The rain showed no signs of letting up, and neither did the animosity that was tangible from the rest of the competition.

From the start, Lotus could tell something was different about this race, the difference being that she was now a marked woman.

At Fort Auspice, she’d been quite literally a nobody, which had allowed her the freedom to express herself throughout the race. At Seaforth, she had beef with the Drake brothers, to be sure, but the meek deference of the other pilots meant that she could concentrate on the three-horse race at the front of the pack.

In her most recent victory at Dunehold, however, there’d been a noticeable shift in the grid’s collective awareness of her as a rival. This translated into moments on corners where the opponents seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do and how she liked to do it, occasionally leading to preemptive moves that blocked her optimal lines. On the whole, however, each pilot had fought separately for their individual goals, which generated enough of the familiar chaos in which Lotus thrived.

This race was different. This was one of the last races on the calendar. Now that Lotus was one victory away from guaranteeing her place in the Morrowtide GP, the other pilots who’d long been out of contention conspired to play spoiler. It felt as though the entire grid was determined to keep Lotus off the podium if it was the last thing they did this season.

Pathetic. Lotus seethed underneath her dripping helmet. But as much as she disdained the sentiment, she couldn’t underestimate the threat.

Her rivals might be out of championship contention, but this was still a ‘Grand Prix’, a tier-I calendar race that attracted top talents. The opponents here were skilled—and smart. While it was clear to Lotus that they worked together to disrupt her race, the way they went about it stopped short of triggering sanctions for teaming.

It all made for a tedious and exhausting ordeal: easily her most unpleasant Chakram race to date. Being the target of multiple and staggered Auxiliary attacks on nearly every lap meant she couldn’t tackle the track features with her usual aggression. She found herself having to skirt wide of her preferred lines, to brake when she wanted to gas it, and to lie in wait when she wanted to hit the front.

Then… there was also the matter of her leg.

She hadn’t noticed it much through the earlier laps. Perhaps she’d still been too distracted from her blowup with Echo, or the pill she’d popped right before the race was still doing its job. But as the race progressed, the weakness and shooting pain in her re-injured leg reared its ugly head.

Forget taking the ideal line into corners; she could barely achieve the lean angles she wanted, especially on left-hand turns where she needed her left leg to lift off the frame and help shift her centre of gravity. The situation certainly wasn’t helped by the bullseye on her back.

Going into the final lap of the race, she was 3rd/18 (fewer casualties than usual, which wasn’t surprising, given everyone just wanted a piece of Lotus), more than two seconds behind the leader and about a Chakram-length behind the runner-up.

Incredibly, she hadn’t activated any of her Auxiliaries once. This was a real shame, given Marly had managed to fine-tune Fenghuolun to the point where a combined ten activations of Armillary Ring, Earthdelver, and Flametip Spear should’ve been comfortably within capacity. But it was also a conscious decision on Lotus’s part, opting instead to conserve fuel for the numerous instances where Akashic Field had to defend her from attacks both telegraphed and unseen.

Well off the leader in the final lap, forced into a defensive style for the entire race, and dogged by fresh pain in her left leg… This was far from the Lotus that Lotus knew.

So, with about a minute of the track left, she resolved to rectify the situation. She pushed hard into the next corner, safe in the knowledge that the Aux ban was still in effect. But this was a dreaded left-hand turn, and as Lotus attempted to round the second-place Chakram on its outside, its pilot did the unthinkable: they slid their Chakram wide and into Fenghuolun, bumping its frame in the process.

It was just a slight nudge, moderated as not to trigger Fenghuolun’s Aegis. But it sent enough of a jolt to Lotus’s left leg that her entire body immediately seized up with pain. Caught off guard and having momentarily lost her balance, Lotus couldn’t stop Fenghuolun from shaking and skidding wildly around the corner.

By the time she straightened herself, the display showed that she was now just over three seconds behind the leader. The offending pilot too had zoomed on ahead, having created a sizable cushion with that one move. And the rest of the pack gained on her, readying their final Aux charges for the race.

“Fuck!” Lotus swore loudly, both from anger and as a reaction to the pain. But as she tucked low and leaned into a difficult chase, she found herself smirking with newfound respect for her rival.

