Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen Read Online Free PDF

daughter’s death,” she said.
    “Those bastards don’t care about me now, if they ever did in the first place. It’s ratings. Crash movies are part of what make the sport fun for the crowds. Money. All that bull.”
    Jane nodded, and went back to checking her wrists and ankles for complete air seals.
    “It’s not too late—” Bill began.
    But Jane cut him off.
    “Oh yes it is. I’m not going to go down as the woman driver who chickened out. Everyone’s paying attention to me now.”
    Bill took a step back, his face gone suddenly white.
    The stylus and tablet hit the floor, albeit gently in the lunar gravity.
    “What?” Jane said.
    “That’s exactly what Ellen said to me, before …”
    Jane literally bellowed, her helmet clenched in one fist.
    When she stopped, everyone was blinking and looking strangely at her.
    “No more!” she said. “I can’t take one more word!”
    She looked to one of the young techs. “Is my Falcon ready?”
    “Yes ma’am,” he said, gulping.
    “Then let’s go!”
    • • •
    The fourth heat was by far the most competitive. All of the inexperienced and tentative drivers had been pruned away, leaving the calculating, the experienced, the determined, and the creatively diabolical—to challenge each other for the coveted final 20 spots on the championship grid.
    Facing these odds, Jane scrapped through all but the final two laps—just a couple of minor brushes with opponents’ vehicles, and the certain knowledge that she’d be wringing a gallon of water out of her undersuit when all was said and done.
    Second to last lap, and Jane was in a familiar spot with the leaders at the front of the pack. Having gamed her way into the elite group—same strategies and tactics as always—she’d almost considered her advancement to the final heat to be a foregone conclusion, when one of the other drivers from the middle of the pack made a particularly dangerous—and gutsy—move. Trying to copy Jane’s technique as they entered a turn, the man began spinning out of control, first pinballing off one bike, then another, then a third, until suddenly the track was alive with wildly spinning bikes, their riders trying desperately to regain control—overcorrecting—and then either smashing down into the safety barriers nearest the domed-over crowds, or pinwheeling up and off the track altogether, arcing out across the sun-blasted regolith, legs and feet come loose, flailing.
    Jane experienced a moment of surreal calm, where all sensation ceased and she could see clearly all the other riders around her, as if in extreme slow motion. Then her Falcon was being smashed down into the safety barriers, the metal grinding on the lunar rock for just an instant.
    The controls were frozen as Jane tried to steer up off the wall. She was pinned by her neighbor, who’d nosed into her T-bone style, and was having no success reversing course. They looked at each other for a split second, raw panic passing between them, and then the bikes were flipping, and Jane was thrown high into the airless sky.
    Again, a moment of surreal calm: the track, passing swiftly underneath, and the crowd, faces upturned and mouths open wide with astonishment.
    Many drivers and bikes spinning, rolling, whirling. One or two skating ahead of the scrum, their drivers raising their fists and pumping them.
    Somewhere, Bill’s voice was screaming.
    Jane started to come down. In the moon’s gravity, it wasn’t as fast as it might have been on Earth, but with the velocity imparted to her by her bike, there was more than enough kinetic energy to kill her when she hit. Jane caught a glimpse—just a tiny glimpse—of Sally Tincakes: the rocket booster over the statue’s head, the exaggerated bustline, the glamour model smile, and then Jane was smashing down into the regolith beyond the track.
    • • •
    All was white. Jane sat in the ready room. No pit crew. Not even the noise of the crowd reverberating through the walls.