by Tom Holt
He eyes us. “Going down?”
“We’re stepping off here, sir,” Annie says, doing just that.
He moves into the elevator, mouth twisted in a disapproving frown as his eyes pass over me. Probably not used to seeing someone my age working security in a building like this. I have to resist the urge to wink at him.
I haven’t seen inside any of the offices yet, but whoever built this place obviously didn’t have any budget leftover for the hallways. There’s a foot-high strip of what looks like marble-textured plastic running along at chest height. There are buzzing fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and the floor is covered with that weird, flat, fuzzy carpet which always has little lint balls dotted over it.
“Jesus, who picked out the paint?” The wall above the plastic marble is a shade of purple that’s probably called something like Executive Mojo.
“Who cares?” Annie says. “Damn building shouldn’t even be here.”
I sigh. This again.
She taps the fake marble. “You know they displaced a bunch of historical buildings for this? They just moved in and forced a purchase.”
I sigh. Annie’s always had a real hard-on for the city’s history. “Yeah, I know. You told me before.”
“And you saw that notice in the elevator. They just built this place. They already having to fix it up again. And the spots they bought out—mom-and-pop places. Historical buildings. City didn’t give a fuck.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m just saying. It’s messed up, man.”
“Can we get this done before the heat death of the universe? Please?”
It doesn’t take us long to find the right office. Paul helps, using the blueprints he’s pulled up to guide us along, occasionally telling Annie that this isn’t a good idea and that she needs to hurry. I pop the lock, just like before—it’s even easier this time—and we step inside.
There’s no Executive Mojo here. It’s a basic space, with a desk and terminal for a technician and a big, clearly marked access panel on the wall. By the desk, someone has left a toolbox full of computer paraphernalia, overflowing with wires and connectors. Maybe the same dickhead who left the half-eaten sandwich in the server room. I should leave a note telling him to clean up his shit.
The access panel is off to one side, slightly raised from the surface of the wall. Annie pops it, revealing a nest of thin cables. She attaches the coupler, which looks like a bulldog clip from the future, then checks her phone, reading the data that comes off it. With a grunt, she moves the coupler to the second cable. We have to get the correct one, and the only way to do that is to identify Chase from his traffic.
There are floor-to-ceiling windows on my left, and the view over the glittering city takes my breath away. We’re only on the 30th floor, not even close to the top of the building, but I can still see a hell of long way. A police helicopter hovers in the distance, too far for us to hear, its blinking tail lights just visible. The view looks north, out towards Burbank and Glendale, and on the horizon, there’s the telltale orange glow of wildfires.
The sight pulls up some bad memories. Of all the cities Tanner had to put me, it had to be the one where things burn.
It’s bad this year. Usually, it’s some kid with fireworks or a tourist dropping a cigarette that starts it up, but this time the grass was so dry that it caught on its own. Every TV in the last couple of days has had big breaking news alerts flashing on them. The ones tuned to Fox News—you get a few, even in California—have given it a nickname. hellstorm. Because of course they have.
This year’s fire has been creeping towards Burbank and Glendale, chewing through Wildwood Canyon and the Verdugo Hills. The flames have made LA even smoggier than usual. A fire chief on one of the TVs—a guy who managed to look both calm and mightily pissed off at the same time—said that they didn’t think the fires would reach the city.
“Teagan.”
“Huh?”
“You got your voodoo, right?” She nods to the coupler. “Float it up into the wall.”
“Oh. Yeah. Good idea.”
The panel is wide enough for me to lean in, craning my head back. The space is dusty, a small shower of fine grit nearly making me sneeze. Annie shines a torch, but I don’t need it. She’s got the correct cable pinched between thumb and forefinger. It’s the work of a few seconds for me to find it with my voodoo and pull it slightly outwards from its buddies, float the coupler across and clamp it on. Annie flicks the torch off, and the coupler is swallowed by the shadows.
What can I say? I’m handy.
“Aight,” Annie says, snapping the panel shut. “Paul? We’re good. Over.”
“Copy that. We’re getting traffic already. Skedaddle on out of there. Over.”
Skedaddle? I mouth the word at Annie, who ignores me. She replaces the panel, slotting it back into place, then turns to go.
As we step out of the tech’s office, a voice reaches us from the other end of the hallway: “Hey.”
Two security guards. No, three. Real ones. Walking in close formation, heading right for us. The one in the centre is a big white guy with a huge chest-length beard, peak pulled down over his eyes. He’s scary, but it’s the other two I’m worried about. They’re young, with wide eyes and hands already on their holsters, fingers twitching.
Ah, shit.
if you enjoyed
AN ORC ON THE WILD SIDE
look out for
A BIG SHIP AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE
The Salvagers: Book One
by
Alex White
Firefly meets The Fast and the Furious in this science fiction adventure series that follows a crew of outcasts as they try to find a legendary ship that just might be the key to saving the universe.
A washed-up treasure hunter, a hotshot racer, and a deadly secret society.
