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  “Good luck,” T’shawn said.

  “Owe you for this, brud.”

  “It’s nada. You go win.”

  The car behind them honked. T’shawn rolled his eyes, gave her a salute, and pulled away.

  Marmeg walked into the squat concrete bus station. Security guards in bulky exos watched her motions as they did with anyone wearing gear. She found her bus and boarded it. The dozen other passengers were mostly migrant farm workers from Mexico and Southeast Asia. Half of them had already dozed off, and the others were staring at their screens.

  Marmeg had a row to herself. Her pack sat next to her, bulky and comforting. She wrapped her arms around it and tried to sleep, to forget the flash of red after she’d paid for the one-way ticket to Oakhurst. Her account was zeroed.

  * * *

  The bus from Fresno to Oakhurst arrived late. Marmeg had intended to foot it from the small town to the starting line, but no way would she make it on time. She stood outside the station, staring at the distant peaks in despair. A woman emerged from the building and walked to her.

  “I’m headed that way myself,” the woman said. She was obviously middle-aged and a nat, reminiscent of Marmeg’s mother. “Want a lift?”

  Thank God for the kindness of strangers.

  Marmeg felt the first twinges of motion sickness as the pickup truck bounced and swayed through the curves of Sky Ranch Road. The woman—Lauren was her name—kept her eyes on the uneven dirt road, but she must have sensed Marmeg’s discomfort.

  “You want to turn back? It’s not too late. You can still catch the bus to Fresno.”

  Marmeg explained, “Carsickness, not nerves.” Then she shrugged. “Can’t go back. Account’s full busted. Gotta race. Gotta place.”

  “How old are you, sweetie? Does your mom or dad know you’re up here doing this?”

  “Twenty,” Marmeg lied. “Mom knows.”

  They bounced through a particularly vicious dip. Marmeg’s head smacked into the truck’s ceiling on the rebound.

  “Sorry,” Lauren said.

  Marmeg stared through the pockmarked but clean windshield. Trees towered above them on both sides. They mostly looked like elongated Christmas trees. Some had rusty red bark with a feathery texture. She was tempted to look them up on her cuff, but the thought of trying to read while her stomach lurched put her off. Every few minutes, she caught a glimpse of rounded granite mounds: the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

  “Here we are,” Lauren said as she turned right into a large dirt clearing.

  Dust rose around the truck as they pulled up next to the tree line. Sleek but rugged vehicles were parked nearby. The whole area swarmed with people.

  Marmeg flicked her wrist to activate her cuff. The time read 8:35. She would not have made the nine o’clock cutoff on foot, not with all the enhancements in the world.

  “Thanks,” Marmeg said. “Owe you big. Credit you some grid time? Call it quits?”

  Lauren raised her eyebrows. “What?”

  Marmeg spoke in slower, fuller sentences. “Can’t pay you back for the ride, but I got grid time to spare. Trade for your help. If you want.”

  “This was a favor, kid. You don’t owe me anything. Just promise me that you’ll make it through and back to your mom in one piece, okay? I’ve got a son not much younger than you. You remind me of him.”

  Marmeg ducked her head shyly.

  “Deal. You look out tomorrow. See my name.”

  Marmeg ignored the bemused look Lauren gave her and hauled her bag out of the back. She waved once as Lauren drove away. Dust stirred in the wake of the tires, making her sneeze. Its scent reminded her of the housekeeper who lived downstairs and always smelled of pine, though that was harsher than the natural version. Even the air smelled different from home—sharper, simpler.

  Marmeg walked across the crowded dirt lot to the race booth. Journos surrounded former winners and high-rated contestants. Marmeg’s heart beat faster. She was nobody today, but she knew that a few people had placed bets on her. Her odds were long—this was her first race—but they wouldn’t be on her next one, not if she finished Minerva in the top five.

  Contestants and their support teams clustered in small groups. Most had their screens out for last-minute tune-ups and optimized settings. A few were warming up. Flashing their feathers, Marmeg thought. She felt more than saw their curious glances as she walked by. Somebody snickered. Marmeg was glad of her brown skin. It hid the flush.

