The entire freeway was lined with spectactors three hundred deep.
Ahead of him, he could make out the tailfins of the two cars that had started immediately before him. Twenty seconds wasn’t much of a head-start and they were already duelling.
And then - bam! - Jason swung into the first Chute section of the course and suddenly he was right on the tails of the two racers ahead of him. They’d both had to slow at a gateway when neither would give way and suddenly Jason was on their tails - trying to gauge whether or not he could overtake them before the next narrow aperture.
And that was the thing: multiple cars in a Chute was little more than a high-speed game of ‘Chicken’ - a who-dares-wins race to each aperture - all played out at a deadly 700 km/h.
Jason waited for his moment, for his chance to make his move when suddenly - shoom! - he was himself overtaken by the car that had started behind him, in 13th place.
The car - a member of the Boeing-Ford factory team - had screamed by so close that it actually scratched a chunk of paint off Jason’s right wingtip.
‘Damn it! Never saw him!’ Jason yelled.
‘ Make a note, kiddo. We ain’t in Kansas anymore,’ Sally’s voice said in his earpiece.
And then suddenly, Jason was out of the Chute section and he beheld Florence ahead of him, its famous terracotta Dome rising above a low cityscape in the centre of a wide hazy valley. Every roof on every hill was covered with spectators.
Jason ripped down the Arno River, swooping under its famous bridges. As he swept under the Ponte Vecchio, Jason went left, around a bridge pylon, while the Boeing-Ford that had got him in the Chute went right, and as they came out on the other side, Jason was in front and the crowd on the bridge cheered.
The race shot northward, through Padua - coming tantalisingly close to the ultimate finish of the race, Venice II - and the monumental crowds there.
Giant hover grandstands, floating above the hills, pivoted in mid-air to watch the cars go by, before turning back around, ready to catch them when they would come through in about two hours’ time, at the business end of the race.
Then it was into Milan - the cars banking round the great Sforza Castle, before heading into the most treacherous part of the race: the vertiginous cliff-edged roads and tunnels of the Alps.
As always happened in the Italian Run, the field bunched up on the tight twisting roads of the Alps - and here the top racers made their moves.
Showing exceptional skill, Xavier climbed two places, to 7th, whipping past Etienne Trouveau of the Renault team and Kamiko Ideki, the notoriously unpredictable Japanese driver for the Yamaha team, known to fans everywhere as ‘Kamikaze’ Ideki.
Back in 12th, Jason also moved up the field, first taking the Australian driver, Brock Peters, before sweeping past his own team-mate for the Lombardi team, Pablo Riviera, in a daring round-the-outside manoeuvre.
Up to 10th…
And then the first crash of the race occurred and it caused a sensation - because it was the 3rd-placed driver, Dwayne Lewicki of the US Air Force team, who’d bowed out. Lewicki had thundered at 450 km/h into the arched entryway of a tunnel as he’d tried to overtake the 2nd-placed Fabian.
Lewicki had tried to duck inside Fabian, but the Frenchman wasn’t going to have any of it, and he’d held his line as he’d entered the tunnel, cutting across the bow of Lewicki’s fighter-jet-shaped car - the razor-sharp blades of Fabian’s nosewing shearing the left wing of Lewicki’s nosewing clean off, causing Lewicki to lose control and slam into the archway.
Everyone moved up a place.
Romba was out in front.
Fabian, 2nd.
Xavier, 6th.
Jason, 9th.
In the top ten…
Down through the mountains, sweeping through Milan again, then into the third Chute section of the course between Milan and the French border, before making a tight hairpin at the glorious white-walled city of Nice.
And then the racers hit the coastline.
This was the most spectacular section of the course - with every single kilometre of the Italian coastline teeming with crowds.
One after the other, the lead cars shot down the coastline, shooting through faux-Roman archways that rose up out of the sea a hundred or so metres out from the shoreline. The archways were in a staggered formation - forcing the racers to sweep down the coast in broad S-shaped swoops rather than in a continuous straight line, the whole section - like all the other ‘ocean’ sections of the course - flanked by red demagnetising lights.
