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Karma slumped, flexed her fingers, let out a sigh. It’d been awhile since she’d spent so much time driving without stopping. Apparently soreness still crept in, even in a VR simulation with Chicane suspended on hydraulics.
She hadn’t realized how long she’d been practicing. Whenever she finished the simulation, whatever the percentage was--higher, lower, or the same as last time--she just booted it up again, determined to score higher. She’d been at it for a couple hours and now her hands ached from gripping the steering wheel. It reminded her of when she’d first started driving, how red and sore her hands used to get.
She opened the door and stepped out onto the rolling ladder. Massaging her palms, she surveyed the garage. None of the other racers were immediately visible to her. She supposed she was up late.
From somewhere behind her came the sound of footsteps on the metal floor. Karma turned to see Lani, who was headed toward the far wall, eyes downcast and distracted. There was a painful twinge in Karma’s chest.
“Lani,” she called.
Lani slowed to a stop as she looked up at Karma, flashing an unconvincing smile. “Hey, Karma, everything okay?”
“Can’t complain,” Karma replied. “I actually wanted to talk to you.”
Lani raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Well, I’m heading outside for some fresh air. Wanna talk out there?”
Karma smiled. “Sounds good.” She hurried down the steps, taking some of them two at a time. She caught up to Lani and they fell into step together. “Is the view any good?”
Lani huffed a laugh. “If you like the desert, then yeah. Although, I guess at night you get a good view of the stars.”
Everything about her tone, her friendly smiles, seemed forced. Like she was tired.
She opened a metal door that led out onto a balcony. It was cool outside, their surroundings black and the sky a dark blue. The balcony jutted out of what looked like a shallow cavern in the cliff, with the cliffside providing a roof over their head. The metal door creaked shut behind them. Karma breathed in the fresh air and pictured it filling her lungs, pushing out the hot, stuffy air of the Acceledrome.
“The Acceledrome gets suffocating sometimes,” Lani said. Karma leaned against the railing and looked at her, noticed the bags under her eyes.
“Yeah. I can’t imagine spending as much time as you in there. At least the racing realms sort of give us a break.”
Lani huffed, but she didn’t smile. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Just…” Karma tapped her fingers on the metal railing. “Sorry I kinda took over. During the water realm, I mean.”
Lani stared out at the canyons, her gaze hard. “No, it’s okay. I don’t think Taro would’ve listened to me like he listened to you.”
Karma felt the sting in that one. “It wasn’t about you or me, it was just the information we were giving him.”
Lani was silent for a moment. Then she sighed. “It seemed like none of them were listening to me.”
Karma snorted. “You saw me try to talk to Vert?”
Lani glanced at Karma and the two of them laughed. Karma felt some of the tension leave her.
“God,” Lani muttered, shaking her head. “I went from being the only female driver, which was awful, to being the nagging mother figure. I thought… I thought that by devoting my life to helping Dr. Tezla, studying the racing realms and the drones, would mean people would respect me a little. And here I am.”
Karma wasn’t sure what to say, but she felt she had to fill the silence. She shook her head. “Men.”
Lani smiled. From where she leaned against the railing, she fiddled with her fingers. “I think Taro likes you.”
Karma frowned, trying to tell from half of Lani’s face whether the other woman was joking or not. “Likes me? Like, as another racer?”
Lani frowned. “No. Like, I think he has feelings for you. I see the way he looks at you.”
Karma stared at the metal floor, processing this. She tried to remember their interactions ever since the water realm, when they’d had to work together. Sure, the guy smiled at her and thanked her. Didn’t he do that to everyone?
On the other hand, she was kind of starting to see it.
“Well, that’s unfortunate for him,” Karma said finally, her heart pounding as she said it, “‘cause I’ve never been into men.”
Admittedly, Karma didn’t really want to see how Lani would react. She braced herself, ready for wide eyes and an open mouth. But when she looked, she saw Lani smiling, an excited look in her eyes.
“You’re… Are you…”
“I’m a lesbian, yeah.”
“I knew I wasn’t the only one.”
Karma couldn’t help smiling. “You’re…?”
“Oh! Sorry,” Lani waved her hands. “That makes it sound-- sorry, I’m not a lesbian. But I like girls. And guys.”
“Gotcha,” Karma said. “For a second, I wondered if Taro turned you into a lesbian.”
Lani laughed, high and shrill like a hyena. Karma covered her mouth with a hand and laughed along, purely from the infectiousness of Lani’s laughter.
When the laughter died down, Lani sat down so that her feet dangled over the ledge. Karma lowered herself down and did the same. Their feet swayed gently, both of them resting their arms on one of the metal bars of the railing. Karma was suddenly reminded of being a kid.
