Anders considers her. “Yves asked for my opinion on Connor when Elemental was making a short list. He was only a few months into the semi-pros; not nearly enough elite racing experience for the stats to stand alone. So his coaches included color commentary about what he was like as a student, how he handled wins and losses, how he socialized. Madeline Clarke and Julian Casperi were all over Connor Bennett’s youth scouting report.”
Clarke looks up at the night sky so she doesn’t have to look at Anders while that sinks in. It makes sense that she and Julian and Connor would feature heavily in one another’s write-ups from back then. They were better than anyone else their age bya not-insignificant amount, and their choice to be friends instead of cutting one another down was notable.
Luna hangs full and bright in the sky. Clarke can pick out Mare Imbrium, where they raced two weeks ago, and track down and left to Mare Insularum, where Elemental is headquartered next to the pockmark of Copernicus Crater. She looks farther out, searching for Mars, but doesn’t find it before Anders keeps talking.
“I knew the last name, and I knew your face. You lookjustlike your mom. So, yes. I knew about you. I knew you were my daughter.”
“You didn’t say anything. You didn’t reach out.”
“Would you have wanted me to?”
Clarke doesn’t know the answer to that, so she moves on to another question. “Did you ask Yves to give me the seat? After Connor died?”
Anders blows out a breath. “The truth? I asked him not to.”
Clarke’s surprise is strong enough to overrule any pain, although she’s sure that’ll set in later. “Why?”
“You’re not good enough for Formula Zero.” He says it flatly, no inflection. It’s a fact, to Anders. Clarke isn’t good enough. “You’re a very talented pilot, Madeline, but you’re not exceptional. And in F0, if you’re not exceptional, you can either accept it and be someone’s secondary, or you can fight against reality until you burn out. You’re too stubborn for the first, and I’ve lived the second. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone my daughter.”
“Maddie!”
Clarke turns mechanically at the sound of her mom calling for her. She feels stricken. Offended. Mad at herself for feeling anything at all. What right does Anders have to pass judgmenton her, and why is she letting it affect her? People have been telling her she’s not good enough since she first got into a cockpit. Why doesthiscut so deep?
She passes Yves emerging from the restaurant on her way back to her family and remembers that she’s supposed to give him the marked-up contract proposal tonight. She still could. Right now, in passing, or just send it directly into his inbox without speaking.
But Yves and Anders aren’t going back to the hotels. They’re headed to a media event, a reunion of sorts with other people who were active in F0 twenty years back and are in town for the race. Of the two of them, Yves is apparently the one who believes in Clarke more. She can’t drop her list of demands on his metaphorical desk right before he goes off with Anders, who’ll probably try to talk him out of keeping Clarke at all.
“You okay?” Imogen asks when Clarke’s close.
“Yeah,” Clarke says, pulling her fake smile back into place. “I’m fine.”
—
When Clarke callsfor an elevator at the hotel, the interface panel politely informs her that there’s a package waiting at the front desk.
It’s more than one package. It’s several boxes of gifts. The receptionist brings out a liftpad and helps Clarke load them up.
She sifts idly through the packages. The people she knows personally either gave her presents directly or had them shipped to her house earlier this week; these are courtesy gifts from other teams, from the brands she has sponsorship deals with, fashion designers hoping she’ll wear their outfits to the bigSponsors’ Gala coming up toward the end of the season, that sort of thing. Even if she wasn’t too worn out from the day to open them tonight, she still wouldn’t. She’ll send them all to Elemental HQ and set up time with Sara to film the unboxings so all the relevant parties can be tagged.
One of the packages draws her attention. It’s not covered with logos, nor is it wrapped in brightly colored paper. It’s small, about the dimensions of Clarke’s hand, and there’s nothing on the outside to note whom it’s from or the occasion. The front desk would’ve done a scan to ensure there’s nothing dangerous inside.
Curious, Clarke props up her cuff’s holoscreen to record just in case it’s something Sara’ll lambaste her over not having a live reaction on film for later. She tears the paper off, revealing a plain brown box.
Two things tumble out of the box when she upends it over the mattress. The one Clarke catches in her hand is a flimsy piece of plasticky material that readsClarkein black letters inside a double border of white and black. Clarke doesn’t know what it is. A sticker?
She picks up the other item, which had fluttered down to the bedspread. It’s an old-school business card, the type printed on cardstock. The Provenance logo is centered on the back.
Clarke paws through the rest of the packages, suspicion prowling in her head. Yep, here it is—Provenance sent her something else. A bigger box, flashy. It’s standard for F0 teams to acknowledge pilots’ birthdays that happen mid-season. Bright Door sent Clarke a plushie of herself last year. Sara gave Plushie Clarke her own media accounts.
Why send two gifts?
Clarke turns the business card over.Atreus Skordi, it reads.Team Principal, Provenance Formula Zero.His contact information, a small barcode Clarke could scan, is below.
Odd. Clarke’s seen Atreus around, of course, but they’ve rarely spoken. Odder still is the handwritten note beneath the barcode.Just something to think about.
Clarke sets the card and the sticker next to each other, puzzled. The black-white-black of them match, and the overall stylization. It’s almost as if…
Clarke lunges for her screen to stop the recording, heart suddenly beating hard. She deletes the video. She hard-deletes it out of herRecently Deletedfolder. She goes to the folder shared with Sara, where everything on Clarke’s camera roll copies over so Sara can pick and choose additional content to post on Clarke’s behalf, and checks the access log—no, Sara hasn’t seen it yet. Good. Clarke hard-deletes it from that folder, too.
