1st 5 Pages April Workshop- Stoker Rev 2

Name: K. Stoker

Genre: YA Science Fiction

Title: SAMURAI RACING

  

Sixteen year-old Aya Minami is an unwilling thief scrambling through Kyoto on her dented flying hovercycle. In 2052, her tenuous existence on the edge of Japanese society means her life is at the mercy of the man who tells her what to steal. But when she steals the wrong thing for her boss, he threatens to turn her into the police unless she can replace the mistake with something better. 

Her boss offers her a deal. First, he’ll get her into the Oban Race - a high velocity race that culminates in Tokyo. Then, she’ll find a specific rich kid, on a Samurai speedcycle, gain his trust, and make a steal. Aya agrees, but with her own plan. She’ll race to win and use the prize money to pay her debts and escape. 

Aya rides to Osaka and finds Hiroki Matsumoto, following her boss’s instructions. But as she spends time with Hiroki and his group of friends – the Pink Ninjas – she starts to feel guilty knowing she’ll steal from him. As she learns how to ride her outdated hovercycle competitively, her times get faster and faster. But right before the Oban Race, Aya’s boss reminds her of their agreement.

My hovercycle engine pulsed underneath me like an extension of my own heartbeat: fast, erratic, and prone to skipping. I swerved around a lumbering transcycle, and my hovers rocketed my bike forward as I turned down a narrow street. In my back pocket my EP, or handheld electropaper, buzzed a second before my earbuds relayed the caller’s voice.

“Job for you,” my boss, Eiiji Minami said in a staccato voice. “Pickup from a warehouse, we need it by 8 A.M.” 

I let out a long sigh as I slowed my bike. Another pickup, another job. A cycle I feared would repeat forever. The stale air of Kyoto in the summer sagged against my skin. The early morning sun peeked out from behind the mountains, but the closeness of the buildings meant most of the street remained draped in shadow. Above me, marking the sky like giant kanji, were trails from airships headed to Osaka and Tokyo. Only a few weeks until the Oban Race and already the hotels were filling as spectators flocked to the bigger cities for the speedcycle races. I only had a few hours of freedom until I had to be at my next shift. I braked to a stop. 

“What’s the pickup?” I asked.

“Kosuke has the rest of the instructions,” Mr. Minami said.

My stomach dropped. If Kosuke was involved that meant this wasn’t going to be a simple errand. Kosuke Minami hovered in the gray space between legal and illegal, and I knew the longer I worked for him and his father the closer I was to sliding forever into the illegal category. 

“Good morning, Aya,” Kosuke’s voice purred through my earbuds. “Where are you on this warm morning?”

“About to work my shift at the convenience store,” I said, hoping that would get me out of whatever errand he had for me. 

“Liar,” he said with a laugh. “Head south, I have a package for you to retrieve. I’m sending the location to your maps now.

It was impossible for me to refuse him. The Minami family were the only ones who would rent me an apartment in this city. But at least now I knew he was likely tracking my location. I revved the engine of my 500z. On the power lines, a large black bird cawed in annoyance, making me smile. 

“And no fancy jumps this time, my dear,” Kosuke said. “Last week you almost made a mistake.”

Two weeks ago, I wanted to point out. I’d almost popped my backup tires jumping across a construction site. Like a traditional motorcycle, the hovercycle had two wheels, but they were only used for backup. If the electric battery ran out, the backup tires would catch the bike. Or if the driver attempted a jump that the hover propulsion couldn’t quite handle, the back up tires would prevent the bike from crashing into the ground. I wouldn’t know anything about that.

I checked the map on my EP. A bright red dot hovered over a warehouse just a few blocks south of where I was, east of the Kamogawa River.  I stuffed the thin device back in my pocket. I flipped on my hovers and my bike rose off the ground. I let out the clutch and the bike rocketed forward and I imagined that it was feeding me its energy. Sometimes I felt like my bike was the only thing that cared about me.

I stopped at stoplight a few minutes later. My fingers tapped on the handlebars of my bike. Pedestrians shuffled across the crosswalk as multi-seater transcycles, speedcycles and a few hovercycles waited for the light to change. 

The light turned green. My 500z jolted forward, skipping over the bumpy ground as the hover propulsion tried to regain stability. I swerved around a pole, almost scraping my knee on the concrete wall that jutted out from beneath an overgrown bush. My thumbs carefully rotated the hovers. The hovercycle spun me around a pile of trash bags the collectors hadn’t grabbed yet. Somewhere behind me the large waste-transcycle rumbled through the narrow streets, robotic arms reaching out to grab the color-coded bags. 

A black dragonfly floated on the slow breeze, darting back and forth in front of my hovercycle. Hissing cicadas hung on trees singing an accompaniment to the rumbling engines below. As I headed south, the speed of my bike pushed me faster and faster. For a moment, with the wind in my face and the bike engine vibrating underneath me, I felt free. I was so close. A few more months and I’d be out of this life, away from my mother’s mistakes.

I reached the warehouse and parked outside. A solitary vending machine stood as a sentinel along the empty street. An occasional hoverbus or transcycle rattled nearby and I could hear the glorious roar of a speedcycle engine from a few blocks over. 

I pulled my EP out of my pocket. It was a simple hand-sized piece of electropaper that could receive and transmit simple wireless messages. Cheap and prone to breaking, like everything else I owned. From it Kosuke’s instructions glared out at me.

Before 8AM. Box labeled 56JJHL, bring to downtown office. Cameras in warehouse disabled.

I clicked off my hovers. The bike sank to the ground, bouncing slightly on the back up tires. I walked my bike to a small alleyway across from the warehouse. The hovercycle stayed hidden in the narrow space between buildings as I casually walked to the vending machine near the large roll up door of the warehouse.

Standing in front of the vending machine, I pretended to examine the selection of coffees and energy drinks. Instead, I scanned the exterior of the concrete warehouse. How exactly I was supposed to get in? A quick check at the rolling door revealed that it was locked, no surprises there. I stationed myself back in front of the vending machine and sent Kosuke a text.

Doors locked.

I selected the cheapest item in the vending machine, a small bottle of water, and had finished half of it before Kosuke texted me back.

Enter from the second floor. Window left open.

I looked back at the warehouse. There were no windows facing the street. Next to the warehouse on one side was a small neighborhood shrine and on the other a doctor’s clinic, currently closed. The clinic had outside stairs that led to its second floor, hopefully next to the warehouse’s elusive window. 

I walked straight up the stairs, as if I had an appointment with the non-existent doctor. Sure enough the warehouse had a small window peeking out at the stairwell. From the top of the stairs, I could feel eyes on me, watching me, and I knew I had been here too long. I had stolen dozens of items for Kosuke, and though I never knew what they were, I knew my chances of getting caught increased everyday. 

But Kosuke had said there were no cameras. I reached the top of the stairs and leaned across the railing toward the window. With a gentle push the window swung open. At the sound of footsteps, I glanced back at the street. Just a woman walking her tiny dog. The fluffy animal wore a pink suit that matched the woman’s, but neither dog nor human looked up. Within minutes they had flounced away. 

Heart pounding, I crawled over the stair railing and into to the now open window.