Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006

by Baen Publishing

  The bar was crowded, but dim. Tommy avoided the bar. The people sitting there looked in too many random directions, and the mirror behind the bartender doubled his danger. Tommy slipped back to the corner of the room, trying to keep focused on his appearance while listening in to the conversations that he passed. He found an empty table without hearing one mention of racing. He wished he could take the hat off; it was muffling his hearing. Still, he could make out conversations that the various parties thought were under the general level of noise. He focused on each discussion around him in turn.

  In the corner booth, four males were discussing the weather report for the next day. They made travel arrangements without indicating where they would be heading, but Tommy listened with interest. There were few places in Pittsburgh where tengu would find driving easier than flying. The racetrack was one. He didn't recognize any of them, but as three got up to leave they called the fourth by name. Kenji. Babe's cap bet was placed by a Kenji Toshihiko. Was it the same person?

  Tommy caught Kenji as he counted out money for the tab. He slid into the booth and put out his leg, trapping the tengu into his side. Tommy said nothing, only glared; waiting to see if this male knew Riki.

  Kenji's eyes went wide. "Shoji, what are you doing here?"

  "I've been worried about how things are going." There, nice and vague.

  The tengu male got a slightly guilty look on his face that he banished away. Oh, what is this? Something that Shoji—and ultimately—the spiritual leader wouldn't like?

  "The city is a powder keg." Tommy poked at the tengu's conscious. "One little thing and it's going to blow to pieces. If it does, I'm afraid a lot of our people will be hurt."

  "Most of our people don't go into the city," Kenji said.

  "The race tomorrow is sure to pull some of them." Tommy said.

  Again, another guilty look.

  "I heard what you've done and I don't like it," Tommy said.

  "Does your uncle know?"

  "Not yet."

  "It's only the one time. The only ones hurt by the phones going down were the oni brats. It was the only way to sucker them into a big payoff. They wouldn't have taken a big bet at the long odds, and with each small bet, they would have adjusted the odds down."

  Damn right he would have. Unlike the people making the bets, Tommy didn't gamble. Only outright fraud like the tengu could have forced him into losing money. He controlled the urge to rip Kenji's throat out. He still had to find out how they planned to win the race.

  The waitress came to collect Kenji's bill.

  "Let's talk about this where we will not be overheard." Tommy let Kenji led out the door, concentrating on keeping his appearance through the crowds. Once outside, he caught hold of Kenji's arm and urged him toward where Bingo was hidden. His cousin gave a wolfish grin but stood silent as Tommy kept him invisible from the tengu. Once they were past him, Bingo quietly followed.

  "You're putting our people's safety on the line to cheat on a race?" Tommy talked to distract Kenji as he led the tengu even father from the bar, where cries of pain wouldn't be heard.

  "We checked carefully. The rules allow you can switch out bikes up to the last minute."

  They'd found a loophole. Tinker had invented the hoverbikes, and up till now, was the only one that understood the blend of magic and technology enough to improve on the basic design. It was such common knowledge when Tinker sold one of her custom Deltas, Tommy could easily adjust the odds.

  "I don't see how you're going to get your hoverbike past the oni brats." Tommy hated using the words to describe himself. He spat them out in anger.

  Kenji mistook his tone. "The dogs won't be able to do anything. It took careful manipulations, but the sekasha from the Fire Clan will be there—seeing what the newly found baby sekasha does in his spare time. We're going to show up just before the first race, wipe everyone off the track with our bike, collect our winnings and leave."

  With the sekasha unintentionally protecting them every step of the way. If Tommy didn't get to the bike before they got to the track, there would be no stopping them without getting the elves involved.

  Kenji finally noticed that they'd walk for several blocks into a warehouse district. He laughed nervously. "Are we walking back to the Nest?"

  "Here's far enough." Tommy pinned the tengu to the wall. "Where's the bike?"

  Kenji looked at the hand pinning him, seemingly still unaware he was in danger. "I don't know where they moved it to."

  Was he telling the truth? "Who would know where it is?"

