Chapter Text
Step in, hold your breath and hang tight
Known for the big dollar bet in the cage fight
You're playing with the sharks, step inside
Everybody on your mark, get set, now let's ride
- "Shapeshifter", Celldweller ft. Styles of Beyond
Baltimore, Inner Harbor, 2093
Alex stared out over the water, watching as a full moon rose over the harbor sea wall, reflecting soft silver light off the waves that was overpowered the closer it got to land by a hundred other artificial electric lights in various hues. An evening at the Inner Harbor was a lively affair under any circumstances, filled with sounds and smells and sights and conversations as throngs of people desperately sought relief and escape from the tedium of their corporate jobs in one of the many entertainment venues found here. Tonight was no exception, and would likely be a bit more lively than most.
“Hey Glowstick, you awake over there?”
He smirked at the voice coming from his helmet comm, slipping it on over the riot of colors that was his hair so the shit-talking could commence and snatching his jacket from the back of Comet, his motorcycle. “Sorry, I got distracted trying to imagine how you're going to cope with being publicly embarrassed like this.” He pulled the jacket on over his hoodie, the words 'Ruckus Crew' emblazoned overtop of a stylized raven. The back of the jacket read 'Nothing Typical' over armor plating.
The voice on the other end belonged to Paulo Coltello, a member of Alex's crew and a perpetual pain in his ass. “You talk a good game for being the only person racing that isn't chromed up.”
Underneath the helmet, Alex's smirk broadened. “You're disappointing me again, Pasta Sauce. I figured that if anyone could tell the difference between someone talking out their ass and actual confidence, it'd be someone that's as consistently full of shit as you are.”
“Just because you're confident, that doesn't mean I can't see the facts in front of my face and draw a logical conclusion from them.”
Alex took another look around, this time at the other racers. The hint of irritation in Coltello's voice pleased him. He was right, of course – racers from at least a dozen gangs, crews, and other interested parties had mounted their bikes, every last one of them displaying obvious cybernetic modifications that would likely improve their chances of winning. He also noticed that out of a dozen plus racers, he and Coltello were the only humans. Well, he thought, mostly human at least.
“I don't need chrome to win this thing, Tello”
Coltello scoffed. “Yeah yeah, Mr. Magic Man always has a dirty trick up his sleeve.”
“Honey,” a third, slightly exasperated female voice joined comms, “do I need to remind you one more time of your record against Alex, or his racing record in general?”
“...no.”
“Hi Torvi.”
“Shut up Alex, you're being a dick again.” Torvi was the team's hacker, doctor, Remote, Alex's best friend, and Coltello's girlfriend. She'd seen the two of them butt heads often enough to know how to end it, at least for the moment. “Do I also need to remind you two that this is a job? It doesn't matter who wins, as long as Pinball loses.”
“Yes it does,” both men replied simultaneously.
“Jesus. Boys are stupid.”
Alex chuckled, taking one last shot at her boyfriend. “Look Torv, I want the payday and the race purse both. That's a lot of creds and a big boost to our reputation, and I have plans that are a bit more long term for the crew than the giant pile of cocaine Tello's gonna blow it all on.” Alex hit the ignition on Comet, the throaty whine of the hydrogen engine drowning out whatever reply Coltello spat out as it warmed up. “Can't hear you over the sound of all that coke you're not getting, Pasta Sauce.”
If he was being honest, Alex had to admit that they wouldn't even have this job if it wasn't for Coltello's connections, but he wasn't about to give the irritating Italian man the satisfaction of saying that out loud. The local mafia Don ran all sorts of gambling out of Little Italy, including betting on the illegal street races that regularly took place - motorcycle races being a city tradition dating back to the early 21st century and the 'dirt bike kids' that gathered in large groups to joyride through the city. The problem was Pinball, a half psychotic goblin that raced for the Inferno Hellions out of the DC Hellscape. Goblins were small, light, quick, and generally not overly concerned with their own well being. Pinball got his name because of how often he bounced his bike – and himself by proxy – off of obstacles during a crash. Three wrecks ago, the obstacle in question was Don Cirino's sponsored racer, the man he depended on to fix the odds, occasionally take a dive on the track or break a leg between races, and make sure the credits kept flowing in. Since then, the crazy little goblin had been on a winning streak, throwing Cirino's nice, neat, tidy racket into complete disarray. The Don's answer was a fairly simple one: talk Pinball up, get as many people to bet as many credits as possible on him, find a way to make him lose, and then profit. The “make him lose” part had been contracted out to The Ruckus Crew because Coltello, a nice Italian boy, talked the Don into it. In his mind that naturally meant he was supposed to win the race.
Over my dead body, Alex thought to himself as Comet's engine spun up, the sound changing from a throaty whine to what he imagined it would sound like if a dragon purred. He didn't hand over wins to anybody, and especially not to posers who called themselves racers to get girls. He certainly wasn't going to let Coltello win in front of the the rest of the racers; Pasta Sauce was on his own. In front of him was Zephyr, the rider representing An Roghnaithe - or The Chosen to non-elves – and one of the few riders to regularly give him problems in a race. Built like a diver and clad in purple and black, Zephyr would have been good even without all of the expensive, customized chrome she sported. Ahead of her, Pinball got a running start and jumped into the seat of the monstrosity he rode. He keyed the ignition and cackled wildly as flames shot from the exhaust. Alex just shook his head and chuckled, wondering how much the Inferno Hellions were spending on fuel and replacement parts to maintain that little stunt. Between that and the fact that Pinball was literally foaming at the mouth, the whole display was intended to intimidate – something the Hellions were known for doing at any opportunity.
