They arrived at the smoke-cloud just as, without warning, two tiny figures burst up from beneath the surface of the harbour twenty metres away from the big black cloud.
Jason and the Bug!
Henry and Martha leapt to their feet.
The crowd - formerly silenced - now positively roared with delight.
The rescue vehicles cut a bee-line for the two boys, now bobbing on the surface. Every TV camera in the area zoomed in on them - but on this closer view, the scene took on a disturbing angle.
The Bug was waving frantically, but Jason wasn’t moving at all.
Thirty seconds earlier:
The Argonaut II lies on the surface of the wide body of water at the end of the Grand Canal, a hundred metres short of the Finish Line. It lies upside-down. Jason surfaces, sees Kamiko Ideki’s Yamaha heading straight for him. He holds his breath, goes under to save the Bug. Four seconds later, Ideki’s Yamaha slams into the Argonaut II. Boom.
Seen from under the surface of the water, it is a different scene altogether.
Things are happening.
Jason sees that the Bug’s seatbelt is jammed. It cannot be undone in time - certainly not in enough time for them to get away from the blast zone of the impending crash.
So inside four seconds, Jason does the only thing he can think of.
Straddling the Bug’s upside-down seat, effectively sitting on his trapped brother’s lap, he yanks on the ejection lever.
Shoooooooom!
A supercharged finger of bubbles lances down and away from the overturned Argonaut - it is the Bug’s seat ejecting not upward but downward into the blue-green world of the harbour, with both brothers sitting on it - a split-second before the Argonaut is hit from above by the Kamikaze and explodes in a burst of roiling bubbles.
The water ‘catches’ the rocketing ejection seat on its downward flight, slows the boys about thirty metres below the surface.
The Bug is still screaming, blowing bubbles.
Jason has been gripping his seatbelt’s clasp for the whole of their downward flight and suddenly - snap! - it comes free.
The Bug wriggles out from his seat - and sees that Jason isn’t moving. He grabs Jason and kicks for the surface, powered by adrenalin, expelling air as he rises. He cannot know that his brother’s lungs are filled with water - water that rushed into his open mouth as they plummeted down through the blue haze.
They hit the surface together and the Bug starts waving frantically, trying to get someone, anyone, to come and help his unconscious brother - the brother who risked his life to save his.
CHAPTER TWO
Jason dreamed.
As he did so, his mind raced with fleeting images: Of himself being loaded onto a hovercopter - of shouting voices - someone pumping on his chest - flying over Venice II with the sun in his eyes, and then abruptly coughing, vomiting water, expelling it from his lungs…and then breathing, inhaling and exhaling, wonderful deep breaths of glorious air…and then falling fast asleep.
Voices in his dreams: ‘He’s going to be all right, Mr Chaser,’ a man’s voice said calmly. ‘He’s just sleeping now. You can go back to the hotel. We’ll call you when he regains full consciousness.’
‘I’m not going anywhere till my son wakes up,’ Henry Chaser’s voice replied.
At one point, Jason woke briefly, just long enough to see that he was in a bed and wearing pyjamas. The bed was in a hospital of some sort and it was the dead of night - moonlight streamed in through a nearby window.
And in that brief instant, he saw his father slouched in a chair under the window, sitting upright but asleep, his chin all bristly and unshaven, his clothes rumpled. They were the same clothes he’d been wearing on race day.
His father hadn’t left his bedside.
Jason fell asleep again.
Then the nightmares came.
They all involved crashing a speeding hover car. Hitting the entry pillars of a mountainside tunnel. Slamming into a cliff-face near the Race School. And worst of all - in the most often repeated nightmare - Jason would find himself rushing at the surface of the Grand Canal, his car out of control, his steering wheel completely unresponsive.
And as in all the other nightmares, a nanosecond before he hit the water, his eyes would dart open and he would find himself lying in his bed, breathless, drenched in sweat.
Then, one day, sunshine hit Jason’s eyes and he awoke fully.
