◂ The board · Hunt 2 of 99 · Opening Run
The Champion
Hunt 2: The Ex Board
Hunt 2 · Race
The Ex Board
The Champion · Hexil
Every racer at Thren must name their machine after an ex, and the Champion, a Hexil who has spliced a strand of her own copper head wire into all twelve cars she's married, does it deadpan while Vesk studies the grandstand. She'll win by driving into it, because second place is what she fears.
Abigail's notebookThren. Five moons, one loop. Loud.
Thursday. Thren. Writing in the pits.
Hunt two. The Champion. Not counting the Abyss, which I don't, I'd never left Pheli before this. So, some things about Thren.
It's a racetrack through a ring of moons, named after the part that failed the first time they ran it, and there are crowds on every rock. Everybody's Hexil here, six-armed and squat and cream-colored like an old tooth, with a spray of copper wire for hair and two eyes that go in different directions, and the wire stands straight up whenever the floor hums, so you can look across a pit and see the whole crew's heads rise together a second before you feel the engine. They eat pickled sump root on a heel of bread. I had some. I regret the some.
And the rule that bites here, the one they'll disqualify you for: every racer's got to name their machine after an ex. In public, up on the Ex Board, before the start. Got one? You'd need one.
The people
Hexil
Six-limbed and compact, with extra arms for tools. They can feel vibrations through the floor.
Brilliant, loud, and competitive.
ALSO ON THE BOARD: The Prophet (23), The Orbital Gunner (27), The Mechanic (37), Old Number Nine (47), The Cartographer (61), The Egg Thief (70)