Everyone on the grid knew about the nature of the injury she’d sustained in Seaforth. Too much scouting, research, preparation—not to mention media coverage—went into these races for that not to have become common knowledge and a point of scrutiny. And the current runner-up, astute enough to notice the deviation from Lotus’s usual riding style, had taken it a step further and hit her where it hurt. Not to injure, but to rattle.

She had to respect that kind of unabashed moxie. It was the kind of thing she herself might've attempted, if she were desperate enough. Maximum aggression. Anything to win the race.

She returned the spirited riding in kind, pushing Fenghuolun onto the soaked asphalt with a burst of speed. Something in her had snapped. She was no longer worried about defending herself, now concerned only with taking her revenge upon the temeritous rival ahead of her.

It took her until the fifth feature of the track to complete the overtake, this time squeezing through the inside of a downhill turn. By then, the Aux ban had long lifted, and less than a third of the lap still remained. As Lotus edged ahead, she braced herself for an Aux attack, knowing Fenghuolun had just enough fuel for one more use of Akashic Field. It didn’t come, however. It seemed her rival too had been a bit sloppy with their fuel management.

That left a fairly straightforward run to the finish line. The leader was still at least two seconds ahead, and there wasn’t enough race left for Lotus to catch them. First place was no longer an option, so all she could do now was defend her runner-up position. Win this last 1v1, then she could still take home enough standing points to push her ahead of Manny Dover on the seasonal ladder.

But as she rounded the final hairpin and straightened onto the homestretch, something felt wrong.

She’d opened the throttle wide, willing her Chakram to sprint flat-out to the finish. And yet, for the first time since she became its pilot, Fenghuolun failed to match her aggression. The acceleration was sluggish, incongruent with what Lotus had asked of her machine. Was it out of fuel? No, there was still a sliver of red left on the gauge. An engine failure then? Or could it be…

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The dashboard beeped and flashed yellow, twice in quick succession:

| FRONT LOSING PRESSURE |

| PUNCTURE? |

Lotus’s heart jumped up to her throat. A flat tyre? Now? Damn it all to hell…

But she didn’t have time to curse her rotten luck. For even as she closed in on the finish line, she felt a presence looming behind her. The Chakram she’d traded places with was now gaining on her quickly, its pilot poised to take advantage of Lotus’s misfortune a second time.

There was nothing for it. She squeezed the throttle, as though the added pressure on the handle would somehow re-inflate the front tyre. With the finish line so near yet so agonizingly far, the third-place Chakram edged closer, now pushing its front alongside Fenghuolun’s rear.

Lotus could see that, at their current velocities, enough of the track remained for her rival to complete the overtake. And even if not, she wasn’t about to chance it.

She abruptly and violently jerked the handlebar, cutting diagonally into the path of the would-be overtaker. At the same time, she activated her first and only Aux of the race: Earthdelver. With a tremendous rumble, Fenghuolun dove underground, throwing up chunks of asphalt and mud in its wake. From the corner of her vision, Lotus spied the third-place Chakram swerving and twisting wildly as the ground beneath it fell away, its overtake attempt well and truly thwarted.

Lotus herself felt Fenghuolun’s engine stall as Earthdelver drained what little remained of the Anamnium reserves. But sheer momentum carried Chakram and pilot sliding and bouncing toward and across the finish line. All Lotus had to do was hold on for dear life.

Then a particularly unkind bounce sent Fenghuolun pitching into a gnarly stoppie. Now forced into an unplanned somersault through the air, Lotus’s survival instincts told her she needed to let go of her bike.

But she refused, with her racing instincts superseding their survival counterpart. She crashed and rolled onto the track, just yards past the finish line. This produced another vigorous jolt to her injured leg, sending fresh spasms of pain up and down the embattled limb.

For some time, there was nothing she could do other than lie completely still while fifteen other Chakrams roared past her. Through it all, the pain in her leg never let up; if anything, it only intensified as the adrenaline began to wear off. Rain pelted her with its steady heartless rhythm.

She hadn’t thought it possible, but this somehow felt even worse than when her left leg had been crushed to a pulp—twice—by a vindictive Sideris Drake just over a month ago. She knew nothing about anatomy nor orthopaedic surgery, but she was convinced of this: something that once held the pieces of her bones together had now come apart, and it was this foreign object within her muscles that now sent unrelenting waves of pain and alarm.

