Of course, Albert had to be right.
In one heartbeat, Johnny and Shabaz were hitting the flashing sphere, an image of the Slope expanding to fill Johnny’s view; in the next, he was sitting at the top of the Pipe.
Beneath him the snow shone pristine and white. Not one shred of black to be seen. The race right after he’d broken Betty’s record. This time, he ran it slower than before, pulling a couple of tricks to make it legit. Mainly, he was watching, waiting for the black to appear. By halfway down, he knew it wouldn’t.
That wasn’t the only difference.
No Albert to cut him off at the start. No Dingo, squeaking from a near miss on the rings. No sign of Torg, no sign of Torres.
No Bian.
About two-thirds of the way down, he caught sight of Shabaz on the far side, running like he was: slow and watchful. Their gaze met. They passed by each other twice, then crossed the finish line at the same time coming from opposite sides, dead last.
“You see anything?” Johnny said, even as he heard dozens of skids murmuring in surprise. After all, Johnny didn’t finish last too often in anything.
“Not a thing,” Shabaz said. “I don’t think they’re here.”
“Let’s check the boards.”
They got to the leader boards and stared at them in silence. “Huh,” Shabaz said at last. “Looks like there’s a Level Ten.”
“Looks like someone else is a Level Eight.”
“Never even got to taste Seven,” Shabaz murmured. Around them, hundreds of skids came and went, checking the boards, exchanging trash-talk, living their lives. Living them fast.
“Couple of weeks back,” Shabaz said, “if you’d asked me, I’d have said that if I made Eight before I died, I’d die happy. But now . . . hole, I could make Nine easy.”
“Or you’re a Nine already,” Johnny said softly. “Maybe better.”
Shabaz nodded. “They don’t mean anything, do they?”
It’s a good question, Johnny thought two days later.
He was at the Spike. The real one—there was a stone near his treads, etched with a name. The sun shone down as it always seemed to here, dappling the leaves in the trees, creating shadows and light on the wood.
“At least you’re here,” he said to the stone, gazing at Peg’s name.
No one remembered any of the skids that had gone into the black. Johnny and Shabaz confirmed it the first night back, quietly dropping names at a sugarbar and drawing blank looks. They spent the next day piecing together the new history: Johnny had been awarded Level Ten after breaking Betty Crisp’s records; Shabaz was an Eight on the verge of Nine, one of the hottest skids since, well, since Johnny. There were only four Level Nines, none named Torg. There was no Bian, Brolin, or Daytona. No Albert.
How could you have a Johnny without an Albert? He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “It’s like me without you,” he said to the stone. Snakes, it was worse than that.
Staring at Peg’s name, he wasn’t sure how he felt. Part of him believed what Betty had said: Peg was gone, all the things he’d seen and heard were just ghosts. It made sense, except . . .
I miss you too.
Of course it was just another type of ghost: sight didn’t have to be the only sense fooled; he’d heard her voice before, in the ether. It was just a ghost. Except . . .
“I miss you too,” he said to the stone. “I guess I’ll just have to make peace with that.”
He was going to have to make peace with a few things. He was a Ten, something he’d dreamed of his entire life. The youngest Ten ever.
Except that might not be true. Betty had said there’d been Level Tens before her—hundreds of skids with two names, maybe more. With their record wiped every ten or fifteen generations. When Betty had first explained it, Johnny hadn’t understood how that could possibly happen, but he understood it now. Shabaz and he were in the middle of it: two skids knowing a history that no one else shared.
There must’ve been other skids like them in the past and they’d probably done what Shabaz and Johnny were doing now: they kept their mouths shut. Run the race they were running.
Not that Johnny had done much of that since they’d returned. Shabaz had—“I gotta vapin’ do something,” she’d muttered in the Skates pit—but Johnny had skipped the three events on his schedule. That got noticed, especially because it was him. Still, it probably wouldn’t matter after he competed in the Slope later today. He couldn’t skip it, he still had a record to extend, and besides . . . he was Johnny. He couldn’t skip the Slope.
