The Skids Read online

  Nonetheless, after a minute Johnny’s stripes abruptly tilted and he tread down the ramp, trying not to draw any attention. Not that it mattered; no one looked his way. A rust-coloured Two actually bumped him and kept rolling. Amazing, he thought with a grin.

  He wondered if the hollas would notice him. Remarkably, not only was the Combine recorded, its ratings were off the chart. Why anyone would want to watch someone doing speed runs, especially a squid, was beyond Johnny.

  The ramp led to a huge bowl that filled the Combine. Far above, the sky could be seen through an opening in the clear ceiling. Dozens of tunnels ran off from the field, leading to massive underground facilities.

  Settling into a nook near the entrance, Johnny looked around. He’d never seen so many panzers and squids; or at least, not where he’d pay attention to them. In a game he focused on skids who might actually be dangerous. In the stands, he hung with skids like Torg, if he hung with anyone at all.

  Hundreds of Ones and Twos worked in sight: some on strength, some on speed, some on specific skills. Nearby, about twenty squids were hurling themselves into a wall, trying to learn how to absorb energy. Most didn’t come close to the speeds Johnny tended to collide with things, although one aqua-black panzer was at least putting a little effort into it. The wall would soften if a skid approached vaping speed, but Johnny didn’t see any danger of that happening any time soon. They might as well be tickling it. He grinned as his attention continued to wander, settling on a white squid with two red stripes on the far side.

  Now what’s she doing?

  The Two would accelerate down a short track, begin to turn, flip over, then start again. Unconsciously, Johnny rolled forward a tread. The squid flipped once more, right where the track changed colour. Ohhh. . . . A smile cracked Johnny’s face. I forgot about practicing that.

  He wasn’t sure why he moved. One moment he was watching the squid sprint, turn and flip . . . the next he was crossing the field.

  It blew his mind that he could cross the entire span without a single skid looking his way. He was the most famous skid alive. Hole, there was a holla of him running above one of the strength benches.

  Nevertheless, he reached the other skid unnoticed. “Hey,” he said conversationally. “Whacha working on?”

  “Who wants to . . . ?” the skid started to say. Then she stopped, stunned, as one of her eyeballs focused on Johnny. Then a second. Then slowly, as if the squid knew it was going to be rude but she couldn’t help herself, the third.

  “You’re Johnny Drop,” she whispered, her eyes widening until you could barely see the lids.

  Johnny’s stripes tilted. “It’s nice to be recognized,” he said casually. “That’s a grease-pad. You’re working on greasin’ your treads, right?”

  Blink . . . blink . . . blink went the squid’s eyes. A tattgram of a dragon popped off her stripes. “You’re Johnny Drop.”

  Johnny chuckled. He tried to put himself in the Two’s place, although it was hard. Sure, most young skids looked up to the Eights and Nines, but even as a One Johnny had been a cocky little spare, unimpressed by anyone but Johnny.

  Still, he thought, I suppose if Betty Crisp had rolled up to me in the Combine I might have vaped myself a little. Reaching down, he picked up the tattgram and held it out. “Careful, these are expensive. You’re a Level Two, right?”

  “You’re . . .”

  “I know my name,” he said gently but firmly. “You’re working on greasing your treads, right? Going frictionless?”

  But the Two was back to staring at Johnny like he’d just turned into a tree. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was watching you from that nook over there,” Johnny said, pointing.

  “What were you doing over there?” the Two protested, all three eyes swinging towards the ramp. If Johnny didn’t do something, the poor squid was going to vape herself on the spot.

  “Hey,” Johnny said, fighting a twinge of frustration. Squid needed a name—how was he supposed to get her to focus? “You’re thinking too much.”

  The Two blinked. One of her eyes swung back to Johnny. “What?”

  “When you’re greasing the treads. You’re thinking too much.”

  “Oh.” The Two stared at the track where she’d been practicing. “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re trying to figure out exactly how to do it, right?”

  “Uh . . . sure. What else am I supposed to do?”

