The helmet tilted up, leveling with my face. The opaque visor shielded what I guessed was a crazed expression highlighted by glittery makeup.
I narrowed my eyes and mouthed, “What are you doing?”
The motorized stand oscillated the bike to the right, shaking the frame as well as the crazy woman balancing atop it. She let go of the grips and rose to her full height, arms stretched out to her sides. Then she lifted a boot, pointed it behind her like a warrior ballerina high on methanol fumes, and squealed over the screech of the motor.
Amidst her harebrained stunt, the bike shifted, and her upper body toppled forward, likely weighted down by the helmet. I reached out my free hand to catch her arm, but she slapped it away. Her back straightened, her fists whipped through the air, and she hopped off.
She was either fucking around or testing a new design. Who knew with her? I’d stopped trying to keep up with her antics years ago.
I turned off the bike and the motorized stand, and blessed silence blanketed the room. She removed the oversized helmet, ripping the wires as she tossed it and the jacket on the table beside her.
Fire-red hair covered her head, a stark contrast from the prior day’s silvery white. It spiked every which way around the black sweatband on her forehead.
She jabbed her fingers through the shoulder-length strands, swooping them away from her neck. “Wassup?”
“Tell me that’s not a live grenade on the floor out there, waiting to be kicked.”
Green eyes glimmered beneath the fluorescent lighting. “Did you kick it?” Her gasp rolled into a laugh. “God, you should see the look on your face.” She bared her teeth and scrunched her nose, hissing noisily.
Was her feral opossum act supposed to be an imitation of my expression?
“So yeeeeah, if you happen upon another grenade”—she bit her lip—“don’t kick it.”
Which meant I would spend that evening sweeping the warehouse of all things fragile, flammable, perishable, combustible, chemical, or potentially hazardous.
She hopped up on the table and swung her legs. “Your unbalanced forces issue is resolved.”
“What unbalanced forces issue?”
Gold dust shimmered on her fluttering lashes and thickened into swirly lines at her temples. “We’re not just dealing with the force of gravity pulling downward and the normal force of the ground pushing upward.” Her voice sped up, her hands flying through the air. “If the engine applies two-thousand Newtons of force—”
And this was where I tuned out. In her exuberance to nerd all over the shop floor, she had a tendency to forget we met at MIT, that my test scores were only slightly lower than hers, and the only reason I transferred from the physics and engineering departments to the business school was to broaden our skill set. Because by then, I knew MIT’s top graduate would become the nerdacious half of our two-man team.
“—creates equilibrium and, thus, state of motion.” Her black tank top clung to her chest, her tiny breasts having zero state of motion as she bounced on her butt and talked with her hands.
I was pretty sure a pimply-faced, Cheetos-eating teenage boy lurked beneath the glam boots and angel glitter.
One that hacked technology already in existence and altered it beyond the boundaries of the law to fit my needs.
One that also didn’t know when to shut up. “The friction exerts a rightward force upon the leftward-moving bike and—”
“Benny.” I scrubbed a palm over my face.
“An analysis had to be done to determine if the forces acting upon—”
“Benny!” I pointed at the broken wires twisted around the helmet and jacket beside her. “Get to the fucking point.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Fine, grumpy jackasshole.” She cocked her head. “Since you’re so keen on standing on your bike at 167 miles per hour, I designed a balance system. With wireless sensors in the sleeves of your jacket, the helmet will beep when equilibrium is lost and calibrate the acceleration and velocity vectors of your body. The digital gauge will tell you when, where, and how far to lean. Happy?”
“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Just what I didn’t need, more alarms flashing in my face. At least, now I knew how she'd stayed balanced on her rigged contraption. “I know how to lean my damned bike.”
She stared at her boots and mumbled, “Contentious, menstruating, fun killah.”
“What was that?”
She sniffed. “Nothing.”
I held out the helmet in my hand. “I need a modification on this by Saturday’s race.”
Her pale cheeks rose in color. “But I just gave you the Best. Mod. Evah.”
I spun the helmet between my hands, flipping it upside down and revealing the rows of buttons along the inside panel. “What I need is”—for lack of a better term—“x-ray vision.”
Her chin sawed side-to-side, scraping her teeth together and making my ears bleed. “Like radar detection? Through-the-wall imaging to map the layout of a building?”