Caprice’s Race

After we finished eating, Caprice insisted I come up to see her tracer.

After we had hurtled back upwards in a small elevator, we strolled casually across the expansive wide hundredth floor.

Most of the space was just wide open hall ways. Several businesses filled the walls both inside and outside the center ring.

Almost all of them were exclusively selling mechanical parts. Motors, generators, large….extremely heavy looking objects.

My eyes must’ve been bulging out of my head as I swiveled them from side to side.

I tried to take in everything. The smell of gas and oil.

The feeling of the electricity buzzing in the air it was so dense.

Even the breeze that was being pumped through the hall was saturated with the distinct smell of automotive or industrialized builders.

After walking for what seemed like miles, Caprice turned into a side hall leading outward from the center.

It was much smaller, cramped on either side. We were forced to walk single file until we got to a door.

Caprice put her hand on the pad next to it, and it beeped softly.

The lights flickered on as the door opened up. The view of open space beyond made the small narrow machine looks small.

Caprice was bouncing as she walked now.

Her excitement must’ve been too much to contain anymore. Because now even I had a smile on her face. I couldn’t help it, Caprice just seemed to be so exuberant about the tracer.

This was truly something that could make her happy. Would I ever be able to find something that filled me with such joy?

Here, where I wasn’t judged on my looks, where I felt like I could be myself. Yet I was still so ignorant of what everything was here.

This was a happy place. The first I had, no… the second.

I thought hard about Charlotte.

Then Caprice.

The two girls had been a saving grace, lights in the dark, a place where it felt like I was no longer plummeting through an empty void.

And no doubt I owed them more than they would ever realize. And more than I could put a number on. I would do anything for these two.

Even if they didn’t get along.

“Here it is!” Caprice sang out.

Her voice echoing around the room.

When she got up next to the vehicle, I could see how skinny it really was.

The girl must have to sit snug against either side of the cockpit in order to fit. And it wasn’t much taller than her either.

If I jumped, it would be easy to leap over the whole cockpit area.

The wings were a folded c shape.

They stuck out behind the glass of the pilots cab, and reached about twenty feet from the center on each side.

A third fin jutted straight up and back from the pilots seat.

It had several flaps on it, each slightly offset.

The engine was a large cylinder jet that was pretty much the entire ship other than the seat or wings.

Several smaller jets sat along each wing and the top fin.

Caprice spent what seemed like ages going over all of the details.

It ended, when they were both sitting on opposite edges of the cockpit, and Caprice asked.

“If your running, you can always run with me, ya know.”

What?

How was I supposed to take that?

I had just met this girl.

“We’ve seen so many like you, and us, all around the galaxy. It’s not hard to recognize someone who’s been orphaned or abandoned.”

“Oh…” I had to look down in shame.

“It’s not something to be sorry about. It’s not your fault. Just your situation.”

Her words were meant to be comforting.

I couldn’t stop when the tears started falling.

No one had ever spoken like that to me. Never given me to assurance that I wasn’t alone. Or that if I needed them that they’d be there.

In that moment, I felt the connection and understood why it felt the way it did.

Charlotte had been the same.

Abducted, forced to follow orders.

Choking back the tears and wiping my face, I looked back at Caprice.

“What was your life like, before you were saved?”

I had to ask.

Caprice leaned across the open cockpit, putting her hands on my shoulders.

“I was an awful, ungrateful, spoiled, and disrespectful punk.” She said, her face straight and her tone serious. “I didn’t stop to think of the consequences, I just did what I wanted. I ran away from home, joined a gang, did many terrible things.”

She closed her eyes.

Tears had been welling up. It must’ve been really difficult to talk about it.

“I watched my little brother die.” I blurted out.

If I thought my past was hard to talk about, hers must be impossible. It felt wrong to not tell her now. Almost like I had been trying to claim worlds greatest pain, and not even knowing what it was like to break a bone.

Caprice looked up at me sharply. Her eyes were watery, but she had genuine surprise, and then worry on her face.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know!” 

She was getting frantic, I had given her the wrong impression.

“We weren’t blood related.” I waved off her onset of sympathy. “They were my family though. I had been living with them for a while. The parents didn’t treat me the greatest. I didn’t ever fit in well.”

Caprice crawled into the cockpit now, sitting in the seat. She sat off to one side and patted the seat next to her. I could squeeze in, barely. Her body was warm, she leaned over onto my shoulder.

“That must have been rough. It’s like living in hiding, just in plain sight.” She said softly.

“The rest of my family were dead when I got home, but they kept the oldest boy alive. Frightened, screaming, tortured, but alive. It’s how they found me. I went to see if he was ok, they had murdered so many people in my town. All to kidnap me.” Before I knew what I was saying, I was confessing everything to Caprice.

“Fen, that’s awful.” She hugged me tightly. “Well your safe now.”

I thought about that. Was I safe? Maybe in this moment, and with her, but what about after? What would happen when J found them?

“I hope so.” Was all I could say.

“Charlotte, what are we gonna do?” Mathis was pacing, the normally still warrior was about to loose his patience. Charlotte had rarely seen him like this.

