There was as much heaviness as the Syndicate plasma fire to the silence which followed the words spoken by the Veteran. Also I was simply standing there, with my skin still vibrating with the ghost-energy of the Shard, and gazing upon the object that once constituted my Rig. It wasn't Rustbucket anymore. That much was clear. It was motionless now, though it had in it some kind of vitality, a possible energy that made the air about it shimmer and shimmered like a heat haze. It felt... aware.
Maxon did not wait until I had a reply, which was good since my brain was providing zero words. He merely flicked his head back on the wastes. "Move, kid. Otherwise, you would have to tell the reinforcements of the Syndicate about your new pet.
The grunts had already disappeared and their hover-cycles were a distant whine. I fell behind him and my legs were wet clay. I kept glancing back. The Rig--I did not know another name to give it--crept slowly along without much noise, its tires raising up dust seldom. It was unnerving. It was clattering and groaning over each pebble.
The gully we were in was an obscure one, and in it lay a huge, carbonated muscle car, which reclined, like a warhorse, in the dark. Iron Sentinel. Even I knew that name. With a grunt of pain Maxon got into the driver-seat, the door moaning like a vault. He pointed to the right hand side. "Get in. And tell your... thing... to follow. If it can."
I looked at my Rig. "Uh. Follow us?"
Its amber slits of Headlights brightened almost unperceived. It was a silent, obedient shadow, and came trailing after Iron Sentinel as we dragged away. I experienced an absurd sense of betrayal of some kind. It was never overhearking so well before.
The air was smelly of oil, old leather and ozone in the Sentinel. It was the smell of the history, of so many races. Maxon was a relaxed driver with a superior precision, which was more frightening than any violent driving.
"What... what did I do back there?" I at last got to ask, which made my voice too young in the tight quarters.
He had not sufficient time to reply when the comm system in the car came crackling to life. However, it was not a regular transmission. It was a voice that cut through the dullness like lightning, and overlaid with resonance and a dramatic vibrato which could not be ignored.
"--AND WHAT IS THIS? Tremendous incident with the Scrap Wastes! An unregistered Drive Burst of the signature of a born star!
I flinched. A deep, wearied sighing was all that Maxon gave. "Right on time."
Ladies, gentlemen and unregistered hyper-forms in the circuits! Vox Machina here, and a party crasser we have! The voice was pure spectacle a sonic boom of excitement. There was a flickering holograph depicting a man in a colorful trench coat hanging in the dashboard, with half of his head covered by a flickering tech-mask. The energy burst is through the roof! Did a star just fall? Or had it taken somebody a spine out there in the junk?
My blood ran cold. He was talking about me.
He is the Grandcaster, Maxon said, and never looked back. Bloodhound as a drama. It never passes off any Circuit without his converting it into a show.
The Syndicate scanners are blazing away like an explosion! Oh, the confusion! The chaos! I live for this!" The laugh of Vox Machina was a booming one. Somebody has just smashed a rock through the window of the galaxy and I, at any rate, am interested to see who is running.
The projection split. On the one hand, Vox was gesticulating. On the other a new character was introduced, a young woman with hair of lavender streak and eyes of jade, which looked through the screen. She bent over her own microphone, and a dangerous, flirtatious smile on her lips.
Always so melodramatic, Vox, she said, with her voice like a contrast to his, smooth as jazz upon static, yet with a cutting, provocative hair. "It's not a star. Stars are predictable. This... this is like the sound of a powder keg being struck... She winked. Let us see how long they will burn and the fuse run out.
"That's Lyra Vox," Maxon grunted. Lower-tier, although she is astute. Too sharp. She perceives what the blowhards such as Vox fail to see.
The picture of Lyra magnified a schematic--some crude power gauge at the crater. "Look at that resonance. Raw. Untamed. No finesse at all. This isn't a trained racer. This is an accident." Her smile widened. And accidents can never be dull to see.
Vox Machina shouted the word yes. "She's not wrong! An accidental ascension! Somebody! some one! a nobody now! The Death Circuit is a sucker of an underdog... before it swallows them whole and spits them out!
I felt sick. They were cerebrating upon my life, my almost death, as though it were the nighttime sport.
Maxon did, and flicked a button to sever the transmission. The cabin dropped into a great, deep silence.
"See what you've done, kid?" he said, his voice low. "You're not a person anymore. You're a story. And all the Circuit, the racers, the Syndicate, and the monsters, they all are fond of a good story. Especially a short one."
He stopped the Sentinel on a high ridge over a great, neon-lit city, which stretched across the horizon. Strands of it went through like glittering snakes. The Turbo Genesis Mecca Circuit. Here I heard the dull, distorted bellowing of engines, and the cheering of a crowd.
They are coming to get you, said Maxon, and looked at the city lights. "Not to arrest you. To race you. To break you. To see what you're made of." He at last glanced round at me with his molten-gold eyes. "So, Kael Veyron. The question is... what are you?... made of?
I stared out of his scarred face at the shining, deadly city below, and then back at the silent amber-eyed Rig of which we were the pursuing. I had no answer. The Circuit, however, apparently was to ask the question. And it would not wait till I was ready.