Chapter Text
I.
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
Falling off a hoverboard wasn’t deadly anymore, not since the enactment of the Exy Safety Regulations Committee (subdivision, International Exy League of Operations) and its accompanying constitution of restrictions. It still hurt like a bitch and a motherfucker. The seams between the glowing blue tiles of the hovertrack dug red lines into Neil’s knees and elbows as he stopped moving, making his hair stand up with the electric shock. He groaned.
“Get back up, Josten!” Coach Wymack yelled. Neil tugged on the stubbornly loose Velcro strap of his glove and thudded wearily after his wayward board, which had shot down the track in his absence a good fifteen meters. His friction armor—friccer, as it had been dubbed in irreverent colloquialism—glowed in a red haze around him. Neil hit the powerpack in the middle of his chest to make it calm down and dragged himself back onto his board. His legs and feet tingled with electric feedback. Neil stamped them impatiently on the bumpy rubber surface of his board, feeling the resistance in his shoes as they picked up the magnets under the thin top layer, and angled himself back to the starting line.
“You’ll get it!” Dan called encouragingly from the fence. Her boots dangled from her hand, dark and blade-less. Wymack was running board drills, so the rest of his athletes had cleared off the track to give Neil, Kevin, and Matt the space to fuck up. Besides the three boardists they had two on blades—Dan and Allison—and Renee and Aaron on cycles. Allison had not been pleased when Neil had been signed six months ago.
“We were doing fine with just one man on the team,” she’d complained to Wymack, lifting a nano-manicured hand. “I’m supposed to believe this kid is worth it? He looks like one good poke from a nannybot would knock him off his board. Getting gender-balanced won’t get the League off your ass if he can’t race.”
“Kevin thought he was something,” Wymack had told her. He’d nodded to Neil, who had been surprised; he thought his eavesdropping had been going unnoticed. “And so do I. Put it in a stasis tube and mail it, Reynolds.”
“And we wouldn’t ever be, anyway,” Matt had said, raising an arm to sling it around Neil’s shoulders (Neil swiftly stepped away). “Kevin and I are clearly different genders but the League sticks us in the same category. The gender trinary is a myth.”
“You know what I was about, Boyd, fuck you.”
Aaron snorted. “Dan’s sharing?”
“We’re not-- hey,” Matt protested, nearly tripping over their feet as they checked that Dan wasn’t within earshot. Neil had given up the conversation for pointless soon after that. Despite Neil’s inattention Matt had managed to press their own offer of help upon Neil several times over that first practice, and in the following week. What criteria they had used to determine that Neil was receptive, Neil didn’t know, but Neil’s repeated refusal failed to dampen Matt’s enthusiasm.
To Neil’s astonishment, by the time his first month was up most of the Private Alimony Limited Megacorp (prev. Enterprise Terra Teller Organization) Foxes had extended similar overtures of kindness. Even Allison had come around, once Neil had demonstrated his dedication to their sport. And the bladed tongue he was quickly becoming infamous for. Apparently, before him, Dan had been the most outspoken of the group, and Allison was thrilled to have new material to repeat over her social network.
Now Neil turned automatically to catch Matt’s reassuring grin and fist-bump. “It’s a tricky flip,” Matt said, the blue light of the track glancing off their white teeth. “I can’t get it reliably either.”
“Kevin can.”
“Kevin can do everything,” Matt said. The two of them turned to watch as Kevin effortlessly performed the flip Neil had botched, adding an extra two rotations just because sie could. Being on the same team as Kevin Day was both exhilarating and disheartening. Neil sighed and scratched under his helmet. He hated wearing the thing, but Wymack insisted when they were practicing new maneuvers. Apparently he’d seen too many catastrophic spills back at the beginning of things. Neil wanted to ask if that was why he used a hoverchair but he didn’t quite dare.
