Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly Read Free Book Online Page A

world, that number was allotted to the champion of the previous year. But at Race School, a racer’s number was his or her personal choice.
    The Black Boy’s pit machine worked with extraordinary precision - attaching new mags, filling his car’s coolant tanks, pumping in compressed air.
    And then suddenly the boy in black was gone, booming out of the pits a full three seconds ahead of Jason. It must have been a 7-second pit stop.
    How did he do that! Jason thought. Damn, he’s good .
    The Tarantula finished and Jason jammed down on the collective, rejoining the race.
    RACETIME: 01:21 HOURS LAP: 27
    Three laps to go. Seven cars left on the track.
    The next elimination was the result of a huge crash out on the coastline: the car coming in 2nd had lost two mags while wending his way through the S-bends of steel arches - his mags had not been attached properly during his last pit stop and had fallen off.
    The result was a 500 km/h frontal crash into one of the solid-steel arches. A shocking explosion followed, but the racer and his navigator had survived by ejecting a nanosecond beforehand.
    Which meant that when the field next crossed the StartFinish line, that driver was eliminated - the fourteenth and last elimination of the race.
    So now everyone had pitted three times - as such all were travelling on mags of the same age.
    Six cars left. Two laps.It was now a dash for the Finish Line.
    Superfast and supertense. One mistake and you were out. Pressure-driving time.
    Place check:
    Jason was in 5th place.
    The boy in black, in his sleek black Lockheed-Martin, Car No.1, was coming in first.
    Jason could see Barnaby Becker - in his own maroon-coloured Lockheed-Martin up in 2nd place.
    In 3rd, hammering at Barnaby’s tail, was a French youth in a Renault X-700. The French driver was throwing everything at Barnaby, but Barnaby was foiling his every attempt to get past.
    In 4th place was a red-and-white Boeing Evercharge-III. This was Ariel Piper’s car, No.16: the Pied Piper .
    Good on you, Ariel, Jason thought. Hang in there.
    And then came Jason, followed by Isaiah Washington, in last place.
    The six cars took the bend at the end of the straight and entered the rainforest for the last time. Past the falls and out to the ocean straight. Nothing in it.
    Then they entered the S-bends of the coastal arches and suddenly, without warning, the Argonaut shuddered violently and its tail flailed out wildly behind it like a stunt car in an old movie skidding on a dirt tack and Sally McDuff’s voice was blaring in Jason’s ear.
    ‘ Jason! My telemetry just went berserk! Both of your rear magneto drives just lost all power! ’
    Jason grappled with his steering wheel. ‘I kinda noticed that, Sally!’
    Steel archways whistled past him, inches away, just as Washington’s car zoomed by, leaving the Argonaut in last place.
    ‘Damn it!’ Jason yelled. ‘We’re screwed! Goddamnit, we got so far…’
    They were indeed screwed. With only four mags, Jason couldn’t maintain the high levels of speed and control necessary to keep up with the others.
    The Argonaut fell back. But Jason kept on driving. He was determined to finish the race - and get the 5 points for coming 6th - even if it meant limping over the line a long way behind the leaders.
    He burst out from the S-bends to see the wide-open bay leading to the Port Arthur hairpin.
    He saw the all-black Car No.1 bank into the final turn with clinical precision, disappearing behind the huge rocky pillar, closely followed by Barnaby - still holding off the French racer in the Renault - and then Ariel Piper swooping in close behind them.
    And then it happened.
    Ariel’s car didn’t take the left-hand hairpin.
    Instead, it just kept on going straight ahead, shooting out and away to the right , heading for the open ocean.
    Jason’s eyes almost popped out of his head.
    ‘What the - ?’ he said.
    Washington’s car took the final turn - pleased now to be moving up into 4th - and headed