I don’t know exactly when drone racing started. Decades ago, I think, in some other country, during a time when a game had supposedly taken the world by storm. All I know is that when Pressa first took me to one of the matches— when I saw the drones’ colorful streaks light up the air—I was hooked.
Now I pull my hood farther down over my head and hurry through the night markets of the Undercity. Where the Sky Floors of Ross City are awash in virtual murals, the scenes down here have the grit of reality. At this hour, everything is bathed in neon—flickering red and yellow signs hanging over crumbling stores and barred motels, trails of neon bulbs dangling over the menagerie of market stalls that are still as crowded as they are during the day. Everyone keeps their head down as they shove their way through the smoky streets. No one pays attention to me.
Tonight I’m passing through the area of the Undercity that’s usually teeming with criminals. Conmen. Gamblers and thieves, drug dealers and mafiosi. The Level system starts to break down here, where the majority of people have hacked accounts. Numbers and names don’t float over most heads. And when violence and murder break out, there are no points deducted, no alarms sent digitally to the police.
This is where you go if you need to take out a loan in a hurry, to temporarily bring your Level up high enough to be allowed to use a bus, or to buy medication that’s off the official market. People down here will do it for you, hacking your system so that you Level up—but for an exorbitant price. If you can’t pay that price back after your Level goes back down to normal … well, a lot of desperate people go missing all the time, their disappearances uninvestigated by an uninterested country.
I double-check my account. Hacking the Level system is no small feat, but it helps when your brother works for the government and you’ve occasionally glimpsed how his account is set up from the inside. So tonight I’ve got my Level turned off and my identity randomized, and when you glance over my
head, you don’t see: EDEN BATAAR WING, LEVEL 54. Instead, it reads: ELI WHITMAN, LEVEL 5.
For all I know, though, Daniel’s found a way around that and is following my location again without telling me. I glance over my shoulder, as if I’ll see him tailing me somewhere in the crowds.
As I turn a corner and hit a darker section of the Undercity, where people with flattened Levels shelter along either side of the streets in rows of tents, I start to feel nervous. Even though I’m dressed in my subtlest clothing, stares dart my way and eyes seem to pierce my back. Something about my demeanor—the hunch of my shoulders, or the way I push my glasses up, or maybe just the fact that I know I don’t belong here—makes me stand out.
Maybe I look like a pawn again, and someone’s going to come at me with a knife and rob me. I shove my hands into my pockets and lower my head farther. I should have asked Pressa to come with me instead of agreeing to meet her there.
As I get closer to the drone race’s starting point, I start to notice crowds of people lining the sidewalks here and there, standing around and waiting, as if for a parade. Money exchanges hands, and excited murmurs fill the alleys. I can tell people are toggling their virtual settings so that they can follow the race through their chips.
The streets get more and more packed until I’m squeezing my way through the throngs. Finally, I stop before what looks like a run-down bar, so tiny that I can barely squeeze through its grated door.
The inside of it is lit with scarlet-neon light. People pack around a bar, behind which a woman leans, eyeing me.
I clear my throat and give her what I hope is a calm look. “Serving any red whiskey tonight?” I ask her. It’s the current password I’d found in my searches.
For a second, I think I got it all wrong, because she doesn’t react. She just stares at me as if I don’t look like the right type of person to be here.
Then she steps around the side of the bar and nods for me to follow her. We walk to the back, where a bathroom door is locked tight with a sign over it that reads: OUT OF ORDER.
She scans a finger in front of the door. It cracks open.
She nods for me to go in, but doesn’t make a move to follow. I give her a quick smile, then step past her and head into the darkness beyond the door. It closes behind me. I’m in some sort of dark, enclosed space. All I can see for a moment is a faint, glowing green light on the door handle. My heart thuds,
and I feel a hint of claustrophobia.
