イエロー

Smoke rose and engines rumbled, both rare sights for clean city streets such as these.

Iero prided itself as a city where danger was obsolete. Crime, murder, theft–all things that failed to transfer from the old world to the new. Risk was an anomaly trapped in the world of simulations.

Yet, just for tonight, it’d made the transfer to reality.

On either side of me, bikes roared and howled. Most hovered inches off the ground. Others, mainly just mine, stayed firmly against the rough dull concrete separating the towering skyscrapers on either side. Just the ever thickening smog would be an anomaly on its own.

I clenched my fists against the bike's rubber handles. My black leather jacket blew around, blonde hair doing its utmost to exclusively fly in my eyes. Both were barely distractions.

“Asta! You got this!” In the crowd thicker than honey, I saw Kat’s familiar blue sweatshirt sticking out. Her tanned skin shone against the dull white building behind. If she was that confident this race was already all but won.

“Racers, are you ready?” My eyes lasered on the girl holding a checkered flag. She slowly raised our mark, waited… waited… “Start!” With a single smooth motion, my black boot smashed itself against the petal and the familiar squeal of burning rubber waved goodbye.

Wind rushed through my hair–a blonde streak following my every turn. The track was pretty short this time around, barely five mines. With such a short track the room for error was nonexistent.

Buildings blasted by in a colorful blur. Streetlings were specks on the horizon, the last line of defense protecting me from smashing into glass on a missed turn. Unlike the hoverbikes, I didn't have the luxury of failsafes.

Seconds passed before I passed by the first mile marker. Two bikes ahead, seven behind.

On paper, every hoverbike should have blown me out of the water. Here I was on the ground, using old world tech that did a better job polluting the air than anything else. No fusion reactors, antimatter engines, just good old gas and pistons. Theory only went so far.

Gravity pulled against my limbs as I flew around another turn. Five miles left.

“Come on,” I muttered, second place just within grasp. To anyone still out at this time of night, two streaks of light would be all they saw–one yellow, the other blue.

Our eyes met, an expression of shock clear in his. I grinned. All these bikers always failed to give me a chance, time after time. And everytime, my old clacker on wheels left them in the dust. “How the hell–”

“Good driving. Maybe turn off your training wheels next time.”

“You’ll take those…” His words faded in the wind as I pressed on the gas. All that anger to just get swept away in the breeze, tragic.

One more opponent. As the seventh mile marker blew past I leaned down, careful to keep myself balanced. Houses blew by like fireflies. Checking behind me was pointless, the exhaust fumes made sure I’d only see blurry lights at best.

Besides, once I passed someone, they never caught up.

“BRRR”

“Shit!” a hover car blasted through the track, sirens blaring. “Kat, we have bad news.”

“Police?” Her voice sounded muffled through my digital computer interface, or enke as the big wig scientists called it. “Asta, you said they normally didn't care about these!”

“They normally don’t,” I muttered under my breath, pulling up the course map. Two miles left. “I’ll have to throw him off the trail.”

“While getting first?”

“Did you even need to ask?”

“Don’t do anything too stupid Asta,” I could hear the worry in Kat’s voice. “Caspian already wants to murder us both.”

“My brother won't know shit, anyway got to go.” with a familiar crackle, the line cut, leaving just the rumbling of my engine to join the sirens.

Dust and rubber alike flew against the sidewalk. Against the moonlight I quickly shuffled right off course towards a nearby shopping district. Police hover cars weren't made for high speed chases, especially against something they couldn't stop with a simple emp. Yet that wasn’t my best trump card. He could blair his sirens all he wanted, catching me was another task.

Bingo, just at the end of the lane, we approached a random public park. There wasn’t much special, with its bars made of cheap plastic and bouncy rubber turf, but those weren't the important parts.

All that mattered was the big red slide.

Or if I flipped my perspective, a big red ramp.

My tiredness burned as I squealed to a stop, my headlights meeting his. I could barely see the face of a man through his tinted windshield, his face warped in anger.

“Sayonara, bitch!” I screamed. My boot pressed on the gas, wind flying through my hair as I drove directly towards him. Our cars got closer, closer…

Until the cheap plastic slide thrust me into the air, directly over his little smug toy.

My bike gave a groan as I slammed back onto the cold concrete floor, the shocks sending shivers up my spine. Maybe in the past that would have been enough to end it all. Not these days.

As the nanomachines in my bloodstream got to work, I blasted back towards the course. I could see the cop reversing course in my rear view mirror. All for naught, I was too far gone.

