She was led away into the crowd, leaving Shiara a little bewildered but rather pleased. All things considered, she thought she liked Linty Maxxon. Maybe she would call by. So she folded up the address, looked for a pocket, realized she didn’t have one, and stuck it in her shoe instead.
She wandered away. Her feet took her to the edge of the room, where a thin crowd had gathered at the top of a short set of steps, observing something below. The sound of raised voices drew her.
At the bottom of the steps was a pair of glass double doors, standing open—a side entrance to the hall. Two security men guarded it, their backs to the crowd. They stood impassive while an old man in a shabby suit shouted at them.
“Move yourself, you damned pair of apes! Don’t you know who I am?”
“Your name’s not on the list, sir,” they told him, their words more polite than their tone. “So you don’t get past.”
“I don’t need any list! You know my face, don’t say you don’t!”
“If you’re not on the list,” they said, “you’re not coming in.”
“Ah, get out of my way!” snapped the old man. He made to push past them, but one of the guards planted a hand in his chest and shoved him backward. It wasn’t a hard push, but the old man tottered and fell to the ground hard. There was a ripple of shocked laughter from the crowd at the top of the stairs.
The security guards seized the old man by the arms and began dragging him away. Shiara looked around at the faces in the crowd, expecting a reaction, and was amazed by what she saw. Some were amused, some scandalized, some appalled, but all of them were just watching.
“Ain’t anybody gonna do anything?” she cried. But they just looked at her, surprised or disgusted by her lack of manners. Some of them seemed offended, and some smirked into their glasses.
At that, her outrage boiled over. She pushed past them and down the stairs, through the doors, and caught up with the security guards in the corridor beyond.
“You let him go!” she snapped at them. “You let go of him!”
The security guards looked over their shoulders, surprised to be addressed by a girl half their age. They took in her dress and shoes, and though they didn’t know her, they couldn’t be certain she wasn’t important, so they dropped the old man and stepped away.
“Ain’t you ashamed of yourselves?” she demanded as she helped the old man to his feet. “Pickin’ on an old man like that. You treat your grandfathers this way?” She was flushed and red and too angry to care.
“You like him so much, take him out of here,” said one of the guards. “Save us a job.”
“I’ll do that!” she snapped. She turned her attention to the old man. “Come on, sir. You don’t wanna be mixin’ with the kind of people they got in there anyways.” She said it loud enough for the crowd at the top of the stairs to hear. Then she lent her arm for the old man to lean on and he, dazed and subdued by his fall, allowed himself to be helped outside.
Shiara took the old man to a diner across the street, bought black coffee for them both. They sat opposite each other in the stark fluorescent light, a Formica table and a laminated menu between them. Over his shoulder Shiara could see a television on a wall bracket, showing live guest interviews from the party they’d just left.
The old man hadn’t said a word since she led him out. There was a shamed, defeated look in his eyes. His clothes had probably once been fine, but they’d been worn too hard and too carelessly, and there was a musty smell about him like an animal lair. He had the folded and frayed look of a man who’d lost his way and kept on down the path long past the time he could have turned back.
“You’re Rutterby LaKeyne, ain’t you?” said Shiara. She couldn’t think of a more elegant way to broach the matter.
His eyes rose from his mug and met hers. The first flicker of interest she’d seen from him. He grunted.
“There’s a billboard of you in my town,” she said. “Reckon you were a sight younger when they put it up. Guess those meatheads don’t watch old movies.”
“They recognized me, alright,” said Rutterby. His voice was deep, rich, touched with hoarseness; some of its power still remained.
“But you’re a Celestial …” she said and trailed off uncertainly. It didn’t seem to square with the raggedy old man before her. “Don’t you got better parties on Olympus?”
He took a sip from his mug, grimaced, and set it down. “If I was on Olympus, you think I’d be drinking coffee this bad?” Then he seemed to realize what he’d said, and his eyes creased in a weary smile. “Apologies,” he said. “Where are my manners? I’m grateful to you, miss, for the assistance and the coffee. What’s your name?”
