His wry smile embarrassed her; she wasn’t sure if he was making fun. She felt herself flush and looked away. Blushing was agony to her. On others it looked pretty, but for Shiara, with her too-pale skin, it was a curse, an angry red glow that had always attracted laughter and mockery from her brothers.
Sammis didn’t laugh, though, because Cassica was talking to him now. He probably didn’t even see.
“You gonna be in the qualifier?” she asked.
“That’s right,” he said. “Last one before the Widowmaker. Only just made it through the regionals in time. I guess you two will be racing as well?”
“Yep,” said Cassica. “All the way to Olympus.”
His laugh was tumbling and kindly. “I like your confidence. Forgive me, I usually keep a close eye on the regionals best I can, but I haven’t seen you guys before …”
“We came up through the Ragrattle Caves race.”
His eyes widened. “I heard about that! Damn fools, running a race that way. What was it, sixteen out of forty participants dead? Thought we’d left those kind of numbers behind in the Slaughter Year.”
“Yeah, well,” said Cassica, as if to say, What can you do about it? “We made it through, anyway.”
“Without a scratch too,” said Sammis, admiring the Interceptor.
“We made it through with her,” Shiara told him, pointing at Maisie.
He looked at them both to see if they were pulling his leg, then whistled to show how impressed he was. He walked around Maisie, examining her. Shiara felt faintly annoyed at the way he sized her up, like his opinion meant all that. Then she got annoyed at herself for giving a damn what he thought.
“I’m no tech, but this looks like you built it from the ground up. That so?” he asked Shiara.
“Uh-huh,” she said, sullen with suspicion.
“Girl’s a sorceress when it comes to such things,” Cassica added, and Shiara blushed again.
“Well,” said Sammis. “I see she ain’t carryin’ any sponsors either. My deepest respect for makin’ it here under your own steam. Too many folks in Maximum Racing just buy their way in these days. Used to be it was about how good you were. Now it’s just about who looks best on the television, who’s got the most expensive car. Race sexy, leave a pretty corpse.”
That surprised Shiara. She hadn’t expected a cynic when this farmboy from the Greenbelt walked into their garage. He seemed about to say something else when they heard running footsteps, and Harlan appeared, shiny and flustered. He relaxed visibly when he saw them.
“All here? Good. We gotta go.” He noticed Sammis and disregarded him as quickly. “Now, girls!” he said, clapping his hands.
“What’s up?” Cassica asked.
“We got an appointment, that’s what. And we’re late.”
“Who with?”
“Will you just get moving?” said Harlan, with barely contained exasperation. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“Think I’ll get out of your hair,” said Sammis. “Hey, I never caught your name …”
Shiara belatedly realized he was speaking to her, but before she could answer, Harlan answered for her. “That’s Shiara, and we’re going!” he said rudely. He began shutting the garage door. “Come on, it’s all gonna be locked up. Out that way. Out!”
They’d never seen him in such frantic haste. Sammis raised an eyebrow at Shiara—What’s his problem?—and ducked out before the door came down. Shiara and Cassica were hurried out of a side entrance.
Harlan had his own car parked outside the stadium, a third-hand thing that looked better than it ran. He said he didn’t like driving around in new cars: a good manager had no business outshining the talent. Once they were on their way, he made a call to confirm their appointment.
“What?” he yelled into the phone. “What do you mean, canceled? I just dragged my best racers out of their practice and you tell me it’s been canceled?”
He apologized profusely after he hung up. “People in this town,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll drive us back to the hotel.”
But neither Cassica nor Shiara were fooled. Harlan was no actor. They could tell by the hammy way he spoke; there was nobody on the other end of that phone call. There’d never been any appointment.
So what had caused him to hurry them out like that?
“Don’t I bring you to all the best places, girls?” Harlan asked, an arm draped over each of them.
They stood on the edge of a hall heaving with glitz and throbbing to the dirty grind of a Kellis Osten beat. Pretty women served drinks in clothes that sparkled and showed more than was decent. A brand-new Siyatsu racer, polished to a mirror sheen, rotated on a platform in the center of the room.
