“Day two!” said Hasp, and another set of screens brightened. “Lost Angeles! Once the heart of our nation, now a ruined city, half-drowned by the ocean, home to savage bands of Howlers lying in wait for unwary travelers with traps and ambushes.”
Now the screens showed a panorama of shattered buildings, emerging street by street from the waves and spreading toward the mountains, before which a clump of skyscrapers leaned broken and carious against the sunset. The quake, and the tsunami that followed, had done the city in long before the Omniwar began. Some said it helped cause it; old Merrica’s economy collapsed when Lost Angeles and Frisco drowned, and things got bad after that.
“Day three!” Hasp said as the final screens lit up. “Kniferidge Pass! A race through storm-lashed mountains. Their route will take them along the edge of the Blight Lands, where madness and poison gases lurk among the great battlefields of the Omniwar, and reality itself is not what it seems. It runs so close, in fact, that hallucinations, will-o’-the-wisps, and strange tricks of perspective have been reported by our advance scouts. Our racers’ nerves and sanity will be tested to the limit as they negotiate bladed rock fields, terrifying precipices, and unstable terrain prone to killer landslides! They’ll need an iron will to survive!”
The applause was louder this time, and over it Hasp cried, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Widowmaker!”
Now came the cheers, feverish, wolfish, and people rose from their seats to clap. Dunbery Hasp raised a hand, acknowledging their worship like some emperor of old. The auditorium lit up to show the crowd, and Shiara gazed at them in horror, at their glittering hungry eyes, their teeth bared in fearsome smiles.
They want to see blood, Shiara thought. That’s why they watch. That’s why the racers are all young. It ain’t nothin’ to do with reactions or aggression or any of that. They just love to see pretty things die.
Afterward, Cassica and Shiara were dressed in white-and-blue racing leathers emblazoned with the logo of their sponsor, MaxiTruck, which neither of them had heard of. They posed for photos while Scadler looked on, dressed to the nines and grinning his gummy grin. No wonder he was happy, Cassica thought; he’d found a corporation dumb and desperate enough to pay him all the sponsorship money up front, no questions asked. By the time they realized it was all going to Scadler’s pocket and not to supplies, it would be too late to get it back. A nervous-looking man in a suit, representing MaxiTruck, scurried about in Scadler’s wake. Harlan was off elsewhere, doing what he could to cover the shortfall that he’d created.
“Stand closer together, girls!” the photographer urged. “Put your arms round each other. And smile! No, really smile!”
But Shiara never was good at faking it; she was stiff and tense where Cassica touched her. It hadn’t been the same between them since Linty Maxxon. Cassica felt angry at being judged and angrier that Shiara wouldn’t talk to her about it. Cassica was prone to explosions, but once over they were forgotten. Shiara nursed her grudges, picked at them quietly like wounds, let them fester. She didn’t like confrontation. Cassica thought it a kind of cowardice.
After the shoot, they were released into the after-party. It was a calmer affair than the press junket they’d attended a few weeks ago. People in smart clothes chatted in groups over drinks while a small band played folk melodies from the old times. The racers, still in their leathers, stood out from the crowd. A semicircular wall of windows let out onto a balcony overlooking the glittering city beyond.
Cassica and Shiara entered together, but their conversation was stilted and awkward, and Cassica was soon scanning the room for more entertaining company. She made eye contact with someone she vaguely recognized—a round, jolly-looking man touring the room with his sharp-faced wife—and they bustled over eagerly as if invited. It was only when they introduced themselves as Dridley and Prua Cussens that Cassica remembered them from the press junket.
Desperate folk, Harlan had said. Won’t do us any good to be seen with them. But now here they were.
“Lovely to meet you!” said Dridley, shaking their hands. “I must admit, you two have come quite out of nowhere!”
“Absolutely out of left field!” Prua agreed with a shrill and slightly hysterical laugh.
“We think it’s wonderful to see such grassroots talent emerge!”
“Yes! Yes!” Prua bobbed her head like a bird.
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” said Cassica, a little suspicious. She took a drink from a passing waitress and sipped it.
