Racing in Harborne

Harborne Racing
 
So along with my new bike, Ilyara and Max had also treated themselves to new bikes. So we did the only logical thing we could, we took them out into the desert to race them. Turns out everyone has some skills with the bikes and we were all pretty evenly matched.
 
After we got back I did some poking around online and discovered that there was a pretty well known, former competition race-track not too far from where we were in Harborne. I’d not been there before but Ilyara seemed to think the place wasn’t too bad so we decided to go check it out.
 
As we approached I could see that the walls were manned and there were lots of weapons pointing outwards, one or two inwards as well. I wasn’t surprised though as Harborne wasn’t a massive settlement and being this far out, you needed all the protection you could get. We were scanned as we approached but were waved in with no issues.
 
Once we were through the walls I could see it was pretty much a shanty settlement, population free people and exiles. It was very similar to Whiskey Outpost, just bigger.
 
Through the gate there was a tarmac road but we had to slow right down as there were people everywhere not really watching what they were doing and crossing right in front of us. We followed the directions the guy at the gate had given us and headed towards the track. There was an off-spill road that led down to the back of the track and a security guy waved us down once we’d told him what we were there for.
 
We followed the road round and eventually came to a building, it was still a shack but it looked like it had been reinforced and was somewhat official. A young lad approached us and we explained why we were there and he took us inside to go and speak to the game warden.
 
Inside we were introduced to a tall, older African woman with long dreads. I noticed the wrist breaker unit, a hacking device, she also had two cybernetic eyes, the eyes themselves were grey with blue rings set into them. Her left leg below the knee and two of her fingers were also cybernetic.
 
She greeted us both and was friendly enough but you could tell she was also sizing us up. We introduced ourselves and said we wanted to check things out and see how it all worked. She nodded and shouted her assistant Marli to bring some drinks out.
 
She explained that this track isn’t like any of the others, it is rougher, although there were no weapons allowed on the track. Tricks are allowed but on the understanding it does not destroy any property. You can run people off the track but grav bikes can’t go over 15ft above the ground. She also warned us that, on this track, accidents had been known to happen ‘But don’t worry, outright murder is frowned upon’ Wow, I felt much better with that reassurance.
 
Racing fees for us were 250 creds a race with a race every half hour. Today was a normal race day but on Fridays weapons were allowed – death races. We decided to go and watch a race and see what it was all about with a possibility of joining one later on.
 
It all seemed fairly straightforward so we decided to give it a go. We had to pick race names so I went with Re-boot, had to get the tech reference in there somehow. Ilyara managed to win but I’m putting that down to the fact that her bike’s like 300 feet long. Right at the end though there was an accident and one of the racers, Maverick, got his leg chopped off. Ilyara jumped in and did what she could to try and stop the bleeding but she was struggling with the kit she had with her so she called in a favour and got one of the medivac’s to land on the racetrack. She was able to patch him up enough it was safe to discharge him to the Harborne clinic. We got his friends Derreck and Faiza.
 
The Game master called us over to her shack. She thanked Ilyara for stepping in and the help she offered, it’s not something that happened often in a place like Harborne. She also told me that she’s had a communication from Dedalus and they had paid my entrance fee so she pinged me the 250 credits back, as well as the money we got for coming in first and second and the payment for Ilyara for providing medical services.
 
She also warned us, it might be prudent to be careful where we go in the city. There is a gang there, the Crimson Hats, they were known for running guns and drugs but they were fairly small time and tend to stay within the walls of Harborne although they did have one or two members in Birmingham. She suggests we try going south, we’d avoid the crimson hats that way. She also invited us to the feast they were having that night. It was invitation only but given what we’d done for Maverick she thought we should be there as there would be plenty of people who wanted to say thanks.
 
We headed out and decided to head South to see what was there. It was really interesting as the people seemed much more diverse than in Birmingham. There were people with a lot of cybernetics, Amaranthians who looked like their more authentic selves, Dwarves and Dwarven workshops, hear Elvish. Ilyara needed to eat so we headed to a stand and got what looked like a huge burrito but it was Amaranthian. We ordered some drinks. Ilyara ordered a snakebite, and after being warned not to, swallowed the snake. The guy who runs the stand warned me it could take a few hours for the effects to wear off.
 
I decided to eat as I was enjoying trying new things. It was good but I did get some static in my eyes and then the re-charge rate on my reactor went through the roof. It turned out that Amaranthian meat had magical properties. It could be a bit of a lottery what the effects were but in my case I’d been lucky.
 
We get checked into a hotel so we can stay for the night after the feast, the street-meat guy pointed us in the direction of somewhere that wasn’t too expensive but also wouldn’t leave us wanting to sleep on the bikes.
 
As we were talking I noticed a photo on the wall behind the bar, it looked like Cresswell and McGraw.
 
We’d spent the afternoon looking around Harborne and waiting for Ilyara to sober up after her experience with snakebite. As the sun was going down we headed back to the racetrack for the feast. There was heavy security, the event was invitation only but we were waved in with smiles.
 
It was noisy and boisterous. People were drinking and there was music playing. I could hear scattered bursts of laughter. As we walked in people waved and shouted hi. A few people came over to talk to us and shake Ilyara’s hand. They were really complimentary about us and said we’d done well considering it was our first race. They were also thanking Ilyara for what she’s done for Maverick. It turns out the free people, or at least these free people were also really superstitious.
 
Maverick was also there, we hadn’t expected him to be but he was there being pushed around in a wheelchair by the friends we’d seen earlier. He offers us any help we want so we started picking his brains about racing and the best way to get set up. He mentioned the other types of races, death races we knew about but there were also time trials and every two months they had a rally.
 
He tells us having a pit crew can be really handy, particularly if you want to race a lot. You can either hire one in Harborne, there are always people looking to pick up the work, or you can bring your own. It was certainly something to think about. He also warned us that if we were going to participate in the death races that we needed to bring armour and to be careful what weapons we brought as it wasn’t a case of everything goes, and to be prepared to pay for damages.
 
Generally everyone was welcome, as long as you played by the rules. Anyone caught not playing nice was essentially run out of Harborne, it was a fairly self-policing kind of place.
 
As we were talking I noticed some scarring on his left forearm. As I looked closer I could see that he’d had a tattoo removed. Although it had been removed there was enough of it left for me to see that it was a red hat tattoo.
 
We hung out with the guys for a while, getting to know some more of the regular racers and faces from around the track. There were a few of the guys hanging around Ilyara but I was used to that and just ignored it and carried on chatting about bikes and racing and the pros and cons of the different bikes. Some of the racers had standard factory issue bikes like my trailblazer. Others had more, custom, shall we say, bikes.
 
As things started dwindling down we decided to head back to the hotel. The following morning we were up and about relatively early and headed back to the amaranthian food stand we’d been to last night, although I did get Ilyara to promise no more snakebite this early in the morning. It turned out that Jeremy who ran the diner knew a lot about racing and the way the town worked. He suggested we go down to the garage district, there were normally paces available to let and they usually came with a crew as well. Before long we’d registered with the Harborne Racing association and had put down a years rent on a garage and crew.