For the third time today, both Juno and Evelyn beat me by a couple kilometers to the end of our route. This time I wasn’t even trying to win, I was focused on taking in the environment and appreciating the view. Juno and Evelyn have been going at it though. Juno won the first race, but when Evelyn won the second one, Juno took it almost as an insult, I guess she wasn’t expecting anyone to beat her the whole time we were here.

‘This motherfucker just beat me again! Can you believe this shit, I’ve been flying here my entire life and she beats me on her second run, this is crazy,’ Juno comms to me. Apparently, Evelyn pulled out a second win.

‘Was it close?’ I reply.

‘Yes, she beat me by a couple seconds, but still.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ I comm. It’s a hundred-kilometer route that Juno put together, it goes through some underground caverns and through some tight cliffs.

I pull up to the finish line and Evelyn and Juno are chatting about the lines they took through some of the tricker spots on the route.

“Now that you both have thoroughly embarrassed me, do you want to go get everybody and head to that city you were talking about last night?” I ask.

“Sure, I don’t see why not, seeing as how Evelyn’s beat me at my own game, I think I’m ready for a break,” Juno says, smiling. At least she’s being a good sport about it.

“Alright, well surely I can beat you both back home with this head start,” I say. I turn around and speed back to the hanger, both of them scrambling back into their racers, which is not an easy feat. The racers are a tight fit, they’re only about three meters long and a meter wide, they’re designed for fast tight maneuvers, so the cockpit is a bit crammed.

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I do manage to beat them home, given that it was just a straight shot. The hanger opens as I approach, and the floor to the left of Star Fury starts to rise to reveal where the racers are kept. I turn on the auto parking feature and it smoothly sets itself back in its place. Evelyn and Juno catching up now, do the same.

“Feel better about yourself now?” Evelyn says with a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, we get it, oh queen of racing. Come on let’s get everyone together,” I say. We all head out to the main house, the hanger doors closing behind us. When we get to the house, Thomas is in the living room reading a virtual copy of a book that Evelyn gave him.

“Hey, we’re thinking about going to Talpen, where are Liam and Cicero?” Juno asks.

“Okay. They’re down in the gym, I think they’re doing some kickboxing, Cicero said he needed to let off steam and Liam said he needed a workout,” Thomas replies.

“Well, I’m going to go tell them to get ready, I know they want to come. Do you want to come with us?” Juno asks.

“Sure, I’ll be ready in a minute,” he says.

I haven’t seen the gym yet, so I follow Juno downstairs, past the kitchen, to the second floor down. Liam and Cicero are mid-match, gloves and headgear on. Cicero sees us coming down the stairs and lets his left hand drop, Liam switches stance and blows him away with a turning hook kick to the head.

“Damn it man!” yells Cicero. The kick put him on his ass, it was a hard hit.

“Oh I see, you can dish it but you can’t take it!” says Liam.

“No, I was just stopping because Gabriel and Juno are right behind you,” Cicero replies. Liam turns around and finally sees us standing here.

“Oh, well you shouldn’t have just dropped your guard regardless. How was racing guys?”

“It was good, Evelyn beat us both. We’re going into the city; I assume you both want to come. Go shower and get dressed,” I say. They both start taking their gear off.