  "Look, you shouldn't even get involved in all this. It could get messy. We didn't want to get you or Jin pulled in."

  Behind Tommy, he heard Bingo shift with a scrape of boot on pavement. Kenji glanced toward the noise and went stiff with alarm.

  "It's an oni brat!" Kenji cried and tried to push Tommy aside.

  "Yes." Tommy lifted his head and dropped his illusion. "It is. Now, tell me, where's the bike, or this will get messy."

  ****

  Unfortunately, they had to get very messy, but without learning anything useful. If Kenji knew where the bike was stored, he took the information to his death. After what they'd done to him, however, Tommy doubted that the tengu had ever known. At first light, they dumped his body into the river.

  Tommy knew that his father would have raided the tengu village, taken hostages, and executed them for the surrender of the bike. He couldn't. Even if he could bear to be that much like his father, the elves were watching him too closely. He'd be putting every half-oni in Pittsburgh at risk.

  He didn't know what to do. The race would start in a few hours and he didn't know where the bike was being stored. The tengu had outwitted him so far at every step, so staking everything on a chance to intercept it and destroy it would be stupid. He needed to act, not react. He had no proof that the tengu had defrauded him, while, for all he knew, this was a clever trap, forcing him to betray himself by cheating.

  No, he needed a plan, one that the elves couldn't object to. Kenji had admitted that the tengu's bike could outstrip the Delta in speed. Speed wasn't everything.

  ****

  Tommy's luck was good for once. John and Blue Sky were at the Team Big Sky's pit at the race track, keeping to their habit of showing up early. The only sign of change was a basket of food from the enclave instead of their normal lunch of hot dogs and sauerkraut from the concession stands. John eyed him with faint suspicion as Tommy crossed the race track.

  "I need help," Tommy said.

  "You?" John said.

  "Yes. I put up all the money to rebuild my family's restaurant to back my bets." Tommy went on to explain how Team Providence had disrupted the phones in order to defraud him. "They have a new bike. It's faster than yours. They plan on blowing you out of the water and bankrupting me."

  "It's not my problem," John said.

  "They'll take everything I own, including this race track. These bigoted frauds will be running the races; screwing people over whenever they feel like it. You think you don't trust me—but if you really didn't, you wouldn't be letting your little brother race here. I run a clean track. For the last five years, I've kept this kind of bullshit out. You might be scared to let me anywhere near Blue Sky, but you've always felt this place was safe for him."

  John studied him, the line of his jaw tight.

  Blue came to lean against his brother. "There's nothing wrong with Tommy; he's just trying to protect his family."

  "He does it by hurting people," John said.

  Blue shrugged. "He likes to fight. And so do I. John, what's the point of me racing today if I'm not trying to win?"

  John looked down at his little brother and then sighed. "Give me a minute to think." He paced the pit for a minute. "Most of the racing bikes are stripped down so that they're lighter. The Delta has a beefed up power plant and Blue is one of the lightest riders, so we've never stripped down the Delta."

  "We should tell Oilcan about this," Blue Sky s
aid.

  "What?" Tommy was surprised that Blue would be willing to share an advantage.

  "It is only fair," Blue said. "Oilcan could have stripped down his Delta to get an edge on me, but he's been keeping the playing field even."

  Ah, yes, the honorable thing. "We need to keep it quiet, or the tengu will strip their model too."

  "Oilcan can be trusted," Blue said.

  It went against Tommy's grain to trust anyone. Part of him, though, envied Blue's easy faith in someone. Having another team on a more equal footing, though, would be to Tommy's advantage.

  "Fine, tell Oilcan," Tommy said. "Let him know that we have to keep it secret."

  Blue nodded and dashed off.

  John took out his drill and started to dismantle his Delta.

  Blue Sky came back a few minutes later with a spell stencil. "Oilcan gave this to me. Tinker designed it. It goes on the handle bar. It gives a bike a more aero-dy-namic profile. . .whatever that means. He was going to use it this race to try and gain speed on me, since I'm lighter than him."

