Black Mercury

Caspar Goldstein—son of Maximilian Goldstein of Goldstein Industries—settled into the seat of his steam-powered autocarriage and tried to take a deep breath. His vehicle was in the middle of a pack of twenty-two similar machines, their engines warming up ready for the day’s race, the air around them filling rapidly with clouds of steam. By the time the race began, visibility would be poor, and he had ten vehicles to fight his way past.

An ordinary day, then.

He checked the fastenings on his driving gloves. Sound. Next, he pulled the heavy canvas cross-over seat straps into place and buckled himself in. One of his engineers handed in his helmet and he put that on, too.

Ready.

He watched as the drivers ahead of him went through the same routine, their engineers performing last-minute checks to engines, boilers and gears. Twenty-odd autocarriages with their engines running put out a lot of heat, and he was already sweating inside the thick, padded leather racing suit he wore.

Today’s race wasn’t serious, as these things went. Serious began in ten days’ time, when the city of Eisenstadt’s Autocarriage Cup began. A large and very enticing financial reward would go to the winning driver, but the prestige was a still more appealing prospect. The Cup was held only once every three years, so the title had the lustre of rarity. And only the world’s best drivers stood a chance of qualifying.

Cas had qualified. Not easily, but he was in. Now here he sat alongside more than twenty other drivers at least as desperate as he was to win that Cup. Today’s race was a test event, a warm-up. It was an opportunity for drivers to test strategies for the Cup races, for engineers to identify and eliminate problems with the vehicles, and for bookmakers to pick out the winning odds. The stands were packed; even the test races attracted huge crowds.

A ‘friendly’ event it might be, but Cas knew that every driver there was taking it very seriously.

The five-minute signal sounded, and Cas was still horribly tense. He took a few deep breaths, trying to relax his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. He couldn’t see much of the vehicles ahead of him, and the noise of the engines drowned out everything else.

So when a face loomed out of the steam three inches from his window, he jumped violently. The man—one of his team—rapped hard on the frame and shouted something.

Muttering curses, Cas wrenched off his helmet. “What?” he yelled.

The man came closer and Caspar recognised Karl, chief of the engineers who maintained his autocarriage. “Lukas!” Karl bellowed.

“What? What about him?”

“Where is he?!”

Cas blinked in surprise. “Somewhere up there, I suppose?” He gestured at the sea of vehicles ahead of him. Lukas Rosenthal, his best friend and fiercest rival on the track, had scored a higher position than Cas. As usual. He would be up at the front, among the top five.

But Karl was shaking his head. “Not there,” he shouted. “Car’s ready. He’s not in it.”

What the…? Lukas’s commitment to his career went beyond mere dedicated and emerged somewhere around obsessive. He was never late for a race. Never.

“No idea,” Cas bellowed back. He really didn’t have any idea where Lukas was. He’d seen the man less than two hours ago. The two of them ate together before every race; it was a tradition that went back years and they’d stuck to it, no matter how competitive the two of them got on the track. Luk hadn’t said or done anything to suggest that there was a problem.

The two-minute signal sounded, an incredibly loud bang that still fought to be heard over the racket. Karl shook his head and backed off. “Too late,” he shouted.

Damnit. Lukas wouldn’t miss a race. He couldn’t. But as Caspar formed that thought, someone else appeared behind Karl and grabbed his arm, shouting something directly into his ear. Karl directed a wide grin at Caspar. “Forget it! He’s here!”

Caspar didn’t have time to reply. Karl was already retreating out of the path of the vehicles, and Cas had to scramble to get his headgear back in place. He couldn’t share Karl’s relief, not entirely. If Lukas had made it in time, he was only just in time. His car had probably already been pulled out of position and moved out of the way, which meant he’d lost his advantage. Why had he been late?

No more time to think it over. Cas adjusted his goggles and checked his seat straps, his fragile calm destroyed. This didn’t feel anything like a routine race anymore. His gut told him something was up.

He pushed those thoughts aside and forced himself to focus. He was ready to go. Thanks to his father, he had one of the best autocarriages in the field. If Cas did well enough in the test races, he might improve his position on the track for the Cup events. That mattered.

For the next twenty minutes, Lukas would have to take care of himself.

The starting shots began to sound. Five… four… three… two…

One.

Cas waited a beat or two for the cars ahead of him to clear a little space. Then he hit the accelerator. His distinctive maroon-painted autocarriage shot forward, and all thoughts of Lukas dissipated as he focused on pulling off his signature manoeuvre.

Cas’s vehicle had been designed and built by Goldstein Industries, and that meant it was as technologically advanced as it could get. One of the biggest advantages of the latest model was the steering. It was more sensitive than most other examples, more flexible. He didn’t have to throw so much raw body strength behind it.

That meant it was a relatively simple matter for him to weave his way up through the pack, dodging around the leading cars smoothly. He passed two, then three of the autocarriages ahead of him, and aimed for the fourth.

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