Chapter Text
July
The screaming of the engines was the most beautiful, hair-raising sound. Back in F4, Oscar had thought he'd never get used to it, the way the tone commanded his every sense.
He’d been insightful then, he supposes. Even now, muffled by some valiant attempts at soundproofing, their din is unmistakable. Background noise, but in the way your heartbeat underscores your life, fills the most meaningful of silences.
The screech of cars on track makes this one less jarring, but Oscar knows it’s uncomfortable, still. Smiles faintly, because that’s rather the point.
He stares out at the sea of faces, waiting for the murmurs to start. It’s usually about the five second mark that people suspect something’s gone wrong. Turn to their business partners, their friends, to mouth a ‘look at this guy’, to speculate about technical difficulties and forgotten scripts.
Oscar knows the other graduates had, however long ago when their lead had opened a project meeting in this very way. He'd refrained though, eyes narrowed, suddenly all too aware of the steady intensity of his pulse. A metronome.
Now, he checks his watch, and straightens, a hush rippling through the room.
“Eight seconds.” He makes eye contact with a woman who’d frozen at his voice, before flicking his gaze to the next table.
“Usually we don’t notice these smaller stretches of time. But when the stakes are high, every second counts. On the track, eight seconds is the difference between a podium and a single point. Eight minutes,” he stresses the word for emphasis. “Three full laps. And when these increments compound, their effects become even more significant.
“Hello. My name is Oscar. I’m a data architect at Alteryx, and for the next eight minutes, while you could be watching F4 cars burning rubber, you’ll instead be listening to me, talking about rubber.”
There are a few scattered laughs, and he smiles briefly. “But hopefully these eight minutes wasted will save you many more down the line.”
He clicks the forward button, and steps to the side to ensure the charts behind him are readable. “For our client, incorporating a new predictive tyre model meant eight seconds saved per trip. Which, at a daily throughput of 10,000, does tend to add up. So today, I am going to be talking about some applications of edge computing in logistics and beyond.”
The rest of the presentation goes smoothly, with the most stress-inducing part over and done with. It’s only after the last of the keynote speakers has finished, and the room has returned to its buzzing conversation, that Oscar allows himself to relax back into his seat and accept a drink from his VP, who had followed him onstage to discuss the ROI and business side of the project.
“Well done, Oscar,” Miranda says quietly, gaze already cataloguing their plan for the next hour of networking. “I’m thinking we make our way over to Mike first—he’s the CFO at Elecom, already expressed interest in a consult. But really,” she turns back to him, offering a small, genuine smile. “Good work. Keep this up and I’m sure you’ll be in the consideration for a new placement, if you aren’t already. Especially with Tom about to leave.”
“Thank you,” he says. They stand, and after exchanging some final pleasantries with those at their table, begin to make their way to the far side of the room, Miranda stopping them every so often to talk to some CTO or other, to introduce Oscar, shake hands, a routine that was becoming painfully automatic.
With a tap on his shoulder, he smiles one last time at the board member of some Germany-based tech company, turning to meet the next in an unending blur of expensive suits. But the man beside Miranda is in far more casual dress, a black tee paired with dove grey trousers. Soft amid the sharp lines of luxury blazers.
“Lando Norris,” he offers, already reaching out a hand.
Like he needs any introduction, here in McLaren hospitality. Any introduction, speaking to Oscar.
But Oscar knows he means nothing by it, reaches a hand back out anyways, grasping Lando’s to find it strangely cold for July. He’s bracketed by another woman, a PR officer if Oscar had to guess.
“Oscar,” he says. Lando’s bracelets clink softly as he moves, and Oscar thinks he catches a glimpse of beads before their hands drop.
“Cool speech, mate,” Lando says, voice only a bit strained. “Pretty interesting.”
Oscar suppresses a grimace. “Not really. But it has pretty big implications for supply chain efficiency, so.” He waves a hand, a little ‘what can you do’. “Not bad for your car, either,” he adds a bit wryly. He darts a glance back at Lando, only to see he’s watching the motion quite intently with narrowed eyes. Freezes a second, involuntary, before the intensity is abruptly gone. “Um?”
“Nah, it’s nothing.” Lando smiles apologetic, shrugging a bit. PR smile back up, he segues very smoothly with a, “So where are you from, Mr. Oscar No-last-name?”
He ignores the pang in his chest. Of course. “Take a guess?”
“Hm, Perth?” Oscar shakes his head. “Sydney? Melbourne?”
“That’s the one.”
“Aw man, we’ve got to get Daniel over here. He’d love to talk to a fellow Aussie.”
Oscar laughs before it peters out a bit awkwardly as he makes eye contact with Miranda over Lando’s shoulder. She raises a brow. “Right. Uh, I’m sorry but I think my VP wants us to keep moving. People to meet, you know.”
He’s certain Lando does — certain that’s the entire reason he’s stood here small-talking with the likes of Oscar, anyways.
“Nice meeting you, Oscar,” Lando says, mouth moving softly around his name.
His eyes are startlingly blue, not at all like the pictures. Not at all like Oscar’s blurry half-memories.
“Likewise,” he replies, and finds he means it. A bit foolishly, he hopes Lando does too. It's dumb, though. Wishful, and he immediately dismisses it. That should be the end of the interaction, but he finds himself tacking on, “Good luck this weekend.”
Lando opens his mouth automatically, before shutting it, that weird look crossing his face again. But like before, it's abruptly gone. “Don’t need luck, do I?” He frowns, serious but for the quirk of his lips. “Not with the powers of edge computing. I’ve heard it’s pretty powerful stuff.”
