by Austin Aslan
They wound down off the cliffs and took to the water again, where Mace continued to lose in the standings. But once he shot airborne, he quickly gained back lost ground.
The lead changed constantly from island to island. Aya usually came out ahead when their tracks met back up. She kept besting him in the air. Mace had to wonder if the dicer course was fair.
“I can’t tell who’s in the lead!” Mace complained.
“Push your own limits,” warned Tempest. “The standings will sort themselves out.”
The end was in sight: a checkered banner a mile down the main drag of Cagayan de Oro, on the north coast of Mindanao. But first, one last hoop checkpoint in the air a half mile off the coast. Mace had fallen behind Henryk and Aya after another series of missteps on the winding cliffside roads of Cebu. Aya was on a beeline run toward the hoop as Mace and Henryk merged in from the left. But the black twins, TURBO racers 88 and 83, were screaming bullets, with more speed in reserve. It was clear to Mace already that he and Henryk would beat the dicer to the ground.
She had done more with a dicer than anyone ever had before.
But she would place behind the boys all the same.
Aya. Out. No hard feelings, he hoped.
“Take him from below,” ordered Tempest. “Get up on him! Take him.”
Mace obeyed, seeing the strategy clearly. It would be tight, but he thought he could beat Henryk to the hoop. He dipped and picked up speed, feeling the g-forces pressing his spine into the smart cushioning.
Mace pulled up below Henryk with seconds to spare.
“Push the button, Mace.”
Mace gulped in surprise. “I don’t need to, Tempest!”
“PUSH THE BUTTON!”
“I DON’T NEED TO!” He inched past Henryk and took the position. The TURBOnauts came in for a hard landing, touching off the final ground stretch toward the checkered flag.
His rear displays flashed. Henryk was right on his tail, and Aya was right behind Henryk.
“MACE! I gave you an order. Take them out!”
He corrected to the left, cutting off Aya. But Henryk was coming in fast, again, nosing up on him. The checkered flag was right there.
“Last chance, Mace.” Tempest’s voice was cool. “Striking first is your best defense.”
What does that mean?
Mace shut off the radio. He hammered the pedal, toggled his thrusters. “Come on, baby. Come on!”
There was a jolt in the engine. Mace’s craft veered unexpectedly! He lost ground. Henryk was suddenly ahead of him!
Not possible!
Mace roared with anger. He knew in a flash: An energy deflector! Henryk had used a secret booby trap on him.
It must have been exactly what he’d done to Dex.
Doesn’t matter. I can recover. Mace gunned it. The flag. It was coming . . . then gone. Mace glanced to his side. Henryk was right there, his featureless visor glancing back at him through the glare of his canopy.
He flipped on the radio. An acid silence met his ears. “Who took it?” Mace demanded. No response. His heart was in his chest. He slowed into the next turn with a deep dread settling in. “Tell me!”
A crackle came. “Stand by, Mace.” It was Ahmed. His voice sounded grim.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s a photo finish.”
“A photo finish?” gasped Mace.
Mace slowed, coming up on the pit ramp. Henryk stayed on his shoulder. The winner always enters the pits first. But Henryk wouldn’t back off to let Mace go ahead.
I won this, Mace wanted to scream at Henryk. And I did it even after you sabotaged me. “Back off!”
The crowds in the bleachers were still as statues. Mace glanced at the megascreens. Their nose-to-nose finish was on constant replay. It was hard to tell. . . . Every angle showed a dead tie. The images zoomed in. Computer graphics analyzed their positions. Suddenly, the crowds erupted. He stole a glance back up.
Mace’s number, 88, was flashing on all the screens.
He had taken first.
And he’d done it in spite of Henryk’s treachery.
He screamed his joy.
“What are you so happy about?” Tempest asked him.
“I won!” he said. “I told you I could do it no matter what. I’m going to the Gauntlet Prix!”
He was met with silence. It lasted a full beat—an eternity to Mace. When Tempest next spoke, her voice was harsh. “No, you’re not,” she said. “I’m advancing Henryk.”