As the ocean swept by under his nosewing, Jason saw on his dials that his mags were way down on magnetic power by now, severely worn by the tight traverse through the mountains and the three Chute sections.
But that was normal - they were coming up on the pit section at Fiumicino Airport outside Rome, and everyone would be pitting there.
The Argonaut II screamed down the coast at almost full speed, 810 km/h, ever-closing on the hover car in front of it: Car No. 40, the Vizir, the second car of the Renault team, driven by Etienne Trouveau.
Jason saw Trouveau’s tailfin, saw it wobble slightly after whipping through an archway, losing the ‘line’ needed to take the next Roman archway properly.
So Jason seized the opportunity, and gunned the Argonaut II and - to the delight of the crowd - swept past the Vizir in a rare straight-line passing move.
He shot through the next archway - now in 8th position - and flying on adrenalin.
Moments later, he beheld the flashing yellow hoverlights indicating the entrance to the Fiumicino Pits.
He banked left, aiming for the pits, thrilled to be where he was…
…when disaster struck.
CHAPTER TEN
Etienne Trouveau, it seemed, hadn’t appreciated Jason’s cheeky passing manoeuvre.
As Jason had banked to enter the pits, the Frenchman had accelerated unexpectedly and in a shockingly rude manoeuvre, cut across Jason’s nose - swiping it with his bladed Renault nosewing, slicing the left-hand wing of Jason’s own nosewing clean off!
Jason watched in apoplectic horror as a piece of his car’s nose fell away and tumbled into the sea like a skimming stone: a few bounces and a splash. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trouveau disappear into the pits to the left -
Then reality struck.
Hard.
810 km/h is not a speed at which you want to lose control.
The Argonaut II lost control. First it lurched left - then it pitched dramatically to the right - touching the demag ripple strips, causing the car’s magnetic power levels to plummet - before Jason engaged his compressed-air thrusters to get them off the debilitating strips.
The Argonaut II shot clear off the track, out to the right, out over the ripple strips - missing the entry to the pits completely - setting off in a wide arc out over the ocean, its mag levels plummeting even further down into the red.
The Argonaut II banked away to the right, out over the sea, out towards the far western horizon and Jason realised to his horror that after the collision, he could only steer to the right.
Then things got worse.
The Argonaut II slowed. Dramatically.
Thanks to the ripple strip, its magneto drives were now almost dry. The Argonaut II - with a broken nosewing and almost zero power - was now limping out over the open sea, only capable of turning right.
‘Jason!‘ Sally’s voice called in his ear. ‘You okay?’
‘We’re okay…’ Jason said through clenched teeth. ‘Just pissed. And I can only turn right.’
‘What the hell was that? Is every French driver in this industry a bastard?’
‘Just stand by, Sally. We’re not out of this yet. We’re gonna try and make it to the pits…’
‘How?’
‘If we can only turn right, then we’ll do it by only turning right…’
The Argonaut II puttered around in a painfully slow, painfully wide circle, a circuit easily several
kilometres in circumference. But a circle that would end at - the pit entry.
‘But you’re going to have to come back over the demag strip,’ Sally said.
‘Then I hope we have enough power to take the hit,’ Jason said.
The Argonaut II limped around in its arc, at a pathetic 15 km/h - it was almost unnatural to see a hover car moving at such a slow pace.
‘Bug,’ Jason called, ‘do some calculations. How long is this circle going to take us?’
The Bug did the math in his head in about three seconds. He told Jason the answer.
‘Three minutes!’ Jason exclaimed. ‘Minutes! Damn…’ As Jason well knew, hover car races were won by seconds, not minutes. Once you went down by more than a minute, your race was run.
But still he flew on.
As he did so, the Bug kept an eye on the pits, on the other cars in the field that were whizzing into them at full speed.
The Bug counted them off: 15th…20th…25th…26th.
