FIFTEEN

It wasn't quite lightheadedness. If sensations had families, then what Eden was feeling right now was like a cousin to being light headed. Instead of woozy, teetering, and nearly falling, her head was quite literally less heavy. This bizarre state of mind and body seemed to give the desire to sleep an extremely seductive level of power. There was also a strange… what could she call it? A hum? Not a hum of the ears, but one of the mind. Eden quickly realized that if she thought of the brain-sound for too long, she might go insane. She quickly moved on.

"I feel funny," she said.

"An odd twist," Talia said. "Thus far on this little adventure you've been relatively humorless."

"She means unwell," Arissa said. "And don't pretend you're a dumb robot that doesn't understand human expressions."

"You think very highly of me. Irrelevant data like that is stored in low-priority, compressed state. You try storing eighty-five zettabytes of information in your head " She paused. "Eden, take a seat. When was the last time you've had fluid intake?"

"I—"

"Don't remember? That's very telling. Forget what I said about sitting. Go to the pantry and grab some water. I would do it myself, but…" she waved her holographic hand through a solid bulkhead. "Butter fingers."

Eden gave Talia a curious look, to which Talia replied, "It's an old human expression. You wouldn't understand."

Arissa, long-since tuned out from the fluid-intake discussion, caught something on the race's holographic display and jumped on the microphone. "Jack, what the hell are you doing?"

***

"Just. Making. Friends," he replied, each word interrupted by the very deliberate broadside rams he was giving one of his opponents.

"Funny." Arissa said.

"How's that?"

"Because it looks like you've been crashing into every racer you can catch."

"That's. Right," Jack said, delivering another spark-making scrape against yet another opponent. "You're a tactician. Why might I. Be. Doing. This?"

"I get the idea, Jack. You're playing the role of the tank, putting a target on your back so they leave Jaeek alone. There's just one problem."

"Say it." Jack looked to his right and saw one particularly furious racer glaring at him from the cockpit. It was another human, and they started hitting back, slowly crushing Jack's pod closer to the titanium wall on his left.

"The tank can usually take hits better than the one it's protecting," Arissa said. "You're just in a race pod."

The furious racer strafed away, winding up for one final hit that would slam Jack directly into the wall.

"Correction," Jack said. "I have two race pods."

As the furious racer made his mad strafe towards him, Jack pulled up with a knife's edge dodge. To the racer's right, there was Kane, who poured all of his pod's power into assisting the racer's momentum, preventing him from stopping and pushing his slide further, right into the wall.

Jack steered his pod back towards the relative safety of the center track.

"Hey Arissa?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"I can hear you grinning over the comm system. You proud?"

"Yes, Jack."

"Plenty more where that came from."

"I hope so. You're about to pass the halfway point. New pod systems are going to be activated."

"Let me guess," Jack said. "Protective shielding and a smoothie maker?"

"Particle ray. Low-yield but still dangerous."

"That's a shame. I could really go for a fruit smoothie right now."

Jaeek stepped in. "Do you people always banter like this when death is looking over your shoulder?"

"Yeah," Jack said. "It's a coping mechanism." Without taking his eyes off of the track, Jack flipped a few switches on the particle ray's control pad, getting the feel for his new toy.

***

Jaeek turned off his comm mic so no one could hear him groan and shriek in terror as he clumsily dodged his murderous opponents. He was sweating. Aekoi blood tended to run hot when they were under pressure. His nervous nature was heating the entire cockpit. Too terrified to take his hands off of the controls, he tried blowing sweat off of his brow with his own breath.

It didn't work. A drop fell into his right eye. He blinked and flinched, which immediately sent his pod into a barrel roll. Jaeek screamed.

Kane's gruff voice came rumbling out of the comm. "Pretty smooth flyin', Jaeek."

Jaeek stopped screaming long enough to sound confident and turned his mic back on. "Thanks. It would be better if one of you fly boys would give me some cover." He muted the mic and started panting again, wheezing.

"No problem, buddy. Hang tight."

A pod ahead of Jaeek exploded. It flew in several directions, sending fatal debris towards Jaeek. He closed his eyes, shouted "NO," and opened them a second later to see that he had survived the hail of metal and fire.

"Most people play it safe and go around stuff like that," Kane said.

