"You better not make me late for this, you little grease monkey!"
"Yeah, yeah. Hold on a second."
Amy listened to the sound of Eiko digging around her fridge.
"If you're going to take my drinks, at least bring me some tea, okay?"
"Gotcha."
Eiko handed Amy a bottle of extra sweet tea before opening up her own can of grape soda. Both girls left the small apartment and headed for the stairs. Eiko's blue Subaru sat outside with its front windows down. Eiko tossed her keys to Amy.
"Don't wreck us."
"I don't plan on it, especially when I've got a Skyline to crush."
Eiko chuckled to herself as Amy started the engine. Multiple conversations about tonight had ended in Amy explaining why she respected the Nissan GT-R but wanted to put one in its place to prove her opinion of the car being overhyped. Any sort of ego or coming challenge left Eiko's mind as the car sped up. She listened to the throb of the engine and let herself relax. Her short hair fluttered in the wind.
Eventually, the city roads became back roads through the green areas of the ship. Eiko recognized the road as being the same one Amy had originally raced Sayuki down a couple weeks ago. This time they had started further up as Amy took one last spirited drive through the course to get a feel for any unexpected changes in the road conditions. Although there was nothing new about the road itself, Eiko could see that some of the turns already had small groups of people waiting by them. A few cars dotted the roadside.
"It looks like people are already showing up, even though I'm a bit early," Amy commented.
"Hey, when there's two people like you and Sayuki racing each other, people will come and watch. While I'm not really sure what kind of legend you both have, it's certainly enough to be an attention grabber," Eiko answered.
By the time Amy had driven through the full length of the course and then back again up most of it, there were even more people on the side of the road. The most technical corners were more popular. Even so, almost every major corner had at least two or three spectators standing nearby.
"Wow, I haven't been to many races here, but I can already tell you this is a larger than usual crowd," Eiko said as she stared wide-eyed at the growing number of onlookers.
There was no verbal reply from Amy, only a gentle head nod. She didn't say anything else on the way back to the starting area.
A decent number of people from the Tankery team had assembled at the starting area. Delilah, Mia, and Yelena were among them. None of them knew exactly when Amy and Eiko would turn up, but Delilah had seen Ayame and Hiromi around, along with almost every driver on the team. She watched the growing amount of people arrive, impressed by the civility. There were no arguments or fights about who the winner would be, no one showing off in their car, and the road had been left perfectly clear. The crowd had contained itself to the gravel pull-offs on each side of the road.
"Here she comes!" Yelena said in excitement.
"What?" Delilah turned to her loader for a brief moment before looking back down the road. Delilah couldn't hear or see anything yet, but Yelena's eyes were locked onto something in the growing darkness. The sun had set over half an hour ago, leaving car headlights as the only source of illumination other than the glow of the moon.
Several seconds passed before Delilah could just barely hear the sound of approaching tires and an engine. Light gleamed from the distance.
Yelena grinned. "There they are, I told you they were coming."
Mia shook her head. "I can't tell if you're lucky, insane, telepathic, or a combination of the three."
"I'm a good commander, that's what."
"Excuse me?" Delilah questioned playfully. "Are you implying I'm not a good commander because I can't do that?"
"I would never say you're not a good commander." Yelena's voice trailed off as though there was something more to say.
Delilah took it as a compliment. "Thank you."
Yelena had a smug look on her face. Clearly, this wasn't over. "Just not as good."
"Fuck you."
"Gladly." Yelena put an arm around Delilah's shoulder and grinned like an idiot.
"Are ye lookin' to get yer fess beat in, ya wee bitch lass?"
Yelena and Mia burst out laughing as the Subaru pulled to a stop in front of them. Eiko slid out of the passenger seat and joined the group as Amy shut off the car. As soon as the driver side door opened, everyone stopped laughing and stared. The girl who got out of the driver's seat was not the girl they knew.
