Titans (7 page)

I show up at Rags’s house early the next morning, a sleepy Magnolia by my side. She insisted I wake her when I was heading over because “my battle is her battle.” My chest warms remembering the way she looked at me when she said this.

Magnolia is my best friend, and so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s committed to helping me compete in the Titan Circuit. But she doesn’t know that if I won, somehow, a part of that money would go to her. I don’t know how Rags would split the hypothetical winnings between us—he being the one with the Titan and knowledge, and me taking the risks out on the track. But Magnolia’s family has struggled as much as mine has, and I want to make sure they don’t end up with their own eviction notice in hand.

Rags is loading two bags into the truck bed when we arrive, and this time he doesn’t even complain when he sees Magnolia, other than mumbling a quick “Why is she here?” I hold my breath, afraid he’ll tell me it’s over since I didn’t refer to his precious Titan as a
he
. But the old man only waves toward the truck and retrieves a thermos of coffee from the hood. I sigh with relief and Magnolia and I jog to get in.

When we’re safely inside, Rags gets behind the wheel and says gruffly, “It’s Wednesday. The sponsor race is this Sunday. No more messing around when we get there, understood?”

“Understood,” Magnolia says.

I smile at her, and then look back to Rags. “I understand.”

With a slight nod of his head, we travel toward Barney’s house. It’s a quicker trip than it was the day before, and when we arrive, Barney is already outside his house. His eyes move immediately to Magnolia’s empty hands, and the man deflates.

“Next time,” she says. “I promise.”

Barney shrugs. “You can’t go gettin’ a man’s hopes up. You bring muffins one morning and there’s a certain amount of expectation after that.”

The Titan prances when it sees Rags approaching. In anticipation of riding, I wore jeans and my favorite lime-green sneakers, and I’m hoping my preparation isn’t for nothing. Rags opens the Titan’s engine flap, glances inside at the parts within, and closes it. Then he pats the Titan on the neck and scowls at me. “Today, you ride.”

Goose bumps rise on my arms.

Rags strides toward his truck and withdraws the larger of the two bags. Inside is a standard black leather saddle I’ve seen other jockeys use. He walks toward the Titan and then tosses it over the creature’s back.

“With a real horse, we’d put a saddle blanket down first so the leather wouldn’t rub. No need for that here.” He grabs a knob-like thing at the front of the saddle. “The saddlehorn is typically used to mount, dismount, and to keep from falling off if the horse ever bucks. Since you have the handlebars on the dash, you won’t need it for stability. But you’ll still use it to mount.” Rags holds up the stirrups that fall on either side of the Titan’s middle. “You’ll use these to mount and dismount, but also to lean forward and backward depending on the track. If you’re going downhill, lean backward to take weight off the Titan’s front legs. If you’re going uphill, lean forward. This’ll help him maintain top speed during the race.”

I know most of what he’s telling me, but I don’t interrupt. And when he says it’s time to mount, I decide this is my reward for being attentive and patient.

“One foot in the stirrup. Always mount him from the left side.” Rags stands ready to help me. “That goes back to ancient times when soldiers holstered their swords on the left. They mounted on this side so they didn’t accidentally sit on their swords.”

“Is that true?” Magnolia asks.

“All Titans are designed to tolerate being mounted from that side because of that,” Barney answers her. “We liked the idea of keeping to tradition.”

I look at Rags, impressed that these two had a hand in minor details that are still in place for Titan 3.0s. Rags gestures for me to go ahead, and my heart flutters as I slip my foot into the stirrup, grab on to the saddle horn, and pull in a breath. The machine turns its head and gives me a good, curious sniff like a real horse might do. It’s startling, but I remind myself it’s only an artificial response to mimic emotions. Not real ones.

I return to the moment. A moment I’ve thought about since I was twelve years old. Since I first heard about the track being constructed and glimpsed those steels gods being rolled into the forest.

I ease my foot into the stirrup and stretch until my hands find the saddle horn. Pulling in a deep breath, praying I don’t make a fool of myself through mounting alone, I hoist myself up.