“What? No!” he said. “You can’t do that!”
“Yes, I can. I own you. I decide!” she came back.
Mace felt his stomach plummet. “I’ll take my helmet off when we park. I’ll tell the world what you’re doing, cheating at every turn.”
“Oh, really? You wanna know something? I got a call from the cops the other day. They had some follow-ups about the theft of the Event Horizon. They were asking some interesting questions.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You tell me,” she spat. “Or have you forgotten that you broke into a highly restricted facility with your father’s help and stole a museum exhibit? Would be a shame if the Feds eventually tracked that night’s events back to you. Back to your dad. Don’t you think?”
Mace gripped the steering wheel. His heart rate was off the charts. “You leave my dad out of this!”
“Then follow orders for once!” Tempest bellowed in his ears. “You were given a job to do. You failed. I warned you what was a stake.”
“I won.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m better than Henryk—”
“I. Don’t. Care. Henryk does what I tell him to. You really think you’d have a prayer against the pros in the Gauntlet League? You don’t have the guts to revolutionize this sport, Mace. You lost in all the important ways—and now guess what? You’re on the menu instead of sitting at the table. It’s time for you to shut up and go home.”
Two Weeks Later
Chapter Twenty-Two
You’re on the menu instead of sitting at the table.
Golden arcade tokens dropped from a dispenser into a metal dish, and one fell to the trampled carpet. Mace, several feet away, heard it roll unnoticed beneath the token machine. There was a time, not too long ago, when he would have hurried over to the coin changer and crouched down to fish underneath it for the freebie. Not today.
“Take me out to the ball game!” trumpeted over the din of the arcade. Mace could hear swooshing ninja kicks connecting with bad-guy foreheads. Grubby hands pounded sticky buttons. A machine gun mowed through an army of zombie alien insects. The overhead speakers competed for attention with a muffled, “Michael, your chili dog is ready. Michael. Chili dog!”
Mace wandered the game-room aisles, searching for something to play. But nothing appealed. His ears zeroed in on a flipper bat striking a pinball. The ball sailed through a tunnel, racking up thousands of pointless points.
Behind him, at the center of the arcade, the hydraulic joints of robotic stick legs flexed and released, rose and fell, rotating a featureless white pod.
But Mace refused to pay attention to that. He wouldn’t bring himself to look at the Hollande Industries TURBO simulator. He just couldn’t. . . .
Why had he come to the mall? How had he fooled himself into believing this would work?
He was trying to salvage what was left of his summer. He used to escape here. He used to lose himself in the stormy sea of beeping and bopping and clanking and tinny, eight-bit jingles, the pew-pew! of spaceships firing lasers, the smell of popcorn, burnt nachos, and pink bubble gum.
But the chaos no longer comforted him like it used to.
Mace had thought maybe that by getting into the simulator, he could begin to let go of the fantasy that he could have been more. But as soon as he arrived, he was haunted by the possibility that the machine would recognize him somehow. Tempest and Ahmed would know that he had returned like a dog
with its tail between its legs.
He turned. He lifted his eyes and watched the simulator dance upon its pedestals. It moved so gracefully, dipping and soaring, veering. It rattled at times, but on purpose. Mace could imagine the aircraft jouncing down on asphalt, passing another vehicle, shifting into a different gear. The virtual pod came very close to replicating the authentic feel of every moment in a real race.
But it was all a lie.
And that was the thing. The whole past month had been a lie. What Tempest had been offering all along was little more than a way to cheat.
He only wanted to race—and to earn the respect of his heroes along the way.
“If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it again exactly the same,” he said out loud.
He couldn’t watch the news, or his favorite sports shows. He’d never be able to watch a TURBO race again. Too painful.
And he’d missed attending his mechanical engineering camp to boot.
He circled the simulator, coming around to the side of the boarding platform. The employee stationed there gave him a nod, recognizing him. Mace smiled back and kept circling. The simulator bucked. Mace guessed whoever was inside had just morphed from water to air.