Neil was at fifty-three percent accuracy (according to the run-down that popped up on his handheld) when practice ended. Renee and Wymack were the only other Foxes that used tech as outdated as a handheld anymore; the rest of the team cycled through eyescreens like fresh pairs of socks. Though Neil had a habit of forgetting to replace those, too, so it was fitting.
“I’ll send over a list of what you did wrong before oh-sixteen-hundred tonight,” Wymack said, glaring around at them all. He wasn’t chewing them out immediately, which meant practice had gone well. Dan was settling into a satisfied smile. “Minyard, don’t think I didn’t notice you favoring your right side. See the medibot before you leave.”
Aaron slammed his front wheel into the wall of the track, the amorphous plasma-glass absorbing the impact. “The medibot’s shit.”
“And I care about your opinion like I care about last week’s organic refuse. Medibot, or I won’t let you in the next meet.”
“With the way you’ve been lagging lately it might be better to just rely on Renee,” Kevin said.
Aaron sneered. “Another late-night coaching session with Daddy? I’m not the one with one leg, asshole.”
“I need to know I can trust you on the track.”
“Shut up!” Wymack roared. Dan and Matt, the closest to him, jumped; Dan’s blades shot her into a high parabola on the rebound, clearing her so high she had to hold up a hand to avoid smashing her skull into the ceiling. Matt only stayed on their board by dint of grabbing Allison for support. Allison sighed and patted their shoulder as they scrambled to right themselves.
“Shit-talk on your own time,” said Wymack, in marginally quieter tones. “You can trust each other for the same reason I trust you, results and sheer fool-headedness. Now get. I need to start the hydro-cleaner to get the stink of you all out of my track.”
“Love you too, Coach,” Allison said. Wymack grumbled and waved both hands to chase them down the ramp towards the garage and locker rooms.
Matt dragged Neil aside when they were changed back into street clothes.
“I mean it, dude, you’ll get that Cork flip down,” they said. Neil knew from experience that Matt wanted to hug him. Matt knew from experience to restrain themselves to a hand on Neil’s arm. “One bad day isn’t anything.”
“Thanks, Matt,” Neil said. Matt shook their head—they could tell when Neil was upset, which had at first been unsettling but was now almost comforting—and patted Neil’s sleeve.
“Eat real food tonight, yeah? You’ve got the credits for it.”
“Yeah,” Neil agreed. He didn’t see the point of spending the money to get chewable food instead of nutrient capsules, but Matt and Allison and Dan went into hysterics when Neil said anything to that effect. Kevin didn’t care as long as Neil was getting the correct macromolecules in sufficient calorie amounts. Aaron didn’t care, in general. Renee said she understood, which was worst of all.
Neil was the last one out of the locker room, as was his wont, leaving only Wymack to turn off the lights that Neil didn’t have the authorization to kill. The city outside was its usual noisy, multi-colored riot, spilling onto the front ramp from the wide front doors. A gauntlet of fans usually lingered at the end there, waiting. Today there was only one. Strange. Not that Neil minded. The only thing better than one waiting rabid fan was none.
“Aaron’s not here,” he said, when he saw that the fan had blond hair. His suspicions were confirmed as he got closer; the fan had replicated Aaron’s features in what must have been a staggeringly expensive series of microsurgeries, from the downturn of his scowling brow to the hyperextension of his stocky legs. Had probably gotten height surgery, too, to match Aaron’s diminutive stature. Neil himself resented his height. Sporting idol or no, he didn’t understand why anyone would want to be shorter.
Having people surge to look like him had been one of the least-desired parts of Neil’s rise to fame. The first time he had seen his own scars staring back at him from a stranger’s face his chest had gone cold and it had taken Kevin speaking into his ear for a full minute, repeating names and dates and true things, for Neil to return from the suffocating landvan and Lola’s knife-edge grin. And knife-edge knife.
The nice thing about meal capsules was they didn’t require cutlery.
The fan looked at Neil and didn’t move. Neil stuffed his hands into the pockets of his Fox-orange jacket and tried again. The fan’s bike was blocking his exit. Neil might have to hop the fence. “Fuck off. He went home.”
