Immediately, Ajiñe put her sister back on the ground. “Go,” she urged her. She looked to the rest of the people of the neighborhood. “Tories are coming, go.”
People scattered, dashing off into their shops and homes. All of the Henáca family poured into their crystal shop, pulling down the iron grate. Several went into the carbon shop. Ajiñe went into an alley. Ziva ran up the steps into the temple, grabbing her flower cloak with her. Wenthi followed her, picking up her crown as he went in.
From the inner chamber of the temple, he looked back to the street. Rounding the deadeye curve: three Civil Patrol on cycles. They stopped in front of the zocalo and glanced about for a moment. One of them put in a call on his radio, and in a moment, there was a static burst of response. All three turned around and rode down around the slope.
Ziva was clutching Wenthi’s arm, but she released it once the patrol cycles were out of sight.
“Sorry, sir,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Wenthi told her. He handed her the crown. “Didn’t want you to lose this.”
“Thank you . . .” she said haltingly. “Mister—”
“Llionorco. Renzi.”
“Thank you, Mister Renzi,” she said. They cautiously emerged from the temple down to the zocalo, where Ajiñe came running over from her hiding place, her face paint smeared.
“Are you all right?” she asked her sister. “I’m sorry your dance—”
“I danced,” Ziva said quickly. “They didn’t ruin it.”
“You’re more forgiving than I would be.”
Ajiñe frowned at Wenthi. “You’re that new rider Miss Dallatan has. Thank you for helping her.”
“Of course,” he said. “Renzi.”
Before she responded, the radios crackled on again.
“The wheels need to grind, race for the people! Mud and petroleum will flow where the water doesn’t. Spread the truth!”
“What was—” Wenthi started.
“I need to go,” Ajiñe said sharply. “Ziva, get home, see to Papa. I’ll see you later. Thank you again, Renzi.”
She ran off down the drop alley toward her father’s shop.
Wenthi watched after her, making a polite excuse to leave Ziva. He wasn’t entirely sure what just happened with the radios or anything else, but he was certain that wherever Ajiñe Osceba was going could lead him to the people he was looking for.
25
Ajiñe Osceba was a cycle rider.
Her cycle was like nothing Wenthi had seen, junked and bashed together out of parts from so many different models, it was entirely its own. It made Nália’s ’goiz 960 look like it had come straight from a factory.
There was a spot outside the carbon shop, a little plaza that overhung the dirt alley behind the Street Xaomico houses, from which he could watch the Osceba shop without looking conspicuous. From there, he could also watch most of the comings and goings on Street Xaomico, the zocalo, and the carbon shop.
He sat on the ledge of the low stone wall, sipping at a Malkeja Dark carbon—all sweet and no taste, but dirt cheap—while she tuned and tweaked her cycle. His own cycle was parked in the plaza, and he sat with his helmet and goggles perched on the wall next to him. The couple of times anyone asked—mostly Henáca boys—he told them he had a delivery to make when he got a signal. They took this with deep understanding.
It was funny—he clearly looked like he was up to no good. If he, on duty as patrol, had seen a jifozi sitting on a wall, next to a cycle while dressed in unwashed denim, he would have immediately been on alert about them. In an Intown senja, or even parts of Outtown like the 11th or 12th, someone would have gone to a phonebox to call patrol on him.
In the 14th—Miahez, Nália’s voice reminded him—they seemed to know he was up to no good, but accepted it as the sort of “up to no good” that they approved of. He was more than a little fascinated by how they had embraced him—for all they knew, a hardened criminal who would happily rob or assault them—with warmth and fellowship. But had he come here as a patrol officer—a pillar of community, law, and peace—he would have been reviled. If they knew who he really was, they would reject him.
But Renzi Llionorco, criminal scum, ex-prisoner? Welcomed to homes, tables, and beds.
