She turned. "Yeah?"
"We"re gonna beat this guy in the pits."
"d.a.m.n straight," Sally said.
She made to leave - just as someone else arrived at the Argonaut and stopped her.
It was Varishna Krishna.
Dark-eyed and handsome, with smooth chocolate-brown skin, Krishna was a very polite and articulate young man from India. He was still wearing his sweat-stained racing uniform. He must have come straight from his car after losing to Xavier.
"Jason, Bug, Sally. h.e.l.lo."
"Krishna?" Jason frowned. "What - "
"A word of advice, young Jason. As you may know, I experienced some magneto-drive problems in my last race. Let me tell you what happened. Two of my mags were depleted when they went onto my car. However, my Mech Chief, Darius, had checked them all beforehand, and they were okay. Which means that at some point during the race my mags were drained of their power. After the race, we found this lying next to our mag storage case."
Krishna held up a small radio-like device the size of a child"s lunchbox.
Jason knew what it was instantly.
It was a portable microwave transmitter. Often used as a back-up radio by race teams, portable microwave transmitters were usually kept as far away from magneto drives as possible - for the simple reason that, if left on, they sapped mag drives of their power.
"I just thought I"d warn you," Krishna said, eyeing Barnaby, Xavier and Zoroastro disapprovingly. "I can"t prove anything, but Barnaby comes from the same stable as Xavier, and well...let"s just say it might be something your Mech Chief will want to keep an eye on."
Jason nodded. "Thanks, Krishna. I...I didn"t know you cared."
Despite his recent loss, Krishna smiled and placed a hand on Jason"s shoulder. "Oh, young Master Chaser, do not doubt the impact you make. I know you"ve had a hard time here at Race School. But know this: some of us enjoy watching you race. You have this delightful habit of hanging on by your fingertips to the bitter end. I suppose I just realised that it was time you knew you had a friend."
And with that, Krishna turned and walked off.
2ND SEMI-FINAL:.
CHASER V BECKER.
As the Argonaut and the all-maroon Devil"s Chariot had been sitting side-by-side on the grid, waiting for the start of their semi final, Barnaby Becker had called to Jason: "Hey, Chaser. Time to die."
Jason replied simply: "Shut up and race."
And race they did - in an absolutely brutal contest. Full-tilt racing.
In a word, Jason raced like a demon. But Barnaby was up to the challenge and for the first 30 laps, it was more a battle of wills than a match-race. The two of them raced almost side-by-side, taking every turn together, every straight, even pitting together.
Indeed, for the first 30 laps, neither of them even attempted a chase phase - which sent a message to the crowd: this was not a chase, it was a 100-lap race to the Finish Line.
In the end, the stalemate was broken in the pits. At around the 30-lap mark, Sally McDuff lifted her game - and she started sending the Argonaut back onto the track, fully replenished, with 8-second stops and even a 7-second one, the first such stop of the day.
The result was a steadily increasing lead.
The Argonaut started to pull away from the Devil"s Chariot - and by Lap 75, Jason was a full quarter of a lap ahead. And based on the run of the race so far, that would be a lead that Barnaby couldn"t surmount.
It was on Lap 75, however - while Sally was busy watching Jason whip down the home straight - that a dark figure slipped into the Argonaut"s pit bay behind her and placed something beside her next set of fresh mags.
A microwave radio transmitter.
Sally never saw the intruder. By the time she turned round to prepare for the next stop, he was gone.
A few laps later the Argonaut pitted and then shot back out onto the track - where Jason quickly realised that at least two of his new mags were cactus.
"d.a.m.n it!" he yelled. "Not now!"
Furious, he had to pit again.
But Barnaby didn"t.
And so as the Argonaut pulled into the pits, the Devil"s Chariot swept past it and all of a sudden, in the s.p.a.ce of two laps, the lead was reversed - and with only 19 circuits of the course remaining, Barnaby Becker now held a commanding half-lap lead.
Sadly for Jason, that lead proved to be too big. Desperate and determined, he chased Barnaby all the way to the end, but to no avail.
Barnaby held his lead and after 100 hard-fought laps, he cruised over the Finish Line and claimed his place in the final.
Jason could only punch his steering wheel with frustration and bring the Argonaut back to the pits.
His day was over.
He was out of the tournament.
CHAPTER NINE.
The Argonaut returned to the pits - to find a large crowd gathered around its pit bay. And this was no ordinary crowd either. It was a crowd of race officials and teachers, including the School"s Race Director, Stanislaus Calder, the man in charge of the tournament, and Jean-Pierre LeClerq, making a rare visit from the VIP marquee.