He informed Jason.
The 26th car had entered the pits.
They were now officially coming last.
Three minutes later, they came full circle and Jason lined them up with the entrance to the Fiumicino Pits.
By this stage, every other car in the race had sped off into the distance at full speed, leaving Jason alone, foundering off the coast near the Fiumicino Pits.
But his situation had provided the crowd camped on the rocky coastline with a special spectacle - they were enjoying watching him struggle and as such, were cheering him on, shouting chants, clapping in unison, willing the Argonaut II into the pits.
Jason eyed the demag lights directly ahead of him, blocking his way to the pits. The last hurdle.
He checked his mag level display:
MAG 1 2.2% 2.3% MAG 2
MAG 3 4.1% 2.4% MAG 4
MAG 5 2.2% 2.3% MAG 6
Five of his six mags were on 2% power, one a little over 4%.
As he’d learned back at Race School, back in Race 25, a standard run over a demag ripple strip robbed you of 3% of magnetic power.
‘I only need one per cent to make it,’ he said grimly.
But as he also knew, if the Argonaut II lingered for too long over the ripple strip, it would lose more magnetic power than that - all his power - and that meant dropping out of the sky and into the water…
‘Hang on, Bug. Here we go.’
The Argonaut II banked round towards the pit entrance at 15 km/h, heading right for the line of red demag lights.
The crowd hushed.
Jason held his breath.
The Argonaut II crossed the demag strip.
Jason’s instrument panel squealed in panic, and his mag levels instantly changed:
MAG 1 0.0% 0.0% MAG 2
MAG 3 1.1% 0.0% MAG 4
MAG 5 0.0% 0.0% MAG 6
The display started flashing and blinking like a Christmas tree. Red warning lights blazed everywhere.
The Argonaut II cleared the ripple strip - and by the time it did so, five of its mags were dead.
But one remained.
With a bare 1.1% power left on it, bearing Jason’s entire car all on its own.
The Argonaut II was still moving - by the skin of its teeth.
The crowd on the coastline roared with delight.
And so, creeping, crawling, hobbling like a wounded soldier leaving the field of battle, the Argonaut II entered the pits -
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Clank! - Clunk! - Hiss-wapp!
The Lombardi Team Tarantula worked fast.
Old mags came off. New mags went on. Compressed air hoses attached. And coolant fluid went in.
Every indicator on Jason’s dash display sprang upward - refreshed, renewed, recharged.
Jason looked around the pit area. It was largely empty - all of the other pit crews had left, heading for the second pit area in Pescara on the other side of the country.
Jason searched the area, half hoping to see Scott Syracuse somewhere nearby, but it was to no avail. Syracuse hadn’t come.
Then the Tarantula lifted clear of the Argonaut II and Sally smacked the back of Jason’s helmet: ‘Time to get back in this race! Go! Go! Go!’
Jason gunned everything he had and the Argonaut II blasted out of the pits, four whole minutes behind the pack, and headed back out into the race.
Behind him, Sally immediately started loading up her stuff - she had to get to Pescara.
The main pack of racers rocketed down the toe of the boot that is Italy before shooting through the Straits of Messina and thus commencing the Figure-8 round the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.
The crowds gathered on the coastlines of both islands cheered loudly as the jet fighter-like cars shot past them at a cool 800 km/h.
But the loudest cheer of all came for the lonely last-placed car: the No.2 car for the Lombardi Team, driven by the kid from the Race School, shooting along at full speed despite the fact that it was a hopeless four minutes behind the others.
The crowds loved it.
This lone Ferrari F-3000 couldn’t possibly win the race and yet it was still trying.
Thanks to countless headset cell-phones, word travelled along the coastline ahead of the Argonaut II, so that when it arrived at a new spot, a super-gigantic Mexican Wave followed alongside it, the crowds urging it on.
The Lombardi Team hover-trailer carrying Sally McDuff across Italy shoomed down the freeway in a lane specifically reserved for race crews heading for the pit area in Pescara.
