Stone Rider

by David Hofmeyr

  But you don’t laugh at the Colonel. You listen to him and you do whatever he bids.

  It’s at moments like these when Adam feels most at odds with the world.

  “There’s room for one—and only one—to win this Race,” the Colonel continues. “To win a ticket to glory. Sky-Base is watching. Sky-Base is waiting.” He looks at the faces tilted up to him. “Not all of you will emerge from this ride alive. Hell, most of you won’t, truth be told. But all of you will learn something about yourselves in the heat. The Badland will ask you questions. It will take courage to find answers. You will learn what you’re made of. You will learn if you carry fire in your heart…and if you don’t. And there’s no lesson better. You won’t live more than you live in the Race. You won’t ever be more alive. This is your moment. Seize it or fade to dust!”

  The flags snap and a few muted cheers go up. Adam thinks of Frank, and the cacophony of sound in the canyon blurs into one sheet of noise. His heart beats hard in his chest.

  “Good luck,” the Colonel calls. He strokes his cheek. “And may you live to see the sky.”

  Now comes a gaunt man with waxy cheeks and a pale complexion. He wears round sunglasses and a dark suit. In his left hand, he carries a digital tablet. The Race Debriefer.

  The Colonel remains on his pedestal and gives a small nod to the Debriefer, who stands on a flat rock to his side, tablet in hand, stroking his thin lips. The Debriefer consults his tablet. In a monotone voice, he drawls out the Laws. Laws each and every Rider knows by rote.

  “You are no doubt aware, but I would remind you, that there are three Laws: No knives. No shooters. And nobody quits. Break any one of these Laws and you will be Unplugged. If you elect to quit, I repeat, you will be Unplugged. Make no mistake. The choice is yours, and yours alone.”

  Unplugged. It’s the right term to use. No diminishing of the truth. Adam knows they can call it anything they like: Unplugged…Ended…Killed. It’s all the same.

  “Nothing is invisible to us. Nothing is hidden. We see everything.”

  He pauses, waits for the warning to sink in. His accent is refined, as though highborn.

  “Slingshots and grip wires are admissible, even advised. Your goal is simple: to survive long enough to win. This will not be easy. As a point of fact, the Race has been designed to be anything but easy. It will be a test of your ability. Only the very best will win.”

  A murmur ripples through the crowd. The Debriefer stands expressionless.

  “The Race is set up with four base camps along the track. These offer serviceable tents, beds, food and O2 saloons where you can jack yourself into the wall for a hit. Plan your route and stop where necessary. Use the camps or don’t—it’s your choice. Choose wisely.”

  He raises a hand to the airships.

  “We thank our father on the Ark of Sky-Base, Lord Kolben Vodden, for having the wisdom to conceive the Vodden Circuit and for giving Riders this opportunity to live free, this gift. And we thank his hand on Earth, Colonel Mordecai Aesop Blood, for sanctioning the start and the end of the Blackwater Trail on his land.” Here he bows before the Colonel and the Colonel gives a slight nod.

  The Debriefer looks at the Riders again.

  “Ride, brothers. Ride until your bykes carry no more power. Ride until they are drained. Ride as far into the night as you can. If you win, the rewards are manifold. A ticket to Sky-Base for the sole winner. One thousand dollars cash and two hundred base points for the first three to cross. May you live to see the sky!” the Debriefer shouts, followed by a raucous cheer from the townsfolk.

  He looks at his tablet and barks out a sequence of names in his stentorian voice.

  The names are called in no discernible order. One by one, Riders come forward, leaving their bykes behind. They step up onto the sawn-off tree stump, reach up to shake the Colonel’s hand, then step back down, to get scanned and collect their Race pack.

  Race packs are spartan. Essential survival gear only. Ration biscuits—a pack of thirty. A map—marking out the route. A compass. Rope. Tire patches. A pump and levers. Gaffer tape. Bolts and washers. A canteen. A camel pack containing five pints of filtered lake water. A med kit with hydro-pills, bandages, a cauterizing iron and jabs of morphine.