My opposite leg swings over the top, and every nerve ending in my body fires at once. I’m on a Titan. I’m sitting in a saddle … on a Titan.

“You look like an empress,” Magnolia declares.

“An empress who’s going to fall on her rear if she doesn’t grip those handlebars tighter,” Rags says. “Are you ready to ride?”

I answer him without speaking, because somewhere between the ground and this place above the rest of the world, I’ve lost my voice. After a few moments, I find it long enough to say, “I’m sorry about being difficult yesterday.”

“Yesterday is gone,” he replies, adjusting the stirrups. “Let’s take him out.”

There’s only one starting gate stall, and the Titan and I are in it. The horse stomps its feet and bangs its back end against both sides, anticipating its first track run in who knows how long. Maybe its first track run, ever.

There I go again, thinking of
it
as a thing with feelings.

“I’m not going to give you any instruction other than to keep the horse in the safe zone,” Rags says. My eyes fall on the performance gauge, and the stretch of green I have to play with. Fair enough. “Don’t worry if you have a hard time getting him to accelerate or turn or whatever. Just get a feel for what it means to stay in the saddle. If at any moment you get afraid, push the brake bar up slowly.
Slooowly
.”

I can barely hear him above the blood thrumming in my ears. The Titan slams against the starting gate, and I can’t help but agree. It feels like I’ve been back here an eternity, like I’ve spent my whole life in this exact spot, waiting to feel the breeze off a track slice through my hair.

When Barney’s hand closes over the steel rod to open the manual gate, I close my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Try to quiet the voice that says I won’t be able to do this. I lean forward in the saddle and hear the leather adjust to my weight, smell the scent of polish Barney applied this morning. Then I push the smaller black button to ready the machine. When a faint red light grows in color, signaling the Titan’s readiness, pledging power and action, I lose my mind with excitement. I touch the gas bar, and the Titan produces a low whirring sound.

Everything falls away. My best friend is speaking, but I can’t hear her. Sparks are flying off the Titan as it clashes against the gate, but I don’t feel a thing when they hit my skin.

Rags provides one last nugget of advice. Something about staying in the saddle.

But all I see when I look ahead is my grandfather standing in the distance. His face is the same ashen color it was when I returned home to our apartment, the day my family failed me. The day I failed my family. Grandpa is trying to speak, but can’t. I’m fumbling for his heart pills, something Dani should have remembered, but I know it’s too late. I know he’s dying, but there’s nothing I can do to help. There’s nothing I can do.

But when that starting gate slides open, it’s as if that old, helpless Astrid slides away with it.

Now I am Astrid with a Titan beneath her.

I am invincible.

Unstoppable.

I push the black turbo button—
Manual transmission
.
Go!
—and the Titan runs. He’s slow to start, much different from the same horse I saw yesterday running on his own. But a quick push of the accelerator, and he’s off, gaining speed. His head jerks up and down with the pounding of his steel hooves. He’s not even a fraction into the safe zone, and it feels like we’re flying impossibly fast. The landscape whips by. The trees and ground blur into a brown mass. There’s a turn coming up, and I grit my teeth, terror swimming through my veins. We won’t make it. The Titan will skid out, flip, and I’ll go flying.

My right hand pulls away from the handlebars and shakes above the brake lever. I have to slow down. I must. But as we barrel closer to the turn, I think back to the races I’ve watched. Those Titans were going three times as fast, maybe more, and they closed those turns with ease. At the last minute, I push up on the accelerator and ease the joysticks to the left, leaning away from the turn like Rags taught me to do.

The Titan leans too.

Tears sting my eyes when I see the ground racing past, so close it’s as if I could reach down and touch it. Feel the skin rip away from my palm. But I hold tight and lean, lean,
lean
. Then we’re upright, and the Titan is off again. We race down a long straightaway and take two more turns. Each time, I accelerate into them, though it’s the opposite of what I’ve seen on the cyclonetrack.com replay videos.