Eventually, the track was made safe enough for marshals to come rushing to her aid. She waved them off and struggled to her feet on her own, even as she stumbled twice more—painfully—as she did. The marshals continued to hover over her, yelling out a slew of questions and instructions that in Lotus’s ears all amounted to the same thing: you’re going back to the hospital.

And she couldn’t have that. Anything but that. Not when she’d already come this far…

Lotus hobbled back toward the paddock, shooing away more offers of assistance along the way. Every step was hellish agony, but it was agony that was hers and hers alone to bear.

At some point, Iver rushed onto the scene to meet her, concern and unease etched plainly on his face. Before he could say anything, however, Lotus headed him off, “I’m fine. How’s Echo?”

“He’s settled down quite a bit,” Iver said, blinking away raindrops, “but none of us knew what the hell happened, so Marly took him to the medical tent just in case. We’ll go meet up after all this is done.”

Lotus nodded, as satisfied as she could be under the circumstances. Then she tried to keep her tone casual as she asked, “Marly went with him? Does that mean Neto’s still around?”

“Yeah, he’s just back there with our boxcar. But Lotus, what—”

“I need to ask him something. Can you look after Fenghuolun for me? And let the officials know I’ll be a bit late to the podium presentation.”

“Well, sure, but what—”

Lotus ignored him and pushed on at a quicker (and even more painful) pace, making it clear that the conversation was over. As she made her solitary way back to the paddock, she was gratified to see that Iver hadn’t tried to follow.

Neto Delphi stood waiting beside the GCC boxcar, eyes scanning a clipboard in his hands to give the impression that he was working. That only makes you look more suspicious, Lotus wanted to tell him, but she was also aware that it might only look suspicious to her because of her own misgivings.

“Good race, Ms Shen.” Neto looked up as she approached. “Though maybe I need to retract my earlier statement. You needed a bit of that luck after all, eh?”

“Good race? I came in second, Neto. Now we need to wait on Manny Dover’s result to see if I’ve made the cut.”

“You did the best you could, with the cards stacked against you,” Neto hedged, admittedly with reason, “and that was a gutsy move you pulled off at the end there. Looked like you took a nasty spill, though?”

“That’s the reason I’m here,” Lotus muttered. “I need another dose. Just… just to get me through all the bullshit for the rest of the day.”

“I hear you, Ms Shen, and I’ve got you covered, not to worry.”

With that, the mild-mannered engineer pulled out a blister pack from the pocket of his uniform. He asked while he fumbled with the package, “How much will you be needing?”

“10.”

Lotus tensed, having surprised herself with her own demand. She waited with bated breath for judgment from her companion, and Neto did glance up just briefly. But when he spoke again, there was no shift in tone to suggest any opinion on the matter, “10 mg it is, Ms Shen. Hope you start feeling better soon.”

When Neto finally counted four tablets of Cekatone and held them out, Lotus grabbed them with an urgency that embarrassed her. Then even this embarrassment was overridden by the absurd worry that the tablets might dissolve in the rain. She shoved them down her throat in one gulp, sans water. And despite the analgesics needing more time to work, she felt a rush of relief merely from the act of ingestion.

Her prescription had run out weeks ago, and no matter how many different doctors she saw while on the road, none seemed willing to write her a new one. They all parroted the same line, no doubt taken word-for-word from a medical textbook.

Long-term use of opioids can have many serious side effects, including but not limited to tolerance and addiction. At this time, we suggest stepping down to simple analgesics such as—

And that was where Lotus would tune them out, because none of these ‘simple analgesics’ did the job—none got her where she needed to be to perform, to win a fucking Chakram race.

For that, she needed Cekatone. And for Cekatone, she needed Neto Delphi.

“Couldn’t you…” Lotus mumbled, feeling like a child asking mom for more time on the computer. She could boss around anyone on the team, even Iver, but it was incredible just how small she felt in front of Neto—this squat bookish man who was barely her height. “Couldn’t you give me the whole pack? So I don’t have to keep meeting you like this?”

Neto chuckled in that mild-mannered way of his. By rights, Lotus should’ve been incensed by this reaction, but here and now, she could only feel her heart sink—and her leg throb some more.

“I’m your performance engineer, Ms Shen. How could I engineer your performance if I couldn’t monitor what goes in and what comes out? No, you leave this to me, Ms Shen. We’ll get you right in no time, you’ll see.”