  Johnny took a deep breath and sighed. Squids. “For one thing, stop trying so hard. You’re not supposed to think it all the way through. Here—ask me the exact right way to grease your treads.”

  “What’s the exact right way to grease your treads?”

  “No idea.” He laughed when the Two gaped at him. “No one knows exactly how to do it, squid. There is no exactly. You just . . . feel it out.”

  “Feel it out?” the Two said skeptically.

  “Yeah. Don’t think it happening . . . feel it happening.”

  “Uh-huh,” said the Two. “And how am I supposed to know what it feels like if I’ve never done it before?”

  Johnny opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and looked around. Maybe there was a reason why they left the panzers and squids to figure things out for themselves. “Well,” Johnny said, pretty sure the lesson would take better if the Two made her own connections, “what do you think it would feel like?”

  “I don’t—” she started to protest, then stopped. “I guess it would feel slick.”

  Johnny beamed. That was exactly how he thought about it. “It probably would.”

  “Yeah, but what does that feel like?” the Two murmured, her eyes dropping away from Johnny, lost in thought.

  Now it was Johnny’s turn to stare. Slick always seemed to do the trick for him. “I don’t know that you need . . .”

  “I guess it’s a little like grease.” She glanced at him. “That’s why they call it that, right? Greasing your treads.”

  Johnny looked back at her, bemused. He’d never needed to get that specific with his imagery, but if it worked for the squid. . . . “I imagine that’s where the phrase came from, yeah. Wanna try it?”

  A grin split her face. “All right.”

  “Remember,” Johnny said, “don’t think—feel.”

  “Right,” the squid said. She crouched into position. Remained that way. “Uh . . . would you mind turning around? You’re . . . you’re kinda making me nervous.”

  “Sure,” he said with a smirk. He swung his eyes away, although he kept watching with the edge of his peripheral vision. Bet she hasn’t figured out how to do that, either. He stifled a laugh. Seriously, how do any of them survive?

  Revving up, the squid fired down the pad, twisted where it changed texture . . . slid a bit . . . then spun out and flipped.

  Johnny barked a laugh as he tread over. “No one gets it on the first try,” he said. “But it was better, right? You felt it?”

  The Two had a faraway look. “I think . . . yeah . . . there was a moment . . . yeah, I think I got it.” She grinned sheepishly. “Kind of.”

  “That’s a start. If it helps, most stuff works that way. Including getting vaped.”

  “Really?” the squid said, three eyes swinging Johnny’s way. If there was one thing a Two was desperate to figure out, it was avoiding permanent evaporation.

  “Sure,” Johnny said. “Most squids think way too much about it. Hole, a lot of them think you have to keep track of every molecule in your body.” He held back a smile as the squid’s stripes flushed.

  “Oh,” she said. “So, ummm . . . so you don’t do that?”

  “How many molecules do you think you have in your body, panzer?”

  “I’m not a pan . . . oh, I get it. A lot?”

  “Yeah, a lot. Way too many to worry about when you’re getting sliced to shreds
. Trust me, don’t try to math your body back together, just . . . make it happen.”

  “Oh. All right.” The Two didn’t sound too sure of herself, but given that her death was on the line, Johnny could understand the doubt. He laughed. “Don’t worry, squid. You’ll figure it out. If it helps, I usually focus on my colours first—body and stripes—along with my name.”

  “I don’t have a name,” the Two whispered, her eyes dropping.

  “Keeping working at stuff like this . . .” Johnny said firmly, “and you’ll get one.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes came up and her stripes flushed with pleasure. “Okay. Um . . . thanks.” She frowned, as if remembering how surreal this was.

  “No problem.” Johnny said, starting to roll. “One last thing. Learn to trail an eye. It’ll feel weird at first, but what’s the point in having three if you use them all together?”

  “Right,” the Two said, and swung one of her eyes self-consciously. She watched with the other two the entire time Johnny tread back to the ramp.

  No one gave him a second look. Who would—it’s not like a Level Nine with two names was suddenly going to drop in.

