Hover Car Racer (10 page)

Jason frowned at that. ‘But he never says “well done” or “good job.”’

‘Ah-ha. So that’s it,’ Henry Chaser said. ‘You want to get some positive feedback out of him. Want to know how to get that?’

‘Yes.’

Henry Chaser smiled enigmatically. ‘Jason. When you start learning as hard as you can, I guarantee he’ll start treating you differently.’

Jason sighed, bowed his head.

His father clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s okay, son. You’re only 14. You’ve got to learn these things sometime. Now. To more important matters. Tell me again about this race on Thursday that you have to win at any cost.’

Unfortunately the afternoon had to end, and as dusk descended, the Chasers packed up their stuff and started the drive back to the Race School.

On the way back, with the Bug fast asleep beside him, Jason gazed idly out the window of their car, watching the landscape whistle by.

As such, he wasn’t really paying attention when Henry pulled over abruptly - to help a biker on the side of the road.

Jason watched as his father, illuminated by the headlights of their car, walked over to the young man crouched beside his bike.

Jason couldn’t see the biker’s face, but he noticed that the man’s hover motorcycle - a nice Kawasaki XT-700 trail rider - was completely covered in a strange grey powder.

‘Need a hand, partner?’ Henry Chaser said into the darkness. ‘Or a ride?’

The biker waved him off. His riding leathers were also, Jason noticed, totally covered in the grey powder.

‘Nah. Just fixed it,’ the biker called. ‘Got some dust in the mag switches.’

Sure enough, he had fixed the problem. The young man’s bike hummed to life and he straddled the hover bike, reaching for his helmet.

And in that instant, Jason saw the young man’s face.

Then the hover bike raced off into the night, and Henry Chaser returned to the car, shrugging.

Jason, however, sat frozen in his seat.

He had recognised the biker.

It was Wernold Smythe, the clerk from the Race School’s Parts and Equipment Department.

‘Sounds like it’ll be a tough race,’ Henry Chaser said as he dropped Jason and Bug off at the Race School. Henry and Martha were going to stay at a caravan park in Hobart for a few days and watch Thursday’s big race.

Henry said, ‘Eight hours means a lot of pit stops - your Mech Chief is in for a long day. And stay away from those demon lights. Run over some of those and your race is over. And watch out for other drivers ramming you onto them. Oh, and Jason…’

‘Yes, Dad?’

‘Always remember the Bradbury Principle.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Jason sighed. His father
always
said that. It was Henry Chaser’s contribution to sport: the Bradbury Principle. Jason ignored it and got serious: ‘What do you think about cutting the heel?’

‘Wouldn’t touch it,’ Henry said. ‘The pros rarely cut the heel in the Italian Run and for good reason: it’s a Venus fly trap: looks pretty and alluring from the outside, but it’ll just eat you up. It’ll put you either further behind or out of the running completely.’

‘That’s just what Mr Syracuse said,’ Jason said.

‘Scott Syracuse said the same thing?’ Henry said. ‘Oh! Of course - ‘ he cut himself off, chuckled.

‘What?’ Jason asked.

Henry Chaser smiled. ‘Scott Syracuse once tried to cut the heel in the Italian Run. It was the last time he raced the Italian Run; a few races later, he had that huge crash in New York that ended his career.

‘That time in Italy, Syracuse was way back in the pack because of a collision he’d had with another car, so he decided to try and cut the heel. Now, if you cut the heel in Italy, you can gain up to
four whole minutes
on the rest of the field. It woulda put him back in contention.’

‘And what happened?’ Jason asked.

‘Two
hours
later, the race was over and he still hadn’t come out,’ Henry said. ‘He didn’t emerge until
four hours
after the race, and even then, he came out the way he went in. Didn’t even find the way through. By the time he reached the Finish Line in Venice, they were dismantling the grandstands! No wonder he advises against cutting the heel.’

‘Yeah,’ Jason said, frowning. ‘No wonder.’

RACE 25

RACETIME: 4 HOURS 24 MINS

LAP: 11 [OF 20]

Race 25 was easily the most hard-fought race of the season so far.

No-one was giving an inch.

Those racers who hadn’t yet qualified for the Sponsors’ tournament were going all-out for the win. While those who
had
qualified were racing just as fiercely - they were well aware that if a pre-qualified racer won, it meant one less contender to deal with on Saturday.

The intensity of the racing was simply furious.

And at Lap 11, Jason was still in it.

After narrowly avoiding a wild three-car crash on Lap 2, he had stayed in touch with the early leaders - Xavier, Varishna Krishna (a talented young racer from India) and Isaiah Washington - and now, after more than four hours of racing, he was well positioned in 4th place.

The ripple strips had caused chaos - if you took a turn too wide, you would edge over the top of them and suddenly your magneto drive levels would drain before your eyes.

The big crash on Lap 2 had been the direct result of the ripple strips, and it had taken out some of the contenders in this race.

It was Barnaby Becker’s fault.

He had slid out over the ripple strips flanking the tight hairpin near the pits. He had stayed over the demag strips for almost five seconds, enough to deprive
all six
of his magneto drives of nearly all of their power. Out of control, he had slid back across the track, collecting two other racers - among them Ariel Piper - on the way through, ending all of their races.

Ariel wasn’t pleased.

For his part, Jason felt he was handling the strips pretty well - not perfectly, but well. On any given lap, he might edge over a couple of them and lose a little bit of power. But judging by the similarity of their pit-stop schedules, it didn’t seem as if any of the other contenders were doing any better.