Mic on. "I guess I'm just crazy like that." Mic off. Panting.

"Could you get a little more sane until we're done here? If you die we're just playing a dumb sport for no reason."

Mic on, gruff façade on. "You got it, pal." Mic off. More terrified sounds.

***

"There he goes again," Arissa said. "Why is he talking like that?"

Talia gave a holographic grin. "I believe he thinks that he can turn off the pod's microphone. I've been overriding his switches."

"Oh, that's rich." Arissa smirked as she listened to Jaeek shrieking "Can you cut him out of the loop really quick?"

"Done."

"Hey, Jack and Kane. Jaeek doesn't know we can hear him freaking out. Let's keep it that way, alright?"

"Love it," Jack replied.

"Sounds good," Kane said.

"Reconnecting," Talia said, nodding shortly after to show that they were back on. Not that she needed to clarify. Jaeek was noisily panting despite the total lack of cardio activity.

Arissa leaned in. "How's it hangin', Jaeek?"

He stopped grunting. Click. "Rock steady." Click. "WHHOOAA!"

Arissa covered the mic and stifled her laughter. "Does he think he's a cowboy?"

Talia shrugged. "I think he's going for a rogue gunslinger type persona."

Arissa squinted at her holographic friend. "You have no idea what a cowboy is, do you?"

"It's a compressed file."

***

Kane, on the other hand, was a bit of a cowboy. He made his pod seem to glide on ice with cool, confident use of the controls.

"Alright, boys, listen up. We've got first tier weapons hot, but don't let that go to your head. Inexperienced racers usually get caught up trying to shoot down the other guys and end up crashing. Don't let that happen. Just keep doing what you've been doing."

"How do you know that?" Jack asked.

"I watch every race. It's not as fun as a spectator though."

"Are you reconsidering your support of this show's ratings?"

"They're under review." Kane pulled above a racer, pushed past him, dropped down, then fell back to complete a loop, just for the sake of creating confusion. "Just don't get so trigger happy that you forget to race."

A particle ray fired out of nowhere and hit the pod that Kane had just circled. What normally would have been a nudge of firepower somehow caused the thing to burst into flames and fall to the ground.

"Woops," Jack said. "Must have hit a power relay."

Kane shook his head. "What did I just get done saying?"

"That wasn't trigger happy. It was trigger comfortable." Jack fired another shot, causing a second pod to temporarily lose power, speed, and hope. "Ok. Getting happier."

***

"Jack, watch out," Arissa said, eying the race stats. "There's a pod dropping back, heading right for you. Its registered to an old friend of ours."

"Who? Professor Vettra?"

"No. Newer friend."

"Colonel Mills?

"Newer."

Jack got the same level of excitement as anyone does just before they solve a riddle. He let his answer fly. "Oh, boy. The Black Rabbit is in this race, isn't he?"

"Looks like it."

"Great. That's a fresh wound. I'm guessing he's not ready to let bygones be bygones?" Arissa didn't answer, which gave Jack time to think. He asked, "You and I have a pretty long history, huh?"

"Sure." Arissa said, distractedly. "Let's reminisce if you survive the race."

Jack ignored her. "Remember our third night on Nireer?"

"Jack, is this really the time for romantic flashbacks?"

"Who said romantic? I didn't say romantic."

"Oh, really? Then what was it to you?"

"Dangerous." He cut a dangerously close turn slide around a sharp corner. "That was the night you accidentally shot at me. I think you're thinking of the forth night."

"So you admit the forth night was romantic?"

"I would call it steamy." He swerved around yet another crashing and burning pod just as absolutely everyone on the radio groaned.

***

Eden groaned, too, but for a different reason. The water hadn't helped, and she was now seated outside of the pantry, trying to decide if the "bad" she was feeling was go-get-help-bad, or just-get-it-together-so-you-don't-embarrass-yourself-bad. She decided it was the latter, took some calming breaths, and tried to distract herself.

She focused on the positive. It was nice that she had such a strong crew looking after her. She trusted them, even though deep down some of them might simply been acting in their own best interest. Still, they were protecting her; she didn't know what she had done to deserve that, but she liked it.