Everywhere they looked, they saw people they knew: famous drivers, minor actors, politicians, music stars who hadn’t yet made it into legend. Celestials in waiting. Among them moved the newsies with cameramen at their shoulders—“Just a few words about your new film, Ms. Fayette!”—and the paparazzi, slinking like eager weasels through the flock—“Give us a pose, love! Now like that! A kiss for your fans!”
Harlan basked in it all, enjoying their awe, smug with power. “Didn’t I promise you the big time?”
The girls were so stunned by the sights and sounds that they hardly even noticed his arms lying heavy across their shoulders, the hot sour smell of him so close.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get down there, get you some drinks, loosen you up a little. You look like a pair of rabbits about to get hit by a truck.” He released them, patted them both on the back to spur them onward. “Better get used to this. Lot more where this came from.”
Cassica had been frantic with nerves from the moment Harlan announced he’d gotten them into a press event to promote the next race. He made out it was no big achievement on his part, though he did it in such a way as to imply that it really was. “Some managers just got the connections,” he said.
The preparations had begun immediately. They were going to be on television, their pictures in the zines; they needed to look the part. He’d booked them in to a stylist who’d take care of everything, from hair to makeup to clothes. She was an elegant lady named Alia who moved with impossible grace and looked like she’d never had an emotion in her life.
Shiara treated it all as if it was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. She said nothing and let Alia do as she liked. Sometimes Cassica envied her ability to submit to the future, to shrug and get on with it. She herself was in torment, caught in an agony of choice. What should she do with her hair? What jewelry should she wear? What dress?
In the end, it didn’t matter. Alia made a polite show of considering her suggestions, then said, “Why don’t we try it this way?” And that was the way they’d do it. Cassica was left delighted by her transformation but embarrassed by the process. She felt used, dressed up like a mannequin, her own opinions treated as worthless. And yet, when she saw herself, she realized how trashy and gaudy her own ideas were. A boondock girl, aping sophistication. Alia was right to ignore her.
Her stomach knotted as they walked into the crowd. She was an impostor here, and they all surely saw through her illusion.
They made their way toward the center of the room. Harlan snagged them drinks from a passing waitress whom Cassica thought beautiful enough to be famous just by virtue of her face and figure. He gave them a glass each, then took two for himself, downed one and put it back on the waitress’s tray. At Harlan’s urging, they sipped their drinks. Afterward they couldn’t even remember what they tasted like.
“Look there,” said Harlan. “Bet you know who that is.”
Of course they knew; they’d just never expected to be in the same room. It was a jolt to see him with their own eyes. Curiously, it felt less real than television.
He was a withered old turtle of a man, dwarfed by hulking bodyguards, his bald head patched with liver spots. His eyes were hidden by absurdly large shades with acid-green plastic frames, an affectation so tacky that onl
y a man of great wealth and power could carry it off. And they didn’t come much more wealthy and powerful than Dunbery Hasp, the media mogul who owned Maximum Racing. Every race, every broadcast, every deal was licensed through him. He’d bought it lock, stock, and barrel twenty years ago and turned it into a phenomenon. Here was the mastermind behind the sport that consumed the world, the genius who made it all happen. Frail and ancient though he was, he still seemed more important than everybody else in the hall.
“Right, let’s find you girls a camera,” said Harlan, casting about for a likely target. “Just be honest if anyone asks you a question. Your story’s gonna sell itself.”
“Our story?” Cassica asked, who wasn’t aware of any story.
“Hup! This way!” Harlan took Cassica’s arm and led her off briskly in another direction. “No sense wasting time talking to them.”
“Who?” She looked around but could only see a finely dressed couple in their sixties shaking hands with a group of smart young men who seemed very happy to see them.
“The Cussenses,” said Harlan, a note of disgust in his voice. “Dridley and Prua. Desperate folk. Won’t do us any good to be seen with them. ’Sides, they’ll bore you half to death.”
