Fire licked the sky, the heat shimmered in the air around me and the black smoke choked the air from my lungs. My hands pounded against the tinted glass. I was trapped. Breathing was getting difficult but I could just see the rescue workers trying to put out the flames. I couldn't breathe; the smoke was filling the cockpit. I punched the glass once more but I was getting weaker. Through dimming eyes I saw a tall dark figure standing just outside the reach of the flames. There was something familiar about it. Looking past it a saw a small girl. I turned around…Mommy….

I sat up gasping for air. Dreams like that were coming more and more often, it didn't help with all the stress that I had barely got to sleep before the dream. Getting out of the pool house bed I looked at my father's house in the pale blue predawn light. My father would not be up for another half hour and school didn't start for quite a bit. I decided that if I wasn't going to sleep I might as well do something and went for a relaxing swim. Doing laps was natural for me, years ago coaches advised me to keep myself fit and one of the activities they'd mentioned was swimming. Moving through the water like I did was what I assumed it felt like to fly in its own way.

When the Sun finally rose over the horizon I rushed back into the pool house to shower. I leaned against the steel shower walls. My dreams of my mother's death were getting worse and my relationship with the only other family I had wasn't fairing any better. What was I supposed to do? Risk intergalactic relations to appease my father? I had already agreed to the race, there was no getting around that. Still the President had to know what was going on, sense my father's anger. But I couldn't get him mixed up in this, it would be a scandal.

"Oh Mommy, what should I do?" I whispered.

As I got out the phone rang. I answered it from one of the panel coms in the bathroom. "Good morning Chika! The sun is shining and the birds are singing." Chelsea said.

"I'm up, I didn't really sleep anyway." I said putting on enough make up to look decent.

"Still stressed?" she asked her voice softening.

"I'm fine, you worry about you and I'll handle my dad. Which will be fun, yay." I tried to sound sincere but it only came sarcastic instead. "Look I'll get myself to school today. Are you picking everyone else up?"

"I am indeedy." She sang. "You're sure you're alright?"

"No, but I'll find some way to handle it. See you later."

We hung up and I went to get dressed. After grabbing some breakfast I picked up the specs for Benway's racer. By the time I got to school Chelsea's car pulled up next to my bike and Jordan was out immediately. It took everything I had not to verbally bit his head off. I grabbed my bag and went to stand with them on the lawn.

"So do you have to work tonight?" Jordan asked.

"No, actually, I have a stack of homework to do and I have to figure how to fix my career and still do my job. But of course everyone's welcome to come over and sit in my living room as I do that." I snapped at him then sighed. I really just wanted to crawl back into bed.

"Need coffee?" Chelsea asked.

I nodded. Whenever I was stressed or tired or just started snapping the girls knew to put a cup of good coffee in my hand and leave me alone. We headed to the coffee kiosk in the school's cafeteria to pick it up. I had a free period first hour and I spent it in the computer lab. Jordan sat with me bored out of his mind as I worked on going over some specs for a few of the racers my crew had in. Luckily it was the off season and most of the racers just needed simple tune ups not major work. Just before the bell rang we skirted in to the computer lab barely safe. Sitting down at the nearest one I went over Benways racer. He'd be in an off season exhibition race and had run into something or other. The dent was cosmetic but I was more worried about what was underneath.

"So, what is all this?" Jordan asked.

"The inner workings of a rather simple star racer. One I have to fix." I said.

"Simple? Looks complicated to me."

"Well, I grew up with racers, this is simple, trust me."

The problem wasn't as simple as I'd thought. Benway'd been in major rec in his last race that had messed with his ships innards. Using a program I'd created I took the ship apart piece by piece to see which parts were damaged. I sighed. Jordan watched over my shoulder as I deconstructed the broken or compromised parts. Most of them could be fixed only a few would have to be ordered. I wrote down my plan of attack. Unplugging the chip with the specs I stood and moved to the door just as the bell rang.

"Where to now?" Jordan asked.

"Shop, though I call it mechanics."

"They have that at an all girl's school?"

"Yep, they have almost everything here. They say they want us to have every opportunity." I watched Jordan out the corner of my eye as he scanned the building. He didn't seem to understand any of it. "The girls that go here are the daughters of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. For most of them their future was set in stone the moment they were born. They don't have a choice."

"What about you?"

Most of the girls here had been trained since birth to inherit companies or to be wives of politicians. My childhood had been nothing like that. When my mother was a live the company was so small it made so little. After my mom became big in the world of racing everything had taken off. And then she died. My dad stopped talking to me, put everything in to the company. Suddenly I was heir to billions of dollars in assets and contracts. I had been so alone. I put myself into anything but my family, separated myself from my father. Now look what we'd done.

"I don't even know if I have a future anymore."

I could feel him staring at me as we entered the classroom. Some girls had second hour free so they had brought the guys here to spare them the boredom. Some of the guys knew Jordan and called him over. I watched thinking about Jordan's future. Considering the respect he had from peers and his commandant he had a promising career in the military should he choose that. Shaking my head I went up to the teacher and talked about using interface board in the back of the room. He agreed. After handing over the gloves he sat down to do some work with the guys.

I slid the hands free over my ear. "Set up. Interface Wei Industries office number 7634."

There was a beep signaling the transfer and another when the line was connected. "Hey, bossy lady. What's up?" Darrell asked.

"Putting you on vid screen now. Is Benway there?"

"Yep, right here."

"Put him on. I figured out how to fix his ship." I waited a momently watching as the two appeared on screen and Darrell handed over the headset. "Mr. Benway, hello, we haven't been properly introduced. My name is Eva Wei."

"It's a pleasure. I hope you'll take care of my ship. I'm not keen on the idea of another racer taking apart my ship."

I managed a chuckle. "I understand." I slipped the chip into its slot. "This is a scan f your ship, the scan itself was noninvasive and helps us to get an idea of what's wrong. These red areas are points of interest. These five," the screen zoomed in on five different parts, "can be repaired without replacement. This one," the part turned yellow, "will have to be replaced. After that it's all cosmetic."

"Good, good. Thank you, Ms. Wei; I'll leave your team to it."

I nodded and let him go. As soon as he hung up I closed the file on his racer and opened one of my blue prints. The design was sleek, designed for speed and aerodynamics. I had originally started the design as a tribute to my mother's racer but had trashed the vintage aspect and gone for something slimmer. The only problem with it was the shape the metal would have to be in would make it too vulnerable and weak to go at such high speeds. Any metal strong enough would be too heavy. I sighed and turned the whole thing off. The Cloud 2.0 would have to wait.

Hehehehe hint hint. Spot the references and the clues.