He wondered how much longer he’d have to be here. He missed his own room in the 9th, missed Paulei, Minlei, Guand, Cinden, and Peshka. Even Hwokó; she was fun, even if brusque and abrasive. He missed Lathéi so much, more than a little mad that by the time he finished this mission, she might already be back in Dumamång. She, at least, he saw on the newsstands, as she regularly made the covers of newspapers and magazines as a fashion icon.
He even missed Aleiv, the little brat.
Ajiñe rolled her cycle up the alley steps to the street. It was nearly five sweep on the naught, the sun starting to set. He got on his own cycle, kicking up its engines just as Ajiñe was starting her own, so she wouldn’t hear. Hopefully, she would lead him to something that would crack everything wide open. Find the petrol thieves, find the mysterious Varazina—that was her voice on the radio, surely—and then he could go home.
She rode down the streets, through the curves of Xaomico, down to the bottom of the gully. Wenthi followed, keeping enough distance that she wouldn’t notice, and once they went through Circle Uilea there was enough other traffic that he could blend in, but not so much that he would lose her.
She rode out to the Ako Favel—the 16th Senja—the only part of Outtown more run-down and broken than the 14th. The neighborhood had been an army garrison during Rodiguen’s reign, and had taken the brunt of the bombing during the Alliance assault. Now it was a jifozi slum, almost as bad as Gonetown.
Cheap tenements had been half reconstructed out of the barracks. A few excavation machines sat idly in scorched lots; stalled, half-built projects in disrepair. Autos and trucks could barely get through the streets here, rough roads with cracked pavement, or none. The railway and the elevated highways drummed overhead.
Was this how the rebels and Varazina stayed out of the watchful eye of the Alliance Guard and Civil Patrol, by hiding in this shithole?
Who even was this Varazina?
[She’s the salvation.]
How do you even know that? You haven’t met her. She’s a voice on the radio.
[But a voice I trust.]
Why? What has she done to earn that trust?
[Besides bringing us together against the Alliance invaders?]
“Invaders” is not true. They defeated Rodiguen and freed us. They’re helping us rebuild—
[It’s so sad you believe that, tory.]
Wenthi was thinking he’d look conspicuous following Ajiñe here, but they were hardly the only cycle riders coming through the Favel. Several buzzed through, some in groups, many cycles with two riders, or a sidecar. Folks converging on the same place.
He drove up over one ridge, coming up on a channel of the old aqueducts, similar to the one where he caught Nália. This one, also completely dry, had dozens upon dozens of people camped out on the sloping walls, motorcycles of all sorts parked up on the ledges, and more down in the gully of the channel.
Wenthi wasn’t sure if it was his own realization or Nália’s bubbling up from her experience, but once he saw it, it was obvious. The channel split into two tunnels, one of which curved out to another channel, half a kilo away, and that led to an old war trench that fed back to the tunnel that led to this channel.
A racetrack.
He edged his cycle up to the ledge, looking for Ajiñe and her unique cycle. She had gone down into the gully, joining the other riders down there.
“That’s a nice stallion you got under you,” one fellow said, coming up to Wenthi. He was with a handful of rough jifozi folk, though instead of denim slacks and torn-up shirtsleeves, they were dolled up in suits and dresses from a generation ag
o. Vintage Second Trans fashion. Wide shoulders, grand lapels, muted colors. But the clothes had clearly been patched up, mismatched, and repurposed. The button-down blouses unbuttoned and tied up at the sternum, exposing plenty of rich skin. All of them sported absurdly wide-brimmed hats, as well as heavy eye-paint, sharp dark lines in cat-points.
It was almost as if they were dressed up as a mockery of prewar, high-class rhique and llipe fashion, a twisted mirror of the brass club crowd.
“Thanks,” Wenthi said. More of them came over, showing their intense interest in his cycle.
“What is he, a tricked-up 1296?”
“He’s a ’goiz 960,” Wenthi said. Details from Nália’s memory flooded in, every upgrade and tune-up. “But with a tran swap to six gears and a 1296’s inline four.”
“Wild,” one of the ladies said. “How fast you clock him?”