Then the ground beneath me shudders. A neon-green light washes over the space, and the wall in front of me slides open with a rusty creak. I pull my shirt up over my nose as the smell of sewage threatens to suffocate me.
I step out of the makeshift elevator into a square plaza fenced in by four skyscrapers, lit by flickering neon lights against the walls and a haze of crimson fog. Pounding music and a roar of voices hits me.
I don’t know what I expected to see. Neon-red bulbs dangle by the thousands from building to building. Vendors selling savory buns and fried meat on sticks jumble near the edges of the square. The walls are lined with lattices of steel support beams, and a giant circuit breaker hangs near where I came in. This looks like it used to be an elevator station under construction at one point that then got torn down and abandoned.
People are packed so tightly into the space that any disaster—a fight, a fire
—would turn this place into a death pit. But no one cares. They all gather around a circular clearing in the middle of the plaza, where the racers for tonight are now lining up and preparing their drones.
A giant virtual countdown hovers over the middle of the plaza, turning in my view to match wherever I move.
DRONE RACE: SEMIFINALS
FIRST HEAT COMMENCES IN 10:00 MINUTES
Right below it is the list of racer names for the first heat, updating as each racer checks in to the space.
My false name is up there.
ENTRY 9: ELI WHITMAN
For a moment, I freeze up. The people around me look like they’ve been coming to races like this forever. I, on the other hand, must look like the easiest mark that ever stumbled into the Undercity. My palms start to sweat.
Pressa, I send out a message. I’m here now. Where the hell are you?
Eventually, I catch sight of a stand where people are registering their drones. I walk over to it, trying to ignore the way others are staring at me from the corners of their eyes.
The man behind the stand gives me a skeptical look. “Drone,” he says.
I swing my backpack to my front and unzip it, carefully removing my drone model for him to inspect. He raises an eyebrow at my design. It looks
unlike anyone else’s here, with its small, slender shape and the glowing engine attached to its end. I stand back and wait as he holds it up this way and that.
“A little runt of a drone, eh?” he mutters. Finally, he nods at me. “Patron?” I frown. “A what?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Every racer needs a patron. We need assurance that you can pay for any damage that you cause. Unless you got ten thousand corras lying around, and can be your own.”
Pressa hadn’t mentioned anything about a patron. “I don’t have one yet,” I start to say, glancing around for any sign of my friend, “but I’m on the roster to race. If you look—”
But he’s already shaking his head at me and handing the drone back. “You must be new here,” he says with a laugh. “No patron, no race. I don’t care where your name is.”
“But if you just let—”
Any sympathy for me now leaves his eyes. Annoyed, he waves for me to exit the line. “There are people behind you,” he barks, gesturing for the next person to step up.
“Wait!”
I slacken in relief as Pressa emerges from behind the gamblers and heads to the table. As usual, her persona down here looks completely different from what I’m used to seeing of her at the university and her father’s shop. She’s in a long wig, for one—bright blond, a startling contrast from her black, bobbed hair—and sporting a pair of fake pink glasses that make her eyes look abnormally large. She flashes a frown at the man.
“I’m his patron,” she says, taking out a sealed envelope and sliding it over to him.
He seems to recognize her, because he grunts in acknowledgment before tearing the envelope open. Inside is a stack of corras, clean and crisp. He holds them up to the light, then nods and pockets the envelope.
“You’re official,” he says to me, and barely a few seconds later, he nods up to the racer names displayed in the rotating virtual menu. Over my head, a blue light goes on, indicating me as one of the entries. As if in unison, people around us turn to look at me.
“Do you wait in a corner and just watch me until I look like I’m about to do something stupid?” I mutter to Pressa.
She smiles at me and loops an arm through mine. “I don’t have to wait around very long for that,” she replies. “You’re welcome for saving your ass.”
“Where’d you get ten thousand corras?”
She shrugs. “Not important. Been saving up. If your drone’s as good as you say, we’ll earn it back after the first race.” She peers curiously at my backpack. “Care to show me what you got?”
