Hover Car Racer (22 page)

The
Argonaut II
shot clear off the track, out to the right,
out over
the ripple strips - missing the entry to the pits completely - setting off in a
wide
arc out over the ocean, its mag levels plummeting even further down into the red.

The
Argonaut II
banked away to the right, out over the sea, out towards the far western horizon and Jason realised to his horror that after the collision,
he could only steer to the right
.

Then things got worse.

The
Argonaut II
slowed. Dramatically.

Thanks to the ripple strip, its magneto drives were now almost dry. The
Argonaut II
- with a broken nosewing and almost zero power - was now limping out over the open sea, only capable of turning right.

‘
Jason!
‘ Sally’s voice called in his ear. ‘
You okay?
’

‘We’re okay…’ Jason said through clenched teeth. ‘Just pissed. And I can only turn right.’

‘What the hell was that? Is every French driver in this industry a bastard?’

‘Just stand by, Sally. We’re not out of this yet. We’re gonna try and make it to the pits…’

‘How?’

‘If we can only turn right, then we’ll do it by only turning right…’

The
Argonaut II
puttered around in a painfully slow, painfully wide circle, a circuit easily several kilometres in circumference. But a circle that would end at - the pit entry.

‘But you’re going to have to come back over the demag strip,’ Sally said.

‘Then I hope we have enough power to take the hit,’ Jason said.

The
Argonaut II
limped around in its arc, at a pathetic 15 km/h - it was almost unnatural to see a hover car moving at such a slow pace.

‘Bug,’ Jason called, ‘do some calculations. How long is this circle going to take us?’

The Bug did the math in his head in about three seconds. He told Jason the answer.

‘Three minutes!’ Jason exclaimed. ‘
Minutes!
Damn…’ As Jason well knew, hover car races were won by seconds, not minutes. Once you went down by more than a minute, your race was run.

But still he flew on.

As he did so, the Bug kept an eye on the pits, on the other cars in the field that were whizzing into them at full speed.

The Bug counted them off: 15th…20th…25th…26th.

He informed Jason.

The 26th car had entered the pits.

They were now officially coming last.

Three minutes later, they came full circle and Jason lined them up with the entrance to the Fiumicino Pits.

By this stage, every other car in the race had sped off into the distance at full speed, leaving Jason alone, foundering off the coast near the Fiumicino Pits.

But his situation had provided the crowd camped on the rocky coastline with a special spectacle - they were enjoying watching him struggle and as such, were cheering him on, shouting chants, clapping in unison, willing the
Argonaut II
into the pits.

Jason eyed the demag lights directly ahead of him, blocking his way to the pits. The last hurdle.
He checked his mag level display:

Five of his six mags were on 2% power, one a little over 4%.

As he’d learned back at Race School, back in Race 25, a standard run over a demag ripple strip robbed you of 3% of magnetic power.

‘I only need one per cent to make it,’ he said grimly.

But as he also knew, if the
Argonaut II
lingered for too long over the ripple strip, it would lose more magnetic power than that -
all
his power - and that meant dropping out of the sky and into the water…

‘Hang on, Bug. Here we go.’

The
Argonaut II
banked round towards the pit entrance at 15 km/h, heading right for the line of red demag lights.

The crowd hushed.

Jason held his breath.

The
Argonaut II
crossed the demag strip.

Jason’s instrument panel squealed in panic, and his mag levels instantly changed:

The display started flashing and blinking like a Christmas tree. Red warning lights blazed everywhere.

The
Argonaut II
cleared the ripple strip - and by the time it did so, five of its mags were dead.

But one remained.

With a bare 1.1% power left on it, bearing Jason’s entire car all on its own.

The
Argonaut II
was still moving - by the skin of its teeth.

The crowd on the coastline roared with delight.

And so, creeping, crawling, hobbling like a wounded soldier leaving the field of battle, the
Argonaut II
entered the pits -

Clank! - Clunk! - Hiss-wapp!

