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5.
When Julie first began exploring Motorcity, she had a hard time sneaking away on her own. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t get down—if you knew where to look, there were paths into those slums everywhere—but it was hard to get away from her father’s watchful eyes. Deluxe had drones everywhere for the betterment of society and the safety of their citizens. They were also there to keep Deluxians from defecting. She never thought of herself as defecting, just that she was getting a view of the world. Her father always said she never knew the kinds of horrors he was keeping her safe from. So she wanted to know.
When she needed help finding out, though, she had no one she could turn to. None of her friends had the same passion to explore the world outside Deluxe. Even Claire, her closest friend, didn’t. Especially not Claire, Julie knew. Claire was fashionable, taking the KaneCo jumpsuits and making them her own, but she thought Motorcity was too clashing, too scary. Which was why it surprised Julie when one day, hanging out in Julie’s room, Claire held up a dark green vest. Claire wasn’t the type to like that kind of contraband.
Oh yeah. That was hers, bought on her last trip to Motorcity.
Julie stammered, “Wh-Where did you find that?”
“It was, like, in your closet. I was just looking for something to fix my hair, but there wasn’t anything cool but this,” Claire said.
“Look, it’s not--”
Claire interrupted confidently, “You’ve been down in those slums.” Julie didn’t have a response for that. It was true, and could get her in serious trouble, even if she was the daughter of Abraham Kane himself. She sighed and nodded. Claire sighed in response and said, “Like, if you want to go there, it’s none of my business, but you totally need to hide your stuff better!” Julie blinked. Claire continued, “Maybe if you, like, made it look like the rest of these, it wouldn’t be so hard?”
Julie thought hard before replying, “I could disguise it with a hologram…”
“Sounds awesome!”
Even if Claire didn’t like Julie’s trips down, she’d do whatever it took to keep her best friend safe. Claire even began to help, in her own way, get her down into Motorcity. She gave advice on how to best avoid using her own terminals, the ones with the IP addresses pointing straight at her. She’d also keep an alibi handy for her. Julie would come back and tell stories of the city below. About the dark alleys, the twisted metal, the colors and sights. Claire said once she sounded like an old tourist, and maybe Claire was right.
So Julie stopped looking at solely the sights and began to look at the people. The people hiding from her father’s bots. The people in need of help. During one trip, just when one nearby bot attack got to be too much, two cars drove by. Loud, polluting, metal heaps firing lasers at the bots. She told awed stories about them to Claire day after day, until Claire finally told her, “Why don’t you go join that crazy gang?” Julie walked to the door. “Julie? …Julie!”
Julie just smiled.
4.
When Julie started making more frequent trips down, learning the plight of the Motorcitizens, she leaned about the Burners. A roving band of drivers who fought Kane, the Burners were respected for their achievements despite their being three teenagers. Julie asked around town to gain enough information to get a meeting with them. It was one of the biggest surprises of her life when her father’s old golden boy, Mike Chilton, drove up to the meet in an old green car. There was a blond screaming in his passenger seat, just visible through the windshield and audible for miles. Both boys were dressed in the grungy colors of the city, motor oil stains on their clothes hiding the dirt that caked the fabric. Julie took all she could in about their appearance to drown out the memory of her father’s angry mourning of his star cadet’s betrayal. She’d seen the boy in a picture once before then, back when her father was dropping unsubtle hints that she should give him a shot, but judging by his open smile and extended, weaponless hand, he’d probably never seen one of her.
“Hi,” he said, “I’m Mike Chilton.”
She reached out and shook his hand. “I’m Julie. I want to join the Burners!”
Mike looked shocked for a moment before his smile broadened, lighting up his face like a child on their birthday. He stumbled over his words in his delight, “Great! We can always use the help! Can you drive?”
“No, but I’m willing to learn,” she said, adding, “and I can get info from Kane!”
Mike gestured at the car and said, “Hop in and you can tell me more.”
“Mikey,” the blond said, still a little loud as if his screams were still clogging his ears, “We’ve only got two seats. How’s she going to ride?”
“I’m glad you asked, Chuckles!”