Oscar huffs out a surprised laugh. “Hey, I said it wasn’t all that exciting.”
“That you did.”
They stand there a moment more, a strange awkwardness forming. He's missing something, he realizes. He thinks Lando feels it too, brow pinched like they're both unsure what feels so off. But he's probably just seeing what he wants to. Oscar forces himself to be the first to move. “Bye, Lando.”
“Goodbye.”
The CFO seems pretty interested, and for the next few minutes Oscar’s fielding questions, much to Miranda’s approval. But despite how he should be focused on the task at hand, on contracts and latencies, his thoughts keep circling back to Lando. To those clinking bracelets and the tentative smile. Os-car, he’d said, the syllables soft.
It felt bittersweet, to be seen now by someone so linked to his past. In another life, maybe they'd share more than a minute of small-talk. Maybe Lando would recognize him, not from all that time spent chasing behind, but its culmination in something.
Water under the bridge, and all that. He’s in a good place, now. A successful place, especially for only a year and a half out from uni. It sucks to be here in the paddock, to hear the engines’ siren song, so close yet so far away. It's far too easy to think of the what-ifs, dwell on the could-have-beens. But Oscar wasn’t doing too badly, really.
It was all okay. Good, even.
Still, his heart doesn’t quite seem to get the memo. Clenching with every backfire, catching on every swooping logo. Time, he reminds himself. Time is what it takes. Nothing else to be done, really. So he’ll sip his champagne. Smile politely at the various members of the C-suite. It’s a privilege, to be in this position. A privilege to make what he does, to head projects at his age, and to be able to start to repay the debts of those who’d always supported him.
Even with all the hurt, it was the right decision. He knows it was. Not easy, but right.
It’s worth it, for that.
The sun has yet to rise, when Oscar returns from his run. He showers quickly before changing into a button-down and jeans, locking the door of his flat with one hand while balancing his travel mug of coffee and backpack in the other.
The tube ride is uneventful, and so is the day of work. After reviewing the data for the bank fraud detection project, he meets with a new client to map out their plan — a supermarket chain with restocking issues. A blissful hour of coding, and then a meeting with the engineers on the bank project. More blueprinting. Typing up the paperwork from his morning meeting. Prepping for the meeting with his VP on Tuesday.
No big problems, no big solutions.
He takes the tube back to his flat. Changes into trackies and a sweatshirt, grabs a container of dinner from the fridge, and trudges down the stairs and out to his car. The hour and a half drive passes as it always does, like a changing of worlds. He emerges from the car into night, car park lit only by the lampposts overhead.
Milton Keynes, deserted save a few cars dotted close to the entrance. He takes his usual spot, one away from Joel’s blue S3.
He says hello to the receptionist, then talks briefly with the small team of engineers about the specifics of tonight’s running, before stepping out to the machine and settling in for the session.
By the time the engineers halt the running, his eyes have long since moved past burning and into a dull persistent ache. When he blinks, he still sees the outline of the halo, a memory etched in green and purple spots that move when he tries to focus. 132 laps, probably about the same amount of subtly different setups tested. He moves like a zombie out to the lot.
Sims are pretty cool these days. Convincing enough the ride back feels extra slow, like he’s driving on molasses rather than an empty M1.
4:24 AM is the reading he falls asleep to, and 6:45 AM the one he wakes to. It makes the next day harder, but he feels lighter for it. Besides, that’s why the shift is only a twice-weekly affair. Sleep is for the nights in between.
Monday again. The proof of concept for the supermarket chain. An issue with the POS software, but the store’s engineering team ended up getting it fixed pretty quickly. The underlying pipeline latency, though, that’s more puzzling.
Oscar spends nearly the entire day between meetings parsing through the system logs, trying to find where the serialization goes awry. It’s half-past seven that he identifies the schema drift, writes up a compatibility plan and files the JIRA ticket.
He frowns at the time, making a mental note to check in with the DevOps lead tomorrow, talk about refactoring the event stream schema. After firing off a few final emails, he shuts down his computer and slides his laptop back into his bag. Heads out, body all too ready to eat then crash. He microwaves some leftover chicken, then falls into a well-earned sleep.
Run. Work. Sleep.
Dreams of nonsensical things, like a stretch of asphalt that never ends, the spray of the Pacific, a transaction between mirrors. Signals bouncing back and forth, an eternal echo chamber.
White text on a crystal screen, the background a startling blue. Brown? Blue.
Alarm.
6:45 AM, and he does it all again.
Mid-workout, his phone pings. A Slack message from IoT, an issue with inventory spikes requiring his attention. Some old texts from the family group chat. Unread emails; client companies, coworkers, and the odd inquiry from his weekend gig.
Below, a Siri suggestion: “The Crown Jewel”: Ten things to know ahead of this year’s Monaco GP. He swipes it away, along with the rest of them.
After a moment though, he clicks into the Slack stream. Fires off a quick reply, before shutting his phone back off.
He unracks the barbell, and resumes his squats, mind already running through possible causes for the faulty readings, and then whether he’ll have the time to add a third client, since Sanjay’s out for knee surgery. Two is already a handful, but if it’s just for a one-off… maybe. He’ll consider it.
A week later. It depends, he decides, on how the client’s needs line up with Adam’s schedule. It’d be manageable now, with his regular out for months and Ferrari Challenge still a while out. A month or two with this potential client, so long as any in-person time is well and over with by the time Adam’s prep ramps up…
During his lunch break he drafts the email, linking a video call so they discuss scope and expectations. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, to fill in the dent that Sanjay’s absence will leave in his income. It’s nothing significant, but if he has the time, why not use it.
Not, he thinks wryly, like he has anything better to do.