Adon shook away his thoughts as the track flooded with the swamp water he’d smelled earlier. He skidded through slick mud, stuttering the engine and nearly dropping the bike, before catching enough downward momentum and balance to lurch back into crunching gravel, then back on a white-lined rail. 

He focused for several long minutes before his thoughts began to wander again, thinking about Y's magically repairing phone screen, or the tech in the garage who'd answered a call by pulling two pieces of his phone apart like magnets and placing it in the headphone slots of his helmet. How much tech was there in the Mids that Adon had just never known about because he was poor? He couldn't figure out how the magnet phone had worked, what kind of network it used that wasn't interferred by the track—would he even be able to survive in the Mids? Would he need Lu to hold his hand at every transit hub and teach him how to get on a train, or come get him from the moon because he accidentally got on a spaceship or some shit?

"Goddammit! Focus, kid, you're going to die!" Tutor refused to call him the obvious false name listed in the player file, so he’d settled on kid, but was regretting it. He felt himself growing attached and amended, “motherfucker, stick to the line!”

Adon jumped at Tutor's growl, his visor screen flashing a warning red Tutor had signaled to draw his attention and a rider cruised around him. He glanced at his rear cam to see Troy angrily catching up. Adon’s proximity comms blinked live as the rider passed and he and leaned into the curve, following the smattering of tech crew instructions to hit light patterns appearing on the track, or follow the split white line left, or drift right because a downed rider hadn’t been cleared from the last round, trapped in whatever mechanism made the track move until one of the officials came to get them. 

Tutor didn't turn the live chat off. He'd seen Adon's glare at Troy, and also the bet-pool numbers, and he knew good broadcasting. He had a bad feeling growing in his gut, and he didn't like it, but he let Adon talk if he wanted, because he didn’t have a reason not to yet. The rest of his crew watched him, typing on personal channels to ask if they missed something while he grunted back an astute no. 

The impending-doom feeling go worse when he saw Phaios, Nika, and Xeri arguing viciously in the box, Nika gesturing wildly at the central drop of the lap, then Xeri stomping away with her hands up, and finally Phaios running in the direction of the med center while Nika paced at the windows, a round of bikes flashing by, fighting to catch up to the placement herd ahead of them. Only eighteen out of the original thirty-six starters were left and Tutor didn't like it at all. The kid was clearly a better rider than they'd let on, and he couldn’t figure out why that might be something to hide, so he waited for his rider to speak to his competition, and then he would decide how to proceed.

Troy wheelied up to Adon and dropped back to two wheels, waiting for his proxy-chat to blink green, then taunting, "hey, does your mom want you in a brick or a paperweight?" He laughed at his own trash talk. 

Adon smirked, knowing full well their comms were being broadcast for the whole track to hear and dissect and scrutinize after each match, and that Troy’s banter would only add weight to his set-up. "I don't have a mom," Adon shrugged, speeding into the tunnel, "I thought that was obvious by my name." 

The tuned-in crowd chuckled along as Troy kept pace through the tunnel and Tutor left the proximity chat on for his rider. It seemed to keep him focused longer than ten seconds, at least.

Adon considered dropping his bike right then. It would take Troy out for certain, but not forever, and he wouldn't be able to protect himself from the other riders catching up. No, he'd already set up his long game, there was no sense lowering himself to Troy's level just because he was bored and irritated. 

"Play smart, kid," Tutor chided. 

Adon laughed, wondering if he could have made a career out of it after all, or if he was just that easy for a seasoned Crew Head to read.

"I heard Troy's crazy," one of the mechs popped in, "beat his own mom in the face with a brick because she didn't have dinner for him after a practice or something. When the sec-offs investigated, someone paid them off and said it was because someone ordered him too, I dunno."

"Gross," another added, "push him off an Upper Gondola."

"Quiet," Tutor hushed his squad. He might never train out their chatter, but the new kid seemed to like it.

Adon scoffed, Troy was as violent as Sias, but unlike Sias, Troy liked to pretend he wasn't the one holding the weapons, always blaming others, playing victim to orders, while claiming he was a free agent. It made him the perfect target for Adon's half-assed plan, predictable, easy to get a crowd riled up about. "How about your mom?" Adon taunted, waiting for Troy to make his move, thinking Adon had no brakes, "I heard she likes bricks… eats them for dinner whenever you come around."