  Adam’s name comes early. Only six Riders step up before him:

  TYRAK DANIEL

  SILAS VENIM

  BLAKE IRONSIDE

  ZETA PRIME

  HUNTER KIBOW

  AARON BLACK

  ADAM STONE…

  When Adam hears his name called, he swings off his byke in a daze. He walks forward amid cheers and shouts from the crowd. They don’t know him. They don’t have any idea who he is and how he rides, but they’ll be assessing him, making guesses, reaching conclusions. They won’t think much of him. Nobody ever does. Nobody except those who know.

  Dollars are changing hands as he reaches out his own.

  “ONE DAY!” someone shouts.

  “LONG ODDS!” another bawls. “DEAD BEFORE THE SUN SETS.”

  The Colonel’s hand is cold and bony. His mirrored glasses drill holes in Adam.

  “Stone,” he says. His voice is dry as a desert zephyr. This single uttered word carries an undercurrent of meaning, as if an entire conversation passes between them. A conversation about kin, about him. Son of a suicider. Brother of a dead cripple. It’s not a word. It’s an accusation.

  Taking off his helmet, Adam turns to offer him the back of his skull, burning with fear and rage. He hears the pop and fizz of the scanner gun. His data drains to the Race server.

  His birth date, his kin record, his medical snapshot—everything about him—is now contained on the Race server, which, legend has it, sits up on Sky-Base. Adam thinks about the flood of data, whole lives chopped up into bytes of code. He wonders how they make sense of it and whether they’ll be able to see inside him with any greater clarity than he can.

  Either way his fate is sealed.

  That’s it. Done. It’s ride or die now.

  No turning back.

  —

  The names keep being called, down the list:

  VIN BLUE

  EZRA DARK

  ELLIS CRAB

  JET CRANE

  MAISHA COLT

  NATHANIEL SKYE…

  Nate drops his Sunblazer and moves up the line. He cuts a small figure walking up the row of Riders. A scrawny kid with no hope in hell. The Colonel’s shadow swamps Nate. For a moment, he seems to disappear and then he reemerges, blinking and looking startled, as if what he saw in that shadow held some harbinger of doom.

  Adam grits his teeth and wishes he’d never met Nate. He’s a liability. A weakness. And Adam can’t afford weakness. He makes a promise to himself to lose Nate right off the starting line. But he feels a pang of guilt as Nate comes trotting up the line, winking at him, trying to muster a cool show.

  It doesn’t wash. He’s afraid. Like everyone else.

  Adam wonders about Kane and if he missed him. He hasn’t seen him. Hasn’t heard his name called. Plus some kids are so covered up it’s impossible to tell who they are.

  And the names keep coming. Some Adam knows; others are half familiar. Most unknown.

  BETH WOLF

  KNUT SON

  ASH KILLER

  BEN CROWFOOT

  RENFRO KNOX

  THAKRAR KUSH

  SOLO HENTAI…

  He stops hearing them. He shuts his eyes and drifts away. Floats up the canyon wall. Hits a hot thermal and whoosh, he’s up high, above it all. The canyon forks beneath him like a crack in the surface of a vast clay plate. The sun is a blazing white disc, and heat rises in liquid waves.

  Then he’s back in his seat. He sees the terrified kid now standing before the Colonel. Adam watches with mild interest, half expecting revolt, but not with much conviction.

  The Colonel scans him. The kid’s eyes blow wide. Then he runs.

  Adam stands up on his byke and sees the kid breaking away. The Colonel still h
as the scanner in his hand. A commotion of raised voices follows. Shouts from the crowd. The boy is running hard, taking a haphazard route through the Riders, scrambling up a cliff bank.

  What’s he doin?

  “I WANT OUT!” the kid yells. “I…I made a mistake. Please…it’s not for me. Please.”

  Adam shakes his head. He understands his fear. He feels it himself. But there’s nowhere to go. It’s too late. The only way a scanned Rider leaves the Race is by crossing the finish line.

  A GRUB descends, swift as the devil. It snatches the kid’s arm in a metal fist and hauls him from his byke. Then it drags him, kicking and screaming, up the line. The Riders look the other way as they pass. Adam watches in horror.

