ALICE Ch 151

Glynda Darcy is always exhausted due to the nature of her job. It’s a dauntingly short amount of time before she’ll need to be up again; Spain is waiting. All the same, she doesn’t hurry to bed when she gets back to her room. She’s learned her lesson about checking on her people after hours. She will not be going out again. One perk of this job is the uniform: she doesn’t care for FUTA’s colors or the way that even she is objectified by the wardrobe, but the clothing is more or less comfortable, and she can wear runners instead of heels.

Her feet still hurt.

Ironically, in this world of mad excess, she has no maid to clean up after her. So she doesn’t throw her clothes on the floor, as she’d like to, and instead places them neatly in the laundry bag. In the bathroom, she bends with a groan to run the bath, then shuffles out to the minibar. There, she dutifully drinks an entire bottle of water before pouring two little bottles of whiskey into a glass tumbler.

Glynda stands up straight and takes a deep breath. It has not been a bad day. Merely a long one. All days are complicated now; this is her life. She chooses to savor the fact that the day could have been much worse. It’s almost funny to her that the situation is so complicated that she can hardly celebrate Alice’s triumph. With success comes expectations. Today’s success wasn’t unearned, but it was still a circumstantial fluke.

That can be tomorrow’s problem. She breathes, smiles, and lifts the glass.

Someone knocks on the door.

Her temper flares, but she holds her composure, gripping the glass tightly. She waits, holding her breath.

Another knock. Quite insistent.

Hand shaking, Glynda sets the glass down and puts on a robe. She goes to the door and opens it to find Lora, still dressed for the day and smelling of body odor and champagne. They’ve all been awake for twenty hours at this point. Everyone is filthy.

Glynda is typically glad to see Lora with her scarred face, unflappable calm, and general aura of sanity and sense. Not at this hour.

“What is it?”

“Have you spoken to Annette yet?” Lora asks, arms folded.

It looks like she’s having the same thoughts as Glynda. FUTA Racing was supposed to be a stunt, not a serious racing team. That hasn’t stopped Glynda from taking it absolutely seriously, but it’s not lost on her that there was never any expectation of them competing with Red Bull. There was a plan. A vision. A script, so to speak. FUTA is more about entertainment than sport, after all.

And Alice is messing it all up.

Glynda takes that in, then sips from her glass and exhales through her nose.

“I’m having a bath,” she says shortly. They can talk about this tomorrow.

“You’re avoiding it.”

“I’ve been awake a thousand hours! I’m allowed! I’m having my bath and going to bed!”

“Very exciting,” Lora says dryly, having none of it as she pushes her way into the room. “Never seen a naked woman before.”