A few minutes of boisterous conversation later, Julie found herself in the highly-secured passenger’s seat of Mike’s car, Chuck sitting behind Mike in the driver’s seat. He’d said something about Mike holding him in and she quickly understood what he meant once they accelerated up past 200 miles per hour. She didn’t actually get a chance to talk about her proposal during the drive. When they came to a stop, and Julie’s ears stopped ringing, they were at a small restaurant-looking area. There were car parts scattered around the ground, none of which were recognizable at all to her, and a slightly more organic stench in the air. Compared to the crisp, lightly perfumed air in Deluxe, Motorcity always smelled polluted; like exhaust fumes, rotting wood, and burning metal. Here, though, it smelled like someone had left a few dozen food cubes in a shoe under their bed for weeks. Not that she knew how that smelled.
Mike was already out and helping Chuck get out when she began trying to undo the numerous straps holding her in. She didn’t make it out until Chuck came around and undid them himself, telling her even he still got stuck in them sometimes, no big deal. She stepped out of the car—or as she now called it, the amazing metal death trap—in time to see Mike wave up at the restaurant and shout, “Hey Jacob! We’ve got a guest!”
She straightened up and looked in the direction he had waved in, expecting the third Burner. Instead, an older man walked over to the edge of the platform with a muffin tray. She met his eyes and froze. What were the odds the Jacob who was apparently the man behind the Burners was also her father’s old partner Jacob? The one who had left long before her birth, but whose name still came up at least once a year, now alongside Mike’s as the two most traitorous dogs of the slums.
Oh. Maybe those odds were higher than she’d figured.
The man looked just as surprised to see her, though. Her resemblance to her late mother could be blamed for that, she was sure. Mike, ever chipper, seemed oblivious to the tension, saying “This here’s Julie, and she’s offering inside info on Kane! Can you imagine how helpful that’d be? We wouldn’t get caught off guard the next time he sends his bots.”
Jacob set the muffin tray on a table behind him, she supposed—she couldn’t see from the angle but she could guess—and said, “Maybe you better let me talk to her. You never know, she could be a spy from another gang.”
Mike’s face fell, as if even thinking that hurt him.
Julie immediately jumped into the conversation. “I promise, I’m not!” As Mike already looked less like a kicked puppy, she had to continue. “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know to be able to trust me.”
Jacob nodded. Chuck interjected, “Mike, we got bots on the west side now, we gotta go!” With a bashful smile, Mike jumped into his car, Chuck getting in without removing his eyes from his vid screens, and they were gone. Leaving Julie alone with Jacob.
Jacob sighed and gestured off to the side. “We’ve got a garage over there. I’ll meet you over there soon as I get these muffins put away.”
Julie walked over, feeling less nervous than she had expected to feel. Sure, it had been a surprise, and he could compromise her entire cover if he wanted, but it didn’t seem as dangerous as driving over here. In comparison to that, this was barely even life-threatening. She got into the garage and leaned against a pile of car parts until Jacob finally wandered in.
He looked at her, seeming to analyze her every blink. After a few moments of awkward staring and counter-staring, Julie cleared her throat. “Umm, is there something you were gonna say…?”
Jacob blinked and then looked her in the eyes. “You do look a lot like your mother, little Miss Kane.”
Julie smiled and said, “That’s what Dad always says.” There was a pause after she said that. A pause during which Jacob seemed lost in thought and Julie tried to come up with just what she needed to say to gain his trust, and therefore the place in the Burners that she’d come to want. But before she could formulate a decent plan, Jacob spoke up.
“Doing the teenage rebellion thing?”
She shook her head. “I think coming down here might have been, but now that I’ve seen this city…seen what my father’s doing to the people here, I want to fight back! It isn’t right!”
Jacob stared at her a moment longer before smiling. “That’s all I needed to hear! You’re welcome down here anytime. And I promise, I won’t tell the others about your family life. First thing you learn down here, honor and secrecy are two of the biggest ways to make allies. Now, how about a celebratory muffin?”
When Mike, Chuck, and Texas returned from their bot removal and heard the sounds of their fourth Burner throwing up overcooked eggplant-kale muffins, they knew the details of her spying would have to come after they convinced her to never eat Jacob’s cooking again.
3.
Months passed in Julie’s double life. It became increasingly difficult to budget her time between the two cities, as every moment she spent with Claire was filled with worry for her friends miles below, and every moment she spent driving the streets led to wondering if this would be the mission that got her caught. The incident with the Safety Suits hadn’t helped those fears. Mike had never pushed her to tell him about the secret she had almost shared—one of the many things she had grown to love about her friend and leader. Mike was as comfortable destroying bots as he was trapped up above in Deluxe with nothing but his car and a vague promise of rescue from Texas and herself below. But seeing him as only the guy who fought Kane was ignoring the guy who’d send you off to get your space when you needed it, the guy who drove just a little slower when you really were worried over his speed, and the guy who gave you a stern look and pointed at the empty jar on the counter every time you cursed.
