened?” she asked as if the answer were obvious.
“You mean, the TURBO Association?” He frowned.
She readjusted the patch over her eye. “It’s the only possible explanation.”
“Wait.” Mace had seen the footage from that fateful race. No one had been near her on that last lap. She’d been sailing ahead of the pack. She’d slowed down, seemingly on purpose. But why? Had her foot slipped? Nerves? Was she trying to spring a trap even back then? “That doesn’t . . .”
Everything started to click into place. His mind raced.
He suddenly realized she’d spent a lifetime denying that crash was her own fault. She was convinced everyone cheats because it was the only way she could explain what happened without blaming herself.
Tempest’s head snapped up. She glowered at him. “It’s the truth. Like it or not.”
“But—” Mace never finished his thought. The announcer’s bold voice came through the cockpit’s closed-circuit radio loud and clear. “Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!”
A monstrous roar reverberated through the airtight cockpit, accompanied by an awesome rattling in Mace’s rib cage. The trimorphers ahead of him in line fired up, thousands of pistons building power in magnificent, tectonic concert. Last in line, Mace was on the receiving end of a volcanic churning of horsepower, twenty racers throttling up for the start of the cross-country showcase.
Mace’s finger hovered over the ignition. He noticed his hands were shaking. “Keep it cool, pal. You’ve got this. Nice and smooth.” He clenched his fists, and when he re-extended the fingers, they were steady as stones.
Tempest remained front and center on his video display. Mace held her angry gaze. “Stay in touch,” she warned him. “You know what I’m talking about.”
He tapped the screen. “You’re breaking up. Sorry!”
“You’re pushing my buttons, Mace,” she scolded. “When the time comes, you better make sure you push the right ones.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Red light. Yellow light. Green light. Tires peeled. Smoke bellowed. The cityscape blurred.
A full-terrain race. The course was one route—a straight shot from Manila, seven hundred kilometers south to the island of Mindanao, in and out of the water as the TURBOnauts hopped from island to island.
Mace had forgotten his vehicle’s kick. He nearly rear-ended Henryk coming off the starting line. He corrected too forcefully, hitting the brakes. Rookie mistake. Mace felt his face grow warm, and he cursed under his breath.
Struggling in dead last place. It just wasn’t the same without that antique at his command. Doesn’t matter. Get in there. Introduce yourself!
Henryk and Aya were already breaking ahead, banking into the first curve of the billboard-lined highway. The squadron of roadsters directly in front of Mace lurched forward.
Mace gunned it, eager to stay on them.
“All right, Mace. You’ve crossed the start line.” Tempest spoke in his ears. “You’re a TURBOnaut. Congratulations. Now you better move it unless you want to be the last ’naut to enter the bay. There’s a gap between Unicorn and Radioactive. Strike right up the middle of it.”
Mace saw what she was talking about. The curve eased up, giving him an opening. He leaned forward and unleashed his vehicle’s full fury. His gut swelled; his grip tightened on the wheel. Mace whipped to the right, punched the pedal, and took Radioactive on the inside curve of the highway. He rocketed by the rainbow-colored Unicorn and two more novices and entered the next turn tight on the inside lane, gaining ground for another series of passes.
Somehow, Radioactive had crept back up on him. Fat Man tried to shoot past, but Mace pinned him against the highway wall, and he backed off. The next curve belonged to Mace, and he pressed his advantage, stealing the lead on the inside.
That guy used to be a pro. I’m doing good here!
He let out a war cry, which quickly turned into a grunt of alarm.
A clunky-looking rust-colored roadster came out of nowhere, shooting the gap between Mace and Radioactive. Mace let the junker go by. Its pilot was clearly in over his head. Nothing to worry about.
“Ground-to-water entry in T minus twenty seconds,” Tempest advised.
The highway lifted high above the sprawling city below. Mace gave it some gas, passed several more roadsters. He retook the rusty roadster as the end of the road was coming up. Mace spotted Brown Trout zigging and zagging on the water’s surface, dueling other speedboaters. Mace grinned. Dude had talent.
