“You’re one ugly fucker, Georg. I guess that makes me one ugly fucker, too, eh?” Rohen’s thumbs lingered over Georg’s eyes.
“Do it,” whispered the vision of the future.
And so he had. He pressed, and then he pushed, and there had been no force pushing back, as though Georg really had been an empty vessel whose life had been all sucked out. In to the second thumb knuckle. Only then did blood begin to weep from the holes. There was whimpering in Georg’s throat that ceased after about twenty seconds, after some minor swivelling of the thumbs within the skull. The weight of the body sagged suddenly, and Rohen knew he was holding up a dead man.
His genetic twin.
He took his thumbs from the eye sockets and pushed Georg back into his seat. The arthritis in Georg’s crooked spine pushed his chin to his chest, so Rohen utilised this, grabbing Georg’s own thumbs and thrusting them into his eye sockets, allowing him to drop forward on his elbows, as though he had fallen asleep and simply allowed his face to slide into the spikes of his thumbnails.
Eli
ssa
Rohen, identifiable by the tattoo written above his left eyebrow spelling out his name, made a mistake that would cost him later. She almost had him; for some reason he slowed down momentarily, and she could feel herself sliding into his slipstream, with something bordering the kind of satisfaction she felt when she slid her feet into a new pair of boots (as rare as that was), or even laying horizontal with one of his less fucked-up (or apparently less fucked-up) brothers. But then he boosted away from her on his anonymous hoverbike.
What kind of psychopath didn’t name their hoverbike?
Elissa smiled beneath the mask across her mouth and nose protecting her from flying dust and stones. Phoenix simmered between her legs, building up his energy for the roar to come, dodging the obstacles in his way.
Ahead, Rohen took his own path, but it wasn’t always the right path. She knew if she waited she would get the chance she needed to slingshot away; just keep him ahead of her until they were out on the plains again and she could use her boost to get ahead.
You made a mistake.
Fine margins. A few extra seconds would be all she needed. Her boost was charging about as efficiently as it could – small arms extended from the side, but instead of sails to the right and left, the arms slid backwards down the sliding curve of the metallic side and fanned out behind, like a tail. When she sped across the tundra beneath the belting sun, on practice runs and in friendly races (as if everyone wasn’t really sizing each other up) she imagined the tail pushing up against the wind, lifting her nose, until she was airborne. Sometimes that was how it felt. Sometimes it was so hot she may as well have been flying too close to the sun, just like the old myth. And sometimes, having prepared the tail too rigidly, experimenting to see if Phoenix was any faster with the nose ever-so-slightly raised, she had returned to base with a tattered tail that could no longer absorb the solar rays.
And then on other occasions the tail had been too low, snagging on errant rocks that Phoenix would otherwise soar right over.
That was her only worry in fashioning the sails this way. It was a risky game to play but one that had the most reward if played correctly. Though it rarely did. But hey, this was her first attempt, so what did she have to lose? So far so good: she glanced behind her when the coast ahead was clear; no rips yet, and she hadn’t had the nose of another hoverbike sniffing at Phoenix’s rear, munching on his tailfeathers. Yet.
The tail seemed to dampen the effect of her slipstream, so those behind could keep up but not really overtake. She just had to be wary of the riders purposefully steering across Phoenix’s tail – when it was deployed, such as now – and hope it didn’t spin her out of control. It had a chance to spin them out of control too, and was a tactic best deployed at high speed to keep the forward momentum, so if it was going to happen, it would be in one of these canyon straights.
Rohen lurched sharply to the right ahead, revealing a monument. Thank you, she thought, and began to ease into the same position, only smoothly. Gaining a little more ground.
The monument neared; a wiry-metal sculpture in the shape of a human, larger than life and buried in the ground to the ankles. The circular metal rods circled up the legs and torso to create the volume of the body, and then continued to extend up through the arms, flailing with upturned palms to the sun. The mouth, agape, seemed to indicate anguish rather than prayer. Unless an anguished prayer, to a nothing of a God. The reflection of the sun moved with Elissa, cast upon the framework, as she sped past.
She couldn’t wait until they were all behind her. One for every dead rider. There would be others, she knew, and some of those would even be dressed. For the seven waiting at the finishing line, they held children’s competitions for the chance to decorate them for the next trials. She had even won once; keeping it simple for Evgeny with a hand-written sign drooped around the neck which read “I may have lost, but I still won.”
Sad Evgeny. The artist had given him an accentuated, drooping frown. Kind of how she imagined Gentle Joe – who was some way back now, probably too afraid to really bolt it – looked whenever someone told him something upsetting.
Some of us just make up the numbers, she thought. Gentle Joe was never a serious contender. Even though he had volunteered, those watching probably expected him to break his neck at some point in a spectacle of a collision, or get trapped. Neon City viewers seemed to like that kind of thing, forgetting that we were flesh and blood, like them, some of us racing our friends. Her lingering smile straightened and her expression turned into one of focus.
Just give me the chance, she thought, and I’ll give you something to whoop about. She angled to the left, to go wide for the next corner.
