Velocity

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter :01

  Chapter :02

  Chapter :03

  Chapter :04

  Chapter :05

  Chapter :06

  Chapter :07

  Chapter :08

  Chapter :09

  Chapter :10

  Chapter :11

  Chapter :12

  Chapter :13

  Chapter :14

  Chapter :15

  Chapter :16

  Chapter :17

  Chapter :18

  Chapter :19

  Chapter :20

  Chapter :21

  Chapter :22

  Chapter :23

  Chapter :24

  Chapter :25

  Chapter :26

  Chapter :27

  Chapter :28

  Chapter :29

  Chapter :30

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Over the line, into the final lap, ambushed by the rough raw howl of the crowd. The bleachers were a dusty smear, faces lost in blurred chaos, gone in a moment. Then there was only the race.

  Cassica slid up through the gears as they sped along the straight, chasing down second place. Her eyes were calm, mind all angles as she drifted across the track to find the line into the next corner. She was never so still as when she was racing. Only in the driver’s seat did she know exactly where she was.

  Shiara, strapped in the seat beside her, had her eyes on the dash. Needles quivered behind grimy windows; counters rolled with numbers. Everything was moving there, everything alive, reporting from the hot heart of the car. Her car, built with her own hands. Maisie was a mongrel of so many parts that nobody could tell which had come from what. Nobody but Shiara.

  The leaders jockeyed for position beneath the low red glare of a poisoned sun, tires billowing parched and powdered earth. Ahead, the track swerved left, lost behind a rock outcrop the color of rust. They took the corner and were gone.

  “Wreck ahead, right side,” Shiara called over the noise of the engine. “Trim your line.”

  Cassica’s face was unreadable behind her goggles and the dirty bandanna that covered her mouth and nose. Likely she needed no reminder; Shiara reminded her anyway. It would only take one little slip to finish them.

  Cassica decelerated hard, dropping down gears as they hit the corner. The track lifted beneath them and tipped out of sight. They took the rise just slow enough to keep all four wheels on the dirt, then plunged down the other side.

  Lying half off the side of the track was the ruin of a Jackrabbit, tail buckled after it almost backflipped coming off that rise with turbos firing. The driver and his tech were safe, having scrambled clear, but the car remained as an obstacle to the unwary.

  Cassica slipped past it without a glance. Shiara spared a moment to check her mirrors and saw the car behind them cresting the rise, too far to the right. They’d forgotten about the wreck. The driver’s attempt to correct their course as they skidded down the slope was desperate but doomed. The car clipped the wreck, fishtailed, and went into a bouncing roll, shedding fenders, wheels, and engine panels as it flipped and leaped, until it was consumed in a cloud of red dust.

  “Scratch the Desert Wolf in camo paint,” said Shiara flatly.

  The track dove and swooped through the cracked hardpan of the badlands, now dipping into a dry trench, now rising to show them the wide, shattered plain all around. Eerie guardians overlooked them, ancient stones worn by the wind into shapes watchful and menacing.

  Five laps in, Cassica knew the course by now. She knew the corners where she could shave off half a second, where to ease off the speed, and where to hit the gas. But the racers ahead of her knew those things too, and she couldn’t gain ground.

  “What’ve you got?” she demanded of Shiara.

  Shiara was studying the miniature route map stuck to the dash, a squiggle of lines without detail. Ahead, the track split, one way obviously shorter than the other. They’d learned on previous laps that the shorter way was packed with obstacles and the longer route was smoother. One was better for vehicles made for quick turns, the other for speed merchants.

  As ever with these unofficial boondock circuits, there was a trick to the track. A cut-through, not marked on the map. Shiara, sharp-eyed, had spotted it before anyone else had. It allowed them to take the shorter route but switch off it before they hit the worst of the obstacles, saving them precious seconds. They’d made a lot of ground that way before the others caught on.

  Shiara brushed away a whipping frond of milk-white hair that had escaped her helmet, her brow furious with concentration as she tried to calculate a better route. “Left,” she said at last, defeated. “Take the cut-through.”