Not that he didn't have a few of his own intimidating stunts.
Somewhere behind him was Coltello, along with riders from several other gangs and crews – Domino from Poe's Bastards, another crew they sometimes worked with on big jobs. Racers from the Pigtown Butchers, the Druid Hill Phantoms, Money Massive, the Hungry Ghost Triad, Heaven's Messengers, Los Discípulos - even the Nexus Crawlers, who mainly stuck to the web as their “turf”, were represented. Alex counted heads, a small, wicked smile crossing his face as he did so.
Gonna be one hell of an audience.
He flipped the visor on his helmet down, concealing the momentary flash of teal light in his eyes as he checked on his answer to all the chrome that the other racers had – a spirit of wind and motion he had summoned for the evening. Mages didn't have nearly as many options for cyberware as mundanes, but he had never seen that as a handicap. In his mind, magic would always be the superior choice. The spirit wasn't visible to anyone without the Talent, but Alex saw it silently floating beside him, awaiting orders. A moment later he flicked on his HUD and switched his comm over to a private channel with Torvi.
“Torv, you read me?”
“Really Alex, a private channel? Like I don't have enough to do, you want me to juggle two different comm lines at once too?”
His eyes widened a bit in surprise at the heat in her voice. “Honestly, I figured it would be easy for you.”
“That's beside the point," she bit back. "Why are you two like this?”
“Because your boyfriend is a conceited fuckboy with delusions of grandeur, and if I don't regularly deflate his ego it's going to get him killed.”
“My boyfriend is the reason we even have this job.”
“Oh, I know. He's great at talking his way into things. A regular con man, in fact.”
“He's also part of this crew, Alex!”
The way she snapped at him let him know the conversation was over. Besides, she was right – whether he liked it or not, Pasta Sauce was part of the Ruckus Crew, and he always took care of his crew. “Fine, just switch over to the main channel and worry about him. You know he's the one that needs the help anyway.”
“So what, you're not talking to the rest of the crew because he wants to talk a little trash?”
He shook his head and sighed, checking the HUD one last time before the countdown started. “No, Torv. It's because you're the only person who's allowed to be in my head when I'm racing.”
She paused for a moment as that sunk in. “Ok fine, but leave your channel open just in case.”
“Got it. Countdown is started, I'll see you in a few minutes.” He muted his mic, stilled his mind and body, and pushed everything away aside from Comet, his wind spirit, and the red glow of the starting light. The moment that glow turned green, he was no longer still.
He was Movement.
True to her name, Comet came soaring off the line, the dragon's-purr of the engine becoming a howl as Alex rocketed past Gateway park, the sudden acceleration threatening to make him black out. For an instant, the only thing in his vision was the familiar glow of the Domino Sugar sign rapidly growing in size. He adjusted his chi to compensate for his silly mortal limitations, recentered, and the rest of the world snapped back into focus as he rode the high of his one and only addiction – speed. Ahead of him, Pinball and Zephyr weaved back and forth, jockeying for position as the racers streaked down Light street into the Inner Harbor. Alex looked for an opening between the only two competitors he had, his magically enhanced senses and reflexes singing in his mind. A split second before his opening actually appeared, he saw it and flipped a switch on the body of Comet.
The first of five pressurized O2 tanks injected its contents into the engine, turning her howl into the all out roar of a mechanical beast hungry to devour those daring to intrude on its territory. A fuel consumption alert flickered to life on the HUD as the beast consumed hydrogen at a faster pace, a jet of bright blue flame propelling Alex forward, threading the eye of the needle between Pinball and Zephyr with inches to spare on either side. He was dimly aware of a string of alarmed profanity over his comm channel, but he blocked Torvi out. With the last of the O2 burning away, his speed dropped back down to merely obscene levels, allowing the seemingly rabid goblin on the back of his chrome behemoth to focus all three of his brain cells on the person who had passed him. Trusting in Torvi to have the traffic lights hacked, Alex risked a glance backwards.
Pinball was screaming and shaking a tiny green fist at Alex, his actual words lost on the wind. The goblin realized quickly that trying to ride one handed was foolish, narrowed his yellow, bloodshot eyes, and flicked a switch of his own before getting two hands back on the bars. Fire exploded from the back of the abomination he was mounted on as two single use boosters flared to life, the flames passing over the blades of the two decorative scythes hanging from the back of the thing, bringing the symbol of the Inferno Hellions to life – a flaming scythe. The 15% of Alex's brain that wasn't dedicated to his precognition, reactions, steering, and simply staying on the back of Comet had to admit that the display was impressive. The boosters gave Pinball a surge of speed that caught him up to Comet shockingly fast, and as the green skinned psychopath pulled alongside him, Alex was finally able to get a good look at him and put the pieces together – the frothing at the mouth, bloodshot eyes, hyper-aggression and absolute disregard for his own well being.
The Hellions had hopped Pinball up on C-chems; military grade combat drugs.