The problem started once Mike, Chuck, and Dutch came back down after their entrapment in Deluxe. Dutch had apparently been reunited with his estranged family, although his return was unquestioned. He had a brother in the Junior Cadets whose name had escaped her during the joyous reunion. But shortly after the guys were checked for injuries, hugged tightly by Texas, and re-checked for injuries, Dutch had caught her eye across the Antonio’s booth. He said, “Can you come with me over to the Cablers’ tower? We gotta check and make sure that power surge didn’t damage their tech.”
Before she could answer, Mike cut in. “And, of course, if Tennie’s there….” Dutch gave an embarrassed chuckle and smiled. Mike smiled back and said, “Go ahead and go, guys. Kane shouldn’t be sending down anything soon.”
“Yeah,” Chuck said, ”all his bots have to go to repairing the city or maybe they’d all finally realize what a tool he is.”
Julie quickly hopped up while Mike began his lecture on name-calling, Dutch following and Texas offering to get everyone staying some more soda.
“Man, am I glad we got outta there!” Dutch said. Julie nodded before they got into 9 Lives and Whiptail. They revved up and headed toward the Cablers. Julie drove in silence for a few dozen miles before Dutch called her on the comms. “So…Jules, the power surge wasn’t why I asked you to come with.”
Julie smiled. Chuck should really get the little cubes to show emotions, because the blank expression on the cube Dutch didn’t match the awkward, halting ton of his speech. “I didn’t think so. Need some help with Tennie?”
Dutch spluttered and stammered, and Julie had to pay attention to the road more so than usual to keep from crashing while she laughed. When Dutch regained his composure, he said, “N-No! I wanted to talk ‘bout something Dar told me.” So Dar was his brother’s name, Julie thought. “He said during some Junior Cadet thing, he met a Julie. Well, not met, she gave a speech. And there were rumors going around after saying that she spent a lot of time around Kane.”
Now Julie had to keep from swerving off the road for a much less pleasant reason than good-natured teasing about a crush. “Really? Huh, That’s a weird coincidence.”
“Jules…”
They drive in silence again as she tried to figure out an escape route from this topic. Right when she got an idea, Dutch sighed.
“Look, far as I care, you’re still the best spy we’ve got up there. And you’re better behind the wheel than Chuck, and he grew up here. Just, you and Kane…?”
Julie’s mind blanked of all the courage she had been mustering up at the implication she was sleeping with Abraham Kane. “He’s my dad.”
“Oh! That’s a lot less creepy!”
“Dutch, never ever even suggest that again, okay?”
Dutch laughed. “Yeah, I promise!” They drove in silence for a bit, but Dutch inevitably had more to say. “Sucks you gotta fight your family. I know we talk smack ‘bout Kane pretty often and he’s, well….”
“It’s not exactly the greatest stuff to heart, but none of what you guys say is stuff he doesn’t deserve. He’s hurting everyone down here and he’s got to stop.”
“Sounds like the Burner spirit!”
“Hey, I’ve been a Burner longer than you have, of course I have the spirit!”
He laughed and she joined him. When they were done, they drove in a comfortable silence until the blue glow of the Cablers’ tower dominated the horizon. Julie said as they pulled up, “So, sure you don’t want advice for Tennie?
The flustered response she got was nice distraction from her slowly subsiding worry. At lest she got lucky with Dutch finding out. No ex-cadet Mike or oppressed Motorcitizens Chuck and Texas. Just their wonderful runaway artist, mechanic, and ex-average Joe Dexluian. She knew he wouldn’t tell the team her secret without even asking. He’d learned the city’s code of honor faster than she had, and, more importantly, he was her friend. He would never break her trust.
2.
Time passed peacefully. Or as peacefully as it got while fighting a tyrant. Julie did her best to help the city, whether through spying, data gathering, or accepting the offer to succeed KaneCo. That was a much better-kept secret than her lineage. The departmental heads, who were already her father’s most loyal, intelligent, and ferocious employees, knew who she was, but only her father knew she was supposed to succeed hm. Julie used that as a motivation. An errant thought that maybe if the Burners failed their revolution, she could lead a reformation. Those thoughts that kept her up at night sent her down to Motorcity for a nighttime drive.