  Cassica shot her a frustrated glance. She needed something better, a way to claw back the advantage and get ahead of the competition. Shiara had nothing to give her.

  The track divided, split by a tall wedge of rock. The two cars ahead took the left route. In the lead was Guyden Cross, a local kid, slight and well-mannered with a rich daddy who had bought him that C9 Quantum he drove. His car was faster than theirs, low and flat and built for speed, dirty cream with dark red flanks and spoilers. Pushing him from behind was Ren Tubbock in a scarred black Terrorizer, its tail bristling with exhaust. Tubbock was a Mohawked thug and drove like a bully, but the Terrorizer’s wide axle and superior suspension won him a fraction of a second every corner he took.

  Maisie, built on a shoestring, couldn’t compete on specs. So that just left them with skill and smarts to win it.

  Pillars of scrap crowded the track ahead of them, decayed girders driven into the ground, a forest of metal with earth walls to either side. Cross and Tubbock darted in, swerving and sliding, throwing up dirt. Cassica followed, slamming the wheel left and right, riding the skids as metal columns flashed past her with a thump of air. Then Cross pulled hard right, driving toward the wall, and disappeared behind a bulge of rock. Tubbock went next and Cassica after, rounding the obstruction. Beyond, hidden, a narrow fissure drew them in.

  Hot wind, exhaust fumes, and stinging dust blew over them. The bellow of the engines became a low, threatening roar. Maisie rattled and shook; Shiara hung on to her roll cage. Stone shouldered in close. Just a tap on their flanks and they’d never reach the light at the end.

  It was a matter of moments, but they stretched like snakes.

  Then they were out, bursting into the bruised light of the morning, skidding hard and shedding rubber as Maisie’s wheels scrabbled for grip. They tore away with open track ahead of them, and they hadn’t made an inch on their opponents.

  “Give me something!” Cassica snapped.

  Shiara didn’t need telling. Up ahead was a short run along a dry riverbed. They were down on turbo fuel, just enough for one good burst in the final straight. Maisie’s settings were already at optimum; no wriggle room there. Opportunities for improvement looked slim. They’d have to rely on their opponents making mistakes, and that was a bad situation to be in.

  They took the curve leading down to the riverbed: a smooth-sided trench, its surface crazed with cracks. The terrain favored Cross’s faster car; he’d gain time on them. Tubbock’s Terrorizer was at least as fast as Maisie was. The other racers were so far in the dust that Shiara couldn’t find them in her mirror.

  Third place, then. But that wouldn’t be good enough. Not for Cassica, anyway.

  In the distance, another route peeled off left, rising away from the riverbed. The first of three exits. Cassica traced it with her eye, following the hump of land until it split, a knife-slash gap in the track through which the mad sun glowered.

  “No,” said Shiara, following her gaze. “Can’t do it. Maisie ain’t fast enoug
h.”

  “We can win it if we make that jump. We’ll get ahead of them.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Says you. Nobody’s tried.”

  “She ain’t capable. Wishin’ won’t make it otherwise.”

  Cassica stared ahead resentfully as the exit neared. Shiara turned her attention back to the dash, the matter settled.

  Then Cassica slammed the wheel to the left, throwing Shiara against her belts, and Maisie slewed out of the riverbed and up the exit ramp.

  Shiara turned to Cassica in horror and alarm. But Cassica’s eyes were hard behind her goggles, and Shiara knew that look. No sense in argument, no question of pulling out. She was decided.

  “Make it happen,” said Cassica.

  Shiara set herself to it. Angle of ramp, length of approach, distance to jump, all unknown. Nobody had tried it because nobody wanted to risk it. Maybe it was easier than it looked, maybe harder. Some track designers had a sadistic streak, and the crowd liked a crash. You never knew till you went for it.

  But get it wrong, and you’d most likely cripple yourself. If you came out breathing at all.

  She searched her mind for solutions as they hurtled up the incline into the sun. Heart thumping, face burning, it was hard to keep thoughts in her head. She calculated trajectory and weight, theories flashing through her mind, discarding ideas, reworking them. The readouts on the dash gave her everything but an answer.