Monitors beyond the boarding platform looped rapid-fire ads for the simulator, the imagery cut from terrain to terrain, vehicle to vehicle, showcasing highlights from historical Gauntlets Prix.
Iron Dragon, burnt red and smoky black, swooped across a forest glade. A video game Talon waved at the screen, his pixilated likeness a bit off but recognizable. Talon was known for his well-groomed blond goatee and spiky blond hair with fiery-red tips. You’ll never look that cool, Mace daydreamed telling Henryk.
He imagined Henryk’s whiskery face selling this game to a new generation of avid TURBO fans and wanted to puke.
The usual sound effects cut out. The screen flickered, transitioning to a replay of a real TURBOWORLD sportscast.
Wearing a trademark American-flag tie and a shiny blue blazer, star commentator Jax Anders reported the latest TURBO news from his glass desk. The studio cut away to grainy, spectator footage of . . . Mace’s finish-line duel with Henryk!
Mace drew closer.
The twin black trimorphers were a confusing blur against a shifting coastal island backdrop.
It looks so glamorous, but it’s all a sham.
Mace had gone to great lengths to avoid the buzz created by that photo finish. Seeing himself on TV for the first time, he was equal parts amused and brokenhearted.
As if in a trance, he leaned in to hear what the famed announcer had to say.
“Welcome, TURBO maniacs, to your daily dose of all things TURBO. Confirmed just this afternoon: the mystery black-clad pilot of trimorpher 88, who took the world of TURBO by storm a fortnight ago, will participate in next month’s Gauntlet Prix, spanning from Mexico City to Miami over the course of two grueling days.”
That’s me! I was piloting 88! Mace wanted to scream.
“To celebrate the announcement, TURBO’s newest sensation finally has a name. The pilot will answer to the call of Infinity. How about that? I’m told the moniker is in reference to his double eights. And he’s got a new look! Check out that sleek gold-and-silver design, maniacs! They’ve christened this elegant chariot Continuum.”
Mace couldn’t help but be impressed by the polished Continuum on display. Its silver-and-gold knot work was spectacular. If Mace didn’t know any better, he would be fawning all over the design, along with the rest of the world.
Instead, clenching his fists, he was seized by jealousy. He repeated aloud this time: “I’m number 88. That was me!”
Jax Anders, on the other side of the television glass, wasn’t interested in Mace’s tell-all confession. “And what’s the latest from the other two mystery morphers, you ask? We’ve got the scoop, maniacs. We’ll get back to the dicer pilot in a moment. For now, I want to personally weigh in on the theory that the pilot of black craft 83 employed some sort of black-magic stealth jammer. Look how Continuum gets ramrodded, here. There was no physical contact. Foul play? Sure looks like it.”
“No,” said Mace. He was vaguely aware that his teeth hurt, and he loosened his jaw. “This isn’t happening.”
“What’s more is it turns out Continuum’s handler is none other than the billionaire heiress, Tempest Hollande. The telecommunications giant was mobbed coming down the steps of TURBO Association headquarters earlier today after the news broke.”
Anders’s face disappeared, replaced by a scene of reporters crowded around Tempest. A bunch of mics were shoved in her face.
“Why did you designate Infinity as a cryptic?” a reporter asked her.
“Infinity has reasons for entering the sport in a mask. You’ll get your answer soon enough, I promise,” Tempest said. Her bejeweled eye patch caught a flash of sunlight and sparkled. It covered most of the scarring around her eye, but not quite all of it. Her neck burns were hidden behind a fashionable high collar.
“What can you say to critics and skeptics, Ms. Hollande, to convince them that this isn’t just a publicity stunt for another one of your new lines of products?”
“My ’naut will answer the skeptics by winning the Glove. Until then, I’ll leave you with this: If you know me at all, you know I love to make a splash. I’d get ready to get wet, folks! Thank you.”
She forcibly steered away from the mob. The reporters took this as a cue to start screaming more questions, twice as fast, twice as loud.