The sun disappeared.
Shadows climbed the sides of the canyon, and dust long left balancing on precarious ledges, caught wind and swirled as Rohen flew at the fore of the procession.
The drones watched. After the last rider was long gone and the dust resettled, the drone migration would commence, flying overhead in co-ordinated straight lines towards the city, the crowd celebrating with the newly crowned winner below.
But she was a long way from the finish line, and as this thought crossed her mind, she felt the bloodrush of anxiety, for the next move was to cut right after braking. If those behind her were feeling at all foolhardy, now would be a good time to try something. Not the first time would a rider have been cut on the inside, with too much pace; the pair of them sent sprawling to the ground or worse.
And not just that. There was no forgiving inside curb, just rockface if she timed it wrong. More than once a handlebar had clipped the inside, sending the rider into a cartwheel of broken bones.
She watched as Rohen took the corner ahead of her, hoping to see an explosion of sandstone and maybe a little blood, but he timed it perfectly this time. If he wasn’t going to make a mistake on his own, maybe she could force him into one. It was stupid, she knew, to let personal vendettas interfere with the trials and cloud her judgement, but truth was, she had been waiting for his name to be announced on the roster. It was true this was her first time, and she truly felt she had nothing to lose. But Rohen – he had everything to lose, and she was Grace-sent on ensuring he did just that.
Joe
Or Gentle Joe to most people. As one of the brothers his face was a familiar sight, though there was something of the uncanny in his broadened temple and higher brow-line. He also had a tendency to trip over hard syllables, as though his tongue was too big for the word he was trying to say. He would stare at himself in a window reflection, envious of his brothers’ plainer looks that allowed them to just melt into the background, unseen. He, he knew, was something of an anomaly. They treated him differently; with laughter if he tried to make his feelings known – or worse; he could still feel Elissa’s fingertips stroking his cheek, smell the grease on her hands, and recall the sting of tears that met with her sympathetic smile as she
told him how sweet he was.
That was bad enough. But there was more; in the way he was excluded from important discussions, as they chatted away behind palms put to face, or disappeared into adjacent rooms, or flat-out pretended he wasn’t there. He knew big words and how everything worked, just like them. He’d been around long enough – sat around just like the rest of them with nothing to do but take everything in. Give it long enough, and even a scrawny rib-boned mutt learns when to yap, and when to keep its clap-trap shut: when to retreat into the shade if the sun is too hot, or find shelter when the ion burst sweeps through town.
I know big words, he thinks, like electromagnetic. Listen enough, you pick up plenty.
They may not think he could screw in a headlight, but look at him now. Riding the trials – and keeping up!
Though Demon’s Canyon was a scary place. Filled with ghosts, they said, and he believed them. Believed them even more now that he was here – he’d never seen such high mountains before, so high he felt like they could collapse on him any moment, that it was a miracle they hadn’t already. He missed the sun, and never thought he would say that! Riding along in the shade, the old monuments black and crying out in pain with their arms extended out, reaching for the sun they miss, the sun that would make everything okay again. He thought about them at night, and shivered – Rosie, his hoverbike, felt the ripple in her bough and shook – and couldn’t imagine what it was like for them, freezing in pitch darkness with barely a star for company. With each monument he passed, he felt sorrow and horror; the need to honour them and the need to get out of here as quickly as possible.
He’d slowed down a little, he noticed, and sped back up again. Everyone ahead was weaving between the large rocks on the ground. It was flying dust, everywhere. Like thick smoke. He didn’t like it.
But at least he wasn’t last. He glanced behind.
Was he?
Leora had been there just before they came into the canyon. Did she crash? Oh, I hope not, he thought. She wasn’t quite as nice as Elissa, but she was nice all the same, very pretty, and she had a partner and children and it would be horrible for them if anything had happened to her. He tried to recall if he had heard anything like metal crashing against rock, but he couldn’t remember. Just Rosie’s constant thrumming music.
He liked that sound.
Liked it a lot.
It reminded him of the nursery. All those machines whirring. All his brothers, and him, together. Together, and playing. Playing, and just children. Their nurses may have been mean, but they were mean to all of them, equally. He wasn’t any different. There, he was just like all the others. He got hit just as much as the rest of them.
The smoke ahead – was that the right word, he questioned? – was thinning. They must be getting away from him.
He never swore, but he almost did then. He’d slowed down again. He looked behind. Still no Leora.
And for the first time in his life he did swear.
If Leora wasn’t there, then he was last. How could that be? The wall… the Devil’s wall… it would rise… after the last-but-one rider… it would rise… and trap him here. Forever.
Unless the entrance was still open. If Leora hadn’t entered yet, it might still be open – he could still escape.
But what if… what if… she was so far behind she had decided to take the Fool’s Pass?
Gentle Joe panicked, all but floating along now, unsure what action to take. Just then, the decomposing bones of Dre passed by, resting against a canyon wall where they had fallen after his failed attempt to climb out.
“No, no, no, no, no…” began Gentle Joe, shaking his head and struggling to suck in the breaths needed, through his mask. He threw it off, sucking in.