Lani sighed. “I’m glad you’re here. I was such a tomboy growing up. I barely knew any girls who were also into racing.”
“Same here. I mean, my sister was into it when we were younger, but she grew out of it.” Karma felt Lani’s eyes on her now. “Sometimes I feel like she had the right idea.”
“Maybe she got discouraged,” Lani said with a smile. When Karma gave her a questioning look, she added, “Because you were better.”
“Oh,” Karma said with a surprised laugh. Lani smiled at her, like she was figuring something out.
“I like that you don’t have the other drivers’ ego,” Lani muttered.
“It’s… tiring,” Karma offered. “Listening to them all the time, I mean. I like my teammates, but…” she leaned back on her hands and sighed.
“Oh, I can imagine,” Lani said.
“Right, you were in the World Race. I get the feeling you didn’t have a huge ego, either?”
“No! I spent that whole time trying not to laugh listening to the other drivers. But…” She trailed off. “I guess I embarrassed myself pretty bad, too.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, in the first leg of the race…” Lani sighed and put her head in her hands. “I may have lost my car in a river of lava and, um… I may have been rescued by Taro.”
“That’s not that bad,” Karma said, although the thought of losing a car and having to be rescued seemed humiliating.
“Think about it like this: I was the only woman at the time, the race had barely even started, and I failed bigtime and had to be rescued. By a teenager, and a big, macho cool guy.”
Karma couldn’t hide her laughter. “Okay, that sounds pretty bad.”
“I mean, at least a couple more women showed up later and they didn’t royally screw up like I did.”
“A couple?” Karma asked. “I know there was Esmeralda Sanchez, but who else was there?”
“There was Toni Berry, she was one of the Dune Ratz.”
“I don’t think I heard about her.”
Lani gawked at Karma. “Are you kidding? At one point, she burrowed into this tunnel with her car that put her team, like, ten miles ahead of everyone else.”
“Nobody told me about that!” Karma’s voice was raised now, surprising herself, probably just matching Lani’s energy.
Lani groaned in disgust and laid back against the floor, as if in defeat. “I swear, this is why I don’t race anymore.”
Karma studied Lani’s face. She couldn’t help the warmth that crept into her face at the sight of Lani lying down next to her. “Why did you stop?”
Lani stared up at the rocky canopy. Her legs still dangled over the ledge. She let out a sigh. “I was just tired of being the minority.”
Karma hummed in response. Then she lowered herself onto her back, mirroring Lani.
“I just feel like,” Lani continued, “Like the whole world is watching everything I do. And I can’t confirm any negative stereotypes about women. Like, how people believe women are bad drivers, or whatever. I don’t know. I’m so competitive but it feels like…” She broke off and laughed, covering her face with a hand. “Like women’s rights are at stake if I lose. I want to win so badly, just to prove a point. Just to shove it in all these guys’ faces that a woman beat them all in a race.”
Her words echoed through Karma’s head. She realized that she’d felt the same, but no one had ever put it into words before. “I get that,” was all she said, because she had a feeling Lani wasn’t finished.
“I miss when I was a kid,” Lani said. “When it was all for the love of it. I just feel like maybe I’ve gone too long doing it for the wrong reasons.”
Silence. The faint sound of crickets rose up to where they sat.
“Maybe we can fix that,” Karma said, looking over at the other woman.
Lani returned the look. She was beautiful in the dim moonlight. Karma ignored the butterflies in her stomach.
“Maybe you just need to race against another woman.”
Lani laughed and sat up. “No no no, my racing days are over.”
Karma sat up, leaned on an arm. “You’re just done with it forever? This thing you’ve been doing since you were a kid?”
Lani didn’t meet her gaze when she brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “I don’t know.”
“Just me and you, right now. No one will even know.”
Karma leaned in, caught sight of the small uptick to Lani’s mouth.
“Come on, I know you’re thinking about it.”
Lani waved her off and laughed. “I’m not!”
Karma was beaming now. “Just take Battle Spec, I’m sure Kurt won’t mind.”
Lani raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, he wouldn’t freak out over it. He preferred Sling Shot.”
The smile crept back into Lani’s face.
“The realms could open any minute,” she said. “Just one race.”
“Yeah. Just one.”
…
Karma couldn’t help wondering if this whole idea was stupid. Lani was right, the realms could open and they’d have to speed back to the Acceledrome, tails between their legs. But when they put on their helmets and Lani turned to Karma to ask if this was a good idea, she insisted.
“You’ve gotta race,” Karma said. “It’s been too long.”
They hurried to their respective vehicles. They’d agreed to meet just outside, after the jump. Karma lowered Chicane off the hydraulics and climbed inside. A familiar thrill bolted through her chest as the car roared to life.