In front of the group stood a girl whose face and figure looked and sounded like Amy, but everything about her appearance and presence were completely different. She wore an unbuttoned grey flannel shirt with black, green, and purple plaid. Underneath she wore a black t-shirt that said "Paramore" in white and "RIOT!" in red. The lettering looked as though it had been scrawled on by an angry teenager. Amy's usual jeans were replaced with a more form-fitting pair of black ones, the cuffs of which tucked into the dark leather of her untied and unbuckled tanker boots. Her dark brown hair seemed to be jet black in the dim light. Overall, Amy's presence felt more confident, dangerous, and just plain larger.
"Whoa…" Delilah breathed.
Mia attempted to say something but faltered.
"It's me, Amy, I swear," Amy said with a sly smile.
Yelena was the first to regain her ability to speak. "I didn't think you were the sort of person to get involved in street racing. I see it now."
Before the conversation could get much farther, the distant sound of another engine was audible.
Eiko looked toward the sound. "Sounds like a turbocharged straight-six. Knowing what's happening tonight, I assume it's an RB26DETT. Amy, I think the other half of your race is here."
"I was just going to ask if Sayuki had shown up yet. It seems that would be the answer," Amy answered.
A gray 1995 Nissan GT-R pulled alongside Eiko's car. Its wide door opened, and as Sayuki stepped out, Amy could see into the car itself.
"Never in my life did I think I'd be late to my own race," Sayuki said in greeting.
"You're not even close to being late. I just pulled up myself," Amy replied.
"Listen, we'll have a fair fight, right? Nothing dirty or stupid? I think you Tankery girls have a saying about Tankery not being war. Will you keep that philosophy in mind tonight?"
"Of course I will. And I trust that you will too."
Despite having a conversation with her and shaking her hand, Amy wasn't focused on Sayuki. Instead, she was looking at her car, trying to understand what kind of a driver her opponent was. At first glance, the outside of the car might have looked completely unhelpful. The wheels and tires weren't stock, but that was par for the course with car enthusiasts. To Amy's knowing eye, there was one peculiarity. Inside the rear wheels, Amy could see the brake calipers. They were aftermarket dual calipers, with one separate caliper at the front of the brake disk and one at the back.
Interesting. Those are dual rear calipers. Maybe she's got a modified brake system?
Inside the car, Amy found her answer. Just forward and to the right of the gear shift was a long handle that ended slightly less than level with the top of the steering wheel. The shifter itself was also modified, with a newer-looking shift boot, lever, and knob.
That's definitely a handle for a hydraulic handbrake; it explains the dual rear calipers. It looks like she put in a short-throw shifter too, but that doesn't explain much. The hydro e-brake is for locking up the rear wheels, which can mean only one thing: Sayuki likes to drift.
"Does starting in five minutes sound okay with you?" Amy asked.
"Sure. Get in your car when you're ready, and we'll go from there. Since I challenged you to this, you get to take the rear position from the start," Sayuki affirmed. She then walked off to join a group of girls waiting behind her.
When she turned around, Amy found a group behind her as well. Ignoring them, she looked for Eiko.
"I'm right here. I'm short, but I'm not that short," Eiko complained. She was next to Amy, and not part of the small crowd.
"Sorry, I just needed to know something."
"What's up?"
"Sayuki has got her car kitted out for drifting. It's odd, the GT-R isn't exactly a car you'd normally drift with. The whole point of the ATTESA all-wheel-drive system is to shunt power around to stop rear wheel spin," Amy explained. "Did she remove the AWD?"
Eiko thought for a moment. "Maybe, but I do know that there's a way to tap into the ATTESA computer and change power distribution settings. I've heard of people being able to toggle between modes on the fly to allow for normal functions, a specific split, or to keep all the power at the rear wheels no matter what."
"Having that would let her drift the car like it was rear wheel drive, right?"
"Exactly. Although doing that means she's lugging around a heavy AWD system and not always using it."
"That's exactly the kind of answer I needed, Eiko. Thanks."
"Anytime."
