Chapter Five
Victoria
I manage to get some time with the head of performance analysis, Oliver. He’s in his thirties, lean, and has the permanently distracted look of someone always running models in his head. I got a tip from Thomas that Oliver has a weakness for chocolate-chip cookies, so I bring him a homemade batch.
He devours six cookies over three cups of coffee while I explain to him the overview of the algorithm I’m building and the data I need for it.
“I can get you data from the race this weekend,” he finally says. “Maybe a few races from last season, too.”
I place another cookie from my Tupperware onto his paper plate, then adjust the tablet tucked under my arm. It seems that as long as I keep Oliver hyped up on sugar, he’ll give me the time of day. “I need years’ worth of usable data to properly set up my program and train it. At least three.”
“That’ll take time I don’t have.” He shakes his head.
“All data older than six months gets serialized, compressed, and archived. It’s sitting in cold storage in a format our current systems can’t read.
The best I can do is get you access to the archived files, but you’ll need to decompress and convert all of it yourself. ”
Fuck. “Alright. What’ll it take for you to get me access before the Shanghai race?” If I have everything I need, then I might be able to get my algorithm functioning in a couple weeks. Maybe.
“Twelve cups of coffee and five dozen cookies,” he says. I start to chuckle, but seal my lips when I realize he’s being serious.
Getting my prehistoric, demon-possessed oven to produce the batch of cookies he’s eating right now took several hours; it’ll be a nightmare to get him five dozen on short notice.
I’ll need to bake for at least twelve hours straight and throw away countless batches of burned cookies to get it done. That’s time I don’t have.
But he has data I need. “Six dozen cookies, but you make your own coffee. I’m not a barista.”
He takes a huge bite and nods. “Done. When?”
I mentally calculate when I can leave HQ today. “Tomorrow morning?”
He heaves a long sigh. “You’re only giving me one night to get you three years’ worth of data?”
“I’m the one who’s going to have to process it.
Speaking of, what format is the archived data in?
I’ll need the schema documentation so I know how it was structured before it was packed down.
” Without the schema documentation, which is the blueprint on how the data was originally documented, I’ll be deserializing everything blind.
“The old telemetry platform we used back then has been through three overhauls since. I’ll dig up whatever documentation I can find on the previous system and send it your way.” He pauses. “For an extra dozen.”
Asshole. I will literally be baking all night in order to do my job. “And you can’t do this yourself or put someone else on it?”
“You’re the intern,” he reminds me drily. “And rumor has it you won’t be one for long. You want the data or not?”
“You have a deal. As long as I get all the easily available data emailed to me in the next five minutes.” Oliver grunts his agreement; I turn and walk out of the room before I call him every synonym for asshole I can think of. He’s doing me a favor, but a backhanded one.
“Heeeey.” A platinum-blonde stops in front of me. She looks more plastic than human, and far too glamorous for a normal day at HQ. She’s gnawing on some bubblegum, and staring at me with a curious gaze. I don’t recognize her as a member of the team, but then, I haven’t met every single employee.
She also happens to be the first person starting a conversation with me since everyone returned from the race. “Hey?” I say uncertainly.
“You’re the intern, right?” she twirls a lock of hair around her finger. “The one Ilya yelled at?”
I’m never going to live that down. “That’s me,” I say tersely. “What’s up?”
“Oh, I was just running out for a cup of coffee. Wanna join?” she gives a shrill giggle. “Us girls should really stick together, you know?”
My tablet buzzes in my hands. I glance down at it, lips quirking as I see the email from Oliver come through. I should be able to record all the variables I’ll need to make my program functional through this initial data set—then, I’ll train my model on three years’ worth of relevant data.
Only when I look up do I realize that the girl’s been talking this entire time. “So, I figured you might be cooler than everyone else. I mean, you can’t dress for shit, but you’re pretty beneath that getup.”
I blink and look down at my perfectly serviceable jeans and T-shirt. Are insults a conduit to bonding? Neurotypical people are so weird. “Actually, I have a lot of work to get through—”
“You can work in the cafeteria, silly!” she says, sounding far too bubbly.
My brows furrow. “Remind me who you are?”
“Oh, I’m Amanda. Elio’s personal assistant.”
“Uh-huh.” I’m willing to bet my shitty apartment that she’s only his personal assistant because she lets him do whatever he wants. “And why do you want to get coffee with the team outcast?”
“For funsies, obvi.”
Did she just abbreviate obviously, out loud?
Jesus Christ.
“Don’t you have work to be doing for Elio?”
“Nah.” Amanda pops her gum. “I’ve already dealt with everything I need to today.”
“He won’t need you after he’s done with his simulations?” I ask doubtfully.
“If he does, he can just text,” she says cheerfully. “So, coffee?”
“I guess,” I say dubiously.
I haven’t been assigned a workstation just yet, though Oliver mentioned he could find something for me in the Analysts Cave, as he called it, when he was on his first cookie.
For now, the cafeteria is as good a place to work as any.