Up on the wall, the countdown has moved down to three minutes, and most of the standing area around the clearing is packed. I can already see the racers lining up in the center, some of them doing last-minute tinkering on their engines.
As we reach the other racers, I show my drone to Pressa.
Compared with the other models here, it’s easily the smallest, maybe the tiniest size that could qualify for these races. But it makes up for any fragility with speed. The engine coils in a perfect circle underneath the drone, and when I flip it on, it glows with a faint blue light.
Pressa makes an impressed sound at it. “Pretty design,” she says, admiring its swept wings. “Efficient. Can it survive a hit, though?”
I shake my head. “If one of the others bumps into mine, it’s game over.” She gives me a withering look. “I thought you said it was amazing.”
“I don’t intend on letting anyone get close enough to touch it.”
She throws up her hands, but I can see the light in her eyes, the hunger for how much we could potentially win. “All right,” she concedes. “I’m trusting you.”
Overhead, the neon-red bulbs dim, brighten, and dim again, alerting the audience that the race is about to start. I squeeze through the throngs until I’m standing to one side of the arena, on the side closest to the other racers.
One minute until the race begins. Like the rest of the crowd, I reach a hand out in front of me and toggle my virtual-sight settings. To watch the entire race unfold, you log onto a channel being recorded by a default drone that follows the official racing drones. Its footage will play before your eyes as the drones zip through the Undercity’s streets, as if you’re racing along right behind them.
I try to keep a calm expression as people in the audience stare at me, murmuring under their breath. Adrenaline pumps fast in my veins, dulling the thoughts that usually plague me when things are too quiet, and I smile. All I can concentrate on is the thought of winning the race. This, in its own way, is freedom.
Ten seconds before the race starts. I see Pressa moving through the crowd with her head ducked down, trying to be discreet. At the same time, she sends me a message that appears in white letters before my eyes.
Good luck, skyboy.
The other drones lift up into the air, the hiss of their engines filling the space.
As the audience chants uproariously for their favorite picks, I quietly turn on my drone and warm up the engine. In my view, I see its stats go live, a scroll of virtual blue letters and numbers in the side of my vision.
The lights overhead flash once, brilliantly. At the same time, a loud pop like a gunshot echoes from the speakers overhead.
The race has begun.
Every drone darts forward. A huge cheer goes up.
I toss my drone into the air. It glints once. The engine hums into high gear. “Do your thing,” I murmur at it. Then I wave my hand once.
My drone turns in the direction of the others and jolts forward. Suddenly, in the center of my vision, a live feed from the channel appears as if I’m actually riding on my drone. I focus on the video now, steering my drone into the alleys of the square that will lead out into the streets. As all of our drones zip out into the city, they leave behind them virtual trails of bright colors.
From the side of the square, the announcer gives a whistle. “Keep an eye on Entry Nine!” she exclaims. “That’s a pint-size drone with an engine unlike anything I’ve ever seen!”
A burst of cheers and boos comes from the audience. I just grit my teeth and continue. Through my view of the channel, my drone arcs hard around a street corner, narrowly avoiding a collision between two others as it skips ahead. People walking in the streets glance up with startled gasps—two auto- trucks almost hit each other as the drones cut through an intersection. Onlookers who had been gathering through the city in anticipation of the race cheer loudly.
I dart a glance at the crowds in the square where I’m standing. Pressa’s nowhere to be seen.
One of the other drones swivels in midair and swings sharply toward mine.
I barely dodge it. My view whirls as my drone tumbles, diving low until it’s skimming right over the ground. It almost crashes right into the steel post of a food market vendor. People on that street scream as my drone clips in between jumbles of legs before it finally emerges back over the street.
“Close call!” the announcer shouts. “Entry Nine almost didn’t make it out of that one!”