Now that she had some information, Amy took a moment to relax and think about the race itself. She would be driving a turbocharged 2.5 liter flat-four with AWD against an opponent that was driving a turbocharged 2.6 liter straight-six with a complex AWD system designed to eliminate wheelspin as well as possibly being configurable to full-time RWD on the fly. There was also the possibility that the Skyline might have a completely RWD drivetrain. In addition, the other car had a four-wheel steering system that made it incredibly maneuverable for its size. Both options allowed for the opportunity to encounter a drifting opponent, and the first allowed for a combination of both grip and drift. In a few moments, Amy had decided on what she was going to do in each case. She would make a final decision depending on what Sayuki started to do once they got out on the blacktop.
Now that she was set, Amy called over to Sayuki. "Hey! Are you ready to go?"
"I am. And remember, I don't intend to lose twice," The older girl declared.
"Right."
Amy opened the door to her car – Eiko's car – and started the engine. Before she closed the door, Eiko leaned over the opening.
"After you win this, you need to tell me how you got to this point. Everyone's talking about you, and I have no idea what they mean."
"What are they saying, Eiko?"
"They're talking you up and saying something about flowers."
"Flowers, eh? Listen, I'll tell you more after the race, but for now I'll tell you this: when I'm racing, I'm not just Amy Miller. I'm the Blue Orchid."
"Blue Orchid? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Ask around, maybe look it up if you have to. See if you figure it out by the time I get back."
Satisfied with giving Eiko a cryptic and mildly useless answer, Amy closed the door and pulled the car away. Amy was always proud of how smooth she could pull away and stop. The balancing act between the clutch and gas pedals was something she'd mastered in driving tanks for years. The deep blue of the WRX STI was even more radiant next to the gray of Sayuki's R33 Skyline as the two pulled side by side.
A girl Amy didn't recognize stepped in front of the cars and raised a hand.
"Ready for countdown?"
Both Amy and Sayuki gave a thumbs-up. Amy set her left hand on the shifter and the other on the steering wheel.
The girl up front began the countdown. "Five… four… three… two… one… GO!"
Both cars shot forward under full acceleration. Amy knew that Sayuki would take the lead, and she used this to get a gauge on the R33's acceleration. As the cars pulled away, Amy heard her tires chirp slightly as they spun a small amount under the load. There was a similar noise from the Nissan, but nothing else.
We both started at full throttle, and there was no heavy tire screeching. That GT-R definitely has the stock AWD system.
Now that her main question was answered, Amy got ready to follow Sayuki down the road. She put the STI's front end just under a foot from the R33's rear bumper as the two cars passed through the first couple turns.
The first set of corners were a good mix of tight and wide with some short straightaways that allowed Amy to get a decent read on what Sayuki's driving was like. At the first tight corner, Amy had expected the R33 to pull into a drift or at least some kind of slide. Instead, Sayuki continued to use a grip technique. The AWD and four-wheel steering let her negotiate the corner with ease.
Watching the R33 turn at that speed was somewhat eerie as it moved differently than other cars, but Amy didn't let this phase her. Her first introduction to four-wheel steering had come ages ago in the form of a Honda Prelude circling a tractor tire at a car show. By this point, it was merely a curiosity to be mindful of.
By the time the two cars exited the first set of corners, both drivers were confused.
Amy couldn't understand why she'd seen all the fancy drifting equipment on the R33 that was now going unused. Perhaps she had been wrong about Sayuki's technique?
Up front, Sayuki was surprised to see the blue Subaru just behind her and keeping pace. She'd hoped that her car's complex systems would give her an edge in the corners, but Amy's headlights still flooded her rear-view mirrors.
If I can't pull away in the corners like this, I'll just have to use the straightaways to muscle in a gap. It'll be harder on the brakes to slow down once we get back into the corners. There's an easy remedy for that, of course.
Sayuki kept the accelerator on the floor as the cars entered a straight section. Now came another bump in Sayuki's plan for victory. Even with a wide-open throttle, her R33 was hardly gaining on the STI. It had been a while since her car had been this evenly matched in terms of power.
It's an issue, but a gap is a gap. She won't know what I'm going to do at these next corners. I'll be able to slow down without being too hard on the brakes, and she'll need to heat hers way up to keep off the guardrail.
