Jason sees that the Bug"s seatbelt is jammed. It cannot be undone in time - certainly not in enough time for them to get away from the blast zone of the impending crash.
So inside four seconds, Jason does the only thing he can think of.
Straddling the Bug"s upside-down seat, effectively sitting on his trapped brother"s lap, he yanks on the ejection lever.
Shoooooooom!
A supercharged finger of bubbles lances down and away from the overturned Argonaut - it is the Bug"s seat ejecting not upward but downward into the blue-green world of the harbour, with both brothers sitting on it - a split-second before the Argonaut is. .h.i.t from above by the Kamikaze and explodes in a burst of roiling bubbles.
The water "catches" the rocketing ejection seat on its downward flight, slows the boys about thirty metres below the surface.
The Bug is still screaming, blowing bubbles.
Jason has been gripping his seatbelt"s clasp for the whole of their downward flight and suddenly - snap! - it comes free.
The Bug wriggles out from his seat - and sees that Jason isn"t moving. He grabs Jason and kicks for the surface, powered by adrenalin, expelling air as he rises. He cannot know that his brother"s lungs are filled with water - water that rushed into his open mouth as they plummeted down through the blue haze.
They hit the surface together and the Bug starts waving frantically, trying to get someone, anyone, to come and help his unconscious brother - the brother who risked his life to save his.
CHAPTER TWO.
Jason dreamed.
As he did so, his mind raced with fleeting images: Of himself being loaded onto a hovercopter - of shouting voices - someone pumping on his chest - flying over Venice II with the sun in his eyes, and then abruptly coughing, vomiting water, expelling it from his lungs...and then breathing, inhaling and exhaling, wonderful deep breaths of glorious air...and then falling fast asleep.
Voices in his dreams: "He"s going to be all right, Mr Chaser," a man"s voice said calmly. "He"s just sleeping now. You can go back to the hotel. We"ll call you when he regains full consciousness."
"I"m not going anywhere till my son wakes up," Henry Chaser"s voice replied.
At one point, Jason woke briefly, just long enough to see that he was in a bed and wearing pyjamas. The bed was in a hospital of some sort and it was the dead of night - moonlight streamed in through a nearby window.
And in that brief instant, he saw his father slouched in a chair under the window, sitting upright but asleep, his chin all bristly and unshaven, his clothes rumpled. They were the same clothes he"d been wearing on race day.
His father hadn"t left his bedside.
Jason fell asleep again.
Then the nightmares came.
They all involved crashing a speeding hover car. Hitting the entry pillars of a mountainside tunnel. Slamming into a cliff-face near the Race School. And worst of all - in the most often repeated nightmare - Jason would find himself rushing at the surface of the Grand Ca.n.a.l, his car out of control, his steering wheel completely unresponsive.
And as in all the other nightmares, a nanosecond before he hit the water, his eyes would dart open and he would find himself lying in his bed, breathless, drenched in sweat.
Then, one day, sunshine hit Jason"s eyes and he awoke fully.
He opened his eyes to immediately see his father staring at him from his chair, smiling. "Hey there, son."
"Hi, Dad," Jason"s throat was dry. He blinked, sat up. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Almost two days now," Henry Chaser checked his watch.
"Two days..."
"All of Italy has been waiting to hear that you"re okay. You"re a hero, saving your brother like you did - while an out-of-control hover car was screaming right at you. I"m very proud of you, son. Very proud. You could have got away, but you didn"t. You didn"t leave your brother behind."
And Henry hugged Jason. Hard. "Good boy."
Half an hour later, Martha Chaser and the Bug rushed into the hospital room, followed by Sally McDuff and Scott Syracuse.
Martha enveloped Jason in a bear-hug, as did the Bug, who whispered in his ear.
"No problem, buddy," Jason replied. "You wouldn"t have left me."
Sally said, "All right, Hero. I tell you, when you lose, you really do lose in style. You like going out with a bang, don"t you? Although, I have to say, reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated."
She handed him a copy of Il Corriere Della Sera, the Italian daily newspaper, headlined "THE DEATH OF JASON CHASER" and accompanied by a motion-photo of the Argonaut II being hit by Kamiko Ideki"s Yamaha and exploding into flames.
Sally explained: "Apparently, the Corriere Della Sera prepared two editions for today"s paper - one with you alive, the other with you dead - and they accidentally printed 1,000 copies of the wrong edition. I think I"m going to get this framed."
Jason snuffed a laugh.