  ****

  A few minutes before race time, the tengu team arrived, bike intact. Tommy wasn't sure how they slipped it past the various traps his cousins had laid outside of the race track, but it didn't matter. It was here, and he was out of time. Everything rode now on Team Big Sky and Team Tinker.

  Blue pulled on his racing leathers and mounted the Delta.

  John caught his brother's chin and made the boy look at him. "You do not take unnecessary risks. This is just a race. It is only money. Your life is more important than either one of those. Do you understand?"

  Blue glanced to Tommy.

  "It's only money." Tommy forced himself to say.

  Blue pulled on his helmet, started up the Delta and swung it out onto the race course.

  Oilcan came out of the Team Tinker's pit, his Delta as bare as John's. While he was bigger than Blue Sky, Oilcan was a compact man. Both teams were in Wind Clan Blue, near twins as they slid up into their starting gates. Oilcan looked in Tommy's direction, giving him a long, unreadable study. As Windwolf's in-law, Tommy realized, Oilcan was another person who might know his secret.

  Team Providence brought their bike out last, trailing the pack. It was a standard street frame and enlarged power housing. The rider was a tall, lean male with a tengu nose in the team's bright red color. He frowned at the stripped Deltas as he took his gate at the end.

  There was a moment of near quiet with only the deep rumble of the engines as the clock counted down the last second. Then the horn blared and the gates dropped open and the hoverbikes leaped forward. The crowd roared. Blue Sky darted into lead position with Oilcan on his flank, and a second later the tengu surged forward out of the pack to close the distance. The lead three flashed around the corner into the first series of jumps. The last bike cleared the gates. As the gate crew moved to swing the gates out of the way, Tommy crossed the track and swung over the retaining wall. He wanted to watch from the stands in order to see the full racecourse.

  It was clear that his bike gave the tengu the advantage. In the straights he pulled ahead, only to lose the lead again and again to the more experienced Blue Sky and Oilcan on the smaller bikes. He was shifting too much power into his lift drive to make each jump, stealing too much from his spell chain that provided the speed. Blue Sky had the lead, shaving the clearance of his jumps down to fractions of the inch. Oilcan kissed down each time, seconds behind him, but with nearly a foot in on his landings.

  "Yes!" Tommy hissed. His nails bit deep into his palm as he clenched his fist tight. If the two could hold out the entire race, they might win.

  There was another straight after the jumps and the tengu pulled ahead, but slowed for the hairpin second turn. Blue Sky flashed past him, riding high up the wall to slip past him. Oilcan took back second, and then pushed into first as they went through the moguls, perfectly timing his liftoff to grab the most airspace.

  Tommy pulled his eyes off the racers to check on the tengu pit. Their spotter was down off his perch, huddled with the rest of the crew. They knew they were in trouble. What would they do? Tommy watched them carefully. While the elves had accepted the tengu's claims of being humans crossed with crows, it didn't make them any less oni in Tommy's eyes. And oni were capable of anything.

  The crew captain broke away from the huddle, talking on his headset, shielding the earpiece from the unending roar of the crowd. Tommy tried to read his lips, but couldn't tell which of the many languages in Pittsburgh that the tengu was using. The captain was repeating the word. What was he telling his rider to do?

  The captain turned and looked not out at the riders, but up at the grandstand. He was talking to someone in the stands. No, he was looking too high. On the grandstand roof!

  The leaders flashed in front of the pits and the captain gestured at them, and repeated the word. Tommy guessed the word—shoot.

  Fury filled him, like a cold dark storm. He shoved his way through the crowd to the stairs down to the concession level. The dim cement hallway was empty of people and echoed with the wild cheering.

  "I've got a shooter on the roof!" Tommy shouted at Trixie as he ran past her in the concession stand. "Get someone to back me up!"

  He had to jump to grab the bottom of the access ladder and scrambled up it. A tengu male was crouched at the far lip of the roof, a rifle at his shoulder, aiming at the leaders. Tommy clenched his ability tight around the tengu's mind and willed him blind. The tengu lowered the gun, shaking his head as if trying to clear his vision. Tommy stalked forward, all need to hurry over, letting his fury carry him. The tengu got to his feet and cautiously backed away from the edge of the roof. Tommy grabbed the rifle and jerked it from the tengu's hands. Changing his grip on the rifle, Tommy swung it like a club.

