Elroy Jetson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The hangar drills had fixed Elroy's hands. They had not fixed his nerves. Tomorrow a live clock would run, and Elroy had never flown under one. He kept seeing the race two years back, the gap he could have taken, the way his body locked. Tinker drilled him on sequences all afternoon. But sequences were not pressure. Elroy needed to feel the timer squeeze him before it happened for real. They walked to the garage after sundown. A buggy sat half-built under the lights, its cracked engine block useless on the bench. Tinker kicked a crate and sat. "I can teach you the launch. I can't fake a clock that matters." "Then I freeze tomorrow," Elroy said. The garage door scraped open. Bam Bam Rubble stood there with an armful of split logs, dirt on his hands. Elroy knew him only as the neighbor who cleared the old shed for Tinker, the caveman who fixed problems before anyone asked. Bam Bam dropped the logs by the wall. "Heard you two arguing," he said. "Doors carry sound." "We need a timer that scares him," Tinker said. "A real one." Bam Bam looked at Elroy a long moment. "Fear's just a thing in your chest. You stare at it enough, it shrinks." He crossed to the bench and picked up a stopwatch from the clutter. "Set a stake. Make it hurt to lose." Elroy frowned. "Hurt how?" Bam Bam pointed at the logs. "You run the launch sequence in ten seconds. Clean. Or you split my stumps for a week." He pressed the watch into Elroy's hand. "Lose, and your arms pay." Tinker grinned. "That's a clock that matters." Elroy's stomach dropped. The stakes were small and stupid. Somehow that made it worse. He set the chairs as a gate and climbed between them. Bam Bam raised the stopwatch. "Go." Elroy's hands flew to the sequence. Throttle prime. Vector lock. His mind stuttered on step three. The old gap flashed behind his eyes, and his hand froze above the switch. The watch ticked. His chest clamped shut. "Four seconds," Bam Bam said flat. Elroy slammed the switch. He rushed the last steps and fumbled the lock. The watch stopped. "Twelve," Bam Bam said. "You froze." "I know," Elroy snapped. His hands shook. "Again," Bam Bam said. "Same stakes." They ran it eleven times. Elroy froze on three. Then two. Then one. On the twelfth run his hands moved before his fear could speak. Vector lock snapped home. "Nine seconds," Bam Bam said. He almost smiled. "Clean." Elroy climbed out, soaked in sweat. The freeze had come and he had pushed through it. He could feel the clock now and still move. "I can hold it tomorrow," he said. "Good," Bam Bam said. "Because the real clock won't warn you." He nodded at the window. The trial field waited in the dark, and the first flag went up at dawn.