Another drone guns for mine, attempting to ram it out of the street path. I
turn my drone’s nose up. It shoots high into the air before it arcs down, several paces ahead of my attacker, faster and more stable than any drone should be going.
Now people standing around are looking at me with startled curiosity. I’m moving my way steadily up the ranks now as the engine builds in strength. There’s an audible shift in the audience as people start to take notice of how my drone is performing.
A larger drone edges dangerously close to mine. One of its wings scrapes against the edge of my wing. I careen wildly away from the others and go spinning out of control. Cheers and gasps go up.
Pull straight, I tell myself frantically. Pull straight!
The engine stalls for a split second before it roars back to life. I push it as hard as I can—and the sheer momentum forces my drone’s center of mass to steady itself again. There’s an ugly tear along its side, but it still dives back into the fray.
We’re almost three-quarters of the way through the race map now. Only a few more streets to go before all the drones arrive back here in the plaza. Near the beginning of the map, several police drones have activated, their sirens flashing as they struggle to keep up with the racers.
My engine heats up until I can see the blue glow of it hot in the edges of my vision. I focus on the turns. Another drone tries to take me down. The ones ahead of me are forming a barrier. But I force mine up, its body arching over everyone as it sails onward, engine glowing, passing them up one by one.
The finish line approaches in a blur. I can hear the buzz of the drones as they come back around into the plaza where we are. The other drones are behind mine now. I smile in the clear, my drone edging on—until it finally hurtles across the last marker hanging over our heads. It wins by a good length.
The crowd around me bursts into chaos. There are enraged gamblers shouting at the announcer to throw the game. Others are already calling for bets on tomorrow night. I steer my drone back to the plaza, navigating it to my side before shutting its engine down. It lowers itself carefully to the floor of the clearing, then turns off as I pick it up and put it in my backpack. Other racers around me shoot me ugly glares while they each collect their drones as they come hurtling back one by one into the plaza’s center.
I can’t help smiling a little. I may not have my brother’s charisma or cool factor or resilience. I may not be able to find my footing at my university. But
in this—in making things, in finding a way to create something that works—I know I’m good. I know I can win.
A rough hand suddenly grabs me by the back of the neck. Not something I’d expected to feel as the winner of a drone heat. I feel myself lifted right off the ground and shoved roughly forward as a flashlight beams right into my face. Glowing spots explode in my vision. I put my hands up instinctively to block the light.
“Eli Whitman,” a woman snaps at me. Beside her, a man is holding Pressa firmly by her arms.
It’s the tense look on Pressa’s face that chills me.
“You funding this race with counterfeits?” the woman asks me. As she does, she tosses Pressa’s envelope of corras to the ground.
“Counterfeits?” I manage to say.
Pressa shakes her head. “I didn’t know they were counterfeits,” she argues. “They were approved right at the window! Your own guy held them up to the light. Someone’s framing us.”
But the woman just glares at her. “This race is forfeit,” she announces. A roar erupts from the stands—outraged gamblers who’d bet on me, smug viewers who’d lost money on the race. “You need to repay in real corras right now, plus double for a penalty.”
Pressa glances at me, warning me to stay out of this, before folding her arms across her chest and looking at the woman. “And if not?” she says.
“Did I say that was an option?” the woman asks, and the man grabs Pressa’s arms, pulling them back so hard that she screams.
“Hell on earth!” my friend spits out. “I didn’t know they were damn counterfeits! Let me go, and I’ll get you your real money, I swear it. Or cut it from our winnings. We all know who won tonight.”
They don’t look amused by her words. For an instant, I think about bringing up my own bank account—but anything I send them down here will be tracked to my real identity. They won’t accept something that isn’t untraceable cash. “Come on,” I start to say to the man and woman. “She already said she didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’ll withdraw from the race, okay? Let her go. We’ll come back with the money in an hour.”
Pressa curses at me. Her eyes are wide with anger. “Shut up, Eden,” she snaps. “I’ll handle this. Don’t withdraw!”
