by Sean Kennedy
“Like every other race,” Silver said, “you pick a winner and place your bet.”
The picture changed to recorded footage of a drone cluster racing through concrete corridors, buzzing like angry hornets as the four display feeds around the first changed.
It was a first person view as it flew along the passage, another feed showed drones zipping towards a tight turn, using their pincer arms to grab the wall’s concrete rebar at the last moment to swing around the corner and fire themselves like sling stones down the hall. Two drones missed the grab and impaled themselves on spikes thoughtfully placed to catch them on the opposing wall.
Another feed showed drones racing through a wide dark chamber filled with concrete supports like a twilight forest. The frame slowed, as one drone reached out, grabbing the other and using its momentum to throw it into a column. The feed slipped back to speed as the drone exploded, leaving its attacker to tear past.
“The favorite to win tomorrow is Shamrock,” Silver shrugged, “but anything can happen.”
A telepresence droid stepped through the door behind Silver holding a skeletal pelvis.
The t-droid placed it on the counter before vanishing back through the doorway, and Silver's eyes focused. Joni turned it over in her hands; her features tight as she scrutinized the pelvic crown, twisting the sides.
“It’s cracked,” she said putting it back on the counter, “I'll give you three hundred for it.”
“What?!” He said and snatched the part from the counter, twisting it as Joni had.
“I had no idea, and it’s hairline!” Silver said, “I can let you have it for 600, it’s still very functional.”
“It’s the basis of the frame!” Joni said, putting her hands on her hips, “What happens when I'm running salvage, and that hairline gives?
Silver laughed, but the smile never reaching his beady eyes.
“Okay-okay, I can drop it to 450, but that is my best price, and only because I didn’t know there was a blemish. I wouldn’t want you to think me dishonest.”
“Four hundred,” Joni said, “and that's too high for a part that's less than a hundred hours from becoming scrap.”
Silver took a deep breath and fluttered his eyes as though it pained him to continue speaking. “All right, all right, four hundred. It'd be nice to make some money once in awhile.”
Jacob thought the words would be more believable if they didn’t come from a mouth filled with silver teeth. Joni looked over to Teeva who nodded, and both he and Silver looked off into space for a moment before Teeva grabbed the t-droid part, being careful not to kink the optic lines as he slid it into his courier satchel.
“What’s your price on tetrazine?” Teeva asked.
“25 to buy, 15 to sell, and 40 in trade. You need some?”
Teeva looked over at Jacob still watching the drone races.
“How much is it?” Jacob asked.
“You can bet as much as you like,”’ Silver said.
The feeds changed to display a scoreboard, showing fifty names ranked along the wall with the number of races completed. Only ten had more than one race, and only the top three had more than five.
“No, how much to enter,” Jacob said, and the others on the couch grew very still.
Silver raised his eyebrow. “A thousand gets your drone in the race.” He said and turned to Joni, “and those aren't my prices, that's the standard.”
A devilish smile spread across Teeva’s face, “whatcha got in race drones, bro?”
“You're in luck!’ Silver said, “I just got a brand new Kowazuki Mono-Runner on a trade, still in its case and only a few runs. Wanna see it?”
“Yeah bro! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
Joni leaned over and whispered in Jacob's ear, “Racing is all these drone pilots do, and they’re full of cheating! You might want to think about this.”
Her warning was lost in how close she was, and Jacob was glad she couldn’t see him blush beneath the helmet.
The t-droid reappeared and placed a large black polymer hard case on the counter, with plastic latches and a molded handle at the top. It stepped back, and Silver refocused, popping the polycarbonate latches with four loud snaps. The hinged lid bounced against shock cords, and Silver spun the case towards them. It looked similar to the drones on the feed, with four rotors and a slick black paint job, but there was only a single arm with a large four-fingered grapple claw.
“You only get one chance with mono-claws,” Joni said.
“But they’re fast as hell, and this one already has the lightweight racing package installed,” Silver said.