But he did wonder if it mattered. All his life he’d played that game, won at that game, and then looked up and out, wondering who was watching. Now he knew that there was a pretty decent chance that no one was watching at all. No one to remember the name Johnny Drop.
Just like no one remembered Bian.
It was strange, but that bothered him more than losing his own legacy. Albert had been right: she should be remembered. He was beginning to understand just how angry Albert had been that moment after she died. It was insane that no one knew who she was, that no one knew her name.
“They should remember all of them,” Johnny said to the stone. “Even Albert.” He grimaced. “Yeah, I know, shut up.”
He couldn’t bring them back. He couldn’t rewrite the history that had been rewritten. But not long ago in both histories, something had created a stone, a memorial for a skid that had not been forgotten. The only memorial of its kind. Who knows why; probably because it made for good watching—a story within the story of the best skid alive—and because somewhere in the Thread something was still worried about the watching, even if no one was on the other end. Whatever the reason, the stone had been made. Skids born after Peg would know her name, even if they had no idea who she’d been.
“We are the program,” Johnny whispered, staring at the stone near his treads. Then he swung all three of his eyes and focused on a spot beside the stone.
He thought of Bian. He thought of her in the sugarbars, flirting with any skid nearby. He thought of her with Albert; he thought of her coming here, to this very spot, to ask Johnny to back off. He thought of her with Daytona and Brolin and Shabaz, trying to offer what little comfort she could. He thought of her bitching at Betty, of her being a bitch to Albert. He thought of the moment she’d kissed him on the cheek. He thought of her in a clearing like and not like this one: a double-barrelled rifle in her hands as she snarled, “Ladies?”
He thought of her dying, asking Johnny and Albert to remember what they’d done.
Together.
A second stone appeared by the first. Johnny stared at the name on it for a long time. “I’ll miss you too,” he whispered. One of his eyes swung, up and out. “That’s the best I can do. I know it’s not enough . . . but it’s all I could think of.”
Sunlight and shadow dappled the surface, fluttering across Bian’s name just as it did on Peg’s. Maybe no one other than he and Shabaz would know who the second stone was for, but that didn’t matter.
“Torg deserves one,” he murmured. “Hole, they all do.” He pursed his lips and checked the time. Creating the stone had taken longer than he’d thought; he had a game to get to. “Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow.” Really, every skid that went into the black deserved some kind of memorial.
Even Albert? The thought came and Johnny snorted. “Well,” he said to the empty woods. “Maybe I’ll do his last.” Turning on his treads, he looked a final time at the stone he’d created. “See you later, Sticks,” he said, wondering what it meant.
He paused by the Combine on the way to the Slope. He could already hear skids filling the stands not far away; the Skidsphere’s most popular game built near the Combine, so all the panzers and squids could hear the roars of adulation they dreamed one day would be theirs. Johnny may have broken Betty’s record, but the novelty wouldn’t wear off for a while: every skid not in the race would be in the stands today.
Maybe not every skid, Johnny thought as a Two darted down the ramp, glancing back towards the Slope as he slipped inside. Johnny didn’t blame him; not getting eviscerated was good motivation to practice. Before he realized what he was doing, Johnny followed him inside.
Settling into the same nook by the entrance, he leaned on the wall as hundreds of squids and panzers milled about. As before, no one noticed him there. He could hear the Slope through the opening in the roof; it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to go.
He looked towards the grease-pit. Several skids were working at greasing their treads with various levels of success. Not the skid he was looking for, however. Disappointed, he looked away. Hey, the squid can’t be here every . . .
He stopped. “Well, what do you know?” he murmured, bumping off the wall.
He remembered the first time, watching the Ones and Twos collide with a wall designed to teach them how to absorb energy. They might as well be tickling it, he remembered thinking.
This time, one particular skid was doing a little more than that.
WHAM! The sound boomed as the squid slammed into the wall. She picked herself up, shook her stripes, then reset with a grim determination, geared up and did it again. WHAM! The other squids and panzers, moving at half her speed, kept glancing in her direction.