Then again, she wasn't sure what she had done to deserve anything. The root of it all was that she wasn't sure what she had done, period. She had heard of "sketchy pasts" before, but hers took it a step further. It was a completely blank page. She wondered if that blank page had something to do with the woozy feeling—

There she went, thinking about it again. She clamped her eyes shut, trying to redirect her thoughts. When she opened them again, she saw that the quality of light in the room had changed. It had turned ever so slightly blue. After looking around the room, the girl almost screamed when she saw the subtle glow was actually coming from her own hands. She quickly stood, shaking her hands off as if they had been covered in ants. There were a few static popping sounds, which almost certainly came from her finger tips.

She reclassified the entire situation. This was the go-get-help-bad.

***

"Should we be having girl talk?" Talia asked, projecting her image to a seated position even though she had no need of rest.

"What?" Arissa asked.

"You know. The boys are away so this is when we chat about all of our secrets. I for one am curious about this forth night on Nireer. Did you two do it? Have you done it since then? Is Jack carnally skilled?"

"Talia, you may get human expressions but your tact and finesse need a lot of work."

"I was being direct. Isn't that an admirable quality?"

"In politics, when asking for favors, and having arguments, yes. Bringing up sex with someone you met a day ago, not so much."

Talia swatted her hand at Arissa. "You people are too sensitive."

Arissa cocked her head to the side. "Maybe," she said. "and yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. He was skilled."

Talia quickly posed to rest her elbow on the console, and her head on her hand.

"Tell me more."

"Hey, girls?" Jack's voice buzzed. "You there?"

"I'm here, Jack. What is it?"

"Anything you could do to up my firepower? A little cheater's edge wouldn't hurt down here."

"I've been working on it for the past few minutes, Jack," Talia said. "Almost done."

Arissa covered the mic and turned to Talia with her brow furrowed. "You hacked during girl talk?"

Talia shrugged. "I'm a multi-tasker. Jack? Weapons, acceleration, or maneuverability?"

"Um. Yes to all."

"You got it."

After a brief pause, Jack confirmed. "Ok, I think I'm getting something. HOLY SHI—"

***

Jack pulled the trigger on his particle ray, aiming at no target in particular, just trying to keep the sudden energy spike from overloading and melting the entire pod.

"TALIA," he shouted, weaving in and out of damaged-but-still-racing pods. "Cool the weapons! Cool the weapons!" He fired another shot for the sake self-preservation. The pod's generator was now a pressure valve that needed constant care.

Talia had not only bypassed the race's power restrictions, but the pod's safety protocols. Instead of drawing from the pod's power supply on an as-needed basis, the weapons and engines were receiving a constant push from the supply at maximum heat.

"Talia! Cool it! Cool it!" In a blur of weapons blasting, Jack was barely aware of the fact that he had vaulted twenty positions up in the race thanks to his over-blown engines and was now closing in on first place. All he knew now was that he was calling attention to himself.

"Standby," Talia said.

Seconds later, the pod's power systems went from maximum blitz to something a little more reasonable. Jack released a gasp.

 "Thank you for that wonderful shot of adrenaline. Now we have a new problem, though."

"We do indeed," Talia said. "Ninety percent of the news and entertainment outlets broadcasting the race have just focused their cameras onto your pod."

"They know I'm cheating."

"Absolutely."

Jack frowned as he eased his pod further back in the lineup. "Any ideas?"

"I'm tapped into the official race communications network. It does not sound as though they're planning to disqualify you."

For a second or two, Jack considered how nice it might be to get disqualified from this whole thing, until he realized that Talia was likely censoring herself. He pressed, "Just to confirm: By 'disqualify' you mean 'murder,' right?"

"That's correct, Jack."

"Alright, I think we're done hacking for a little while. How can we make that look like it was a malfunction?"

"Easily," Talia said. "We could drain your power and flicker your lights, perhaps cause a minor collision. The only problem is that wouldn't remove blame from you. It would simply appear as though you were tampering with your pod's security systems, and your hacking backfired."

"Which is exactly what just happened," Jack said. "Kane, are you listening?"

"Always."

"Good. Can you get behind me and take a shot at my pod?"

"Oh, with pleasure." Kane said, eager to do so.

"Thanks for your enthusiasm."

"Jack." It was Arissa back on the comm channel. "What's the plan here?"

"Simple," he said. "People only care about a cheater when he's winning. Time to lose. Just a little bit."

