The Race Read online

  “Girls, that was amazing. We watched the whole thing from the office. Dan here got some brilliant shots. Do you have a few words? Just for once we’re going to scoop the TV.”

  “Mr. Spencer, isn’t it?” asked Saskia. “We just happened to be passing so to speak. I’m Katya, and this is Kyra,” Saskia indicated me. “I don’t suppose you can tell us apart, it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Before you ask,” I said. “We don’t give interviews. Comments, yes - interviews, no. Sorry.”

  “I understand, really,” said Archie. “Don’t really blame you. Can you tell me just how you prevented disaster?” He pushed a little voice recorder at me.

  “Hm. Right. The Earth’s rotation means the twister moves from east to west, Coriolis force that’s called. The prevailing wind is from the south west today. The whirlwind is only that - wind. The wind blows the twister along, basically northwards. Luckily that’s where we wanted it to go. We added to the wind by blowing and herded it to the river. There it picked up water, that requires energy, that energy came from the rotation of the twister. Eventually there wasn’t enough energy left to maintain the rotation and it all fell apart. How’s that?”

  “That’s brilliant, thank you,” said Archie.

  “Mr Spencer,” said Saskia. “The telly people will be here in a minute. We don’t want to stay, besides, that’ll spoil your scoop. If Dan has enough pictures, we’d like to go. Anyway, I think his camera shutter might have melted, he’s been clicking away so much.”

  Dan grinned, rather ruefully I thought. “I’ve taken one or two.”

  “Thanks anyway, girls,” said Archie. “It’s been nice meeting you.”

  “And you, Mr. Spencer,” said Saskia. She lifted into the air so I followed her. I could see Dan still clicking away below me.

  “Hm. Naughty pictures,” I said. “Looking up girls skirts indeed.”

  “Bothered, Twin?”

  “Not really. If you’ve got it, flaunt it - and we’ve got it, you and me.”

  “Hm. Interesting,” said Saskia. “Kyra doesn’t mind wearing the smallest super costume in the known universe. Saskia, on the other hand, draws the line at a smallish bikini.”

  “Ok you. Katya is like Kyra, doesn’t mind what she shows to the world. However, don’t I recall some harsh words when we had to wear a mini-dress in 1973?”

  “It’s different for Saskia somehow. She’s a demure young lady, cares what people think of her, wants people to like her for herself. Katya doesn’t feel the need for all that. Must be different sides of the same person.”

  “Sigmund Freud would have a field day with us two. And before you say it, I know you know who Freud was. Being serious for a moment - which we were, I know - I think we should cruise around up here and check there’s no more damage that’ll take a super girl or two to sort out.”

  The wind was still blowing hard. It didn’t affect either of us of course, we just drifted along as if it was dead calm. Casting about with super vision soon revealed another problem.

  “There’s a lot of people running about near that wind farm on the hill over there,” said Saskia.

  “Look,” I said. “One of the turbines is going much faster than the others. Let’s go take a look.”

  Within a couple of seconds we were landing next to the offending wind turbine. It was making a noise like a aeroplane engine! Seeing us land, a couple of the men came running up.

  “I don’t know if you can help. The automatic feathering mechanism’s jammed, we can’t control the speed.”

  “How does that work? Like an aeroplane propeller, or a helicopter rotor?” I asked.

  “Basically, yes. There’s a set of weights that swing out as they rotate faster, that pushes a lever that turns the blades in their sockets. That’s jammed. If we do nothing, the bearings will seize and the blades may be flung off.”

  “So we can get to the mechanism?”

  “Yes - but it’s too dangerous.”

  “For you, maybe,” grinned Saskia. “But not for my sister and me. Show us the way.”

  The way up involved a ladder inside the tower. There would only be room for three of us so only one of the men came to with us. Gallantly, he elected to be first up the ladder.

  “I’m glad he’s going first,” I whispered from my position as last in the line. “I’m getting a brilliant look up your skirt.”