“Shiara DuCal.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss DuCal.” He held out a seamed hand and she shook it.
“Never shook hands with a Celestial before,” she said with a tinge of self-conscious pride.
“And you still haven’t,” said Rutterby. “I’m no Celestial, not anymore. There’s not a word for what I am. They never talk about what happens after Olympus.”
“They kicked you out?” Shiara couldn’t believe it. Rutterby LaKeyne, who drank fazz over Coppermouth, whose movies her mom adored?
“There’s only room for a thousand up there. Every year, new Celestials go up. That means some people have to come down.”
“I didn’t know you came down, though. Did it happen recently or somethin’?” The look in his eyes told her it hadn’t. She felt like she should apologize for not noticing. “I seen the shows and zines and adverts and all, but I ain’t no Celestial-watcher. Seems pretty much everyone else is, though. ’Specially the kids.”
“Yeah, everyone here in Anchor City wants to be up there,” he said. “They see the parties, the clothes, the award ceremonies. They dream of that. Not many think about what it takes to get there, or what happens when you do.” There was open bitterness in his voice, and he caught himself and stopped.
Shiara waited while he decided whether to go on. For the first time she realized he was drunk and not just slowed with age. He held it so well, you almost couldn’t tell, but the spite in his tone kept creeping through and then you knew. The kind of fury that only the drunk and wronged could spit out. He was still recognizably the man on the billboard, but his features had suffered the landslide of years. Shiara wondered at the sequence of events that might have brought him to this pitiable state.
Finally he cleared his throat. “Getting famous isn’t the thing,” he said. “It’s staying famous that kills you.” He rocked back in his chair and looked up at the roof as if he could see beyond the stained ceiling tiles to the sky beyond. “Up there, it’s like nowhere on Earth. Everything you want, you can have.” He trailed off and his eyes took on a distant, sordid look that Shiara didn’t much like. When he continued, his voice was hateful. “Nobody ever says no to you. Can you imagine what that does to a person? When every ridiculous, dishonorable thought goes unopposed?” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “Rots you. Right out from the inside.”
Shiara was taken aback by that. She hadn’t expected to be having a conversation like this with a Celestial, or even an ex-Celestial. People back home didn’t expose their hearts quite so readily to strangers; it made her feel awkward.
“You’ve seen Celestial Hour, right?” he said. Shiara gave him a look. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and live on Mars not to be aware of Celestial Hour. It was the highest-rated television program on the globe, the only reality show with access to Olympus itself. Through their daily dose of Celestial Hour, the rest of the world could participate in the loves and lives of the famous. Scandals, feuds, joy, and tragedy played out on screens all over Earth. Even people who’d never owned a television knew what happened on Celestial Hour—Celestial news was more interesting than the real news to most.
Everyone remembered the day when Rica Shawno’s web of lies finally came undone; when Jesper Go and Ibsen Tarn at last admitted they loved each other; the agony of Sh
indra Cone, who bore a child on Olympus that there wasn’t space for and who had to give it away to be raised on Earth because she couldn’t bear to leave. Shiara felt sad that Rutterby LaKeyne’s fall from grace went by virtually unnoticed amid all that.
“You think it’s utopia,” Rutterby said into his mug. He grimaced again, set the coffee aside for good this time. “But that’s not what it is. It’s a stage. And everyone gotta perform for the crowds.”
Shiara took a swallow of her own coffee. It wasn’t that bad. Better than she was used to, anyway. “I’m guessin’ you didn’t perform?”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “I was up there a long time. Long time. Loved a lot of ladies, broke some hearts. Acquired a fondness for drink that’ll kill me sooner or later. But one day you realize it’s just the same thing over and over again. The parties, the women, all of that. Same betrayals, same feuds, same tragedies, just different faces. So I gave it up. Gave up the friends I had, the people who were bad for me. Kept to myself, tried to take it easy.” He snorted. “The viewers didn’t like that. When Celestials get to be old news, they gotta make way for the new. And I was old news.”
