The next day.

  It was the day of the race. The first official race where Trey was driving the car modified personally by Leon. It would decide if his first steps proved to be successful.

  On such a day, however, Leon found himself in his teacher’s office being lectured about his slipping grades. His fifth visit in classes all across the board, to be exact.

  “Leon, this is hasn’t been going on for long but considering the short time, the drop in your studies have been substantial. Is everything alright?”

  His professor looked at him with serious concern, making him feel bad.

  “There’s just a lot on my plate right now. I’ll pay more attention to submit my assignments on time, sir.”

  Sighing, the man sitting opposite him took off his glasses before putting his hands on the desk.

  “Listen, I’m aware that you’re a scholarship student based on an internship from Alpha Dynamics, so I’ll try to ignore this for now. However, you might want to talk to them. Maybe they can give you more time for your studies.”

  Leon almost wanted to snort at this statement. He was working on probably what could be considered the greatest technological wonder Alpha Dynamics has released in decades. How can he find time to properly work on his studies, especially now that he’s working on Trey’s race car at the same time?

  “I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Leon answered, his tone remaining respectful. It was much easier to just say what the professor wanted to hear than to tell the truth.

  ‘Alright. You can go.”

  Nodding briefly, Leon left the office with quick strides. He was already late for the race, so he was in quite a rush to get there in time.

  The Tsunami Foods team should be able to take care of everything like usual, but if there was something wrong with the software, he would need to take over. After all, he was the only one familiar with it.

  Calling a hover taxi, Leon got to the race track as quickly as possible, where, unlike in the qualifiers, the atmosphere was enormous, being the first official race of the season. A completely sold-out event, considering the only two races taking place on different, much larger tracks, being the mid-seasonal and final Grand Prix.

  Leon scanned his Tsunami Food team card at the official entry gate before practically running over to the pit. When he finally got there, the race had already started with five laps already having passed by.

  He quickly greeted Zoe, who was looking quite busy talking to Trey on the radios, grabbing a headset himself to listen to what was going inside that car.

  “Alright. Let’s hope the machine holds up.”

  ……….

  Fourth place.

  It was a tight race, but Trey managed to get a few seconds ahead of the guy he’s been tailgating for the last fifteen laps to snatch the spot right below the podium.

  A stellar performance for the average driver, but Leon knew that his friend wanted more.

  “I can feel it, Leon. The top three are not far away. If anything, the only thing needed is a little push.”

  “If you want, I can start working on modifying the levitation systems. If I’m right, this could give the car more power and handling across the race. The only risk is that it’s gonna be an experimenting phase for some time, making it difficult to say if the performance will be right for the following races.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Trey said, shaking his head. “This is it, I know it. If problems happen on the way, we’ll deal with them, but that is a risk I’ll take.”

  “If you say so.” Leon smiled. His friend was clearly very satisfied with this race, maybe even getting a little bit ahead of himself, but it couldn’t be helped. He was, after all, quite close for a chance at the podium. Something he rarely achieved among the many races he’s participated in the past.

  “Hey, I gotta talk to the team for a bit. Don’t stray too far, the award ceremony is starting soon.” Trey patted him once on his back before going over to the Tsunami Foods team. Meanwhile, Leon decided to look around, using the good half hour until the ceremony to look for some people.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  More specifically, it was Tara and the others with whom he went to the race last time. Trey said they would be here today, but he hasn’t seen them in the pit box. Walking around for a while, Leon passed some other crews while looking out into the stands in hopes of catching a glimpse of them. Maybe he should have asked Trey beforehand where they were, but he forgot about it in the heat of the moment.

  That’s when the sight of rusty, long auburn hair caught his eyes among the crowd a few meters ahead of him.

  Tara. most likely. That meant Nicole would not be far off. Maybe Neal was there too

  Moving over, Leon’s theory almost turned out right as he noticed Tara speaking to two people, though, not the two he expected to see.

  “Shit.”

  One of them was a tall, young woman with long blonde hair wearing a red and white racing suit with a white baseball cap on her head.

