The qualifier was a grey void of noise and remains of adrenaline that followed the qualifier. The other racers accorded me an extended passage in the Pit of Gearheart. The expressions were new, less interested, more suspicious. I had violated an unwritten law: I must have won, or lost gracefully. I'd done neither. I'd just broken things.
Maxon didn't say much. He merely directed me to a pile of battered turbine blades which required polishing. The mindless labour was an alleviation. It allowed me to think or better to replay the race in my head. The very cool tone of the voice of Selvara, the sensation of the scaffolding collapsing, the warmth of the cockpit floor. I had won, yet it was as though I had lost in another game which was more of the essence.
The main viewscreen, upon which the garage was accustomed to have repaired schematics, was abruptly seized by a burst of neon color and a voice as familiar, and as laddish and theatrical, as if it were Hammerstein himself speaking.
Good-bye, Circuit-breakers, welcome back! Vox Machina now, the charge is the Neon Spire pure Electric!
I looked up. On the screen was a great, many-tiered track, which shone in the starlight of the artificial light, a stark contrast to the dirty industrial circuit I had just left. The camera swept across a crowd of cheering people.
Tape rewind, boys... an incident in the lower circuits before we start the main event...
My blood went cold. There I appeared onscreen, a grainy shot on a trackside camera. The video recorded how I had desperately scrambled up to the scaffolding support, the disorderly fall, and how I had leaped carelessly over the Acid Sump. It appeared crazy yet more so on the outside.
The Scrapheap Scramble has provided us with a new facade! Kael Veyron, everyone! One of the scavengers of the wastes who does not exactly race, but... rearranges the furniture! Vox Machina laughed. "A bold strategy! We shall see whether it will work against the big leagues!
The screen split. Lyra Vox came in on the other side, bending backwards in her chair with an expression of knowing. Oh, Vox, don't play that you are not impressed. That wasn't strategy. It was a motor power temper tantrum. Her jade eyes were shining as she leaned forward. "But it's fascinating, isn't it? He's all instinct. No technique. It is as though a wild fire attempts to figure out a puzzle by burning it.
"A valid point, Lyra!" Vox boomed. The feature race that will be held anyway this evening will be one course in technique, in art and in pure, undress ego! And back to the Spire where she had gone on her triumphant tour... the one, the only.... MIRA VOLT!"
The crowd erupted. The camera cut across to the starting grid, where a neon-chrome muscle car was blinking violet light. It was the Shock Dancer. It resembled a vehicle less than a lightning storm that was captured. The cockpit door swung open and Mira herself came out, not to inspect her Rig, but to receive the accolade. She made a wave in the crowd who burst into harmless spark to a wave of cheers.
Look at her, Lyra said, and her comment, however, growing closer and more critical. It is not just training about to run a race. She's setting the stage. Every move is choreographed. The spectacle comes almost ahead of the victory to her.
The race began. And it was a spectacle. Mira did not drive like Selvara in silent kill, nor did I drive like Mira, with brute force. It was a performance. A violent, beautiful ballet. She wound corners with drifts that were impossible, and left und purple cracks of lightning on the track. She did not merely beat her competition, she annihilated them all. She switched on her Overdrive when one of the racers attempted to block her.
"VOLTAGE MIRAGE!" Vox Machina screamed.
Then suddenly the three afterimages of the Shock Dancer broke away, and turned into the pack with the most unnatural reality. The racing competitor evaded one but hit the actual Mira instead. A violent burst of lightning flashed out of her Rig to his and emptied his speed, and left it in a crawling smoking ruin. Mira didn't even glance back. She performed an ideal, scoffing pirouette spin and then hastened away.
He has just handed over on her mercies, Lyra said, with a tincture of pity. "She doesn't just beat you. She is involved because she makes you a part of your own failure. She requires the viewers, the play. Without it..." She fell away with the screen depicting a close-up of the face of Mira. It was ecstatic, and it was drinking the life out of the crowd.
I stood there a dirty polishing rag in my hand and was completely fascinated. This was a different level. It was a language that I did not understand was power. Selvara was a hunter. Mira was a painter and fear and adoration were her tools.
The race concluded with Mira making a gaudy victory lap, with her Rig stopping at the finishing line to bow in a deep melodramatic way. The crowd went insane.
Lyra cut the celebration with a soft but definite voice. "She's magnificent. But see what happens to her eyes when the cheers have gone down a moment. That hunger. It's a void. And one day the applause will not be sufficient to fill it.
The transmission was broken and the screen went back to a silent schematic. The garage was as silent as never.
Maxon crossed and trailed my eyes to the current blank screen. He grunted. "See? That's what you're up against. She will have what you had--that fumbling, desperate tussle of yours--and she will make it a story how you humiliated yourself before she decorously caused your death. She would make you lose a part of her act.
Evaluating a turbine blade that I had been sharpening he picked it up. "You survived a snake. Good. Now you've seen the lightning. At least question is, when it hits will you be a conductor or another bit of burned earth?
I had no answer. I only stood and looked at my own hands, their fingers still tingling with the unrealized energy of the Shard, and thought maybe pure power would be sufficient with someone who used perfection as arms. Surviving was not the goal as it was the first time. Understanding the game did.