Not too far away, Lani settled into the seat of Battle Spec. Karma couldn’t help laughing as she went to great pains to adjust the seat and all the mirrors. She was too far away to tell Lani that there wasn’t enough time, so she put Chicane in gear and sped out of the Acceledrome, picking up speed as fast as she could on the ramp. The dark wall disappeared in a green flash and she was flying through the air. The tires hit the ground on the other side with a sickening thud. Then she slowed to a stop, her backend fishtailing.
A moment later, Battle Spec emerged from the cliffside. Karma swore she could see a grin on Lani’s face. She hit the ground and slid to a stop, frighteningly close to Chicane. The car rocked a little. They both unrolled their windows.
“Scrim Complex?” Karma asked.
“Yeah!” Lani responded, and smiled devilishly. “Hey, I know this course pretty well. You can still back out.”
Karma laughed. “Were you always this bad at trash talking?”
Lani laughed and, if Karma wasn’t mistaken, her face flushed red.
But there was no time to dwell. They counted down together, and with a synchronized “GO!” they were off, tires screeching and kicking up dust before they shot off between columns of rock and sediment.
Karma shouldn’t have been surprised. Lani had been chosen for the World Race and Karma hadn’t even gotten a tap on the shoulder. Maybe it was the fact that Lani hadn’t raced in two years. Maybe it was the fact that Karma had never seen her behind the wheel. Or maybe it was her own internalized misogyny, buried deep inside her subconscious. But she was shocked when it only took a few turns for Lani to shoot off like a rocket.
Karma fought the temptation to floor it and pass the other racer. If she was learning anything from the realms, it was that the environment was crucial. So, she was patient and careful, staying a respectable distance behind Lani. She could hardly pass. Just kept getting right up next to Lani. During a particularly brutal turn, Karma slammed into the side of Battle Spec and they drifted together. Karma shot a look over and saw real frustration on Lani’s face. She couldn’t help but smile.
When they eased out of the turn, she slammed on the gas and shot away, but Lani was hot on her heels.
Suddenly the pillars were gone, replaced by a vast, empty plain. Up ahead was the Scrim Complex.
Battle Spec crept closer, and then Karma noticed Lani was veering away. She understood why when the ground beneath the tires became less compact. Chicane slowed, tires sliding like she was on ice. Lani sped past, leaving Karma to find purchase in an endless sea of sand.
‘Just follow her,’ she thought. Soon, she was back on the road, speeding up behind Lani. But the Scrim Complex approached faster and faster. Karma realized she didn’t know where exactly the finish line was, but Lani was headed straight for the building, like she wanted to crash into it. Maybe it was a game of chicken. Maybe Lani was testing her.
Karma glanced at the building, which was now only a couple hundred metres away. She wrenched the steering wheel aside and braked, her car skidding in a slow, lazy curve. She watched the building come closer and closer and a familiar panic seized her chest. Maybe she’d fucked up this time.
But Chicane cleared the building and slowed to a stop. The decrepit building was now to her right, looming above her.
And just ahead, Lani sped toward the building at full speed. Karma’s blood turned to ice. She expected an explosion, a loud crash. But at the moment of impact, Battle Spec disappeared into the wall.
There came the sound of tires screeching. Light shone from a gaping hole in the wall closest to Karma and, a moment later, Battle Spec came drifting out of the building, kicking up a cloud of sand as it went. Lani slid the car to a stop, just a few meters away from Chicane. Through the orange glare of the windshield, Karma caught sight of Lani grinning in triumph. Only then could Karma let out the breath she was holding.
They lowered their windows at the same time. Lani rested an arm on the side of the car, looking casual as ever.
“I guess that means I won?” she asked.
Karma surprised herself by laughing, and surprised herself again as the laughter continued, growing and growing as she released all the tension in her body. She hadn’t felt hysterical like this in years. What made it better was that she could hear Lani laughing along with her.
When she settled down, she said, “Good job. You’re a worse showoff than all the Teku and Metal Maniacs combined.”
Lani just laughed. “That was awesome. I forgot how good this feels.”
Karma smiled, already done with the trash talk. “You know, you’d never guess this is your first time racing in years.”
Now, there was definitely a blush on Lani’s face. “Thanks. Hey, you would’ve had me if I was less familiar with the road.”
“Well, I know better now,” Karma said with a smile, “and we have to get back the same way.”
“Oh yeah?”
They stared each other down for a moment, the excitement building in Karma’s chest again. There was a challenge in Lani’s eyes. All the exhaustion from before was gone. Karma hardly recognized the woman in the car next to her, but she had a feeling this was the start of something new. Then, on the count of three, they slammed on the gas and shot off into the night.