Johnny watched the wall absorb some of her energy. But not all. The Two’s body flattened slightly, then snapped back into place. She’s learning, he thought with a grin. It had only been five days.
She’d learned to trail an eye as well. As he approached, she noticed him and stopped. The other Ones and Twos, glancing at her, followed her gaze.
A small section of the Combine went dead quiet.
“Uh . . . hey.” Unblemished red stripes on clear white skin widened in surprise. “You came back.”
“I did.” Around them, skids began to whisper. “What happened to the dragon?”
The stripes flushed. “I got rid of it.” Her gaze grew shy. “You don’t wear any glam. I . . . I thought that was kind of cool.”
“Really?” he said, genuinely pleased. “Well, I think that’s pretty cool.” He glanced at the wall. “Hitting that pretty hard,” he observed.
She winced. “Yeah, it’s starting to hurt. Did you know you can change the safety settings?”
He smiled. She was learning. “You can turn them off, too.” More skids, noticing the lack of activity, began to gather.
“Yeah.” Her stripes tilted. “I haven’t had the guts to try that yet. You were right though, thinking of colour really helps. If I had a name . . . I’d try that to.” He could hear the yearning in her voice.
Johnny studied the two red stripes. It suddenly occurred to him that even if the numbers might not mean as much to him anymore, they did matter. They meant something to seventy thousand skids—they meant life and death. The difference between Two and Three. About not having a name or . . .
Not long ago, he’d suggested a name to a squid named Aaliyah. About the same time, Albert had let a panzer name herself.
He decided he liked Albert’s way better.
“If you could have a name, any name . . . got one in mind?” The stripes flushed and he laughed. “Why don’t you tell me?”
She hesitated, suddenly still. Then . . . “Onna. I keep . . . thinking it. All the time.”
“Okay. How about you focus on that for a while?”
“But what if GameCorps gives me a different name?”
She’s already assuming she’s going to make Three. Crisp, I like this kid. Aloud, he said, “If that happens, then you’ll switch to the new one.” Johnny was pretty sure she wouldn’t need to switch.
He rolled over to the wall. Switched off the safeties. “You don’t have to hit it at full gas the first time, but don’t go soft. Try three-quarter speed. Think of your colours. Think of the name Onna.”
Another hesitation. Then her stripes went stock-still and a look of determination hardened across her face. She took a deep breath. Geared up.
WHAM!
Her body compressed, started to shake . . . then snapped back into place. She hissed through her teeth.
“That was great,” Johnny said. “Now do it again. Harder.”
“Uh, excuse me?”
A silver skid with green stripes tread forward. He pointed at Onna. “Do you . . . could you teach me how to do that?”
Silver, Johnny thought, suppressing a smile. Watching Onna with his trail eye, he looked over the crowd that was growing by the minute. Snakes, they’re young. Bian had been right, he realized—her and Betty both. They were all so young.
Maybe they didn’t have to stay that way.
Every skid, even if they got their name, still died after five years. That was another number that mattered—the hardest number. But one skid had lived longer than that, more than ten times that long. And if she could do it . . .
Somewhere, Johnny’s friends were looking for that skid; a skid with a single bright pink stripe. He couldn’t help them . . . but there were other skids in the universe.
Through the gap in the roof, the cheering from the Slope rose. Soon, they’d gather at the starting gates, preparing to line up. Not long now. Not long at all.
The silver skid glanced up, towards the sound. “We could do it later, if you want.” He flushed, as if he suddenly realized what he was asking, who he was asking it from. “I mean, we don’t have to, I just—”
“No,” Johnny said. “It’s okay. We can do it now.”
Behind him, a white skid with two red stripes stopped what she was doing. “Don’t you have a game to get to?” she asked.
Johnny listened to the noise coming through the ceiling. It was loud, though not so loud as the skids around him, coming and going, desperate to learn. Living fast . . .
“Nah,” he said, smiling at the skid. Her name was Onna, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“I’m good here.”