Mona rolled her eyes. “Bulldogs. Nature’s leftovers.”
Mona was not as calm as she sounded. Whatever was going to happen would happen soon. Death was gathering in the very oxygen. The Parasites could feel it too, and they clustered ever lower on the factory walls.
Ditto’s phone vibrated again. “Another text,” he groaned. “What does Stefan think? I’m his secretary?”
He pulled the phone from his pocket, reading the message. “You’d better read this,” he said in strangled tones.
Mona reached for the phone, keeping one eye on the scene below. The letters stood out black against a green screen.
Pigs have flown
, said the text.
The Bulldogs posted a sentry. He’s behind you
.
Mona heard a power cell charging beside her ear.
Cosmo jumped to his feet. “We have to help them.”
Stefan grabbed him by the lapels, dragging him back down. “Get down, Cosmo, you’re making a nice target of yourself.”
“But they’ll be killed!” protested Cosmo.
Stefan rolled over, clamping a hand on Cosmo’s mouth. “Listen to me carefully, Cosmo. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it for the past three years. You have spent your entire life in an orphanage. All you know about combat missions could be written on Ditto’s underpants. Get the idea?”
Cosmo nodded.
“Good. We watch and see how this develops. Mona and Ditto may have some ideas of their own.”
He removed his hand. Cosmo drew a shaky breath. “What if they shoot them?”
Stefan turned his gaze to the scene below. He was blinking rapidly and his hands were clamped around the walkway bars. He was not as in control as he pretended. “If they shoot them, then they pay.”
Maybe
, thought Cosmo.
But not as much as we do
.
The Bulldog sentry was naked except for black shorts, and his skin was dark. Unnaturally so. Ditto realized after several seconds’ scrutiny that the man’s skin had been almost completely tattooed. Initially he couldn’t see anything in the ink, but then strange hypnotic swirls and patterns suggested themselves. “You like it?” asked the sentry. “Full-body coverage with Jamaican hypno-patterns, only $399 in The Ink Blot tattoo parlor. Ask for Sasha.”
“Wow,” said Ditto. The patterns were all over. How had he missed them before?
Mona snapped her fingers before his eyes.
“Don’t look at the ink,
estúpido
. Hypno-patterns will zone you out.”
“It’s true,” said the sentry. “I had a cab driver once, staring at me in the mirror. Fell asleep at the wheel.” He pointed the nozzle of his weapon at Mona. “Now to business. On your feet. You just have time to make your last appointment.”
Ditto opened his mouth to pass comment, and Mona clamped a hand over it.
“No problem,
amigo
. Lead the way.”
The tattooed sentry prodded them down a steep stairwell to the factory floor. The other Bulldogs seemed a lot taller up close. They jostled the intruders, brandishing weapons and baying for blood.
Their leader stepped forward. They could tell he was the leader because the words HEAD HONCHO flashed across his bare chest in subcutaneous lighting. “What did we find, Shadow?” he growled, his metallic mohawk quivering on his skull. And Head Honcho actually did growl. He’d probably had surgery on his vocal cords to achieve the effect.
Shadow pushed his prizes into the ring. “Two little rust mites hanging in the rafters.”
Head Honcho sized the intruders up. “Okay. Strap them on the bonnets, they’ll make nice hood ornaments.”
Dozens of hands grabbed the pair, hoisting them roughly overhead.
“Wait,” said Miguel, blocking the Bulldogs’ path. “Nothing gets strapped on my hood, Honcho. This machine is aerodynamic. Bumps like that will mess with the speed. ¿
Comprende?
”
Mona glared down at him from a sea of arms. “Thanks a bunch, Miguel. And I thought you cared.”
Honcho’s brain gears ground noisily, making the connection. “You know this kid?”
Miguel sighed deeply. Another night fouled up. “Yes, sure. She’s my . . . little sister. I told her to stay home, but she likes the races. In the blood, I guess. Do me a favor and cut her loose.”
Head Honcho’s chest lights flashed faster, racing with his heartbeat.
“I don’t know, mate. Rules are rules.”
Miguel persisted. “Come on,
hombre
. I can’t go home without the
niña
.”
“Why not, mate? Teenagers are just a waste of space and air.”
“True, but this girl is one of the best drivers we have. Almost as good as me. Be a shame to waste all the driving hours we invested. In a couple of years she’ll be burning up the strip.”