“Which of your shell companies is funding your new hobby, Ms. Hollande?”
“Who built Continuum? Why doesn’t your team have any outside sponsors?”
The video toggled back to TURBOWORLD. Jax Anders was behind his desk, speaking to former TURBOnaut Rex Danger, retired pilot of Triassic. They were discussing the history of “cryptics” in the sport. Danger had begun his own career as a masked wild card entrant. Mystery pilots had always been an aspect of the sport, though they were rare, and no serious cryptics had come forward in the past several years. “Most of it comes down to ratings and attention,” Danger explained. “A little mystery’s good for business. It’s that simple.”
“Thank you, Rex, for that insight.” Jax pivoted back to the camera. “Speaking of stellar performances, I told you we’d return to the subject of that dicer pilot seen in the Philippines alongside Continuum. The hotshot with death-defying skills has become such a fan favorite, Tempest Hollande has decided to sponsor a slot in late July’s San Fran Pro-Am. She’s registered the name Lotus for the vehicle. As for me, thank you for asking, I’m looking forward to seeing more sensational performances out of Lotus and her mystery ’naut, Katana. Together, they’ve renewed tons of interest in both dicers and skimmers as legitimate competitors in the premiere league. And I think that’s a positive development.”
Mace took several steps back. “Aya.”
She gets to keep racing. Good for her.
But then it dawned on him: Tempest chose two pilots. He felt alone. The news seemed to double the weight of his own failure.
Aya. He never had a chance to talk to her after the race. Tempest had hustled him onto the first flight back to the US.
Mace had figured he could look Aya up at some point. But now that she was a real TURBOnaut, he worried he’d never get the chance.
Mace turned away from the TURBOWORLD rebroadcast, ready to skulk out of the arcade, out of the mall, maybe into oncoming traffic. The gulf between what he could have had and what he was now left with felt impossibly vast.
The simulator in the corner grew still, returned to the off position. Mace noticed the quiet that came over the entire arcade. He glanced up at the opaque hatch and stopped short.
A dude with an expensive-looking cowboy hat and shiny leather boots stepped out of the pod.
Mace laughed.
Dex’s eyes immediately snagged on Mace, and he gave his friend an intentional, wry grin and a tip of the hat. He strode down the boarding platform steps a
nd met Mace on the game-room floor.
“What is this?” Mace slapped his brown leather vest. “Where’s your sheriff’s badge?”
Dex let his Spanish accent grow thicker than usual. “I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges.”
Mace lost it. “Dude, what are you doing here?”
“I stopped by your house. Your parents said this place was my best bet. You’ve been dropping in the standings, you know,” he added, gesturing back toward the sim.
“Don’t I know it. But seriously . . . what are you doing here?”
Dex glanced around. He lowered his voice. “Ahmed sent me.”
“Ahmed?”
“Dude, this isn’t over—not by a long shot.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mace invited Dex into the house and escorted him over to the kitchen. Mom and Dad sat at the dining table, pecking away at twin laptops. They were both home because Dad had quit his job at the bottling plant. After Mace’s payoff, he didn’t need to work a second job. Mace was happy about that. At least something good had come out of it all.
Along with a phone for himself, the computers were the first purchases Mace had made when he returned home. The laptops had the latest assistive technologies, and his parents had taken to them like fish to water. They were joining new Deaf community networks. They loved the dictation software, which allowed them to catch up on years of shows and movies that didn’t have closed captioning. They were making the most of standard computer tools too. Dad was editing and filing old photos digitally, and Mom had started working again on her novel.
Mace waved as he entered the dining room. They looked up and noticed Dex immediately. “This is my friend from TURBO Summer Academy,” Mace hurried to explain. He spoke as well as signing, for Dex’s benefit.
They greeted Dex with friendly waves and handshakes. Dex took off his hat. Mom offered a verbal, “He told us he was your friend when he stopped by earlier. Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you.” Dex smiled.
“Can I borrow one of the computers?” Mace asked, getting right to the point.