She’d passed by Chuck while getting to her car, him waving to her while running diagnostic checks on the other cars’ systems. The other boys were presumably asleep in their rooms, with Jacob and Hudson already retired hours ago to their little living space near Jacob’s garden. She got into her car and drove for a few hours, looking over the city and wondering if she could unite it with Deluxe in peace. Was she that good? Mike could do it, she thought. How could she be so blind? Even if she had trouble, she was a Burner and they’d stand by her. At least, Dutch and Jacob would. She could only hope the others would as well.
When she got back to the garage, everything looked relatively normal. Chuck looked freaked out, a sleepy Mike waved to her as he walked back to his room, and Roth was patrolling the perimeter. An average late night state when Chuck lets out a scream at such a late hour.
She walked over and sat on the couch next to him. “Something bad?”
He stammered back, “No, not much, nothing’s wrong!”
At the receiving end of her disbelieving look, he sighed, deflating from his puffed-up, panicked state. He pulled up the vid screens—he must have closed them when Mike came out, she hadn’t seen them on her return—and gestured to a familiar image: her father’s schedule for last week, daddy-daughter day the most prominent event. She stiffened in her seat. “I managed to hack into Kane’s personal schedule. I was going to see if any big events were coming up, you know, ‘destroy the Burners with my new deathray at 10, mani-pedi at 11’.” She laughed at the thought, without much humor considering the circumstances. “Then I saw that,” he pointed at the daddy-daughter day, “on the same day as the vintage car rescue. And it hit me!” He looked almost proud.
Almost, because they both knew what he would say, Julie feeling some déjà vu. She wanted to explain herself: how much of a risk it was to put that in, what she did to relay his bot orders in real-time when the others were in a life-or-death drive, why her very existence was such a secret. She wanted to say all that, but she knew he must have made up his mind by then. She’d been out for hours and who knows how long Mike was out in the lounge with him.
He put a hand on her shoulder, gentle as always. “Don’t look so freaked out. I just wanted to say thanks for that.” She looked at the vid screens. She didn’t want to believe it was this easy. “Who else knows you’re…y’know, his daughter?”
“The other people who helped him build Deluxe. Dutch and Jacob figured it out since I joined the Burners. Oh, and Claire, duh.”
He removed his hand and Julie could almost hear his blush from the mention of her best friend. It was a surprise that he didn’t even mention her when he spoke again. “Y-You mean Mikey doesn’t know?!”
“I don’t want to risk him thinking I’m not loyal to Motorcity.”
…Really, was the best reaction to her heartfelt admission to double over on the couch in laughter?
Apparently so.
“Julie! It’s Mike! Why would he even think that!?”
She gave him an annoyed look. “I’m going up to bed.”
He kept laughing as she left.
1.
She was used to the feeling when someone knew about her. Texas knew somehow. She could tell when they came back from their Mayhem Night adventure. So when he sidled up to her while she stood outside, she guessed what was coming.
“So, uhhhh, Katie.”
“Julie.“
“Right, Jessie.” Julie sighed softly and pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache. “Look, Texas is really awesome. So even when Texas is fighting off crazy candy monsters, he listens for more dangers and explosions. And you were talkin’ about Kane and not in an ‘Oh Texas, let’s go punch Kane in his face and then drive into the sunset of his bot explosion’ way.”
“And what, Texas?” She looked at him, the stress of the night breaking through her defenses. “Maybe I don’t want to punch him in his face.”
“That’s the thing! When we were finding those amazingly cool cars, you were angry about my piñata plan! And you didn’t like my shrink ray plan either!”
“That’s because we don’t and never have had a shrink ray!”
“Not my point, Mindy!”
“Texas…!“
“I get why you didn’t wanna be Miss Deluxe now! Cause….Cause you’re really Miss Deluxe and Texas was blowing your double-cover!!”
He looked so proud of himself that Julie could only sigh and lower the hand from her face. “Congratulations, Texas. You got it.”
“I don’t got one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Which side’s the double-cover and which side’s the one you’re not on?”
She took note of his expression then. He had that vulnerable look on his face, like a child who didn’t understand why people were yelling or mad at him. Mike could handle him a lot better than she could, but Julie’s sweet spot for Texas only made dealing with his odd mannerisms harder. She put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m a Burner. My father’s not getting info from me about us.”