“We wait for her to come back, that is all we can do.” Her voice betrayed her worry, rising as she spoke.

Fenrir had left, following along with that other girl, all the way up to the tracer she raced. Well, no alarm had been raised from the ship yet. Charlotte had been expecting to be warned of someone entering the nearly wrecked command deck, but none had yet come.

That meant J hadn’t found them yet, he would eventually.

I crouched on the top of a ladder, the cockpit of Caprice’s tracer inches from my nose. The glass had already been sealed, but Caprice had given me a radio so we could talk while she raced.

“Good luck!” 

I could actually say this with a smile. Because for once, I had forgotten everything else.

There were dozens of the light tracers lined up, engines all whining and creating a wave of heat. The burning fumes was starting to sting my eyes, but the burn in my nose was what was going to make me tear up first.

“Thanks!” 

Caprice shouted back over the headset. The clarity was amazing, even with all the other noise I could hear her perfectly.

I leapt down, landing softly on the platform below. There was only a few minutes left before they would start. I ran to the elevator and pressed the button for the top viewing deck.

Even from the docking station, the view of the planet below was amazing. The continent below was speckled green and blue. A wide channel of water splitting it from the far horizon.

Walking out onto the viewing platform, the three moons were visible. Each were glowing brightly from the reflected starlight. Being so close, they bounced the light off of each other, and the result made them look like miniature stars themselves.

Small pricks of light shone around them still, not many, but a few stars remained bright in the background.

“How’s the view, Wolf-girl?” 

The use of that pet name caused my eye to twitch. She had started using it on our way back the previous night, and wouldn’t let it go. The more I protested it, the more she used it.

“I can already see the crater you’ll land in, looks like a nice place for a splash of color!” 

My retort is met with a harsh cry of laughter. Caprice told me how dangerous it is to fly tracers, and how a lot of pilots die in a race.

I of course, had to use that to get back at her for nicknaming me. I didn’t really mean it though, and Caprice knew it.

“Well, make sure you come scrape up what’s left of me afterwards. We’re taxiing off now, hope your ready for a show.” I could practically hear the smile, or sneer might be the better word.

“Why me?” I wasn’t sure where the question came from, but it seemed like something I needed to know.

There was silence for a few moments, it started to drag on and I thought maybe she wouldn’t answer. I was about to say something else, tell her never mind, when the light of the first tracer came into view.

I saw the bright white stream come up from below the deck, it scattered a rainbow of light in its wake as it passed through the atmospheric gasses. Several more followed, one by one, setting trails of burning color alight.

“You choose me, ya’know. When you first pulled me into that booth, I thought you were just another drunk patron.” Caprice chuckled a little. 

I couldn’t help but stare out into the line of colors. The ships were swerving around voids in the color.

Caprice had explained these as gravity wells, they marked the corners of the track. Created a trail, as well as made the course have a defined, aesthetic theme.

“But I deal with those all the time, and I know how to play them down. The longer I sat with you, the more I realized you were a genuine person, with a real problem. I took your pulling me in as a sign.”

The ships had made their first circuit, and were coming back towards the viewing deck. Just as they passed, each one picked up speed with incredible bursts of power.

I could hear the slight change in her voice, it sounded like she was speaking while trying to bench press ten time her weight.

“Ya’know, I heard, partly, of what forced you, and your friends, to find your way to that booth. I don’t think, maybe, that you're asking the right question.”

“What do you mean?”

I only asked because my mouth was speaking before my mind caught up. I still wanted to know the answer, just saying she thought I was a good person didn’t seem like answer enough.

“I think you should ask, why not you.”

Well that stopped my entirety, completely. Only when I was forced to gasp in a breath, did I realize I had been holding it.

Why not me? Because I’m a freak, I’m an alienated girl who doesn’t belong. I have nothing to call my own, even Charlotte and Mathis seem to have their own ideals for what they want from me.

I could’ve listed hundreds of reasons I didn’t deserve to be.

“How’s the view Wolf-girl? You got quiet, and never answered me that.” The radio chatter cut into my thoughts. I blinked, realizing I had just been standing there gazing at nothing.

Did Caprice really cut that close with her question?

“Uhm..” I stammered a little, still trying to focus. The light tracers were flying around the course. Their trails of light kaleidoscoping together. Swirls of green and blue, spiked into jets of yellow. Reds and purples collided with each other, the spirals all falling into the gravity wells.

“Stunned silence is appropriate, for a first timer I guess.” Her laugh followed, the rise and fall of it was perfect background noise.

In truth, it was a stunning show. Never had I seen anything like it before. The moons created a perfect canvas for the race. Their reflections made the colors glow bright.

“It looks like dancing fire, made of millions of colors.” By the time I finally answered, the ships had made several circuits around the track.

I couldn’t tell which tracer was which, each time they flashed by, the all seemed to be a blur. The light streaming off of them and over the viewing deck.

I looked up, the stars above were clouded. The burning gasses from the atmosphere being disturbed had coalesced to form thick colorful clouds.

“I’m glad you like the view. So, can you figure out which tracer is me?”

“Absolutely not.” I had to laugh a little, my emotions had never felt so light before.

