by Jenny Martin
“That’s all right,” he says. “I can give you the lowdown.” He pulls down my visor and flips a switch below the ignition. Suddenly the dash screens blink to life and jump right out at me. Literally. I flinch back against the seat as if the floating panels are going to bite. I can still see the windshield, but the tachometer and the rest of the gauges and controls hover near the bottom of my field of vision.
In fact, when I turn my head, they move with me. “VR controls?”
He nods.
“What about the throttle?” I ask. “How am I supposed to—”
He gestures toward the console beside my right arm. There’s a flat-deck touch screen panel.
“The center toggle is the throttle,” he says. “Swipe it up to open. All the way down to choke. Blinking circle at the top is your trigger. You have three bursts loaded. Just press and go.”
Even after I’ve processed his explanation, my right fist wants to close around a mechanical throttle that isn’t there. “This is sooo weird,” I say.
Gil shouts from the pit wall. “You gonna sit there all day, or you gonna give it a go?”
“You’ll be all right, Vanguard.” Cash slaps me on the shoulder. “Just go for it.”
When he steps back into the safety zone, that’s exactly what I do.
I roar out of the pit lane and into the front stretch. I’m not used to the fancy virtual controls, but my feet still know how to work an accelerator just fine. At first, it’s not that hard to obey Gil’s warning—I haven’t quite adjusted to the setup, so I’m content to keep the RPMs in a reasonable range. Reasonable for me, anyway. Anything less than three thousand feels like a crawl.
I’m not exactly crawling right now.
I’m careful around the first two turns. On most real circuit tracks, there are magnetized panels on at least one of the turns. Get too close to the wall, and you end up skidding helplessly against it. The only way to bust free is to burn a fuel trigger. The feature is designed to shake things up on the track, but the mag walls are every speed demon’s nightmare. Waste more than one trigger prying yourself free and you’re rusting done, at least as far as the standings go. Nobody’s ever won without saving those precious fuel bursts for gaining straightaway speed.
I have no idea if these walls are juiced, so I’m not taking any chances. Gil would probably string me up and eat my liver if I wrecked his rig during a test run.
I’m just rolling along when I see the exit tunnel built into the back stretch. Looks like Benroyal’s arranged it so drivers can make the third turn and keep driving around the oval or they can exit onto a longer, point-to-point rally course. Every Corporate Cup series has as least two regular lap track runs, but I hate them. What’s the point in going around and around in circles?
For me, the real heart of rally racing is the cross-country course, the traditional, multi-point routes that hearken back to the circuit’s earliest days, when the first colonists sprinted hundreds of grueling miles to stake a claim on their own patch of dirt and sand. Like them, I’m aching to run off this smooth track and onto a rough road with plenty of rolling hills and hairpin turns. Right now, it’s all I can do not to break for the tunnel. And oh, how I would love to make off with this rig.
But I wouldn’t get very far. And I know what they’d do to Bear if I even tried. So I’m forced to honor my word and I make a nice, clean third turn. As I’m speeding through the back stretch, my eyes finally get comfortable with the virtual hyper-screens. I’ve figured out the throttle, and it’s been too long since I’ve had my foot on the floor.
I need this.
My mind slips into a zone—I wonder if my father felt this same rush, driving the circuit. Even as I roar down this empty track, I can almost visualize the blur of a hundred thousand rally fans, screaming from the stands. I hear the snarl of engines on all sides. I feel the sweatbox heat of the three hundredth lap.
One last turn. Straight shot. I go for one more lap. Then two. Three. Faster. This time, I’ll make this rig scream. My hand slams against the throttle deck and I find the triggers.
Ready.
Push.
GO.
Whoa. The bursts are like nothing I’ve ever felt. The car runs pretty tight, but only a death grip on the wheel keeps me from spinning out of control. I’m banking dangerously close to the wall and it’s time to start praying.
Please. Please. Hold on. Yes.