The words were pulled from Nália’s brimming excitement. “On a straight dry path, if I’m in fire gear and get revs to the white line, he could hit three hundred.”
“Fuck,” the first fellow said with appreciation. “Course you wouldn’t get that down there.”
“No,” Wenthi said, looking at the curving aqueduct path. The whole thing, it probably was four kilos the whole round, and at best there were about six hundred meters of straight path.
“What could you manage there?” the lady asked. “Like, one-thirty-two?”
“I’d bet a liter he could do one-forty-four,” one of the other folks said.
That got Wenthi’s attention. “Shit, I could push to one-fifty-six.” This brag was pure Nália. Wenthi was shocked the words came out of his mouth. He shoved her back down into the void.
“Five liters says you can’t,” the guy said, giving a wide, black-toothed grin.
“We betting rations chits here?” Wenthi asked.
“Rations?” the first fellow said. “The shit are you talking? Where did you come from?”
“Hanezcua,” Wenthi said. “Most recent.”
“Shit,” the lady said. “Here, we don’t bet on chits on our cards. That’s bullshit. You bet with the fuel you got, and down there, you either win or go home empty.”
“You what?” Wenthi asked.
“Hey, Paza!” the first guy was shouting. “We got a late entry! This fool thinks his tricked-up 960 can hit one-fifty-six!”
“Wait, I didn’t say—” Wenthi started.
“You said it!” the guy said as someone—presumably Paza—came up the wall. “Five liters on clocking one fifty-six.”
“I shouldn’t—” Wenthi started to say, but then he noticed the racers were starting to get into position. And one of those racers was Ajiñe Osceba.
Paza—an older, portly man who was sweating through his pocket shirt—came lumbering over. “What’s this? He a racer? You a racer, boy?”
“I guess I am,” Wenthi said. “So let’s get me down there.”
26
We’ve got a late entry!” Paza shouted as he led Wenthi, pushing his free-gear cycle, down the slope. “What’s your name, son?”
“Renzi,” he said. “Renzi Llionorco.”
Paza looked at him for a moment. “You ain’t one of old Ocullo’s boys, are you?”
“No, sir,” Wenthi said.
“Yeah, a bit too pale to come from that baniz cock. Come on!” He whistled over to the other race folks as they reached the floor of the aqueduct gully. “Draw from his tank and add it to the prize!”
A couple of folks in denim coveralls ran over to Wenthi’s cycle with siphon hoses and opened up his tank.
“How much?” he asked.
“A quint is the entry fee,” one of the coveralls said. “We add it to the bladder of the prize fuel.”
Wenthi noticed the bladder. No wonder why there were so many racers in this—it looked like a prize of at least twenty liters. Plus the five he had at stake for getting the cycle up to one-fifty-six. After the trouble he had just getting fuel in his tank at all, he understood why all these racers were risking a quint for it. That kind of fuel was more than any of them could hope to get with their jifoz rations. Literally what money couldn’t buy.
“That’s a quint,” the other coverall said, expertly stopping the siphon as their container filled without spilling a drop. These two obviously had a lot of practice at that. Wenthi wondered if they were part of the gangs robbing the tanker trains. Between the cycles and the siphoning, the skills were here. However, nothing here clicked with memories or emotions from Nália. This hadn’t been her scene.
“How many laps is the race?” he asked.
“Six,” the first coverall said.
Six laps, and about four kilos a lap, so he would have to make it two dozen kilos, win the race, hit a top speed of one-fifty-six, and not run out of fuel before he finished. He checked the petrol gauge. He should make it, but he doubted he’d be able to pay the five-liter bet if he failed. Nor would he be able to ride home.
Ajiñe had noticed him, giving him an odd regard. Somewhere between annoyance and curiosity.
“Line up!” Paza shouted. The other racers—about two dozen—rolled their cycles over to a chalk line on the ground. The gully here was only wide enough for six cycles, so they stacked up behind each other in an order that seemed to come from unspoken agreement. Wenthi took position in the last tier, noting that Ajiñe was in the front.
