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Chapter Four

Shantal

M arcus shoves his phone in front of my face. ‘Shantal!’

‘What!’ I yelp, nearly slapping the phone right out of his hand. ‘Oh, god, you scared me.’

He waits barely a second for me to compose myself before coming back with a vengeance fuelled by multiple cups of cold brew. ‘Do you realize what you’re going to do? Look at this!’

The staccato music absolutely pouring from his phone speaker, dripping with bass, repels me instantly. ‘My days. Marcus, turn that down. What is that?’

‘It’s Brazilian funk, Miss Rio .’ Raya pokes her head out from behind the wall of her cubicle.

‘Yes, it is. Look!’ Marcus attempts to bring the screen out one more time, but I wave a hand and turn back to my monitors.

‘I would, but if I want to go to Brazil, I have to finish all the prep work first,’ I counter slyly. It’s true. I’ve been given a laundry list of things to sort through prior to my flight out. This new sports centre they’re setting up is no small operation, and their expectations of my simulator program are equally enormous.

‘No, Shan, seriously.’ Now Joel has rolled out of his workspace in his beloved gaming chair, which takes a lot, because Joel is the sort of man who minds his own business as a principle. ‘Darien Cardoso-Magalh?es is Brazil’s future of motorsport. That song—’

‘Is Brazilian funk. I know.’

‘It’s about him ,’ Joel corrects me. ‘They made this guy a song.’

‘As a citizen of the United Kingdom, you’re really gonna say you’ve never had exposure to Formula 1?’ prods Marcus. He’s the biggest fan of this racing stuff I know, but I can’t say I share his enthusiasm.

I squint, trying to remember the last time I watched a race. ‘I mean, I’ve seen Silverstone on TV, I think, but I don’t follow it religiously enough to know names.’

‘You’re about to.’ I detect a chord of envy in Raya’s voice. ‘All the guys on that Formula 1 grid are … lord, I’d at least learn to pick out Darien in a crowd, if I were you.’

Okay, this may be true. I am going into the chance of a lifetime poorly armed. My heart clenches as I think of all the deep googling my sister would have had us doing.

‘Sorry, all, but like I said, I’ve got a bunch to get done.’ I gesture to the sticky notes all over my monitors. ‘Heidelberg Hybridge Ring isn’t going to get its own sims up and running.’

Maybe doing this entire thing halfway across the world while my family’s in a state of emotional fragility isn’t a part of my dream – I’d have loved to stay in London – but it’s an opportunity to bring my brainchild to the very top of motorsport certainly is. I’ve worked for Conquest since midway through university, picking up an internship that became a career. Since that point, our company’s been primarily linked to one of the many South London football clubs we share home base with, Crystal Palace. I’d always dreamed of working in sport, maybe coaching or something, so running training using virtual reality and simulation for world-renowned footballers, bridging my physiotherapy education with new-era machinery … it’s pretty close. And now, with a little help from our friends in the programming and tech departments, our task team has finally finished the motorsport simulator I hope can completely change how drivers practise – starting, unbelievably, with Formula 1. We worked for ages on this, and everything is ours from the ground up: the parts for the sim, the program we wrote.

It’s still hard to believe that Conquest has given me the chance to manage an entire operation across the ocean on my own, not to mention in a whole new sport. Team simulator specialist . A title they’ve created just for me. It’s amazing, but it’s a terrifying burden, and without Sonia, this giant step just feels like one I can’t take.

‘All right,’ Marcus gives up, voice shrouded in an air of annoyance. ‘But don’t work yourself into the ground, Shantal. Have some fun. This trip is a chance for you to test your limits, yes, but it’s also an opportunity for you to finally let loose. You’ve been … kind of tense lately.’

Oh? I know for a fact I’d become aggressively highly strung in the past couple of months, but I take that one straight to the chest with a look of irritation at Marcus.

‘Exactly,’ adds Joel enthusiastically, which doesn’t help at all. ‘An opportunity to … get funky.’

Raya shakes her head, looking away with a roll of her eyes. ‘Please never say that again.’

As the two of them get straight to bickering as usual, I turn to my monitors. The wallpapers, our Conquest team posing with Crystal Palace FC’s, remind me of everything we’ve built here. I can’t back down out of fear now.

Like any project this far from the normal for us, the stakes are high. I’ll be with Heidelberg for at least the first half of the season, up until summer break, with the second half optional if I do my job well enough.

Everything pertaining to the simulator technology in that building, all Conquest’s doing, has to pay off. If this doesn’t benefit Heidelberg – if they don’t see significant improvement from their standings last year, and move up from third in the Championship – then they won’t find any value in spending millions on us any longer. They’ll sever ties with Conquest, the tie in question being me.

I open the tab holding the immersive floorplan for the Heidelberg Hybridge Ring Complex, just landed in my inbox from the principal of Heidelberg’s F1 team. It’s a humongous facility, nestled within its own track, two expansive storeys high, even equipped with drivers’ living quarters. All of this is wonderful, but I immediately click and zoom in to the gym, stacked with what will be a state-of-the-art simulator room. As always, it’s not the building but the powerful technology inside I’m interested in, waiting to take Heidelberg Hybridge to Championship victory.

I adjust the photo of my sister on my desk, beside my tiny portrait of Shri Ram and Sita. I think of nearly breaking down over the phone to my mother. Go and enjoy your life .

‘Those birds went extinct years ago!’ Raya’s voice soars over the open tops of the cubicles.

‘I refuse to believe that. Macaws are resilient ,’ insists Joel.

They could have chosen Joel or Raya or Marcus, anyone who worked on this sim, but it’s me going to Brazil.

You earned this , I think to myself as I click into the technology menu. Now come through .

Maybe I’m not going to Brazil to let loose, but I’ve never been one to half-ass a project. This could be my big break, and I’m not letting it go, no matter how wrong all of it feels.