Racers
I pulled my bike to a stop with a screetching sound of tires, causing birds in a nearby tree to take flight in shock. Making sure I had completely stopped, I then concentrated and the bike retracted into my neck and navel with a series of popping sounds as the plates folded, and sliding metallic noises as they stacked themselves neatly inside me. Finally with a small hiss the change was completed and I felt the dirt-stripping liquids fill the meaty organ, engineered to house this inbuilt transportation.
The humm that had filled my body wound down as the anti grav unit took up its place next to my heart, powering down to recharge off the kinetic energy my body, like an electronic leech.
I loved my changing ability because I believed it graceful and elegant. It reminded me why I was special, not that I needed much reminding today, it had been plaguing most of our thoughts all summer.
Chicago Death Rally, the monolithic stadium who had inspired many favorites such as the Hades 10 PhycoTrak, and the Aries 4 Dodgerock Deadbolt, was today, to utter it's death rattle, only the media had branded it a suitable, screetching scream as the wrecking ball pillaged the walls and spirit of a classic and arguably the most deadly of racetracks.
Like all, or if not all, then most, of the people who competed and died in the races, I had been genetically engineered, growing my own bike pieces as I myself grew. In this way, my creators had been able to bypass all the constricting laws and guidelines refering to cyborgs and machines. I was not a machine, and I wasn't a cyborg even though my body contained metal. I carried no more restraint than an ordenary human because my metal was manufactured biologically in total harmony with my body.
Some people chose their lives and careers, some people were born with them, and I was born into a sport I both loved and played well.
Far above me, I caught the glare of the moons reflection as it bounced off the reflective, light grey semi-circle roof of the stadium. It had been buffed up into a shine, perhaps even as grand as it would have looked nearly five hundred years previously when it had opened.
I stood still for a second, not even noticing a car as it passed me by, and took a deep breath. My soul was at peace and ready to fight with all the power and potential, I knew I held. This was my childhood dream, this was my glorious moment and knowing I had earned it..... There was no greater feeling I could have obtained legally.
It had been a long time coming, god knows how long my destiny had been in the making before I had even come into the picture.
The company I owed my life to was called MIG 13, a permanent reminder of which was the mig 13 logo, lettering over a grey planet with a single, diagonal looking orbiting loop. It was printed on both of my shoulder plates. Unlike the rest of the advertising logos and other stuff that was printed onto me just before the race, this was permi-bonded.
As another car passed me slower this time, I reminded myself that I was standing in the road and retreated to the path, for the first time seeing the hotdog stand and the horror struck boy standing behind it, his mouth hanging ajar.
I smiled and walked over, travelling always made me hungry and I hadn't eaten since the shuttle. It cost a lot of energy to keep a bike like this functional.
I ordered two 'dogs and felt into the pocket of my jeans for change.
As the boy handed the two over to me with a reverence almost like they were bars of gold, he spoke for the first time.
"You're a racer." He said, it wasn't a question.
I smiled. "I sure am. I've only just started in the sport though, but then I'm good enough to have earnt my position here today."
"What class are you?" He asked.
"Sorry, but I'm only a Bronze lightweight."
As his face didn't change, I knew I was dealing with one of the hardcore fans. It was one of the first I had met, and I felt I aught to make an effort with this one.
I held out my hand. "Khera `Hellfire'." That wasn't my real second name, Jones was my real second name, because he had been the first scientist to die during our particular team's creation. Everyone on the team had the same surname, I suppose that made them family in some parts of the galaxy. Hellfire, was my nickname. Every racer had a nickname.
He didn't take my hand, but instead reached around to his back pocket and brought out an autograph pad. "Would you sign this?"
"Sure." I took it from him.
"It was my dads book, he even managed to get Jimmy Silvers autograph in it, that was in 3561, about three monthes before his crash. I try to get every racer I can to sign this book, then if they get famous, I still know if I've met them."
I smiled and said goodbye, handing his book back, then, eating the hotdogs which were excellent I made my way towards Gate 12.
Mig 13 was a biker school, owned and funded by the fizzy drink industry who's logos flicked over my plates and the rest of the bikers who had the MIG 13 logo, when the announcer read out our names. Mig 13 itself was a small astriodal planet in one of the outer reaches of civilisation, terraformed with a breathable atmosphere it's massive rock canyons and valleys were perfect for racing and needed only rountine maintainance.
The massive complex in which I and the others grew up in, employed nearly a thousand people, living and working onsite. MIG 13 kicked out a new potential team every five years, allowing room for up to four separate teams to grow with each other.
Because of the dangerous nature of the racing industry, it had been almost unaminously agreed that no racer under 20 years old would be allowed to compete.
The team of which I was a part, was known only as Blackland Slipstream. It had six members, Jo, Mac, Ken, Dave, Jerri and Khera, me. There were a hundred teams competing today in the race, nearly ten times as many for a normal race. Experience says that today was going to be like nothing I had ever seen before.
It was Chicago Death Rally that was one of the first stadiums built, concequently the races had been brutal and inexperienced. Over the years, minimal safety features had been installed and some of the less serious crashes were survivable. Today, in honor of the occasion, all these measures had been removed.
The stadium itself had no actual electronic registration system, so a human operative sat behind a large control desk while three robotic guards moved on two walls and the cieling, constantly scanning the crowd in bulk and being able to triangulate any anomalies, or anyone without clearence cards.
I had no card of cource, I could not carry anything bigger than what fitted inside my pockets, concequently, they were usually filled with stuff that I really needed like assorted pills meant to give assistance to any malfunctioning part.
"Can I help?" Asked the receptionist with a steel gaze, as I approached.
"I'm Khera `Hellfire', MIG 13, bronze lightweight."
The woman turned to a screen, her eyes flicking along it, whilst passing me my permission card. "You're in bay 97." She said and I walked off, carrying my card in my hand.