“That means there no protection at all!” Joni said, “If this thing takes any kind of hit, it’s finished!”
“It’s a tradeoff,” Silver shrugged, “you don’t get points for surviving, only winning, and you win with speed.”
“Can you soup ‘dis?’ Teeva asked Joni.
“Well …yeah, Kowazukis are easy to work on, but we'd need to harden the security protocols for sure.”
“How much bro?”
“Well usually I would want four thousand for this, but, with the race so close, and if the spaceman signs up here, I could let it go for two.”
Joni turned fierce, “This is a three-year-old unit! They were only twenty-six new!”
“That twenty-six hundred in the Deep City, good luck finding anything more modern out here.”
Jacob stepped forwards and looked into the case, feeling a tickling thrill. Teeva stepped to his shoulder, still nodding with his insane smile, “Bro, you can do this!”
“I don't think I have enough,” Jacob whispered, “even with the pills...”
“You got 83 pills, bro,” Teeva said.
Jacob was surprised, “How did you count them? I only gave you that bottle for a couple of seconds!”
“You gots your skills bro, an’ I gots mine,” Teeva winked, “I’ll spot you bro, an’ lay some to win! They’ll be paying long an’ we’ll come out like bandits bro!”
“Teeva!” Joni hissed as she pressed between them, “Jacob has never even seen these races before, and it’s in two days! He doesn’t have time to train!”
“I have two days to train,” Jacob offered.
Joni closed her eyes and laughed at the insanity of the idea, “Don’t take this wrong Jacob, but you’re wasting money, you're gonna crash-out in the first ten seconds!”
Fear crushes more dreams than failure.
“That's deep bro.”
“So whattaya say?” Silver asked through glittering teeth.
All eyes were on Jacob as he reached into his pocket. His only answer was the tap his tetrazine pill bottle as he placed it on the counter.
Chapter 13
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you guys not to spend all your money in one place?” Joni said once they were in the street.
“How long you think for mods?” Teeva asked, ignoring her question.
“I don’t know the specs, I gotta get it on the bench before I can tell you anything,” she shook her head.
“Yeah-yeah, but then, how long?” Teeva asked.
Joni fixed him with an exasperated stare before turning to Jacob, “These race pilots have conspiracies between players to win, and the course outline is almost always leaked to favored pilots. This is a terrible idea.”
He knew everything Joni was saying was correct, but a new fire burned within him. The hard-plastic case felt good in Jacob's hands; a key to something bigger.
He who dares wins.
“What’d you say bro?”
“Uh... nothing,” Jacob mumbled, “I can ask my uncle to take a look at it if you're too busy Joni.”
“No-no-no,” Joni said, “I’m not too busy… I just…” she looked down as they walked, “I mean no one is sure what the neural training did, and all these abilities had to come with some cost. I'm just concerned is all, and ...well I mean... even with the Vade Mecum, the odds have gotta be a billion to one.”
“What do you say bro, fifty-fifty? 250 billion a piece?” Teeva laughed as Joni shook her head.
“That be great,” Jacob said. “But if Joni is gonna be doing the upgrades, shouldn't we split it three ways?”
She turned, staring at Jacob.
“You okay?” Jacob asked.
“You’d do that?” Joni asked.
“Sure! Life is maintenance. Without you, we’d be finished before we started, right?”
Teeva sighed, “Okay bro, I guess a hundred seventy billion is still cool, I didn’t think about it that way.”
“No, you never have. And it’s a hundred and sixty-six billion,” Joni said, and quickened her pace.
They left Zone Town’s augmented strip faded into zone dust.
“Can you call Mark?” Joni asked.
“No, not really,” Jacob said, “I thought he'd wait for us out here.”
“Okay, well, I’m sure he’ll find us. Let me know if you need a break carrying the case,” she offered.
“It's not so bad really, it’s lighter than it looks, and the envirosuit gives me some help.”
Teeva rummaged in his satchel past the t-droid pelvis to pull out his vaporizer. He pressed the blue button on the side to inhale just as they heard a rattle from a garbage hulk off to the side.