With the Light Street split – the point where Light street became two divided one way streets instead of a typical city street - surging towards them, Pinball began violently swerving left and right, attempting to stymie Zephyr's attempts to pass while forcing Alex into erratic evasive maneuvers to avoid being run off the road. Jockeying for position in a race like this was nothing new, but it seemed like Pinball was more interested in causing the other racers to crash than he was in winning, at least for the moment. The gargantuan motorcycle veered across multiple lanes, causing Alex to swerve hard to his left and missing Comet by inches. Zephyr used the opportunity to shoot past the homicidal goblin, momentarily taking the lead and putting her out of the immediate danger zone. Pinball paid no mind, concentrating on crowding Comet and forcing a collision with the smaller, faster bike. Forced to choose between a wreck at obscene-miles-per-hour or drastic action, Alex did what he always did – he threw caution to the wind and decided the consequences would be dealt with later. Opening himself up fully to the chi within him and the mana around him, his eyes flared with a multicolored light that settled into a bright, vibrant teal as he flipped another switch, emptying a second O2 canister into his engine and blasting ahead of Pinball before doing the crazy thing - he hopped the small but rapidly growing barrier that separated the two halves of light street, catching air for the first fifteen feet before Comet's tires touched down. For a split second onlookers thought he would collide head on with the building at the corner of the divide, but his bike seemed to swerve in mid air – Alex had brought his bound wind spirit to bear, powerful gusts of wind augmenting his steering and pushing the airborne bike to safety. Singlemindedly focused on Alex, Pinball almost didn't notice the approaching building as his machine bumped along the barrier, forcing him to slow down at the last second and veer off to the right and away to avoid colliding with a solid brick wall.
Alex smiled. Now he only had to contend with going the wrong direction on a one way street at speeds that would make a cheetah blush.
The comm in his helmet crackled to life, his magic interfering with the signal. “Alex, I don't have those traffic lights in my network, they're still live!”
“Relax Torv, I got this. Just keep Coltello in one piece.” He wasn't nearly as calm as he let on, but Torvi already had enough to deal with.
He zigged and zagged through oncoming traffic, a task that would have been impossible for anyone that wasn't seeing things a half second before they actually happened. Horns blared, and he was positive that new and creative profanity had been invented in his wake – he was moving too fast to hear it, though. The wind spirit did its part, clearing the street of debris and pedestrians with gusts of wind that left confusion, chaos, and more than one traffic accident behind them. Alex narrowly made it past a red light, zipping through a gap in the oncoming traffic.
“Are you sure you've got this?” Torvi asked.
“Positive. I'm not planning on dying tonight, at least not more than once.”
“That's not reassuring!”
He didn't respond. A homeless encampment had been set up at a point where the road narrowed, sectioning it off but not appearing on any map. At least there won't be traffic on the other side, he thought.
The encampment had been sealed off with a makeshift barricade of wood, scrap metal, street signs, and a section of guardrail stolen from the nearby highway. It wasn't the sturdiest thing, but it was more than solid enough to turn Alex into goo if he hit it at the speed he was going. Setting his jaw, he pooled mana into his left hand, keeping his right on the handlebars. Channeling mana in this many directions was difficult – between the spirit, the heightened senses, and now this, his vision started to go grey and fuzzy for a moment. That moment passed when he released the mana in a blast of light and sound, the impact shattering the barricade and the deep, dissonant bass tones and the impact of another landing jarring his teeth in their sockets as Comet hit what amounted to a speed hump at the base of where the barricade once stood. Debris rained down around him as he sped through the encampment, catching sight of an old man waving a cane at him as he flew through. As he predicted, this half of the street was blessedly free of traffic, giving him a second to breathe.
“Torvi, where's the nearest point I can get back onto Light street?”
“You're on St. Paul. Turn right onto East Baltimore and you should hit Light St. at the monument.”
“Good. Coltello's status?”
She sighed. “He's far enough away from the leaders that he's not in any danger.”
“Even better. Keep him there, at least until Pinball is zeroed.” He accelerated back to racing speed as he talked.
“Wait, we weren't contracted to kill him.”
Alex scowled, swerving around a rusted shopping cart left upside down in the middle of the street. “No we weren't, but he's already tried to kill me once and if I have to choose between me or him it's not a hard choice.”
“That's going to start a shitstorm with the Hellions, Alex.”
“Then they shouldn't have dosed their racer to the eyeballs on C-chems.”
The road took a 45 degree bend, and soon Alex could see Battle Monument Park looming into view, along with the flank of Pinball's monster as he and Zephyr fought for position. A plan took form in his mind and he opened the throttle all the way up, eyes still glowing teal. He pointed the nose of Comet directly at Pinball's flank and mentally called the spirit's attention to focus on the goblin. C-chems had a habit of making someone jittery, causing them to react before assessing a situation. Alex used that to his advantage, rocketing out of the side street right at Pinball. Pinball reacted the way Alex had hoped he would, swerving to the right and away from the approaching threat before realizing exactly what it was, and that's when Alex gave his spirit the mental command.
Now.
Comet left a broad, black streak across the asphalt as Alex threw his bike into a controlled fishtail to stay on Light street and zip around the park, his left leg coming within inches of contact with the street. At the same time, the air spirit gusted as hard as it could into Pinball's already swerving bike, causing him to over-correct and plow directly into the shrubbery and overgrowth separating the park from the street it divided. Alex smirked again.
“Pinball neutralized, Torv. Tell Pasta Sauce to catch me if he can.”