Heading towards the elevators, I saw Joseph `Begard', a frenchman who belonged to the LeStrass team, which was team number 33 in the list. Our own team was 97.
As I passed, it was concidered extreme bad luck, for lower ranking team members to talk to higher ones before competing against them, I heard him mention Hellfire, but a second after that he said the name Nathanial. Nathanial Hellfire, had been a team leader about 300 years ago.
Like the arenas, nicknames were recycleable it seemed.
Stepping into the lift for teams 80-100 I was whisked down about two miles, to the preparation area.
The lift was slow, it took about a minute to get down there. But I then had to take a moving walkway leading down to bay's 90-100, then another to 95-100. Faced now with an almost deserted octagonal room, I walked straight ahead to the passcoded door.
Inserting my permission card, I typed in the previously agreed passcode, BUTTERFLY.
The door lifted into the ceiling and I stepped in, was scanned and only then, allowed to proceed.
Most of our team was already here when I stepped out into the room.
As virtually new blood, all six of us started near the back of the lineup. Jo, flashed her rear lights at me in a good luck ritual, and I flashed them to Mac.
Like I'd said before, there were a hundred teams like ours on the track, as we were at the rear, we had to back into our clamps nearly half an hour before the race kicked off, and then watch the five hundred and seventy six other competitors, who were furthur up the scale, pass us slowly and carefully.
During this time, radio talk was allowed, and control were taking this time, to run system checks on our bikes. This was of constant annoyance to me because it meant I had to activate the positions that I would be using in the race later.
"Ok, Mac, activate your rocket lines."
They treated us like machines during this breif period, I found it very uncomfortable when they moved parts of me by their keyboard.
"Ok guys listen up." Jerri said. "I got something important I wanna say, and I'm going to say it before I lose my nerve."
The technitions quieted, I could imagine them turning to Jennifer, our phycotic trainer, looking for what they should do. She must have nodded to them, because they quieted.
"This is the first major event we've ever really competed in, apart from the qualifier, we're all excellently trained, and gifted, and there is no reason why any of us shouldn't survive today. But if I should crash today, just remember that I was ready for the race, I gave it my best shot, and I have no regrets about my life, or about any of you. If I should fall today, do not spare me a thought until my funeral. The race is what we all live for, and it would be selfish to let you worry about me whilst the race is still on."
There was a pause, and then Jennifer came on the mike.
"Fine speech Jerri. Very commendable attitude."
"Thankyou." She said, I could even believed she meant it. Jerri had always seemed to hate Jennifer. "But I, for one, am going to win this race today. But I felt it would be safer for me to get those things out."
"Jerri, you are so full of bull." I spoke up. She laughed. "Everyone knows I'm gonna win."
"Alright, quit yakkin." Jennifer said. "Let the Tech's finish up. And remember to get those weapons if you have a spare second. If you can cover an attacker who's armed, then you'll survive that much longer. Go for it and do your best."
I reflected that if this race was anything like the time when the arena opened, those hardcore perverts were going to see the match they had always dreamed about. I'd heard that somewhere nearby, people were taking bets on the mortality rate, would anyone survive, all the way up to 100 survivors, of those, in a seperate bet, how many would finish the race, none, up to 5, up to 10 or up to 20.
Like I said, this match was going to be brutal and it was certainly going to go down in history. The media's branding, would be paled in comparrison.
"Ok, all systems go." The Techs said. "Any lights not green racers?"
I ran my eyes over the four status screens to the left of my face. A mass of green.
"Good."
"Jerri?" I asked.
"Yeah?"
"If you crash, can I have you melted down and buy a car?"
"Fuck you Khera." She said.
"Khera, we should sell your ego to the politions, keep em going for weeks." Ken said.
We all laughed, and the final countdown began. 30 seconds.
"Seriously, good luck all of you." I said seriously.
"It's been real." Mac said.
"Ok, shutting down chatter radio now." Jennifer said, and the noise in my ear went dead. I was alone now. Bracing myself I took my hand away from it's clamp and pressed the booster buttons. I felt the hiss of the needle entering my neck, and bursts of adrenaline, testosterone and bio-oil, entered my blood.
This was the closest thing to drugs we were allowed. Everything came into diamond focus. I was the wind again, Hell's own angel, screaming along the track, like it was Hell's runway.
The stat's screen flicked on just above the plexi window which separated me from wind speeds of up to six hundred mph at maximum speeds in headwind. The seven bikes flickered once then all turned green, below that in yellow was my speed and below that, the miles left to go, 12.25, and various misc information about the race.
I bared my teeth in suspence, just as the timer clicked off with five seconds to go.
The arena fell silent, you could have heard a pin drop, and then the lightning struck and the thunder boomed, and the clamp, holding my rear wheel in the air, while it spun so fast it would dance with a man for sixteen rotations before spitting him out, finally let go.
My tire hit the surface, and the anti grav machine pulsed before I had traveled more than two feet. My tires were locked to the road surface, even if it was upside down. Not even two seconds into the race and there was a collision near the front as one bike clipped another. They both bent sidewards till they were facing each other and the ones directly behind them, didn't stand a chance. The two rolled with the impact, one's plexi window shattering, whilst the ones who had been behind them veered sidewards into the wall, the explosion, took out another bike and then, the fire was right infront of me. I flicked through, saved as I knew I would be, by nothing more than wind resistance.
Bio-oil was flammable, not so much as an explosive, but certainly not too hard to set alight. I hope it was my imagination, but I thought I heard a scream as I petetrated the wall of fire. I really hope it was a trick of my mind.
One bike from another team, foolishly zoomed infront of me then, smacking Jo to the side where she scraped a shower of sparks on the wall, before falling behind me. Jo's left side on the view screen turned yellow.
"Here you go ya little fuck." I said and rammed his rear hard, it lifted off the floor and he lost the anti-grav. His bike turned in a slow spin and then righted as his wheel came down again. He turns sidewards involunterily with the bump and then banked right again to avoid crashing into the wall, coming right at me.