  It was Jade Kotova, the one person he wasn’t too keen on seeing again so quickly after he broke her million credit android at her own party.

  The second person, on the other hand, was a young man wearing an expensive-looking black suit. He was tall, most likely around 190 centimeters, with short, wavy black hair and piercing blue eyes. Carrying his suit jacket over his right arm, he appeared too relaxed as opposed to his overdressed getup for an event like this. Still, Leon couldn’t deny that the man had style: style and charisma.

  Looking at the group of three, he realized that Tara was at the GenoTech pit box without Nicole or Neal anywhere in sight.

  At the same time, the girl in question noticed someone staring at her, making her turn around only to find Leon standing not far away from her.

  “Scholarship boy, what are you doing here?” Tara said as she walked up to him before dragging him over to the group. Smiling awkwardly, he looked over at the other two, whose expressions couldn’t be any more different.

  Where Jade Kotova raised an eyebrow, reminding him of his prior mess of an encounter with her, the young man in suit looked genuinely curious. His eyes, however, seemed to be more on Tara than him.

  “I was looking for you, actually. I didn’t see you at the Tsunami Foods pit box.” Leon said, making Tara’s eyes light up.

  “Hearing you say it like that, I might just assume you’d have a crush on me.” She laughed. “But yeah, I had something to do here, so I asked Jade to let me into her pitbox. The others have already left. By the way, let me introduce you to Evan here. You already know Jade, so we can skip her.”

  ‘Hi, again.” Leon nodded slightly at the blonde woman who seemed to want to roll her eyes at him in return.

  “A pleasure.”

  In contrast, the young man offered a handshake as a greeting. “Evan Caddel, nice to meet you.”

  “Leon.” He replied while shaking his hand, but his mind was in turmoil.

  ‘Caddel, wasn’t that the name of the family controlling one of the few mega-corporations? What was it? Skyline Realty?’

  He quickly concluded the guy’s background, but the reality of the situation seemed to be a little bit surreal. Not only one but two members of the most powerful families in the world. Why are these people always popping up wherever he goes?

  At the same time, his gaze turned back to Tara, trying to make a connection.

  ‘She said she had business here, but it was unlikely to be related directly to Jade Kotova. Did she go here because this guy, Evan Caddel, was present in the GenoTech pit box?’

  “By the way, guys,” Tara addressed the group in clear excitement. “Did you know that Leon here is creating a new race car for Tsunami Foods? They’re trying to take your crown, Jade.”

  ‘Where did you hear that?” Leon asked.

  “I heard it from Nicole, who heard it from Trey, who is pretty much telling her absolutely everything.”

  “Damn, this guy.” Leon wanted to shake his head when he saw Jade cross her arms in amusement at Tara’s prior statement.

  “Oh really? Is that Treyton getting angsty about his skills and trying to blame it on his car instead? With Alpha Dynamics’ intern kid stepping up to save the day?”

  “Hey, don’t be an ass, Jade. At least they’re trying to bring you down, unlike everybody else who is just accepting their loss.” Tara intervened while Jade shrugged her shoulders in return.

  “Sorry, but I’m still a little bugged because he broke my Android.”

  “Ah, come on. We all know you have enough money to shit on. That broken Android is not even a dent in your wallet, you petty cash cow.” Tara countered, rolling her eyes.

  Meanwhile, Leon was stunned at the kinds of words making the rounds. He didn’t know if this was normal, insulting, or if a fight was about to break out.

  Luckily, it seemed to come to an end when Jade was told to move over to the podium for the ceremony. At the same time, Evan left after a phone call grabbed his attention, leaving Tara and Leon standing near the GenoTech pit box alone.

  “Wanna leave?” Tara asked.

  “What about the award ceremony?”

  “It’s boring and useless. Jade won, again. That’s it. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Leon contemplated it for but a second before Tara was already dragging him out.

  She was right. None of these ceremonies mattered as long as Trey wasn’t on that podium in first place. Sooner or later, he would be.

  Leon would do everything to make sure of that.

  ……….

  “Silent results speak louder than words.”

  ~~Dr. Benjamin Harper’s Memoirs~~