  The GRUB hauls the boy to the feet of the Colonel and forces him to his knees. The kid is wailing uncontrollably now, begging them to release him.

  The Colonel looks down at him. His silver glasses reflect the wreck before him. He steps back, as if the boy carries some disgusting fungal disease that might jump from his skin. The Colonel holds out his arm and makes a muffled request for something.

  Adam squirms. He knows the nature of the request.

  A second GRUB fetches an object that looks like an archaic drill and hands it to the Colonel. He takes it. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t issue a warning to the Riders. No long speech, no dramatic pause to add weight and tension to the moment. He simply holds the object in the palm of his hand and clicks a button.

  A gout of dark blood spurts from below the boy’s left ear. His body falls slack.

  The Colonel hands the hideous thing back to the GRUB and waves his hand. The two GRUBs drag the limp and twitching body from sight.

  It happens so fast Adam doesn’t have time to feel the full force of shock. He sits on his byke, stunned into silence.

  —

  More names. Down the list. Read out with indifference, as if the kid never existed. As if his life were no more important or significant than the life of an insect crushed under a boot.

  WADE RIP

  RAFE APPLESEED

  ADAH CAVE

  RED STETSON

  LEVI BLOOD…

  Levi Blood. The name sends a shudder through Adam. He feels cold sweat run down his spine. His knuckles are white on his handlebars.

  He hears boots crunching up the shale. He closes his eyes and he breathes. Every other sound is shut out and all he hears is his own breathing—in and out, in and out—and those boots coming up behind him.

  He feels a shadow move past him. Feels the heat of a body brushing close. He keeps his eyes shut and listens to the boots—the scraping sound they make in the sand and the stone.

  He can smell him. The unwashed sweat of him.

  Adam shakes his head and feels a wave of nausea. He grips the handlebars to stay upright. And he remembers his promise to Frank.

  I’ll find him. The one who killed you. I’ll take blood for the blood he spilled.

  Adam is concentrating so hard he almost misses the next name called.

  SADIE BLOOD

  His eyes flick open and he swivels in his seat.

  Sadie?

  He cranes his neck over the Riders and…there she is. Tall and graceful. She moves up the line with her cool, easy sway. She looks grim as she comes past him. She doesn’t see him.

  What’s she doin riding the Blackwater?

  Her swagger is inhibited by a full complement of high-tech gear. A molded flak jacket that looks articulated and vented. Body armor, to keep her cool and protected, no doubt with a built-in back brace. Black leather riding boots with steel toes. Protective pads strapped to her shins, elbow pads with extended sleeves to cover her biceps and forearms. But she wears no helmet. Her shaved head is covered. Her goggles sit on top of her red bandanna, which flickers in the breeze.

  She’s up ahead of the column already, shaking the Colonel’s hand. This time the Colonel leans forward and touches her brow and whispers something to her and, while the crowds roar their approval, Adam sees her flinch and step back.

  He can’t tear his eyes from her. He watches her take her Race pack and come back down the line, pulling the straps onto her shoulders, securing her goggles on her face.

  Adam swivels round to watch Sadie retake her seat. She glances up and sees him looking. She gazes at him through her sun-mirrored goggles, blankly, as if they’d never met.

  Get a grip. She doesn’t recognize me. That’s all.

  Then a new thought enters his head.

  Hell. First Nate, now Sadie.

  His odds of riding alone and not caring about anyone are shattered. He knows he’ll never be able to stop thinking about Sadie or Nate. He’ll worry, start to finish. If he gets that far.

  Adam counts Riders to think about something else. Eighty-one, including himself. Eighty-one souls ready to die for the promise of something better.

  After each one of them comes forward to get scanned and pick up their packs, they crowd together and they twitch and fidget and rock on their saddles. Now the Colonel hauls the pistol from his belt. It flashes silver in the sun and he cocks back the hammer with a thumb.

  Adam’s heart leaps in his chest. He takes a deep lungful of air and counts down the seconds in his head. It’s hot and close and the canyon fills with dust. No one makes a sound.