I turned into his turn, and clipped his rear end again, increasing his spin and whilst I only climbed the wall to the left, he hit the wall on the right.
I laughed.
Jo's status screen flickered gold, the team equivilent of a high five. I smiled.
As the information finally appeared on my status screen, I was informed that twenty five racers had crashed back there. Just then Ken's bike went orange on the screen.
I accelerated along the two mile stretch, gaining three places places in the pack, wieving dangerously between them. I was the wind and they couldn't touch me.
My back eye told me that jerri was right behind me as we approached the first corner. She was using my slipstream to save her the energy of facing the wind resistance, very tactical but it made her a sitting duck for weaponry. Both of us if someone found an emp rocket.
Dave was fast coming up the side now, leading the crippled Jo. She had locked herself to his bike to ride with him until pit stop. That meant that she was in pain with her bent plates. Not good.
Our plates all have nervous systems built in, had they been put in real metal sheets, their network of soft tissue would have made the steel brittle. But biometal bent and in accordance produced it's own nervous systems rather than relying on human nerves. This made it possible to feel the wind around you when you raced, it made you able to feel the impacts more too. It was the final cosmetic step to truely make the bike, a part of you.
But Jo's situation must have been worse than I thought because at that moment, a couple of angels came down onto the track and lifted Jo off into the air.
Angels were flying safety, they took you back to pit if you told them you were too crippled for the race to continue.
Again, another crash up ahead, this one a blazing fireball, Dave, distracted from having to uncouple the tow, didn't see it until he'd passed straight through it. I guess his back tire must have melted or something because he flipped, falling back before he exploded. Dave's bike turned yellow on my screen. So did Jo's, but I knew she was safe.
Suddenly I saw one of the three ahead climbing the wall, and I wondered why the other two hadn't followed him. The second had gone too far up for just to be overtaking.
On instinct I banked too and just as I drew level with the bike, a green weapons grid flashed under us. I gained a homing missle, and Jerri got a couple of landmines, as the status screen told me. A couple of seconds later I felt the weapon on my left shoulder plate. I accelerated, encouraged by the presence of the weapons.
Getting past that biker who knew that the weapons cache was there, would be difficult, so I came up behind him and then banked back left heading straight for the guy who'd been behind him. He'd seen us coming as I had counted on, and fell back letting us climb the other wall and then the pathway was clear.
Just then, the track dipped into a slope and our speed ripped us from the road. I twisted immediately and surprisingly expertly, and landed heavy on the cieling. Jerri had obviously roped herself to me in a tow because she followed my movements exactly.
The impact died quickly in my frame, I wasn't badly damaged. Suddenly the crash screen jumped up by about a hundred and I knew there was trouble ahead.
In the blackened edge of vision in the tunnel, loomed a vast wall of metal, filling the corridor from end to end, leaving only a slim gap near the cieling, or the wall, I'm not sure anymore. I didn't think it mattered as I banked heading right for it.
Again, Fire licked at our bikes, but did not catch. The survivors of the race now, were much more spaced out, and I let my homing missile fly about a mile from the target, encouraged by the lack of nearby bikers. Just as a massive boom filled the corridor, shaking the very ground. I saw that Jerri had one mine now, that boom had been the last, she'd probably dropped it at that crash site.
Another of my team lost green status, just as the track curved again into a reverse grade. A bike accellerated past us upside down in a shower of sparks. along what was relatively the cieling. We were going 496mph down this stretch, but that bike was at least doing 540mph.
Then as the next turn came up out of the dark, a phycotic angle, probably taking us back to gravity level. That uncontrolable bike slammed into the ground.
Jerri released her second mine and a wave of shock ran over us. She'd dropped it to avoid an attacker's missile. I rode around the longer of the two corners, as fast as I dared, but still the G-force, nearly burst my tires.
Distracted by Jerri's mine, most of the ones behind us never saw the bend. That, was the major turning point in the race for us at least.
The racers had thinned to about 70 by now, and up ahead I saw the result my missile had inflicted on that bike.
It was losing fluid, whether blood or oil, it was hard to tell, but suddenly, Angels picked him off the track, carrying him to safety.
I felt no guilt this was the race, and there was no time for anything but winning.
Another weapons Cache loomed out of the darkness as we accelerated, and it was only by a quick brake that I was able to clip it. I got a battery of missiles this time, and Jerri gained an emp sheild, useless while we were in tow.
She instructed the weapon to pass to Mac, who was alone, somewhere behind us. Now, out of the dark came the next bike, I held steady for a moment, keeping him in the middle of my screen then the targeting comp had him.
Another turn, this one a pure, vertical plummet. I ran up the wall and just managed to gain the ceiling before we hit the curve. The bike below was not so lucky. He didn't quite make the ceiling and rode the curve around the bend not decending but instead shooting back the way we had come, bearly missing the tail of Jerri.
As a reward for the g-nastics, a row of weaponry, covering the floor appeared ahead.
I gained another Emp missile, in excess of my battery, and Jerri got a pass field, which was a horizontal forcefield, acting like a wall on either side of your bike. Nothing could pass you on the same vertex, they would have to climb the walls or the ceiling.
Again she passed the weapon to Mac, who was about three places behind us.
Another biker appeared infront and this time, the word 5th appeared in white above it in my view. I drifted closer, for this bike really was racing fast. I must have hit 550mph trying to catch him, going on the idea that to be this far up he was probably a pro and knew the track better than I did.
He flicked left and right, he must've seen the battery above my head.
I moved left with him, then right, predicting his moves and the lock completed. I pressed the fire button immediately and a barrage of small white rockets moved ahead of me, slamming into the rear of his bike.