With the actual threat to life and limb dealt with, Alex risked a glance down at his gauges, noting that he had already burned through a significant amount of fuel. He considered cycling the steam compressor – what acted as an exhaust collector for the water powered hydrogen engine – back into the main tank, but decided against it. There was still enough fuel to get him through the race. Probably. Besides, he might need that steam for something else. Regaining the speed he had shed during his impromptu detour, he glanced behind him to see the rest of the pack gaining ground on his position. Ahead of him, Zephyr was now firmly in the lead, and with a smile on his face he hit the accelerator to fix that problem. Whipping past the park, he refocused his senses and chi as the sign signaling where Light St. became Calvert St. blurred by. It was his enhanced senses – in particular his hearing – that alerted him to the problem.
As the pack of second rate racers behind him cleared the end of the park, a cacophony of straining metal, snapping wood, and the horrible sounds of an engine screaming in protest erupted from the greenery as Pinball emerged from the hedge line atop his steel goliath, branches and leaves sticking out from in between pipes and engine components, a twig caught between his teeth as he screamed gibberish at the racers in front of him, foam and leaves flying from his lips. He crashed through the flimsy railing separating the park from the sidewalk and was in among the other racers before they realized what was happening, violently jerking his motorcycle side to side, smashing into the lighter machines and causing them to collide with each other. Bikes and riders hit the asphalt, riding armor and helmets saving most from a grizzly end but eliminating them from the race. Pinball locked his now blood red, dilated eyes on Comet and howled in chemically enhanced fury as he ignited another of the single use boosters bolted to his motorcycle and blasted forward, leaving wreckage and twisted bodies in his wake.
“Shit! Torvi, the little bastard's still coming! Repeat, target still active!” Alex had just enough time to see that Coltello had managed to weave his way through the carnage and stay on Pinball's tail before the booster ignited, leaving him in the exhaust wake of a rampaging goblin with a single target in his mind. Alex engaged another of his O2 tanks and Comet responded, roaring a challenge as the engine shot out another blue jet of flame. Come and get me, asshole.
Comet roared down Calvert St. with Pinball's war machine howling like a demon behind her, the chrome nightmare slowly gaining ground from the literal rocket propelling it through the city. The fancy public artwork and corporate skyscrapers gave way to smaller businesses, restaurants and parking garages as they zoomed out of the Inner Harbor and through one of the areas catering to visitors and tourists. Torvi crackled over his comm again but her voice was lost in the flood of sensation, adrenaline and chi coursing through him as he concentrated on becoming one with his machine, blocking out everything but the road and whatever happened to be on it. He flipped another switch and the rear view camera popped up in a corner of his helmet HUD, showing him that Coltello was still doggedly hanging on, right behind Pinball. The goblin didn't seem to notice him – he was focused on one thing and only one thing. Ahead, Zephyr finally noticed that Alex was gaining on her and kicked in some kind of booster of her own, trying to keep her lead and reach the turn onto Franklin St. before the other racers crowded it and turned it into a death trap. Alex checked his temperature gauge, grimaced slightly, and keyed in the fourth of his five O2 tanks just as the last one emptied, pushing the needle into the red but staying ahead of the homicidal goblin and gaining ground on him. He gave a mental command to his spirit to push and felt the wind on his back, the sensation of air hitting him from two directions at once threatening to distract him for just a moment. The speed boost wasn't much, but it was enough to edge him past Zephyr before they hit the dreaded turn onto Franklin. Torvi's voice finally managed to claw it's way through to the surface of his mind.
“What the hell are you doing, Alex? You're going to melt the engine seals if you keep dumping O2 like that!”
He grimaced again as offices and restaurants gave way to shoddier warehouses and rowhomes. “I'm trying to stay ahead of him. Don't worry, she'll hold together.” Subconsciously he tapped a handlebar. Hold together, baby.
As if hearing his unspoken encouragement, Comet's roar dropped an octave and nearly doubled in volume as the auxiliary cooling turbine kicked in, sucking in cool air and forcing it over the surface and through the redlining engine, matching Pinball's bike decibel for decibel. Alex let out a whoop of triumph and exhilaration. “That's my girl!! I told you she'd hold together!” Neon streetlights flashed and danced off of his helmet and Comet's body, putting on a bit of a show for the onlookers as he soared over the pavement and into the slums.
“This is getting out of hand,” Torvi replied. “Stop talking to Comet, I'm patching Coltello into our channel.”
“What's he going to do?” Alex grumbled.
“He's going to keep your crazy ass alive!” she shouted back.
On cue, Coltello's voice crackled to life in his ear. “Alex, what's your status?”
“I'm neck and neck with Zephyr and I've got a homicidal goblin doped on combat drugs riding a death machine behind me that wants to play jump-rope with my insides.”
Coltello let loose with his favorite curse. “Maria sanguinante, they gave that little psycho C-chems!?”
“Explains a whole lot, doesn't it?”
“Cut the chatter you two,” Torvi interjected, her voice taking on the monotone, nearly robotic quality it held when she was running her cerebral co-processors past their 'suggested' maximum. “Alex, you're coming into the slums. Street quality is going to take a sharp decline, meaning more swerving and dodging and less straight lines. If you can figure out how to make an opening for him, Tello and I have a plan.”
Alex gripped the bars tighter as he began swerving past potholes and debris. “Gonna have to wait, Torv. We're coming up on the Franklin bend. Tello, keep back until we clear it, that turn narrows real fast and it takes out experienced racers constantly. Going quiet 'till I'm through.” He glanced at the camera feed and confirmed his worst fears; Pinball's bigger, heavier machine was having no issue plowing through the hazards that would send Comet airborne if Alex hit them at this speed, meaning the goblin wasn't losing ground due to swerving like Alex and Zephyr were. To make matters worse, he ignited yet another of the single use boosters, eating up the space between them at an alarming rate, the sudden acceleration throwing back Pinball's lips in a rictus grin as he left a spray of foam and crumbling asphalt in his wake.