The Lombardi Team Tarantula worked fast.

Old mags came off. New mags went on. Compressed air hoses attached. And coolant fluid went in.

Every indicator on Jason’s dash display sprang upward - refreshed, renewed, recharged.

Jason looked around the pit area. It was largely empty - all of the other pit crews had left, heading for the second pit area in Pescara on the other side of the country.

Jason searched the area, half hoping to see Scott Syracuse somewhere nearby, but it was to no avail. Syracuse hadn’t come.

Then the Tarantula lifted clear of the
Argonaut II
and Sally smacked the back of Jason’s helmet: ‘Time to get back in this race! Go! Go! Go!’

Jason gunned everything he had and the
Argonaut II
blasted out of the pits, four whole minutes behind the pack, and headed back out into the race.

Behind him, Sally immediately started loading up her stuff - she had to get to Pescara.

The main pack of racers rocketed down the toe of the boot that is Italy before shooting through the Straits of Messina and thus commencing the Figure-8 round the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

The crowds gathered on the coastlines of both islands cheered loudly as the jet fighter-like cars shot past them at a cool 800 km/h.

But the loudest cheer of all came for the lonely last-placed car: the No.2 car for the Lombardi Team, driven by the kid from the Race School, shooting along at full speed despite the fact that it was a hopeless four minutes behind the others.

The crowds loved it.

This lone Ferrari F-3000 couldn’t possibly win the race
and yet it was still trying
.

Thanks to countless headset cell-phones, word travelled along the coastline ahead of the
Argonaut II
, so that when it arrived at a new spot, a super-gigantic Mexican Wave followed alongside it, the crowds urging it on.

The Lombardi Team hover-trailer carrying Sally McDuff across Italy shoomed down the freeway in a lane specifically reserved for race crews heading for the pit area in Pescara.

Neither Sally nor her driver saw the two black Ford hover cars cruising down the highway behind them, keeping pace with their trailer…

…watching them.

When the main pack shot through the Straits of Messina for the second time and rounded the toe of Italy, Alessandro Romba was in the lead, closely followed by Fabian and the second USAF car, with Xavier Xonora now having (impressively) moved up into 4th place.

Jason had closed to within two-and-a-half minutes of the main pack but with the race now three-quarters over, barring a miracle, he was just making up the numbers.

Then the main pack bent right, shooting down the heel of Italy’s boot - none of them taking the bait and entering the famously difficult short cut.

Two-and-a-half minutes later, as the rest of them were rounding the base of the heel, Jason sighted Taranto, the town at the mouth of the short cut.

The Bug said something.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Jason replied, ‘I
am
thinking about taking the short cut. Why? Why not? We’re screwed as we are. Besides, you never know. We could get lucky.’

The Bug offered some more advice.

‘Ouch, man,’ Jason said. ‘Don’t hold back or anything.’

But the Bug wasn’t finished.

‘I know what Syracuse said,’ Jason retorted. ‘But he isn’t here now, is he?’

‘
I wouldn’t say that
…’ a voice said suddenly in Jason’s earpiece.

It was the voice of Scott Syracuse.

* * *

Scott Syracuse sat in the back of the moving Lombardi Team trailer, alongside Sally McDuff, as it sped across Italy.

He had arrived in Rome only twenty minutes earlier, and had forced his way through the crowds, trying to get to the Fiumicino Pit Lane to meet Sally. But she’d left by the time he’d got there, so he’d chased her trailer down the highway in his black Ford and waved her down from the window of his speeding car.

As soon as he was on board the trailer, Sally had put him in radio contact with Jason.

‘
Mr Syracuse!
‘ Jason’s voice came in over the speakers. ‘
You came!
’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here earlier, Jason,’ Syracuse said, ‘but there have been some problems at the Race School in your absence and I couldn’t get away. But now that I’m here, I’m going to get you back in this race.’

