Third Wave: Part Deux
an excerpt

“How great is this?” Kit shoved her head into the huge arena marked VIP lounges G to L. It was littered with smaller pod like structures, the individual lounges, that radiated outward from a central half-circle shaped disc. The entire inner wall was a giant screen, currently showing the empty star field around the edges with the middle taken up by various advertisements. On the journey down the corridor, she’d managed to swallow one entire bucket of Cheery-Beery as well as most of Jake’s supply of Dongles. “This is cooler than Moosehead Stadium back on Old Terra. Come on, admit it, I rock for getting us all tickets to this. Without me you’d be hanging out in the break room watching the races on that piece of flotsam vid-screen with Sherrie bitching at you about how you never work.”
“Whatever, you still owe me a new tube of Dongles,” Jake groused. “Hey, Bram, you okay?”
The young man had stopped squarely in the middle of the entrance hall and was staring, transfixed at the view. His knobby knees buckled and both Kit and Jake had to abandon their perusal of the hot dog menu to catch him before he toppled into the rows of incoming race attendees.
“People die here,” he whispered in a fevered voice, lifting shaking hands to worry at his bright golden curls.
“Not exactly in this room, no,” Jake maneuvered the limp young man through the crowds. “’Scuse me, sorry about that, coming through. But yes, people do die here. They die in most places, though. Crossing the space lane or going through an airlock or something. I think there was one guy who keeled over dead in the office a couple years back. No big deal,” Jake added hastily. “Kit, honey don’t look like that. Elaine’s not gonna die in this race. Most people who get sucked in don’t die; they just send the sweepers out for them after the race and minus a bit of time-dilation and the odd lost limb they’re A-OK. Most of the time they can resuscitate them no problem. Space is great for preserving stuff.”
“That makes me feel a lot better,” Kit whispered brokenly. Her hands let go of one of her buckets of Cheery Beery and Jake had to make a desperate lunge to save it, unfortunately that necessitated letting go of Bramwell. Fortunately he was sufficiently recovered to stand, albeit somewhat shakily, on his own.