He opened his eyes to immediately see his father staring at him from his chair, smiling. ‘Hey there, son.’
‘Hi, Dad,’ Jason’s throat was dry. He blinked, sat up. ‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘Almost two days now,’ Henry Chaser checked his watch.
‘Two days…’
‘All of Italy has been waiting to hear that you’re okay. You’re a hero, saving your brother like you did - while an out-of-control hover car was screaming right at you. I’m very proud of you, son. Very proud. You could have got away, but you didn’t. You didn’t leave your brother behind.’
And Henry hugged Jason. Hard. ‘Good boy.’
Half an hour later, Martha Chaser and the Bug rushed into the hospital room, followed by Sally McDuff and Scott Syracuse.
Martha enveloped Jason in a bear-hug, as did the Bug, who whispered in his ear.
‘No problem, buddy,’ Jason replied. ‘You wouldn’t have left me.’
Sally said, ‘All right, Hero. I tell you, when you lose, you really do lose in style. You like going out with a bang, don’t you? Although, I have to say, reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated.’
She handed him a copy of Il Corriere Della Sera, the Italian daily newspaper, headlined ‘THE DEATH OF JASON CHASER‘ and accompanied by a motion-photo of the Argonaut II being hit by Kamiko Ideki’s Yamaha and exploding into flames.
Sally explained: ‘Apparently, the Corriere Della Sera prepared two editions for today’s paper - one with you alive, the other with you dead - and they accidentally printed 1,000 copies of the wrong edition. I think I’m going to get this framed.’
Jason snuffed a laugh.
‘How’s Mr Lombardi taking it?’ he asked.
‘At first he was horrified that you might’ve died driving one of his cars. But then, when he was informed that you were okay - ‘
‘WHERE IS HE!’ a loud voice boomed from the corridor outside Jason’s room.
Umberto Lombardi strode into the room, his eyes wide. ‘Where is the young man who destroyed my car!’
Jason shrank into his pillow, not entirely sure if Lombardi was really angry or just faking it.
Lombardi stopped in front of him…and his angry face relaxed into a wide mischievous grin. ‘I just have to know, Young Signor Chaser, what does it feel like to destroy - destroy - million-dollar Ferrari?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lombardi.’
‘Bah! Forget it. It’s insured - and I love claiming big payouts from insurance companies! God knows I pay them enough in premiums! But you, you’re a hero, boy! Which means you’ve made me a guy who employs heroes. I just hope you don’t mind me basking in the reflected light of your magnificent glow!’
‘You can bask all you want, sir. I’m still sorry about the car.’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Lombardi said kindly. ‘Ferraris come and go, but young men like you’ - he winked - ‘come once in a lifetime.’
* * *
But Jason couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Nor could he rest.
As soon as he was able to, he asked for a video-disc copy of the final moments of the race and he watched his crash over and over again.
He saw his car overtake Trouveau’s Renault - moving into 5th place - then saw it swing round the final lefthand turn, banking under the Accademia Bridge…before without warning, its tailfin just exploded to nothing.
Then he watched in horror as the black-and-yellow Ferrari arced down into the water, where it tumbled and splashed and rolled, before it stopped abruptly, ups
idedown.
And then the Yamaha screamed into it.
Boom.
What the hell had happened to his tailfin? he thought. What had caused it to explode?
It was just too weird. And since there was nothing left of the Argonaut II, it was impossible to inspect the wreckage.
But Jason knew one thing: tailfins didn’t just explode by themselves. Sure, a broken tailfin might get rammed and drop into the airpath of a car’s own thrusters, but such instances were rare, and by all appearances, Jason’s tailfin hadn’t been damaged in any way.
It had just spontaneously exploded.
The truth was clear to Jason: someone had tampered with his car in order to put him out of the Italian Run.
And now, more than anything, he wanted to know who that had been.
* * *
At one point, as he was watching the video-disc for the thousandth time, his mother tapped lightly on the door.
‘Hello dear,’ Martha Chaser said. ‘There’s someone here who was hoping to see you.’