“I’m passing by….” She paused for a heartbeat, “now!” Three tracers scorched a brightly colored path in front of the deck.

“Which spot were you?”

“In the middle of these two chud whompers. We’re all battling for fourth.”

“Whoo! You got this!” I hollered back in encouragement. Several other attendees around me glanced over at me. I ignored them, for once, I didn’t care about having them stare.

It wasn’t my appearance that was causing the attention this time, but my excitement. I was okay with that.

I had Caprice tagged now, I was following her trail around the track. The neon bright colors of the three tracers burned and twisted together. The wakes obscuring the rest of the field behind them.

I watched as Caprice pulled out ahead of the others, the three in front of her not too far away. They swerved tightly around a gravity well, the light bending away from them as they changed directions.

I noticed how the picked up massive amounts of speed as they come away from the corner. Caprice has jetted ahead fast enough to catch the third place tracer.

“Gooo!” I yell, momentarily forgetting that she can hear me.

“I’m trying!” She laughs back at me, but I can see as she is already pulling alongside the other ship.

“Try harder! You can win if you try!” I fell the need to push her on, it’s not because I care wether or not she actually wins, but something tells me it’s important for her to hear me say.

Turn after turn, the top three are now all twisting around together. No one can hold the lead anymore, it changes almost as fast as the light flying away from them.

A green burst, and it looks like Caprice is in second. A blue swirl, now she falls back to third.

They come down to the long straight to the viewing deck, and I see her inch ever forward, passing into the lead. It’s so close as they fly by, that I can’t tell which one she is anymore again.

“You better have been passing for the lead there!”

“You know it, Fen!”

The smile that crosses my face, is a rare one. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a real reason, for a real smile. Why, out of who know how many billions of people out there, was Caprice such a perfect connection for me?

“Coming in hard for the win baby!” Caprice cried as they sprinted past the viewing deck for the last time. I let out an involuntary howl.

“Aaawwhhhhooooooooooooooooooo!!”

Long and lifting, I sent my voice to the three moons, hoping to hear their echoing recall. My heart raced, I felt a wave of pleasure wash over me. Then suddenly, I knew I had shared the excitement with Caprice.

It was almost as if I was the one whom raced the tracer.

“That was incredible!” I was running over from the elevator lift, Caprice had barely started undoing her buckles. The lid of her tracer was up and a small wisp of steam rose from the whole machine.

The smell of burning fuel and steaming machinery filled my senses. The tang of burning oil and grease, was a pungent shot to my gut. For a moment, the hanger took on a flash of intense pressure.

My senses took a moment to adjust, the acuteness I felt nearly overwhelmed me. I took a few more steps, still half running, before I noticed the crowd starting to form.

Six or seven people seemed to be huddled around two others, whom argued loudly. They all stood at the bottom of the tracer right behind Caprice. The shouts were all jumbled and in a language I didn’t understand.

“What’s that all about?” I asked as I climbed up to help Caprice out of her cockpit. She had taken her time undoing her belts and sat waiting.

“Hmm?” Turning her head towards the noise, Caprice acted like she had just noticed the group of people. The group now included nearly two dozen people. “Oh, they think he cheated. He’s never finished better than eighth before. Something about new sponsors and privileged aristocrats.”

Caprice handed me her helmet, then began standing. I took the brain bucket and set it gently off to the side of the ladders platform, then stretched out a hand to help Caprice climb out.

“They fight about who gets a better vehicle?” That sounded stupid to me. If they wanted to beat him, and he wanted to beat them, wouldn’t it make sense that each would take any opportunity to get an advantage over the other?

“They argue and bicker because their sore losers. They can’t accept that this time someone else beat them, and that they’ll need to improve. People who think their top shit at something, inevitably turn into angry little monsters when they get proven wrong.” She was smirking as she talked, Caprice’s eyes laser focused on the two smaller green skinned men.

The taller, extremely skinny guy they yelled at, just looked down on them whiteout speaking. He just listened to the non-sense argument as if he’d heard it a hundred times before.

Moments later, just as Caprice and I finished climbing down the ladder, six officials came over. They accounted the two arguing men, and lead them away from the hanger.

Two other officials came from the other direction, and they had a big golden trophy held between them. It’s sleek octagon protrusion had trimmings of multiple colors. I realized as they turned it towards Caprice, that it resembled the colors coming off the tracers.

Caprice looked at me, smiled, then pulled me by the hand over to them. We stood on either side of the massive trophy, and to my slight discomfort, Caprice held my hand under it. Taking the side in her free hand, and using our conjoined ones to balance it.

It started to tip towards me, so I put my free hand up against the octagon. It was warm, I took a moment to look at it, not expecting metal to feel so alive. The colors almost seemed to be flowing along the borders and edges of it.

Behind it, I noticed Caprice, her eyes boring right back into mine. Her soft yellow skin was just slightly contrasting against the gold and rainbows. But her eyes shone with a spark that reminded me of wildfire.

It almost felt like she had just decided to do something. Something reckless, and I wasn’t yet privy to the knowledge of just how much she wanted to involve me in that plan.