My tires squeal but valiantly grip the track. I’ve managed to keep it together and make the next straightaway. My heart pounds and this glorious feeling builds and expands, radiating from the fist-sized knot in my core, until I’m as weightless as laughter. I smile, because this is what I was made for. This moment. Right or wrong, this is my inheritance.
Two last white-knuckle turns and I brake hard near the front stretch, engineering a series of hard jolt pirouettes across the blacktop. I spin and spin, but I’m anything but out of control. This is my victory dance.
At the finish line, I skid to a rubber-melting stop. The crew runs out onto the track.
Gil says nothing—I know he’s sizing me up and weighing the cost of my reckless speed. Bear and Goose look completely horrified, but I can tell Cash is on my side.
“Vanguard?” Cash says. “That was hot.”
“Seem to know your way around a track,” Gil adds.
Once the engine dies, I punch the six-point release, peel myself off the seat, and slide out of the rig. “Runs great. Spring rate is a little off. I’m tough on tires, so adjust the camber. That’s about it.”
I walk off the track. I don’t have to look—I can hear the sound of their jaws dropping.
After we drive back to Benroyal’s high-rise, I expect Auguste to drop us off, but he takes the elevator up with us. “You tucking us in tonight?” I tease him.
“No, no,” he says. “The fitting. I take no chances. I must make sure the couturières are precise.”
I’m not sure about courti-whatsits, but fitting is definitely an ominous word. I don’t like the sound of this at all. Maybe they’re just measuring me for my crew gear? That’s what I tell myself, until I catch Bear’s uncomfortable foot-to-foot shuffle. Something is up, and he knows it.
“I’m sure Phee is going to love this,” Cash says. “All the dresses and stylists. The shoes. And the hair extensions. Just think of all the super-fun possibilities.”
I am no one’s dress-up doll. I turn on Auguste, my manager/white-trouser-wearing yacht captain. “What?!”
Goose rolls his eyes and waves Cash off. “Pay no attention to him, he is joking.”
“Good. He better be,” I say. I’m so worn out from our whirlwind day at Racing HQ, I don’t appreciate the heart attack.
“Don’t be absurd,” Auguste chides. “You won’t meet the hair stylists until tomorrow.”
In my apartment, someone has tidied up. All traces of last night’s brawl are gone. The broken table has been replaced and the breakfast dishes I left out have been washed and put away. It seems my corporate prison term includes maid service.
Honestly, at this point, I don’t really care who was here, messing with my stuff. I’m more concerned with who is here, messing with me now. I’m ready to tell everyone good night and good riddance. Of course, Auguste will have none of it. Every time I protest, he threatens to schedule additional fittings, and just this one is horrifying enough.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many people eyeballing me. Including Cash—I cannot get him to leave. When he and Bear aren’t exchanging threatening looks, he’s gushing with running commentary on each and every outfit the stylists throw at me. At least, I think these two vultures are stylists. For all I know, Phillip, the man in the purple suit, is really the devil and Bijan, the fabric- swatch-bearing bimbo at his side, is his favorite harpy.
I stand here, and I can’t help staring at the creamy
throw rug covered with a lifetime’s worth of too-tight shirts and skirts and hapless halter tops. It’s like the Castran Fashion Feed vomited all over the living room.
“I think the poppy red is a much better color for you than the desert mauve. And that jacket has to go,” Cash mocks. “Don’t you think?”
Phillip, the eggplant-wearing hell spawn that he is, agrees. He taps his chin. “Hmm,” he says.
He says hmm a lot.
“Hold still, Fiona,” Bijan says. “And stand up straight.”
“It’s Phee,” I growl. “My name is Phee.”
“Uh-huh,” she says.
I can tell she’s sick of my backtalk. She’s getting huffy; her fat-transferred behind jiggles every time she has to push my shoulders back to adjust my posture. She’s not the only one who’s about had it, though. I’m this close to chasing everyone out, canceling all fittings until further notice.