  The jump rushed toward them. Instinct made the choice for her. She twisted a dial, hit a switch. Everything to the turbos, all at once, one huge compressed burst of speed. Probably they’d blow the engine or backflip Maisie and land her on her roof, but either was better than falling short.

  “Turbos, on my go,” she said.

  Cassica’s thumb shifted to hover over the red button on the wheel grip. The lip of the jump charged at them, close enough now so Shiara could guess at the angle. She delayed another split second to compensate, then:

  “Now.”

  The word was barely formed before Cassica pressed down with her thumb. Maisie’s turbos detonated with a sound like sudden thunder. The g-force shoved them back in their seats. Maisie hit the jump and the world tipped upward, and in that weightless moment Shiara had the cold, clear thought that this sky might be the last she ever saw. Then the ground slammed into them from below, jarring her from tailbone to teeth. Cassica wrestled with the wheel like she was holding down a sand-croc as they swung wildly this way and that. Maisie’s tires bit, and they powered down the ridge, back into the race.

  Cassica whooped with joy. Shiara, less joyous than relieved, worked frantically at the dash to calm the engine before Maisie could chew herself up.

  They slid back onto the track, reaching the final straight a full three seconds ahead of Cross’s Quantum. Cross hit his turbos, but the fastest car in the world couldn’t have closed that gap in time. Maisie crossed the line comfortably ahead of her rivals, at which point something shrieked and snapped inside her, and her engine boomed and died.

  Cassica steered off to one side. Maisie was belching black smoke from her exhausts as they freewheeled to a halt in front of the bleachers.

  They emerged from the cockpit with the din of the crowd in their ears. Shiara threw off her headgear and hurried round to check the car, her first concern for Maisie. Cassica removed her goggles and bandanna, shook out her hair as she pulled off her helmet, raised a fist to the crowd in triumph.

  Standing unmasked, the differences between them were obvious in a way they weren’t before. Cassica was slender, dark, fierce in victory; Shiara shorter, rounder, the pink of blood beneath her skin an angry contrast to the startling white of her hair and lashes.

  Shiara fussed about Maisie, grabbing gingerly at the scorching-hot engine panel, eager to know the damage. She paid no mind to the crowd or the other racers passing the finish line; she just wanted to fix things. It was only when she felt Cassica’s hand on her arm that she turned away from the car and saw her friend smiling at her, face lit up with a look like the raptures of the faithful.

  “Hoy,” she said. “Take a turn, why don’tcha?” And she motioned toward the bleachers, lined with people cheering and clapping.

  At first, Shiara didn’t understand what she meant, dazed as she was with adrenaline. Only when Cassica slung an arm round her and the crowd’s cheers redoubled did she understand.

  “We did it,” said Cassica. “Both of us.”

  Shiara raised her hand slowly, the crowd yelled and hollered, and it was only then it occurred to her they’d won.

  The sun beat down on Coppermouth, on corrugated iron roofs and rusty wrecks hiding hood-deep in yard weeds. Doghawks hung in the air, tatty shadows searching the scrub fields where saltgrass and catcher plants grew, hoping for the sight of a lizard or a cat. Up on the ridge were fields of solar panels, dust-streaked faces turned like daisies to the light.

  The heart of the town was down by the water, where the Copper River met Division Lake and a proud old metal bridge spanned the milky-brown waters of the estuary. There you could see the ghost of the town as it had been: the closed-down docks that had serviced tugs and tankers; the faded boulevard and dry gardens where passengers once walked, fresh off a barge from upstream; the shuttered stores on the main street, shabby with neglect.

  The life of the town was by the highway now. Auto shops, gun dealers, supply stops for passing traffic on their way to and from the Rust Bowl. Prospectors, freedom nuts, desperate settlers; biker gangs, bandits, and sometimes Howlers out of the waste.

  The streets of Coppermouth were never busy, but today they were quieter than usual. The townsfolk were elsewhere. Today was a celebration.