These did little more than throw his bike into a slight tilt, as he banked to avoid most of the damage. But one struck true, hitting right between the shoulder plates, and a piece of his armor snapped off, burying itself into my left wing. I howled in pain, but I knew I could carry on.
Just then, we passed into the final piece of the race. Hell's own chamber.
This part of the race was by far the most deadly, even bearing in mind that the bikers had been decimated by the cource so far. A winding rocky road, with no barriers, raised from beds of molten lava on one side, and vast, unforgiving jagged mountain side on the other. If you scraped along that wall, you wouldn't just recieve a bent wing, like Jo had, you'd be ripped to pieces.
There were just four people infront of us. The one infront of us, black shaded, held a crazy bomb. Crazy bombs were something to be avoided. If you realeased one, then it wound it's way forwards, from left to right, ignorant of any riders. If it hit any though, it had a tendancy to blow bikes in half.
It was an extreme weapon. One of the most feared. I didn't dare try to pass him whilst he held it, the two of us would be a sitting duck.
But he was holding on to it, I saw, letting the others ahead expend their own arsenels before he tried to overtake them. After all, powerful forwards facing weapons were useless if there's no one infront of you.
I had to slow to take a turn, and just then the guy infront realeased his Crazy Bomb.
It followed the track around the next bend and caught third place, right in the centre. He exploded.
Around this turn there was something of a straight bit, and I saw a chance to get ahead which I didn't dare not to take. At the end of this straight, lay a extremely makeshift ramp, made out of a fallen piece of ceiling. I could use it, and if I judged it correctly, I could land, two turns ahead, scraping maybe two seconds off my lap time.
I headed straight for it, accelerating. Jerri, who feared that stray piece of armor had made a comback, dissolved the tow immediately, turning to the corner.
I hit the ramp and my tires were ripped from the road, throwing me upwards, too high I knew, way too high as the ceiling came down to meet me. I gulped in fear and in a last ditch effort, activated my left banking rocket to throw me around so that instead of coming down to meet me, I was going down to meet it.
The impact was agony for me, the tyres of my bike compressed and bent the underside of my plates completely out of shape. I nearly bounced, and if I had then I would have fallen. But the anti grav saved my life and I settled back onto the hot ceiling.
The heat up there was extrodenary, every inch hurt me like I was being scraped along the wall. I hit top speed, hoping to gain advantage from the wind, but little came. I knew I had to let go of the ceiling, but baring my teeth in pain, I knew I couldn't.
I could feel myself beginning to melt as I accelerated furthur along the cavern, perhaps ultimately, if I survived, shaving ten or twenty seconds away from my finish time.
I was clearly winning the race now, but I knew I was on the verge of exploding.
Then, up ahead, the race path showed the end of Hell, and I lifted my front tire off the ceiling, to disable the antigrav.
I fell, flipping over, just like before, and a homing missile missed me by perhaps a foot, smashing down into the road infront of me.
I laughed, though I was still trying to melt, as I bounced once, not even seeing the ceiling rush at me until it was too late. The spine protecting piece of the bike was ripped painfully out of my neck, exposing that strip of my back to the wind, which ripped my t-shirt like it was paper.
I was undaunted, I knew my back was being scraped raw, my plates were singing painfully, and still I could only care about winning. I had a clear advantage, and we were in the home stretch.
But the pain was building now and I had to cringe, my self control faultered and Black Devil, the biker who had had the Crazy bomb whipped infront of me, closely followed by Jerri.
Then, as the finish line loomed upon us, Another bike, a rider called Danny Death throw, passed me, carrying a homing missile. I knew he was going to fire it at Jerri, so I banked hard, smashing into him like a football player, slamming him against the wall, just as I remembered I had an emp missile. I had to trigger it before my victim realeased his rocket, and he would, just as soon as he realised I, and Jerri were on the same team. Instead of activating the missile before letting it go, I just let go of it, and it exploded on impact. The explosion lifted me from the ground, throwing me up at the wall, which my shoulder plate hit, causing me to flip violently, rolling once, before skidding along on my side.
Danny's bike came to rest alongside my own just past the finish line, and then, as the angel's decended on us Danny's electricity deprived homing missile, exploded.
The press went absolutely crazy, branding me Suisidal Hellfire. But also praising me for my part in one of the most spectacular races of all time.
I was unconcious but moderately unharmed by the explosion and although I couldn't allow myself to become human again until a week of terrifying traction had come and gone.
As the techs kept drilling into me, it was better to check there were no bent plates or anything of the kind, as a damaged plate could slice a vein inside me.
As it turned out, Black Devil came first, Jerri Lightning Rat, came second, much to our merriment, and I was placed third.
When we were all fit again, thought really they were waiting for me to recover, the awarding cerimony was held and the long retired champion, Iron Maiden, hung medals around our necks and made a speech about how she wished she had been allowed to compete in that epic race.
Even from the very first race, I had been different from the other five racers, just, I suppose in a way, they had been different to me. I was the one willing to take the risk of vaulting from that rock, to spring to the ceiling. The replay of the race was shown ceremoniously during the awards. It really was a daring move, though I had not realised it at the time. It had looked impossible until I actually pulled it off.
Now, as I stand here in the deserted stands, listening to the sounds of far off deconstruction, I don't hold a thought of celebration. I hold thoughts of Dave, who was the only one to have died from our team. He will be missed, it's true, but the rest of us have been bought by a talent scout. Tomorrow, we leave Jennifer and all the tech's behind, to start a new life. A life, built on the death of both Dave, and an arena.
I had been a part of a legend. I had played, and been a third of the winners, of the last and perhaps greatest race, this place would ever know. Six hundred years of competition was drawing to a close with the fall of this place. Perhaps even the sport itself would be fatally wounded by the loss of such an important piece.
I wonder now if one of those winners from long long ago, ever felt the same way I do now.
Nah.
I turned around to the company lap dogs, and let them lead me away from that silent, most holy of places.