Cassica looked back as they were led away. Dridley Cussens was a plump, balding man with an ingratiating smile who mopped at his brow with a hankie; his wife was a narrow lady in pearls, bird-boned and sharp. They bade farewell to the young men and turned away. The young men lost their pleasant faces and exchanged smirking glances of mockery.
Shiara caught Cassica’s eye, and Cassica knew what she was thinking. City folk. They’ll say one thing to your face and another behind your back. It was a common refrain back home, though in Cassica’s experience they did it plenty in Coppermouth too.
She searched the crowd, amazed by the company she was mixing with. Harlan was right: she had to relax, blend in. Stop looking so awestruck. They were here because they deserved to be.
She finished her drink and took another, enjoying the decadence of taking without paying, of being served by someone so glamorous. But she couldn’t quite manage to do it without saying thank you, like they did in the movies. She’d have to work on that.
Her drink was halfway to her lips when she froze.
Through the lights and the people she saw a familiar face. Familiar because it had haunted her fantasies these past weeks. The racer she’d seen on television in Gauge’s Diner.
Kyren Bane.
“ ’Scuse me,” she said to Harlan and Shiara, and then she was away. She acted without thought, her decision instant, the way it had to be on the track sometimes. By the time doubt caught up, it was too late to turn back.
“Hi,” she said, intercepting him as he made his way across the room alone. “I’m Cassica. You’re Kyren Bane, right?”
Up close, he was even more beautiful than on the screen. Dark hair spilled over dark eyes. He wore the studied disdain of a rebel. He pulled on his cigarette, took it out, and let smoke seep between his lips while he looked Cassica up and down.
“Yeah,” he said finally.
“I saw your race. That qualifier you won.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m a driver too. Racing in the next qualifier. Going for the Widowmaker, y’know?”
“Is that so? Cool.” His tone made it sound like it was anything but. His attention skated away from her, flicked back, skated away again.
Cassica felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She wasn’t used to indifference from boys. It only made her try harder. “Yeah, we made it through on a blind race. Ragrattle Caves.” But now she sounded boastful, now she was conscious of every word, and each one sounded worse than the last.
“Oh yeah?” he said, looking over her shoulder as if for someone more interesting. “Don’t know that one.”
An awkward silence ensued. Cassica felt herself floundering. She was frustrated and embarrassed and didn’t know how to get out of it with her dignity intact. To leave would be to admit defeat, but she wanted to win.
“And who’s this, Kyren?” said a gruff voice, as two more joined them: a teenager and an older man in his fifties.
The teen was Kyren’s tech; it couldn’t have been otherwise. Both had the same crafted style, the same arrogant poise, perfectly matched without matching. The older man had a big face with a broken nose and haggard, sad eyes. He seemed kind and hard all at once.
“Anderos Cleff,” he said when Kyren didn’t introduce him. He held out a calloused hand and Cassica shook it. “And this is Draden Taxt.”
Draden nodded at her. It was clear what he thought, what Kyren thought. Boys that looked like that, famous boys, there’d always be girls who flung themselves at them.
I ain’t some damned groupie, Cassica thought, and the anger made her feel less embarrassed.
“And you’re Cassica Hayle, I think?” said Anderos.
Belatedly Cassica realized she hadn’t introduced herself. “Yeah,” she said and then frowned. “How do you know?”
“That was a hell of a drive you did at Ragrattle Caves.”
“You saw that?”
“Well, it was on late, but it’s my business to keep an eye out for talented new racers,” he said with an indulgent smile. “I’m a manager, in case you hadn’t guessed. Manage these two fine boys here, among others.” He slapped his hands down on his racers’ shoulders. Kyren looked away like a sulky teen annoyed by a parent, and blew out smoke; but he glanced back at Cassica afterward, and there was new interest in his eyes. Talented new racers. Cassica took a small victory from that.
“There you are!” said Harlan, hurrying up alongside her. He took her arm. “Come with me. Alpha Sports wants to talk to you.”
