Page 9 of Hyperspeed
But because I was a stubborn prick, I couldn’t let him get the last word in.
“We’ll see who’s better than whom when it matters—in the race,rookie.”
Rev stopped in his tracks and glared at me over his shoulder, dark eyes narrowed and both ears flicking. The marks on his face glowed a colour so dark it looked black from this distance.
He said no more, but neither did I. He just stood there, chest heaving, expression seething.
We glared at each other for a few more seconds, a battle of wills to see who’d break first.
But as if he didn’t want to waste any more of his precious time on me, he broke the connection and stormed away, disappearing into Zenith’s garage.
What a fucking prick.
Starman on the Grid
Rev
I woke up far too early. My watch read four a.m., and the sun illuminated my hotel room despite the blackout blinds. I don’t know how Zylo coped growing up on Ithara with its twenty hours of daylight throughout the year.
Though, as an Iskari, I gravitated toward the dark—it was easier on my oversensitive eyes.
The city of Luminara was quiet this early in the morning. Better than the constant hub of noise it would be in a few hours’ time. Ithara was mostly empty grassland, and Luminara was one of only three cities on the entire planet. As the capital city, and the biggest, “overcrowded“ was an understatement. This wasn’t my favourite planet.
Though I suppose I didn’t have a favourite at all.
None of them were my home.
The Iskari didn’t have one anymore.
Iskanya had been destroyed centuries ago, pillaged by a neighbouring planet filled with warmongers. Given our peaceful nature, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone when we lost that fight and the Iskari were all but wiped out.
Now there were less than a few thousand of us spread across the galaxy. We could go our entire lives without seeing another beyond the hub of our families. Hell, we weren’t even recognised as an independent species anymore.
We were displaced.
Endangered.
Weak.
I was determined to change those perceptions, and despite my aversion to people, the Astro Space League was my chance. My opportunity to remind the galaxy that we were still here. That we were still struggling.
I rolled out of bed, deciding that now was as good a time as any to get up. Even if I didn’t have to be at the track for another six hours. It was race day. Myfirstrace day—in the Astro Space League, at least.
I’d been racing for years on the underground circuit, determined to make a name for myself. To get to where I was today.
Yes, it was dangerous and illegal. Andyes, Mum and Grandma were less than impressed upon finding out I’d been taking part.
But karting from an early age before climbing through the lower Intergalactic Racing Leagues—the usual, more official route—was brutally expensive if you wanted to do well. Far beyond what my parents could afford on their meagre salaries. There were sponsors to be had, sure, but no major corporation was going to risk its money on a scrawny little Iskari, diversity quota or not.
It meant I’d had to take matters into my own hands.
My watch pinged with an incoming call. I tapped the screen, and a hologram of my mother hovered in the air above my wrist. I crossed the bedroom and opened the blackout curtains so she could see me better, and she gave me a beaming smile, her ears twitching affectionately.
“Hi,zyli!”
Despite a groan at my childhood nickname, a sense of warmth filled me and the lines on my skin flared gold. She’d started calling me her “shooting star” when I was a kid.
After Dad had brought home a beat-up kart he’d salvaged from the scrapyard he worked at. I practically lived in the thing, racing up and down the hallway outside our cramped two-bedroom apartment. The only times I wasn’t in it were when I was at school, asleep, or being dragged to the bath—usually by Grandma, who had to force me into the tub. Like any other kid, I’d thought bath times were a full-on mutiny against my comfort.