  "This!" The stock hit with satisfying solidness. "Is!" His hit smashed the tengu to the ground. "My!" The tengu's nose disintegrated in a spray of blood. "Track!"

  The tengu writhed on the ground, trying to escape him. Tommy pinned him in place with his foot, reversed the rifle and placed the tip of the barrel at the center of the tengu's forehead. He released his hold on the tengu's mind, letting him see the rifle. "And no one fucks with what is mine."

  The roaring of the crowd grew, indicating that the race was nearly done. The tengu team would be free to look for their missing shooter, and the grandstand would be swarming with idle race goers, hanging out between races. If he killed the tengu, there could be hell to pay. He kicked the tengu in the temple, knocking him unconscious. Bingo scrambled up the ladder to join Tommy on the roof.

  "Don't kill him, but get him down off here." Tommy turned to watch the end of the race.

  The leaders were coming around the last turn. Blue was tight and low, leaned so close to the inside wall it seemed like it had to be peeling off his jacket. Oilcan was tucked close behind, his spell chain nearly touching Blue's lift engine. The human flicked out as they hit the straight, moving to try and pass the half-elf. The tengu whipped around the curve and poured all his power into speed and surged forward. Oilcan continued to slide right, blocking him. The tengu tried to shift left and Blue darted into his path. They roared toward the finish line, the lead two weaving a dance to keep the tengu blocked.

  Team Big Sky won. Team Tinker took second. Team Providence took third.

  ****

  Oilcan stopped Tommy before he reached the tengu team. "Don't hurt them, Tommy. This has been bad enough for the racing. Don't take it any farther."

  "This is their gun. They were going to use it on you and Blue."

  Oilcan's eyes widened at the blood splattered rifle, but still, he shook his head. "You beat them. If you take it farther, it's only going to look bad on you." He indicated the sekasha in the stands.

  Tommy flung the rifle into the tengu's pit. "Clear out and don't come back. All tengu teams, from here on out, are banned from the race. All tengu are banned from the race track. They are banned from every place that I have i
nfluence over. I offered a fair race and fair odds and you tried to grind that into the mud, and I will not deal with you again."

  "Do you think we care?" the captain asked.

  "Take your dishonor back to your flock. Tell your shame to Jin. Then tell me if you care."

  It took a minute, but then it dawned on the male that in Pittsburgh, with the elves holding a sword's edge to the throat of all that was non-elf, he and his cohorts had just fucked themselves over royally.

  ****

  Windwolf arrived while Tommy was working in the money room, totaling up the day's take.

  "What are you doing here?" Tommy saved his work and closed the windows on his workpad.

  "I heard there was trouble here today," Windwolf said.

  "Nothing I couldn't handle."

  The tengu team had slunk away, taking their unconscious shooter with them. The races continued without incident and no surprises in the betting. Between the attendance fees and concession receipts, they covered all their expenses and made a good profit. All in all, a good day.

  Windwolf tilted his head, as if utterly confounded by Tommy. "Why do you fight the idea of forming a household beholden to me so much?"

  "Why do you expect me to put my life into your hands? Because you were humane enough to recognize the truth—that we're more human than we are oni? That we hate the oni as much as you do? Why should that be enough to make you our master?"

  "Part of the new treaty, all of Pittsburgh must become part of the elfin culture. The half-oni must form a household."

  "We are a household."

  "And be part of a clan."

  "Because you refuse to trust us unless we're your slaves? We're good and honorable people." He had realized today that he had always had, at his core, that human nobility that he recognized in John. For years he had run a fair race for no other reason that it seemed the right thing to do.

  "It is the elfin way: those who serve are protected, those who protect are served."

  "The elfin way is wrong. You have no right to be my master. You're no better a being than I am, and you don't have my trust, and I don't owe you anything. I will not enslave myself and my entire people just because you say I have to."