CHAPTER 1

The racer angled around the curve, came out of it just as smoothly, and activated her boost. The yellow-orange flame strips extended nearly ten feet behind her, and she quickly swiveled to pick up a yellow bonus crystal. It was her fifth. Infinite Boost a mechanical voice said through her helmet, and the racer automatically switched boosts. Now the flame strips were fog colored and extended somewhere around twenty feet behind her. She instantly shot to the lead, and held that position throughout the rest of the race, easily finishing first. The race placing order appeared translucently on her helmet, and she switched her Suit to autopilot so she could take a look at the order.

Congratulations, Dusk, you finished first flashed above the scoring order. She hadn't just placed first, Dusk thought as she coasted to an easy stop by the track exit. She had beat the second place finisher, one Silkut, by a full six seconds! In Kinetic racing, that was a veritable eternity. As she observed the rest of the placements without much interest, another racer pulled up alongside her.

"Congrats, Ava," the other racer said. Racer Ava Giovanni, racing name Dusk, swiveled her head to her left.

"You know better than to call me that here," she admonished the other racer, her voice coming out distorted through the helmet's thin breathing vent.

"Sorry...Dusk."

"Never mind. Come on. Let's get you cooled off and out of that Suit. You did good for your first race." The other racer followed Ava off the track, both of them rolling slowly so as not to push their Suits too hard.

"Oh, man. Gabriel's going to kill me." Ava twisted agilely around.

"What now?" she asked. Gabriel was her mechanic, and he had been named so by his Kinetic-crazy mother after a track known as Gabriel's Horn.

"Look at this!" The racer held up a bright pink metal-clad arm. A bright pink metal-clad arm with an inch long gash in it, Ava revised after a closer look.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she began, but the other racer interrupted.

"This was a new Suit, Dusk, and now look at it!" She twisted around with agility to rival that of Ava. "It's covered in scratch marks!" In fact, Ava mused as her companion rattled on; it could even be said that her agility rivals that of the great Siba Castron herself! Too late, she realized that she had missed something.

"Sorry...I was thinking about something."

"The race? I can understand," the girl said sympathetically. "I can see how you got so addicted to it, Ava. But I said, 'do you think Mom'll let me try for my Racer license once I graduate school?'" Ava smiled. This other racer was her sister, Xia, who raced under her own name now that racing was more or less legal, and Racers did not have to fear arrest or worse. Xia was only eighteen to Ava's twenty, but the two were more than sisters; they were friends. When Ava had begun to take interest in the as-then-illegal sport of Kinetic racing, Xia had wanted to try it. Ava had been only twelve at the time, however, and Xia was ten. Ava's mother had not wanted her daughter to be racing, but since the girls had...forgotten...to mention not only the danger of the sport, but also the illegality of it, she had reluctantly agreed. Ava's good school friend Gabriel, another racing fan, agreed to work as her mech, so Ava didn't have to worry about making her own Suit tune-ups as some of the others did.

Around the same time Ava started to get interested in racing, a superstar was making a name for herself on the other tracks worldwide. Her name was Siba Castron. Young Ava had decided that when she got older and began winning races, she wanted to meet the great Racer. But it had not been meant to be.

When Ava was sixteen, Siba was at a track called Orbital Junction, deep in space. Technically, of course, it was restricted for the astronauts only, but that hadn't stopped Racers before. Anyway, everyone in Ava's town who was even remotely interested in racing met in the underground to watch the ThinScreen broadcast of the race. It had begun beautifully, with Racer Siba doing her acrobatics that had long dazzled young race fans everywhere. But something had gone wrong. On one of the landings, Siba had slipped, and gone down. The entire race community jumped to its feet, craning their necks to see better, but the camara had moved on, following the pack. Ava had sat down hard, feeling numb. This was Siba! She couldn't be taken out by such an easy jump! But she had been. Siba's body was never found. It was then that Ava's mother had forbidden both of her children to continue racing, having heard how dangerous it was. Nothing they said could change her mind.

A few months later, the E-FIRE had swept through the city. It was an advanced version of a computer virus, sucking power from all of the energy sources in the city away to an unknown location. The energy and power that had been the people's businesses and source of income was gone. Finally, after much begging, pleading, and once threatening to run away, Ava's mother had allowed her to go back to racing. And race Ava did, with a vengeance. With her winnings, the Giovanni family was one of the wealthiest families in the city. When Ava had graduated school two years later, she had applied for her Racer's license, racing having become one of the most respected and profitable sports ever. Improvements were made. Sponsors were selected, Suits were improved, tracks were moved and upgraded, and the Racers now got the publicity of the superstars that they were. Of course, they had always gotten publicity, usually in the form of an arrest, and occasionally in the form of a rogue reporter looking for a top story, but now, Kinetic racing was legal. In honor of this newfound sport, when the city was rebuilt, it was named Kinetica. With effort, Ava brought herself back to the present, and to her sister's question.

"I'm sure Mom'll let you get your license soon," she replied. "After all...who saved the family?" Ava and Xia shared a smile, and slowly rolled out together, side by side.

She could remember nothing. Who was she? Why was she here? Where, exactly, was here? She opened her eyes. The world remained black. She blinked wildly, but nothing changed. She lifted her hands to touch her eyes. Yes, they were open. She began to claw at them frantically, desperate for her sight back. Nothing worked. Then there were hands grasping her wrists, gentle, but firm.

"You must take care not to damage yourself any further," a deep, soothing voice said, coming from somewhere near her head. "That was quite a fall you had there." Fall... she mused. Fall...yes, quite a fall... She sat up suddenly. I remember...