‘
How?
’

Syracuse focused his eyes on the horizon. ‘When you hit Taranto, Jason, take the short cut. If I can, I’m going to guide you through it.’

As if the Italian crowds needed anything more to cheer about, they positively exploded when they saw the
Argonaut II
abruptly veer left and shoot towards the yawning Tunnel of Taranto, the wide concrete entry to the short cut.

The
Argonaut II
- last and alone and absolutely delighting the masses - blasted into the tunnel.

A misty concrete-walled labyrinth, illuminated only by the
Argonaut II
‘s floodlights.

Jason slowed, surveying the tunnel system. The first junction he came to contained
six
forks.

Syracuse’s voice said calmly: ‘
First junction, take the ten o’clock fork
.’

Jason did it, banking left, heading down into the Earth.

The next junction also had six forks. And the next and the next.

But Syracuse’s directions were precise. ‘
Take the two o’clock fork
-
Straight ahead
-
ninety degree right-hand turn
- ‘

Down they went, deeper into the tunnel system, before suddenly the tunnel-junctions became even more complex: now they contained
eight
forks - with two extra tunnels now shooting vertically upwards and downwards from the centre of each new fork.

‘
Vertically down
,’ Syracuse said when they came to the first eight-pronged junction.

‘Down?’ Jason queried. ‘We’re gonna hit the Earth’s core soon.’

‘
Yes. Down
,’ Syracuse said firmly.

But then he directed them sideways once again and after a few more junctions their tunnels started to take an upwardly-sloping trajectory.

‘
Now take the ten o’clock fork at the next junction
,’ Syracuse said, ‘
And get ready
…’

‘Get ready?’ Jason asked. ‘For what - ‘

He took the next fork as directed and -
bam
- his eyes were assaulted by blinding sunlight and the sight of the glittering Adriatic Sea, the blue cloudless sky, the seaside mansions of the city of Bari, and the rugged eastern coast of Italy stretching away from him to the north.

As the
Argonaut II
exploded out from the cliff-side exit tunnel to the short cut, pandemonium broke out amongst the spectators gathered on the headland all around it. Their collective roar of joy could be heard twenty kilometres away.

The Bug squealed with delight.

Jason swallowed in disbelief.

They’d made it!

They’d come out the other side of the short cut!

But before Jason could revel too much in his achievement -
shoom!-shoom!-shoom!
- he was overshot by three hover cars. The cars of:

Alessandro Romba.

Fabian.

And Angus Carver of the USAF Racing Team.

The fourth car to bank around him was Xavier Xonora’s Lockheed, and in a fleeting instant, Jason glimpsed the Black Prince’s sideways-turned face and his look of pure shock. Xavier obviously hadn’t expected to see Jason again in this race.

Even more satisfying was the car Jason saw in his side mirrors - the purple-and-gold Renault of Etienne Trouveau, the nasty French racer who had almost put Jason out of the race. The
Argonaut II
had come out of the short cut
ahead
of Trouveau!

It took Jason a second to absorb it all.

He and the Bug had just made up three whole minutes on the rest of the field, and in doing so had gone from last to 5th.

‘Thanks Mr Syracuse!’ he said into his radio. ‘You just got us back in this race!’

As Sally’s team trailer entered the outskirts of Pescara, every single giant-screen television in the town was showing replays of the
Argonaut II
blasting out from the short cut.

Every commentator on every TV and radio station was astonished at the
Argonaut
‘s recovery. Last to 5th in one fell swoop.
Fifth!
They couldn’t believe it. And with the second series of pit stops due in Pescara in about ten minutes, the race was now officially on.

But with that news, as if on cue, the second black Ford that had been trailing Sally’s trailer across the country suddenly accelerated, pulling ahead of the Lombardi trailer.

And as the two vehicles zoomed underneath a freeway overpass the black Ford suddenly jack-knifed sideways, inexplicably cutting across the front of the Team Lombardi trailer, smashing into its front bumper, forcing it off the road and directly into a concrete pylon supporting the overpass.