Martha stepped aside - to reveal Dido, standing shyly in the corridor behind her.
Jason’s face broke out in a wide grin. ‘H…hi,’ he said.
‘I’ll leave you two alone,’ Martha said, leaving.
Dido entered Jason’s hospital room tentatively. ‘How’re you feeling?’
Just at the sight of her, Jason felt a lot better.
CHAPTER THREE
As Jason regained his strength over the next two days, Scott Syracuse informed him of what had been happening back at the Race School in his absence.
When Jason had come to Italy, he’d been in fourth place on the Race School Championship Ladder. During the week of the Italian Run, he’d missed three races. But now, with his hospitalisation, he would miss at least one more.
The Ladder looked like this:
INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL
CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER
AFTER 40 RACES
DRIVER NO. CAR POINTS
1. XONORA, X 1 Speed Razor 266
2. KRISHNA, V 31 Calcutta-IV 259
3. WASHINGTON, I 42 Black Bullet 247
4. BECKER, B 09 Devil’s Chariot 240
5. PIPER, A 16 Pied Piper 235
6. SCHUMACHER, K 25 Blue Lightning 229
7. WONG, H 888 Little Tokyo 225
8. CHASER, J 55 Argonaut 217
Jason was stunned. Just missing three races had seen him drop from 4th to 8th. Xavier, of course, was still coming first, he’d been so far ahead when he’d left.
And Jason was well aware that it was only the top four racers who got to participate in the New York Challenger Race at the end of the season.
Investigations would have to wait.
It was time to return to Race School.
Jason was packing his bags, getting ready to leave his hospital room, when a nurse arrived, carrying an envelope.
‘This just came for you,’ she handed him the envelope. Jason opened it, and frowned. It read:
SO? HOW ARE THOSE NIGHTMARES GOING?
RUN BACK TO THE PLAYPEN, LITTLE BOY.
REGARDS, FABIAN.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL HOBART, TASMANIA
Jason returned to Race School to find that during his short absence, the world certainly hadn’t stopped.
Lessons were still happening in classrooms; the pits rippled with practice sessions; cars darted every which way, shooming up the inland highways or whizzing around Storm Bay.
Since he was still barred from racing for a further two days, Jason was restricted to classroom work only.
At his first lunchtime back, Ariel Piper sat down beside him.
‘Hey! Look who’s back!’ she exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘The only racer in the world crazy enough to eject downward! How’re you feeling?’
‘Better every day,’ Jason said. ‘Can’t wait to get back out on the track.’
Ariel said, ‘Hey, thanks again for letting me take on Fabian in that exhibition race. That was very cool of you.’
‘I thought you deserved the chance to take him down.’
Ariel smiled. ‘Jase. You can’t imagine the impact that race has had on me…and on a lot of girls around the world. You should see the fan mail I’ve been receiving. Lot of chicks wanting to be racers. Lot of girls who were thrilled to see Fabian go down. It made an impact. Thanks for the opportunity.’
‘No problem. I was happy just to get some peace and quiet to practise,’ Jason said. ‘Looks like you’ve been racing well back here, too. What are you on the Ladder now? 5th?’
‘Yuh-huh.’ Ariel grinned. ‘One win, one second, and one seventh. 23 points in three races. That race against Fabian gave me my fire back. My desire. I’m coming 5th now, and the Top 4 beckons. I wanna go to New York.’
Jason nodded, saw the fire in her eyes. The old Ariel was back.
‘Good for you,’ he said.
As he spoke, he looked around the lunch hall, and noticed that a few new friendships seemed to have formed in his absence: Horatio Wong was sitting at Barnaby Becker’s and Xavier Xonora’s table. So was the young Mexican driver, Joaquin Cortez. At the moment, Xavier’s mentor, Zoroastro, was talking to Wong and Cortez and the two lesser drivers were listening to him intently, occasionally nodding.
