Titans (6 page)

After we return to the outskirts of Barney’s track, Rags says it’s time to teach me the control panel. He punches some buttons and the Titan lies down, sniffing at the grass. Once Rags has my attention, he launches into an explanation of how everything works. First, he points to the handlebars situated on either side of the board. “If you’re ever riding, and something goes wrong, grab on to these and hang on. Understand?”

I nod, and he points out the ignition slot that’s currently engaged and self-explanatory. The key turns the Titan on. Next is a black turbo button. It’s covered by a silver flap that I can flip up with my thumb, and Rags explains that it’s covered for a reason.

“This button is what triggers the Titan’s racing capability,” he says. “Push it when the starting gates open and the horse will enter manual transmission.”

There’s a smaller black button above the covered turbo one, so I ask, “This is what turns on the Titan’s eyes, right?”

“You got it,” he replies. “That sends a signal to the Titan to ready itself to race. Then the turbo button is like a detonator.”

“So many buttons, so little time.” Magnolia leans against Rags’s truck, chewing a lengthy blade of grass like she’s a prairie girl born and raised.

Rags ignores her.

“What’s this?” My eyes take in a small silver switch in the top right corner of the panel. Like the black button, it has a cover, but its cover is made of plastic instead of metal, so you can see through to the switch beneath.

Barney gazes over Rags’s shoulder. “That’s what this old timer forgot to turn off before he started the Titan’s engine.”

Rags chews the inside of his cheek like he’s not sure he’s ready to cover that part of today’s lesson. Eventually he shakes his head like,
What does it matter?
and says, “That’s perhaps the most important part of the Titan 1.0. This is what the Gambini brothers were afraid of.”

“It’s what threw Arvin on his rear!” Barney chokes on laughter.

“Arvin rode this model?”

“Not for long.” Rags waves his hand as if dismissing the subject. “All Titans can be placed on autopilot if their dashboard blows.”

“If the Titan is pushed too far past the slay zone,” I offer.

“Exactly, but don’t worry too much about his control panel. The only thing that could take this baby down for good is a blown engine.” Rags runs his thumb across the clear, rectangular autopilot cover. “This Titan can run on autopilot like today’s Titans can. But because it experiences emotions like fear, and even a sense of competitiveness, it can make the machine more …”

“Unpredictable?” Magnolia’s voice is thick with anxiety.

Rags furrows his brow and says too fiercely, “No, not unpredictable. Just different, that’s all.”

I don’t believe him. Magnolia pegged it when she used that word. Even if today’s Titans run on autopilot, they’re following a set of programmed backup responses, and the way it would run would most likely be less risky than what a jockey would have the machine do. But autopilot is a last-resort scenario, and there’s no reason to believe the control panel would ever malfunction.

Rags pats the horse on his back. “We’ll eventually need you to learn how to ride using both manual and autopilot in combination. Certain tracks will require your use of cognitive thinking, particularly that math you think you’re so good at. While other times, especially for off-track sprints, it’ll be best to let him go on his own.”

Nope.

There’s no way I’d ever trust this thing to run on its own, but I don’t need to tell him that.

We then move on to the stopwatch, which looks archaic compared to the digital ones installed in Titan 3.0s. He shows me the gear sticks on either side—positioned above the handlebars—that navigate the horse from side to side, back and forth.

Finally, he shows me the performance gauge.

When I run my fingers over it, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The gauge resembles a speedometer, but instead of numbers, it includes a length of green arching from the bottom left to the very top. After that is a stretch of yellow—the caution zone. And then there’s the slay zone; a small length of scarlet red that extends from the yellow strip to the bottom right-hand side of the glass circle. The slay zone, more than anything, is what takes down Titans. Jockeys get too greedy for the win, and forget about the permanent damage they can inflict on their machines.

Running your horse in the slay zone is also dangerous to the rider, like racing a four-door family sedan down a major interstate at a hundred miles an hour. A standard vehicle isn’t built for such things, just as a Titan isn’t built to be pushed past its limits. A flash of the jockeys who have died crosses my mind once again. I can see their faces, all of them, in succession. So far, the Gambini brothers’ race has cost Detroit four of its citizens’ lives.

At some point during my lesson, Barney and Magnolia come out of the house with iced tea, and cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches that I’m sure Magnolia made. We eat like champions, and after I wipe my mouth, I return my attention to Rags. Tired of listening versus doing, I ask him, “Can’t I please just ride it? I’ll learn a lot quicker that way.”

“First, no, you can’t just ride it. Second, stop calling the Titan an
it
. It’s a
he
, and he’ll respect you a lot quicker if you treat
him
with respect.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “Okay, let’s get real. You may have designed the thing to include some sort of canned emotions, and maybe a computer programmer made it so the horse mimics human reactions with a prerecorded set of responses, but that thing”—I jab a thumb at the Titan—“is a machine. That’s it.”

The Titan snorts.

I give it a confused look as Rags grinds his teeth. “Call it a
he
.”

“It,” I say.

“Astrid,” he growls.

“Iiiiit,” I respond, knowing I’m being childish.

Rags turns toward his truck. “This is never going to work.”

“Ah, come on, Rags,” Barney says. “It was hard for the Gambini brothers to believe at first too, remember?”

Rags opens the door to his truck. “Get in.”

My heart plummets. “What? That’s it?”

The old man slams the door and stomps toward me. “Look, this isn’t your normal Titan. In order to ride him, you’ll have to form a connection. And the first step in that process is acknowledging that he’s not simply parts and pieces and coded instructions. He has … he has
understanding
.”

Because I don’t want to lose this opportunity, I keep my remarks to a minimum. Instead I say, “Can’t I just turn off the autopilot like you did today?”

