TURBO Racers by Austin Aslan

Author:Austin Aslan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Red light. Yellow light. Green light. Tires peeled. Smoke bellowed. The cityscape blurred.

A full-terrain race. The course was one route—a straight shot from Manila, seven hundred kilometers south to the island of Mindanao, in and out of the water as the TURBOnauts hopped from island to island.

Mace had forgotten his vehicle’s kick. He nearly rear-ended Henryk coming off the starting line. He corrected too forcefully, hitting the brakes. Rookie mistake. Mace felt his face grow warm, and he cursed under his breath.

Struggling in dead last place. It just wasn’t the same without that antique at his command. Doesn’t matter. Get in there. Introduce yourself!

Henryk and Aya were already breaking ahead, banking into the first curve of the billboard-lined highway. The squadron of roadsters directly in front of Mace lurched forward.

Mace gunned it, eager to stay on them.

“All right, Mace. You’ve crossed the start line.” Tempest spoke in his ears. “You’re a TURBOnaut. Congratulations. Now you better move it unless you want to be the last ’naut to enter the bay. There’s a gap between Unicorn and Radioactive. Strike right up the middle of it.”

Mace saw what she was talking about. The curve eased up, giving him an opening. He leaned forward and unleashed his vehicle’s full fury. His gut swelled; his grip tightened on the wheel. Mace whipped to the right, punched the pedal, and took Radioactive on the inside curve of the highway. He rocketed by the rainbow-colored Unicorn and two more novices and entered the next turn tight on the inside lane, gaining ground for another series of passes.

Somehow, Radioactive had crept back up on him. Fat Man tried to shoot past, but Mace pinned him against the highway wall, and he backed off. The next curve belonged to Mace, and he pressed his advantage, stealing the lead on the inside.

That guy used to be a pro. I’m doing good here!

He let out a war cry, which quickly turned into a grunt of alarm.

A clunky-looking rust-colored roadster came out of nowhere, shooting the gap between Mace and Radioactive. Mace let the junker go by. Its pilot was clearly in over his head. Nothing to worry about.

“Ground-to-water entry in T minus twenty seconds,” Tempest advised.

The highway lifted high above the sprawling city below. Mace gave it some gas, passed several more roadsters. He retook the rusty roadster as the end of the road was coming up. Mace spotted Brown Trout zigging and zagging on the water’s surface, dueling other speedboaters. Mace grinned. Dude had talent.

Henryk and Aya both dropped out of view in front of him, and he caught a quick glimpse of their roadsters morphing into submersibles before he lost them from view.

He entered behind them a second later. Manila Bay was murky. Tempest had warned him about this, but it still came as a shock. Mace could sometimes see only as far as the cockpit glass. He trusted his detectors and his own senses. Aya was not far ahead. Her trajectory was pulling her wide of the first ring.

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