  Meat sizzled and spat, quivering in the heat haze that hovered over the huge blackened grill. Blane DuCal stood over the carnage, booming with laughter like some diabolical master torturer, his eyes made void by his shades. He was big-bellied, thick-armed, and shaven-headed; a thin blond beard and mustache straggled down to touch his chest.

  Children hovered nearby, watching the piles of meat grow higher on the warming plate. Goat, snake, sand-croc, and even a chicken or two; rarely did they see such bounty. Other children, more patient or more easily distracted, ran riot among the long linoleum-covered tables. Some pretended to be daring adventurers in the Blight Lands, battling with iron monsters from the old days. Others pranced and sang into imaginary mics, aping their heroes from Celestial Hour, stopping only to pester their parents for plastic cups of sparkling fazz. “Ain’t it all a bit much?” Shiara asked, eyeing the bunting strung overhead, the same bunting they used for Pacifica Day and Restoration Day and every other time the town gathered up on the Point to cut loose and make merry.

  Cassica returned the wave of a shy little girl who was watching them from behind a table. “Town’s throwing us a party and you’re complaining,” she said with a wry smile.

  Shiara looked over at Blane, who was swatting away undisciplined hands trying to filch flesh from the warming tray. “Just don’t feel right, Daddy closing the shop on our account. Ain’t like we can afford all this, neither.”

  “So a few scavs don’t get their axle grease. Who cares?” said Cassica. “Look at ’em! First time in forever, Coppermouth’s got something to shout about.” She slung one arm round Shiara’s shoulder and threw the other out expansively, as if to invite in the world. “Us!”

  Shiara tutted in mock disapproval. Coppermouth wasn’t the kind of place where you boasted. People took you down a peg for that. Cassica gave her a grin to show she was only half serious; then she slipped away and headed over toward Card.

  Shiara felt a faint sense of abandonment, as she always did when Cassica left her for someone else. It had been that way since she could remember: so normal, she barely noticed it anymore. Wherever Cassica was, that was where it was happening. Her restless energy was addictive. When she departed, it was like a light had burned out somewhere nearby.

  Shiara wandered back toward her daddy, awkwar
dly fielding congratulations as she went. Half the town had come to the cookout. There was greasy-haired Edison Rip, selling hooch to the grown-ups from a barrel in his cart. There was scrawny Nana Mee, surrounded by her brood of daughters, sitting in her wheelchair like it was a throne. There was Johns Weston and his idiot brother Cled, who didn’t do much else but laugh since he got a brain bug as a babbit, but was well liked for all that.

  And there was a stranger, a man she didn’t know, which was something unusual in Coppermouth. He was narrow-shouldered, with slicked-back hair, and he wore a suit even in the heat. There was a drink in his hand and he was laughing with Bonzy Brice as if they’d known each other forever, but she noticed he scanned the crowd constantly, his mind on things other than Bonzy’s dirty jokes.

  Janny Thump swept her up in a surprising and unwelcome hug. The woman had never given her the time of day before, but suddenly she was all smiles. It made Shiara momentarily angry. Did Janny think she couldn’t tell the difference between people who were genuinely happy for her and people who just wanted to share a glory they had no part of? She managed a passable thank-you and pulled herself free, but by the time she had, she’d lost sight of the stranger.

  “Here she is!” said Blane, enfolding her in one massive arm. “My little socket jockey!”

  She felt a flood of pleasure at that. His affection was given easily, but his approval had to be fought for. Shiara was the last of five, and there’d never been much time for the youngest, with Patten running amok and three other brothers before her. There was even less after Cassica’s mom died and the family took her in. Most of Shiara’s childhood had been spent quietly attempting to impress her daddy, who usually had his hands too full to notice.

  Most of her brothers were gone now, dead or moved away, only Creek still hanging about the auto shop these days. But habits learned in childhood set fast: it was her daddy’s good opinion she valued over all others.

  “Can I salvage the camshaft out of that old Jakeley you’ve got up on bricks?” she asked. “I need to patch up Maisie.”

  “That old thing?” he roared, flipping another slab of goat meat. “I’ve got a consignment in new from HawkerCorp. Take one of them instead.”