Wenthi looked back to the prize bladder. Definitely more petrol than could be possible from a quint donation from each of the racers. It had to have been acquired through illegal means. So the race organizers were either part of the petrol-theft gangs, or they had a connection. But why would they give fuel away as a race prize?
Why even the race? No one had fuel to spare; it seemed like a waste.
“Mount up!”
Everyone got on their cycles, but still had their engines cold. Helmets and goggles went on, which Wenthi did as well.
“And at the horn!”
Wenthi wasn’t sure what the horn meant, and he was more than a little surprised at the answer. The two coveralled folks strutted in front of the cycles on the chalk line, one with a brass trumpet in hand. They unzipped their coveralls and let them drop to the ground, revealing only tight denim shorts and open jackets and, exposing quite a bit of tawny copper jifoz skin. Everyone in the crowd—as well as the riders—hooted and hollered as one of them raised up the trumpet and let loose with a magnificent blast.
All the engines kicked up, roaring to life, and all the cycles surged forward as one.
Immediately, three of the cycles in the middle tiers knocked into each other, throwing them off course into the steep wall of the gully, while the ones in front rocketed out ahead of the pack. Wenthi dodged around the crash, weaving past the other racers as he shifted into building gear, then cruising, then passing as he hit the hard curve that led to the first tunnel. It was a sharp right as the gully split into a fork, with the left fork down the dry gully blocked off with wood pallets and concrete blocks.
The tunnel wound and curved like a brass note dance, and in the dark, the only thing Wenthi had to gauge it with was the taillights in front of him. Too narrow to pass, unless he banked up on the sloping wall. Couldn’t risk that, not without knowing where he was. Couldn’t risk shifting up to racing gear in here, speed topping out at ninety-six. The cycle behind him couldn’t pass, just nip at his rear tire.
A screeching crash of metal echoed behind him just as he emerged back out into the open, the second stretch of aqueduct gully. Wenthi gunned the throttle, the rev gauge driving up to a hard six near the white line as he shifted to racing gear, driving to the one-thirties, shifting up to fire. The engine howled as he hurtled down the straightaway, as long as it lasted. Maxed at one-thirty-nine, passing three cycles along the way, leaving behind that follower who wanted to eat his heels.
The straightaway
took another hard curve—he knocked back down to passing as he skidded into the turn—then a series of winds he had to zag his way through, sliding up on the aqueduct bank. Ahead of him, at least eight cycles. One of them threaded the needle of skating the banks to pass each one.
Shit, that took brass.
The gully dropped down with another hard right, dropping into the old war trench. It looked like someone had taken dynamite to the aqueduct wall to make the opening, and piled the rubble in the gully path to force the riders into the trench. Here, it was narrow as all get out. Trench walls, where soldiers in the First Trans had bunkered down to hold off Imperial forces—or was it Reloumic?—were at best two meters apart. As the path snaked through, there was no room for error, no chance to pass, and no way to build much speed past eighty kilos.
One cycle ahead must have blown a tire, as it flipped over, sending the rider flying out of the trench. The cycle skidded and sparked as it came to a stop, and the cycle in front of Wenthi slowed to at least sixty to pass in the narrow space left to get through.
The trench then dropped out to a steep hill into the second tunnel. This one didn’t weave, but was just one long, hard curve that did a full half circle in the dark. Wenthi pushed hard—this tunnel was wider than the first—and held the turn as he shifted up into racing gear, getting up to one-twenty as the gauges whined. He slipped around the cycle ahead of him just as the tunnel ended, and they emerged back out to the main gully, the shouting crowds.
Six cycles ahead of him, Wenthi pushed it into fire gear. Five laps to go.
27
At the end of the fifth lap, Wenthi had managed to creep his way to the frontrunners, with only two riders ahead of him: someone on a red junkbashed Ungeke, and Ajiñe Osceba. And with only one lap left, he hadn’t managed to crack one-fifty clicks. He couldn’t afford to lose the race, especially if he didn’t hit that speed.
The Velocity of Revolution Page 14