Jasper reached Starchatter in five minutes, an accomplishment only obtained by taking a lot of painful drops, driving up the sides of buildings, and screaming at people on skywalks to get out of the way. Fortunately, she’d already written the article she’d wanted published, so hopping onto the site and posting it was easy enough to do while driving.
When she arrived, she didn’t bother dismounting. She fired at the building’s exterior doors with a blaster she’d nabbed off a stray Blade and drove right through the shards of glass raining down.
“Do we have a visual on the Blades?” Jasper asked as she raced through the halls toward Starchatter’s offices.
“They just left the west cubicles. I think they’re headed for the lobby,” Holly said. “I’m on my way. I left the rest of the team in a security office.”
“No, stay with them!”
“Even you can’t fight twenty Blades alone.”
“I have a motorcycle!” Jasper exclaimed. “I can run them over!”
“Not if they shoot you first!” Holly shot back.
“Fine.” Jasper slowed down. “Where are you?”
“I’m right behind the Blades. They just walked onto the main floor in the office.”
“Great. I’m coming from the other side. We’ll trap them.” Jasper stopped in the middle of the lobby, slid off the motorcycle, and raised her blaster. She used her other hand to pull off her helmet and toss it aside.
“Sethany Galax! Or should I say Van Terra?”
Jasper whirled around as Attom entered the lobby. He was accompanied by ten people dressed in matching white leather.
“Attom? What are you doing back here?” Jasper kept the blaster pointed toward the office behind her and reached for a dagger with her free hand.
“The real question is why you’re here,” Attom replied. He stopped and folded his arms. “Why are you trying to destroy my career?”
Jasper lifted an eyebrow. “You saw that already?”
“Of course! My sphere’s been buzzing nonstop with notifications.”
“Is that Attom?” Thea asked. “What’s he going on about?”
“Oh, nothing much. I just dropped an article trashing the beloved Sarena Trench. Under Attom’s name.” Jasper surveyed the people who’d formed lines on either side of Attom. Louder, she asked, “Who are your friends?”
Attom’s arms unfolded and spread out wide, a gesture that encompassed the people gathered around him. “I couldn’t let Red Blades march into my office like they own the place. So, I brought some of my other employees.”
“Ah,” Jasper said. “You’re involved with gangs, too. Now I feel even better about making you look like an idiot.”
“What, you ruined my career to make the city a better place?”
Jasper rolled her eyes. “No. I just don’t like you.” She gestured at Attom with her dagger. “Plus, I did all that work for you and didn’t even get paid! You took my ideas for your own gain!”
“You think you outsmarted me, but you won’t be laughing when my Slicers defeat you.” Attom sighed. “It’s a shame. Your vlog that got the Blades’ smuggling operation shut down was very beneficial to me. If we worked together—”
Jasper laughed. Hard. “Me? Work with you? I’m Van Terra, idiot.” She fired the blaster, and the first Blade to come around the corner collapsed to the ground with a scream. “I don’t work nine-to-five jobs for mediocre villains.”
Confusion flickered across Attom’s gaze at the suggestion of a standard work schedule that didn’t quite make sense under Kronos’s twenty-two-hour days. It was quickly replaced with annoyance. “Fine. Slicers, take care of the Blades and Van Terra.”
More Blades poured into the lobby, drawing blasters. One at the back of the group soared over the rest and crashed to the floor in front of Jasper, thrown by the newest arrival.
Jasper grinned. “Nice one, Holly!”
Holly still wore her catering uniform, but she’d ditched the tie and thrown on her favored red leather jacket. She’d also shapeshifted back to her usual form, and the hair that had been down when she’d infiltrated the party had been hastily thrown into a wild red braid.
Jasper fired again and strolled toward the approaching Blades, ears straining for the sound of triggers being pulled—the Slicers behind her had blasters, too. But before anyone else could shoot, the lights flickered overhead, and the weapons in the lobby ceased functioning.
Thea came around the corner behind Holly. “Shame no one brought guns,” she said, waving a hand. “Blasters are so easy to disable.”
Jasper tensed. “You’re supposed to be with—”
“They can handle themselves.”
“We don’t need blasters,” a Red Blade shouted. She lifted her fists. “Take care of Red Holly and Jolt, then go find Alvarez.”
“Don’t let the Blades go any farther!” Attom ordered.
“Oh good. An old-fashioned three-way fight.” Jasper tossed her blaster aside and grinned. “Let’s do this.”
The lobby descended into chaos. Jasper tossed Blades and Slicers alike aside as she fought her way to Holly and Thea. The two moved back-to-back, exchanging blows with everyone around them.
“I’m at nine,” Jasper announced when she reached them.
Holly rolled her eyes. “Now is not the time to brag about how many people you’ve taken down.”
“Yeah, we can’t all be cyborgs,” Thea added.
“Technically, we could.” Jasper swung her left leg to knock a Blade off his feet. She glanced toward the edge of the room, where Attom was creeping around the fight toward a door tucked away in the corner of the lobby. “I’m going to take care of Attom.”
“Do we really need to worry about him?” Holly asked.
Jasper ignored her and escaped the fray. She sprinted toward Attom as he neared the exit. “Not so fast!”
Attom turned around. “What, you’re not done with me?”
“You’ve got money and connections. You might lose your job here to satisfy the public, but they’ll forget about this in a few days, and you’ll keep on keeping on behind the scenes somewhere else.”
“You’re not wrong,” Attom said. “But you don’t have time to deal with me right now.” His gaze moved to the fight behind Jasper, and he raised his voice. “Alvarez is in the security office, down the hall behind the offices and to the right!”
Jasper hissed. “How did you—?”