How is that twig still stuck in his teeth?
Alex pushed the errant thought from his mind and focused on bobbing and weaving through the streets of Baltimore, Zephyr doing the same slightly behind him and to his right. The two of them had run this race against each other dozens of times, and they had an unspoken rule: no nonsense on this portion of the 'track'. Franklin was just too dangerous to risk it. Pinball had no such reservations, and as the two veteran racers leaned into the curve neck and neck, the last of the goblin's latest booster carried him directly between them. Even drugged out of his mind, Pinball knew better than to swerve left into the curve and Alex.
So instead, he swerved right.
The horrible screech of twisting, tearing metal blended together with Zephyr's own scream as her bike was smashed between Pinball's and the concrete barrier on the outside of the curve at racing speeds, causing the barrier to peel away riding armor before grinding and tearing through flesh and bone and steel, ripping her right leg from her body before catching the bike and launching it – and what was left of her – through the air and over the barrier. Alex had to fight back the urge to gag as he was sprayed with the elf's blood.
“Zephyr's down!”, he spat into the comm. “Torvi, it's bad. Get The Chosen over to Franklin.”
“Fucking hell,” she breathed, “I saw.”
The sound of Pinball's deranged cackling drove the nausea from Alex and replaced it with something else: ice cold anger. Zephyr wasn't part of their crew, but she was someone they all thought of as a friend. Behind him, Coltello raced into the curve as he and Pinball cleared it, coming out onto Franklin Avenue proper. The collision had slowed Pinball down and damaged his bike, giving Alex a little space between them. He checked his gauges and swore – the turbine had cooled the engine, but was burning through his fuel so fast that he wouldn't be able to finish the race if he kept it on. Reluctantly, he flipped the manual cutoff. Comet's roar diminished in volume as she returned to her usual octave, and almost immediately the temperature needle started creeping forward again.
“Alex!” Coltello's staticky voice filled his helmet, “Got that opening ready? It's now or never.”
“Put your light filters up,” Alex bit out. Reaching into a jacket pocket, he pulled out a glowstick, wove a minor spell into it, and counted to three before cracking it against Comet's body, throwing it at Pinball, and releasing the spell. The glowstick burst into a bright neon green flash, releasing eight hours of potential light all at once. Pinball released the throttle, losing speed while he tried to swat the spots from his eyes. Coltello swooped past him, pulling up on Alex's left flank and nodding at him as they streaked past Enoch Pratt library on their way to the final leg of the race.
“Nice work, Glowstick. Sweetheart, can we zero this piccola merda now?”
Torvi's reply came in one word, her voice every bit as icy as Alex's. “Incoming.”
As soon as he registered the word, Alex saw a bird dive down and collide with Pinball's front wheel just as he was recovering from the glowstick flash. The bike jolted as the bird impacted and bounced away, sparking and sputtering in an entirely inorganic manner. “Torvi, was that-”
“Kamikaze pigeons,” she cut him off. “Drones can do more than just surveillance.”
Alex cackled as a second 'pigeon' bounced off of Pinball's motorcycle, causing him to swerve into the middle of the street in an attempt to dodge it.
“Alex, I need him behind Coltello. Help me keep him boxed in, and keep him from running my boyfriend over.”
“On it,” Alex muttered, gathering more chi for another spell. In the back of his mind he knew he was going to pay for this much casting later, but that was a problem for later. The murderous goblin was a problem for now. While Torvi kept Pinball distracted with her drone onslaught, Alex dropped his left hand down to his side and gathered the essence of Comet's roar into his hand and mind. It was strenuous, dividing his focus between the magic and riding down Franklin Ave. at ludicrous speeds. He felt a bead of sweat run down the back of his neck before he finished, capturing the roar in his mind and holding it there. Waiting for a lull in the drones, he looked back – actually turning his head instead of relying on the camera feed – and sent some of the roar out through his third eye, down his arm, and into his hand before pointing at Pinball and releasing it. The invisible blast of sound hit the pavement a few feet from Pinball's motorcycle, detonating with a concussion of dissonant bass tones that tore chunks of the street free, showering Pinball in a hail of jagged pebbles and shaking Alex's ribcage with the bass. The goblin instinctively swerved away from the concussion as his bike rattled and shook beneath him, putting himself directly behind Coltello.
“Deploy!” Torvi barked, timing the command with another drone swooping in at Pinball. Coltello said nothing, instead hitting a button on his bike. Something dropped from the tail end just past the rear wheel, hitting the pavement and unfolding on impact. Pinball, too distracted by the drone to notice, drove directly over the tack pad in front of him.
“Got him!” Coltello shouted triumphantly.
The tack pad – a 2x2 square covered in barbed steel spikes – caught on Pinball's front tire, spinning through the wheel assembly a few times and shredding the rubber before being spat out by centrifugal force, only to repeat the same process on the rear tire. Mangled chunks of tread were thrown in all directions before the steel rims made contact with the street, replacing flying shreds of rubber with sparks.... but Pinball didn't stop. Noticing his machine slowing down as it gouged grooves down Franklin, he screeched out another tirade of barely coherent threats and doubled down on his insanity, opening the throttle all the way up to compensate for the drag of steel on pavement.