“That's probably him now,” Jacob said, and walked past the waving plastic, like laundry sheets, caught on jagged refuse.
“Hey, Mark…” Jacob started as he pressed aside the sheet, but he found a tall, thin telepresence droid, freshly sprayed to a dull matte black.
The t-droid swung a haymaker fist that cracked against Jacob's helmet. The force of it threw him off his power-boks, and he tumbled to the ground. The Kowazuki case slipped from his grip, bouncing into the dust.
“Jacob!” Joni screamed.
Her voice helped him stay conscious. He pushed himself up, staggering onto his feet and felt Teeva latch onto him. He looked up to see they were now surrounded by t-droids, each painted to blend with the zone’s garbage landscape with stripes of shipping blue and packing red, with strings and plastic strips tied to them like tribal camouflage.
The matte black t-droid stepped forward, it’s distorted voice thick with sarcasm. “Well, well, Stoner! It looks like we caught up with you! And what’s this? Joni’s here too. Who’s your new spaceman friend?”
Teeva put Jacob between Joni and himself. She turned to face the opposite side of the circle, holding a long neck hammer she had produced from somewhere. Teeva’s ninjatō flashed in his hands. Jacob felt a mixture of fear and rage pulsing through him as he saw the hard case be picked up by one of the telepresence units.
“I’d normally say hand over your goods and we’d let you go, but I won’t, because no matter what you do, you're not going to walk away today.” The t-droid said, pacing around them as the colorful gang of twelve waited.
“Let’s move this off the road shall we?”
The twelve pounced, and the world became a crumbling mass of punching and grabbing as they attacked, tearing at each other like beasts. Joni swung her hammer, catching a colorful t-droid in the head, but not hard enough to stop it before its metal fist belted across her face, sending blood spraying into the dust.
The ninjatō removed the first arm that came at Teeva, and he slashed another before becoming tangled in t-droids with the bravery of being out of range. Jacob tried to do something, anything, but the blow he took made him sluggish, and the t-droids slammed him face first into the dust before he could move.
He was suddenly dragged backward on his stomach as two t-droids took off running, each holding a power-bok. Jacob's face bounced once before his visor dropped to shield him. He fired his power-boks, but their springs punched feebly in the air. His environmental suit was tough enough to take the grounds beating, but Joni and Teeva didn’t have the same protection, and he heard their bodies slamming against the dirt.The horizon vanished behind a crater slope and twisting, saw they were being dragged down into a shallow pit.
He was released, and the ground beating stopped, letting the pain enunciate itself in Jacob’s senses. He closed his power-boks and tried to stand, but a t-droid kicked him in the ribs. The envirosuit spread the force of the impact, but the kick flipping him before landing on his side. With blurring consciousness, Jacob saw the rainbow t-droid that’d lost an arm now holding Teeva’s ninjatō. Others were holding Teeva down. Joni was savagely thrashing, but disorientated; her adrenaline no match for precision electronics.
“No!” Jacob screamed as he was kicked onto his back by puppet thugs.
He couldn't see Teeva anymore, but he heard the distorted voice say, “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do Stoner! How would you like it if someone cut your arm off? Let’s find out!”
Teeva screamed as the electronic voice’s laughter cut through the sound of his pounding pulse.
BWAAA!
It blasted dust from the earth and ripped open the air, drowning out all sound like the breath of vengeance. The earth shuddered as Mark’s steel legs bounded over the edge of the shallow pit, launching the Kaizen loader. It landed among the cluster, bringing its massive loading claw down on the colorful sword wielding t-droid, and it vanished, driven into the earth like a magic trick.
BWAAA!
The angry giant swept the t-droids holding Teeva aside. Two were knocked free, but a third droid was caught between the Kaizen’s claw and the unforgiving earth, smearing hydraulic fluid and circuitry across the ground as it disassembled.
BWAAA!