The fan stared back with the one eye visible in profile, hand resting on the plush seat of his still-rumbling landbike. For all outward intents the fan looked bored, yet Neil had the prickling sense he was being examined, in a way kin to the medical sense. He opened his mouth to try again.
“Fuck you,” said Wymack behind Neil, and Neil jolted, moving instinctively to the far side of the walkway as Wymack barreled down it. Wymack was not shy about dealing with clinging fans. And Neil had a moment of relief before Wymack spoiled it by breaking into a grin. Neil stared. “Coming back, Minyard?”
Minyard? Did Wymack not see the difference in this fan’s posture, the spark in his eye that was calculation and not Aaron’s perpetual anger?
The fan snorted. “Tell wonderboy over there I’m not my brother.”
Wymack rolled his eyes. “Neil Josten, meet Andrew Minyard, your teammate’s brother. Twin, in fact.” Neil did not nod, nor did he extend his hand. Neither did Andrew. “Now. If you’re not here to come back to me, why the fuck are you here?”
Before Andrew could respond the sirens went up: Vivaldi’s Winter concerto. A radiation sweep. Andrew turned his head enough for Neil to see his left side. His left eye glowed green; unnatural green, pulsing to the beat. An automated replication of the Mayor’s voice swept through the city, advising all citizens to stay calm and find their way to the nearest shelter. Neil barely heard it, transfixed by the truth Andrew’s eye had betrayed. Dangerous. Volatile. Possibly an ex-con. Neil stepped back.
Wymack swore and jabbed his fingers back towards the track. “Both of you inside. We can continue introductions once we’re off the goddamn street.”
Neil didn’t want to be closed in with someone who had been revealed as a threat to society. He hesitated.
“Or if you’d rather huddle under the fucking minimart,” Wymack said, voice clipped, from where he was scanning the doors back open.
That got Andrew moving. He brushed past Neil, forcing Neil to lean backwards over the railing to avoid him, and slunk inside with nary a glance Wymack’s way, nor a thank-you. He left his bike outside. Surprising; it was a beautiful bike, its owner notwithstanding, and the radiation would damage it.
“I paid for a non-radioactive athlete,” Wymack called to Neil. Neil jumped and rushed inside, ignoring Wymack’s ambient profanity. The door zipped closed behind him. The darkness before the lights clicked on was absolute.
The racetrack itself was the safest spot in the building, housed in lead and protected against bombs, natural disasters, and, of course, radiation. Wymack turned on only the perimeter lights and drove himself up next to the front row of stadium seats. “Get comfortable. Who knows how long they’ll take.”
Neil waited until Andrew sat down and then found a seat a careful distance away. Andrew snorted and kicked his feet up onto the seat in front of him. “Calm down, little rabbit. My eye doesn’t let me eat the truly good kiddies.”
Neil was far from good. Or a ‘kiddie.’ “Rabbit?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
“Extinct mammal, like a fox but smaller," said Wymack distractedly; he was checking his handheld. “Also a lot quieter.”
Andrew ignored the hint. “You thought I was Aaron.”
“I thought you were Aaron’s fan,” Neil corrected. “Are you the twin who’s the knockoff? The one nobody wanted?”
“Nobody wants either of us,” Andrew said. He tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “It must be awfully windy up there on that high hoverboard. Wasn’t your father a criminal too?”
Neil clenched his fists. Professional athletes had their pasts rigorously scrutinized. His parentage was not one of the scarce things he’d managed to keep from the media. If he hadn’t seen his father die before his own natural eyes, he would not have dared debut. “Not anymore. He’s dead.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Andrew’s eyes, the sickening green and the normal, flicked up and down Neil’s hunched form. “Interesting.”
When the announcements came back on telling the citizens they could return to the streets, it was late enough for the underside of the skydome to show emerging constellations. Wymack spun his chair around and told Andrew to drive Neil home.
“What? No,” Neil said, alarmed.