  The registration booth was a modest structure made of canvas and plastic. A giant electronic panel across its top looked out of place as it displayed vid clips from previous Minerva Challenges. The corporate logo—a clockwork owl—hung on a banner to the left with the words EQUIPPING THE ATHLETES OF THE FUTURE printed below.

  Two people sat behind the booth table. The one who faced outward was an attractive moot with short, floppy blond hair and a toothy smile. The other had zir back to Marmeg.

  She dropped her gear bag on the dirt and waved her cuff over the screen on the table. It came to life and filled with upside-down text next to her picture.

  “Mary Margaret Guinto?” the blond read.

  Marmeg nodded.

  Zie frowned. “Where’s your support team? They need to check in too.”

  “My, uh, team?” Marmeg struggled to recall the race application and requirements. “They’re late. Be here soon.”

  The other person behind the table turned around, and Marmeg startled at seeing zir—his—beard. She had assumed everyone here would be a moot.

  “They need to meet you on the far side,” he said, also frowning. He bent over the screen and flicked through Marmeg’s registration. “You didn’t put their names in the application. We’ll need their information and your emergency contact’s as well.”

  Marmeg scribbled three names with her index finger into the blank fields: Jefferson Marcos, Lee Inciong, Felix Inciong. Her brothers were the first people Marmeg could think of who didn’t have a criminal record. Not that it would matter if the Minerva reps bothered to look them up—two of them were underage. She listed Amihan as her emergency contact.

  Beard-guy rotated the display to face Marmeg. Tiny, dense text filled the page.

  “Fingerprint at the bottom,” he instructed.

  Marmeg glanced over the section headers as she scrolled through pages of rules, regulations, waivers, and exclusions. She knew the rules well enough. The rest didn’t matter. She pressed her thumb against the sensor. The blond grabbed Marmeg’s other wrist, injected a subdermal chip, and slapped a Band-Aid over it.

  “Race ID,” zie explained. “Good luck, and see you on the other side.”

  Start time was in an hour. Marmeg found an unoccupied space near the trees to do a final gear check of her own. She examined the pins on the leg ports, making sure their alignment was good and the screws were tight. The torso shell came next. It made her feel like a turtle, but it was the best she had found in the castoff bin behind the used gear shop.

  “What is zie wearing? Second generation exos?” said someone nearby.

  “I think you mean she.”

  “Why are you picking on her, Zika?” asked a third, more melodious voice. “Worried about the competition? She’s brave to even go out in that kit.”

  Marmeg kept her body relaxed and ignored them. Doing security at the club had given her a fairly thick skin. She pulled muscle-enhancing sleeves over her arms and stuffed the skeletal-looking braces in the bag, hoping she wouldn’t need to climb any overhangs. The braces only half-worked on the best of days. A quick systems check on her screen showed everything powered up and responding correctly.

  An enormous tree trunk lay fallen at an angle a few yards away. Marmeg walked over to it. Its high point came up to her shoulders. She flexed her legs, crouched, and leapt to the top, landing lightly on the crumbling wood. A few heads turned to stare at her, and she quirked her lips. They wanted a show? Fine. She flipped backward off the tree, sprung off her hands, tw
isted midair, and landed on all fours.

  Her audience shook their heads and returned to their tasks. Irked by the lukewarm reaction, Marmeg pulled her screen from the backpack and found the software she’d given T’shawn. Parkour times a hundred. She loaded the code into her chips.

  She stood and flexed, testing the reaction time and spring coefficients. A mound of granite boulders the size of a small house was her target. She ran toward it. Cool alpine wind brushed her cheeks. Pine needles crackled underfoot. Crouch. Jump. Right foot on a near-vertical wall of rock. Push off. Land on the balls of the feet. Keep the momentum! Up, sideways with a hand and foot, diagonal. Pause.

  She stopped for a few seconds at the highest point and chose her next target. She jumped, grabbed a branch, swung, flipped, and landed lightly enough to go straight into a run. Her breath came hard as she arrived at her gear bag. The air was sweet but thin. Marmeg didn’t have the luxury of arriving a few nights early to let her body acclimate to the altitude.