He heard his crew members snort and stifle giggles until Tutor hushed all of them with an annoyed sigh and threatened to off the proxy-comms if they didn’t shape up, “we’re a professional team in a professional league, about halfway through, let’s focus up now.”

The comment would be part of the broadcast, and curious or bored viewers would already be searching for context, determined to be part of the joke. All Troy’s press training was about to tumble away. The investigation report Harmony had posted weeks ago, covering the fish epidemic of Uppers swimming to the Ground to play around, would be popping up as they searched Troy’s name and found the report of abuse and bribery, a long list of crimes he’d never bothered to cover, always crying to Gideon. Already half the crowd was jeering, the other cheering hesitantly because they were still hoping for an easy money win, on Troy who wasn’t racing Phaios, or on Phai’s substitute newbie who was playing around in third place. 

Adon was so tired of that particular type of brown-nosed Grounder. The cowards who thought bullying would get them anywhere, people like Gideon who hurt others for safety and control. Maybe Troy's mom had deserved a brick in the face, Sais had certainly deserved a knife to the gut, what did Adon know of Mama Troy. But Adon had asked about him around Nyx's, and he'd heard five different stories from three different sources, and all of them said Troy was the most rotten of fish, so Adon didn't concern himself with too much truth or justice. 

He laughed into his headset, mocking Troy as he struggled to keep pace over the chatter bumps, "do you think she’ll wait to haunt you after you killed her, or gladly move on like you were never bor—n." He landed the jump with a wobble, nearly over-correcting, saved only by hours of Y's disappointing sighs and kicking shouts to maintain speed. 

“Enough,” Tutor cut out Adon’s proximity comms. 

Laps passed, one after another, and Adon remained diligent, keeping his bike steady under him and Troy stuck behind him, weaving patiently through lanes so that the audience believed he was being cocky, giving them the show they wanted, the obvious victor of an easy race.

Tutor shifted against that uneasy feeling again, “drone-check.”

“Final curve, easy straightaway.” 

There was some easy chatter from the crew, celebrating their impending victory, but Tutor turned them down, “listen kid.” He didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, but he could see his rider zeroing in on a victory that wasn’t the finish line, “you have a plan, I get that, but,” there was a tap on his shoulder as his headset was yanked off. 

The final hairpin turn approached and Adon had no idea if he’d been in the saddle for ten minutes or two hours. The audience of those who'd previously hemmed and hawed over their bets, watching time slot races Nika was posting and putting their faith in a new driver of their beloved brown-and blue Dusters stood transfixed, watching in excited awe of their certain payout as Adon pulled easily ahead of Troy for the eighth time and leaned into the turn. 

Adon inhaled, setting his line.

"Don't do it, Doni," Nika's voice crackled in his ear, shakey and small, "just win and he'll die of embarrassment, I promise. He’ll never bother you again." 

Adon chuckled, "embarrassed people can come back. But the dead can’t. And I promised Lu-Lu I’d stop killing people." He shrugged to himself, basically he had, it was what Lu had meant, or would have meant, if he knew all Adon’s history. He didn’t have time to wonder if Lu would accept him or not, he was already committed, already sliding into place, already smiling to himself at the memory of Lu pulling away from him, let’s go bake a cake… what an odd thing to say.

"You don't have to..." Nika begged.

Tutor was back on his mic, his crew eerily quiet, “hey kid, whatever you’re thinking, you’re repping our crew, understand? Whatever you do, we’ll be taking the hit for. We got you through this clean, didn’t we? You’re a solid rider with a bright future, the line’s right there. Why don’t you go ahead and cross it first, okay?”

“Yeah, Calderis, you got this. Almost there” Other mech and tech crew members chimed in. 

Tutor winced at the false name, his eyes fixed on the screen, then the window, as the small dots grew into people. Phaios paced the box while the crowd cheered above them. He could only watch it happen, hands extended like he could catch the kid himself, stop him, cradle him over the finish line.