“The coffee here totally sucks, but it’s better than nothing. Follow me!”
The cafeteria is anything but a cafeteria; it looks like the dining court of a high-end mall.
Smooth countertops line the far wall beneath a row of mounted TV screens, each of them cycling through race highlights on mute.
An actual café sits in the corner, all dark wood and brushed steel, with a barista working an espresso machine that probably costs more than my rent.
There are different seating options—a few long, communal tables claimed by clusters of engineers hunched over laptops, and several smaller, round tables near floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the factory floor.
Ten minutes later, Amanda’s dragged me to one of the round tables in the corner of the room, and we’re seated beneath faintly buzzing overhead lights. Both of us are armed with oat milk lattes with vanilla cold foam. I had no say in the order; Amanda insisted it was the best thing to get.
I had no idea what a fucking oatmilk latte was before today, and I’m never having one again. It just tastes wrong. I like my coffee cheap and black.
Amanda’s rapidly typing away on her phone, while I’m scanning through Oliver’s email and the many, many race files he sent over.
The files from the last six months open right up, but the archived data will take a lot more work to get through.
There’s tons of good information—I might actually be able to record and formulate all the variables I need for my algorithm from this alone.
Then, all I have to do is translate a hundred thousand lines of raw data into something my program can understand, train it, and test it. Super easy stuff.
“Sooo,” Amanda drawls. She’s already halfway done with her cup, while I’ve barely managed to take two sips of mine, and only out of politeness. “How are you liking the team?”
“It’s fine,” I murmur, scanning stats from last season. There’s great information here that’s not publicly available and will be immensely useful for training my algorithm.
“Yeah? Got any favorites?”
“Sure.” I’m barely listening, and I don’t feel like pretending. If insulting my clothes and insisting I get a bullshit latte is Amanda’s idea of a fun time, I don’t think we’re going to get along very well.
My brows slam down when I see major discrepancies in Elio’s driving. “What the fuck crawled up Elio’s ass on September 13th?”
“Oh, last year?” Amanda pauses. “I think that was the day after he caught his girlfriend cheating on him.” I look up, surprised, and she leans forward conspiratorially. “Get this; she was with his own personal trainer.”
I blink slowly. That’s actually… surprisingly helpful information.
I scroll a bit, finding another odd-out race. “What about October 11th?”
“An article came out that speculated he’s gay, and I fucked up his matcha order. He had a meltdown and nearly fired me.”
This shit belongs on reality TV. Seriously, the Kardashians would be jealous.
“Uh-huh.” I hadn’t considered that emotions should be a programmed variable, but they obviously have a huge impact on driver performance.
“So, do you think anyone’s cute?” Amanda asks. “Personally, I think the team’s filled up with hotties.”
I recognize Amanda’s type. Chatty, prone to gossip, but not necessarily malicious. Strangely enough… that might make her genuinely useful. Maybe it would be a good thing to make nice with her—she’s just answered questions I’d have spent weeks scratching my head over.
“Not really.” What I do think is that Amanda’s trying to case me and pull information out of me, though I have no idea why. Right now, I don’t particularly care.
“No?” a look of utter confusion wipes away Amanda’s smile. “Really? Not even Elio?”
I frown. “He’s attractive, I guess.”
“Attractive?” She snorts out a laugh. “Girl, I’d let him split me in half like a juicy piece of wood.”
I grimace, not even attempting to unwind that metaphor. “Yeah… just not my type.”
She cocks her head to the side. “What about Asher?” she asks.
I feel my cheeks heat, but I keep a straight face. “Not even a little bit.”
“Really?” she mimes fanning herself. “Because I’d let that man—”
I hold up a hand. “Please don’t finish that sentence. While we’re talking about Asher, what’s his problem?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s an absolute prick, and I’m curious what crawled up his ass and died.” I look back at my tablet, and spend a few seconds glancing over his stats. “You have to really put elbow grease into being this bad.”
“What’s elbow grease? Like, sweat?”
Dear god.
“It’s a term I picked up from my surrogate father; he was a mechanic.” And the man who got me to fall in love with F1. “What I mean is effort.” If she doesn’t know that word, I’m finding a window to throw myself out of.
“Oh. I dunno. Him being excellent eye-candy is the only thing I like about him.”
“Okay, what do you dislike about him?”
She shrugs. “He’s just such a Debbie-downer. Like, all the time. There was this one time last season, though, when his grandma came to watch him race. He did really well then. Aside from that, though, he’s just a bad driver with a bad attitude.”
I scroll a bit more. “Was the date of his grandma coming to watch May 24th?”
She squints. “I think so, yeah.” She finishes the rest of her coffee in another big gulp.
“Amanda, go get another drink. I have a few more questions for you.”
She perks right up. “Awesome! You have to try the chai tea latte next. It’s rad.”
“Actually, I prefer black coffee—”
But she’s already gone to the counter, placing an order for two more insufferable designer drinks.
It’s just my luck that the literal stereotype for Barbie happens to be the woman who accidentally predicted a vital flaw in my model.