“I already know where your house is,” Andrew said. His face was blank. Neil couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Aaron’s my brother. Do you really think I didn’t investigate every single one of his teammates?”
Good point. “I can run.”
“You will not,” said Wymack. “I don’t feel like dealing with the press shitshow if you get plasma-gunned down in a back alley because you went running after bedtime. Andrew will drive you or I’ll know why.”
Neil opened his mouth to tell Wymack why and closed it again at Wymack’s laser-sharp glare.
Outside, he hung back around Andrew’s bike. It was miraculously unharmed, and Neil saw why when Andrew thumped the back and it lit up. It was a conversion, land and hover, and so it would be radiation-proof as all hovercrafts were.
Andrew swiped a pattern against the back of the seat and it extended. A second set of handles popped out of a slot in the middle. It would be a tight fit.
“Don’t touch me,” said Andrew, swinging a leg over the front of the saddle. Neil was surprised he could get his leg that high with pants that tight.
“I can still run.”
“I don’t want the recycler-bait coming after me. It would be inconvenient.”
Neil glanced back at the stadium, where Wymack was watching to make sure he followed directions (Wymack had learned a lot in the six months after signing Neil, unfortunately). With the strong feeling he was making a poor decision, he clambered onto the back seat, careful to not so much as brush Andrew’s jacket. Andrew fished a helmet out of his pocket and unfolded it. He tried to pass it back. Neil shook his head.
Andrew shrugged, uncaring, and hung the helmet from one of the hand grips instead of placing it over his own head. Great, Neil thought; dangerous and he has a death wish. The bike shuddered and rose a few centimeters off the ground.
“Don’t fall off,” Andrew said, and kicked the pedals.
Neil was grateful for the little personal handlebars. His own distaste for physical contact aside, sheer survival instinct would have made him seize Andrew around the waist to keep his seat. Neil had never liked hoverbikes; a board was a lot easier to handle. All the machinery was unsettling without the security of a closed-in car. He activated his friccer, belated, and hunched against the wind that Andrew’s wide back couldn’t break.
What followed was one of the most terrifying rides of Neil’s life, and he’d once driven a landtruck with his knees after he and his mother had had their arms knocked out by stunners. There were four lanes of traffic in the city, the ground level (land vehicles and pedestrians), the strat-supported skyway, and two layers of hovercraft-only. Andrew zipped immediately to the top two and wove between them, dodging slower vehicles and grinding on the glowing edge of the road so carelessly Neil could feel the snap of the electricity pushing them within the lines. Andrew never quite broke the law—his eye would have sent a signal to the nearest police spire—but he skirted it so closely Neil could see the proverbial underwear lines. When Andrew nudged the speed up another ten kilometers Neil decided to focus on tightening his thighs and not looking down.
“You’re the one Allison’s been bitching about,” Neil said, When Andrew came to a stop—abrupt, of course, nearly throwing Neil into his back. Neil had to clench his abdomen hard to stop himself—in front of Neil’s apartment building. “The man on the Foxes who I replaced.”
It was the only explanation for Andrew both knowing Wymack and for driving the way he did. Only an Exy racer had the kind of skill to keep up with Andrew’s sharp twists and fast turns. Or the recklessness.
Andrew swung off the bike, leaving it running so he had to drop the few centimeters to the sidewalk, and shook it by the handlebars. Neil’s stomach wobbled along with the bike. “Get off.”
“Why did you stop? If you drive like that out here, you must have been amazing.”
Quick as the flash of a track speed-reader. Andrew reached up. His fingers stopped before touching Neil’s skin, stayed by the friction armor. The red glow filled Neil’s vision as he flinched back. Andrew’s lips tightened. He remained almost-holding Neil, and it was as effective as if he were really keeping Neil there by a hand around his throat.