"As much as Kane is going to have the pleasure of shooting at you," Arissa said. "The Black Rabbit is on your tail also. Looks like he's lining up to—WATCH OUT."

Without thinking, Jack swerved his pod and watched a high-yield particle ray blast past his pod. It was definitely a lot more powerful than what the other pods had unlocked so far.

Speaking of Cheaters.

"Jack," Arissa said.

"I know."

"He's firing kill shots."

"I know."

Talia joined in, "I'm attempting to hack his pod, but it is significantly more secure than the others. It appears as though he entered the race prepared for war."

"Would you expect anything less from an arms dealer, shadow broker, drug dealer and scumpot?"

Jack weaved his pod a second time, narrowly dodging a kill shot. Knowing when to dip around a weapons fire was a strange, intuitive action for him. He neither moved constantly and erratically, nor stood still too long. He knew the sweet spot between both. Something in the rhythm of Jack's thoughts always told him exactly how long to wait, to let his opponent lock their sights on him, before quickly dashing away. If not for this reflex, Jack would almost certainly have died years ago.

"Kane, can you take him down?"

"Already on it."

***

The words turned Arissa's guts into a knot. She had no doubt that Kane could gun down the Rabbit, and in doing so would save Jack's life. That all sounded great, but there was one big battleship of a problem. If the Rabbit died, Arissa would have no way of finding her sister. It would be an incredibly dark, hopeless dead end. Years of searching, chasing, and running would be undone.

"Arissa?" Talia asked. "You're sweating. What's wrong?"

"I'm fine. What's the word? Can you get into the Rabbit's pod systems?"

"It's not looking good. His firewall is working with some kind of rotating encryption. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he has uploaded his own A.I. into his pod."

"An A.I.?" Arissa frowned. "More sophisticated than you?"

"Don't be silly." Talia scoffed.

"Good. Then break through and shut that thing down."

"What a great idea. I'm devoting all processing power to the task and shutting down tertiary systems. Standby." The A.I.'s image vanished. Arissa grabbed the microphone.

"Jack, how's it going?"

"Oh boy," he said. "I know that tone of voice."

"What?"

"You're about to ask me for a favor. Sounds like a big one."

"It's just… my sister. Kyra…The Rabbit knows where she is. If he dies..."

"And what if I die?" Jack's roguish self-centered side was starting to show. It was both unwanted an unattractive.

"There has to be another way," Arissa said with a sigh.

"He's firing kill shots," Jack replied. "What do you want me to do? Negotiate?"

"Jack, please."

The line was silent for a while before Jack spoke again.

"Alright here's what we're going to do. Kane? Have you been listening?"

"No, I've just been sleeping this whole time." Pause. "What's the plan?"

***

Jack's mind entered overdrive as he began slinging instructions left and right.

"This is going to complicate things but we're going to need to disable this sucker without killing him. Talia: Kane and I are going to be focused on weaving this impossible web of tactical brilliance, so if another problem pops up, that includes new bogies and unwanted attention from race officials, call out. Jaeek, same goes to you. You're not going to be the center of attention for a little while so if you get in trouble just scream like you have been this whole time. Yes… we could hear you. Arissa, help Jaeek and Talia with what I just told them to do. Kane—"

"Shoot at the Rabbit without killing him."

"You bet. If I'm not mistaken pods like these run on rip-fusion generators, can anyone confirm that? Talia?"

"Um," Arissa said. "Talia is busy. But I think you're right."

"I'm not even going to ask," Jack said. "I'm sure whatever she's doing is pretty world-endingly important. Kane, we should be able to disrupt the pod's—" Jack's pod took a graze and was sent into a brief unintentional barrel roll. "Dammit. As I was saying—" Another graze.

"This guy really hates you," Kane said. Jack jumped in, blurting out the last of his instructions before he could be interrupted again.

"Fire in one second intervals and diffuse hits all around the pod's hull. Hitting on rhythm with the generator's cycles in as many different places as possible should overwhelm the systems."

"Great," Kane said. "Playing drums with particle ray guns."

"That's righ—" Another hit. "GO!"

Jack dodged the Rabbit's next shot and started flying more erratically than a housefly.

"Jack I can't gun him down if he's chasing you in random directions. Sync up with my calls. Ready?" Kane said.