But they’re not listening to either of us anymore. The man starts dragging Pressa away—and in his hand, I see the glint of something sharp and metallic. Ice grips my heart in a vise. They’re going to kill her. Already, the audience—
excited at the thought of blood—have risen to their feet, their shouts reaching a fever pitch.
“I can pay,” I start to shout. Even though I don’t know what I’d do to stop them, I lunge forward, ready to yank Pressa out of their arms if I have to. “I can pay!” I say again. “I have the money in my account. I just need a way to get it to you untraced. Please, I—”
Then, without warning, the plaza goes quiet. It’s as if a switch just turned everyone off.
The woman and man halt too. Pressa blinks, as confused as everyone else.
I look around, trying to understand what has just happened.
Everyone has stopped to stare at a figure that has appeared from one of the other halls with several men on either side of him. He waves them off. Then he’s walking toward us, and as he goes, anyone around him quickly steps aside, lowering their eyes.
The figure is a man, and at first glance he doesn’t seem like much to look at. He is slender, even delicate, and young, his skin so pale it catches the red hue of the bulbs overhead, his hair thick and midnight black. His suit’s perfectly tailored and neatly pressed. He moves with surgical grace. His gaze is fixed easily on me, but there is something about his expression that makes me shrink instinctively away.
I can sense the way this man’s presence tightens a noose around the air, the way it makes the entire audience just a little bit tenser. This is someone that everyone here fears. Pressa and I exchange a quick, uncertain glance.
The man nods at me. “I’ll be this boy’s patron,” he says, his gaze going from my backpack to my face. “So I suggest you start preparing for the finals tomorrow night.”
My first impression of him is that he seems too young to have such an effect on everyone else around him.
I mean, my brother is Daniel—I know what it looks like for a young person to be revered. But this is different. This guy isn’t that much older than Daniel, but the ripple of his presence through the crowd almost feels like a living thing.
He stops in front of me and nods now, extending his hand. His expression seems kindly, almost fatherly. “That was an excellent race,” he says. “Your drone is impressive.”
“Thank you,” I say, not knowing what else to do.
When I take his extended hand and shake it, he leans in close to me. “Your name’s not Eli Whitman, is it?” he whispers.
A shiver of terror crawls down my spine even as I try to lie. “It is,” I say. “Don’t be afraid,” he adds. “I’m not saying this as a threat. If we’re going
to work together, we need to trust each other. Right?”
Then he leans back and, before I can respond, smiles and raises his voice so that those around us can hear. “Let the girl go,” he says, nodding at Pressa.
The man holding her back releases her immediately and steps away. Just like that. It’s such an instinctive reaction that I could swear it was as if the newcomer could control his mind.
Pressa rubs at her wrists as she glances quizzically at my patron. He folds his hands behind his back in the silence. “I’m going to cover the ten thousand corras for this young racer,” he announces, repeating his vow so that everyone can hear. “To me, it’s beyond a doubt that he won this race. Does anyone question it?”
Just a few moments earlier, everyone had been up in arms about my win. Boos had filled the square. But now the silence is deafening. No one even dares to look directly our way. They just glance at their neighbors and then down at the ground.
He smiles briefly. “Good,” he says before looking back at me. There’s a rasp to his voice that reverberates from deep in his chest, the kind of sound indicative of some long-festering condition. “You’ll be paid for your first win,” he says to me. “As your patron, I’ll take my share from what you’ve earned.”
As soon as he says this, someone steps forward and motions for me to stretch out my hand. I do as he says, then look on in stunned silence while he counts out a thick wad of cash into my hand, an amount directly proportional to how much of a long shot a bet on me was. I look down at my hand, numb.
One hundred thousand corras.
Beside me, Pressa stares in shock at the amount. Neither one of us has seen this much money all together in our lives. Not even Daniel gets paid like this.