The noise made Jacobs lungs vibrate as the loader lifted a shrouded foot and stomped another t-droid trying to escape. Catching another’s legs under the Kaizen’s rollers, Mark spun his wheels, and dark fluid exploded from the droid’s head as it was pulled under and crushed.
BWAAA!
Another swing, and Jacob was suddenly free as the t-droids fled the carefully chosen pit. He saw the matte black leader caught in Mark's claw as it spun against the ground, grinding the droid into pieces with the grace of industrial mutilation.
BWAAA!
The Kaizen’s roar chased the echoes of panicked flight as the surviving t-droids. Jacob pushed himself onto his knees, feeling a dull ache where the droids had kicked him. He saw Teeva was getting to up, but his blood turned to ice as he saw Joni, crumpled and still, on the ground.
“Joni!” He was on his feet and crossing the pit before his balance could give out. He collapsed by her side.
“Joni!” he whispered and gently he rolled her over, his mind screaming until he saw her breathing. A soft moan escaped her lips and there was a sudden shade from Mark’s gigantic frame leaning over them.
“I’m... I'm okay,” she said, fluttering her eyes. Jacob helped her sit up as Teeva dropped to his knees beside them. Teeva turned Jacob’s head, looking at his helmet.
“Not too bad bro,” Teeva said.
“Maybe I should start wearing one,” Joni said and tried to smile. Jacob helped her up. She rubbed her jaw, surveying the shattered remains of t-droids littering the ground.
“Looks like Mark got us a better deal on parts.”
Chapter 14
As soon as they were within network range of the farmhouse, Teeva sent a message through to both the Dojo and Jacob’s uncles, saying they were okay; but had been attacked by the Posse.
When they rounded the road’s final curve, they found Jacob’s uncles waiting by the edge of the stack forest, each holding a trauma bag. The way they stood reminded Jacob of the 0perators at Galafynn.
Dirty and covered in droid fluids, with the shattered remains of five t-droids held like reed grass in the loading pincers, Mark rolled to a halt with the electric sigh of the roller motors as they spun down.
Mac helped Jacob from his booster seat, and Slate caught Teeva as he dropped. They both verb
ally exploded, spilling the events of the attack. By the time they had helped ease Joni from the cab, the fight story had finished. “I’d hate to think what would happen if Mark wasn’t there.” Joni added at the end.
“You can’t think about that,” Mac said, slipping Jacobs helmet off, “you may as well worry about what if your lungs stopped working.”
“I suppose,” Jacob said, feeling suddenly exposed as Mac inspected him.
“Is it bad?” Jacob asked.
“It’s red, but it didn’t break the skin. I bet your bell got rung pretty good eh?”
“No, I mean the helmet.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, I can dig you out another one from the shop,” Mac said as Slate quickly checked Joni over, asking her to lift her arms and turn her head. She looked like a doll next to him. Slate did the same with Teeva, who responded a little more slowly but could still do all the movements.
“Right, you're in the showers first,” Slate said pointing at Joni, “then you,” motioning to Teeva, “and Jacob you'll go in last.”
Joni’s mouth dropped open, “A real shower?”
“Well, don't go telling the whole world,” Vince said, “it’s an old house. There aren’t many perks, but that’s one of them.”
“No way bro!” Teeva said and went to high five Joni but winced as he tried to raise his arm.
“Oh, bro, I am a wreck,” he said, falling into step behind Joni as they followed Mac towards the house. Jacob ran back to Mark and unhooked his drone case from the cab, handing it to Slate as he ushered Jacob on ahead.
Mac led them through the house and into the kitchen where Teeva planted himself on one of the vinyl chairs.
Jacob heard Joni’s voice echo, “Oh wow!” from inside the bathroom as Mac closed the door behind her. He returned to the kitchen just as Slate set the case down on the kitchen table between Teeva and Jacob.
“Mind if I take a gander?” Mac asked as the shower’s rushing hiss sounded behind the bathroom door. He waited for Jacob’s nod before popping the plastic latches around the case.
“Y’know drones Mister Mac?” Teeva asked.