Remy thanked whatever was watching over him that Jack had provided basic circuitry shielding on their skiff because two powerful Volts struck them as soon as they crossed the lap line. The electricity raced in arcs over the skiff’s surface and his panels flickered. Their attackers surged past as their speed faltered. Remy recognized the Road Hogs dart on the right.
“Can you spin them in the warehouse?” Remy asked over his headset. The Displacer wouldn’t really help in the open air but in the tighter confines of the warehouse, redwoods, or foundations, a split second was all they needed. Out here in the open, they needed Josie’s speed and quick reactions to make sure they lived that long.
If Remy was completely honest with himself, they needed Josie to be great in just about everything. Remy was more or less replaceable. It wasn’t bad to be replaceable. Just meant that if he fucked up, it wouldn’t completely end their chances at surviving this thing. Josie didn’t have that luxury.
“Mark them.” She responded through gritted teeth. Remy selected the Road Hogs skiff on his forward display and double tapped. A green targeting reticle surrounded it for Josie to follow.
They roared down the straight away, dipping and ducking under stray volts or jets of fire. The Road Hogs maintained a short lead but no one else crept up on them. Remy spied a larger bunch a half mile behind them but they stayed tight, lighting jumping between craft. They rounded the first corner and the warehouse’s dark maw loomed ahead.
Conveyor belts, packing robots, and rusted out delivery trucks littered the floor below and echoed their passage throughout the warehouse’s nooks and crannies. The Road Hogs were close ahead and moving slower than Josie, their craft jerking from left to right at the last instance. They’re both using Volts, he realized. No Quants. This section was a death trap for racers like them.
Josie seemed to have have had the same realization and brought them up to the tail of the Road Hogs and hung close without passing. Remy squeezed his eyes shut to avoid screaming and his knuckles ached from gripping the controls. They rose to a new corridor, then plummeted four stories and swerved right into another channel. Remy peeked and found the Road Hogs within spitting distance. Josie pulled to the left and a Volt raced past them.
The nose of their skiff bumped into the left side of the Road Hogs and Remy gripped the edge of his console for dear life. Josie pushed the throttle to max and slammed them hard to the right as they approached a sharp turn.
It was over before the Road Hogs could respond. Remy felt the other skiff push back on them but without a Quant guiding the controls, they never stood a chance. The turn came too quick and Mr. Nose Ring careened into the concrete barrier as probes paused to capture the carnage for the spectators. Remy shielded his eyes from the flying debris but Josie was already moving them along the corridor, accelerating to catch the next ones. A skiff wreck smoked in front of the aperture but they sped through it and out into the cool undercity air.
A notification popped up on their screens. Remy read it aloud so Josie could focus on catching up.
“Nice job with RH. Maintain buffer from front line. Keep anyone else back. If someone gets up there, you’d better have wrecked.” Remy dismissed the message. “Well, that’s a comforting thought.” Josie grunted in response. Quants didn’t talk much. He supposed there wasn’t much room for talking when you were basically a human calculator.
Their skiff barreled over the east side toward the airport and maintained a steady distance from the lead group. Remy watched a few skiffs pop out of the warehouse on his rear display. They’d catch up over the straight aways and he’d have to do something by the time they reached the foundations. Josie shot through the redwoods without much difficulty and those foundations loomed ahead.
As promised, one of their trailing skiffs separated from its fellows and gained ground. Remy flexed his fingers. He’d have to deal with them before they reached the third lap and weapons activated. Weapons certainly wouldn’t do them any favors. Like I’ve ever shot a cannon off a moving skiff. No, it was better to deal with as many people as possible before getting there.
The closing skiff was painted jet black and its pilots wore the same in a full suit with helmets. They looked like spacemen dressed in black, darker than the surrounding dimness. Josie eased up on her throttle as they entered the foundations and the spacemen came right behind him, close enough for him to hear their engine over the roar of his own.
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Remy stared at his rear view screen, trying to take in every detail. Up close, the spaceman look wore thin. Their skiff was older and boxier than the newest models like the one piloted by Jack’s own team. Cheap black paint covered parts both stock and aftermarket and their weapon of choice was an aging tri-cannon pulled from a vintage military drone. Freelancers, no doubt, but well-funded ones to be this close to the front. JD’s maybe? They weren’t on his list but that only meant Jack hadn’t identified them beforehand. Easy enough to miss that.