I glanced at my map, one mile left. Traces of the finish line appeared just on the edge of my vision. And just beyond that, first place speeding along.

Not for long. A guttural roar came from my engine, speedometer solidly in the red. All that remained was a straight shot, and hoverbikes, for all the good they did, couldn’t do much about the lack of friction.

It was that friction that rocketed me on the course.

The street lights turned blood red, the crowd noises a distorted hue. Only life itself could stop me. The world itself became a crimson blur, just me and the bright streak of red inches ahead. One on one, nothing to lose, everything to win.

My front time matched his, neck and neck now. I could see the sweat pouring from his neck. Assuredly mine was worse

At these speeds, there wasn’t the option to simply stop. Every second felt like life or death was on the line. My speedometer crept deeper into the red, nearing a hundred sixty miles an hour now. But my heart beat faster.

With a bright flash of red, the camera’s shutter as we both flew past, barely blurry specs of color. My engine squealed, tires groaned, and breath held tight as I slid to a stop, leaving a long streaking trail where I skid. I could feel the tension actively leave my body as I nudged my kickstand out, legs wobbly.

“Asta!” Kat wrapped her arms around me like a bear, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Are you an idiot?”

“Yeah. Dying, dying.” I hastily pushed Kat off, the faint smell of blueberries tickling my nose. “Give me a second, they still haven't announced who won.”

“Fine,” she sighed, turning towards the announcer's table.

The judges were all crowded around a giant screen floating midair. From this far away it was impossible to get a good view.

“What are they looking at?”

“Kat, turn on your enke.”

“Right!” We slowly made our way towards the crowd, my wobbly legs barely giving me enough support.

All around us, voices dropped to a mutter–Our once roaring audience now reduced to nothingness. I held my breath. Against my red crop top, I could feel my heart beating like a drum, more anxious than anything else here.

“And the winner is… Asta!”

“Never in doubt.” Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not even an unforeseen cop errand could stop me.

“Not even with the cop?” Kat asked.

“Not even with the cop,” In the corner of my eye, I spotted a thousand credits pop into my checking account. Mission complete. “That old laptop still up for grabs?”

“Yep,” Kat said, tossing her screen to my enke.

“Not anymore.”

“Holy… you're the best Asta.” Kat squealed, giving me another giant hug. “I’ve never even seen a laptop in real life before. What do you think it's like? The physical screen, keys you have to physically hit. Everything about it sounds so alien.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said, hopping back on my bike. “Come on lets–”

My voice faltered. Amidst the crowd flailing their arms, one person marched through them, and his face made it very clear how he felt. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I’ll ask you the same Caspian,” I said, voice stiff. “Just because you’re my brother, that doesn’t give you the right to know every move I make!”

“Ask me the same? Are you kidding Asta? This isn’t some party you snuck out to go to, your breaking the fucking law!”
“Yeah, and?”

“You could have been caught! Asta were students at Protel, not random high schoolers anymore. What the hell do you think Mom would think of this? There are no second chances.”

“Well, I didn’t get caught. Crisis averted.” Every inch of my skin crawled, begging to flee. These arguments never went well.

“This time! Who knows what’ll happen next.”

“I’ll simply outrun the cops again, not a big deal,” I muttered, staring him dead in his light blue eyes, nearly identical to my own.

“You outran the cops?” Caspian's short light brown hair shuffled about as he stared down. Why did my damned brother get all the extra height? “Asta, your streak of luck won't last forever. One day something will go wrong, people may get hurt. I can’t stand to see you throw your life away like that.”

“We can talk hypotheticals all we want, yet they’ll remain just that. I won’t apologize for working to help the club.”

“Like you couldn’t have used your stipend?

“That laptop was a thousand credits. I’m not that bad with my money.”

“You could have asked me, asked Sky or Professor Juri. If we all pooled our credits together we could have afforded the thing without someone running from the cops. We won't get anywhere if you can't learn to rely on us.” He said.

“Well could’ve should’ve would’ve. I can’t change the past Caspian.”

“You can change the future.” He sighed, hand resting on his forehead.” For now, just do me a favor and get out of here. We can talk about this later.”

“Fine by me!” I said, turning back to the road. “You ready Kat.”

“Y-yeah.” She muttered, breaking out of her trance. A soft warmth pressed against my back as she hopped on my bike–holding tight. Neither of us said a word as I pressed on the gas, Caspian silently eyeing us as we drove away.