Chapter Nine
Victoria
By the time qualifying day comes around, I’m running on empty—pun intended. On the bright side, I’ve managed to complete my parser, so the only step that remains is putting it to use.
I stand with Thomas, observing the absolute carnage play out, wincing and rubbing my forehead with each fuckup both of our drivers make.
At the end, I’m not invited to the debrief—instead, I find myself slinking back to the hotel. My vision’s blurring; I’ve spent most of my nights working, only to be on my feet all day. I’m due for a solid ten-hour crash soon, but not yet.
I need to get my algorithm fed first so I can be one step closer to finishing it and using it.
I want at least some sense of legitimacy on the team so people will stop stonewalling me.
If I were invited to briefings and debriefs, I’d be able to gather and input data that I instead have to wait up to a week for.
I grab my laptop from my room, make myself comfortable at one of the tables littered around the hotel bar, and check the output from the parser I ran on Oliver’s data.
The results can’t be right. I rub my eyes and look over my screen again. Same result.
The data is unreadable. I can’t make sense of it, and I’m reasonably familiar with databases. Did I fuck up the parser?
No, I didn’t. Which means that Oliver either sent me a bunch of bullshit… or, what he sent me is heavily encrypted.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m going to have to go through thousands of lines of raw, unintelligible data manually to try to understand the encryption protocol used—once I do, I might be able to crack it.
Since I’m not around to bake him any cookies, I expect Oliver will ignore my requests for help.
Besides, if he left everything deliberately encrypted…
it could be a test. If I run to him for help, I’d be failing; I need to figure this out myself.
Which will take precious time.
A minute or a year later, a shadow falls over my seat. I squint up, sighing when I see it’s Amanda. She’s wearing a bubbly smile and holding two takeout cups of coffee.
“Looks like you’re hard at work,” she chirps. “Mind if I join you?”
“Are you going to tell Elio about everything I say again?” I ask dryly.
Her smile crumples. “I’m so sorry about that. I shouldn’t have said anything to him. He just… he asked me to get coffee with you, to make you feel welcomed, and then he asked about our conversation, and I didn’t figure there was any harm telling him, but—”
“It’s fine.” I wave at the armchair across the circular table from me. “Pop a squat.”
Her brows furrow. “Huh?”
My eyes flutter shut. “Take a seat,” I clarify.
She sets one of the takeout cups down in front of me. “It’s black,” she says. “Just the way you like it.”
It’s kind of hard to dislike her. She’s just… such a typical golden retriever. I guess it isn’t entirely her fault that her master happens to be a jerk.
“So, qualifying kinda sucked, huh?” she says, trying to break the ice.
I snort. “That’s a nice way of putting it. What the hell was wrong with Elio?”
“I think he and Asher argued last night. Not sure, though. He’s been kinda distant with me.”
I frown. “Why?” Every interaction between them has seemed so chummy that I’m almost certain they’re sleeping together. What trouble could there be in their paradise?
“Well… he didn’t like how I chewed him out over his comment to you.” My eyebrows raise, and her cheeks heat in embarrassment. “He was a dick. I called him on it. He threatened to fire me.”
Now I feel bad. “Hey, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s done, and we’re good. If you need to backtrack with him to keep your job—”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she laughs. “He can’t fire me.”
I arch an eyebrow and almost ask why. But if her answer is that they’re dating, I’ll lose any respect I have for her.
“What are you working on?” she asks brightly.
I glance down at my laptop. I’ve reached the point where lines of data are starting to blur, and the characters are swimming around the screen.
I can’t keep going without at least a few hours of rest. I also can’t afford to keep running into goddamn delays with my work.
I’m on uneasy ground with the team as is.
“Nothing for the rest of the night,” I sigh. “For the last few hours? An algorithm I’m building. It’s nothing special.”
Amanda thinks for a moment. “Oh, I think I heard Declan and Ilya talking about that! It’s a predictive thingy, right?”
To dumb it down to its most basic form… “Right. A predictive thingy.”
“Well, that’s pretty cool. It could really help with race strategy.”
I nod. “It might also start teaching Asher his ass from his elbow…” I trail off when Amanda’s eyes flick behind me, and she pales. “What’s wrong?” Her lips part, but no words come out of them, and a slight grimace overtakes her face. “Fuck. He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
“Talking shit again?” Asher asks quietly, confirming that he is, in fact, right behind me. Fuck. “Here I was starting to mistake you for a goody two-shoes.” His tone is as dry as a bone, and just as devoid of life.
I twist in my seat to face him, trying to keep my cheeks from heating. He’s wearing a tight black shirt and equally dark jeans with holes around the knees. He looks… far too good for my wellbeing. Why are the assholes always the hottest?
“Believe it or not, that was a one-off.”
“Sure it was.” Asher’s eyes flick to Amanda. “Barbie.”
“Asher,” she responds, the word just a touch too breathy.
Asher looks back to me, and to my closed laptop. “Hard at work, I see. Is this what you spend all your free time doing?”
“Uh, it’s getting kind of late, so I’m just gonna…” Amanda doesn’t finish her sentence before scurrying off, leaving me alone with the big, bad asshole of F1.
Asher and I spend a few seconds staring at each other. Eventually, he asks, “What, no commentary on my driving this time around?”