And in the middle of this crowd stood Sally McDuff, with her arms folded, looking - of all things - pretty pleased with herself.
Jason stepped out of the Argonaut, frowning at the sight. He removed his helmet. Truth be told, after three energy-sapping races, he was tired as h.e.l.l and he was looking forward to having a shower and a rest.
"Sally?" he said. "What"s going on?"
Sally came over. "Don"t put that helmet away, my talented young friend. We"re not out of this tournament yet."
"What do you mean?"
"The judges are checking the video replay," Sally said enigmatically. "Come and see."
The race officials were indeed viewing two video monitors: the monitors that were connected to the two closed-circuit TV cameras hanging from the ceiling of the Argonaut"s pit bay; the monitors that Scott Syracuse had employed during pit practice to allow Sally and the boys to see themselves in action.
On one monitor now was a clear black-and-white image of the Argonaut"s pit bay: it depicted Sally at work on the Tarantula during the semi final against Barnaby. A computer monitor on the Tarantula showed all the vital stats of the race so far, revealing that this was sometime around Lap 75, racetime 37:30 minutes.
Then Sally moved to the edge of the screen, looking out of the pit bay, and as she did so, a dark figure crept into the Argonaut"s pit bay behind her and quickly deposited a portable microwave transmitter next to her stack of magneto drives.
But as the dark figure sneaked away, he inadvertently glanced upwards - looking directly into the camera - and everyone saw his face.
It was Guido Moralez.
Barnaby Becker"s Mech Chief.
"Oh my Lord..." one of the race officials gasped.
The other School officials swapped shocked glances.
"Gentlemen!" Race Director Calder raised his voice above the murmurs. "By my order, an emergency hearing will be convened in ten minutes in the Race Briefing Centre. Please advise Mr Becker and his Mech Chief, Mr Moralez, that their presence at this hearing is specifically requested. They have some questions to answer."
Thirty minutes later, the hearing was over.
In the face of Sally"s d.a.m.ning video evidence of Moralez planting the microwave transmitter beside the Argonaut"s mag drives - thus depleting them of their power and forcing Jason to pit again - Barnaby Becker had been disqualified from the tournament and his semi-final victory quashed.
Race Director Calder had been particularly severe in his judgement.
He said that had it been entirely up to him, both Barnaby and Moralez would have been expelled from the Race School for such disgraceful conduct. But a plea from their teacher, Zoroastro - claiming that this was an act entirely out of character, a stupid act of desperation in the heat of racing - saved their bacon, and they merely had to suffer the indignity of being stripped of their victory.
And with the overturning of that victory came the announcement - an announcement that the 250,000-strong crowd greeted with delighted applause.
Jason and the Argonaut were now in the final.
Leaving the Race Briefing Room, Race Director Calder said to Jason: "Mr Chaser. The final will commence in twenty minutes. See you on the grid."
"We"ll be there, sir," Jason nodded.
As he strode back to the pits, Sally fell into step alongside him, grinning like a sphinx.
Jason eyed her sideways. "Why are you smiling like that?"
Sally just raised her eyebrows.
Jason said, "Now that I think about it, you never switched on those closed-circuit cameras for any of our other races in this tournament, did you?"
"Nope."
"But you switched them on for the semi?"
"I did. After what Krishna told us, I thought some precautions might be in order," she said. "Jason. You race these guys out on the track, but I also race them - in the pits. And I was determined to beat these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the pits. And I did. That was my best race yet, and I sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t gonna let anyone stiff us with some mysteriously depleted magneto drives."
Jason turned to face her as they walked. In her own way, Sally McDuff was just as proud and determined as he was.
He nodded to her. "You"re a dead-set legend, Sally."
The next twenty minutes went by in a blur.
With the sun beginning to set, the gigantic track and the bay around it was bathed in a diffused orange glow. The floodlights came on.
The crowds in the hovering grandstands were buzzing with excitement.
The tournament draw itself told the story of a great day"s racing: ROUND 1 QRTR FINALS SEMI FINALS FINAL.
1. XONORA, X.
16. [BYE] 1. XONORA, X.
10. LUCAS, L 8. WONG, H.
8. WONG, H 1. XONORA, X.
6. CORTEZ, J 4. KRISHNA, V.
11. PHAROS, A 6. CORTEZ, J.
14. MORIALTA, R 4. KRISHNA, V.
4. KRISHNA, V 1. XONORA, X.
12. CHASER, J.