He was silent for a time, and then he smiled sadly to himself. “You ought to see how the kids do it these days. How desperate they are to get your attention. Leilee Baba wearing a coat of human skin. Jalin Hanson eating a pregnant cat live onstage at one of his gigs. Rince, who had his ears and mouth sewn up as a protest against the music industry, and now he only communicates through sign language and a masked albino interpreter.” He’d started laughing by the time he got to the end of the sentence, but he ended up coughing instead. “Can’t compete with that, and I don’t want to. Still got some dignity.” He sighed. “They’ll do anything to hold on to Olympus, you know. They’ll kill for it if they have to. They’re so scared.”
“Scared? Why?”
“Because they know that once you’ve been there, there isn’t anything after.” His voice cracked, and his eyes filled, and he looked away.
Shiara looked away as well. The grief of the old always seemed saddest to her, because they grieved for lost things that couldn’t be found again, the way Mom did. She sought the television on the wall behind Rutterby, and there she found Cassica.
It was a shock to see her up there, in front of the camera, smiling at the interviewer, chatting with that happy enthusiasm she had. She seemed transformed by the screen, made important by it. In that dress, in that moment, she looked more elegant and adult than Shiara had ever known her.
If she wasn’t my friend, I’d think she was one of them.
She felt a pang of petty jealousy: why wasn’t she up there? Why was it Cassica they all wanted to talk to? But then she remembered how she’d walked out of the party, and she felt foolish for blaming her friend.
If she wasn’t up there with Cassica, it was her own fault.
“What are you, anyway?” Rutterby asked her suddenly, jolting out of his reverie. “No, let me guess. You’ve got an accent and an overblown sense of decency, so you’re not from Anchor City, that’s for sure.” She smiled at that. “It’s a press event for a qualifier, so … You’re a racer? A driver? Don’t think you’re sponsored, so that means you got there on merit. Girl from the boondocks done good. That’s an angle they can get behind. Am I right?”
“Why do you think I’m not sponsored?” she asked.
“You just don’t have the look,” he said.
She bristled at that. He’d said it thoughtlessly, but there was a weight of meaning in that comment. You just don’t have the look. You’re not beautiful enough, slender enough, stylish enough. Not for the sponsors. When it came to girls, they only want the pretty ones.
“Well, I ain’t sponsored, you got that right,” she said, unable to keep the anger from her tone. “And I ain’t the driver neither.” She was looking over his shoulder at Cassica as he said it, and he saw her expression and turned around, following her gaze to the television.
“She’s your driver?” he asked. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Reckon you’ve got a chance after all.”
“Hoy!” Shiara snapped. “We’ve got a chance ’cause we’re good at this!”
“No,” said Rutterby. “First you have to be good. Then you need a sponsor. Best racer in the world can’t beat one who’s got money. You know how much it costs to run those fancy cars? You know you’re gonna need at least three of them if you want half a chance of winning the Widowmaker, right?”
Shiara sat back, fuming. She hated that idea. Hated that it wasn’t just about talent and hard work, that they had to make it about something else too. Hated that he might be right.
Rutterby held up his hands, gave her a disarming smile. “I can see I’ve offended you. I tend to do that, given long enough in someone’s company. Apologies.” He pushed back his chair, got unsteadily to his feet. “I should go. Good-bye. Thank you for the coffee.”
Shiara said nothing as he left. As he passed her, he paused and turned back, and when he spoke there was a note of pleading in his voice that she hadn’t heard before.
“You’re a nice, honest girl. Don’t let them change you. It’s not worth it.”
Then he shuffled out into the neon-lit street, and Shiara finished her coffee.
Shiara screamed and shielded her face as a wall of flame bore down on her like the opening of hell’s gate. The fine blond hairs on her forearm twisted as the heat seared her through the Interceptor’s mesh windows. She was filled with the terror that came with knowing she’d die by fire.