Bijan has already scanned me with her handheld laser four times. How many measurements of my nearly nonexistent chest does anyone really need? I let Phillip hold things up under my chin. I even let them both drape two dozen cocktail dresses in my face without throwing up all over the silk bodices and strappy shoes.
But I am not trying anything on. No way.
“I don’t need these,” I say.
“You need them,” Goose argues. “Press conferences. Circuit events. Parties. On the circuit and off, you represent the wealth and prestige of Benroyal Industries. Racing is more than the national obsession—no other sport on three planets commands such attention, and you are about to become a part of the spectacle.”
If he wanted to win me over, that was not the way to do it. “This is not me,” I say. “At all.”
Auguste frowns at me. “Yes, yes, Miss Vanguard. That’s the point. We don’t want you to look like you. We want you to look extraordinary.”
There’s a blur of words as both Bear and Cash talk over each other. “. . . already are extraordinary,” Cash says. “. . . fine as she is,” Bear agrees.
I’m a little stunned. It almost feels like I’m not alone, like we’re all in this together. Unfortunately, their mutual faith in my worth as a human being does nothing to neutralize the bad blood between them.
Cash stands up. “I’m out.” He looks at Bear and extends a fragile olive branch. “Wanna catch a feed at my place? Ditch the fashion show?”
Bear shakes his head and summons his worst stoic face of doom. “How about you just leave?”
Everyone stops what they’re doing to stare at the bald-faced rudeness of the exchange, and even I’m not sure what’s gotten into Bear. The boy I know is careful with words, but always, always kind. He still opens doors and carries groceries for every old lady on Mercer Street, for sun’s sake.
I could say something to Bear, but I know it would just push him over the edge. And I don’t need Cash making a scene either.
“You know what?” I say, pushing the latest chiffon monstrosity out of my face. “I’m done for the night. Everybody out. Right now.”
Cash is the first one out the door, and I’m not sure that’s a relief. After Bear stalks to his room and everyone else clears the apartment, I’m alone with nothing but brooding thoughts.
I walk into my room just as the Castran sun dies. I know this because the milky iridescence of the outside flex wall has somehow morphed into transparent glass. Whoever made my bed must have also swiped the wall sparkling clean. I didn’t know they made flex walls like this, but as I face the horizon, this window on the world is a gift.
We are above the worst of the smog, the choke and residue of a thousand gritty streets. I can see past the city into the shadow-veined foothills of the Sand Ridge Mountains. The sight of it all is so seamless and clear, I’d swear there was no wall at all. I move closer and the illusion is broken. I see the ghost of my reflection on the shatter-proof surface and it reminds me of all the inescapable boundaries that keep me here. The contracts. The cameras. The threats against those I care for most.
I can race, but I cannot run. I can live, but I cannot breathe.
Something does not add up. Racing is everything here, but I’m an unknown with no real rally experience, just a couple years’ worth of small-time match-ups under my belt. Forty-eight hours ago, I was pacing Benny’s garage and now I’m living in the Spire.
Why?
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’m somewhere between the paralysis of sleep and blinking awareness, in the hazy, just-under-the-surface zone. My side-to-stomach-and-back-again turns have twisted the sheets; I’m tangled up in soft cotton knots. Eyelids and limbs are too heavy to move.
“Pretty girl,” a woman whispers, touching my arm. “Such a pretty girl . . .”
My eyelids snap open so fast, it hurts, and blood is pumping and the flow of fear and instinct and adrenaline is pushing, pushing, pushing through veins that are too small to accommodate the flood.
There is someone in my room; I can just make out her bone-sliver shape in the dark, and I’m already moving. I’m off the bed, feet on the floor, back against the wall, in the space of one breath.
Don’t panic. Watch. Listen. Sweep the room and look for an out or a defensive position. My eyes flick toward the door, but she is in the way. I can’t see her face. She is tall, but her long, long dark hair seems to weigh her down. She is so thin and eggshell frail.
