Reuben divided the volunteers into small groups. One went to the service lane, another to the finish area, another to the parking lot. Caleb took the path leading behind the maintenance shed. Odessa insisted on accompanying him until the event nurse stopped her and handed her a sturdy walking cane. She looked offended, but accepted it.
Halfway down the path they found Becca’s wheel blocks beside a chain-link gate. Beyond the gate, a narrow road curved behind a storage yard. Two teenagers were pushing the blue cart along it. Becca walked beside them, helmet on, arguing into her phone. Caleb called her name.
She stopped. One of the boys looked ready to run, but the heavy cart made flight impractical. “We’re not stealing anything,” he said quickly.
“Then come back,” Caleb replied.
“They canceled us,” Becca said. “Silas told us the class would run. He said it was ours.”
“Nobody has to earn the right to race by ignoring a safety flag,” Odessa said.
Becca frowned at the cane, then at Caleb. “My cart is fine. You checked it.”
“It was fine with the wheels it had when I checked it,” Caleb said. “Are those still the same wheels?”
Becca looked down. The wheels were different. They were taller, with narrow tires. She told him Grant had offered them to every Lightning Class racer the previous afternoon. He had insisted the new tires were safer at speed.
Caleb crouched and examined the mount. The taller wheels were rubbing close to a bolt head on one side. Becca said Grant had assured her that contact would stop as soon as the cart was moving.
“A rubbing tire doesn’t become safe because it spins faster,” Caleb said. “It becomes hotter.”
The other two boys exchanged glances. They were frightened now. They had imagined themselves as rebels against boring adults. They had not considered that an adult they trusted might have handed them unsafe equipment.
Odessa pointed to the gate. “Who told you to come through here?”
“A guy in a sponsor jacket,” one boy answered. “He said if we wanted to prove the old committee wrong, we could do a short run away from everybody.”
“Which guy?” Caleb asked.
The boy hesitated. “I don’t know. He had a radio.”
Caleb called Reuben and asked him to keep the lower access point blocked. Reuben agreed, then asked whether anybody was hurt. Caleb said no and meant to keep it that way.
As they pushed the blue cart uphill, Odessa remained silent. When they reached the staging area, she stopped Caleb near a bench.
“Do you still think this began because one woman disliked a shiny machine?” she asked.
“No. I think people have made promises they can’t keep safely.”