K.
I pulled my bike to a stop with a screetching sound of tires, causing birds in a nearby tree to take flight in shock. Making sure I had completely stopped, I then concentrated and the bike retracted into my neck and navel with a series of popping sounds as the plates folded, and sliding metallic noises as they stacked themselves neatly inside me. Finally with a small hiss the change was completed and I felt the dirt-stripping liquids fill the meaty organ, engineered to house this inbuilt transportation.
The humm that had filled my body wound down as the anti grav unit took up its place next to my heart, powering down to recharge off the kinetic energy my body, like an electronic leech.
I loved my changing ability because I believed it graceful and elegant. It reminded me why I was special, not that I needed much reminding today, it had been plaguing most of our thoughts all summer.
Chicago Death Rally, the monolithic stadium who had inspired many favorites such as the Hades 10 PhycoTrak, and the Aries 4 Dodgerock Deadbolt, was today, to utter it's death rattle, only the media had branded it a suitable, screetching scream as the wrecking ball pillaged the walls and spirit of a classic and arguably the most deadly of racetracks.
Like all, or if not all, then most, of the people who competed and died in the races, I had been genetically engineered, growing my own bike pieces as I myself grew. In this way, my creators had been able to bypass all the constricting laws and guidelines refering to cyborgs and machines. I was not a machine, and I wasn't a cyborg even though my body contained metal. I carried no more restraint than an ordenary human because my metal was manufactured biologically in total harmony with my body.
Some people chose their lives and careers, some people were born with them, and I was born into a sport I both loved and played well.
Far above me, I caught the glare of the moons reflection as it bounced off the reflective, light grey semi-circle roof of the stadium. It had been buffed up into a shine, perhaps even as grand as it would have looked nearly five hundred years previously when it had opened.
I stood still for a second, not even noticing a car as it passed me by, and took a deep breath. My soul was at peace and ready to fight with all the power and potential, I knew I held. This was my childhood dream, this was my glorious moment and knowing I had earned it..... There was no greater feeling I could have obtained legally.
It had been a long time coming, god knows how long my destiny had been in the making before I had even come into the picture.
The company I owed my life to was called MIG 13, a permanent reminder of which was the mig 13 logo, lettering over a grey planet with a single, diagonal looking orbiting loop. It was printed on both of my shoulder plates. Unlike the rest of the advertising logos and other stuff that was printed onto me just before the race, this was permi-bonded.
As another car passed me slower this time, I reminded myself that I was standing in the road and retreated to the path, for the first time seeing the hotdog stand and the horror struck boy standing behind it, his mouth hanging ajar.
I smiled and walked over, travelling always made me hungry and I hadn't eaten since the shuttle. It cost a lot of energy to keep a bike like this functional.
I ordered two 'dogs and felt into the pocket of my jeans for change.
As the boy handed the two over to me with a reverence almost like they were bars of gold, he spoke for the first time.
"You're a racer." He said, it wasn't a question.
I smiled. "I sure am. I've only just started in the sport though, but then I'm good enough to have earnt my position here today."
"What class are you?" He asked.
"Sorry, but I'm only a Bronze lightweight."
As his face didn't change, I knew I was dealing with one of the hardcore fans. It was one of the first I had met, and I felt I aught to make an effort with this one.
I held out my hand. "Khera `Hellfire'." That wasn't my real second name, Jones was my real second name, because he had been the first scientist to die during our particular team's creation. Everyone on the team had the same surname, I suppose that made them family in some parts of the galaxy. Hellfire, was my nickname. Every racer had a nickname.
He didn't take my hand, but instead reached around to his back pocket and brought out an autograph pad. "Would you sign this?"
"Sure." I took it from him.
"It was my dads book, he even managed to get Jimmy Silvers autograph in it, that was in 3561, about three monthes before his crash. I try to get every racer I can to sign this book, then if they get famous, I still know if I've met them."
I smiled and said goodbye, handing his book back, then, eating the hotdogs which were excellent I made my way towards Gate 12.
Mig 13 was a biker school, owned and funded by the fizzy drink industry who's logos flicked over my plates and the rest of the bikers who had the MIG 13 logo, when the announcer read out our names. Mig 13 itself was a small astriodal planet in one of the outer reaches of civilisation, terraformed with a breathable atmosphere it's massive rock canyons and valleys were perfect for racing and needed only rountine maintainance.
The massive complex in which I and the others grew up in, employed nearly a thousand people, living and working onsite. MIG 13 kicked out a new potential team every five years, allowing room for up to four separate teams to grow with each other.
Because of the dangerous nature of the racing industry, it had been almost unaminously agreed that no racer under 20 years old would be allowed to compete.
The team of which I was a part, was known only as Blackland Slipstream. It had six members, Jo, Mac, Ken, Dave, Jerri and Khera, me. There were a hundred teams competing today in the race, nearly ten times as many for a normal race. Experience says that today was going to be like nothing I had ever seen before.
It was Chicago Death Rally that was one of the first stadiums built, concequently the races had been brutal and inexperienced. Over the years, minimal safety features had been installed and some of the less serious crashes were survivable. Today, in honor of the occasion, all these measures had been removed.
The stadium itself had no actual electronic registration system, so a human operative sat behind a large control desk while three robotic guards moved on two walls and the cieling, constantly scanning the crowd in bulk and being able to triangulate any anomalies, or anyone without clearence cards.
I had no card of cource, I could not carry anything bigger than what fitted inside my pockets, concequently, they were usually filled with stuff that I really needed like assorted pills meant to give assistance to any malfunctioning part.
"Can I help?" Asked the receptionist with a steel gaze, as I approached.
"I'm Khera `Hellfire', MIG 13, bronze lightweight."
The woman turned to a screen, her eyes flicking along it, whilst passing me my permission card. "You're in bay 97." She said and I walked off, carrying my card in my hand.