And it seems my jump to the wall has frightened her almost as badly as she has startled me. She starts to cry, the sobs bleed into her voice. “You can’t stay here . . . they give you things to make you forget . . . they cook it themselves.” She speaks gibberish, talking so fast I can barely keep up. “They cook it . . . don’t you understand?!”
She tries to press something into my hand—a flex card—but instinctively, I flinch away, letting it fall to the floor.
“Take it.” She scrambles to pick it back up, mumbling the whole time. “Sweetwater. Remember. It’s Sweetwater. You have to remember. You have to take it.”
This lady is completely unhinged. I could backtrack my way into the bathroom, lock myself in, and summon a flex wall panic button. Or I could tackle this crazy and shove her in instead. Rust. She moves closer. I can sense the impulse; she’s going to pounce if I don’t move. Still pinned against the wall, I edge right.
“You have to get out!” She lashes, clawing for my hands or arms, anything to hold on to. “Get out or they will give you things to make you forget.”
I pivot, grabbing her by the shoulders. Before she can react, I force her into the bathroom and slam the door to keep her inside. I nearly plowed through her—she is no more solid than melting snow. Through the door, the woman keeps calling out to me. Get out . . . Get out . . . Get out before it’s too late.
No sooner do I reach for my flex to call for help than I hear the boot stomps. Voices. A trio of security guards burst into the room and push me aside. Black shapes moving past me in the dark. The muffled cries of a madwoman being dragged away.
Another slamming door. Footsteps in the hallway. It’s Bear. He stumbles into my bedroom. When he sees the guards in my room, he charges forward, but then freezes almost as quickly, scanning the room.
“Bear!” I call out.
He sees me, finally realizing the guards don’t have me. He barrels past them and over the bed until he’s at my side. He reaches for me, but I stand and push him back.
Bear’s eyes are wide, lit with alarm. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”
My protector, he tries again, pulling me closer. I know he just wants to shield me, to guard me from the lunatic mess who’s invaded my room, but my pulse is still racing. Bear overshadows me, and suddenly I don’t want his arms around me. I hear the woman’s birdlike shrieks as the guards haul her completely away and it makes this tiny room feel all the more like a cage.
“What happened, Phee?”
“I d
on’t know. Just a crazy woman . . . I don’t know how she got in. I’m sorry, Bear, I’m sorry,” I say, pushing past him. “I need to breathe.”
Still in my pajamas, I run after the guards. Once I make it to the living room, I realize I’m too late—only one member of the uniformed security detail is left. My front doors are still open, but they’ve already taken her out of the apartment.
In the lobby, I see the other guards hustle her into the elevator. Her back is turned to me, but I recognize the man waiting for her. Even as she collapses against him, there is almost no reaction on his face, just a trace of possessive concern. Mechanically, he smooths her hair and whispers in her ear, as if he’s done this a thousand times before. There’s something in the tenderness that makes him all the more terrifying. It’s the flicker of restraint. He’s an animal, the predator too strong to hold this china doll. After he folds her into his arms, Charles Benroyal looks up, straight at me.
The torment in his eyes instantly vanishes. Cruelly, he smiles. The sight chills me to the bone far more than her trembling voice and frozen touch. Benroyal holds a half-empty glass—his cheeks are bright with wine. And he is so sharply dressed; no doubt he’s just been torn from a penthouse gala to deal with this woman. She’s a beloved inconvenience, someone I was never meant to meet.
But he is not so alarmed. The look on his face assures me that everything is firmly under control and that I need not concern myself with these matters.
The elevator doors close. She’s gone. “Who was that?” I ask the remaining guard.
He was heading for the entryway and my near shout brings him to a sharp halt. He pulls an about-face and looks at me. I see that he’s not that much older than I am. Bet there’ll be hell to pay when he’s forced to account for this lapse in security. “I’m sorry, Miss Vanguard. She used an all-access flex, but it won’t happen again. Sorry to disturb you.”