“Uh, Torvi?” Coltello's voice came over the comm again, much less confident than last time, “He's not stopping.”
“I don't understand,” her voice came back, going monotone again. “The heat and weight should have warped the rims by now. He shouldn't be able to keep going.” As she spoke, Pinball crept ever closer to Coltello's back tire.
“Well..... merda, keep throwing robo-birds at him or something!”
“I'm out,” she huffed. “Those things don't just grow on trees, they take forever to build.”
Alex groaned, realizing the problem. “Of course. They had to use reinforced rims for that monster based on weight alone. They're not steel, they're titanium.”
Coltello cut in front of Alex, dodging Pinball's attempt to hit him from behind and run him over. “Ok, so now what?!”
Alex checked his gauges again, grinding his teeth together in frustration – everything was either in the red or close to it, including his fuel. He huffed, begrudgingly accepting the reality of the situation. “Can that pretty little bike of yours get any more speed?”
“Yes, but-”
Alex cut him off. “Then you're going to go win this race so we get paid. He's pissed at me, assuming he isn't so goddamn high that he's forgotten that already, so I'm going to be the bait.”
“That's suicide.”
Alex laughed. “That sounds like you're just scared to go any faster.”
"I wasn't talking about me!"
Pinball continued to gain ground on them, pulling parallel to Alex before violently swerving, trying to crush Comet under the weight of the spark spewing titanium. Alex released more of the sound he had stored, pushing the monstrous bike away but not toppling it. Sweat poured down his face, glowing faintly with a swirling array of colors in the reflection of his visor as his body began to leak excess mana to relieve the strain of containing it. Before Alex could respond, Torvi came back over the comm.
“According to my calculations, Pinball has less than a 20% chance of successfully getting that motorcycle down the ramp to the highway. He's not doing it while riding on titanium rims.”
"That's good, right sweetheart?"
"Not if you're on the ramp with him."
Alex set his jaw again. “Alright, I have a-”
Pinball swerved in at him again, cutting off Alex's reply and screaming wordless, drug fueled rage the whole time. Out of options and not wanting to spend the last of his stored magic, Alex did the only thing he could do – he hit the brakes, letting Pinball's momentum carry him past... and then he hit his last O2 switch. Something in the engine screamed and he caught a whiff of melting sealant, but he took off with a sudden acceleration that nearly threw him from his seat, opening the throttle all the way as he went.
“Alex, you're-”
“Don't want to hear it, Torv!”, he snapped back. “You win this one, Pasta Sauce. Now go win the damn thing instead of just cruising around looking pretty!”
Comet screamed past both racers as Coltello took the ramp to Rt. 40 - the final stretch of the race, Baltimore's infamous Highway To Nowhere.
Over a century earlier, the highway had been an ill conceived 'municipal project' that cut Baltimore in half to provide a route for wealthy corporate types to avoid driving through 'less desirable' neighborhoods in a blatant display of institutional racism. It only led to one place – the train station in West Baltimore. Sometime after the second civil war and Baltimore's independence, it was decided to put a lightrail track down the center of it, reconnecting the community via the stops located on bridges above the recessed highway, but also turning the highway into a rail track with two small service roads, one on either side of it, running parallel and enclosed by steep concrete walls opposite the track. It was one of these narrow service roads that Coltello was careening down. Meanwhile, Alex continued flying down Franklin like a bat out of hell, pouring every ounce of speed Comet could muster into staying ahead of the spark throwing machine chasing him down, dodging pot holes and garbage to the sound of death howling close behind him.
“Alex, what the hell are you doing?!” Torvi's voice was no longer monotone, it was straddling the border between frightened and furious.
“Something stupid!” came his giddy, nearly delirious reply. She kept talking, but he blocked her voice out – he needed every last bit of concentration if he was going to pull this nonsense off without ending up in a body cast. Every display on his HUD was either red, or red and flashing - Comet's silent warning that she was pushing further past her limits than Alex had ever taken her. He swerved back and forth as she shuddered and shook beneath him, doing his best to keep Pinball from lining up another attempt to hit him. Ahead, a traffic light flickered to red – a light Torvi hadn't hacked because it wasn't part of the race course.
Now.
Right as Pinball was getting so close that he could see the sparks reflecting in his visor, Alex flipped his last two switches. The first one activated a dazzling array of strobing, multi-colored light effects mounted in the body of the motorcycle. The second one vented the steam compressor. A boiling hot cloud of steam enveloped Pinball before the lights refracted through the cloud, filling the goblin's drug-dilated pupils with a world of bright, scalding, flashing lights. Alex jerked Comet to the left, veering off of Franklin entirely and directly at the guard rail running along the edge of the recessed Highway to Nowhere, and dumped the last of the captured sound he had saved straight into the ground below him. The concussion lifted Comet's lightweight frame off the ground and over the guard rail, propelling both her and her rider forward into thin air and a 30 foot drop. Alex scrabbled desperately for the ability to focus mentally as the pavement rushed up to meet him.
Catchme catchme catchme!!
The air spirit complied, a sudden, fierce updraft slowing Comet's descent from something fatal to merely a bone jarring impact. Shocks audibly strained to absorb the force of landing on the lightrail tracks, bouncing Comet back into the air a couple feet before landing again on the service road. He heard the bottom of his motorcycle scrape along the pavement. More red lights appeared on his HUD as the engine cut out, but the incredible crash behind him jerked his focus away.