Heading towards the elevators, I saw Joseph `Begard', a frenchman who belonged to the LeStrass team, which was team number 33 in the list. Our own team was 97.
As I passed, it was concidered extreme bad luck, for lower ranking team members to talk to higher ones before competing against them, I heard him mention Hellfire, but a second after that he said the name Nathanial. Nathanial Hellfire, had been a team leader about 300 years ago.
Like the arenas, nicknames were recycleable it seemed.
Stepping into the lift for teams 80-100 I was whisked down about two miles, to the preparation area.
The lift was slow, it took about a minute to get down there. But I then had to take a moving walkway leading down to bay's 90-100, then another to 95-100. Faced now with an almost deserted octagonal room, I walked straight ahead to the passcoded door.
Inserting my permission card, I typed in the previously agreed passcode, BUTTERFLY.
The door lifted into the ceiling and I stepped in, was scanned and only then, allowed to proceed.
Most of our team was already here when I stepped out into the room.
As virtually new blood, all six of us started near the back of the lineup. Jo, flashed her rear lights at me in a good luck ritual, and I flashed them to Mac.
Like I'd said before, there were a hundred teams like ours on the track, as we were at the rear, we had to back into our clamps nearly half an hour before the race kicked off, and then watch the five hundred and seventy six other competitors, who were furthur up the scale, pass us slowly and carefully.
During this time, radio talk was allowed, and control were taking this time, to run system checks on our bikes. This was of constant annoyance to me because it meant I had to activate the positions that I would be using in the race later.
"Ok, Mac, activate your rocket lines."
They treated us like machines during this breif period, I found it very uncomfortable when they moved parts of me by their keyboard.
"Ok guys listen up." Jerri said. "I got something important I wanna say, and I'm going to say it before I lose my nerve."
The technitions quieted, I could imagine them turning to Jennifer, our phycotic trainer, looking for what they should do. She must have nodded to them, because they quieted.
"This is the first major event we've ever really competed in, apart from the qualifier, we're all excellently trained, and gifted, and there is no reason why any of us shouldn't survive today. But if I should crash today, just remember that I was ready for the race, I gave it my best shot, and I have no regrets about my life, or about any of you. If I should fall today, do not spare me a thought until my funeral. The race is what we all live for, and it would be selfish to let you worry about me whilst the race is still on."
There was a pause, and then Jennifer came on the mike.
"Fine speech Jerri. Very commendable attitude."
"Thankyou." She said, I could even believed she meant it. Jerri had always seemed to hate Jennifer. "But I, for one, am going to win this race today. But I felt it would be safer for me to get those things out."
"Jerri, you are so full of bull." I spoke up. She laughed. "Everyone knows I'm gonna win."
"Alright, quit yakkin." Jennifer said. "Let the Tech's finish up. And remember to get those weapons if you have a spare second. If you can cover an attacker who's armed, then you'll survive that much longer. Go for it and do your best."
I reflected that if this race was anything like the time when the arena opened, those hardcore perverts were going to see the match they had always dreamed about. I'd heard that somewhere nearby, people were taking bets on the mortality rate, would anyone survive, all the way up to 100 survivors, of those, in a seperate bet, how many would finish the race, none, up to 5, up to 10 or up to 20.
Like I said, this match was going to be brutal and it was certainly going to go down in history. The media's branding, would be paled in comparrison.
"Ok, all systems go." The Techs said. "Any lights not green racers?"
I ran my eyes over the four status screens to the left of my face. A mass of green.
"Good."
"Jerri?" I asked.
"Yeah?"
"If you crash, can I have you melted down and buy a car?"
"Fuck you Khera." She said.
"Khera, we should sell your ego to the politions, keep em going for weeks." Ken said.
We all laughed, and the final countdown began. 30 seconds.
"Seriously, good luck all of you." I said seriously.
"It's been real." Mac said.
"Ok, shutting down chatter radio now." Jennifer said, and the noise in my ear went dead. I was alone now. Bracing myself I took my hand away from it's clamp and pressed the booster buttons. I felt the hiss of the needle entering my neck, and bursts of adrenaline, testosterone and bio-oil, entered my blood.
This was the closest thing to drugs we were allowed. Everything came into diamond focus. I was the wind again, Hell's own angel, screaming along the track, like it was Hell's runway.
The stat's screen flicked on just above the plexi window which separated me from wind speeds of up to six hundred mph at maximum speeds in headwind. The seven bikes flickered once then all turned green, below that in yellow was my speed and below that, the miles left to go, 12.25, and various misc information about the race.
I bared my teeth in suspence, just as the timer clicked off with five seconds to go.
The arena fell silent, you could have heard a pin drop, and then the lightning struck and the thunder boomed, and the clamp, holding my rear wheel in the air, while it spun so fast it would dance with a man for sixteen rotations before spitting him out, finally let go.
My tire hit the surface, and the anti grav machine pulsed before I had traveled more than two feet. My tires were locked to the road surface, even if it was upside down. Not even two seconds into the race and there was a collision near the front as one bike clipped another. They both bent sidewards till they were facing each other and the ones directly behind them, didn't stand a chance. The two rolled with the impact, one's plexi window shattering, whilst the ones who had been behind them veered sidewards into the wall, the explosion, took out another bike and then, the fire was right infront of me. I flicked through, saved as I knew I would be, by nothing more than wind resistance.
Bio-oil was flammable, not so much as an explosive, but certainly not too hard to set alight. I hope it was my imagination, but I thought I heard a scream as I petetrated the wall of fire. I really hope it was a trick of my mind.
One bike from another team, foolishly zoomed infront of me then, smacking Jo to the side where she scraped a shower of sparks on the wall, before falling behind me. Jo's left side on the view screen turned yellow.
"Here you go ya little fuck." I said and rammed his rear hard, it lifted off the floor and he lost the anti-grav. His bike turned in a slow spin and then righted as his wheel came down again. He turns sidewards involunterily with the bump and then banked right again to avoid crashing into the wall, coming right at me.