They’re all on a race against time to hunt down the greatest warship ever built. Some think the ship is lost forever, some think it’s been destroyed, and some think it’s only a legend, but one thing’s for certain: whoever finds it will hold the fate of the universe in their hands. And treasure that valuable can never stay hidden for long.…
Read the book that V. E. Schwab called “A clever fusion of magic and sci-fi. I was hooked from page one.”
Chapter One
D.N.F.
The straight opened before the two race cars: an oily river, speckled yellow by the evening sun. They shot down the tarmac in succession like sapphire fish, streamers of wild magic billowing from their exhausts. They roared toward the turn, precision movements bringing them within centimeters of one another.
The following car veered to the inside. The leader attempted the same.
Their tires only touched for a moment. They interlocked, and sheer torque threw the leader into the air. Jagged chunks of duraplast glittered in the dusk as the follower’s car passed underneath, unharmed but for a fractured front wing. The lead race car came down hard, twisting eruptions of elemental magic spewing from its wounded power unit. One of its tires exploded into a hail of spinning cords, whipping the road.
In the background, the other blue car slipped away down the chicane—Nilah’s car.
The replay lost focus and reset.
The crash played out again and again on the holoprojection in front of them, and Nilah Brio tried not to sigh. She had seen plenty of wrecks before and caused more than her share of them.
“Crashes happen,” she said.
“Not when the cars are on the same bloody team, Nilah!”
Claire Asby, the Lang Autosport team principal, stood at her mahogany desk, hands folded behind her back. The office looked less like the sort of ultramodern workspace Nilah had seen on other teams and more like one of the mansions of Origin, replete with antique furniture, incandescent lighting, stuffed big-game heads (which Nilah hated), and gargantuan landscapes from planets she had never seen. She supposed the decor favored a pale woman like Claire, but it did nothing for Nilah’s d
ark brown complexion. The office didn’t have any of the bright, human-centric design and ergonomic beauty of her home, but team bosses had to be forgiven their eccentricities—especially when that boss had led them to as many victories as Claire had.
Her teammate, Kristof Kater, chuckled and rocked back on his heels. Nilah rolled her eyes at the pretty boy’s pleasure. They should’ve been checking in with the pit crews, not wasting precious time at a last-minute dressing down.
The cars hovering over Claire’s desk reset and moved through their slow-motion calamity. Claire had already made them watch the footage a few dozen times after the incident: Nilah’s car dove for the inside and Kristof moved to block. The incident had cost her half her front wing, but Kristof’s track weekend had ended right there.
“I want you both to run a clean race today. I am begging you to bring those cars home intact at all costs.”
Nilah shrugged and smiled. “That’ll be fine, provided Kristof follows a decent racing line.”
“We were racing! I made a legal play and the stewards sided with me!”
Nilah loved riling him up; it was far too easy. “You were slow, and you got what you deserved: a broken axle and a bucket of tears. I got a five-second penalty”—she winked before continuing—“which cut into my thirty-three-second win considerably.”
Claire rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Please stop acting like children. Just get out there and do your jobs.”
Nilah held back another jab; it wouldn’t do to piss off the team boss right before a drive. Her job was to win races, not meetings. Silently she and Kristof made their way to the door, and he flung it open in a rare display of petulance. She hadn’t seen him so angry in months, and she reveled in it. After all, a frazzled teammate posed no threat to her championship standings.
They made their way through the halls from Claire’s exotic wood paneling to the bright white and anodized blues of Lang Autosport’s portable palace. Crew and support staff rushed to and fro, barely acknowledging the racers as they moved through the crowds. Kristof was stopped by his sports psychologist, and Nilah muscled past them both as she stepped out into the dry heat of Gantry Station’s Galica Speedway.
Nilah had fired her own psychologist when she’d taken the lead in this year’s Driver’s Crown.
She crossed onto the busy parking lot, surrounded by the bustle of scooter bots and crews from a dozen teams. The bracing rattle of air hammers and the roar of distant crowds in the grandstands were all the therapy she’d need to win. The Driver’s Crown was so close—she could clinch it in two races, especially if Kristof went flying off the track again.
“Do you think this is a game?” Claire’s voice startled her. She’d come jogging up from behind, a dozen infograms swimming around her head, blinking with reports on track conditions and pit strategy.
“Do I think racing is a game? I believe that’s the very definition of sport.”
Claire’s vinegar scowl was considerably less entertaining than Kristof’s anger. Nilah had been racing for Claire since the junior leagues. She’d probably spent more of her teenage years with her principal than her own parents. She didn’t want to disappoint Claire, but she wouldn’t be cowed, either. In truth, the incident galled her—the crash was nothing more than a callow attempt by Kristof to hold her off for another lap. If she’d lost the podium, she would’ve called for his head, but he got what he deserved.
They were a dysfunctional family. Nilah and Kristof had been racing together since childhood, and she could remember plenty of happy days trackside with him. She’d been ecstatic when they both joined Lang; it felt like a sign that they were destined to win.
But there could be only one Driver’s Crown, and they’d learned the hard way the word “team” meant nothing among the strongest drivers in the Pan-Galactic Racing Federation. Her friendship with Kristof was long dead. At least her fondness for Claire had survived the transition.