A nasty smile spread across Honcho’s face. His steel mohawk vibrated as he laughed.
“Okay, mate. I got a deal for you. The girl drives the last race.”
“
¡Qué no!
” protested Miguel. “No way. That car is my baby.”
“It’s your call. She’s in the car, or she’s on it.”
Miguel pulled his bandanna off, wringing it between both hands. “Okay. She drives.” He pointed a rigid finger at Mona. “You mess this up, Mona, and there’ll be hell to pay.”
On the car or in it? Not that Mona actually had a choice. Dozens of strange hands fed her overhead to the Myishi Z-twelve. She felt herself being folded almost in half and stuffed in the car’s side window. Ditto was hustled into the passenger’s seat.
“You can take your mascot too,” said Honcho, strapping himself into the Bulldog’s contender. “You need all the luck you can get.”
“Mascot,” said Ditto, between gritted teeth. “That moronic sack of implants. I’d like to punch his lights out. Literally.” He checked his blond hair in the mirror. “You can drive this thing, right?”
Mona studied the confusing array of dials and meters. “Yeah. Maybe. In theory.”
“Do you think they’ll give us a practice run?”
Outside the car, groups of adrenalized gang members were bouncing with anticipation. A mob of souped-up, tattooed, testosterone-fueled young men with big money riding on this race. “No. No practice runs.”
Mona’s thing was engines, not driving. Mona could drive or fix just about anything with wheels, but this was a nitrous racer, not the Pigmobile. Generally drag racers fed a nitrous oxide mixture into the regular fuel for that extra burst of speed when it was needed. But this thing actually used heated nitrous oxide as the regular fuel. Because nitrous was used up so quickly, the entire car had been converted into a fuel tank. Every strut and panel was filled with the explosive mixture. Nobody really knew how to drive a car like this.
Miguel leaned in the window. “Tell Stefan he owes me a big favor.”
“Tell him yourself,” retorted Mona. “In ten seconds I’m gonna be a carbon stain on the asphalt.”
“Just hold her steady, let the nitrous do the work. Standard pedals, but brake early. This car is a terror to stop. You lose this one, Vasquez, and you’d better leave town in shame.”
Honcho sounded his horn impatiently.
“A couple of questions,” said Miguel. “Where’s Stefan, and why are you here?”
Mona placed a hand on his arm. “When it happens, you’ll know. Just keep your head down and get ready to run.”
Miguel settled his bandanna gangster style. “We’re Sweethearts, baby. We never run.” And with that tough-guy rejoinder, he was gone, down onto the factory floor with his boys.
Ditto’s phone vibrated. He slipped it out surreptitiously. On the screen was a single question mark. Ditto composed a return message.
Stay put
, read his response.
Everything under control
.
Mona craned her neck to read the text. “Under control? Let me know when we’re in trouble.”
The gates were lowered on Krom robot arms, powered by a portable generator. One sparking grille settled in front of each car. Honcho was howling now. The digi-cals on his fenders showed running, slobbering bulldogs. The other Bulldogs took up his canine call, until the entire factory echoed with the yelping of deranged gang members.
“I don’t know which is healthier,” said Ditto. “Winning or losing.”
Mona pressed the ignition button, revving the car in neutral. “I’m not waiting around to find out.”
Ditto gripped the dash nervously. “Don’t do anything foolish, Mona. I’m just a baby.”
“Just hold on. And buckle up.”
The gates rose slowly, cascading sparks on the audience below. Honcho was punching the roof of his car, denting the paneling. If he got any more excited, he might just short out his bulbs.
Mona shifted into first gear. The manual gearbox would have been added by the Sweethearts. There would hardly be time to shift all the way to sixth; she would have to skip a few gears. The Z-twelve lunged forward like an eager panther. She held it with the clutch.
There was a three-foot-wide gap between the gate and the surface now. A waterfall of dancing white sparks obscured Mona’s vision. Bulldogs fired rounds into the air. The Parasites were closing in, perhaps for her. Whatever was coming was on the way. Ridiculous as that sounded.
The gates jerked upward another notch.
“Go!” screamed the Sweethearts in one voice. “Go! Go!”
Mona revved, but did not go. “Not yet.”