  “See that, Zika?” said the voice from earlier. “Maybe Cinderella will make it to the ball.”

  Marmeg almost laughed out loud. My fairy godmother isn’t done with her tricks. She sipped at her water and then pulled up a motion analysis on her screen. A few tweaks to the rebound settings, and next time, she’d be able to run up the rock without using her hands.

  Her cuff buzzed—two new messages and fifteen minutes to start time. Marmeg repacked her gear bag, cinching everything tight, and slung it over her shoulders as she walked to the trailhead. A cluster of people clad in smartskin and carrying next to nothing already stood there with distant gazes. Their lips moved and fingers twitched.

  Someday, Marmeg promised herself, I’ll have all of that. Maybe even someday soon. She checked her messages.

  WHERE ARE YOU? IF YOU’VE RUN AWAY FROM HOME, DON’T BOTHER COMING BACK: that was from her mother.

  The second was T’shawn: GIVE ME YOUR GEAR IF YOU TOAST OUT?

  OVER MY DEAD BODY, she sent back.

  She ran a final download of map and satellite information before deactivating her grid access. That was the primary constraint of the Minerva Challenge. Stale data and live GPS would have to carry her through the race. The second requirement was to traverse a minimum of seventy-five miles before crossing the finish line on the eastern side of the Sierras. The record holder, from two years past, finished at a minute over eighteen hours.

  The sun blazed through the heavy clouds for one eye-dazzling second, making Marmeg squint. When she looked around again, the crowd at the staging point had increased. A giant clock counted up to 10:00 AM on the screen above the registration booth.

  “Double, double, toil and trouble,” Marmeg muttered.

  The person next to her, shiny from head to toe, smiled.

  “What are you brewing?” zie said.

  “Not me. Them.” Marmeg inclined her head at the booth. “Stirring up some drama.”

  “I suppose they are. It’s not like seconds or minutes matter at the finish. If they really wanted to make some excitement, they’d be funding Mountain Mike. So, is this your first race?”

  “Yes. What’s mountain mike?”

  “Not what. Who,” zie said, sounding amused. “He’s a radical nat who lives in the backcountry. They always get a glimpse of him around the biggest accident sites, but they can’t seem to catch him. You’d think it would be simple, him being a nat and all. Maybe living off-grid makes it easy to disappear.”

  Marmeg frowned. She hadn’t planned for crazy forest nats.

  “Don’t look so worried,” zie said with a laugh. “I think he’s mostly a scare story. There are worse things for you to worry about. Like the rain. And have you deactivated your grid access? If it’s on at the start, that’s an instant disqualification. They’re checking, you know?” Zie gestured at the camera drones buzzing overhead. “Those aren’t all journos.”

  “It’s off,” Marmeg said.

  Yes, her cuff showed that grid access was disabled. No more messages. No more support. She was on her own.

  The clock display had switched to a countdown timer. Ten seconds to go. Someone called a verbal version through the booth speakers. Drone-cams buzzed. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

  “Zero!” boomed a voice.

  The race opened like sand pushing through the neck of an hourglass. The lead contestants took off down the main trail at an easy run. Marmeg kept herself in their midst. A swarm of cameras flew above them, tracking every move and narrating the action to faraway viewers.

  Being in the lead at the start had no correlation to being in the winners’ list at the end, but it did boost your ratings. Most viewers only paid attention to the crowd during the open and the finish. The rest of the race belonged to the pros who could record and sell their whole experience as movies.

  Marmeg pushed her body and her gear hard. A few heads turned in surprise as she passed them. Her breath came fast and shallow, but she gained until only three people remained ahead of her. If nothing else, she was in the top five at this moment.

  They sprinted together over rocks and fallen trees. Dodged the grasping branches of low-growing bushes. Curved around trunks as wide as the pillars of City Hall. A cool wind brought the smell of rain.

  The lead cluster spread out over the course of the first thirty minutes. People split off to follow their predetermined routes or took alternate ways around ponds and meadows. The other runners became blurs flitting between columnar trunks, far enough to be unobtrusive. The last drone camera had turned back at the twenty-minute mark, pushing the limits of its range.

