He’d ditched the over-ear headphones from earlier. Earplugs sat in his ears instead, neon cords trailing. His dark hair stuck slightly to his forehead, damp with sweat. He wore black gloves that fit like a second skin and moved with a precision that made everything else seem clumsy.
Wires snaked along the frame, thin and dark, hugging the angles. Bree hadn’t grown up around bikes; most of what she saw looked like a foreign language. But some things were still obvious if you paid attention.
He wasn’t working where everyone else had been working.
He was working where no one else seemed to ever touch.
“Is that one Marcus’s?” she asked quietly.
Carmen followed her gaze. “Yeah. Main race bike. The spare’s over there.”
Einstein shifted, blocking Bree’s view for a moment. When he leaned back, she saw he’d opened a narrow compartment along the inside of the frame rail, just under where a rider’s knee would sit. It wasn’t big; the cavity was long and thin, barely more than a channel.
He lifted something from a tray at his side.
It was cylindrical and small, maybe the size of a travel shampoo bottle, but heavier from the way it pulled his glove a fraction lower when he shifted it. The metal caught the light, gleaming dull silver, with a small valve stem at one end and a hose already attached.
Bree frowned.
He turned the cylinder in his hand, checked a tiny gauge attached near the valve; his lips moved, counting. Satisfied, he eased it into the open frame channel, snug, as if it had been built for that exact dimension.
“The Dragons are proud of their tankless design,” Carmen said. “Minimalist. All go, no fluff.”
“They are?” Bree murmured. “So why does that look like a tank?”
Carmen frowned. “Maybe it’s a dampener that will help absorb the vibration of the handlebars.”
“It doesn’t seem to be mounted where it would absorb anything,” Bree said. The words came out before she could second-guess them. “It’s hidden.”
Heidi’s voice climbed, irritated. “I don’t care what the old spec says, Elliot, the cameras have moved since then, and if you can’t adapt, you’re holding us back.”
Bree forced her attention away from Einstein for a moment. Heidi had stepped closer to the manufacturer rep, gestures sharp. The rep looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“You agreed to the prototype,” he said. “If we reprint the suit, the cost goes up, and the sponsor is already at their cap.”
“They’ll find the money,” Heidi said. “If they want their logo on the Cup podium.”
Marcus appeared then, walking up from the direction of the timing shack, sunglasses hooked in the collar of his shirt. He took in the scene with a quick sweep of his gaze.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked.
Heidi whirled on him. “They butchered the shoulder line. The dragon’s going to look like it’s sliding off your chest every time you lean. It’ll read sloppy.”
Marcus looked at Bree, then at Carmen, then at the suit.
He didn’t glance once at Einstein.
“That is sloppy,” he agreed immediately. “We can’t look like amateurs at the biggest race of the season.”
“Thank you,” Heidi said, throwing her free hand up like she’d won something.
“We can make minor adjustments,” the rep said. “But if you expect us to retool the entire run overnight, it’s not going to happen.”
Heidi launched into a fresh argument, voice climbing. Marcus stepped closer, aligning himself with her, adding his own pressure. Carmen pinched the bridge of her nose.
The argument pulled everyone’s focus. The crew looked over. The girls by the truck leaned in. Even the kid with the chain stopped humming to watch the fireworks.
No one watched Einstein.
