ALICE Ch 233

Bright lights shine on the simple chair.

“Her shoulders are really quite narrow,” Erica Bruhl says brightly, indicating with her hands. “Yet here is Alice Wilde, simply carrying this team on her back through sheer **** of will. Alone. We have Ferrari in sixth place and the two newest teams vying for second. Aston Martin is tied with Mercedes. As Will would say, it’s simply bedlam.”

“How do you explain McLaren’s collapse? It’s the total opposite of all expectations.”

“Driver illness is part of it. The other part is competition. The midfield has never been crowded like this before. Williams is not managing many points, but the Woodcock sisters continue to pressure everyone by driving quite well. Aston is hanging in there, and we have two extremely competitive teams that no one saw coming. Valeria Flores is simply flying after Max Verstappen while Alice Wilde, despite her team’s best efforts, refuses to be left behind. No one could have predicted that these two women would be driving faster than Lewis Hamilton. His car might be slow this year, but Alice Wilde is lucky if hers starts on a cold day.”

FF1

The TV is muted, not that it matters. News coverage in Austria is all in German.

Alice slouches in the chair beside Faye’s bed, eyes a little vacant. Faye just watches her worriedly. After a moment, Alice seems to wake up. She straightens.

“Oh. Right.” She hurriedly picks up the odd pastry wrapped in a napkin from Faye’s tray and offers it to her. Faye obligingly takes a bite, although it doesn’t look like she’s enjoying it very much. She has a concussion, but that’s not quite as much of a problem as her hands, which were crushed by her steering wheel. Well, not crushed. She’s got half a dozen fractures in her fingers and it’s her right scaphoid that’s basically splinters. She’s on what Alice can only assume are the sickest pain meds in Europe, because she is suspiciously chill about this.

These aren’t career-ending injuries as long as her surgeries go well, but Faye will not drive again this year. She won’t be using either of her hands anytime soon. Alice can’t understand why Faye isn’t freaking out. It has to be the meds.

“You’ve got to do media,” Faye says after Alice wipes her mouth for her.

Alice smiles. “Bad idea.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad you’re OK.” OK being relative.

Faye gazes, a little stoned, but not too stoned to know what’s happening. There’s nothing she can say.

“I need another one of those weird sodas,” Alice says, getting to her feet.

“Almdudler,” Faye supplies helpfully.

Alice rubs her face and goes to the door, then out into the hallway, grimacing when a nurse coughs as she passes. Some FUTA people are talking to some F1 people. No press. That’s something at least.

Lora sees her and hurries over, nervously touching her hair, trying to do that thing where she uses it to cover her face.

“Shut up,” Alice says, cutting her off. “I don’t want to hear your voice. In the car, out of the car, I don’t care.” She slips past Lora and hurries away, taking deep breaths. That was it; it took the last of her self-control to not raise her voice just then. The next person to try to talk to her is getting knocked out. Alice has never knocked anyone out before, but if there was ever a time to start, this is it.