Neither Sally nor her driver saw the two black Ford hover cars cruising down the highway behind them, keeping pace with their trailer…
…watching them.
When the main pack shot through the Straits of Messina for the second time and rounded the toe of Italy, Alessandro Romba was in the lead, closely followed by Fabian and the second USAF car, with Xavier Xonora now having (impressively) moved up into 4th place.
Jason had closed to within two-and-a-half minutes of the main pack but with the race now three-quarters over, barring a miracle, he was just making up the numbers.
Then the main pack bent right, shooting down the heel of Italy’s boot - none of them taking the bait and entering the famously difficult short cut.
Two-and-a-half minutes later, as the rest of them were rounding the base of the heel, Jason sighted Taranto, the town at the mouth of the short cut.
The Bug said something.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Jason replied, ‘I am thinking about taking the short cut. Why? Why not? We’re screwed as we are. Besides, you never know. We could get lucky.’
The Bug offered some more advice.
‘Ouch, man,’ Jason said. ‘Don’t hold back or anything.’
But the Bug wasn’t finished.
‘I know what Syracuse said,’ Jason retorted. ‘But he isn’t here now, is he?’
‘I wouldn’t say that…’ a voice said suddenly in Jason’s earpiece.
It was the voice of Scott Syracuse.
* * *
Scott Syracuse sat in the back of the moving Lombardi Team trailer, alongside Sally McDuff, as it sped across Italy.
He had arrived in Rome only twenty minutes earlier, and had forced his way through the crowds, trying to get to the Fiumicino Pit Lane to meet Sally. But she’d left by the time he’d got there, so he’d chased her trailer down the highway in his black Ford and waved her down from the window of his speeding car.
As soon as he was on board the trailer, Sally had put him in radio contact with Jason.
‘Mr Syracuse!‘ Jason’s voice came in over the speakers. ‘You came!’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here earlier, Jason,’ Syracuse said, ‘but there have been some problems at the Race School in your absence and I couldn’t get away. But now that I’m here, I’m going to get you back in this race.’
‘How?’
Syracuse focused his eyes on the horizon. ‘When you hit Taranto, Jason, take the short cut. If I can, I?
??m going to guide you through it.’
As if the Italian crowds needed anything more to cheer about, they positively exploded when they saw the Argonaut II abruptly veer left and shoot towards the yawning Tunnel of Taranto, the wide concrete entry to the short cut.
The Argonaut II - last and alone and absolutely delighting the masses - blasted into the tunnel.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A misty concrete-walled labyrinth, illuminated only by the Argonaut II‘s floodlights.
Jason slowed, surveying the tunnel system. The first junction he came to contained six forks.
Syracuse’s voice said calmly: ‘First junction, take the ten o’clock fork.’
Jason did it, banking left, heading down into the Earth.
The next junction also had six forks. And the next and the next.
But Syracuse’s directions were precise. ‘Take the two o’clock fork - Straight ahead - ninety degree right-hand turn - ‘
Down they went, deeper into the tunnel system, before suddenly the tunnel-junctions became even more complex: now they contained eight forks - with two extra tunnels now shooting vertically upwards and downwards from the centre of each new fork.
‘ Vertically down,’ Syracuse said when they came to the first eight-pronged junction.
‘Down?’ Jason queried. ‘We’re gonna hit the Earth’s core soon.’
‘Yes. Down,’ Syracuse said firmly.
But then he directed them sideways once again and after a few more junctions their tunnels started to take an upwardly-sloping trajectory.
‘Now take the ten o’clock fork at the next junction,’ Syracuse said, ‘And get ready…’
‘Get ready?’ Jason asked. ‘For what - ‘
He took the next fork as directed and - bam - his eyes were assaulted by blinding sunlight and the sight of the glittering Adriatic Sea, the blue cloudless sky, the seaside mansions of the city of Bari, and the rugged eastern coast of Italy stretching away from him to the north.