Amy wasn't surprised by the lack of a gap and kept her foot solidly on the throttle. It was looking like Sayuki was planning on bombing into the next round of corners at full speed. She started getting ready to imitate the line of R33 in the same way she had earlier. The cars were now about four or five feet apart.
Just as Amy felt like she understood what line the GT-R would follow, the car's rear end swung wide. Tires squealed against pavement and wisps of smoke curled behind the R33.
Sayuki had started to drift.
Instead of imitating the line of the car ahead of her, Amy chose her own and stuck to it. She tapped the brakes, downshifted, and followed Sayuki through the corner without hesitation. The next several corners went much the same way. Sayuki would pull into a drift, Amy would choose a line, and the cars would come out of the corner with little difference in position.
As this pattern went on, Amy started to notice that the R33 would enter each corner in an identical manner. It didn't matter how fast, slow, tight, or wide the corner was; Sayuki would initiate the drift by pulling on the handbrake to break the rear end loose every single time. After that, she would keep it free mostly with the gas pedal or pulling on the brake again. There were very few times Amy could tell that Sayuki was clutch kicking to keep the rear tires loose. At no point did she use it to initiate. Amy had been listening for the telltale spike in the R33's engine RPM for several corners now, and the lack of it told her a world of information.
I see your style now. I didn't realize that this was amateur hour for drifting.
One last corner remained in this section before another straightaway, a sweeping left-hander. Instead of keeping pace with Sayuki, Amy focused on keeping her own speed up. She cut in tight, hardly slowing down. Her foot feathered the throttle. In order to keep her speed up, she'd need to ride a very fine line. Too little power, and the car would slow down, too much and the front tires would be pushed past their limit and understeer.
Meanwhile, the R33's rear end kicked out as Sayuki entered a long drift. She knew that this would be the perfect place for Amy to effect a pass, and she used the large body of her car to block the Subaru. The angled headlights crept closer and closer throughout the corner, until the front end of the blue car was in between the rear tires of the R33 and the inside of the turn. It seemed that the only thing between Amy and a winning pass was Sayuki blocking her line.
In reality, it was Amy herself.
Both the R33 and STI exited the corner at high speed. Because Amy had kept her speed up throughout the turn instead of caring about her opponent, she was able to gain a small amount of distance. The R33 had a much wider exit angle and slightly lower exit speed caused by Sayuki's perceived need to block and her actual need to recover from her slide. Using the advantages that had piled up in her favor, Amy was able to pull her car about halfway along the side of the R33.
Desperate to keep the gaining Subaru away from her, Sayuki floored the throttle and let her RB26 engine rev as far as she dared to before shifting. She pulled ahead somewhat, putting Amy just behind her by the time they hit the next corner.
Just behind her in the driver's seat of the STI, Amy allowed herself a little smile.
Thanks for the inside.
Once again, Amy charged the corner at what seemed to be suicidal speed. Her brake lights flashed briefly before she hauled the car onto an extremely aggressive line that took her just into Sayuki's, who had already begun another drift through the right-hander.
Faced with the possibility of a collision, Amy decided she didn't care and kept going. On the other hand, Sayuki went much wider than she anticipated. This put the Subaru and the R33 level as they left the corner. Amy managed to hold her position for several seconds until the next corner, a decently sharp left. Here, she pushed her line hard and tight. The side of her car nearly brushed the R33's, boxing it in and preventing it from being able to swing around for any sort of slide.
Had Sayuki been able to switch tactics quickly and gripped her way through the turn, she likely would have been able to take advantage of her inside line and push through faster than the encroaching Subaru. Alternatively, she might have been able to clutch kick and enter a more precise slide than the half-started wide one using the hand brake she had been in the middle of when Amy pushed against her. Instead, the R33 was trapped while the Subaru's turbocharger spooled into boost. The boxer engine screamed through six and a half thousand RPM, pushing over three hundred horsepower to all four wheels and down into the pavement. It sounded as though both car and driver were pushed to their limit.