Spaceman One kept pace with Josie throughout the first half of the foundations. Spaceman Two sat next to his driver, unlike Remy and Josie’s seating arrangement, and held up his left arm but didn’t unleash anything. What was he waiting for?
Remy turned around in his seat and took in the spacemen’s skiff with his own eyes. He’d read that seeing a target personally helped with the Displacement. He stared at Spaceman One. It was easier to displace something discrete and small. Fuck, this was going to hurt, he thought.
“Do it.” Josie grunted. They were nearing the end of the foundations. Just as the last turn tucked tightly between two towers was their best chance. Remy exhaled and activated the Displacer.
Nothing happened.
"God damnit." He pulled back his arm and tried to fumble with the cover. It wouldn’t take too long to swap to a Volt or something but it couldn’t be anything strong after unloading a Displacer. Then, his arm went numb and Spaceman One blinked out of the air.
Of course, he reappeared a moment later in the pilot’s seat but it was just enough time to prevent him from reacting. Remy saw Spaceman Two throw his hands up to cover his head as they crashed into the foundations of the final tower, embedding deep into the steel and concrete structure.
Remy puked onto the floor of his seat. Nausea wracked his body as they passed the line marking the third and final lap. He’d never Displaced before and hoped to never again. His face hurt, his body hurt, even his God-damned blood hurt. He heard Josie say something over the headset but it just echoed between his ears like static on a bad radio. It hurt about as much as he thought it would. He envied the spacemen for their wreck.
He didn’t have the luxury of enjoying a wreck. At least not yet. He finally heard Josie’s voice crack through.
“You okay?”
“I’m alive.” He wiped bile from his mouth. Cigarettes and cheap pastries tasted worse the second time up.
“Shoot them, then.” Josie grunted. He heard the weapons system beep active.
Remy looked at the rear viewing panel and saw two skiffs charging forward toward them down the straight away. He shook his head to shake away blurry vision. A small controller popped out from under the console and Remy grabbed it, twiddling the dual joy sticks to test the sensitivity. They only had one cannon, but it was a good one: a swivel mounted dual-impulse plasma cannon with multiple firing modes. Jack may be using them but he wasn’t sending them out here without a chance to defend themselves, at least.
Remy dragged the targeting reticle across the screen and the skiff darted away. Targeting software was also banned in the Beltrider. As it turned out, computers could shoot a lot faster and a lot more accurately than a bunch of crooks in greasy skiffs and it took most of the fun out of the sport. Remy swiveled the cannons again and pulled the trigger. The skiff rocked with a chug-chug of displaced plasma but the blast missed the trailing skiffs wildly. They returned fire down the straightaway but Josie was prepared, dipping out of the way so blasts would just miss at the last moment. Remy would’ve been sick again if there was anything left in his stomach.
“Trust the Quant, trust the Quant, trust the Quant.” He muttered while trying to hit their gaining rivals. The closest skiff was definitely the flashiest one Remy had seen in the race. It was jet black with old style purple and gold neon venting from the front like industrial flames. The racers themselves wore masks with white LED lights around their eyes, and purple and gold LEDs on the trim. Remy hadn’t thought to wear anything but his old duster. While he and Josie lacked style points, he hoped to make up for that by simply surviving through the damned race.
The warehouse nearly ended them.
What before had been a tight sprint through a winding and treacherous facility became even more of a death trap when plasma cannons became involved. Josie did her best, but blasts sent shards of concrete raining down and clouds of refuse showed the leaders’ wake of destruction. Fortunately, the two skiffs behind them were too intent on fighting each other to pay them much mind but it was all Remy could do to keep from screaming. Josie was flying on touch and feel at this point, blinded by smoke and dust. Hopefully, the end would be quick and reasonably painless.
Once again, the promised end didn’t come but the exit to the warehouse did. Remy’d never been so happy to see the undercity. Only two skiffs remained in the distance, Jack’s and one that looked like JD’s official entry. It was too much to hope they’d wreck each other.
Neon Skiff barreled down on them as they reached the airport. Remy’d basically given up on trying to shoot them down. Their pilot must have be Quant-enhanced too, he realized after spending most of the eastern straightaway wasting ammunition.
They reached the forest in a dead heat. An arc of lightning shot over their skiff and Remy fired a burst of plasma in return. They danced throughout the forest, rising and falling, swaying back and forth to dodge the other’s attacks and parry into a counter. In an instant, their cannons stopped and retreated underneath the neon skiff and a single, much larger cannon deployed in its place.
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered.
Remy knew their dance was done.