“‘Neon Blue’?” Donut exclaimed as she continued to examine the bootleg makeup palette. “My aesthetic most certainly doesn’t include something as crass as Neon Blue. Anyone can stand out when they spackle on bright colors. Makeup is supposed to enhance one’s beauty. You can’t even make a good smoky eye with any of this. How can you even blend these? Zev! I hope you’re seeing this! This is why I must be consulted on all merchandise deals!”

“Look, I found more from your brand,” Samantha said, emerging from the garbage pile. She spat something on the ground. Her own lips were now a bright, bright red that practically glowed. “Look, it’s a color called Pussy Lips. It’s already used. That means I get to keep it.”

Donut gasped in further outrage.

“Listen,” I said to the cleaner bot, trying my best to ignore Donut and Samantha. “We need to clean this up, but if there’re important things in here, I don’t want you to zap it away like you just did to the kitchen table. Mordecai, come here.”

Mordecai was examining what looked like a comic book from the pile, but it had gotten wet. He dropped it and wiped his skeletal hand on his robes.

I pulled the white cleaner bot from my inventory, and I shoved it at Mordecai. “Take this and do what needs to be done to get it to work for us.” The white robot was slightly smaller than our own unit. It let out a shrill beep and tried to wriggle away from me.

Our cleaner bot made a confused beep at the sight of the other one. The white one beeped back as Mordecai grasped it. He pressed something on the top of the new unit. All the lights on it flicked off.

“I just gotta reset it,” Mordecai said, turning the white bot over in his hands. It had blood on it. The thing had been used to clean up Architect Houston’s operating theater. “This is an old model.”

Donut was in the chat with Zev, bitching up a storm. She had a bunch of makeup items spread out in front of her as Samantha clucked over them.

I put my hand on Donut. “Come on, Princess. We need to reset our buffs and clean up, and then we gotta get out there.”

Later, we entered the garage to find Splash Zone, Dong, Mongo, and Rend all sitting in a circle. They watched Hedy balance a massive wrench on the tip of her finger. The gremlin flipped the wrench in the air and caught it again on the same finger, keeping it balanced. Mongo screeched and waved his wings while Splash Zone clapped politely. Rend giggled, his voice a deep baritone.

Mongo noticed Donut and screeched. Rend giggled at me, and a few raw French fries fell from his mouth.

A group of gremlins I’d never seen before was crawling over the vehicle.

“Mongo, Mommy has a hat for you!” Donut exclaimed. She produced the Egyptian hat. He screeched and started to back up.

“Where did these guys come from?” I asked Hedy, indicating the gremlins crawling on the truck. One gnawed on a piece of chicken. Two of the gremlins picked up the giant tommy gun and started pulling it back toward the roof. “Hey! Keep that thing off the truck!”

The gremlin with the chicken piece flipped me off. The other two dragging the gun started laughing manically.

Hedy shrugged. “For the first few hours after you return from a race, these weirdos will do dem bulk o’ the repairs. Don’t really understand it myself.” She leaned in. “Don’t think thems real gremlins. They don’t really talk. Just do the cleanup work and then disappear, leaving me to finish the upgrades.”

“There, isn’t it great?” Donut said as Dong helped Mongo wear the hat. The dinosaur looked absolutely ridiculous. Rend started grunting and bouncing up and down as Donut produced the headband.

“You best spend some time learning everything you can about your fellow racers,” Hedy said. “Gotta know which ones to trust and which ones are gonna blow ye off the road the moment the race starts.”

“We don’t trust anyone, Hedy,” I said.

The gremlin grinned up at me. “I think we’s gon get along just fine, yessir.”