“If you play dirty with him today, I’ll have no choice but to create some consequences,” said Claire, struggling to keep up with Nilah in heels.
Oh, please. Nilah rounded the corner of the pit lane and marched straight through the center of the racing complex, past the offices of the race director and news teams. She glanced back at Claire who, for all her posturing, couldn’t hide her worry.
“I never play dirty. I win because I’m better,” said Nilah. “I’m not sure what your problem is.”
“That’s not the point. You watch for him today, and mind yourself. This isn’t any old track.”
Nilah got to the pit wall and pushed through the gate onto the starting grid. The familiar grip of race-graded asphalt on her shoes sent a spark of pleasure up her spine. “Oh, I know all about Galica.”
The track sprawled before Nilah: a classic, a legend, a warrior’s track that had tested the mettle of racers for a hundred years. It showed its age in the narrow roadways, rendering overtaking difficult and resulting in wrecks and safety cars—and increased race time. Because of its starside position on Gantry Station, ambient temperatures could turn sweltering. Those factors together meant she’d spend the next two hours slow-roasting in her cockpit at three hundred kilometers per hour, making thousands of split-second, high-stakes decisions.
This year brought a new third sector with more intricate corners and a tricky elevation change. It was an unopened present, a new toy to play with. Nilah longed to be on the grid already.
If she took the podium here, the rest of the season would be an easy downhill battle. There were a few more races, but the smart money knew this was the only one that mattered. The harmonic chimes of StarSport FN’s jingle filled the stadium, the unofficial sign that the race was about to get underway.
She headed for the cockpit of her pearlescent-blue car. Claire fell in behind her, rattling off some figures about Nilah’s chances that were supposed to scare her into behaving.
“Remember your contract,” said Claire as the pit crew boosted Nilah into her car. “Do what you must to take gold, but any scratch you put on Kristof is going to take a million off your check. I mean it this time.”
“Good thing I’m getting twenty mil more than him, then. More scratches for me!” Nilah pulled on her helmet. “You keep Kristof out of my way, and I’ll keep his precious car intact.”
She flipped down her visor and traced her mechanist’s mark across the confined space, whispering light flowing from her fingertips. Once her spell cemented in place, she wrapped her fingers around the wheel. The system read out the stats of her sigil: good V’s, not great on the Xi, but a healthy cast.
Her magic flowed into the car, sliding around the finely tuned ports, wending through channels to latch onto gears. Through the power of her mechanist’s mark, she felt the grip of the tires and spring of the rods as though they were her own legs and feet. She joined with the central computer of her car, gaining psychic access to radio, actuation, and telemetry. The Lang Hyper 8, a motorsport classic, had achieved phenomenal performance all season in Nilah’s hands.
Her psychic connection to the computer stabilized, and she searched the radio channels for her engineer, Ash. They ran through the checklist: power, fuel flow, sigil circuits, eidolon core. Nilah felt through each part with her magic, ensuring all functioned properly. Finally, she landed on the clunky Arclight Booster.
It was an awful little PGRF-required piece of tech, with high output but terrible efficiency. Nilah’s mechanist side absolutely despised the magic-belching beast. It was as ugly and inelegant as it was expensive. Some fans claimed to like the little light show when it boosted drivers up the straights, but it was less than perfect, and anything less than perfect had to go.
“Let’s start her up, Nilah.”
“Roger that.”
Every time that car thrummed to life, Nilah fell in love all over again. She adored the Hyper 8 in spite of the stonking flaw on his backside. Her grip tightened about the wheel and she took a deep breath.
The lights signaled
a formation lap and the cars took off, weaving across the tarmac to keep the heat in their tires. They slipped around the track in slow motion, and Nilah’s eyes traveled the third sector. She would crush this new track design. At the end of the formation lap, she pulled into her grid space, the scents of hot rubber and oil smoke sweet in her nose.
Game time.
The pole’s leftmost set of lights came on: five seconds until the last light.
Three cars ahead of her, eighteen behind: Kristof in first, then the two Makina drivers, Bonnie and Jin. Nilah stared down the Makina R-27s, their metallic livery a blazing crimson.
The next pair of lights ignited: four seconds.
The other drivers revved their engines, feeling the tuning of their cars. Nilah echoed their rumbling engines with a shout of her own and gave a heated sigh, savoring the fire in her belly.
Three seconds.
Don’t think. Just see.
The last light came on, signaling the director was ready to start the race.
Now, it was all about reflexes. All the engines fell to near silence.
One second.
The lights clicked off.
Banshee wails filled the air as the cars’ power units screamed to life. Nilah roared forward, her eyes darting over the competition. Who was it going to be? Bonnie lagged by just a hair, and Jin made a picture-perfect launch, surging up beside Kristof. Nilah wanted to make a dive for it but found herself forced in behind the two lead drivers.
They shot down the straight toward turn one, a double apex. Turn one was always the most dangerous, because the idiots fighting for the inside were most likely to brake too late. She swept out for a perfect parabola, hoping not to see some fool about to crash into her.
The back of the pack was brought up by slow, pathetic Cyril Clowe. He would be her barometer of race success. If she could lap him in a third of the race, it would be a perfect run.