But Adon was already leaned into the turn and ripping a heel through their careful patchwork of wires and brakes that had held too well, Troy tucked neatly inside. Adon could have tapped him on the shoulder and waved farewell. From every angle, it would look like a foul as Adon skidded through the turn with no brakes and too much speed. 

The wall rushed at him.

He heard Troy cackle something about a paperweight as he passed, pulling out of his lean and racing down the straight-shot, then only pieces. Adon dissociated through the impact as he slammed into the wall, gripping the handlebars long enough to pull himself off the main white-line, so he wouldn't get run over. He heard the crack and shatter of glass and plastic, the creak of leather, maybe fuzz or static in his comms, then a moment of gleeful silence as he somersaulted through the air, flailing with his forward momentum. He landed on the angled glass of the track-level seats, rolling off into the low wall separating the track from the judge box where the broadcasters were frantically flipping through drone angles.

The entire crash was a series of sounds and nothing else: the metal-crunching hit of the bike, the hollow crack of his helmet, Troy's laugh cut off by distance, the static in his ear, muted comms as the pressure built, gravel scraping his streaming suit as he skidded. A panel of the wall groaned around him like a carpet before he continued into the audience glass like a wet rag whipped into a wall. The pain would begin soon and Adon waited for it with a quiet apology for his arrogance. He’d expected to survive, just a disqualifying foul, a little crash, a little bang, a broken leg maybe.

Psh, he’d wouldn’t be able to tease Y about getting shot on a track anymore. He might not tease her again. But Lu was waiting. Lu was waiting, so Adon let his body roll down the squelch and smear of wet glass, vibrating under the horrified audience pounding, screaming for medics. Adon glanced through his cracked screen as he flopped onto the track, lucky he wasn’t caught on a rail (he wouldn’t have slid out on a rail). He could see the finisher arch. The detached handlebars of his bike. Tutor would be pissed about that, he’d made a good rig. He wondered if Lu would still let him in if he only had nine fingers (nine and a half) and something like six toes. It felt like he might only have six toes. 

He tried to breathe, huffing a wheezing laugh into comms he couldn’t hear, “accident,” he chuckled, “my fault.” He’d said it for Tutor’s crew, so they wouldn’t blame themselves, then remembered his plan to frame Troy and added a slurred, barely discernible, “motherfucker kicked me.” Adon couldn’t hear whether the crew was saying anything. He couldn’t remember the name of their team, of himself, of the person waiting for him. 

He rolled with a groan onto his back and waited to choke on his own vomit as pain roiled through him. Y’s going to kill me, he laughed, Lu-Lu’s going to kill you first, a voice in his head retorted. Adon smiled at the flashing lights through his cracked screen, blinking away the pieces falling toward his face. Lu. His name was Lu, and he was waiting.

Other racers flashed past the wreckage with muttered prayers and wincing gasps, swerving or following their own team’s comm orders to avoid his convulsing body by millimeters. Adon felt his body sway in the draft as the last of the racers rounded the curve and let himself sink into the silence. Before he could reach the peaceful bottom, however, there was the collapsing sound of the crowd, overwhelming every sense as his helmet was ripped off, and he realized he was still cartwheeling through the air. Had he been hit? Or had he never landed. His radio disconnected with a squeal of feedback as his helmet cracked into two pieces and Adon hit another wall of glass and began laughing as he landed in a slumped heap and waited for rescue. 

Adon smelled burnt rubber and gasoline, heard the hiss of short-circuiting electronics and the drip-drop of blood on pavement, and warm memories of the Pits kept him conscious, waiting with an elbow for a killing blow aimed at his neck as he blinked around the edges of a shattered visor. He couldn’t tell if his helmet was still on or if the thick feeling was just his new haircut. The world was swimming anyway, the siren lights directing med teams toward him floating off the track as he swayed and slid sideways, his head resting on the ground. It was incredible what Nika had done to the track. Her father or mother, he couldn't remember which, had run a gladiator style colosseum that once competed with the Pits and she’d inherited that kind of hell and built a stadium, a sports arena that brought the Ground together, entertainment that people screamed at, and cried for, and went silent over a dying rider. They were much more respectful than the Pits, but the Pits would never make him wait this long to die.