Part 32 (2/2)

Before the race tomorrow, he'd have to have a word with Ariel.

CHAPTER NINE.

Dawn came on the day of Race 50.

It found Jason sitting on a clifftop with Dido, the two of them gazing out at the ocean sunrise. Despite his sleepless night, they'd arranged to meet and truth be told, Jason wanted to see Dido alone before the race - her presence gave him strength.

On the horizon, dark clouds framed the rising sun. 'So how are you feeling today?' Dido asked him.

'Better,' he said firmly. 'Stronger.'

His eyes were fixed forward. Game face.

'And your plan for Barnaby?'

'Solid,' he said. 'We've found a c.h.i.n.k in his technique. The Bug's been a.n.a.lysing his racing manoeuvres on video-disc. Barnaby's weak on right-hand hairpins - that's where he gets sloppy; he goes too wide, so you can cut inside him. And this track is tight, lots of hairpins.'

Dido grabbed his hand. 'Good luck, Jason.'

'Thanks.'

Jason looked at the dark clouds on the horizon. 'It's going to rain today.'

CHAPTER TEN.

Rain hammered down on the straight in front of the startgates.

Sheltered from the driving rain, nineteen hover cars sat poised in their gates, their magneto drives thrumming, pilots and navigators hunched in their c.o.c.kpits, ready. (Due to mechanical and other issues, six students were sitting out the race.) The Race School's starting gates were based on those used in old Roman chariot races: a wide arc-shaped structure fitted with thirty archways opened onto a wide straight. Each archway housed one car and at the starter's signal, steel grilles barring them would all spring open together, unleas.h.i.+ng the racers.

Clang!

The grilles burst open and, like horses leaping out of the gates in the Melbourne Cup, the nineteen cars of the students of the International Race School blasted out of their archways, into the rain, and commenced the fiftieth and final race of the Race School season.

The field shoomed due south out over the Southern Ocean, noses into the driving rain, heading for the bottom of the world.

Barnaby Becker immediately took the lead - with Xavier slotting in close behind him.

This was unusual.

In previous races, Xavier had shown a clear advantage over Barnaby in straight-line speed, yet now he just settled in tight behind his stable-mate...as if he were glad to be travelling at three-quarter pace.

Jason saw what was happening at once.

Xavier was riding shotgun for Barnaby.

He was protecting his stablemate.

Not needing any points for himself, Xavier was trying to ensure that Barnaby won the race - thus getting Barnaby into the Top 4, and ensuring that Jason didn't go to New York.

But no sooner had he realised this than Jason faced another, more immediate problem.

For it was at that moment - as they swept low over the rain-battered waves of the Southern Ocean - that some of the other racers started targeting the Argonaut.

Joaquin Cortez zeroed in on Jason from the right, aiming straight for his tailfin!

The blow would have knocked them both out of the race, but Cortez - not in contention for a place in the Top 4 - didn't seem to care at all. Jason ducked under him, swooping low, avoiding the blow - at which moment Horatio Wong rammed him from the other side, banging into the Argonaut's left wing, before zooming ahead of Jason. Unlike Cortez, Wong still had a chance of making the Top 4 and he wasn't going to jeopardise that just yet.

' Jason!' Sally's voice came in. 'What the h.e.l.l is happening!'

'Cortez just tried a kamikaze run, tried to knock us out of the race!' Jason called. 'Barnaby must have bought him!'

'What are you going to do?'

'There's only one thing we can do, outrun him.'

Jason gunned the accelerator as they hit the pair of icebergs halfway down the Southern Ocean straight - known as the Chicane - and leapt ahead of Cortez, now in 7th place behind Barnaby (1), Xavier (2), Varishna Krishna (3), Isaiah Was.h.i.+ngton (4), Ariel (5) and Wong (6); but with Joaquin Cortez nipping at his heels, trying to find an opportunity to take him out.

Then it was into the iceberg section.

If he could have, Jason would have gaped at the spectacle of the field of mammoth bergs, but there was no time for gawking now. He banked the Argonaut between the white monoliths, following the path of the demag lights.

At this early stage in the race, everyone took the standard route between the icebergs.

But as Jason well knew, as the race went on and things got desperate, that would change.

After three laps, the eliminations began.

At first, they were relatively un.o.btrusive. Minor racers crashed in the tight land-bound sections of the course, or racers succ.u.mbed to technical mishaps - thus eliminating themselves.

Barnaby continued to lead, with Xavier shadowing him in second place.

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