Significantly, no racer had attempted to use the short cut.

The leaders completed Lap 11, and flocked into the pits - Jason among them.

He swung into his bay and the Tarantula descended on the
Argonaut
from above, its arms bristling with magneto drives and coolant hoses.

Jason gulped down some energy drink, breathed hard. Their pit stops had been good in this race. Their mag drives and computer systems seemed okay -

And suddenly the Tarantula froze in mid-action. ‘No!’ Jason yelled.

Sally McDuff dived for the Tarantula’s console, started tapping keys. ‘The system’s crashed again! Damn!’ she yelled. ‘I have to reboot!’

She typed fast on the computer.

Jason snapped round - to see Krishna, then Washington and then Xavier zoom out of the pits, one after the other, rejoining the race.

‘Sally! Come on!’

‘Almost there…!’ she called back. ‘Almost there!’

‘Goddamnit!’
The seconds ticked by - every one of them sinking the nails deeper into Jason’s coffin.

10 seconds…

15…

20…

‘Got it!’ Sally called.

The Tarantula completed its work, then swooped up into the ceiling and Sally yelled ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and Jason floored it and the
Argonaut
shoomed back out onto the course -

- to be met by a surprising sight.

Just outside Pit Lane, Jason saw Car No. 1 - Prince Xavier’s black Lockheed, the
Speed Razor
- splayed
sideways in the centre of the track, stopped. Xavier was waving his fists at an orange hover car crashed into the
treeline nearby.

Jason deduced what had happened immediately. As Xavier had been exiting the pits, the hapless driver of the orange car - a perennial tailender named Brent Hurst - had been zooming by, completely unaware of Xavier emerging from Pit Lane. A near miss had ensued, with the
Speed Razor
fishtailing to a halt, while Hurst had missed the next turn, hit the ripple strips and gone careering off into the treeline.

By the time Jason had emerged from the pits shortly after, Xavier was powering up and so the two of them rejoined the race together, 20 seconds behind the leaders, with the
Speed Razor
just in front of the
Argonaut
.

Over the next three laps, try as he might, Jason couldn’t narrow the gap on the leaders.

There were more pit stops, but since everyone was pitting more or less as well as each other, the lead time between the two leaders - Krishna and Washington - and the rest of the pack, led by Xavier and Jason, remained at about 20 seconds.

It was with the completion of Lap 14 that Jason realised.
He was running out of laps
.

There were only six laps to go, with most racers planning for two more stops, and he wasn’t gaining at all. This was terrible. With an enormous 20-second gap to reel in, he just couldn’t win - and he
had
to win this race!

Unless…

‘Sally! Bug!’ he yelled into his radiomike. ‘Quick poll! Next lap, do we try the short cut?’

‘
Jason, I don’t know
…’ Sally said. ‘
If you screw it up in there, we’ll lose for sure
.’

‘We’re already going to lose!’ Jason said. ‘Unless we get some galactic good luck. Bug?’

The Bug whispered his reply.

‘That bad, huh?’ Jason said. ‘Are there any stats you
don’t
know, little brother?’

The Bug’s analysis didn’t give him confidence. Only one hover car racer had ever actually won a pro race by successfully utilising a short cut maze - out of 165 shortcut-equipped races. Not good odds.

‘We’re screwed,’ Jason said aloud.

But he kept racing. If he had learned nothing else in his short racing career, he had learned to keep racing. You never knew,
something
could happen. Who knew, maybe lightning would strike the three cars in front of him.

The laps ticked over: 15, 16…T

he lead gap remained 20 seconds.

Hell, Jason thought, he couldn’t even get past the Black Prince.

Lap 16 saw more pit stops.

Krishna and Washington were leaving the pits just as Xavier and Jason swept into them.

As the Tarantula went to work, Jason looked over at Xavier’s busy pit bay.

In the midst of all the activity around the
Speed Razor
, Jason saw Xavier chatting animatedly with his Mech Chief, Oliver Koch. And beyond it all, Jason saw someone else standing at the back of their bay, a young man who wasn’t wearing the charcoal-black uniform of the
Speed Razor
‘s team -

Jason froze.

The young man standing in the very back of Xavier’s pit bay was Wernold Smythe.

‘Hey, Sally,’ Jason said. ‘How long has Werny Smythe been in Xavier’s pit bay?’

‘He arrived a few laps ago. Started talking to Koch about something.’

Jason looked back at
Speed Razor
‘s pit bay: saw Xavier and Koch talking. Koch was making sharp hand gestures, as if he were giving Xavier detailed directions.

Then Jason checked out Wernold Smythe again. He remembered seeing Smythe two nights ago, by the side of the road, covered in grey powder, with his hover bike similarly covered.

And suddenly it hit Jason.

‘Bug! The short cut at Dunalley. It’s an abandoned mine, right?’

The Bug said that it was.

‘What kind of mine?’

The Bug said that it had been a coal mine.

‘A coal mine…’ Jason said. ‘Limestone powder…’

‘Jason? What are you thinking?’ Sally asked.

Jason said, ‘Coal mines use limestone powder to guard against flammable gases oozing out from the walls. It’s a grey powder that miners spray all over the walls of a mine. Covers everything. I read about it in a thriller novel once.’

‘So?’

‘So, I happened to see Werny on Tuesday night, out on the road to Port Arthur, completely covered in grey powder…’

And with those words the picture became clear in Jason’s mind.