“Ready.”
“It’s different when it’s your kid. I think I might still be having the heart attack that started when I saw the flames.”
Clarke hates this. Understands it. Hates it.
The initial concept for this visit was Anders-focused with a few cameos from Clarke, but Sara’s adamant that after yesterday, the fans are going to want to see more of Clarke being okay. She follows them from room to room as the tour proceeds, dutifully commenting on this piece of artwork or that trophy, and practices rotating her shoulder without wincing when the cameras aren’t looking.
“I think that just about does it,” Sara says when they make it to the kitchen where a chef droid is setting up a meal that they’ll pretend Anders and Clarke made together. Naomi, who’s been taking a call outside for most of the morning, comes in from the patio. “We’ll do the questions about the rest of the season over lunch, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Sounds good,” Anders says, taking up position at the counter. He picks up a knife to chop something on the cutting board. The chef droid swoops in, replaces that knife with one better suited to the task, and swoops out again.
Sara clacks her rings. “It’s no secret that Elemental’s season hasn’t gotten off to the start everyone had been hoping for. Anders, do you think there’s still time to turn it around?”
“There’s always time,” Anders says. Naomi plants a hand in the middle of Clarke’s back and pushes her toward the stove, miming that she should pick up a spoon and stir whatever’s cooking. “Half a season is just that, half a season. With the right upgrades to the ship, and if Madeline starts performing the way I know she can, there’s no reason Elemental can’t course correct and still come out of this in third or fourth overall.”
He doesn’t have to say aloud that Elemental’s so far out of the running for first or second that it’s not even worth talkingabout. Championships are won by points, which are awarded on a sliding scale from P1 to P15 each race (no points for the five people who finish last). Both your team’s pilots have to consistently be finishing near the top if you want a shot at winning the team championship. Based on the dominance Provenance and Chronicle have shown this season, it’s highly unlikely that any other team could raise the trophy.
Highly unlikely, but not impossible. That’s part of what makes Formula Zero exciting. Back-of-pack teams will start to get mathematically eliminated from winning the championship in the second half of the season, but for now, it’s still all up for grabs. And in a sport where the difference between finishing second and third in the team bracket means a massive funding differential for next year, every point matters.
Clarke, at present, has 28 points. Matthew has 31. Julian has 153. Delphine has 163.
“Is that the advice you would give Yves?” Sara prompts.
Anders scrapes his cutting board into a bowl. “I’m just a talking head, so I’m not sure I’m in any position to give a team principal advice, but if I was going to, yeah. The ship needs work, and Madeline needs to improve. No pilot likes hearing that they need to do better, because we’d all love to think that it’s the ship’s fault, but it’s a mix.”
“If you’ve got concrete suggestions, I’m all ears,” Clarke says, poking at the pan. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘Clarke needs to do better,’ but not much ‘here’showClarke can do better.’ ”
“Madeline,” Anders says, chiding.
The annoyance that’s been building behind her sternum all morning abruptly reaches a breaking point. She slaps her spoon down. Sauce splatters onto the pristine backsplash. “What? It’strue. You and Yves are happy to tell me I’m screwing up, but not how, or how to fix it. If you can help me,help me, don’t tell me that youcanhelp me and then not—”
Sara clacks her rings. Naomi purses her lips. Anders looks at Clarke like she’s a disappointment.
She deflates. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Sara says, a touch too quick. “But maybe make a joke about how this is going to be a fun topic for lunch conversation? Or bring it back to the racing sims in Anders’s office, like say he can give you pointers there after you’re done eating.”
“Sure,” Clarke says, and feels her cloud of misery grow just that much darker.
—
Anders finds heron the patio later, after Naomi and Sara have retreated to their guest bedrooms to finish up some work before dinner. There’s a balcony overhead. Clarke keeps moving her chair to stay in the shade as the fake sun lowers itself toward the horizon.
“What do you know about Elemental’s ownership?” Anders asks, not waiting for Clarke to look up.
Clarke toggles between minute engine setup differences on her holoscreen, a small workspace projected out of the cuff around her wrist that also contains her universal Link ID credentials and serves as an all-in-one communication device. She owes Amira a final answer soon, so the part of the team that’s with her ship en route to the next track can start making changes tomorrow morning. “Forty-eight percent shareholder, fifty-two percent some private citizen whose name I’m not important enough to know and only ever votes by proxy. Why?”
“You should be aware of the environment you’re operating in.”
Clarke locks in her choice, collapses the screen into her cuff, and turns her attention on Anders. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Anders gazes out into the distance. There’s a city skyline not too far from here, and the angled red plains of unterraformed landscape beyond. “You don’t have to respond to every statement like it’s a personal attack.”
“Call it learned wariness with how you approach my perceived shortcomings. What do you know about Elemental’s ownership that I don’t?”
The silence is one Clarke recognizes: Anders trying to decide what information to divulge, lording over her that he knows something she doesn’t. Clarke holds her tongue, refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking again even as the itch of curiosity grows.
Hedoesknow things she doesn’t. It’s why she puts effort into maintaining a decent relationship with him, why she tries not to let the depth of her conflicted feelings toward him show. He and Yves are friends, dating back longer than Clarke’s been alive. They talk regularly. Whatever Yves’s plans are for Clarke, Anders probably knows them.