  “Nothing you’ve not seen before. Now shut up and think about what we’re going to do. I’m relying on you.”

  “Your confidence is gratifying - if possibly a bit misplaced.”

  There was no more time for idle chat, we’d reached the top. Noisy wasn’t the word. The machine was making so much noise that our telepathy cut in.

  “I don’t think it’s supposed to go this fast, Twin,” said Saskia in my head.

  “I can see why it’s jammed,” I said. “The shaft’s rotating so fast that the collar is stuck by centrifugal force. Hm. Just slowing it down a bit will probably free it off.”

  “How’ll we do that?”

  “Like this should do it.”

  I put both hands round the rotating shaft where it joined the gearbox connecting it to the alternator. I gripped hard - then harder - then harder still. I could smell the oil that had been coating the surface beginning to get hot, it boiled away round my hands. The shaft itself began to get hot, it glowed a dull red colour as the heat generated by the friction against my hands built up. It was slowing down!

  “It’s working. I don’t know how much I need to slow it.”

  Almost as I spoke, the weight collar unstuck itself and shot down the shaft pushing the rods that controlled the pitch of the blades. I continued to slow the mechanism down until the collar began to slide back up the shaft. At that point it was back on automatic and I could remove my hands. I turned to find that Saskia had her arms round our native guide from behind.

  “This is no time for a cuddle, Twin,” I said. “What’s that all about?”

  “He tried to stop you touching the gubbins. Restraining him was the only option, he couldn’t hear me.”

  “Well you can let go of him now, before he starts to enjoy it.” I was grinning at him.

  He grinned back. “That was amazing. I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t actually seen you do it.”

  “All in a day’s work. You’ll need to get the thing checked over, heating it that much can’t have done it any good. Anyway, bit of a design error? It should be able to handle a little wind like this.”

  “There’s a manual override. We were doing all ten on the farm, this one was last and we just weren’t quick enough.”

  Going back down the tower, we reversed our ascending order, I went first. I couldn’t be bothered with the ladder, I just jumped into the shaft and let myself float down. Saskia did the same thing. Then we had to hang around and wait for our poor man to climb down the ladder.

  “Thank you girls. That could have been a bit nasty. Those blades are heavy.”

  “If you’re ok, we’re off to see if anybody else needs our help,” I said. “Take care.”

  There was quite a bit of devastation. On our way back home we moved a few trees that had blown down - one neatly across a car. That wasn’t going anywhere - it was a big tree. Saskia moved it on her own, which impressed the hell out of the people watching. There were also a couple of HGVs on the bypass that would move better now they were back on their wheels instead of lying on their sides.

  Eventually we got back to the house just in time for lunch. Changing to be two somewhat windswept Saskias, we went in to investigate the lunch possibilities.

  “Ah. The wanderers return. You’ve missed lots of fun. Those two friends of yours have been busy, at least according to the radio news people.”

  “Friends, Dad? Oh, you mean Katya
and Kyra. Not surprised. It’s a bit wild out there. We could see the top of a tornado or something off over the trees.”

  “I think ‘bracing’ is a word for today, sir,” I said. “You should have come with us. We’ve had a great time being blown inside out.”

  “What d’you want for lunch, Dad? All this wind makes you hungry.”

  “Oh, it’s the wind,” I whispered. “Somehow I thought it might be all the hard work we’ve been doing.”

  “Shut up you and help with lunch or you’ll get a thump.”

  Two

  Monday. Petra grabbed us at reception as we entered the building. “Boss wants you. What have you done now?”

  “Well actually, we’ve saved a marriage, an industrial estate, and a power station. Normal sort of weekend really,” said Saskia.

  Petra looked at us with an odd expression on her face. “I never know with you two. I’m not going to ask. I can see the marriage bit, you were at a wedding on Saturday, but the others? I’m really not going to ask.”

