Matthew Reilly - Hover car racer

Imagine twenty fighter jets racing around a twisting turning aerial track, ducking and weaving and overtaking at insanely high speeds and youve just imagined a hover car race.

- Rand Thomasson

3-time Hover Car Racing Champion

INDO-PACIFIC REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS,

GULF OF CARPENTARIA, AUSTRALIA

The race was barely nine minutes old when Jason Chaser lost his steering rudder.

At 690 kilometres an hour.

The worst thing was, it wasnt even his fault. Some crazy kid from North Korea driving a home-made hunk-of-junk swamp-runner had lost control of his car while trying to pull an impossible 9-G turn and had crashed spectacularly into the crocodile-infested marshes right in front of Jason, sending sizzling pieces of his car flying in every direction - three of which punched right through Jasons tailfin like a volley of red-hot mini-meteorites, rendering his steering vanes useless.

Jason jammed back on his collective, and somehow managed to right the Argonaut with only his pedal-thrusters just as - shoom!-shoom!-shoom! - three of the other top contenders whizzed by, rocketing off into the distance, kicking up geyser sprays in their wakes. The Argonaut slowed to a complete stop, hovering three feet above one of the thousands of water-alleys in the vast swamp at the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The Bugs voice came in through Jasons earpiece. The Bug was Jasons navigator, co-driver and little brother. He sat in the back of the Argonauts cockpit, slightly above and behind Jason.

Jason bit his lip as the Bug spoke.

Then he shook his head determinedly. No way, Bug. I didnt come here to bow out in the first ten minutes. Were not out of this yet. You just plot our course, Ill do the rest.

And with that, he gunned the thrusters, flinging the Argonaut back into the race.

When they had arrived in Pit Lane earlier that morning, Jason and the Bug had sensed an unusual level of excitement in the air.

It was a good crowd - 80,000 bustling spectators taking their places in the giant hover-grandstands overlooking the Gulf.

Of course, this was nothing like the crowds they got at the pro events. There, anything less than a million spectators was seen as a poor showing.

Part of the excitement stemmed from the fact that this year there were five drivers, including Jason, who were in contention to take out the regional championships and thus garner a precious invitation to the International Race School, gateway to the professional circuit.

But it was in Pit Lane itself where the excitement was at its highest.

Everyone was whispering and pointing at the two distinguished-looking gentlemen being shown around the VIP tent by Randolph Hardy, the portly President of the Indo-Pacific Regional Directorate of the IHCRA, the International Hover Car Racing Association.

Whispered voices:

Gosh, its LeClerq! The Dean of the Race School

other one looks like Scott Syracuse, the guy who was in that accident in New York a couple of years ago and almost died

Someone was saying theyre here to scout for extra candidates for the Race School

No way

Jason eyed the two visitors strolling through the VIP tent with Randolph Hardy.

The older man was indeed Jean-Pierre LeClerq, Principal of the International Race School, the most prestigious racing school in the world.

Located in Tasmania - an enormous island at the bottom of Australia that was wholly-owned by the Race School - it was more a qualifying school than a strictly teaching institution. While lessons were certainly taught there, it was your ranking in the School Championship Ladder that really mattered. It was that ranking that got you a contract with a pro racing team after your year at the School. Not surprisingly, the Race School had produced nearly half of the drivers currently on the pro circuit.

LeClerq was a regal-looking fellow, with a perfectly-groomed mane of white hair and an imperious bearing. His suit looked expensive. Jason figured it probably cost more than his entire car did.

The man beside LeClerq was far younger, in his early 30s. He was sort of handsome, with intense features and impenetrable black eyes. He also walked with a cane and looked like hed rather be at the dentist having root canal therapy than be here at the Indo-Pacific Regional Championships.

Jason recognised him instantly. He had the mans collector-card in his bedroom back home.

He was Scott J. Syracuse, otherwise known as The Scythe, one of the best racers ever to have helmed a hover caruntil he busted the neurotransmitters in his brain in a horrific crash at the New York Masters three years ago. These days, modern medicine could fix just about any broken bone in your body, even a busted spine, but the one thing man hadnt figured out was how to fix the human brain. If you busted your brain, your racing career was over, as the Scythe had found out.

And then suddenly Syracuse turned and his ice-cool eyes locked on Jason.

Jason froze, caught staring.

A full second too late, he looked away.

Truth be told, he actually felt embarrassed under Syracuses glare. All the other drivers here wore coordinated outfits that matched the colour schemes of their cars. Some even had the new Shoei helmets. Others still had full pit crews wearing their teams colours. Jason and the Bug, on the other hand, wore denim overalls and their dusty farmboots. They raced in old motorcycle helmets. Jason scowled. He could hide his eyes, but he couldnt hide his clothes.

He also couldnt hide his hover car from Syracuses level gaze. But that was another story.

The Argonaut.

Car No.55.

It was Jasons pride and joy, and he spent every spare minute he had working on it. It was an old Ferrari Pro F1 conversion that hed found in a junkyard four years ago - one of those early hover cars converted from old Formula One cars.

It had the bullet-shaped body of an old F1 car, complete with nosewing, hunchbacked fuselage and wide tail rudder, but with the added features of a navigators seat tucked immediately behind the drivers cockpit and a pair of swept-back wings stretching out from its flanks.

Most incongruously for an old F1 car, however, it had no wheels. Hover technology - the six shiny silver discs on its underbelly called magneto drives - had made wheels unnecessary.

While he liked to think otherwise, Jason knew it wasnt a real Ferrari Pro F1. Only the chassis. The rest of it was a hodge-podge of machinery and spare parts that Jason had scrounged from farm vehicles and the local wreckers yard. Even its six race-quality magneto drives - a mix of GM, Boeing and BMW mags - were second-hand.

Despite its eclectic innards, the Argonauts exterior was beautiful - it was painted blue-white-and-silver in a way that accentuated the cars fighter-jet-like shape.

Jason himself was 14 years old, blond-haired, blue-eyed and determined. At school, he was good at math, geography and game theory. He wore his sandy-blond hair in a messy mohican style reminiscent of the retired English footballer, David Beckham.