Pinball did not have a lightweight racing bike. He had a massive, heavy war machine. Blinded by the steam and strobelights, he had plowed his bike through the guard rail. Without an air spirit to cushion his fall, the goblin screamed in terror the entire way down as his motorcycle plummeted through empty space and hit the pavement nose first, full force. As a battered, dented, and out of fuel Comet coasted to a wobbly stop, the last Alex saw of Pinball was his lifeless face, the leaves of the twig still stuck between his teeth swaying in the breeze coming off the harbor.
After Torvi assured him that she would have someone out to tow Comet back to Sanctuary, the abandoned church the crew called home, Alex started walking the rest of the way towards the finish line at the rail station. Torvi took the opportunity to cuss him out the entire way over the comm, but he took it in stride – after all, he had done something completely unplanned and, even by his standards, shockingly insane. Surprisingly, Coltello tried to defend him, which just made Torvi even angrier. He also decided to meet Alex halfway there and give him a ride back. Without any other options, the two men silently decided to just let Torvi get it out of her system as they rode back, both grinning like idiots. The sudden halt in her tirade jolted them both from the hazy euphoria of an adrenaline come-down.
Coltello broke the silence first. “Sweetheart? You still there?”
She replied in a low, quiet voice. “I need you two here. Now.”
Two minutes later they were pulling into the train station. Alex hopped off the back of Coltello's bike almost before it had come to a stop, hooking his helmet over the right handlebar and running a hand through his multicolored, fiber optic synth-hair in a futile attempt to rake it back into some sense of order. Even from the parking lot he could tell something was off. Race after-parties were typically wild affairs, but instead of the usual music and party noises, all he could hear was tense conversation and occasional shouting. Exchanging worried glances, the two of them hurried into the station and found themselves walking into a powder keg waiting to explode.
The Chosen stood on one side of the lobby with smaller groups representing five or six other gangs, all of which had sponsored riders in the race. The Inferno Hellions stood across the room on the opposite end. Both sides had drawn weapons and were glaring at each other while representatives argued back and forth. It came as a surprise to Alex after doing a quick head count that the Hellions outnumbered the combined group of local gangs, including The Chosen. A rough, calloused hand grabbed his shoulder as a gravelly voice whispered in his ear. “Looks like you might want these, young man.”
Alex turned his head to find Barney, his team's other caster, holding a steaming styrofoam cup of coffee and a stim patch in one hand. Alex hadn't noticed him approach – after a life of living on the streets as a bum, Barney had mastered the art of blending in.
“Gods yes. You're a lifesaver, old man.” He peeled the adhesive from the patch and slapped it on his chest under his shirt and jacket before gulping down a mouthful of hot black ambrosia, feeling some of the fatigue bleed out of his body and allowing him to focus on the 'debate' happening in the middle of the room.
“We'll see if that's the case tonight,” the old bum replied cryptically, before vanishing back into the crowd. Alex already knew that trying to figure out where he had gone was a pointless exercise, so instead he chose to concentrate on the issue at hand.
A dark skinned elf with a mohawk wearing the purple and black colors of the Chosen glared daggers at a hulking human shaped figure that looked to be more machine than man. “Your psychotic little goblin went bug-fuck insane out there, Lekter. He killed Zephyr and gods know how many other riders.”
The cyborg remained inhumanly motionless other than narrowing its mechanical eyes, speaking in a voice deliberately modulated to sound like something from a nightmare. “I don't see why you're so upset. Riders die in races all the time.”
The elf stepped forward, murderous intent glimmering in his eyes, and jabbed a finger into Lekter's chrome chest. “Yeah, they die from mistakes and miscalculations, or from plain bad luck. They specifically do not die from being murdered by other riders!”
Lekter's red eye lenses narrowed further. “If you touch me again, I'll take that arm home with me as a trophy. And if you can't provide proof of these...accusations, I'll take your face as well.” Alex tensed up, partly due to the threat but also because of Lekter. There was something... wrong... about his aura. In a room full of killers, only one aura stood out and made him want to take a shower.
Standing towards the back of the group of Chosen, a woman shouted to be heard over the sound of dozens of weapons being chambered at once. “How do you want that proof, Lekter? You want a bird's eye view? Maybe traffic cam footage, or the feeds from my riders' helmets?” Every eye in the building turned to focus on the tall, almost too-skinny elf woman. Black hair braided down one side of her head hung to her waist and ended in a variety of colors, the other side shaved and revealing a suite of high grade cerebral implants and a pointed ear with more piercings than could easily be counted, one of which had a chain running to a piercing in her septum. Tattoos ran up both sides of her neck from underneath a jacket with the words Ruckus Crew emblazoned on it, while chains dangled from a pair of black pants that looked like they had been painted on. Her eyes stared directly at the leader of the Inferno Hellions, silently daring him to reply.
“Ah christ,” Coltello sighed. “What the hell is she doing?”
Alex shrugged and grinned, pulling up enough chi to make his eyes shimmer faintly with his signature teal while also pulling the hood of his hoodie up. When he was positive she had noticed, he gave her a wink. “Torvi's doing what she always does. She's standing up to a bully.”
“Yeah, but that bully has a lot of guys with a lot of guns pointed at, well.....everything.”
Alex nodded. “She knows. That's why she has about thirty bodies between her and anyone shooting."