“That doesn’t shut off the Titan’s emotions. Nothing can do that. Not with the EvoBox Rags designed functioning inside him,” Barney chimes in. “Besides, only using manual transmission means he’s not operating at his full potential. It’s like a human on allergy medicine. The kind that makes you drowsy, ya know?”

Rags straightens to his full height. “Can you learn to trust this creature, Astrid? I mean
really
trust him? Because if you can’t, this will never work.”

I glance down at the hunk of metal and ask myself if I could. The answer comes swiftly—no. I trusted others once before, and it was the worst mistake I ever made. But I trust
myself
enough to know I can operate any piece of machinery if it means staying off the streets.

“I can,” I reply softly.

“Okay, then.” Rags puts his hands on his bony hips. “Then give him a name.”

“Ooh, ooh!” Magnolia hops from one foot to the other. “Let me. I’ll name it. Prince! Or, no, how about Channing Tatum … Tatum for short? Or, oh, let’s call him Sparkle Foot.”

All three of us look at Magnolia after hearing the last one.

“Because of his silver hooves,” she explains meekly. “No?”

Rags sighs. “Name him, kid. Take ownership. Show me you’ll treat him as a partner, and not as a means to an end.”

I bite my lip. This should be easy. Just pick a name. Any name. Who cares as long as Rags buys that I’m playing along? But when I open my mouth, what comes out is a defiant “Horse.”

Rags points to the truck, and this time, I march toward it. I need a break from the old man anyway, and if we stay much longer, our parents will wonder where we’ve gone off to. So I climb inside the vehicle. Magnolia waves good-bye to Barney and follows after me. Then my best friend and I are alone in the front seat as Rags rounds the truck.

“Why couldn’t you just name it?” she asks.

I tongue the inside of my cheek and look back at the Titan. “Because it’s stupid.”

But that’s not the real reason, and we both know it. It’s just that I don’t want to open myself up to anything or anyone again. There’s also the simple fact that I don’t need a relationship with the dang thing to win, regardless of what Rags and Barney believe.

When Rags gets in, I turn back and look at the Titan.

“You’re just leaving it here?” I ask.

But Rags doesn’t respond. I don’t blame him, I suppose. Still, I watch the Titan as we leave, and so I see when the horse clambers to his feet and tosses his head in agitation as we pull away.

As if it knows that it’s being left.

As we drive home from Barney’s place, Magnolia lays her head against the window. It isn’t long before her breathing deepens. It’s awkward being the only conscious one in the truck with Rags, so I break the silence, despite our earlier head-butting.

“Can I ask you a question?” I say quietly.

Rags adjusts his weight in the seat, which is the closest I’ll probably get to him saying,
Sure! Fire away, pal
.

“Why me? You must have had that Titan for a while. Why didn’t you race it before now?”

The truck accelerates, as if Rags is eager to get home. “It was the right time.”

“Why?”

“Because I know some things about Arvin Gambini and his dealings. And because I’m tired of watching and waiting.”

“You don’t like Arvin, do you?”

Rags grips the steering wheel so tightly I’m afraid we’ll careen off the road. I elect to move past that subject and revisit my original question. “You haven’t said why you chose me to ride the Titan.”

“Because you were in the right place at the right time,” he grunts.

I smile, because I know that’s not all there is to it. Just like I know he and Arvin have a history I haven’t fully learned. I
do
know Rags and Barney worked for Hanover Steel, of which the Gambini brothers own a healthy share. And I’m guessing they got laid off. But I wonder what Arvin had to do with that. Did the three men clash on the Titan 1.0 project? As a large shareholder, Arvin would probably be able to fire them over whatever he wanted.

Look at me applying all my learning from Ms. Shimoni’s finance class.

She and her cat sweaters would be most proud.

On the walk home from Rags’s house that night, after I say good night to Magnolia, I spot a woman in the shadows. She’s moving with impressive stealth from yard to yard, pruning shears in her right hand. Anyone else would assume she’s about to commit a heinous crime, tiptoeing across people’s properties like that. But I know better.

“Hey, Mom.” I wave hello, and she holds a finger to her lips.

Making her way toward me, she whispers, “You been at Magnolia’s all day?”

I shrug so that it’s more a lie of omission. “What are you working on tonight?”

Mom points up the road to Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s house. They have a rosebush that’s been mistreated far too long. It now grows into the lawn itself and is infested with weeds and browning buds. “It needs a good pruning. If they won’t take care of it, I will.”

My mother, Horticulture Superhero, saving our neighborhood one snip at a time. I squeeze my fingers over my thumbs and ask the question I’m afraid to ask. “Mom, did you know about the eviction notice?”

She drops her gaze and twists the gold band on her ring finger. “ ’Course I did. But I was hoping we could keep it from you kids until your dad could figure things out.”

“We can’t just rely on Dad to help our family. We’re in this together.”

“He’s the head of our household, Astrid, and I’ll stand behind him the same way I have the last twenty-two years.”

Hearing her words frustrates me to no end. What is this? The 1950s? “You can do what you want. Stand by and pretend Dad will magically fix everything even though he’s the reason we’re in this mess. But as for me? I’m taking action.”

I turn on my heel and head toward our short-term home. My mom calls my name three times before I glance back. She raises her hands like she’s helpless in all this. Eventually, she says, “Help me with this rosebush, mi amor.”

I sigh, because my mother is who she is. She’ll always be the woman who is bold only when others are asleep in their beds. That way no one can challenge her head-on, and she’ll never have to deal with confrontation. But because she’s my mother, the same woman who made a “If my daughter were a dinosaur, she’d be a Mathosaurus” sign before a math competition in middle school, the mother who told me I was born a shooting star—my frustration lessens. “No, Mama. I’m going to bed. But you have fun.”

She gives her wedding ring one last twist, and heads toward our neighbors’ yard.