Episode 1: The Long Kick

(Gun! Crowd, race, announcer)

Like hell if I lose bro, I think to myself, throwing my elbow into one of my competitors’ chest. Satisfaction drips through me at his gasp. A pathetic, pansie sort of sound. But then I forgot about him. The sea of bodies surge around me. Twelve competitors all race around the bend, feet bouncing off the track, jostling for position. The announcer's voice rings out. Were fast, but shit bro, we're always fast in the beginning. Two hundred to four hundred to six hundred in, I still feel like shit but at least the nerves are gone, along with the sound of the crowd. You know I hate them. And I love them too. Who doesn't like being famous?

Another lap whirls by. I hear the announcer rattling off our splits—one, forty-five. Sit and kick? Chumps. They won’t be ready for a long kick. When it comes to a bunch of testosterone-filled ghouls, no—men—they all think they have the fastest footspeed two hundred meters out. The a-holes don't even know what to do when someone takes control four hundred, five hundred, six hundred out. Well, the early bird gets the worm. I slam the gas.

Pushing my way out of the pocket, I feel a collision and throw my weight into lane two. There is a gasp. No time to look back, besides, I know what's happened. My racing IQ is second to none. I knocked the idiot right over. Now I'm accelerating, past third, past second. Trecor tucks his chin. Shits so big you could make a brick out of it!

How long can you fake it, eh Trecor? He holds me out in lane two. Around the bend. Sure, as hell, I am burning energy. My heart says as much, echoed by the sear in my legs. Still, they work on a different level. Grown to make the impossible possible. The gong rings, to the rising cheer of the crowd, as I finally pass him. Idiot! I hate pretenders! Annoyance flicks across my mind, chased away by the fire within me—the one that says win at all costs.

"Three hundred to go," screams the announcer, with the practiced flair learned from studying the mixed martial arts crowd. Now that puts the crowd into an uproar. A serious shitstorm. The kind where they are slamming the stadium and that shit reverberates me to the bone. But it's muted, a distant buzz, compared to my laser focus. I've broken the field, well almost. I feel one or two people on my ass. I throw a look up to the ARC, a metallic cube hoisted midair by drone repulsion. My neuro link clicks and interacts with the ARC, showing the race exactly as all those Organics see it from the comfort of their lazy boys.

There I am going into the bend, with Fleet just off my shoulder, his sloppy mohawk glistening with sweat. And a step behind him the Remy, the rising Met-Con Diagnostic’s star. His wads blown. I turn my head, snapping my neurolink off and taking it one step at a time. One-fifty, one hundred, ninety, fifty. We've lost Remy, but damn, Fleet is having some sort of day! He is up and on my side. It's weird, I can see him and not see him all at the same time. From the curves of his lips, twisted in a grimace, to the squint of his eyes, grey like all us Ghouls are. I know the truth before it's shown. His arms pump faster, his legs fire like pistons, and a fraction turns to an inch which turns to a bloody step. I grimace, I grit my teeth, I scream, and I know it’s all over when the noise of the crowd resumes in full force. My concentration string held by the Fates and cut.

(Fleet takes the Rose Cup championship in the Ghouls Tonota's Men's Fifteen Hundred Championships, In a classic sit and kick time of 3:15 . That’s a nice paycheck to his corporation Two Billion Dinyon, should take a nice chunk out Fleets life debt. Gotta say, Bill. I am mighty impressed with Trecor upsetting last year’s reigning champ by slipping into. . .)

Damn. When did the little shit get past me?

I fall to my knees, stretched out across the track, third. At some point, some Organic slips a water packet into my hand and I am led out of the stadium. The distant thrum of the next event chasing me away; the women's Organic two-hundred-meter sprint. Around me, the crowd congratulates us and shouts their encouragement.

. . . Cheer up. . .

. . . Next time champ. . .

. . .You're a Ghoul, you are made for this. . .

. . .Can I get your autograph, it’s the only one in my collection I'm missing. . .

Tucking my head, I shake Fleet and Remy's hand and slip into the quiet of the athlete warm-up field—Ghoul's of course. Wouldn't want to mix our bad blood with all the normies. The one who had been lucky enough to be carried to term. I've heard that Organic athletes, should they have a bad showing or disappointing finish, are treated with compassion. At worst, given slightly harder workouts, or some a-hole coach's silent treatment—but in the end, everything works out fine. I bury my head in my hands and wait. They don't call my coach Savage Sal for no reason and Virdi Inc, the biotech giant to which I owe my life debt isn't any better. I listen to the sounds of the Rose League finals, watched across the solar system, and feel the beat of my aborted, lab-grown, heart. Who knew it could beat so much faster at rest?

Tha-thump, thathumpthumpthumpthump