Ophie the Motorized Gladiator

She’d been making money the dirty way, and she knew in 2065 a person like her had little to no choice but to do things exactly like that: dirty. Ophie, who was supposed to be Sophie if the nurse was competent enough to type it correctly, partook in a growing subset of alternative entertainment known as gladiator motocross racing. The races were a combination obstacle course for two racers that involved extremities of all kinds. The courses changed every race and became increasingly extreme each passing year as more money fed the beast.

The races started out on the fringes of society in the early 2050’s but had become more popular after their initial years, even though they were viewed exclusively as a death wish. The way internet socialization had enhanced our view of human nature created people who were unashamed to visibly lean into the underbelly of morbidity. Only the most desperate, desolate, rough people came to play at the races. Some came looking for adrenaline or escape, so unhappy with the state of Earth’s climate that the only adrenaline came from risking their lives. All came looking for money, which was typically a grand if you won. If you made it out alive, even losing netted a small lump sum.

Ophie had been racing since she was 15. Her age was never an issue. It was technically illegal and supported by the betting around it, so no one cared. She wasn’t stupid. She studied the races for years before even attempting to compete. Racers had to provide their own bike, too, and she worked for years honing her knowledge and gathering the parts to piece it together. Besides studying the races by watching them online or following her favorite living competitors, she’d scour the internet for videos, articles, manuals, anything that would help her understand how motocross motorcycles worked and what she needed to win a gladiator race. She found the most value in looking at the mods that returning competitors would add to their bikes. By the time she was twelve, she could make spikes for her spokes and could assemble a fully functional engine.

She kept her notes and aspirations in a small black book. It was full of illustrations, bits and pieces of information she had gathered on developing technologies, and specifics on what junkyards and bike shops had the best parts. The book lived along the inside of her boots or in her backpack, sometimes her desk. There was something about writing everything down that lasted longer in her memory than anything in her phone.

Starting out would have been a whole lot rougher if her aunt Ann hadn’t been around. The sad truth was that Ophie had to be adopted by Ann. Her mother passed away sometime after she turned 8. The Earth’s air was so polluted that those with illnesses like asthma often developed new health issues. After years of suffering, Ophie’s mom was hospitalized and passed on from lung complications. Ann adopted her after that. She asked, “Do you want me to change your name to Sophie, legally? Or do you want to keep it as Ophie?” Ann wasn’t terribly wealthy, but she at least had her shit together. After thinking about it, Ophie responded with, “No. I’ll keep it. I’ve never responded to Sophie, so why now?” Ann laughed at how grown-up Ophie always talked. It was a side effect of having to skip childhood.

Ophie didn’t come from money and never came into money, until hopefully now. Whenever she won she’d use a portion of the cash to fix whatever she busted on her bike during the race, give a portion to Ann, and save a small bit for herself. Ann found her involvement with gladiator races abhorrent but knew better than to stand in front of someone so headstrong. Ophie had the fire to achieve greater things beyond the gladiator races, and the money she earned would eventually take her on a path that wasn’t so uncertain and dead end.

She wanted to go to university. Most people didn’t go to college until after they were 21 these days, and she was only a few days away from sauntering into that demographic. She didn’t necessarily know what kind of education she desired, but she wanted to be able to support Ann when she couldn’t work anymore. Being a doctor was appealing monetarily, but Ophie was much more interested in science and mechanics. Her background knowledge and experience with motocross supported this path, and she dreamed of pursuing something in that realm, like mechanical physics. Did NASA hire mechanical physicists? She scribbled this into her little black book in the portion of pages dedicated to “future shit”.

She had a race coming up, and word on the street was that it was going to have a big payout. Big. Like, ten grand big. That was ten times the usual amount. She couldn’t steer herself away from wanting to compete for the 10k, even if she did just finish a race and tear apart her tires. She had bad bruising on her arms and legs, and even walking to the sink she did with great difficulty, but this was temporary. It was always temporary.

She had lost a few times. She had some small scars and some large ones. Perhaps the largest scar and biggest secret came from the day she had been accused of cheating. Two years before, she was confronted aggressively at the end of a race between her and Dig Bick. Dig Bick was a big dick, terribly misogynistic because while humanity had changed greatly, there was still some room in the outskirts for small thinking. Ophie had beaten him several times and he was several times the loser. She would win and flash a toothy smile. He would lose and flash a toothy sneer. It was their dance but her rules. It wasn’t until he went to the gladiator overlords after an extremely close match and accused her of adding extra juice to her bike, which was perfectly legal underneath the umbrella of rules set forth, that he got in her way.

