Foreign Dominion

Chapter 24 - The Strange Case of a Blue Orchid

"You better not make me late for this, you little grease monkey!"

"Yeah, yeah. Hold on a second."

Amy listened to the sound of Eiko digging around her fridge.

"If you're going to take my drinks, at least bring me some tea, okay?"

"Gotcha."

Eiko handed Amy a bottle of extra sweet tea before opening up her own can of grape soda. Both girls left the small apartment and headed for the stairs. Eiko's blue Subaru sat outside with its front windows down. Eiko tossed her keys to Amy.

"Don't wreck us."

"I don't plan on it, especially when I've got a Skyline to crush."

Eiko chuckled to herself as Amy started the engine. Multiple conversations about tonight had ended in Amy explaining why she respected the Nissan GT-R but wanted to put one in its place to prove her opinion of the car being overhyped. Any sort of ego or coming challenge left Eiko's mind as the car sped up. She listened to the throb of the engine and let herself relax. Her short hair fluttered in the wind.

Eventually, the city roads became back roads through the green areas of the ship. Eiko recognized the road as being the same one Amy had originally raced Sayuki down a couple of weeks ago. This time they had started further up as Amy took one last spirited drive through the course to get a feel for any unexpected changes in the road conditions. Although there was nothing new about the road itself, Eiko could see that some of the more technical turns already had small groups of people waiting by them. A few cars dotted the roadside.

"It looks like people are already showing up, even though I'm a bit early," Amy commented.

"Hey, when there's two people like you and Sayuki racing each other, people will come and watch. While I'm not really sure what kind of legend you both have, it's certainly enough to be an attention grabber," Eiko answered.

By the time Amy had driven through the full length of the course and then back again up most of it, there were even more people on the side of the road. The most technical corners were more popular. Even so, almost every major corner had at least two or three spectators standing nearby.

"Wow, I haven't been to many races here, but I can already tell you this is a larger-than-usual crowd," Eiko said as she stared wide-eyed at the growing number of onlookers.

There was no verbal reply from Amy, only a gentle head nod. She didn't say anything else on the way back to the starting area.

A decent number of people from the Tankery team had assembled at the starting area. Delilah, Mia, and Yelena were among them. None of them knew exactly when Amy and Eiko would turn up, but Delilah had seen Ayame and Hiromi around, along with almost every driver on the team. She watched the growing amount of people arrive, impressed by the civility. There were no arguments or fights about who the winner would be, no one showing off in their car, and the road had been left perfectly clear. The crowd had contained itself to the gravel pull-offs on each side of the road.

"Here she comes!" Yelena said in excitement.

"What?" Delilah turned to her loader for a brief moment before looking back down the road. Delilah couldn't hear or see anything yet, but Yelena's eyes were locked onto something in the growing darkness. The sun had set over half an hour ago, leaving car headlights as the only source of illumination other than the glow of the moon.

Several seconds passed before Delilah could just barely hear the sound of approaching tires and an engine. Light gleamed from the distance.

Yelena grinned. "There they are, I told you they were coming."