  As Johnny emerged from the Combine, a One glanced his way. All three eyes went wide, then his body shook in disbelief and he hurried inside. Stopping, Johnny watched the panzer disappear down the ramp. Around him, skids of every level came and went, ignoring the Combine. After all, why wouldn’t they?

  Why hadn’t he?

  Johnny stared down the ramp for quite some time. The squid probably wouldn’t survive the week. Johnny knew the numbers, most Ones and Twos never made it. Hole, Johnny might be the skid who finished her off.

  Still . . .

  Whether the Two survived or not, one thing was true. For the first time since winning the Slope . . . Johnny felt good.

  Chapter Five

  Three days later, Johnny sat at the top of the Pipe. He wasn’t feeling good anymore.

  They fixed it! The thought had been hammering inside his head for half a day. They fixed it! The panzers!

  Twelve hours before, Johnny had competed in the Slope for the first time since tying Betty Crisp’s record. A win and the record was his alone.

  If there was a skid anywhere in the Skidsphere other than the Slope, then they were either vaped and recovering, or just plain vaped. They all wanted a part of history. Thousands lined the Slope. The noise was enormous, threatening to crack the sky.

  He was half-way down before he realized something wasn’t sliding right. For one thing, he’d led the entire race. Easily. Despite not popping a skid the entire way. In fact, he hadn’t seen any skids getting popped.

  That’s when his trail-eye picked up the pile behind him. The entire pack, four hundred skids strong, were trailing fifty metres back. Even Albert was there, scowling as if he hated all of them for doing this. At the front, Torg grinned like a madman.

  It wasn’t a race: it was a coronation. Which Torg confirmed when Johnny confronted him after the contest.

  “Are you out of your mind!” he screamed in the winner’s circle. “You fixed the Slope? You can’t fix a game!”

  Torg just laughed. “Do you really think anyone was going to pop Johnny Drop in his first race after getting his second name? Get vaped, squid. And for Crisp’s sake, cheer up.”

  He had a point. Twelve hours later, even Johnny had to admit this. Hole, had Johnny been among that pile, he wouldn’t have wanted to crush history. He was surprised Albert had played along; but then again, anyone beating Johnny in that race would’ve been a villain forever. And Johnny never thought Albert was dumb.

  It still infuriated him. It was the Slope, for Crisp’s sake! It was Crisp’s record—you couldn’t just give it away. Technically, he was pretty sure he shouldn’t have gotten his second name until after breaking the record—maybe until he died. He had no idea why GameCorps did it so quickly. The whole thing just made him so . . .

  Stop it, he thought, blinking rapidly. Snakes, all he’d done since getting his life’s dream was scream at people or act half-vaped. Torg was right: he had to cheer up. He glanced towards the Out There. He doubted if they were impressed.

  “So go impress them,” he growled, looking down the Pipe.

  In many ways, the Pipe resembled the Slope, except where it was completely different. For instance, both games were on a hill, but the Pipe was a practically gentle forty-five degrees, compared to the Slope’s ridiculous sixty-five. Whereas the Slope was covered in dust, the Pipe was covered in snow.

  No obstacles peppered the Pipe’s blazing white surface, which curled up to form a fifty-kilometer long half-pipe. Above each edge, hundreds of rings, bumpers and grab-bars; a maze of contraptions to make each launch off the sides an aerial circus. The Slope was about speed and violence. The Pipe was all about style.

  Though it had its moments.

  Johnny waited in the gates, blind to the others that would start with him. Twenty skids were launched every thirty seconds. Contact with other skids was not allowed on the Pipe, the only game that had such a rule. Any contact and both contestants would be punished with point deductions.

  Interference, however . . .

  As the buzzer sounded and Johnny moved, a silver streak cut across his line. They launched me with Albert? He couldn’t decide whether he was amused or outraged.

  “No free rides today, squid!” Albert yelled.

  “Like that was my call,” Johnny muttered. Changing his line, he geared up for his first trick.