“Harlan,” said Anderos, by way of a greeting.
“Anderos! Didn’t see you there,” said Harlan, fooling no one. “Not tapping up my new protégée, are you?” It was pitched as a joke, but it evidently wasn’t.
“Not my style, Harlan,” said Anderos with a careless, lazy smile. “I only take on clients who ask me.”
“Well, I’m gonna have to steal her away from you now,” said Harlan, still holding possessively on to her arm. “See you by the track!”
“Look forward to it,” Anderos replied. He smiled at Cassica. “Good-bye, miss.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Cleff,” said Cassica, pointedly ignoring Kyren and Draden. “Glad there are some gentlemen at this party.”
Anderos’s surprised laughter followed her as Harlan led her away, his eyes searching the crowd, agitated. “What was that about?” he demanded. Then: “Never mind. We need to catch the Alpha Sports people before they find someone else. Where’s Shiara got to, anyway?”
Shiara wandered through the babble like a lost child, looking for something familiar, something to make sense of it all. Around her, people smiled and air-kissed and chatted and posed for photos. They all seemed to know one another, and they dressed in finery that would outshine a wedding back in Coppermouth. A bass beat pulsed through machine-cooled air. Shiara felt as if she were a member of a cinema audience that had stumbled through the screen and into the movie, a creature from the world outside, so utterly foreign that they couldn’t even see her.
It had been no surprise when Cassica ran off—she always did at parties—but when Harlan left her to talk to some newsies, she’d found herself anchorless and gone roaming.
“Hey there. You look as lost as me.”
The voice belonged to a tall blond woman in her early twenties, with huge blue eyes and an eager smile. Shiara thought she looked rather like a doll.
“Not really my thing,” Shiara said, gesturing at the party around them.
“Mine either. Hell, I don’t think I know a soul here ’cept for my manager and my tech.”
She spoke rapidly in a Texico accent, which Shiara found unaccountably charming. She’d never met anyone from Texico before. “You’re a driver?”
“I am.” She extended a hand, cocked he
r head to one side. “Linty Maxxon.”
“Shiara DuCal. Tech.”
She clapped like an excited child. “I just knew you were a racer! Don’t ask me why, I could just tell. I love your hair, by the way. What a color!”
“Thanks,” said Shiara, feeling faintly embarrassed. “That’s just how it grows.”
There was an awkward pause as they looked at each other.
“I bet I know what you’re thinking!” Linty said. “You’re thinking: isn’t she kinda old to be starting out in racing?”
Shiara blinked. “That was what I was thinkin’.”
“Everyone does. But I think all that razzle-dazzle the scientists say about ‘reactions’ this and ‘aggressive driving’ that is all just bullshine! I think they all just believe it ’cause so many people have said it for so long. And I’m here to show ’em that someone like me is just as good as some cocky sixteen-year-old who never uses the brakes ’cause they think they’re invincible. Am I right?”
“Uh … yeah,” said Shiara. Talking to Linty was like being verbally machine-gunned. She hadn’t really wondered before why all the racers in Maximum Racing were so young. She’d just accepted the reasons that everyone had given her: that teenagers had faster reactions and drove more aggressively.
“Hey, did you know they’ve got this big old museum of cars up on the north side of Anchor City? Like, prewar cars going back a thousand years?”
Shiara was momentarily wrongfooted by the change of subject. “I’d like to see that,” she said.
“Oh, me too! Wanna go?”
Shiara hesitated. “Um …”
“Told you, I don’t know a soul here!” Linty said. “Oh, come ooooon, it’ll be fun!”
Shiara eyed her dubiously. But then she thought of all those old cars, and how bored Cassica would be if she went, how she wouldn’t last ten minutes there. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
“Great!” said Linty. Just then her manager appeared, a whiskery old man who informed her she was needed for an interview. Linty made a face at Shiara. “Sorry,” she said. “Gotta run.”
Before she left, she borrowed a notepad from her manager and scribbled down an address. “That’s where I’m staying,” she said. “Call by!”