"How"s Mr Lombardi taking it?" he asked.
"At first he was horrified that you might"ve died driving one of his cars. But then, when he was informed that you were okay - "
"WHERE IS HE!" a loud voice boomed from the corridor outside Jason"s room.
Umberto Lombardi strode into the room, his eyes wide. "Where is the young man who destroyed my car!"
Jason shrank into his pillow, not entirely sure if Lombardi was really angry or just faking it.
Lombardi stopped in front of him...and his angry face relaxed into a wide mischievous grin. "I just have to know, Young Signor Chaser, what does it feel like to destroy - destroy - million-dollar Ferrari?"
"I"m sorry, Mr Lombardi."
"Bah! Forget it. It"s insured - and I love claiming big payouts from insurance companies! G.o.d knows I pay them enough in premiums! But you, you"re a hero, boy! Which means you"ve made me a guy who employs heroes. I just hope you don"t mind me basking in the reflected light of your magnificent glow!"
"You can bask all you want, sir. I"m still sorry about the car."
"Don"t even think about it," Lombardi said kindly. "Ferraris come and go, but young men like you" - he winked - "come once in a lifetime."
But Jason couldn"t stop thinking about it.
Nor could he rest.
As soon as he was able to, he asked for a video-disc copy of the final moments of the race and he watched his crash over and over again.
He saw his car overtake Trouveau"s Renault - moving into 5th place - then saw it swing round the final lefthand turn, banking under the Accademia Bridge...before without warning, its tailfin just exploded to nothing.
Then he watched in horror as the black-and-yellow Ferrari arced down into the water, where it tumbled and splashed and rolled, before it stopped abruptly, upsidedown.
And then the Yamaha screamed into it.
Boom.
What the h.e.l.l had happened to his tailfin? he thought. What had caused it to explode?
It was just too weird. And since there was nothing left of the Argonaut II, it was impossible to inspect the wreckage.
But Jason knew one thing: tailfins didn"t just explode by themselves. Sure, a broken tailfin might get rammed and drop into the airpath of a car"s own thrusters, but such instances were rare, and by all appearances, Jason"s tailfin hadn"t been damaged in any way.
It had just spontaneously exploded.
The truth was clear to Jason: someone had tampered with his car in order to put him out of the Italian Run.
And now, more than anything, he wanted to know who that had been.
At one point, as he was watching the video-disc for the thousandth time, his mother tapped lightly on the door.
"h.e.l.lo dear," Martha Chaser said. "There"s someone here who was hoping to see you."
Martha stepped aside - to reveal Dido, standing shyly in the corridor behind her.
Jason"s face broke out in a wide grin. "H...hi," he said.
"I"ll leave you two alone," Martha said, leaving.
Dido entered Jason"s hospital room tentatively. "How"re you feeling?"
Just at the sight of her, Jason felt a lot better.
CHAPTER THREE.
As Jason regained his strength over the next two days, Scott Syracuse informed him of what had been happening back at the Race School in his absence.
When Jason had come to Italy, he"d been in fourth place on the Race School Championship Ladder. During the week of the Italian Run, he"d missed three races. But now, with his hospitalisation, he would miss at least one more.
The Ladder looked like this: INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL.
CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER.
AFTER 40 RACES.
DRIVER NO. CAR POINTS.
1. XONORA, X 1 Speed Razor 266 2. KRISHNA, V 31 Calcutta-IV 259 3. WASHINGTON, I 42 Black Bullet 247 4. BECKER, B 09 Devil"s Chariot 240 5. PIPER, A 16 Pied Piper 235 6. SCHUMACHER, K 25 Blue Lightning 229 7. WONG, H 888 Little Tokyo 225 8. CHASER, J 55 Argonaut 217 Jason was stunned. Just missing three races had seen him drop from 4th to 8th. Xavier, of course, was still coming first, he"d been so far ahead when he"d left.
And Jason was well aware that it was only the top four racers who got to partic.i.p.ate in the New York Challenger Race at the end of the season.
Investigations would have to wait.
It was time to return to Race School.
Jason was packing his bags, getting ready to leave his hospital room, when a nurse arrived, carrying an envelope.
"This just came for you," she handed him the envelope. Jason opened it, and frowned. It read: SO? HOW ARE THOSE NIGHTMARES GOING?.
RUN BACK TO THE PLAYPEN, LITTLE BOY.
REGARDS, FABIAN.
CHAPTER FOUR.