“Good,” Amira says, final, and turns the conversation to a new topic.
—
Later that night,Clarke’s cuff alerts her to a new message from Yves. A copy of the assessment of Clarke’s ship is attached. It does not match the copy Clarke requested and promptly received from the FIC. The Analysis section of each contains an identical list of noted concerns about the ship, but where six line items in the Yves version of the report readRoot Issue Undeterminedin theResolution Statuscolumn, those same items are markedResolved in EM-82-St. Sebastian; Changes not pushed to EM-82-Clarke per team decisionin the FIC report.
Problems with the Elemental ship have been fixed for Raff, but not for Clarke.
She keeps reading. The FIC estimates Clarke’s ship’s variance since the start of the season is at 8 percent, whereas Raff’s variance is close to 20, and all of that difference has been incurred over just the past two months—since Yves booted Matthew and brought Raff on board instead.
The FIC finds no violations of formal policies or regulations in the EM-82-Clarke, the Conclusion section of the unedited report reads.The FIC continues to strongly urge team leadership to upgrade the EM-82-Clarke to match the EM-82-St. Sebastian.
Clarke has already sent the unedited report to Rhynn. She sends along Yves’s version, too, then stares at the ceiling of the hotel room until she falls asleep.
35
The Hanoi Grand Prix isa literal blur. It’s a night race, and the city is decked out in lights that reflect off the river and lake. It’s visually stunning when standing still, but Clarke isn’t standing still. She’s whipping around buildings and skimming the water at breakneck speeds, and the lights streak and smear at every turn.
There are a lot of turns. Hanoi is a tight track, one of the most technical on the schedule. The straightaways are short, the loops are compact, the angles are sharp. It should not be somewhere that Clarke does well, especially since she now has confirmation that Yves is deliberately trying to hinder her performance.
She finishes P3.
“Are you kidding me?” Thierry hollers, throwing himself at Clarke after they park their ships near the podium. “Since when doyoufly likethaton a track likethis?”
“Says the guy who just got his fourth podium of his rookie season!” Clarke shrieks back. Glee is coursing through her, as it has been since the moment in the race she realized that if she could just keep Thierry’s thrusters in sight, she’d finish third to his second.
Unbridled happiness carries her through the podium ceremony and into press, which is a near-repeat of the Iani conference but with Thierry and Engel in opposite seats. Engel speaks proudly of his P1 finish and what it means for Chronicle, who have once again moved past Provenance into overall first. Thierry talks about continuing to chip away at the lead for third Martian Motors has on Enclave.
“And Clarke,” a reporter asks when they’re nearing the end of the session. “Your teammate gave us a pretty exciting announcement at Ohars after a third-place finish. Any chance you’re about to do the same?”
“We’re in negotiations,” Clarke says easily. It’s true, even if said negotiations are, so far, going nowhere. Elemental won’t even agree to let Clarke use a biometrics patch next year instead of the embedded chip. “You’ll be the first person I call after we figure it out, okay?”
There’s scattered laughter. Silver Sight, of course, can’t leave a good thing alone, so speaks up. “This week is the three-year anniversary of Connor Bennett’s death. Do you think that impacted how you raced today?”
“Gods,thisasshole again,” Engel says under his breath.
Clarke agrees, and if she hadn’t been expecting it, the question might’ve thrown her. But she’s been thinking about Connor in every spare second since she and Julian talked about Eclipsis, so she simply looks Silver Sight straight in the face and says, “No more than he does every other day.”
“You don’t feel more of a need to honor him around this time of year?”
Anger bursts on the back of Clarke’s tongue, sharp and hot. “As opposed to on his birthday, or his moms’ birthdays, or the day I met him?”
Silver Sight keeps pushing. “Don’t you think that Connor—”
There’s a Naomi-approved way to handle this in which Clarke comes off as humble, approachable, and dedicated. There’s a raw, unfiltered Clarke way to handle this in which she comes off the couch and gouges Silver Sight’s fake eyeballs out of his skull.
“I think that Connor was one of my best friends, and him dying while participating in a sport we both loved was traumatic in ways I’m still grappling with today,” Clarke says, deciding to split the difference. “I think that you constantly bringing up his death is your desperate attempt to generate an interesting headline, because you’re incapable of understanding enough about F0 to write about the actual sport.”
Thierry pulls the collar of his shirt up to his nose, eyes wide above the hem. Engel hides his smile behind his hand. Someone at the back of the room lets out a choked noise, and all heads turn to Lennox Redfoot, who has just spluttered a mouthful of whatever she was drinking all over the side of Naomi’s blouse.
“Sorry,” Lennox coughs, brushing at Naomi’s sleeve. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
“I think we can probably end the session there, right?” Engel asks. “All good, everyone? Great, see you next weekend.”
The conference breaks up. Clarke follows Engel and Thierry to turn her mic in, but someone steps into her path.
“An impressive performance today, Ms. Clarke,” says Atreus Skordi, Provenance team principal.
“Thanks,” Clarke says, doing a poor job of covering her surprise. Why is he talking to her? She canceled the meeting with him and doubled down on her lack of interest with Delphine. He doesn’t think she’s good enough for his team anyway, andJulian said they didn’t need to worry about him. “I didn’t realize you came to press today, since neither of your pilots…”