I shrug. “You won’t listen, so why bother? I have better shit to do.”
“Like sit in front of a closed laptop and contemplate your life choices?”
I feel my nostrils flare. “For your information, asshole, I’ve been working most nights only to be on my feet all day, running around and being treated like the team bitch—”
“Bore someone else with your complaints,” he sighs. “If you want to have a pity party, throw it for Barbie. She has to deal with Elio 24/7.”
I stare at him, lips parted. “You and my best friend would get along splendidly. You’re both massive jerks.” Delilah really would love him.
“Sounds like my kind of gal.” He rounds my spot and drops into the armchair Amanda vacated when she scuttled off to escape his insufferable presence.
“That seat’s not available.”
“Looked empty enough to me.” He swipes the candle off from the table and starts fiddling with it. “If you know so much, what would you do different?”
My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. Is he actually asking my advice? This has to be a trap of some sort.
“Why do you care?”
“Never said I did. But you’re young and arrogant, and I’m curious what fantasies of success you’ve conjured in that pretty head.”
I think that was sort of an accidental compliment. He didn’t directly call me pretty, but nevertheless, I feel myself start to blush. “Um… well, I’d start out by reading the updated car manual, front to back.”
“Already skimmed it. Next?”
“Read summaries from engineers—”
“Something that doesn’t involve fucking reading. Give me something actionable.”
“Okay. Use overtake mode, control your boost mode spurts, activate X-mode in the applicable zones. I’d start there. You don’t drive with strategy, which—”
“God, you’re boring.” He cuts me off with a yawn. “Well, nobody can say I didn’t try. Good night, intern.”
I release an aggrieved sigh. Instead of saying go fuck yourself, asshole, I mutter, “Good night.”
“What the fuck is he doing?” Thomas asks the following day. I feel my blood drain from my face as I split my attention between the wall of screens, focusing in on the footage of Asher, and the absolute spectacle he’s making of himself… and of the team.
He’s racking up penalties right, left, and center… because he’s fucking up the suggestions I gave him. He’s using X-mode in every area except where it’s allowed. His booster mode is turned on and off sporadically, without any forethought.
He's a hot mess because of my instructions, and if he keeps driving like this, odds are he’s going to crash. And doubtlessly blame me.
Everyone in the garage is freaking out over him, and rightfully so.
But they’re missing vital information; that in some roundabout, twisted way, he’s taking my advice.
Of course, he missed the part where I told him he has to read the manual front to back.
He didn’t do that, he didn’t even bother googling rules or strategies.
He’s just randomly pressing buttons and switching modes, almost like he’s testing them out…
or throwing pasta on the wall and trying to see what sticks.
“I can’t watch this,” Thomas mutters, even as his gaze remains glued to the screens. “Jesus, what the hell got into him? What is he doing?”
Despite the fact that he’s absolutely going to lose this race miserably, he’s presenting me an opening. A window of opportunity. My first flash of hope with him.
He’s doing a piss-poor job of it, but he’s listening.
Maybe if I can actually pull him into a strategy conversation, he’ll implement some changes.
I saw what he did in the simulation chamber; when Asher Lawrence applies himself, he can get shit done.
The problem is that for some reason, he won’t bother applying himself.
The next time I run into him, which happens to be in the paddock after the race, I tell him exactly as much.
It does not go over well.
“It was your fucking fault!” he roars, getting in my face. “You gave me the suggestions that made me not just place last but get lapped three fucking times! Do you know how embarrassing that is?”
My spine snaps straight, and all of my defenses slam into place. Is he really turning this on me? I’m the only person left who’s actually trying to help him! “That’s what embarrasses you? Not the fact that you’ve been behaving like a joke for years? You choose to take it out on my advice?”
“I have never driven that badly, so yes, it’s your fucking fault.”
“You only drove that badly because you don’t even bother to get to know your goddamn car!” I shout. “You skimmed the manual when you should be treating it like your fucking bible. I have no idea why you’re still even in F1 if you hate the sport so much!”
He points a finger in my face, his eyes narrowed with fury. If I were a more reasonable person, I’d back down right now and disengage, but I can’t. He’s insulting me in every way that matters, and I just can’t keep my mouth shut and let him get away with it.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.
” He’s not yelling anymore. Now, his voice has dropped to a terrifying, haunting whisper.
“No—fucking—idea. You think I’m making a joke out of the sport, but you’re the one walking around with a holier-than-thou, I-know-everything attitude.
I’m glad to break it to you that you don’t.
You’re a child playing at being an adult and having a serious role in a high-intensity sport. ”
That one hurts. I know that I’m too young and too female to be taken seriously as readily as the older, more experienced men around me. Having that thrown in my face knocks the wind out of me, like he’s hit me in the diaphragm.
He takes a step back. Works his jaw. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“I’ll stay out of your way,” I say curtly.
He shakes his head. “That’s not enough. I don’t want you around here at all.
I’m going to tell Ilya to keep you the fuck away from the races and tracks.
Slink back to HQ and do your work as far away from me as possible.
I’d tell you to fuck up and get fired soon, but you’re doing a fine job of that on your own. ”
He shoots me a lethal glare before spinning on his heel and disappearing, leaving me angry, upset, and most of all, crushed.