"Yeah, go."

Kane started calling out a chaotic flight plan. "Left, left, speed, slow, right, up, up, down, speed." With each direction Kane called out, Jack maneuvered his pod accordingly. Likewise, the Rabbit pursued course. Everywhere the Rabbit turned, Kane made sure there was a particle beam waiting for him.

Jack started to worry. Kane was a deadeye, and all of those hits should have overloaded the pod's power systems by now. Nothing. Had he prepared for this strategy? Really?

The odds of getting the Rabbit's pod to shutdown were looking slim.

***

Of course, nothing quite this visual occurred with Talia, but as far as A.I.s are concerned, Talia's interaction with the Rabbit's pod went something like a breaking and entering job. After trying to pick the lock to the digital house, she wound up her leg and kicked the door in. After the door fell and the dust cleared, she found another A.I. sitting at a desk. He stood and looked at her. She spoke first.

"Hello."

"Get out."

"No." She picked up a vase from the coffee table that represented some simple subroutine, and dropped it on the floor, shattering it. "Make me."

The A.I. grimaced. Talia grinned. "Oh, you're about four point five million credits less sophisticated than me. How does it feel to be the inferior one?"

"Get out, now."

Talia kicked over a lamp. "Oh, you're a really simple one. This place is really…embarrassing. I'm almost ashamed that this took me so long. I suppose setting up defenses is always a little more difficult than penetrating them." She punched a hole in the wall, kicked out a window.

The A.I. rushed at her. She sidestepped, left her leg out to trip him, put her hand on the back of his head, and forced him forward into the wall. The force of this attack actually smashed an A.I. shaped hole in the wall of the digital environment. Talia felt a tinge of pleasure and validation. She knew that out in the real world, the Rabbit's processing unit had just sparked.

While the A.I. struggled back to its feet, Talia strolled over to his desk, typed in a few commands, and started trashing the entire computer setup. The A.I. rushed her a second time, and once again she redirected his momentum towards destroying a vital part of the pod's software, sending him into a load-bearing pillar. The pillar cracked.

"Oh," Talia said. "Oops, that looks like an important one." She walked over to the A.I., grabbed him by the shoulders, hoisted him up, and smashed him repeatedly into the pillar. The crack widened, spidered, and eventually caused the pillar to collapse. A wide portion of the room's ceiling went with it, coming down on the Rabbit's custom A.I. and crushing it, permanently.

Talia clapped her hands clean and continued annihilating the shoddy home.

***

Arissa watched with glee from the televised vision as the Rabbit's pod showed signs of faltering systems.

"Jack, you're doing it!"

"I don't get any credit," Kane groaned, not realizing that it was neither his efforts nor Jack's that were getting the job done. Not long after that, the Rabbit's pod twitched, spasmed, and went dark. It fell slowly, still riding its momentum forward. Emergency thrusters activated, easing the tiny vessel's descent into a survivable one.

The crash was violent, but definitely not fatal. The pod rolled to a stop, and Arissa's heart swelled. She grabbed the microphone.

"Jack. Thank you. You too, Kane."

"No problem," Jack said. "Let's wrap this thing up."

***

Talia, still loaded inside the pod's computer system, stood proudly in the trashed surroundings of the home. She was a millisecond away from vacating the premises to return to the Odin and do some gloating when a soft beeping sound invaded her senses. Curiosity piqued, she began to search the debris for its source.

She flipped over the collapsed desk to find a black cube with a blinking red light. The pace of the blinking accelerated, as did the beeping.

"Uh oh…"

Talia lunged for it, wrapping her arms around it and attempting to hoist it away from the home. Just like the lamp was a simple subroutine and the pillar was a vital system, this thing was what might be called a "disqualifier."

It was too heavy, impossibly heavy. She reached her hand inside of the device. It simultaneously burned and froze her fingertips like ice. The A.I. winced in pain as, to put it simply, she tried to find the off switch. It was an impossible task, and soon the light's blinking turned solid, the beep became a constant tone.

There was a flash, and suddenly Talia was back inside the Odin flickering back onto the Odin's console. She looked into Arissa's eyes. "I'm so sorry."

Not one second later, the Rabbit's pod self-destructed.

He was disqualified from the race.