The Titan rolls with my punches, lapping up each degree in acceleration with an eagerness I envy. As for me, my hands are sweating, and I can barely keep a grip on the bars. This wouldn’t bode well in an actual race. I need my hands to switch gears, to turn the Titan with precision. But the only thing I bring to the table now is my mind.

Each new twist I discover in the track is a calculation waiting to be solved.

Thirty-five-degree turn.

One sixteenth of a mile.

Traveling at twenty-nine miles an hour.

Wait … wait …
Now!
I accelerate and lean, and the Titan leans against me. We arch toward the track in a dangerous dance before pulling upright again. Knowing Rags will kill me if I go too much farther, I snap my teeth together, bear down in the saddle, and look at the performance gauge. Nowhere near the caution zone. A light-year away from the slay zone.

Nothing to lose.

“You wanna go faster?” I yell.

The Titan neighs, surprising me with the realistic sound. I laugh against the fear and imagine the Titan actually comprehended what I said. Kicking my heels lightly into his side, I nudge the accelerator bar. And then I nudge it again.

Perspiration beads on the Titan’s body, and tremors shake my arms.

It feels as if we’re going so much faster than forty miles an hour.

I’m not sure my mother has ever driven our busted-up Buick this fast before. The wind tears through my hair the way I always imagined, whispering for me to close my eyes, but I won’t. I don’t want to miss a single second of this. I’ve never felt so free. So fast. So bold. So beautiful.

I’ve never been this critically close to the grave.

I don’t know where the last thought comes from, but once it’s there, I can’t shake it loose. My eyes snap to the ground and I realize how much damage we’d both incur if we crashed. The difference is the Titan is made of steel. I am soft skin, fragile bones.

I push up on the brake bar. The problem is I also push up on the accelerator. I panicked and punched both, and now the Titan is jerking from side to side, blazing into the grass on the edge of the track and back onto the dirt path. He doesn’t know what to do and I can’t remember which is the brake bar and the horse is on a crash course with a tree that has no mind to move aside.

My hands fly across the control panel, searching for anything that will get him to turn. I catch sight of the performance gauge. We’re in the yellow. Rags is going to kill me. I’m going to be flattened by this tree, and then the old man is going to finish me off.

I hit the black turbo button repeatedly, but that only causes the scent of smoke to touch my nose. Maybe that’s what brings me back. That smell. The tree is maybe four feet away when I take the joysticks in my hand, turn gently to the left, and then push the brake bar forward. The Titan swishes away from the tree, but I still duck to keep from having my head taken by a limb.

Once we’ve bypassed it, I bring the horse back into the center of the track and slow him to a stop. My hands are shaking and sweat drips down the back of my shirt. I hear Rags, Barney, and Magnolia yelling in the distance, but it does little to calm my nerves. Sliding off the horse, I fall to the ground, landing hard on my left hip. The Titan turns its head in my direction.

Then it gives me a
look
. I kid you not; the horse looks at me like I’m an idiot. Maybe I’m hallucinating, and my pride is so injured that I’m seeing laughter in a steel horse’s eyes. But something tells me I’m not imagining this.

The threesome is still running toward me when the Titan takes a step in my direction. Then another. My heart hammers in my chest seeing it venture so close. I’m laid out on the ground, my hip singing with pain, and here is this metal monster looming over me.

Maybe it does have a mind of its own.

Maybe that mind is telling it to stomp on my skull.

The red light fades from the creature’s eyes, and it lowers its muzzle. I flinch when warmed steel touches the outside of my arm. The horse nudges me. Then it nudges me again. When it pushes its head under my arm and lifts, I realize what it wants me to do. I grab hold of the silky steel threads that serve as hair, and swing the opposite arm around its neck. Slowly, the Titan lifts me to my feet.

As soon as I’m upright, the Titan jerks its head away and pins its ears back. The machine’s message is crystal clear.

I helped you up, but you’re still an idiot.

And that’s the first moment—with my chest still aching from adrenaline and fear, and Rags hollering who knows what—that I smile at the Titan.