Ariel saw them, too. ‘Yes, hmmm. Zoroastro and Barnaby Becker have been doing a lot of networking while you’ve been away. A lot. They had lunch with Wong and Cortez every day last week. I once even saw Zoroastro having dinner with your buddy, Isaiah Washington, one night.’
‘What do you think it means?’ Jason asked.
Ariel was silent for a moment.
Then she said seriously: ‘We’re coming to the business end of the season. Everything is up for grabs. The Championship is on the line. Four places in the New York Challenger Race are there to be won. Races are gonna get harder, too - longer, more challenging, more demanding. And don’t forget that the last ten races are run under Pro Rules - demag strips everywhere, Dead Zones, driver-over-the-line finishes.
‘We’re entering a whole new world of racing, Jason, and I think Zoroastro and his boys are creating a few strategic alliances. I get the feeling Race School is about to get very, very serious.’
Ariel couldn’t have been more right.
The next day, Jason sat in the stands with Sally and the Bug and watched Race 41. It was so frustrating, just watching, but fortunately this would be the last race they’d have to sit out. The doctors had given Jason the all-clear to race in Race 42.
Sitting with them was one other person: Dido. It turned out that the last few weeks of the Race School season coincided with her school holidays in Europe, so (at her parents’ expense) she had come to Tasmania to support Team Argonaut.
True to Ariel’s prophecy, Race 41 was a fiercely contested race - Race School had acquired a new level of intensity.
It was also Xavier Xonora’s first School race since his impressive fourth placing in the Italian Run.
He didn’t disappoint.
He won Race 41 convincingly, prompting many to say that racing at the pro level had steeled him, made him an even better racer than he already was - if that were at all possible.
After the race was over, Sally and the Bug headed off to get some dinner, discreetly leaving Jason and Dido alone in the grandstand.
‘So,’ Dido said, ‘you must be busting to get back out there.’
‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Jason said.
Dido turned, surprised. ‘You’re not busting to get out there?’
‘You wanna know something funny,’ Jason said. ‘I’ve never been afraid of getting inside a hover car in my life…until now.’
Dido frowned, but didn’t speak.
Jason looked away, biting his lip, as if he was deciding whether or not to reveal more.
He took the plunge.
‘Everyone assumes that I’m fearless, Dido. That I’m not afraid of the high speeds, and that I just ca
n’t wait to get back out on the racetrack. But I’m not fearless. I never was. It’s fear that creates adrenalin and it’s adrenalin that makes me a good racer. But right now, I’m scared. Dead scared of getting back in the Argonaut.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Every night I have nightmares, nightmares about my tailfin exploding or some other racer swiping it off during a race, causing me to lose control and crash. Now, I’ve crashed before, lots of times, but every time I crashed in the past, I knew why. But in Italy, I lost my tailfin for no reason that I can figure out. I lost control and I don’t know why.
‘I used to love the speed, love racing. But now…now I’m not so sure. I’m terrified of getting in that car again, and even more terrified that I’ll fail and let my family and my team-mates down.’ He turned to her. ‘Dido, what happened in Italy changed me. I’m not sure I can be the racer I was before Italy.’
Dido looked at him closely.
Then she gently grabbed his hand. ‘You know, my uncle once told me something about heroes: a hero is not a person who doesn’t get afraid. No. A hero is a person who takes action even when they are afraid. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, Jason. Take it slowly; one step at a time. And know this. I think you can do it.’
And with that, she leaned forward quickly and kissed him on the cheek.
Then she dashed off, dancing down the stairs of the grandstand, leaving Jason delightfully stunned by her kiss.
CHAPTER FIVE
RACE 42 (SUPERSPRINT)
RACETIME: 29 MINS 32 SECONDS
LAP: 29 OF 50
On Lap 29 of Race 42, as they both shot down the southern coastline of Tasmania at full speed, Horatio Wong cut wildly - and inexplicably - across Jason’s rearend and smashed clean through his tailfin, blasting it into a thousand pieces and thus causing Jason to lose all control of the Argonaut, just like in the Italian Run.