About one lap in, the changes start to kick in.
‘Wait, what the hell? That turn wasn’t there before, Shantal!’ Miguel sounds like he’s just seen a ghost. It almost makes me burst out laughing.
‘It’schanging!’ Darien yelps in horror.
‘That’s the point,’ Celina chides him, although she looks as entertained as I do. She gives me a satisfied nod.
To be honest, out of everyone, Henri handles the new program with the most grace. I think it’s because his ego has yet to grow to the size of the average Formula 1 driver’s (something I’m learning more and more about as I spend time around hotshots Miguel and Darien). He’s still willing to be humbled, and at the end of the practice run, once the sim displays the rest screen again and all three drivers lean back with heavy sighs, I’m fairly confident that even if his turn speeds aren’t as fast as those of the other two, it’s his driving that will have been the most consistent through all the adaptive track shifts.
We round everyone up for a debrief once the guys have grabbed water and talked with their trainers. Darien, still toting a water bottle, has the first question.
‘Bro. What in the Labyrinth was that?’ he asks in disbelief, throwing his hands in the air and almost flinging his water bottle at Miguel in the process.
‘Well, the goal of this new technology is to target your soft spots,’ I offer. ‘Trying to take the things you all have the lowest times on and make them faster. And as I discovered, that’s yourexplosive motions. Your response times, your times around fast turns, when you’re looking to take a gap, those can be faster. And since you, Darien, had the fastest times around sharp turns, I’ve used footage from the kind of drivingyoulearned that helps you react faster on the track to create a modded version of the Heidelberg Hybridge Ring. What you just saw is essentially what happens when you take the Heidelberg Ring and lay it over the Cantagalo favela.’
‘You did that?’ I’m not sure if the look on Darien’s face is one of fear any more, but his arms have lowered, and his brows furrow together. ‘That’sunbelievable.’
‘And the way it kept changing …’ Henri trails off with a shudder. ‘What was that?’
‘The simulator is capable of learning from the way you drive. So every move you made in it, literally, was stored and analyzed to change the track on the next lap according to where you were weakest. Where you needed reps, so to speak,’ I tell him.
‘Reps?’ echoes Darien with a raised eyebrow.
‘For the record,’ I shoot back, ‘you’d be shocked at all the placesyouneed work.’
Miguel purses his lips, but I can tell he’s holding back a laugh when he meets my eyes with a poorly concealed grin. As he and Henri head off to hit the showers, Darien hauls himself onto the edge of the desk where the computer sits before turning to look my way. ‘You gotta take a compliment, Shantal. This is really amazing.’
‘Flattery’s not going to get me to change my opinion of you, you know.’ I close out the computer program before locking eyes with Darien. It shouldn’t affect me that his gaze is so big and bold, always with the aura of someone who’s about to tell the funniest joke you’ve heard in your life. This man has caused me nothing but grief since I got here.
‘Oh, I know that.’ He leans in with a mischievous smile that makes my limbs tingle.Stop it, Shantal.‘But I kinda thought you were rethinking said impression on that turf, what, two weekends back?’
I roll my eyes. That moment was a brief lapse in judgement, and I’m determined to put it behind me. ‘You’re sounserious. I’m here to get a job done, Darien.’
‘Doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun while you’re at it!’ he insists. ‘The season is a snowballing pile of stress. If you don’t cut loose, you’re never going to survive it.’
‘Is that all you wanted to share with me, then?’
‘I mean, kind of, yeah.’ He shrugs, but my nonchalant attitude hasn’t caused the honest glimmer in his eyes to fade at all. ‘You can stay upset at me if you want. I’m not here to change your mind. You just strike me as someone who does a lot of really, really phenomenal things and doesn’t get the flowers she deserves for it. So I’m giving you flowers. Take them.’
Darien hops down from the desk and leaves the room with a wave goodbye, but his voice doesn’t leave with him.Giving you flowers.
I think of Sonia, my parents’ perfect child. All the stress of this assignment. The fact that maybe Raya should have had this opportunity to work in Brazil. And then I think of Darien, who knows nothing of the weight I’ve been shouldering since I was old enough to realize it. And he says to me, he will give me flowers.
Flowers.
I allow myself the smallest chuckle before I grab my backpack and walk out.
Chapter Seventeen
Darien
The days begin to fly by, and suddenly we’re in high gear preparing for winter testing. It won’t be our first look at the cars – we get a peek when we do the livery reveal on Valentine’s Day – but it will be our first time driving them, and we’ve been told the overhaul is huge. Fortunately, as information has come in on our newest models, Shantal and the engineers have worked to make sure the sims are as identical as possible to the cars. It’s been a learning curve, but the trainers are pleased with the improvement, and the rest of us are just hoping it’ll be enough.
I can feel it in my shoulders, though – my entire body is full of stress. As much as I try not to let on in practice, I have to get along with this new car –speakto it, even – if I want to fulfil the conditions of keeping this centre alive. It’s all that’s been on my mind since we started creeping up on livery reveal, so I’ve decided to find something else to focus on.
It’s Carnaval, and that means all of Rio is only play, no work. Of course, our family celebrated every year, but I remember how it was after Pai passed away. I used to sit on his shoulders, the same way I’d sit on my mom’s at the parades, and he’d point out every float to me, sing to every song. As I got older, it became pretty easy to put the memories aside each Carnaval and, if I’m being totally honest, it was definitely the alcohol that made it so easy.
So granted thatno oneon this team has ever been to Carnaval before, I decided to take on a couple of responsibilities. The first? The pre-game.