Henryk and Aya both dropped out of view in front of him, and he caught a quick glimpse of their roadsters morphing into submersibles before he lost them from view.
He entered behind them a second later. Manila Bay was murky. Tempest had warned him about this, but it still came as a shock. Mace could sometimes see only as far as the cockpit glass. He trusted his detectors and his own senses. Aya was not far ahead. Her trajectory was pulling her wide of the first ring. Mace maintained a straight route, sensing the ring directly ahead. He passed Aya, shot through the ring, and found himself near enough to the tail of a craft to read its name: Leviathan.
On the water’s surface, speedboaters tacked along a wider course that accounted for their advantage in speed and visibility. Who was actually in the lead? Mace couldn’t quite say.
Below the surface, he felt out the route. He hit every ring without seeing them. He advanced on two speedboaters swerving broadly around buoys. One of them had a bright-yellow belly like the sun shining down on the ocean. Mr. Gerber.
The water was filled with old industrial fishing nets drifting through the currents. Mace dodged them, losing time, but hopeful a rival would get caught and make the maneuver worth it.
Sure enough, Tempest reported that Code Talker and Demigod had each been netted, taking them out of the running. Mace overtook Leviathan during the confusion. Then one of the skimmers caught a steel cable in its propeller. Mace glanced up. Brown Trout was still in the running.
Ahmed chimed in. “Get ready to air-morph. You’re going to fly over all of Mindoro and touch down on the coastal highway of Panay. That’s a winding sixty miles before a quick air jump to Cadiz City. We’ll see you there for a pit stop.”
Mace shot airborne, momentarily distracted by the scenery. The islands were gorgeous! Sheer, limestone cliff faces, wave-wracked, rose hundreds of feet above dark green jungles.
He regained his focus. Hurry. Faster. The compulsion to skirt the edge of disaster, to thumb his nose at physics, was strong.
Carson
’s dad had a fast aircraft, but he was a fish out of water behind the controls. “Top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce Pegasus, say hello to my smart-cushioned buttocks.” Mace inched up on him. The old man had no idea how to box Mace out. He passed Brown Trout with a barrel roll and never looked back.
Mace searched the sky for Henryk, finally catching sight of him. He dropped into Henryk’s wake. This was a long race. There was plenty of time.
The Norwegian wanted this win. Too bad Mace wasn’t going to let that happen. He took the lead when Henryk botched an air-to-ground morph.
But it wasn’t meant to last. On the curving roads of Panay Henryk flung past him.
Mace growled. He couldn’t believe Henryk was drifting on these roads. Vertical cliffs. Crumbling pavement. He was on a suicide mission.
“I thought you were my guy,” Tempest said as Aya outmaneuvered Mace on the next steep curve, swinging into the turns with her tail arcing wide.
Mace held his breath, accelerated into the next sharp turn. He shifted into second gear and then held down the clutch with his foot.
“Okay,” he told himself. “Just remember, you do have wings, if it comes to that. . . .” But he wasn’t finding the thought very reassuring. Wings were pretty useless in a tumbling free fall.
He flicked the steering wheel in the direction of his turn and ripped the hand brake. As Mace hugged the edge of the road, the ocean suddenly loomed large and vast to one side of his canopy.
Mace closed his eyes.
He felt the engine torque. Instinct kicked in, and he was able to harness the knock of extra momentum.
He pried his eyes open and risked a glance down at the water. That sense of vertigo morphed into exhilaration as he made the turn. He gunned it into the straightaway. With the wheels locked, he kicked it into high gear and exploded down the next switchback.
He gave a squeal of pent-up delight.
Aya fishtailed wide around the following sharp turn, cutting into a straight shot without losing speed. Mace despaired. How would he pass her? Drifting was one thing, but drifting around someone else who was also drifting? And on such a tight road?