I turned into his turn, and clipped his rear end again, increasing his spin and whilst I only climbed the wall to the left, he hit the wall on the right.
I laughed.
Jo's status screen flickered gold, the team equivilent of a high five. I smiled.
As the information finally appeared on my status screen, I was informed that twenty five racers had crashed back there. Just then Ken's bike went orange on the screen.
I accelerated along the two mile stretch, gaining three places places in the pack, wieving dangerously between them. I was the wind and they couldn't touch me.
My back eye told me that jerri was right behind me as we approached the first corner. She was using my slipstream to save her the energy of facing the wind resistance, very tactical but it made her a sitting duck for weaponry. Both of us if someone found an emp rocket.
Dave was fast coming up the side now, leading the crippled Jo. She had locked herself to his bike to ride with him until pit stop. That meant that she was in pain with her bent plates. Not good.
Our plates all have nervous systems built in, had they been put in real metal sheets, their network of soft tissue would have made the steel brittle. But biometal bent and in accordance produced it's own nervous systems rather than relying on human nerves. This made it possible to feel the wind around you when you raced, it made you able to feel the impacts more too. It was the final cosmetic step to truely make the bike, a part of you.
But Jo's situation must have been worse than I thought because at that moment, a couple of angels came down onto the track and lifted Jo off into the air.
Angels were flying safety, they took you back to pit if you told them you were too crippled for the race to continue.
Again, another crash up ahead, this one a blazing fireball, Dave, distracted from having to uncouple the tow, didn't see it until he'd passed straight through it. I guess his back tire must have melted or something because he flipped, falling back before he exploded. Dave's bike turned yellow on my screen. So did Jo's, but I knew she was safe.
Suddenly I saw one of the three ahead climbing the wall, and I wondered why the other two hadn't followed him. The second had gone too far up for just to be overtaking.
On instinct I banked too and just as I drew level with the bike, a green weapons grid flashed under us. I gained a homing missle, and Jerri got a couple of landmines, as the status screen told me. A couple of seconds later I felt the weapon on my left shoulder plate. I accelerated, encouraged by the presence of the weapons.
Getting past that biker who knew that the weapons cache was there, would be difficult, so I came up behind him and then banked back left heading straight for the guy who'd been behind him. He'd seen us coming as I had counted on, and fell back letting us climb the other wall and then the pathway was clear.
Just then, the track dipped into a slope and our speed ripped us from the road. I twisted immediately and surprisingly expertly, and landed heavy on the cieling. Jerri had obviously roped herself to me in a tow because she followed my movements exactly.
The impact died quickly in my frame, I wasn't badly damaged. Suddenly the crash screen jumped up by about a hundred and I knew there was trouble ahead.
In the blackened edge of vision in the tunnel, loomed a vast wall of metal, filling the corridor from end to end, leaving only a slim gap near the cieling, or the wall, I'm not sure anymore. I didn't think it mattered as I banked heading right for it.
Again, Fire licked at our bikes, but did not catch. The survivors of the race now, were much more spaced out, and I let my homing missile fly about a mile from the target, encouraged by the lack of nearby bikers. Just as a massive boom filled the corridor, shaking the very ground. I saw that Jerri had one mine now, that boom had been the last, she'd probably dropped it at that crash site.
Another of my team lost green status, just as the track curved again into a reverse grade. A bike accellerated past us upside down in a shower of sparks. along what was relatively the cieling. We were going 496mph down this stretch, but that bike was at least doing 540mph.
Then as the next turn came up out of the dark, a phycotic angle, probably taking us back to gravity level. That uncontrolable bike slammed into the ground.
Jerri released her second mine and a wave of shock ran over us. She'd dropped it to avoid an attacker's missile. I rode around the longer of the two corners, as fast as I dared, but still the G-force, nearly burst my tires.
Distracted by Jerri's mine, most of the ones behind us never saw the bend. That, was the major turning point in the race for us at least.
The racers had thinned to about 70 by now, and up ahead I saw the result my missile had inflicted on that bike.
It was losing fluid, whether blood or oil, it was hard to tell, but suddenly, Angels picked him off the track, carrying him to safety.
I felt no guilt this was the race, and there was no time for anything but winning.
Another weapons Cache loomed out of the darkness as we accelerated, and it was only by a quick brake that I was able to clip it. I got a battery of missiles this time, and Jerri gained an emp sheild, useless while we were in tow.
She instructed the weapon to pass to Mac, who was alone, somewhere behind us. Now, out of the dark came the next bike, I held steady for a moment, keeping him in the middle of my screen then the targeting comp had him.
Another turn, this one a pure, vertical plummet. I ran up the wall and just managed to gain the ceiling before we hit the curve. The bike below was not so lucky. He didn't quite make the ceiling and rode the curve around the bend not decending but instead shooting back the way we had come, bearly missing the tail of Jerri.
As a reward for the g-nastics, a row of weaponry, covering the floor appeared ahead.
I gained another Emp missile, in excess of my battery, and Jerri got a pass field, which was a horizontal forcefield, acting like a wall on either side of your bike. Nothing could pass you on the same vertex, they would have to climb the walls or the ceiling.
Again she passed the weapon to Mac, who was about three places behind us.
Another biker appeared infront and this time, the word 5th appeared in white above it in my view. I drifted closer, for this bike really was racing fast. I must have hit 550mph trying to catch him, going on the idea that to be this far up he was probably a pro and knew the track better than I did.
He flicked left and right, he must've seen the battery above my head.
I moved left with him, then right, predicting his moves and the lock completed. I pressed the fire button immediately and a barrage of small white rockets moved ahead of me, slamming into the rear of his bike.