Dridley and Prua gave each other a look, as if to say, Shall we do it now? Then Dridley clasped his hands together and leaned forward earnestly.
“I won’t beat around the bush, ladies. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”
“Sorry, we haven’t,” Shiara lied politely.
“Well,” said Dridley. “We have something of a standing offer that we make to all the racers who enter the Widowmaker. You see, we are blessed with riches. Some might say, er, vast riches. And so we’d like to propose a deal. If you should win the Widowmaker, if you should win those two tickets to Olympus, we will gladly buy them from you for the sum of one billion dollars.”
Cassica choked on her drink.
“Are you alright, my dear?” Prua asked, her face a picture of concern.
“Fine,” Cassica wheezed.
“To be clear, the offer is for both tickets,” said Dridley. “We won’t buy them separately. I’ll not go to Olympus without my wife.” And he gave Prua a look of such sugary affection that Cassica wondered if she’d be able to keep her dinner down.
“Can I cut in here? Thanks,” said Kyren Bane, stepping out of the crowd. He took hold of Cassica’s arm, and she was surprised to find herself staring into his dark eyes. “Coming?”
She was moved as if by the force of his will. In one dizzying moment she was whisked away from the others and off through the crowd, without a thought for those left behind. Her heart beat quicker at his touch.
“Those two,” he said. “They’re such a pain. You know he bought his own game show just so he could host it? Totally bombed. It’s pathetic. All the money in the world and they still can’t get to Olympus.”
“No way,” she said, for want of anything better to say. “Didn’t even know you could sell tickets to Olympus.”
“That’s ’cause no one’s stupid enough to do it. Who’d want to stay down here when you could be up there?” He gave the Cussenses a disparaging look over his shoulder. “Takes more than money to be a Celestial,” he said.
She stole glances at him as they went. He was so perfectly disheveled, a strung-out angel in black-and-red leathers. He was too flawless to seem real. Walking with him dazed her.
“Yeah, sorry about before,” he said. “Didn’t know who you were. Get a lot of girls telling me they’re racers just ’cause they drive a car. But you’re the real thing.”
“No big deal,” she heard herself say, even though she’d meant to be annoyed, make it harder for him. He shouldn’t get away with stuff like that just because he was gorgeous. But something about Kyren made her want to agree with him, and in only a moment, the matter was done.
“Anyway, you drove the hell out of that last race.”
“Thanks.”
“And that move you did, knocking that other chick out? Brutal.” He grinned at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back. “Loved it.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do if you want to win.”
“See, that’s the kind of attitude you need if you wanna make it in this world,” he said. He stopped and raised his glass to her. “To you, eh? Gonna be quite a Widowmaker.”
She touched her glass to his and gave him a wicked smile. “To us.”
“Uh-oh,” said Sammis as he drifted up to Shiara. “He’s got her.”
Shiara was embarrassed that she’d been caught staring at Cassica and Kyren across the room. She blushed, then blushed more for blushing.
“Always did have crappy taste in guys,” she mumbled.
>
“Hey, can I introduce you to someone?”
They were joined by an older man of bearish size in his early fifties, with a wide, flat face, his eyes gullied with laughter lines. She knew him immediately. Dutton Rye, a legend of Maximum Racing.
He’d never won the Widowmaker but he’d driven in six of them and won two dozen smaller championships over his career. He was known, above all else, as Maximum Racing’s great survivor. His career spanned fifteen years—a miracle in Maximum Racing—though most of it was before the age of Dunbery Hasp. He’d lived through the Slaughter Year that followed Hasp’s takeover, when they let all cars carry weapons in an effort to boost ratings. One in three racers died that year, taken out in a hail of machine-gun fire or blown up by mines and rockets. It proved to be too much. The public loved to see a sacrifice, but not carnage on that scale. The limits of their morality had been reached, and Maximum Racing was never as lethal after that. Dutton Rye kept driving through it all. “Shiara,” said Sammis. “This is my dad.” He gave her an uncertain frown. “You did know he was my dad, right?”