  Marmeg leapt on a fallen tree and used it to cross a boggy section. She skirted a car-sized knot of rotten wood at the far end and stopped to get her bearings. The other contestants had disappeared from sight. Like the fingers of a river delta, they would follow unique paths to the finish line. Her own route headed northeast toward the first of many low ridges.

  As Marmeg ran, she heard nothing but the whispers of her footfalls and the wind through the trees. The rushing sound reminded her of rice pouring from a burlap sack. Don’t think about food, she told herself. The clouds grew darker as she gained elevation. The air thinned and cooled. The light was dim for midday. Marmeg stopped to get a kinetic charger out of her gear bag and strap it to her left arm. Her cuff had solar cells, but they wouldn’t be of much use in this weather.

  She set her pace at a jog, leaping over the occasional fallen tree. Once, she startled a squirrel as she landed on the far side of a trunk. Had it been a snake, she could’ve been out of the race, like two years back when a contestant needed air rescue for a rattlesnake bite. She avoided blind jumps after that.

  Heavy drops of rain spattered Marmeg as the trees dwindled. The pale hue of granite filled the widening gaps between reddish-brown trunks. In minutes, the woods went from sparse to nonexistent, replaced by boulders and twiggy bushes. A towering ridge rose from the open ground. Slabs of gray laced with pale blue and white loomed like sloppy icing on her mother’s homemade cakes.

  Marmeg grinned and raised her wrist to take a picture. Her brothers would be amazed that she’d climbed over this. Raindrops fell faster as she leapt from one mound to the next, the muscles of her legs reacting with unnatural force, driven by the exoskeleton. The journey to the top of the ridge was a dance. Jump. Twist. Take three delicately balanced steps to the left. Jump again.

  A cramp in her right calf forced her to stop and adjust the exo’s settings. Marmeg breathed heavily and took a break to look around from the high point. She stood on an island of stone surrounded by conical tips of dark green, a sea that undulated and shifted in color depending on the terrain. In the distance, sheets of rain obscured the serrated peaks that awaited her. Lightning flickered in her periphery.

  She stared, unblinking, until she saw one strike in full. The jagged, white-hot flash was a phenomenon she’d never seen in her eighteen years of life in Los Ang
eles. Alone on the ridge, she thought to herself: This must be how God felt after creating the world.

  A loud crack from behind brought her back to mortality. Lightning preferred to strike at exposed locations. She would be safer in the forest. Marmeg descended the ridge, favoring speed over grace. When she reached the shelter of trees, she slowed down. Rain trickled down her head in steady rivulets. The precipitation made a gentle rustle as it fell through the alpine canopy. The air had become noticeably cooler, and her wet state wasn’t helping. Marmeg activated the heating coils in the torso shell.

  Twenty minutes later, her breath came out in cottony white puffs, and she was colder than ever. She slipped a hand under the shell to confirm what she suspected: it hadn’t warmed up.

  Muttering curses in Tagalog that she’d learned from her mother, she stopped and reached into her pack. Her hand found the soft bundle of spare clothing.

  Marmeg slipped out of the torso shell and sleeves. Goosebumps popped up along her bare arms. She pulled on a thermal shirt and a fleece sweatshirt with a faded US Army logo. Back on went the gear, and over that, the dollar-store plastic rain poncho. At least the torso shell’s abdominal activators and cardio monitor still worked.

  Some semblance of warmth returned after Marmeg jogged for a mile through the sodden trees. Her steps converged to an even rhythm. Her mind wandered to daydreams. She would finish her degree in embed design and get a “benefits job,” as people said back home. If she was lucky, the company would pay for additional enhancements and surgeries. Then, once she was sufficiently buffed, she could quit and become a professional racer.

  The pros had embedded audio and video recording capabilities with stereo sensors for immersive playback. The best had haptic sensors for whole-body virtual reality. Not many in the general public could use that level of technology, but the day was coming when they would. She had to become a star before that happened. That was the way out of the nat ghetto, to go from cash to credit to rich on ratings. This race was only the first step.