  I grinned. “Good idea Petra. Too much information and we’d have to kill you. Remain ignorant.” We walked on past with our heads held high as if we owned the world.

  Amanda, James PA, wasn’t in her office. Probably off getting James coffee or otherwise terrorising some part of the plant on behalf of her boss. Procedure in this case is to knock and wait. This we did, or at least Saskia did.

  “Come in, it’s not locked - although I don’t suppose it would bother you two if it was,” James said as we opened the door and stuck our heads round it.

  “James!” I said indignantly. “You know we always try to open doors normally. Just because on the odd occasion ...”

  “Yes, well. After the cafeteria and control room doors at the Russian plant I did toy with the idea of making sure all doors were kept unlocked just in case you two were around.”

  He was grinning broadly, which was just as well.

  “Ok, Oh Lord and Master,” said Saskia. “We, your servants, are here as ordered. What would you have us do?”

  “Mm, yes, right. Speaking of other plants, I need you to come with me to the plant in Aberdeen. Remember, we nearly went a few weeks ago?”

  “Do I need to brush up on my helicopter flying skills?” I laughed. Then a thought. “How is that poor pilot anyway. Did he recover all right?”

  “Yes, as far as I know. He can’t fly helicopters anymore, he now has a medical condition, so we’ll have a nice new pilot and hopefully no problems so you can sit in the back and behave yourselves this time.”

  “We always behave ourselves.”

  “Yes, you do, don’t you. Don’t you ever let your hair down?”

  “But James, our hair is always down. We hardly ever wear it up.” I said in mock seriousness.

  “Ok, ok. I know when I’m beaten. Go and intimidate somebody else.”

  “One question please,” said Saskia. “What time are we leaving?”

  “Seven for seven thirty. Breakfast in the cafeteria if you want it.”

  “Speaking of the cafeteria ... ,” I said.

  “I know. Hot chocolate calls,” laughed James. “Just go.”

  We went. To call at the cafeteria required us to go back down the stairs to the ground floor but we didn’t mind. There were some of the transport drivers sitting at a table soaking up tea and bacon butties, presumably before setting off on a run.

  “Hi Saskias. How are we this morning.”

  “We’re fine, Charlie, and yourself? Any damage after the storm yesterday? There were a couple of rigs blown over on the ring road.”

  “No, we survived, even the trailers in the yard were ok. Got to go. Regards to your dad, Saskia.”

  The drivers got up to leave. Aforementioned Charlie was an old acquaintance of Saskia’s dad from the days when he used to drive big trucks for a living. We’d found out about this when we had to move a trailer Charlie’d left in a silly place.

  As we carried our mugs of hot chocolate back to our desks, I said, “Never asked James why we’re going to Aberdeen.”

  “The original reason as stated was to sort out some problem. Do you know, I don’t remember him telling us then either. And we never got there. Oh well, we’ll find out soon enough.”

  Melanie was at her desk. “Good show on Saturday, Saskias.”

  “Did you get back ok? Silly me, ‘course you did, you’re here now,” said Saskia.

  I just thought of the fact that Saskia and I had probably got home some hours before Melanie, even though she’d left the wedding reception before we did. Apparently nobody noticed my grin.

  “At least you got to spend some time with Peter, in his actual presence instead of just a video picture on your computer,” I said.

  “Mm, yes. Hey, that dance you did with him was brilliant. I didn’t know he could do that.”

  “You’ve only known him for five minutes, Melanie. Give him a chance,” I said. In fact, the waltz I’d done with Peter had all been down to the Saskia Magic. I don’t think Peter had been able to do it before that point. He certainly could now.

  “You did really well with rescuing the wedding by borrowing the dresses from Harveys. Brilliant idea.”

  “We try.”

  Later, I said to Saskia, “Good job we produced the exact same dresses we saw at the charity do. Everybody just thinks we borrowed them from Harveys, because they’d all seen them before. Imagine the problems and explanations if we’d just copied some off the internet.”

