“You’re not fighting. You’re boxing. With children.”
Clarke pauses in the act of kicking her joggers and shoes off. “There arekidsinvolved?”
“Of course. It’s part of Julian’s youth boxing program.” Sara clacks her rings together. “Now, tell me why this isn’t a good idea.”
“Me and Julian are competitive past the point of sanity,” Clarke says, sitting on the bench in this private locker room to don a tank top and close-fitting athletic shorts. “Have been since we were nine and got into a fistfight during our first race against each other.”
It’s a story they’ve rehashed for the public countless times. The Under-10 Accelerated Juniors season opener: Julian’s first time racing in the inner rim, Clarke’s first time in a zero G race. There’s a montage of Clarke losing control of her ship and knocking Julian through the barrier, and Julian coming back a few laps later to ram Clarke into the barrier.
Julian, of course, reverses the intentionality when he tells the story. He claims that Clarke flew into him on purpose, and his hitting Clarke later was just an accident. In the end, it was a moot point, because they both DNF’d. They weren’t hurt (U-10 ships have more in common with bubble-wrapped bumper cars than they do with F0 hardware), but they got into an ineffective brawl in the middle of the track instead of finishing the race. Connor ended up winning. The Council of Moms laughed themselves silly.
“Julian’s the one who invited you to tag along today,” Sara says. “Take it up with him.”
It’s a pointed reminder that this is supposed to look like something Clarke and Julian were already doing of their own accord and just agreed to let their teams film. Clarke puts moreteeth into her smile than necessary and starts braiding her hair to get it out of her face. “I’ll be sure to do just that.”
—
“Shoulders down.”
Clarke shakes out her arms, adopts the staggered-foot stance Julian had demonstrated, and throws another punch at the padded droid.
“Shoulders down.”
She narrows her eyes at the eight-year-old she’s partnered with. “My shouldersaredown.”
The eight-year-old glares right back and pokes a panel on the droid. A small holoscreen emerges and plays the last few seconds of footage. Clarke’s shoulders are up around her ears.
Clarke deliberately, slowly rolls her shoulders down. The eight-year-old smirks.
“Way to keep her honest, Riley,” Julian says, appearing around the other side of the droid. “Good job today. You can pick up your tickets at the door on your way out.”
“Okay!” Riley chirps, suddenly all smiles and not the taskmaster who’s been putting Clarke through her paces for the past thirty minutes. “Thanks, Julian!”
The girl scampers away. Clarke stares after her, dumbfounded, then mops sweat off her forehead with the hem of her tank. “You really do this every race weekend?”
“Itrainboxing a few times a week,” Julian corrects. His eyes drag over her exposed stomach. Clarke flushes and drags her shirt back down. His eyes jump to her face. “But the youth program, yeah, every weekend except when we’re off-planet. Find a local gym, hold a free class, give participants passes to the paddock.”
All around them, the cheerful racket of the past hour is dying down as kids stream toward the exit. Clarke heads for the bench where she’d left her water, thinking through the short introductory speech Julian’d given at the start of the lesson. “And Val’s the one who got you into boxing in the first place?”
Julian follows her, waving at a few stragglers. “I’m sure you remember that I didn’t exactly wow anyone my first season in F0. I thought I needed to focus more, but Val had a different idea. She’d been boxing for forever, said it was the only thing that gave her brain a break from racing. She brought me to her gym, introduced me to her trainer.”
Clarke plops down onto the bench and looks up at him. He’s otherworldly, almost, with the overhead lights limning his unruly hair and defined physique. “It looks like it’s working for you.”
He raises an eyebrow.
She kicks at his knee halfheartedly. “You know what I mean.”
He grabs her foot and uses it to pull her off the bench. “Come on, time for part two.”
She goes, hopping awkwardly. “No one said anything about a part two!”
He tugs her toward a cupboard by the locker rooms. “PK, Sara, all good? We cooperated enough that we get what I asked for?”
“All good,” Sara says happily. She’s recalled her cameras, settling them into the divots on her forearms that serve as ports. She and PK stand from the benches they were sitting on to monitor the session and head for the door.
Clarke doesn’t know what’s happening. “Where are you guys going?”
“To start working on the piece,” PK says, checking the time. “Julian, fifteen minutes?”