These did little more than throw his bike into a slight tilt, as he banked to avoid most of the damage. But one struck true, hitting right between the shoulder plates, and a piece of his armor snapped off, burying itself into my left wing. I howled in pain, but I knew I could carry on.
Just then, we passed into the final piece of the race. Hell's own chamber.
This part of the race was by far the most deadly, even bearing in mind that the bikers had been decimated by the cource so far. A winding rocky road, with no barriers, raised from beds of molten lava on one side, and vast, unforgiving jagged mountain side on the other. If you scraped along that wall, you wouldn't just recieve a bent wing, like Jo had, you'd be ripped to pieces.
There were just four people infront of us. The one infront of us, black shaded, held a crazy bomb. Crazy bombs were something to be avoided. If you realeased one, then it wound it's way forwards, from left to right, ignorant of any riders. If it hit any though, it had a tendancy to blow bikes in half.
It was an extreme weapon. One of the most feared. I didn't dare try to pass him whilst he held it, the two of us would be a sitting duck.
But he was holding on to it, I saw, letting the others ahead expend their own arsenels before he tried to overtake them. After all, powerful forwards facing weapons were useless if there's no one infront of you.
I had to slow to take a turn, and just then the guy infront realeased his Crazy Bomb.
It followed the track around the next bend and caught third place, right in the centre. He exploded.
Around this turn there was something of a straight bit, and I saw a chance to get ahead which I didn't dare not to take. At the end of this straight, lay a extremely makeshift ramp, made out of a fallen piece of ceiling. I could use it, and if I judged it correctly, I could land, two turns ahead, scraping maybe two seconds off my lap time.
I headed straight for it, accelerating. Jerri, who feared that stray piece of armor had made a comback, dissolved the tow immediately, turning to the corner.
I hit the ramp and my tires were ripped from the road, throwing me upwards, too high I knew, way too high as the ceiling came down to meet me. I gulped in fear and in a last ditch effort, activated my left banking rocket to throw me around so that instead of coming down to meet me, I was going down to meet it.
The impact was agony for me, the tyres of my bike compressed and bent the underside of my plates completely out of shape. I nearly bounced, and if I had then I would have fallen. But the anti grav saved my life and I settled back onto the hot ceiling.
The heat up there was extrodenary, every inch hurt me like I was being scraped along the wall. I hit top speed, hoping to gain advantage from the wind, but little came. I knew I had to let go of the ceiling, but baring my teeth in pain, I knew I couldn't.
I could feel myself beginning to melt as I accelerated furthur along the cavern, perhaps ultimately, if I survived, shaving ten or twenty seconds away from my finish time.
I was clearly winning the race now, but I knew I was on the verge of exploding.
Then, up ahead, the race path showed the end of Hell, and I lifted my front tire off the ceiling, to disable the antigrav.
I fell, flipping over, just like before, and a homing missile missed me by perhaps a foot, smashing down into the road infront of me.
I laughed, though I was still trying to melt, as I bounced once, not even seeing the ceiling rush at me until it was too late. The spine protecting piece of the bike was ripped painfully out of my neck, exposing that strip of my back to the wind, which ripped my t-shirt like it was paper.
I was undaunted, I knew my back was being scraped raw, my plates were singing painfully, and still I could only care about winning. I had a clear advantage, and we were in the home stretch.
But the pain was building now and I had to cringe, my self control faultered and Black Devil, the biker who had had the Crazy bomb whipped infront of me, closely followed by Jerri.
Then, as the finish line loomed upon us, Another bike, a rider called Danny Death throw, passed me, carrying a homing missile. I knew he was going to fire it at Jerri, so I banked hard, smashing into him like a football player, slamming him against the wall, just as I remembered I had an emp missile. I had to trigger it before my victim realeased his rocket, and he would, just as soon as he realised I, and Jerri were on the same team. Instead of activating the missile before letting it go, I just let go of it, and it exploded on impact. The explosion lifted me from the ground, throwing me up at the wall, which my shoulder plate hit, causing me to flip violently, rolling once, before skidding along on my side.
Danny's bike came to rest alongside my own just past the finish line, and then, as the angel's decended on us Danny's electricity deprived homing missile, exploded.
The press went absolutely crazy, branding me Suisidal Hellfire. But also praising me for my part in one of the most spectacular races of all time.
I was unconcious but moderately unharmed by the explosion and although I couldn't allow myself to become human again until a week of terrifying traction had come and gone.
As the techs kept drilling into me, it was better to check there were no bent plates or anything of the kind, as a damaged plate could slice a vein inside me.
As it turned out, Black Devil came first, Jerri Lightning Rat, came second, much to our merriment, and I was placed third.
When we were all fit again, thought really they were waiting for me to recover, the awarding cerimony was held and the long retired champion, Iron Maiden, hung medals around our necks and made a speech about how she wished she had been allowed to compete in that epic race.
Even from the very first race, I had been different from the other five racers, just, I suppose in a way, they had been different to me. I was the one willing to take the risk of vaulting from that rock, to spring to the ceiling. The replay of the race was shown ceremoniously during the awards. It really was a daring move, though I had not realised it at the time. It had looked impossible until I actually pulled it off.
Now, as I stand here in the deserted stands, listening to the sounds of far off deconstruction, I don't hold a thought of celebration. I hold thoughts of Dave, who was the only one to have died from our team. He will be missed, it's true, but the rest of us have been bought by a talent scout. Tomorrow, we leave Jennifer and all the tech's behind, to start a new life. A life, built on the death of both Dave, and an arena.
I had been a part of a legend. I had played, and been a third of the winners, of the last and perhaps greatest race, this place would ever know. Six hundred years of competition was drawing to a close with the fall of this place. Perhaps even the sport itself would be fatally wounded by the loss of such an important piece.
I wonder now if one of those winners from long long ago, ever felt the same way I do now.
Nah.
I turned around to the company lap dogs, and let them lead me away from that silent, most holy of places.
K.