“I’m paying closer attention than you think.” Attom tapped the watch on his wrist. A holoscreen popped up to display several camera feeds. “And I’ve got some tech experts of my own. Now, you should get going. Three Blades just slipped past your friends.” He smiled. “But I’m sure this won’t be the last we see of each other.”
Jasper rolled her eyes and turned around. “Whatever.”
“You should be more careful,” Attom called as she stormed away. “Your recklessness is going to be your downfall some day!”
“I’m going to expose your affiliations with the Slicers!” Jasper yelled back. It was at the bottom of a very long to-do list, but it was there. “Which is a stupid name, by the way!”
“Whatever you say!”
Jasper jumped and used a wall to propel herself over the fighters still standing, Holly and Thea included. On the other side, she raced through the Starchatter main office and around the corner in time to watch one of three Blades kick down the door to the security room. She grabbed a painting off the wall and sent it spinning through the air. It hit the first Blade and knocked him out cold.
The other two darted into the room.
Jasper ran in behind them, assessing the room in a heartbeat: Dax stood in front of Grace, one arm out in front of her. Grace had backed into the desk behind her. Her hands were wrapped so tightly around the edge that her knuckles had gone white. The Blades stalked toward her, daggers in hand.
Jasper went for the one on the right. He turned and slashed at her, his blade piercing the motorcycle suit enough to leave a scratch across her chest. Her right hand snatched his wrist. The man grimaced as her superhuman grip tightened. He released his dagger, and it clattered to the ground. Jasper tossed him into the wall.
Grace cried out, making Jasper’s head snap toward her. Dax had been thrown to the floor. He was getting back up, but he wasn’t moving fast enough. Jasper lunged at the last Blade.
She was too slow. Before she could get her hands on him, a monitor smacked into the side of his face so hard the screen shattered. He staggered a few steps before dropping. The monitor slipped from Grace’s shaking hands.
Jasper relaxed, releasing a small sigh of relief. “Nice one, Angel. Let’s go.”
The three left the security room and found Holly and Thea waiting in the lobby, surrounded by the incapacitated bodies of gang members.
“So, no one saw the Apprentice?” Jasper asked.
Holly’s eyes narrowed. “We were a bit busy with the three-way fight.”
Jasper crossed the lobby to where her motorcycle waited. “Send me the message logs,” she told Thea as she picked it up off the floor.
“There’s a lot,” Thea warned.
“That’s fine.” Jasper double-checked that her comm was muted before sliding on her helmet. “Congrats, Holly. You get to drive the car home.”
As she sped off into the night, Mia responded through the sphere in the motorcycle dock. “Incoming data packet detected on channel labeled ‘R1.’”
“Send a summary to my screen,” Jasper ordered.
The message was from Ringmaster. He’d previously sent voice recordings on this channel, but this time the signal carried a text file containing rankings from the race, along with the next location. Jasper skimmed the list. Eight-seven had successfully crossed the finish line. Red Boss wasn’t among them, thankfully.
Jasper had placed twenty-first.
She was halfway through an empty alley when a blinding gold light swallowed her. The motorcycle screeched to a halt. Jasper flipped through her vision settings, trying to find one that would let her see, but the light was too overwhelming.
“Van Terra,” a familiar voice said. The light faded, and the orb emitting it dissipated. Jasper glanced back as Ringmaster walked toward her.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Jasper asked. She was grateful her helmet hid her face, because she was struggling to maintain a neutral expression.
“I have a question for you.” Ringmaster paused at her side. “About your involvement with Alvarez. Purely curiosity.”
No, you’re working with Starr. But Ringmaster wasn’t going to tell her that, and Jasper couldn’t let him know she knew. He was close enough for her to see the golden rings around his brown irises and the lines on his face that put him in his mid-to-late forties. With his hat nowhere to be seen, she also spotted a few gray hairs that had sprouted among the dark brown he kept neatly combed.
Putting as much cool as she could muster into her voice, Jasper asked, “Alvarez?”
“Grace Alvarez.”
“Oh, the girl I broke out of jail.” Jasper stretched her arms. “Yeah, I helped her and then she ran off to play superhero. Some thank you.”
“So, you aren’t helping her?” Ringmaster asked, one of his brows lifting ever-so-slightly. “Because the Red Blades seem to think otherwise.”
“They’re following out-of-date orders. Alvarez pops up in the same places I do, though, so I can’t blame them for thinking we’re working together.” Jasper shrugged. “But really, I’ve barely even thought about her. I’ve been busy with other things. Like preparing for the races.”
“Really?” Ringmaster asked. “Well, maybe you should put a little more effort into preparing for the next one.”
There was another flash of gold light. When it faded, he was gone.
“Rude,” Jasper muttered. She took a moment to regain her composure. It was concerning how easy it had been for Ringmaster to catch her off guard. Something to keep in mind.
“Mia,” Jasper said as she started moving again. “Bring up the message logs Thea sent over.”
On the drive back to the apartment, Jasper found two interesting pieces of text. The first was from Ringmaster to the Apprentice, informing him that at the next location, his job would be to locate a target in addition to setting up monitoring systems for the course.
The second—also from Ringmaster—was a single line: I asked for the records from Sky Labs. Starr said they didn’t have any data that would be useful to us. I’m looking for another way to access them.
Ringmaster had an interest in Sky Labs. Enough of an interest to go behind Starr’s back for information. Why?
Jasper reached the apartment before the others and waited for them in the kitchen. “I’ve got the next race time and location,” she told them as they entered.
Grace perked up. “Where are we going?” She was undoubtedly hoping they’d be headed somewhere less populated with Red Blades. And she was in luck.
“Sagev.”