“….Texas totally guessed you were his daughter,” he said sulkily.
She smiled a bit. “You totally did. Just don’t tell Mike, okay?”
“Well why not?” He asked.
“He…doesn’t know.”
“Who doesn’t know what, Jules?”
Julie jolted and turned to see Mike walk up beside her, smiling at them both. Texas…overreacted, jumping a foot and kicking halfway through to make it look purposeful. “Oh, Mike!”
“Texas is gonna let you girls talk this out!” And with a roar of Stronghorn’s engine, Texas was gone.
Mike raised an eyebrow. “How did he get all the way to his car that fast?”
“…Mike, it’s Texas. That’s how.”
“Right.”
+1.
Mike had been in a melancholy mood for days. His depression on his year anniversary of becoming a Motorcitizen was expected, but Red had knocked him into gear again back then, albeit with actual physical knocking. Mike was always the bright spot of the team. The point around whom everyone rallied. When he started moping around Jacob’s and continued doing so after a bot fight, the Burners all knew something was up.
So when Mike told Julie to follow him and not ask why, she followed.
Mike and Julie drove out to a higher point of the city, twisted metal and streetlights that were familiar to her. When they got out of their cars, Julie spoke up first. “This is where we first met, isn’t it?”
“Yeah….”
Mike climbed up a sturdier pile of junk, sitting on a reinforced platform. He gestured for her to come up as well, but she was already halfway up the pile then. His smile at her was forced. They sat staring out over the city for a long while. Mike never lost his pained expression despite the time passing. Julie knew she had to give him time to figure out what he would say. Spur of the moment, he could say amazing things, but if it was weighing him down this much, he’d have to figure out how to say it.
Julie might’ve been the only one on the team to understand the battle to explain your dark secret to another.
Texas someday, possibly, but he’d never actually told them why he went by that ridiculous alias and didn’t seem like he would.
“Okay, Julie….You know Kane’s really bitter about me leaving Deluxe. But it’s not because I started leading the Burners. That didn’t hurt,” he flashed a smile at Julie, “but he’d still be mad even if I just helped Jacob sell food.”
She played along with his attempt at lightheartedness. “Everyone would be mad about that.”
He forced a chuckle. He sighed after, and continued, “The reason he’s mad is…is I used to be a Cadet. Not just a Cadet either. I was his pet project. Probably the youngest Commander ever, for the day I was one. I was supposed to knock down that hourglass motel, but there were people in it and Kane knew! That’s when…That’s when I had to come help. So I defected.” He looked up at the underbelly of Deluxe. “But I…sometimes, I regret leaving. Not because I want to go back, but because I want Deluxe to be what I thought it was. Before I realized it was a lie.”
She didn’t know what he needed her to say then. That it was okay to want that protection again? That she already knew he had been part of the Cadets? That it was okay that he had once been willing to follow her father to the grave fighting against Motorcity? …That she knew he was willing to head to his grave fighting her father for Motorcity now?
The moment passed. He kept talking. “Kane’s hurting everybody. Not just us in Motorcity, but everyone up there in Deluxe. They aren’t free either. Just a different kind of oppressed. So really….I’m not just fighting for Motorcity. I’m fighting for Deluxe too still.”
She thought she understood his point again. “Mike, I’m sure when we beat Kane, Deluxe’ll cheer you.”
“I don’t want fame or power—“
“You just want to know you’re doing the right thing down here?”
He looked at her. As if she had all the answers he desperately needed. So she tried. “You are. You’re the best leader we could ever have. I don’t know if we could go on without you, and I know you think we could, but we couldn’t even beat that giant weather bot without you. We were wrecks. You give us hope, Mike. You give Motorcity hope. And you’ll give Deluxe hope too. You haven’t turned your back on them just because you stopped being a Cadet.”
He looked at her, searching for something, and she hoped he found it.
“…Thanks. I think that’s what I wanted to hear,” he said quietly.
They stood together, climbed back down, and walked back to their cars. Before they got in, Mike said, “Julie, please don’t tell the others I used to be a Cadet. I already told Texas back when Red first attacked, but I don’t want the others hearing second-hand. It’s something I need to tell them myself.”
She smiled to herself as she climbed in her car and replied, “Don’t worry, Mike. I know exactly where you’re coming from.”