Page 73 of Hyperspeed
“See ya later, alligator.”
I huffed down the mic in my helmet. “Watch your thrusters, starboy. They’re looking a little hot.”
I passed him on lap two when he locked up a turn. Like at Horizon Rings all those weeks ago, it was the two of us trading first and second. The rest were so far back it felt like another private race.
On lap three, Kai pulled up beside me, inches from my side pod. Our wing mirrors nearly kissed at two hundred miles per hour. I glanced over, picturing that cheeky grin under his helmet. It made me want to return the favour.
“Flirting on the straight? Risky move, Mercer.”
“Call it foreplay,” he retorted, laughing as I used my booster to pull ahead.
I couldn’t respond because my mouth was dry, and I regretted not putting a drinks system in.
A few laps later, Kai caught up again.
I didn’t hit the booster this time. I stayed beside him. He waved, and I flipped him off. One hand left his wheel and tapped his helmet where his mouth would be. Then he flicked it towards me in an over-the-top gesture. It took me a second to realise he was blowing me a kiss.
What a knob.
Wheel to wheel, I forced my focus back to the asphalt as we hit my favourite stretch. It was a long service tunnel lined with glowing billboards, and they pulsed with animations—roaring solar flares, glittering meteor showers, and imploding supernovas.
Kai and I tore through the neon glare, perfectly matched, neither willing to pull ahead. Light ricocheted off our panels, turning both vehicles into twin streaks of colour, like two shooting stars knifing through an artificial cosmos.
“Something, isn’t it?” I breathed, soaking in the wash of cosmic light.
“Yeah,” Kai answered, his voice thick. “It is.”
I risked another glance his way, only to find he wasn’t watching the tunnel at all.
He was watching me.
“Eyes forward, rookie,” I said, letting the slightest grin slip.
Then I pressed on the accelerator, leaving Kai as nothing more than a flicker in my wing mirror.
For several laps we kept to the rhythm, swapping places, neither giving an inch. Then, on lap six, Kai flicked the switch for the dual-ion fuel mix. I focused on the distant glow of Solveth, its lights shimmering like a jewel against the endless black of space.
A low rumble behind me shattered the calm, growing louder with every second. Before I could react, Kai blasted past, a blur of speed and fury, his engine’s roar crashing through the silence like thunder following lightning.
“Holy fuck!” Kai shouted over the comms. “This is insane!”
He sounded like a kid on his first hyper coaster at the theme park—pure, unfiltered exhilaration. A few days ago, I might have found it irritating. Might have rolled my eyes and flicked an insult his way.
But tonight, after everything that had shifted between us, I realised it came down to one thing.
Jealousy.
I envied how he owned the world, the golden boy of the Astro Space League. The guy who melted crowds with a grin and a cocky wink.
No walls. No fear. Just Kai.
Always at the centre of everything.
The complete opposite of me.
His excitement was contagious. It spun around me like a whirlpool, tugging harder with every mile. Something inside me whispered, begging me to stop fighting the pull. To let myself sink into the bright current of Kai’s joy.
And with no one else to witness it but Kai, I gave in.
