Chapter 5
Interlude
History of the Bonebreaker Race
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Luke was one of those who had seen last year's Bonebreaker Race, of course. He hadn't actually been in the race because his father regarded it as too rough for a kid but told Luke that he could be in it when he turned fifteen. This was almost too far away to contemplate.
"It's hard to describe," Luke said. "The Bonebreaker Race is all about who gets the most points, but not just from speed. The teams can also win points for crossing barriers and solving puzzles along the way, as well as trying to hit as many checkpoints as possible. It's like a huge parade trying to move as quickly as possible at the start. Then later it's kind of like a scavenger hunt with the teams trying to find stuff. You might not even see all of the contestants at every checkpoint; they try to hit all of them, but you can miss a point and still have enough points to win the race, as long as you finish with your staff."
"Staff? What staff?" Tom said.
Luke followed Tom into the kitchen. Tom hoped that he could find something edible for them.
"Each of the teams is issued a ceremonial staff, about this long," Luke held his arms out shoulder width. "They use the same staffs every year, each one looks different. They each have a history attached-- some are regarded as lucky, stuff like that. "
Luke continued, "You can't win the race if you don't have your staff. So naturally, the other teams are going to try to take away the staff if they can."
"What did you mean when you said there was a scavenger hunt?" Tom asked, rooting around in the cooler. Ugh: soybeans in the shell. Where did his Dad find this stuff?
"The teams get extra credit for things they try to gather during the race, things that are on a list they get at the start."
"What kind of things?" Tom said. He discovered a loaf of not too old raisin bread. It might not be half-bad with some melted cheese.
"Oh, maybe like a red wool hat, for instance, or a green and orange fuzzy caterpillar or a ring with a square-cut gem. I've read that once a team bribed a judge to get the list of scavenger items before the race. Everyone knew they'd cheated since they arrived at the finish line with all the stuff that was on the list. No one else ever gets everything," Luke said.
Tom was indignant. "Were they disqualified?"
"Oh no, cheating and bribery happen all the time, and there's always the other team trying to take the other team's staff, if they can. Some checkpoints are just a simple scan-- the contestants are digitally identified as they pass through, but some of the checkpoints will include riddles, and if the contestants figure them out, they'll get extra points. Naturally, some of the contestants try to get the puzzles ahead of time," Luke explained. "It's just part of the game."
"Is there anything that isn't allowed?" Tom asked, slicing the cheese and arranging it on the raisin bread.
"You can't actually hurt any of the other teams. That is, they can't cause bodily injury. I've read that in the early years of the contest, almost anything short of killing someone was okay, and sometimes they got really bloody. There really were broken bones in those races, lots of them. It happens now, too, but it's an exception. But trying to slow down other teams is allowed. One year one of the Aeris teams laid out a huge mud pit. They were able to scoot over it with a pulley system they'd set up ahead of time, but the other teams got bogged down in mud up to their knees. Or whatever body part they have instead of knees." Luke took the pieces of bread and put them in the microwave to melt the cheese.
"Did the Aeris team win? The one that made the mud pit?" Tom said.
Luke shook his head. "Several of the other teams made an alliance. Some of them managed to imprison the Aeris team in a cave until the race was over. That's pretty rare, though; mostly, it's every team for itself."
"Is there anyone who doesn't cheat?" Tom wanted to know.
"Oh, sure. The Gracchus teams are pretty honorable. And so are the Nawaks, mostly. There are also the traps; sometimes the people who put the race together put out false clues before the race. There was one year when a mixed team of Aeris and Nawaks paid a huge bribe to get the checkpoint list ahead of time. The only problem was that the list was completely a fake and the team headed out into the wilderness and was gone for the day."
The microwave bell dinged and Tom took out the raisin bread bubbling with cheddar.
"I wish we could be on a team, Human kids, I mean" Tom sighed. Luke would be on a team when he was fifteen. Tom wondered if he would still be on Gracchia by that time.
"Me, too," Luke agreed. A race that involved speed, brains and ruthlessness. What could be more fun?
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In Human history, the first marathon runner was a man named Pheidippides. He ran 26.2 miles at his best speed from the battlefield of Marathon to the city of Athens to carry the message of Athenian victory over the Persians. This news probably prevented a civil uprising by some Athenians who were in cahoots with the Persians. After delivery of his message, Pheidippides fell down dead. Modern Humans ran the distance for fun.
The Bonebreaker Race also had its origin in the wars of Gracchia's past. During one particularly nasty conflict, a unit of Gracchus Blues had been airdropped behind the battlefront to destroy a weapons storage facility. The building was shielded and could not be damaged with aerial bombs. But after the troops had successfully fought their way inside the building, it was revealed to be a lab for advanced, experimental weaponry rather than a storage facility as they'd believed. And the intrusion of foreign troops had triggered a self-destruction sequence. The warning horns started shrieking, and the building's lights began to flash like strobes. On the run out of the building, one enterprising soldier grabbed a sheaf of blueprints off a table, rolled them up and shoved them into a rucksack as she exited the building.
The blast caught the Blues as they were still within shouting distance of the weapons lab. Of the twenty soldiers, four were killed outright, and two more died even as their comrades were attempting to staunch their gushing wounds. Of the remaining fourteen troopers, three could not walk unassisted, and no one was undamaged. They knew they would never make it to the rendezvous point in time for pickup, and their communication relay was utterly smashed.
The story of how eight of the troopers made it back through enemy lines with the weapons specs, six of the group dying along the way, was the foundation of the Bonebreaker Race. The weapons blueprints that the soldiers had purchased dearly with blood and pain were the key that won the war.
Few non-Gracchus knew the historical origins of the race, nor knew that the ceremonial staff given to each team represented the rolled-up blueprints. For most, it was just a great, rough-and-tumble competitive event.
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The next Bonebreaker Race would be held a little less than two months from now. The Gracchus scheduled it as the last big event of the Springtime, in the season of Full Bloom. Interest in the race was always so great even among the Humans that Ms. Tavish scheduled a holiday on the big day and the day after, too, for recovery.
Tom was eager to see his first Bonebreaker Race; even though Abby wasn’t all that interested in sports, he knew that she’d want to hear about it, too.
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