Maybe someone ahead will crash, and I can get out.
But maybe they won’t, and the entrance will be closed by then.
Maybe the entrance is still open now.
Forward.
Or backward.
In his panic, he did neither forward or backward. He cried instead, and wished he was home, back in the nursery even, anywhere but here.
Leora was last. Leora was last. She knew she couldn’t catch up so she just didn’t even enter the canyon, and gave up. Making me last.
It was all so depressingly clear now. Why would she have trapped herself? I didn’t think, he sobbed, knowing there would be a drone above watching him, and not caring. They can all go fuck themselves, he thought, swearing for a second time and hating himself even more. Let them laugh one more time.
Race
It wasn’t all jumps, up here. In fact, the jumps weren’t even the worst of it. Jumps could be made; one of the problems were the landings causing irreversible damage to the hoverbikes: one minor misalignment on take-off and you could easily land sideways, and maybe the hoverbike would only be dented, but there was the problem of inertia. The hoverbike could push itself away, with or without you, find itself falling over the edge to the ground below.
Leora thought, If I find myself tilting sideways, cut the power, and don’t let it crush my leg.
There was another problem, of course. Now she had made her first jump, she was essentially trapped. The only way forward, was forward – otherwise she was trapped on an island with a thousand-foot drop on all sides.
And one more problem – the most dangerous of all. Jumps were one thing, but to get to them, she had to travel along narrow paths cut into the side of the canyons that ranged from four- to ten-feet wide, sweeping along the faces and criss-crossing from one side to another. Only fools took it, because only fools were stupid enough to think they could keep the beast of the hoverbike at bay without a single mistake as they rushed just inches away from plummeting to their death.
But you’re no beast, are you? thought Leora. Or if you are, you’re tame. You’re my tamed beast.
It was quite something, though – up here. There were no boulders or monuments trying to catch her off guard. She had a clean run on a flat surface that years of ion bursts had swept free of debris. Debris which right now was causing havoc down below. No, she could see for miles. She swallowed, felt her sinuses clear and her ears pop, and Feather’s gentle humming return to her hearing. A sweet sound. Reassuring. Should she fail now...
Leora looked around. A camera drone above kept up with her, straining not with the speed, she knew, but the height. These drones could only get so high before the air currents began to resist, that was why they didn’t climb up over the sand mountain. It loomed on her left; she didn’t think she’d ever been so close to it. In a way, this close, it lost its impact. At distance it was an impressive colossus; this strange entity that was nothing more than a pile of sand that made a crater out of the plains, an ever-present threat.
Okay, she thought, looking at it and re-evaluating. From far away the threat was diminished. The ion bursts could cease and the wave of sand could once and for all break down upon them and drown them each and every one and never had she been so keenly aware of that. It towered to the sky, to so high the edges of clouds licked at the pale red heavens, just tipping their hellos over the peak. For an instant, never had she been so grateful for the city’s protection.
To imagine that mass collapsing, wave upon wave cascading down.
It was hard to envisage. Up so close, it was just that: a mass. One whole. An impenetrable barrier; not something coming for them, but something protecting them from the other side.
Whatever was there.
There were tales of those who had climbed it.
And never returned.
There were tales of those who had come from the other side.
Talk of vast wastelands of sand. Nothing but a graveyard, they said. And no sun.
No sun? Hard to picture such a thing.
She looked right, wind smashing against her face. Her home was barely even a speck on the horizon. And beyond that, the opposite side of the sand mountain faded completely, and you could be mistaken for thinking you weren’t tra
pped here in the land of the dead. Bang-centre as Deo would say, was Neon City: funny, to see it from so far away. Just a bubble.
Last night, when they were falling asleep under the stars at the starting line and winding each other up, the city had come to life. The single visible light source as her eyes began to close; a distant half-circle whose inside towers could not be distinguished from each other and whose light blended into one dull-blue beacon.
This is your reward, it said. A final reminder that none of them needed, but that nevertheless seemed to bring reverence to the evening as the daylight faded and the city-light brightened.
Now, Neon City shimmered in the heat like a distant mirage. That was all it would ever be unless she won.
She guided Feather towards the edge. The cliff-side paths were always on the inner side, never the outer, and she cursed this fact, as though someone had designed it that way.
Maybe they had, who’s to know?
***
A second glance and Rohen almost lost control of his hoverbike as it arrowed straight: what was she doing up there? And even worse – ahead of him?
They weren’t even half-way through the canyon and yet there was Leora, with her hoverbike apparently living up to his name. Must’ve been as light as a feather to get over the humps and jumps of the Fool’s Pass. Even as he cursed her, he also envied her bravado. Not half-way through the canyon but she was leading. And with less distance to travel than him.
This was not good.
He felt himself wavering; his vision had almost turned robotic in its purpose, calculating each coming move with a clarity he’d honed in the practice runs out on the plains. He barely even registered the obstacles as they shot past – once he’d positioned his hoverbike the move was done, time for the next one.
Yet suddenly there was an iron weight in his belly that he found difficult to ignore.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 21