Val straightens up. “Do you have something to say,Lennie? Because Chronicle’s in first. My pilots are happy. The only open seat besides Elemental’s is yours, because the reserve pilot you pulled up after letting Yves poach Raff—”
“I did not poach anyone,” Yves drawls lazily, like this is beneath him. “Our negotiations with Raff were completely aboveboard.”
“—has yet to put up a single point,” Val continues, talking over Yves. “Enclave would be falling down the rankings like a brick if your rookie—sorry, yourotherrookie, since no experienced pilot will stay with you—wasn’t pulling podiums out of his—”
All heads and cameras are turned toward the back of the room by this point. Thierry clicks his mic off and leans across the space between armchair and couch. “Are they allowed to do that?”
“They’re the bosses, of course they’re allowed,” Engel replies, slouching deeper into the cushion and stretching his legs out in front of him. “Are theysupposedto argue like this in public? No. It’s a bad look for Formula Zero. They’ve been cited by the FIC before.”
Clarke didn’t know that, and is grateful not to be the center of attention anymore. “They have?”
“Val and Lennox have, for sure. And Val and Atreus, obviously, since he’s the one who snagged Delphine after she won with us four years ago.”
Clarke had almost forgotten about that. Delphine won her first individual championship under the Chronicle banner, and surprised everyone when she moved to Provenance the following year—where her then-husband, Oliver, would be her new teammate. “I can see why they wouldn’t get along.”
“Yeah. Valreallydoesn’t like the guy. There isn’t a line she wouldn’t cross to beat him again.” Engel tips his cap down over his eyes. “Wake me up when the adults get their shit together, okay?”
—
Before Clarke canleave for the next site, she has to see Anders.
He comes to most races on Mars. Clarke can usually get away with them just existing in the same circles, the fans satisfied by Anders’s reactions while Clarke’s on the track and maybe Anders tapping Clarke’s helmet at some point, but a few times a season they’re supposed to do more and this, unfortunately, is one of those times.
Anders flies them back to his home in Elysium Planitia so late that it’s Monday by the time they arrive. Naomi travels with them. Clarke wishes Sara were here instead, but she’s with Raff, doing continued welcome-to-the-team stuff with Elemental superfans. Clarke excuses herself as soon as she can, then lies in the plush, comfortable bed, unable to sleep.
Typical. It’s this house, and her inability to let her guard down while she’s here.
She plucks the drawstring of her sleep shorts. Would it be weird if she tried to get herself off right now, in Anders’s house? Orgasms make her sleepy, and she’s been thinking about Julian’s hands on her since his photo shoot. She slips a finger down and—
Nope. Too weird. Definitely too weird.
She flips the covers back and gets out of bed. She goes to the bathroom. She stretches. She reads a chapter in her book. She lies down after each of these activities, hopeful, but is up again within minutes.
Maybe fresh air will help?
She pads across the room. There’s a large bank of windowsshe could open, but she goes for the door to the balcony instead. She pushes it open slowly, not sure how well-maintained these hinges are and wary of waking up Anders or Naomi.
She needn’t have worried. Anders and Naomi are both awake, and talking on the patio beneath this balcony.
“—suspiciously incompetent,” Anders is saying. “Nothing we’re doing right now is building confidence in Yves. The shareholders are going to leave en masse after the announcement. We’ll bleed sponsors.”
Why are they talking about Elemental’s shareholders and sponsors? What announcement? Clarke creeps farther out onto the balcony.
“You’ll have plenty of opportunity to charm the sponsors at the gala in a few weeks, and if the current shareholders choose to divest, there will be millions lining up to take their places,” Naomi says. “The draw of Yves Gagnon and Anders Dalsing partnered in team leadership is—”
“Yves looks like he can’t lead a team to build a ship that doesn’t fall apart if you look at it funny, and I’m the guy standing around watching that team treat his daughter like shit,” Anders says. “If I were a prospective shareholder, I wouldn’t trust the two of us. And saints know the FIC doesn’t trust Yves at the moment.”
“A few podiums under Raff’s belt at the start of next season, and all those bad feelings go away. People want to see Elemental return to what it once was. They want the full-circle story.”
“There will be questions if we make too much of an improvement between this year and next. There are already questions. Amira Bahtri is—”
Naomi gets impatient. “Questions we’ll answer by pointingto the amount of team resources spent managing Clarke and compensating for her shortcomings. We’ve been working toward this for more than a year, Anders, why the cold feet now?”
“She’s my daughter. Forgive me if I’m not champing at the bit to throw her in front of the aerotrain.”
“You agreed to this! Yves came to you with the proposal, and you agreed that pinning all the recent failures on Clarke was—”
“I know!” Anders shouts, voice echoing off the house and out across the pristine landscaping.