  “Yeah. Good thought of yours. You can see why I keep you around.”

  “You keep me around for the same reason I keep you around, I love you and can’t bear to be without you, even for a few minutes.”

  She sighed. “You’re right. That applies to me as well. I love you.”

  Tuesday. “Remember, probably have to do your own tea, Dad,” said Saskia.

  “I remember, don’t worry. Enjoy your day out, try not to have to fly any more helicopters.”

  “We’ll try, sir,” I laughed. “It’s strange to be leaving the house before you.”

  “There is such a time as before seven o’clock in the morning, you know. And before you tell me off, I know you know. Go on, you’ll be late.”

  We both gave Rob a hug and a kiss and skipped out to the mini - not literally of course, we were far too old for that, me especially. I was rather older than Saskia - and not even a girl. I wondered, not for the first time, if the girl/boy distinction even applied to Saskia and me. Voice, our disembodied mentor, had mention once that the two of us were no longer actually human.

  “You’re quiet Twin.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Well, cease instantly. You look far too serious.”

  I tried for a smile, although I suspected it looked like a silly grin. “Better?”

  “Much. I think we’ve time for a hot chocolate before we go.”

  “Just as well we don’t actually need to visit the Ladies. We’d be landing at every airfield between here and Aberdeen else.”

  “Good point,” she laughed. “I wonder how James copes?”

  “Perhaps the way they did on long flights during the Second World War.”

  “And that was?”

  “I’m not going to draw a picture but it involved rubber pipes.”

  “I think I understand. I don’t suppose they bothered with holding tanks like modern aircraft?”

  “Don’t think so. If you felt rain while the bombers were going over you could never be sure.”

  “Saskia! That’s gross!”

  “I know, but I see you are smiling.”

  The mini was abandoned in the car park as usual. Being there so early meant we got a space quite near the door. It didn’t matter really, we didn’t mind walking. When
you can fly, walking can be quite enjoyable. Armed with mugs of hot chocolate, we set out to find James. We didn’t actually go very far, we just used super vision to search likely places. With nobody much about, the way our eyes changed colour when we do this wasn’t likely to be commented upon.

  “There he is, out on the helipad, talking to the driver,” said Saskia. “Chuck down the chocky and lets go join him.”

  Even though the chocolate was still scalding hot, it couldn’t scald us of course. We replaced our now empty mugs and walked out to the helicopter. Our nice new pilot was quite young - and quite handsome, at least he thought so.

  “Hello! Are you my other two passengers? This flight may be more interesting than I thought. Where have you been hiding these two, Sir James?”

  I could see James smiling to himself. Was this guy on a hiding to nothing. Saskia would see to him in short order, of that I had no doubt.

  Saskia was slightly in front of me. She looked down at the ground. “We’re Sir James assistants. We’re new, we’ve not been here long. I think we need to sit in the back, at least that’s what we’ve been told.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Pilot. “Perhaps I could persuade Sir James to let one of you sit in the front with me.”

  “Oh I don’t think we could do that. He’s our boss after all.”

  “We might get chance for a chat in Aberdeen? I can tell you all about me and you can tell me all about you.”

  “Maybe,” said Saskia. “Can you help me into the back please?”

  Pilot rushed across to help Saskia. I saw James begin to grin. He knew Saskia didn’t need any help, thank you.

  Saskia made herself look awkward, she pushed her bum out slightly, Pilot couldn’t help himself, he put his hand on her bum to push her in. I almost couldn’t look. Saskia pushed herself backwards out of the machine, making it look like an accident. This pushed Pilot backwards as well. Using a little super speed, Saskia arranged to be standing on the ground while Pilot was still falling backwards. She took hold of his arm and lifted. It looked like she’s used Pilot’s momentum to turn him upside down, in reality, she’d used super strength, Pilot didn’t know that. He ended up flat on his face on the ground with Saskia twisting his arm behind him, not hard, just enough to give him the idea.