  Adam resets the timer on his dashboard to zero.

  Colonel Blood points his gun to a thin strip of sky….

  The pistol report is loud as a clap of thunder. It echoes off the canyon walls and loud cries rise up. The Riders, in a seething mass, slam their gears and go.

  Adam throws the Longthorn hard right to evade the coming tide. The Riders, simmering with pent-up adrenaline, come churning from the start line. They crackle like locusts in their articulated armor. Engines roar and dirt flies. Riders kick and lash out at each other, fighting for the lead.

  Adam feels the heat of bodies left and right. Riders, quick on his tail. He can hear their ragged breathing and the rattle of their chains. He can hear byke wheels carving up the dirt.

  Stones fly and grit hits him. He snaps his visor down and keeps going. Hips back, torso level, head and eyes up. Shoulders back, elbows out, knees bent. His weight driving forward. A position that allows him to attack.

  Adam doesn’t wait to become a victim. He stays out of trouble, goes wide fast, stays where the bykes are thin, away from the pack. He pushes his fear deep inside and he weaves into a Rider’s slipstream—a Dog by the look of him—and he stays there, head down and hell-bent.

  The Rider ahead is sinuous and skilled. He leans, twists and rips through the Trail, and Adam, in his wake, takes the same line, conserving energy.

  The Riders carve through the dry riverbed, over loose stones and gritty sand; they snake in a scarf of dust along its contour, sweep up its banks—the dry, hard ridges—up onto the old watermark, and swerve down again, their wheels jerking and swinging as they go.

  Adam’s heart pounds in his chest.

  The sun is searing bright. The canyon track streaks out in front of him. He glides over the sandy track. All his fears fall away like dust on a wind and the hell of yesterday becomes a vague memory. This is where he’s meant to be. Where he was born to be. Here on his byke with nothing but sun and muscle and blood to power him through.

  Then the Rider ahead comes crashing off his byke two lengths in front. Adam, with a quick burst of speed, avoids barreling into the slowed Rider in front of him and shoots up the bank. He sees another slam into the fallen Rider with a high-pitched wail, and this second Rider somersaults over his handlebars and crashes headlong into a tangle of tires, spokes and limbs. Another swerves, gets thrown, but his boot is trapped and the byke remains upright, and she drags the Rider some twenty yards, twisting his leg, smashing his body.

  Adam rockets past the chaos, heart thumping, sickened by the sight. But he keeps going.

  Stay cool. Keep steady.

  The world is a blur, buried under a veil of dust. Adam flies alon
g the track, keeping his head down. He feels he’s in a void. Apart from it all. Not here.

  The byke’s suspension bounces under him and he concentrates on the mechanics. Sadie did a bang-up job. The Longthorn has never ridden so smoothly. She rides like new. Better than new. The brakes work with a quick, one-fingered pull, and the tires are fat and thick with treads. The gears slot with slick precision.

  The byke feels alive under him. A living, breathing thing, twitching and ticking with energy, like a snorting, purebred racehorse from days long before.

  But the byke is not enough. Adam knows he’ll need extreme powers of concentration and skill to keep strapped to the seat, to negotiate the rigors of the Race.

  He pushes himself low against the hot body of his byke. He settles into the rhythm of the ride. Shapes his breathing to the small rises and falls of the track. They’re a team—him and the Longthorn—tethered by an invisible link that ties the byke to his consciousness. Rider and byke. One being. Alone against the world.

  Adam feels a pang of despair.

  What kind of person has a byke for a best friend?

  He thinks of Sadie, searches for her in the maelstrom of bykes, but he can’t find her. Looks for Nate, but he’s lost him too. All the Riders look the same, caked in dust as they are. There isn’t any hope of finding Kane either. Kane. Could he be a friend?

  Hell no! Not ever.

  He can’t let anyone close. Frank told him not to. Told him to watch those closest to him.

  They’re the ones end up hurting you the most.

  He swerves a ditch and guns the motor past a Rider stranded in a swamp of loose sand. The Rider has been separated from her byke and she dodges the coming pack, like a human pinball.