But the Interceptor slewed right, and the flames drew back, and to her surprise, she lived on.
It took her a few seconds to collect herself from the shock. Not Cassica, though. She was still driving, steel-eyed, as if it hadn’t even been a thing.
Anchor City surrounded them, a nest of lights woven through the dark. The racetrack was a floodlit ribbon overseen by billboards with images that moved disconcertingly as they passed. Beyond the barriers, a throng of thousands lined the track, here to see the final Core League qualifier before the Widowmaker.
To their left, now separated from them by a low divider in the road, was Hotwire. The speciality of that particular Wrecker was cooking his victims with jets of flame that fired out sideways from his undercarriage. Coming up behind them was Slick, who used oil as his weapon. Ahead, a gate straddled the track, where huge mechanical jaws clashed together in a steady rhythm, chewing up the distance between them.
Welcome to the big time, Shiara thought to herself and let out a sudden laugh that was more hysteria than humor.
“Shiara!” Cassica snapped.
Her tone stung Shiara out of her shock. She forced herself to concentrate. She checked the mirrors and the readouts on the dash, then looked up at the gate and began counting seconds. Timing their approach.
Another racer was ahead of them, and beyond that, another. The rest were too far away to be seen. Cassica and Shiara were in fifth place and needed to make time, but the Wreckers had ganged up on them, and they had to be dealt with first. They couldn’t win the race if they were fighting a running battle the whole way. And they needed at least third place to make the Widowmaker.
Shiara glanced to her left. Across the divider, Hotwire kept pace in his red-and-yellow car, waiting for the next gap so he could get closer. He was skinny, pale, red-haired, and red-eyed as if from weeping or lack of sleep. Smoke seeped from the rack of flamethrower nozzles between his wheels.
Shiara had never had anyone try so hard to kill her before. Even their clash with the Rhino had been over in an instant, more like an accident than premeditated murder. But the Rhino had been a small-time Wrecker, and Ragrattle Caves a minor race in the Outer Leagues. They were in the Core League now; the Wreckers were twice as deadly. And Hotwire was determined to burn them. His malice made her weak with fear.
Cassica swerved to block off Slick, who was trying to pass on their right. His car was much faster than theirs; if he got ahead of th
em, he could lay oil in their path. Cassica was determined not to let him.
“Gap comin’ up on the left,” said Shiara. “Hotwire’s comin’ over.”
“I got it,” said Cassica, barely audible over the roar of the engine. The confidence in her voice reassured Shiara, helped armor her against the thought of the fire. Once the divider was no longer between them, Hotwire could use his flamethrowers again.
Cassica drifted right, away from the divider and toward the edge of the track. Crowds and lights blurred together in a jumble. Slick’s black racer slid back and forth behind them, searching for the moment to make his move. Hotwire glanced over, and Shiara met his eye. He was hungry to kill.
“Gap coming up … now!”
Cassica stepped on the brakes and swerved left through the gap just as Hotwire swung the other way. They crossed over in the gap, Hotwire’s tail missing their nose by inches. Slick swerved as Hotwire cut across him, and the two Wreckers almost collided. Then the divider rose up in the middle of the track again, with Hotwire and Slick on one side and the Interceptor safe on the other.
Shiara slapped the dash. “Punch it!” she yelled, and Cassica activated the turbos. The Interceptor surged forward with thrilling force and acceleration that put Maisie to shame. The Wreckers’ near collision had cost them speed, and the Interceptor raced away from them, in the clear now, leaving Shiara free to concentrate on the crushing jaws of the gate ahead.
She’d kept counting all through the chaos. Four seconds between each bite. She made a quick calculation of speed and distance; the rest was guesswork.
“Turbos off when I say …”
The racers ahead of them nipped through the gate, one after the other.
“Now!”
Cassica killed the turbos, and immediately the drag began to slow the Interceptor down. It seemed crazy to decelerate when instinct told them to speed through, but Shiara could be as calm as Cassica when it came to mathematics. Numbers didn’t trip a person up.