Trent Reedy - Stealing Air

“Hee hee hee hee heeeeeeee! Wipeout!” Frankie sang the old song off pitch, making a sweeping motion with the toe of his boot.

“Frankie, you idiot!” Wendy shouted.

“Oh, come on. I was just joking around!”

Brian clenched his fists. It was the perfect run until this jerk messed it up. He stood up. “What’s your problem?”

The other guys went quiet. Frankie stopped laughing. He slid on his feet down the ramp and shoved him hard in the chest. “ You’re my problem.” He was breathing heavy and glaring at Brian. “And now I’m gonna be your problem.” Frankie pushed him again.

Wendy moved up closer. “Stop it, Frankie!”

Frankie was so short and stood so close that he had to look up at Brian, but as he kept his big arms partly cocked back, Brian could tell he had been lifting weights. Worse, there was a little twitch in his eye that made him look like he could go off at any moment. This was not the kind of guy Brian wanted to throw down with, not right now. His foot found Spitfire .

“Time to teach you a lesson,” Frankie said, balling up his fist. He lunged forward, but Brian was quick, jumping back as he pushed Spitfire under Frankie’s foot. Frankie slipped on the skateboard and went reeling backward, slamming down onto the flat bottom and hitting his head.

As he lay there for a moment, Alex rushed up to Brian. He whispered, “You got guts, but seriously, you should go.”

It would look bad to run from a fight, but there was no way this could end well. Brian ran to his board, jumped on, and kick-started off, cutting tight around the back of the half-pipe and shooting down the sidewalk the way he had come in. He’d only been in Riverside for a few days and had no idea where to go next. Worse, the town was built on one big hill. Getting to his house, to Grandpa’s, or even just to the town square would be an uphill run.

Brian skated out onto the road, clearing the end of the block and shooting through the T intersection where Weigand Street met the highway. He glanced back, and Frankie was up and following on his own skateboard. Brian kicked at the street to go faster. How was he ever going to get out of this? Unless Frankie made a mistake and crashed somehow, there was really no way to escape. And if Frankie caught him…

He checked his six. Frankie was starting to close the gap. Brian pushed harder. Without thinking, he cut a tight corner, heading downhill toward the river. A grove of trees temporarily kept him out of Frankie’s sight, but the tough guy would round the corner in no time.

“Brian!” A kid on a big blue two-seat bike shot out of the trees and pulled up alongside him, surprising him so much that he almost waxed out. With his black-rimmed glasses and dark hair, the bike rider looked like Harry Potter without the cool scar. “Grab on,” the kid said.

Whoever he was, he was Brian’s best chance to get away. Brian took hold of the back handlebars and sighed as he relaxed his legs for a moment.

The rider risked a look back, sunlight flashing bright off his thick glasses. “I’m Max Warrender. I presume you are Brian Roberts?”

Brian nodded.

“I thought so,” the kid said. “It’s nice to meet you, Brian.” He faced forward and kept pedaling furiously down the hill.

“Yeah, um, nice to meet you too,” Brian said. He glanced behind him again. Frankie was still on the other side of the trees, but he’d be in sight any moment. And Max was providing all the power for both of them on this heavy bike.

“Um, Frankie’s right behind us,” Brian said. “We can’t get away from him going straight down this road. He’ll catch up to us eventually.”

“He will find it extraordinarily difficult to do so.”

“What?”

Max shot him a serious look. “You need to hold on to those handlebars very tightly.”

“Um…” What did this guy think he was doing? “Okay?”

Max tilted his head to the side. “How fast can a skateboard travel before the ball bearings in the wheels strip out?” He shrugged. “Oh well.” He reached down and flipped a switch on the tip of a big metal pole that he’d mounted on the other side of the bike.

A sound like a cannon exploded right next to Brian, and the bike shot forward so fast that he almost lost his grip on the handlebars. When he focused again, fire was erupting from the end of the tube. A rocket! How could there be a rocket? On a bike!

Max took his feet off the pedals and laughed as the bike roared down the highway. “Warp speed!”

They flew past a wooden sign with a picture of the starship Enterprise and the words Where the Trek Begins , across a bridge over the river and out into the country. Cornfields melted into blurs on either side of the road. Brian had to lean back while holding the handlebars just to keep the board under his body.

The wind blew through his hair as they passed fields, farms, and pastures. Frankie was nowhere in sight, and Riverside itself seemed to shrink in the distance. But the rocketbike still sped up, faster and faster and faster. When they zipped up over a hill, just for a moment, the bike and skateboard actually left the pavement. Brian loved the leap in his stomach as he soared through the air.

“Woo!” His heart was thumping as the bike and Spitfire touched down. “Max, I think we’re safe now,” he shouted as loud as he could to be heard over the roar of the wind and the rocket. “Can you slow down?” If his skateboard’s wheels seized up, the board would grind to a halt, yanking him off the bike and tossing him to the pavement.

“It’s a solid-fuel rocket, Brian,” Max called back. “I’m afraid it will increase speed until it has exhausted its fuel supply!”

This is crazy , Brian thought. If he let go of the bike, could he keep the shaking skateboard under control long enough to slow down? Maybe, but maybe not. He’d have to ride it out.

At last the rocket began to fizzle. It sputtered and emitted two last bursts of flame before the fire cut out completely, with just a thick grayish-white smoke rolling out of the back.

“Can you slow it down now?” Brian shouted.

“I’ll try.” Max pulled the hand brakes. The brakes squeaked and smoked when they made contact with the rims of the wheels. “We have too much velocity. There’s too much friction on the wheel.” He kept pumping the brakes, though, applying pressure, letting go, and then braking again. The bike slowed down until they finally came to a full stop.

Brian unclamped his hands from the back handlebars, fingers aching. They were on a bridge over a small creek, and he staggered with shaky legs to sit on the big steel guard-rail by the side of the road. Max walked his bike over to join him. Smoke still rolled out of the end of the rocket.

“Thanks, Max. You know, for helping me get away from—”

“Stand by!” Max dumped the bike on the ground with the rocket side up. The rocket was making a quiet hissing sound — a small whistle that seemed to be getting louder and higher pitched. Brian noticed the boxy black letters NX-02 painted on the side of the rocket.

“Oh no! Not again. Just like the NX-01!” Max grabbed one of the clamps on the metal bands securing the rocket to the bike. He grunted as he yanked on it. “Try to get the other one loose.”

“Why?”

Max pulled on the clamp again. “It’s critical to remove this rocket quickly.”

Brian grabbed the other one and tugged hard. It gave a little bit. In another pull he had the clamp released and the metal band off. Max had done the same. Now the whistle had reached a crescendo with a horrible, high-pitched shriek.

“Why is it making that noise?” Brian shouted.