“Because I don’t give a shit,” Andrew enunciated slowly. He held Neil a moment more, mismatched eyes burning into Neil’s, and then released him. Neil put a hand to his own throat where Andrew had come close and realized he was breathing heavily. He scrambled to the ground as quickly as he could. The underlit neo-concrete wavered beneath his rubber soles.
“Get a better apartment. They pay you enough,” said Andrew, straddling the bike seat again. Then he was gone in an electric roar, the leftover static of his passage sparking the back of Neil’s tongue.
There were seventeen Fox-diet-plan-approved restaurants within walking distance of Neil’s apartment. Twelve of them offered delivery, but Neil preferred not to let people know where he lived. His interaction with Andrew had shaken him. He considered staying in and finishing off the blister pack of Nutrio-Lite™ Dinner Capsules (Sport), but he had promised Matt. Neil didn’t like upsetting Matt. They were probably friends.
The city at night was brighter than the city during the day. Screens blared projected images in front of every possible surface, advertising luxury hovercars, weight-loss programs, radioactive jewelry (safely contained within our crystal-clear setting!) and the billions of things the megastores sold that nobody needed. The streets and sidewalks and hoverlanes were lit from within, as were all but the most elderly of buildings. People milled about everywhere, made dark shadows by the light around them, visible only by their whirling glinting eyescreens.
It was easy to disappear in a place like this.
Since hitting national fame Neil had taken to wrapping a thin scarf over his mouth and nose to hide his scars, and pulling a nondescript cap down over what a romantically inclined journalist had once called “an artful tumble of ginger curls” (as opposed to the less flattering descriptors Allison slung at Neil three times a week, trying to bully him into getting a haircut). He bought a bowl of pasta at restaurant number six and folded himself into the cooking-oil smell of the furthest corner to listen to the other patrons’ conversations.
“My daughter’s out at the farms now,” one of the people at the next table was saying, puffing out their chest. “She messaged me this morning. Says they’re planting peas.”
“Peas!” said one of the table-mates. “Plant something useful, yeah? There are kinder leaves I’d like to grow.”
“I don’t think peas have leaves,” said the third person, contemplative, and the table dissolved into amicable squabbling.
Judging them a limited threat, Neil let his attention wander. The half-wallscreen that divided the front of the restaurant from the back was running a docu-series on Lola Malcom, “Surgeon to Second-in-Condemmed: The Story of 'Butcher' Wesninski’s Right-Hand Woman.”
Neil forced himself to sit still, to act as if he were another un-connected person, idly watching the nearest screen while he ate his meal. He should have expected this. It had been nearly a year since Lola’s death. If anything, it was a surprise the filmmakers had waited this long. The actress depicting Lola had a larger chest and a far greater volume of hair than Lola had ever possessed in life. Lola would never have worn her hair loose around her shoulders like that. She always pulled it into a severe ponytail for efficiency. Neil slumped against the back of the booth and shielded his face with the end of the scarf he had been required to unwrap in order to eat.
Aaron was probably watching the programme, Neil thought with a sickly prickle in the back of his throat. Aaron was fascinated with Lola. Neil had been nervous until Matt had drawn him aside and explained to him that Aaron had wanted to be a surgeon, and had fallen from that dubious grace as Lola had—though for a much less murderous reason, Matt had been quick to assure Neil.
“He was good, too,” Matt had said. “He passed all the tests. But…”
“But he used to be a drug addict,” Neil filled in, recalling the archived footage he’d seen when he’d researched his new teammates. Matt, who had shared Aaron’s once-penchant for hydrosprays, winced.
“Passed all the tests except the background check,” said Allison, hooking elbows with Matt to swing herself into the conversation. “If Coach hadn’t picked him up he’d be begging for stimsticks on the street.”
Neil remembered watching Exy under cover of his threadbare sleeping bag while his mother slumbered in the front seat. Whatever impulse drove people to seek out what they couldn’t have, to linger at the edges and snap up the watered droplets that trickled down, it had nearly killed him with the longing. He wondered how quickly Aaron would have run back to the drugs without the abstinence required by Exy.