“I checked up on you,” she said. Then, when he seemed pleased, she added hastily, “Before the last race. Tech’s job, right? Know your rivals.”
Flustered, she extended a hand to Dutton, who shook it. “It’s an honor, sir. Used to watch old footage of you when I was little.”
“Charmed,” he said. “Sammis tells me you’re quite a tech.”
She looked at Sammis in surprise. “Did he now?”
“Well, you came third, didn’t you?” Sammis said. “Drivers don’t do all the work. I wouldn’t be anywhere without a good tech.”
“That’s gotta be the first time I ever heard a driver say that,” Shiara told him approvingly.
Dutton laughed loudly. “You’re not wrong. Some of the most awful people I ever knew were drivers. Egos bigger than their engines!” He joshed Sammis, who chuckled uneasily. “Apologies, but I need to be elsewhere. Sam just wanted to introduce us quick before I went. Pleasure.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” she said, a little bewildered. He’d wanted to introduce her to his dad? Why?
Sammis waited till his father was out of earshot, then kind-of-casually said, “Do you wanna get out of here?”
She met his eyes, saw the awkward nervous hope there. The penny dropped. Blood rushed to her face.
He interpreted her surprise as hesitation. “Just out on the balcony, I mean,” he said quickly. “It’s a nice night. Too many suits in here.”
“Yeah, alright,” she said, suddenly painfully aware of herself. She hurried off in that direction, and Sammis trailed after.
They leaned their forearms on the balcony rail, Anchor City a million lights beneath them, and talked for a time about nothing of consequence. Shiara kept the conversation light; she was getting accustomed to the idea that Sammis liked her. It wasn’t as if it was the first time a boy had taken to her, but it didn’t happen often enough to take it for granted. She was less embarrassed now she knew he was interested, and he was the kind of person who put those around him at ease. Soon she was beginning to enjoy herself.
“Yeah, Dad quit soon after the Slaughter Year,” Sammis was saying. “He lasted a couple more seasons, but he always said it stopped being about sport and started being about money once Dunbery Hasp took over.”
“So what did he do after?”
Sammis ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Can we stop talking about my dad?”
She realized she’d been quizzing him for a quarter hour. “Sure. Sorry.”
“It’s … well, you know. Famous dad and all that. He’s great—I mean, couldn’t ask for a better dad, but …”
“But you get sick of wonderin’ if folks are only interested in you ’cause of him.”
“Something like that.”
“Don’t worry. Know the feelin’. Most times people are talkin’ to me it’s ’cause they wanna get to Cassica.”
He looked through the glass at where Cassica and Kyren stood in close conversation, bodies turned to each other, eyes linked lustfully. “Really?” he asked, and the surprise in his voice pleased her.
“You ever wonder what you’re doin’ this for?” she asked.
“What, you mean racing?”
“Yeah.”
He gazed out over the city. “Yeah, I do, as it happens. I wonder it a lot. Guess I just don’t know what else to do. I’m good at it. Had the best start. When you’re the son of a legend, everyone assumes you’ll be great too. I was racing karts when I was six. Been driving ever since.”
“But?”
“But … I guess I never felt I had a choice, y’know? I mean, at first I wanted to race. Doesn’t every boy wanna be like his daddy for a while? But then you grow up a bit, and you get to wondering.”
A warm wind stirred her white hair against her face. She brushed it out of her eyes. “Sometimes I reckon I’m only doin’ this to please Cassica,” she said.
It was strange how easy it slipped out. “I ain’t sure if it’s her or me who wants this. Certainly ain’t sure I wanted it to go this far. I mean, the Widowmaker? Hell. I just wanna build cars, or fix ’em. Dyin’ in one: that don’t appeal.”
“You could quit,” he suggested.
“Ain’t that simple.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated then, wondering if she should speak of what had come about. But Sammis had the feel of someone she could trust, and she couldn’t think of a good reason why not. So she told him of Harlan’s deal with Scadler, and how they didn’t dare pull out of the race, and how if they didn’t win Scadler would cut the fingers from Harlan’s left hand. By the end, Sammis’s face had darkened.