Amy was perfectly within her comfort zone in the driver's seat of the STI. She held third gear through the corner, upshifting only when she was straightened out and ahead of the R33. This was the last set of corners before the finish, and up until now she had preserved her brakes for this last sprint. Each corner was taken at what Sayuki saw as a mighty high speed, and the areas between corners were times to go full power. Relying solely on heavy braking to slow down before each turn, Amy gained more and more of a gap on Sayuki's R33 until she was well over two car lengths ahead.
One more corner remained. Amy glanced in her mirror partway through the right-hander. Behind her, Sayuki was executing a wonderful drift in her R33, putting her car just inches from the edge of the pavement.
It wasn't enough.
The Subaru rocketed out of the last corner with a massive lead on the Nissan. Passing the crowd of people at the finish line, Amy brought the car to a halt and caught her breath before stepping out with a smile you could see a mile away. Tonight's victory was hers.
Amy wasn't sure what was normal for after a race here in Japan, but she walked right up to Sayuki and gave her a firm and enthusiastic handshake. "You were excellent out there, Sayuki! That last drift was something to behold!"
"Uhh…"
"I never thought I'd have a go against a drifting R33, yet here I am. I'm so glad I got to race with you tonight."
"You think I was actually good? I did lose and all."
"You were good enough for me to have fun, and your car is cool enough to make this one of coolest things I've done here. And that's coming from someone who drives a tank!"
"Thanks. That… that means a lot. Really, it does." Sayuki seemed completely flustered by the compliments. She wasn't sure exactly how to respond.
A response turned out not to be necessary. A Silvia S13 followed by a Honda Accord rolled into the gravel pull-off and unloaded. Several Dominion students including the Ram crew huddled around Amy with praises. Delilah pulled Amy into a hug. Eiko attempted the same thing, but Amy more pulled her in than the other way around.
Eiko drove her car back to the Ram crew's dorms. They spent the entire ride pestering Amy about driving and racing.
When she was finally able to get a word in, Eiko asked Amy, "You mentioned Blue Orchid before. I wasn't really able to get a straight answer from anyone."
"You want me to tell you the meaning behind Blue Orchid? It's what I went by when I first started racing. I was too young to legally drive, so I didn't use my real name for a while."
"And how'd you choose it?" Mia asked.
"I could go into a whole thing saying that blue orchids mean strength and how it's also a reference to the color of my car, but it was really something I just made up on the spot. When someone first asked me my name when I beat them, they joked about me not using my real name. I had 'Blue Orchid' by the White Stripes stuck in my head, and that's just what I said. It sounded cool, so it stuck."
Mia rolled her eyes. "That's somewhat underwhelming but also incredibly on-brand for you."
"What exactly did you think it meant, Eiko?"
"I thought it had something to do with your necklace. A few people mentioned it." Eiko pointed to Amy's necklace. It was a dog tag-style chain with a blue orchid about as big as a thumbnail.
"Other way around, the name came first. I say that I'll give it to whoever I lose to."
"How long have you had it?"
"This one? About nine months or so. I haven't lost in a while. I do lose occasionally, you know. Then I just go out and buy a new one."
"Once again, that's a bit underwhelming but also makes total sense."
Eiko pulled the Subaru to a stop in front of the dorms, and everyone piled out of the car. Amy looked tired as she stumbled out of the car and toward the door.
"Amy?" Delilah called. "We'll be getting to Washington in a few days, can you figure out what we'll come across at the Shepard Foundation that'll be useful?"
Amy seemed to perk up when Delilah mentioned tanks. "Sure!"
"I don't mean tonight. Sleep for now."
"Aww…"
"Sleep, damn you!" Yelena teased.
Amy decided they were probably right as she closed the door to her room and flopped onto her bed. Although she was already half-asleep, Amy was daydreaming about what awaited them in Washington.
Here it is, chapter 24! This chapter was of course somewhat inspired by Initial D, however I credit much more inspiration to the excellent Initial D fanfic "Dreaming of Akina" by Sanae. If you enjoyed this chapter, I highly recommend giving it a read. It's long but well worth your time.
Anyway, see you next time!