It was not the sun that came up in the pit lane, it was the whine of engines and the smell of overheated asphalt that were increasing. The concept of a first lesson that was introduced by Maxon was apparently baptism by fire. The qualifier to the "Scrapheap Scramble" was a free-for-all, no-holds-barred match through a tight twisting track cut through the industrial underbelly of the city. Its trademark feature, the wick green bath, was the boiling green pool that was bubbling threateningly at the base of the track.
Never win," Maxon had grunted and his face was lit by the holographic schematic of the track. "Just finish. In the top half. Get a feel for the flow. Your Rig will say things to you should you listen. It will mostly inform you when you are going to die. Pay particular attention to that part.
Easy for him to say. Rigged up in the cockpit, which was not a driver seat any more but a second skin, the flow seemed like an anarchy of metal and light. At the starting line stood twenty other Rigs all of them bizarre combinations of toy and weapon. The air was filled with pre-ignition Drive Bursts, flares of a dozen colours. My own Rig was thrumming me, a growl of low, impatient desire. It was hungry.
A raving gong was the signal of starting. We exploded forward.
The first two laps were nothing but undiluted chaos. I was blindly following instinct, banging the controls, letting the sheer force of the Rig to squeeze through the gaps that appeared to get closed as soon as the gaps were made. I brushed past a beetle-like Rig that landed flying in a wall in a spurt of sparks. I got a shot of adrenaline, a fierce ecstasy. This was power.
Then she arrived.
I did not see her, but felt her--spreading of the pressure, making the air colder. A dark, glowing obsidian-black race car, the Cobra Coil, glided past me with an unbelievable, silent elegance. It was flowing like molten black, and traversed the pack intact. The driver, Selvara Drift, and looked at me. No appearance of challenge, but of approval. The coldness which she possessed in her eyes, a dim, sickly green, even when seen at a distance, was even worse than anger. She stared at me the same that a cook stares at an unbaked substance.
Then the real race began.
She didn't attack me directly. That was the maddening part. It was sabotage by ballet. One flick of her wrist, and a shinny, near invisible patch of energy would go onto the track right just as I was going to hit a corner. It would take a heart-stopping moment to lose traction in my tires, and I would have to struggle to control myself. Another signal, and a serpent of holograph would wind off in my course--a harmless illusion, but, as with me, sufficed to cause me to shudder and interrupt my flow.
She was playing me. Making the race her own show, and I was the awkward dancer whom she was preparing to trip. I heard the voice of Maxon saying to me: she will not even strike you head-on. He was right. This was a gradual, disgraceful defeat.
During the last lap, the way to the finish became narrowed by the way of unsteady scaffold. The Acid Sump churned below. Selvara was in the lead, and took the ideal, spotless line. I caught my opportunity--a dangerous, foolish opportunity. I did not go round the curve but struck my Drive Burst, right at the scaffold support.
"What are you doing, you idiot?!" I believe I screamed it at myself.
My Rig did not reply with a hesitation, instead he replied with a rush of knowledge. It struck the support-beam, not with a crash, but by a concussive whack that shook the whole building. The structure moaned and became knotched and creaked and buckled, forming a ragged and smouldering bridge, right over the Acid Sump. It was a quick-fix that was merely a product of utter, devastating desperation.
I drove through the improvised bridge, with the metal screaming back at my tires. The heat of the sump reached through the cockpit floor. I was flying a terrifying second. I finished a few seconds ahead of Selvara who had to go through the long way round the collapsing debris.
I'd won. By cheating. By breaking the track itself.
I put the Rig to a shivering stop, my heart beating like a hammer to get out of my breast. The audience was screaming, disbelief and applause. I saw Maxon at the pit wall. He wasn't cheering. He shook his head and shook his bridge of the bridge of his nose with his pinch.
The Cobra Coil of Selvara came by my side. She wasn't angry. Her window had noiselessly slipped down, and she smiled that same, peaceful, un-nervous smile.
An interesting option, she said, in a melancholy, poisonous voice. "Brutal. Inelegant. But... effective." She was looking at my Rig, and the scalds left by the improvised bridge. You beat your Rig like a hammer, you see but nails. A crude tool. But even a hammer may shatter something beautiful struck with a sufficient force.
She gave a slight, mocking nod. I will not forget your... individual way, Kael Veyron. Until next time." Up her window flew, and she drove away, and I sat there in the smoke and the noise of the crowd and felt less like a winner and more like a bull had just tumbled about a china-shop.
I had qualified. I had survived. But I was feeling in my heart that I had just created a new enemy whose destruction was a kind of art, and who discovered me an interesting, though awkward, new brushstroke.