  Swinging right, he did a quick calc on the other skids, aiming for a yellow ring a few degrees downslope. Dingo, a sea-green Five covered in tattgrams, was coming from a different angle and would hit the ring just in front of Johnny. It would be close, but close was fine. Contact was illegal. Close brought the Out There out of their seats.

  Johnny hit the curve, picking up speed. Soaring off the edge, he dove through the yellow ring right behind Dingo, the Five squeaking in protest. Check your math, squid, we’re fine. Johnny laughed as he popped a Hasty-Arm, leaning out to catch a handle-bar. Swinging around, he flattened for style, cork-screwed into a twist, calced the skids and slid between two others for a cross before landing in the Pipe.

  Decent enough start. The trick with the Pipe that most Fives and under didn’t get was you played for the slo-mo. More than any other game, little things mattered on the Pipe. Get close enough to shave the skid going through a ring before you? Sweet. Flatten out while spinning? That looks good on the hollas. Torg, who’d done some fine things on the Pipe over the years, once said: “The key to the Pipe? Relax, son. Make it look like you just don’t care.”

  Of course, if you couldn’t relax. . .

  Johnny couldn’t stop thinking about the Slope. And Peg. And Betty Crisp. And the fact that he was a Nine with over a year left to get to Ten and what if—what if?—Ten wasn’t the end? Every skid assumed Ten was the top because only one skid had ever achieved it.

  Get to Eleven and he could shove Albert’s Nine-Nine right up his treads.

  Speak of the devil. Albert screamed across the Pipe behind him, a streak of snow spraying into Johnny’s trail-eye.

  “You look tight, panzer.”

  “Better tight than slow.”

  “If you say so.”

  Jackhole. Too much a spare to defy Torg and give Johnny a real race yesterday.

  He was half-way through a trick when he first noticed it. Downslope, a black spot on the white, too far down to be a skid this early in the game. Besides, skids might change their shape on the Pipe, but they didn’t . . . grow.

  What the hole?

  A second later and the thought became even more appropriate as the black spot surged up the Pipe and spread. The ground trembled. He didn’t think it was a corpsquake, not so soon on top of the other. Plus, GameCorps never sent a quake during a game.

  In the sta
nds, the screaming started.

  Beneath Johnny, the entire right side of the Pipe was being consumed by darkness. This isn’t a quake. He needed to get off the hill. Except . . .

  If skids didn’t help other skids at the best of times, they sure the hole didn’t do it in a game. You didn’t take care of the young—you vaped them. Another thing Torg was known to say: None of the letters in ‘Team’ appeared in the word ‘Skid.’

  But Johnny had been in a mood for days. He’d gone to the Combine, for Crisp’s sake.

  Vape it, he thought, gearing up and tearing down the hill.

  Unlike the Slope, low level skids tended to finish the Pipe the fastest, not realizing that style slowed down sometimes. The best tricks occurred when a skid appeared to stop in mid-trick—hang the edge, squid, hang the edge.

  The black clawed its way up the hill as dozens of Ones, Twos and Threes scrambled to turn and climb to safety. Flashes of colour began to disappear into the gaping maw. The Threes would survive . . .

  You so sure of that? Johnny thought, reaching out to latch a Two. He spun and hurled it upslope. Whatever that is, I don’t think it’s GameCorps.

  “Playing hero now?” Torg appeared on his left, treads gunning.

  “That’s not natural,” Johnny said, spin-flinging another Two.

  “What is?” Torg drawled. “Nice technique. Let me have a go.” He caught a One and gave it a boost. “Beauty,” he said, admiring his work. “But why are we saving panzers and not ourselves? ’Cause whatever that is, I’m not so sure it’s going to let me pull myself together.”

  Down below, the first skid Johnny recognized—Kass, a lime-blue Level Four—was run down by the growing scar, his tattgrams and glam ripped from his skin. His scream followed him into the dark . . . then ended.

  “The stands are back that way,” Johnny said. “Anyway, that thing’s fast, but we’re faster.” By his count, the black was climbing the Pipe at the speed of the average Five. Even uphill, Johnny and Torg could outrun it.