Way Out

“Hey! New wheels?”

Jenny looked up and flashed a charming smile to the newbie beside her sitting on the year’s newest, shiny blue Proto-racer. “Yeah! Finished building it yesterday!” she shouted back over the din of the crowd and rumbling bikes that idled at the starting line.

The young man looked surprised. “Yesterday? Sure she’ll hold together?”

“Just you wait,“she called in reply, patting the side of the black monster of a chop-shop Uniblade before leaning back to pull her mane of red hair into two neat pig-tails. “Just you wait.”

The stands at the starting line were packed that day. Exiles, a few marauders, and even several celebrities were in the crowd. It was the perfect day, but Jenny’s thoughts didn’t so much as grace the surprising arrival of Guy Fantastic. No, she sat lounging on the black, flame-resistant seat of her bike, not showing a care in the world as Seth Blackstar glared holes in her back from his box-seat.

She was supposed to lose. Having forced her to sign over her father’s ship two years prior, Seth had nearly drowned in debt, and used up all of Jen’s earnings and her father’s savings to get there. This race was his way out, and, as he had so ardently swore, it was Jenny’s way out as well. But she had learned long before that what his promises amounted to.

So Jenny had wrecked her bike. The beautiful silver and crimson metal of all she had left in the world sitting twisted in a pile of unrepairable scrap, she had bit back her hate and begged. She begged him for one platinum and two weeks. Seth knew nothing about bikes, but Jenny could build one. Jenny also knew who threw away treasures instead of trash, and it was not long till Jenny had dug, bartered, and bought more than what she needed. Now, sitting amidst thirty-three professionals and ego-maniacs, her’s was the oldest bike of black metal and the only one spouting orange light like flames. Jenny couldn’t blow a hole in Seth’s chest yet, but then again, depending on how angry his “business partner” got in… forty-six minutes, she wouldn’t have to.

The ear-bud in her left ear crackled as some distant end was turned on and registered. “Remember,” came Seth’s gravely voice through the tiny speaker. “You just have to fall back one or two places after the fifth turn. Easy as that.”

Jenny secured a safety clasp from her bike seat to her gun belt, counting Seth’s marauders that sat interspersed throughout the crowd. “Nice knowin’ ya, Seth.”

There was a moment of silence over the com., then, “Jenny?! Jenny Brightmist I –”

“Aww, c’mon Seth. Ya sound like my mother, usin’ mah last name.”

“Jenny, what are you doing? So help me, I’ll hunt you down and hang you from Academy Cor –”

“Go ta hell, Seth.” Jenny blew a kiss to the packed stands and tossed her ear-bud away to be crushed under an obliging competitor’s wheel.

Someone screaming her name was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd as the checkered, holo-starting line lit up like the first day of the winter festival. Thirty-four racers fixed on their helmets and goggles, and Jenny grinned at the taste of adrenaline on her tongue as the holo-projector counted down the seconds to “Go!”