The man seems pleased with my reaction. “I think we’re done with this race.” He holds a hand out in front of him, suggesting that we take a brief walk together. Already, everyone around us has made a wide berth for us to pass. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
My instincts tingle with warning and confusion. I don’t know what to make of him. All I know is that he may have just saved Pressa’s life, and mine too. “Sure,” I say as we both fall into step with him. He guides us down one of the alleys branching into the plaza. Everyone makes a deliberate point to
ignore us.
“What should I call you?” I ask the man when we’re somewhat alone in the alley.
“That depends,” he answers with a small smile. “What should I call you? Because you’re not Eli.” He glances at Pressa. “You, I’ve seen at the races before. Pressa, is it? Your father runs an apothecary in the center of the Undercity. Hardworking man.” He nods respectfully, and Pressa’s lips twitch with a surprised smile.
“Thanks,” she mumbles.
The man turns back to me. “My name is Dominic,” he says, then pauses for a moment. I can’t tell if he’s honestly thinking or if he’s just trying to give me the impression that he is. “Your brother,” he finally adds, “works for the AIS.”
A rush of fear washes over me. Pressa gives me a quick, alarmed stare. Underneath all of that, I also feel that familiar undercurrent of resentment, of being identified only in relation to Daniel.
The man named Dominic must have read my expression well, because he continues, “And you are a top student at Ross University of the Sciences. You’re graduating a year early, with honors. I’ve seen your name in the news for some of your college designs.”
Now this surprises me. I have been in the local news before for my science experiments, but no one has ever really commented on it. I frown at the man, unsure whether to feel wary or flattered. “Why do you know so much about us?” I ask.
“I make a point to know about everyone participating in the drone races,” he says as we walk. “It’s just good business.”
Business. Is this man a sponsor for the entire race? He certainly had no problems blowing ten thousand corras to be my patron. Warnings buzz louder in my head at his words. I think about how far we are from the elevators that will take us back up to the Sky Floors. We’ll have to at least humor him for a while longer.
“Thank you for sponsoring him, er, Mr. Dominic,” Pressa says for me, breaking my hesitant pause.
He waves a hand at us. “No need to thank me,” he replies. “Your prize money will more than make up for my investment. Smart move to enter the race tonight.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Where did you learn to make an engine like that?”
I shrug, unsure how to answer. “I’ve been working on its design ever since
I was a freshman,” I reply. “Drones just happen to be a cool way to test it, and earn us some money in the meantime.”
Dominic nods. “I’ve never seen an engine like yours before,” he says, and the impressed note in his voice is so genuine that I can’t help but feel a little proud. “You can apply this engine design to powering anything?”
I nod. “Anything.”
We reach the end of the alley. Here, the narrow space opens back up to a main Undercity street. “Well, this is where we part for the night,” Dominic says. “You have my word that no one will bother you as you both head home. I expect to see you tomorrow for the finals.” He gives us a small smile.
“Wait—” I start to say. There’s so much left unanswered. Who the hell is he? What does he do in the Undercity? What’s his level of involvement in the drone races?
But he’s already swallowed by shadows as he heads back down the alley. Pressa and I are left standing in the middle of the busy street with our winnings, people streaming past us in both directions.
We stare at each other in bewilderment.
“Dominic,” I mutter at her. “That doesn’t ring any bells for you, does it?”
She shakes her head. “Beats me. But you got your patron.” Then she steps closer to me and gives me a grave look. “You don’t have to do this. If you bow out, you won’t have to repay his patron money. He’ll get it returned. If you’re uncomfortable with this … well, you live in the Sky Floors, anyway, and…”
She trails off as she bites her lip.
I think of Pressa’s dad, his fragile frame and his weak voice. How much he needs his medicine. My gaze lingers on her dark eyes and heart-shaped face, and I realize that her nearness is making my cheeks warm.
“I’ll meet you after classes tomorrow,” I tell her instead. “We can talk about it then.”
