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The track is wet, imperfect conditions of course. But she's not here for that, not yet anyway.
Far behind her, ants of humanity begin to appear, bringing with them shiny surfaces that cast weak light across the tarmac. She could pantomime her engineers' grouses of inadequate offerings of coffee and sympathy due to last night. And how abnormally early this morning is. Again.
Oh, she would have gladly joined them—a harbinger of 'wake-and-bake', she goes from sleep to speed in 8 seconds (she's inwardly pleased by this, Tendo's timed her)—but not today.
Lady's burning rubber again.
+ + +
“Took your time.”
She accepts the offered steaming cup, smells the bitter aroma and smiles. “Lapped it twice.”
Tendo looks at her running shoes, the sheen of sweat still lining her hairline then up towards the sky. “You're making all of us look bad. We humans tend to rest once in a while. Builds up our immunity for common diseases and ailments. There's this thing call sleep?”
“Can't. You know why.”
He scoffs, realizes the futility of such hope in that family. “You can't keep this under the radar for long. Our guys, they know those other guys.”
His words send an unexpected apprehension through her spine. Despite the team's close knit relations and understanding of being in eternal testing mode—like water, always—it's hard to keep a lid on some of the things they do. Reports are done periodically; budgets justified, workloads scrutinized. She attends those weekly in-person meetings with equal dread and optimism. Not to mention having to deal with what she has become these last few years. The youngest too, damn it.
Shaking herself, she allows her smile to rebirth. “I'm not hiding, Tendo. I do tell.” Tendo raises an eyebrow. “Eventually.” Sometimes, Tendo could make her feel smaller than the seven years between them.
Off the corner of her eye, she spies the orange-topped truck making its way carefully around the corner of the adjacent hill. Two more turns and it'll reach right along them. The boys see it too and a few turn to her in unmasked anticipation. In that moment, her heart swells with the knowledge that they are here for her. They believe in her, risk their careers for her when they could have been elsewhere with better insurance and a less demanding team principal.
And yet. She blinks, quickly as though the sun has something to with it. A long breath forces through her lungs, her excitement tempers to a low hum.
“She's here, Tendo.”
+ + +
This is not her team's first dance. Silence permeates the area, punctuated only by grunts of acknowledgement and syncopating calculated terms. The heat's rising and the ground is now near optimum temperature. Another hour and it'll be too hot for the tyres and that'll affect every tested simulation they have done so far. This test run itself has been postponed four times, two more than normally allowed under similar specifications. They had researched, cajoled, even pleaded at the end, the final approval only coming through when Mako made additional projections from her simulations. Tendo knows how much she hates the extra attention.
Still, all this work would prove nothing if their star attraction does not show up. Typical.
“Check on the Hansens,” utters Mako into her mic. Static crackles followed by a spurious cough. “WFC, Mako.”
The tablet falls a little too hard on the console as she drops the tool and turns akimbo to the speaker under the test car's marquee. “He is aware, yes?” Anton, the medical officer who's part of the driver's team, nods and gestures his hand into a shaka by his ear. “They're on route. ETA 20 minutes.”
“Then, what's the holdup? We prepped for this. The sun's going to be high up within the hour.”
“It's not Hansen Senior.” WFC, waiting for Chuck or in its original creation, where fuck Chuck.
“Of course it's not.” Mako accedes Anton's apology, noting his gesture to his assistant for another call to be made. The tablet pings out its completion. She side-eyes to confirm before passing the latest check log to her deputy engineer. They exchange notes on the new marks, check with the meteorological report for an update and part when they come to the car.
There are songs written about fair maidens and unattainable ladies. Women who broke your hearts and lovers lamenting on a life together long gone. She figures there are odes to this car, this one that pulled and tugged the strings of many in her prime.
The Marshal had given her a LEGO 1:10 scale model of the Lady Danger some years ago, a memory experiment without the manual. It was the first gift she'd received from him. She still remembers how proud he looked when she finished the model that same night, and prouder when she found it weeks later displayed in a glass case in his office, the first thing one sees when he or she enters his realm.
Her fingers itch to sweep across her smooth chasis. In the early hours of this morning, she had slipped into the cockpit, the seat cool underneath her, her bare feet gentle on the pedals. She felt the phantom rush of wind, the slipstream around a corner as she slingshots ahead. The circuit laid her trail before her eyes and she could see her past, present and future in one sinuous, unbroken line. There's nothing about this Lady that she doesn't know, her lives, her tragedies, her resurrection. She is her—
“Hey. That's her?” Mako swings her head towards the intrusion. Chuck, finally. “Sweet.”
“Kono yarou!” She resists the urge to stomp her foot on his.
“I'm on time. Look it—wait, what did you just call me?” Chuck shoves his wristwatch under her nose. She swats it, brings up hers instead. The shorter hand surpasses 19 of that 20 minutes. This is a day of days, there is no such thing as 'on time'.
“You know how important today is to us. All this work, the hours this team has spent just this past week. It's not me you should be apologizing to.” Palms out, she pushes Chuck aside and walks pass her team members, each one affirming their readiness as she goes by.
“But I'm not that late. Mako! Mako.” She turns abruptly, her chest bumps painfully against his unzipped overall, the chest sensor patches scatter under his underwear. Chuck takes a step back, clasps his helmet away by his rear. Beyond him, she finds Mr Hansen by Lady, his right hand alternates between his chin and clutching his arm around his waist. He's also curiously underdressed for the runs.
Her receiver is going ballistic. Checks and questions volley and answer. The medical team is heading their way, waiting for the moment they can drag Chuck back to their nest. The sky prevails its blue and oases beckon at the end of track. It's time.
“Then prove it, Chuck. Eyes on.”
Chuck grins and holds out a clenched fist in response. “All in.”