“This isn’t a good time, why don’t we have a chat in a few days?” Robin tried to stall the Cetro. At the moment he didn’t have the leisure to have a discussion with some crazy technology fanatic.
“That's unfortunate for you, because I’m all on fire for our little talk.” The man directly denied, “You can call me Hash, I’m head priest of a small community known as TechnoBlood. Nice to meet you!”
“Ughh…” Robin couldn’t suppress a sigh, sat back on the pilot seat and closed the canopy. If he couldn’t postpone this meeting, he at least needed a quiet environment.
“Well, I would be lying if I said the same, though I’m looking forward to clearing up the misunderstandings between us. I already told your friend that I have nothing to do with whatever you are looking for. By the way, how is she doing?”
“Her hand couldn’t be attached again, but the Great One showed his grace and blessed her with a mechanical arm. She is now closer to perfection than ever before.” Hash explained, reverence in his voice.
“That’s…good to hear?” Robin guessed and added in his mind ‘Damn maniacs, how does one interact with such zealots?’
“You told my friend you didn’t get a package from Gumvar?” The priest finally came to the point.
“No, I didn't take anything with me when I left. I’m completely clueless what you were looking for.”
“You see, we do have a problem now. I don’t like it when people lie to me!” Hash said, his voice getting cold.
“Mate, we are on the same page with that. No lying, that’s why I told you to call. Why do you even think he gave me anything?”
“We checked your finances and saw the transaction from Gumvar. You wanna tell me he gifted you the money because of his good heart? I was lenient and gave you time to think before calling you. But if you are not honest with me, I promise the next visit won’t be as pleasant.”
“It seems we have a different understanding of ‘pleasant’. Anyway, you are right, he sent me money and it was indeed for a transport contract. However, I told the truth: I didn’t take anything! He was forcing me into that contract and I had a bad feeling. So instead of putting that crate in my cargo, I left it behind in his workshop. He didn’t notice it and I planned on canceling the contract after leaving, returning his money. But that doesn’t seem feasible any longer.” Robin explained what had happened that evening in Beakrath in a shortened but true version.
The man stayed silent for a long moment and Robin really wondered what that guy was all about. Even if he took the box, it would be long gone, he should be able to know that, too. So, why all this theatrics?
“That’s…unfortunate to hear.” Hash finally said, “When the workshop exploded, our ship was also destroyed, our home! My community is in upheaval. The box you didn’t take out of there should have contained something very important. So, how will you repay us?”
“REPAY? Dude, I don’t owe you anything. I’m sorry for your ship and all, but I didn’t blow up the workshop and I didn’t take whatever was in that box. You and I don’t have any connection at all!” Robin angrily exclaimed, he was about to lose his patience with the fanatic. Only his fear of a nightly visit reminded him to not cancel the call immediately. He needed proper closure with TechnoBlood.
“Mr. Tulward, that is not correct. You may not be responsible for the loss of our home, but you failed the contract. If you would have taken the crate with you, it’s contents could have been saved. Someone has to pay for my loss and as you are the one who breached the agreement, you owe me!” he snarled and Robin understood that negotiations were over. He drew the short straw in this.
The priest's argumentation had some merit and the only way to prove him wrong would be to reveal that the box didn’t contain his stuff but a bomb. But Robin was pretty sure TechnoBlood would directly skin him alive, if they knew he knowingly left a bomb near their ship. Angrily he punched the dashboard in front of him. ‘Fuck it, why is every step I take so damn complicated?’
Robin gnashed his teeth and gave in.
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“What do you want?” he asked.
“It’s good that you own up to your failures.” Hash replied and some friendliness returned to his voice.
‘Failures my ass!’ Robin cursed in his mind and waited for the priest to continue.
“There is someone else who messed with our business, but didn't listen to reason when we asked for compensation.”