“Ain’t right,” he said. “None of it.”
“Lot about this world ain’t right,” said Shiara. “Speaking of which …” She jerked a thumb toward the window. Kyren and Cassica were leaving together, his arm around her, her laughing and pushing him away but not trying very hard.
“You wanna go stop her or something?” Sammis asked.
“You can’t stop her,” Shiara said. “ ’Sides, ain’t my business what she does with him.”
But there was something that soured inside her at the sight. Not that she was jealous—Kyren was plainly trouble all over and not her type anyway. It was how easily Cassica turned her back, like she didn’t even need Shiara, like their friendship was nothing. They had things that needed fixing between them, but Cassica was walking away. It had never bothered her before when Cassica left her alone at a party, but since Linty Maxxon, things were different.
Cassica was changing, turning harder and colder. Closing her off, the way she did with Card and the way she was doing with Harlan. Shiara had come to Anchor City partly out of fear of losing her best friend, and now it felt she was losing her anyway. This damn race was turning Cassica into someone Shiara didn’t know.
“Actually, I oughta go too,” said Shiara. “Sorry. This kinda party ain’t really me.”
Sammis almost kept the disappointment off his face. “Oh, hey, of course. I’ll see you at the race, then. Best of luck, huh?”
She was about to leave, but she stopped at that. “Ain’t that a funny thing to say, though? ‘Best of luck.’ We wish it on those we’re racin’ against, when what we mean is: ‘Hope you blow a tire.’ ”
He laughed. “You got me wrong. I mean it. I don’t care if you beat me, long as you don’t win.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Well.” He shrugged. “Gonna be hard for me to ask you out if you’re up on Olympus, isn’t it?” He grinned at her. “You know, it’s pretty when you blush.”
Kyren lounged loose-limbed behind the wheel as they tore down the expressway. Even when he was driving, he looked like he couldn’t give a damn. Cassica, in the passenger seat, tried to feel as relaxed as he seemed, but her stomach was a knot and she tapped her feet nervously.
He was intimidatingly handsome. Just being next to him made her tense
. This was a new feeling: usually it was the boys chasing after her, not the other way round. Usually she was in the driver’s seat. She wanted him too much, and it made her self-conscious, crippled her confidence.
“Some engine, huh? Listen to that!”
“Beautiful,” she agreed, though she hadn’t been paying attention to the car for once. In fact, she barely remembered what it looked like from the outside. After he’d led her out of the party, a concierge pulled it up to the curb, but all her attention had been on him and she didn’t even notice what the model was, only that it was black and sleek and expensive.
“All the new Banshees got this special fuel-mixing thing, gives you an extra kick when you put your foot down at high speed. Check it out.”
He flicked a switch, pressed the accelerator, and the car responded eagerly. They slid past cars and trucks; bridges whipped overhead; rows of reflected lights flurried up the windshield.
“See?” he said over the drone of the tarmac and the hum of the engine. “We’re over two twenty and you can hardly even feel it.”
“Yeah. But what if you want to feel it?” Kyren smiled wryly to show his approval. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
Now it was her turn to smile. She couldn’t imagine a better answer. “Guess not.”
They slowed to pull off the expressway, diving down a ramp into the streets. Cassica had no idea where she was and didn’t care. It was enough to be in the belly of the city, racing past neon tangles in the yellow concrete twilight, with him next to her. She’d first seen Kyren Bane in the grubby kitchen of Gauge’s Diner, when he was on television looking like a Celestial and she was a waitress in a dead-end town. A month later and she was in his car. What a way she’d come. It made her giddy.
“Anderos says you got problems with your tech,” Kyren said.
“How’s he know?” Cassica was faintly disturbed.
Kyren shrugged. “He keeps his eye on stuff, I guess.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “So?”
She shifted in her seat, suddenly awkward. Something in that look reminded her that he wasn’t just some boy she was out with; he was a rival. And no matter how mad she was at Shiara, it still felt like a betrayal to complain about her to a stranger.