Coltello never took his eyes off the crowd, easing his pistol from its holster with an exasperated look on his face. “Is there anything that scares you two?”
“Ask me again later when my ego isn't smarting from losing a race to you and I might give you an honest answer.”
Meanwhile, Lekter had turned his attention to Torvi. “You want me to believe that grainy still shots from a traffic camera and helmet cam footage can prove my rider was deliberately attempting to kill other racers?”
Torvi smiled at Lekter in the same way that a housecat smiles at a cornered rodent. “By themselves? No. But combined with the aerial footage and blood samples I have showing the staggering amount of C-chems Pinball was on? My professional opinion as a doctor is that you're fucked.”
Coltello's mouth fell open as he realized what she had done. “She's terrifying. I love that woman and she's terrifying.” Alex just shook his head in awe and quietly snickered while a single, lonely pigeon landed on Torvi's shoulder. A pigeon with a bloody beak.
The crowd began to jostle and stir as the implications of Torvi's words sank in, whispers and murmurs rippling like waves through the throng of bodies. Lekter cocked his head at her, oozing menace now that he understood how she had manipulated him. “I'll take your opinion under advisement, Doctor. Tell me, will you be able to operate your drones once I remove your hands and feed them to you?” Behind him, the Hellions tensed up for the fight they knew was coming. The Chosen responded in kind, but before anyone could move, a low, loud BOOM shook the building and everyone in it. It wasn't a gun shot, but despite that fact a fist sized hole appeared in the wall about a foot above Lekter's head, letting the night air in.
The women's restroom was tucked away in a corner of the lobby far from either of the assembled gangs. An enormous combat boot kicked what was left of the door open from the inside, and out stepped a walking death threat in the form of a seven foot tall troll woman holding a portable rail gun the way a human would carry a combat shotgun. The pockets of her ripped jeans bulged with ammunition, and her unzipped Ruckus Crew jacket and black tank top revealed the build of a trained fighter augmented with cybernetics and applied to a truly massive frame. Long horns curled up from her forehead, framing hair on either side that had been pulled back into a no nonsense, out of the way ponytail. For a split second a laser sight flickered out from her eyes, resting on Lekter's chest. She cocked the rail gun with one hand and snarled, drawing attention to the absurdly pink lipstick she was wearing. A scrawny Hellion with a fully implanted sensor suite where his eyes used to be looked her up and down and then began whispering to Lekter.
The troll addressed the crowd of gangers that had been spoiling for a fight only seconds earlier. “They tell me you shouldn't use these things indoors because of sonic booms and structural damage and collapsing buildings and stuff, but I could've sworn I just heard someone threaten my Torvi and that makes me want to break rules. And other things.” The optical laser sights flickered again, and across the lobby Torvi's predatory housecat smile grew another quarter inch. The troll continued. “Was that you, Mr. B Grade....horror....cyber....gimp? Honestly I have no idea what you're going for with that look, and I don't really give a shit either.” Silence blanketed the lobby so completely that the sound of the rail gun recharging could be heard across the room, a high pitched warning of impending doom.
A grin eerily similar to Torvi's made its way across Alex's face as his eyes lit up the rest of the way, blazing out from under the darkness of his hood and the shadowy doorway he and Coltello were occupying. He stepped out of the shadows, Zephyr's dried blood still sprayed across the front of his jacket, complimenting the troll's entrance and allowing the Hellions to realize that they were now in the middle of a triangle of very angry, dangerous people. “Hi Nikki.”
Nikki never took her eyes off of Lekter's chest cavity. “Hiya, Alex. I thought we were gonna have a nice calm night, but then someone said something stupid and now I have to break the rules about using this thing indoors. Hey, don't tell anyone, but secretly?” She snarled again. “I fukin' love breaking rules. They're my favorite thing to break, and that's a really long list of things. Do you like breaking rules, Alex?”
Alex cracked his knuckles, magical energy beginning to visibly swirl around him as motes of light. “Oh, you know I do.”
While he spoke, the scrawny Hellion looked him up and down as well, then started whispering to Lekter again.
Coltello stepped out of the shadows behind Alex, his styled hair and classic Italian good looks a stark contrast to Alex's ominous radiance and dried blood, standing behind the glowing magician as if he were a wall and leveling his pistol over Alex's shoulder at Scrawny with a cold flatness in his chocolate brown eyes. “You don't even have to ask me, grande ragazza. You know how I feel about rules.”
Nikki's pupils dilated. “How 'bout it then boys? You wanna break some rules with me?
The lights swirling around Alex began alternating colors and picking up speed. “Girl, we can break all kinds of things.”
“Rules, fools,” Coltello chimed in, “It all rhymes in English. How can I tell the difference?”
“Well that settles it then.” Nikki shifted her gaze from Lekter's chest to his face. “You heard the mage, Mr. Halloween Gimp. We're breaking all kinds of things tonight. Celebrating the Pretty Boy winning his first race and some stupid fukin' goblin turning himself into jelly out there.” The optical laser sights flickered one more time, directly into Lekter's eyes. “Last chance for you and your little posse here to get on your tiny toy bikes and fuck outta our city before that happens. We call it Bodymore for a reason, Gimpy-boy. I'd take it, because they're never gonna find your body once we dump it in the harbor.”
Lekter assessed the quickly deteriorating situation – surrounded, indoors, and no longer outnumbering the enemy. “Inferno Hellions, let's burn out.” He turned on his heel and walked out, the gang following behind, mounting up, and riding off.