Page 10 of The Fast Track

“Oh, come on, now.” Cameron rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “It was just some friendly teasing. I can’t help it if she’s uptight.”

I whirl around to face him. “I am not—”

“Clearly it is.” Frank sighs. “Right, come along, follow me. And not a single word out of either of you until we get to Lot 19.”

Lot 19? I’ve only ever been out as far as Lot 8, where they keep old equipment and spare parts they’re planning to donate to local clubs. I didn’t even know we had a Lot 19.

We make our way out of the OTC. Frank commandeers one of the gray-and-white golf carts used on campus to shuttle between buildings, leaving us to share the sole remaining cart at the docking station.

“Do you know what he has up his sleeve?” I whisper as we climb in. Frank’s already down the road and shouldn’t be able to hear me from this distance, but I don’t want to take any more chances.

“Something draconian, I bet,” Cameron mutters out of the side of his mouth. He scans his ID badge and starts the cart.

I blanch. “What do you mean? Like, are we talking forty-hours-of-simulators kind of draconian, or scrubbing-toilet-stalls kind of draconian?”

“Should’ve thought of that before you got your knickers all in a twist and got us in trouble.”

“Me? You’re the one who—”

“Shhh.” He bumps my knee with his. “Shut your gob before you make it worse.”

Frank turns and gives us an accusatory glare, but thankfully that’s all he does.

Lot 19 is so far away that it takes almost ten minutes of winding through barely trafficked roads, guided by increasingly minuscule signs. We finally arrive at what looks like a parking lot someone lost interest in paving halfway through.

“Right, here we are.” Frank climbs out of his cart. He points at the northeasternmost corner, where a black shed as tall as Cameron sits. It looks completely out of place, as if someone randomly backed up a delivery truck and dumped it there. “That’s your project. I want it done by the Belgian Grand Prix.”

My trepidation builds as we approach the shed. “What are we supposed to do, exactly?”

“Assemble the FC-80,” Frank grunts.

“FC-80?” Cameron wrinkles his nose.

“It’s how Burton named their cars,” I explain. “Before Judson, and then Orbital, took over the team.”

“That was rhetorical.” He rolls his eyes. “I know what FCs are. You’re not the only one who’s gone through theOrbital: A Historyexhibit.”

I’ve actually done far more than browse the exhibit showingoff Orbital Racing’s history at the entrance of the OTC, but I don’t want to invite any judgy comments about how I don’t have a life outside racing. (Even if, okay, I don’t have a life outside racing.)

Frank pulls on the gray door of the shed. It sticks, squeaking open only after a second forceful tug.

My heart sinks.

Any hope this is going to be a quick and easy effort dies a swift death at the mountain of rusted metal parts that greets us. A vintage roll hoop that would never pass a modern safety inspection tips off the peak and clangs onto the ground, narrowly missing my toes.

“Damn,” Cameron says. “There’s enough to make five cars here.”

“Should be a toolbox in there somewhere,” Frank says breezily. “I’ll leave you to it.”

I swear he’s holding in a laugh as he walks back to his cart.

A fearful thought occurs to me. “Frank, is there a blueprint or anything we can use?”

“Nope,” he calls back cheerfully. “Lost ’em years ago.”

“Told you this was going to be draconian,” Cameron mutters.

I turn back to the mountain in front of me. My brain runs the calculus—no instructions, enough parts to open our own scrapyard. No wonder Frank set a deadline way out in August. Just sorting through all the pieces is going to take hours, never mind that between Cameron and me, neither of us has ever constructed a Formula 1 car… though plenty of people around us have.