Losing wasn’t his forte.

After inspecting her bike and finding nothing illegal, they decided to ban her anyway because her record was a little “too good”. They claimed that she “must be hiding something even though they’d found nothing”. It was unfortunate, but not unfixable. Ophie was clever. Plastic surgery had become so normal that almost anyone could afford to get some sort of work done, so she just put some of her savings towards getting her face modified. It was too easy, really.

Her bike was recognizable and followed by consistent watchers of the gladiator races, so she restructured the body and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Before it had been a loud cerulean covered in stickers from her favorite video games and local bars. Her favorite sticker, “BITE ME”, was positioned playfully on the body below her seat. Her new bike had to be different, but she couldn’t help but still put a little bit of herself into its design even though she was incognito.

She decided on amethyst and added a light, sparkly dusting. Bright colors were common in the gladiator races anyway, so being loud amongst the loud was much better than being a whisper. She was hiding in plain sight. Stickers were popular too, but instead of seeing how many would fit, she kept it to a moderate three to four. It was all too perfect. The last thing she had to change was the name she submitted to ride with, which could under no circumstances be Ophie. She was fairly confident that she was the only person with a name that sounded so wrong. She started riding as Nova. It fit her like a glove.

Her cover hadn’t been blown yet, and if she won this race the load was big enough that she could finally leave the gladiator races and focus on following her dreams of growing her mind, maintaining financial stability, and staying alive. Besides the cash, this race was unlike anything they had seen before. Instead of two people competing, it was open to ten, which meant the course would be wider, longer, and more difficult. It defeated the purpose of its nomenclature, but for 10k, who cared?

The large race was announced two hours after her last race, and Ophie knew that she’d have to work past the physical battering she had just taken to make it all work. It was just three days away, so she began to take ice baths and make sure that she stretched and was drinking tons of water. It was nowhere near easy, but necessary. She hoped quietly that she wasn’t pushing herself beyond her means. She knew that she was.

Her bike needed to be taken care of too, but that was easy. The only problem was that her engine needed a few expensive band-aids. The parts were all easily attainable and her fingers were perfectly in tune with the muscle memory required. It was just money she didn’t want to spend so quickly. If she won the 10k, it wouldn’t matter at all.

The morning of the race was straining for Ophie. She could tell that her body was tight, maybe too tight, to compete. With so much riding on this payout, she had begun to get small, sporadic chest pains around the area of her heart. After researching it more she found that this wasn’t something to be concerned with, at least, for now. It was hard to ignore.

Dig Bick and all the usual suspects were competing in this race. There wasn’t a single one of them that wasn’t thirsty for the money, and she knew she had to exude the same easy confidence that she always did in order to steady her trepidations. This would indeed be a difficult race and she needed to be aware. The speaker box in the garage crackled as all racers were called to the starting line. Ophie took a deep, private breath.

The track smelled of fresh dirt, motor oil, and vaguely of iron, which was probably from old blood. They all revered their engines competitively, and at the sound of the starting pistol were off in a flurry of clumped dirt and ravenous desperation. The race track itself was unkind. An unfortunate half of them didn’t cross the finish line, but for a race this large with this much at stake, Ophie was unsurprised. It seems many raced before they were ready. She wasn’t ready either, but she at least finished second and was able to walk off of her bike.

Disappointed didn’t begin to describe how she was feeling. As she sauntered towards the garage her phone buzzed with a text from Ann. It read: “Call me now.” So, she did.

“Hi O. I placed a bet on you.”

“You bet on me? Why?”

“Because the odds of you making it out alive were low. I knew that wasn’t true, so I placed a small bet.”

“How much did you win?”

“I won $20,000, Ophie. And I’m giving it to you.”

“You won WHAT?!”

“It’s yours. I bet the money you gave me from your last race. I knew you could do it. And honestly, the odds were ridiculous.”

Ophie’s eyes welled with tears. She counted this as a win. She looked around at the garage and breathed in the smell of gas and sweat one last time. She smiled.

“What’re you smiling at, Nova?” Dig Bick had just appeared, swaggering in after his win. “You just lost 10 grand.”

Ophie peeked back at him and smiled wide. “This is the last time I’ll be in this god-forsaken garage. And it’s Ophie, not Nova. Kick rocks, Dig Bick.” His mouth dropped.

She walked out of the garage before he could speak, victoriously ahead after so many years of struggle.