Honcho had no such reservations. He floored the accelerator and shot out under the gate. It was too soon. His rear spoiler caught the gates. But there was no explosion, no conduction of thousands of volts through his chassis. Instead the spoiler melted into black slop, half coating the rear window. Honcho raced on.
“Rubber,” said Mona contemptuously. “That cheat.”
“Go!” howled the Sweethearts almost tearfully. Honcho was already a mile down the track and he hadn’t even fired his nitrous yet.
“Not just yet.”
Ditto pounded her shoulder with tiny hands. “What are you doing, Vasquez? Are you insane?”
“One more second.”
Honcho was two miles gone. Two and a half. Doing at least three hundred miles an hour, his tires billowing black smoke. The Sweethearts were converging on the car, drawing weapons from their pockets. Miguel’s lips were drawn back from his teeth.
“Time to go,” whispered Mona, dropping the accelerator and lifting the clutch. The Z-twelve shot forward like Thor’s hammer across the sky. The nitrous injection slammed Mona and Ditto back into their seats. If the headrests hadn’t been padded, their skulls would have cracked like eggshells. Vision was distorted, colors ran and blended. Nothing was clear, except the track.
Mona locked her wrists, keeping the wheel steady. Everything on either side dissolved into speed trails, but ahead the track was a solid black strip, with Honcho’s charger growing ever larger in the crystal windscreen. Compared to the Z-twelve, Honcho’s car may as well have been in reverse, though the Bulldog could not have known that. He was already firing victory flares out the window.
Check your mirror, lamebrain
, thought Mona.
See what’s coming up on you
.
It seemed as though Honcho did just that, because his twin exhaust pipes flared blue as he injected the nitrous into his engine. The Bulldog charger lurched forward, another fifty mph added to its speed. It was too late; the Z-twelve was an automated bullet burning down the track like lightning from the belly of a storm cloud. “Amazing,” said Mona, the word jittering between gritted teeth. “This thing is an animal.”
Ditto grinned at Honcho as they cruised past. An irritating smug grin that would make anyone on the receiving end want to do him severe injury. Quite possibly Honcho couldn’t see the other car, never mind the Bartoli baby’s grinning head—but it made Ditto feel better.
They flashed across the finish line, activating victory fireworks. Five miles in under a minute. The factory wall loomed large before them,
“You forgot to brake!” shouted Ditto over the engine’s roar. “Your old boyfriend said to brake early!”
Mona floored the accelerator, heading for a sonic boom.
“He’s not my old boyfriend, and do you really want to stop for a chat with Honcho?”
“Ideally, no. But what choice do we have?”
“We can go through that gate.”
Ditto held his nose and blew until his ears popped, just in case the pressure was interfering with his hearing. “Go through the . . . Are you completely insane?”
“Think about it. We go off the end of the ramp at about three hundred. The gate is only polymer, the car is toughened alloy. We have a good chance of making it.”
“There must be another way.”
“I’m all ears, you have three seconds.”
“Mona, don’t make me hit you.”
“If you have a sledgehammer in your pocket, I’ll start worrying.”
Ditto adopted the crash position, head between legs.
“We’re dead,” he muttered.
The pig-iron wall loomed before them, seconds away. A speeding procession of gang autos raced up the factory floor. Overhead the Parasites scurried ever closer to ground level. And there was one more factor, something no one could have anticipated. Something rarely seen in Booshka: paralegals.
The Z-twelve cut out.
“What?” said Mona.
All four wheels locked simultaneously and two minibraking parachutes shot out of the rear spoiler. “Not good,” muttered Mona, fighting the frozen steering wheel.
The Z-twelve’s dash flipped to reveal a backlit readout. A message flashed up on the remote. REMOTE MYISHI Z-TWELVE LOCKOUT, the message read. STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE. The car spun to a halt, one wheel dangling over the track’s edge.
Ditto peeped up from his crash position. “Are we dead?”
“No, we’re locked out.”
Ditto sat up gingerly. “Thank God for that.”
Mona climbed from the car, shaking the speed buzz from her head. The situation was fast approaching critical and could only get worse. The gangs would be here any second, and Miguel could not save them again even if he wanted to. She turned to the heavens. Stefan was their only chance, up there watching over them like their own private guardian angel. He would come, she knew he would.
But there was something else. Above Cosmo and Stefan’s perch. Several somethings.
Ditto stumbled from the Z-twelve. “A thought, Vasquez. If we’re locked out, who locked us out?”