“What? You want me to be your hitman? Forget it, you know I’m just some random guy without any noticeable backing.” Robin scoffed at the thought of him running around killing people for some maniacs that liked to fuck with their toaster.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. We don’t want you to kill anyone. As luck would have it, you are in the perfect position for this job.” Hash chuckled, “The mentioned person is taking part in the Apex Cup, just like you. But he is cheating, his ship is rigged. We want you to expose him after the second race. You have enough time to prepare and with your mutation it should be easy to collect enough evidence, right?”
“Someone is cheating? Why don’t you just inform Apex? I’m sure they will investigate if you make such accusations.” Robin asked, wondering why they needed him for this.
“We have reason to believe that Apex would try to cover this up. So we need you to not only expose his cheating, but to do it as flashy as possible. Everyone must know of it, so Apex cannot gloss it over.” The priest explained.
“Apex would try to cover this up? Why would they…oh shit! You are fucking kidding me! You want me to blow up Hopewing’s career???” Robin gasped. That would be the only person he could think of. He was Apex’s most prominent racing pilot and the figurehead of their marketing campaign. They would never allow it to become public, if he was cheating.
“I knew you were the right one for this job. You immediately understood why this is a tricky problem.” Hash was back to his cheerful self and Robin was honestly confused by his rapid mood swings.
“Your window is between the second and the third race, your debt is paid the moment he is kicked out of this tournament. If you fail, we will look for another way of compensation - but believe me, you won't like it.”
“Aha, tell me at least something about how he is cheating and why you didn’t already expose him yourself. I don’t think you lack the means to collect enough evidence to make it big on your own.”
“He uses some unknown support-system to boost his capabilities. We couldn’t do it before, as we were told it’s only activated and maybe even installed for the time of his races. He takes it out immediately afterwards. You will find it, I’ve no doubts you are motivated enough. We couldn’t get someone close enough to him before, so you are in quite the lucky position now, don’t ya?”
“Yeah, awesome…lucky me.” Robin sighed and ended the call.
***
After his talk with TechnoBlood, Robin walked over to the Nova. He was thinking of different possibilities on how Hopewing could cheat. It wasn’t that easy since Apex didn’t have many rules in the first place. If there are no rules, how could someone break them?
After arriving at the observation deck, Robin found a seat and checked the timetable. Happy's turn would be in one hour, so he still had some time. Oh right, a few other pilots were already done. He totally forgot his anxiety about his ranking.
‘Great, five people have finished so far and only one has a better time than me: 02:40, that’s just one second faster, the others are slower by 2-5 seconds. My chances aren’t too bad.’ He thought and let go of the breath he had unconsciously held.
‘I have to win another race to get to the finals. Now I have even one more reason - without winning the second race, I cannot work on my job for Hash. Damn…’
Robin closed his eyes and started his Interface. For the next hour he read everything he could find about the regulations of the Apex Highspeed Cup and also skimmed through a few news articles about Hopewing. Just as Niu explained, he really was a celebrity. While arrogant, he had the record to back up his high nose. He won nearly every race in the last three years. There were even two occasions where the second placed racer had broken a record only for Hopewing to outmatch him in the same race.
‘If you know what you are looking for, it at least seems believable. Man, that guy has a lot of fans. Let’s hope they don’t want to shoot the messenger after I expose his cheating…’ Shaking his head, Robin turned off his Interface and checked the board again. He had fallen to 3rd place, still acceptable.
When it finally was Niu’s turn, Robin concentrated on the track. He was really interested to see how she would do. Niu was a real professional, hopefully he would be able to learn from her.
Oh boy, there was much to learn! She raced through the gates like a flash. Each turn was taken with incredible speed, but without the ship drifting outwards as if it was glued to the track. Robin was in wonder as he observed her doing one lap after another in excellence. Even in her warm-up lap did she get a better time than he did in his best lap and she only became better with each round.
At the end she finished with 02:33, eight seconds faster than him. Robin finally understood the massive gap in skill and began to sweat for his ranking.
He packed his stuff and went down to congratulate Niu. When he reached her ship, she was already sitting in a camping chair, waiting for him with two beers in her hand. She began to laugh after spotting him shuffling over with a long face.
“Are you coming to greet your master?”