I know it's been a while, not quite two months, but a lot's been going on.
First and Foremost: I got into University! At my first choice on the course I wanted. Not quite the grades I wanted but I got in so I don't care.
I then had to search for a place to live, I live two miles too close to be eligible for halls or residence. I have a house with four guys now, they're pretty cool with similar interests and we've seen each other for two days and get along great.
I also went camping, I would have gotten drunk if not for the fact it's not possible, I'm either sober/hyperactive or puking. Ended up staying up till 5am talking about various motorsports in front of a fire with some guy.
The rest of summer I have no excuse other than I write better when actually having other work I'm meant to be doing.
Also I have the next few chapters planned (only one more on F1) how long it takes depends on my timetable, social life and watching F1(Singapore this weekend). I start Uni on Monday.
Contrary to popular belief, Cherubs were not sweet, chubby, naked babies with wings carrying bows and arrows. They were annoying kids who didn't seem to understand the concept of subtlety even if it was spelt out for them using small words that even a toddler could understand.
Max was annoyed. The second Lauren, a cherub she had worked with before, had spotted her the girl had waved and rushed over, dragging the kid they had found in Australia and her brother along.
"Rho!"
That just made it worse. It was a small blessing that not many people were still by the gate, instead watching the first Free Practice session on Friday where Max would have loved to be had she not been wandering around to check on the groups. It was also raining so the longer she stayed put the wetter she was getting.
"First person to tell me the meaning of 'subtlety' gets a pint," Max offered with a mostly straight face with maybe a hint of deadpan.
"Of beer?" James asked hopefully. Max slapped her forehead, kids these days (she personally would have asked for vodka).
"I recall that offer and politely ask you guys leave me alone and go do your job. And next time you see me around here, you do not know me. Nor do you know anyone else who may be working here," Max growled. Looks of realisation dawned on Lauren, the Australian kid and James had already twigged it. "And pass that on to any of your other cherub friends here." With that she stalked off, her pit-pass slapping loudly against her wet t-shirt with each step she took. An umbrella would have impeded her vision too much and a rain jacket made too much noise.
As she headed to the next group of agents she wondered how Tony and Itachi were enjoying the good old British summer. She wasn't sure if they were planning to watch any of the Friday practice sessions. It had been pretty late when she'd got back yesterday and she had been up before them again, not really giving much time for chatting.
It had been barely breaking dawn when she had been woken by her alarm, Itachi seeming to sleep through it. She was only up so early because part of her job had been to check on the night shift before they finished and to fill them in again when they went back on shift in the evening so there was an overlap. Because of that she had known it was going to be a long day and a long weekend. It was nothing new to her, she'd done worse at Hogwarts.
It had been more difficult to get up today, not just because of the early hour but more that Itachi didn't seem to want to let go of her. He hadn't drunk at all last night so was more awake when she tried to escape. Not that she was trying all that hard in the first place. It was beyond tempting to stay in bed a little longer wrapped in the strong warm arms of her lover.
Max abruptly stopped thinking about the events of that morning and tried to focus on her job, also trying to fight the redness forming in her cheeks as she approached the next security team. She had been a teeny bit late this morning because of Itachi. Her alarm would be set for earlier tomorrow, just in case there was a repeat.
After she finished her route she walked along the pit wall, some cars were still going in and out to test out the setup of the car so she avoided actually walking down the middle of the pit lane. She didn't want to get run over by one of the cars.
Some of the engineers smiled at her and one of the drivers, who was talking to his race engineer, gave a short wave. She and Alex had made a friendly impression on the teams, not having the stoic attitude of most of the other agents. When pit lane looked clear she dashed across to one of the garages where she spotted Alex talking to one of the test drivers.
"Heads up on the cherubs being a couple of beers short of a six pack," Max quietly warned. Alex snorted, he'd already bumped into them but escaped quickly before they could get a better look. There was a buzz of activity as one of the teams cars came in and briefed the engineers of what he would like changed before their next couple of laps.
The way the team worked reminded Max of some of the teams back home but on a bigger scale, people knowing what to do and doing it well with everyone else doing their jobs around them. It was like watching a well oiled machine.
Max felt a burst of information, she'd figured she could post invisible clones around attached to walls and places people wouldn't be able to get, one of them had just dispelled. She allowed the information to wash over her, watching the relevant bit in a sort of split screen, her grey right eye still watching her surroundings while her left red eye watched her clones replay. It was a bonus of having a wolf demon in your head, you had a bit more control over things like this. Though it did give her a headache if she did it for too long.
There had been a bit of suspicious activity at the entrance to the pit lane from the track, the person had been removed from the site and her clone had found no evidence of tampering in any way. She allowed the image to fade from her eye and once again focused on her surrounding, everyone had been too busy to notice her zoning out. Except Alex, but he figured it was usual for her.
After the first practice Max found herself in a different garage, talking to the two German drivers in their home language, trying to regain some of the fluency she had gained with Ed and Al. It felt weird speaking German again, like using a muscle that had been idle for too long.
With a lot of people it was easy to remember a language, like a riding a bike, Max wasn't one of those people. She had worked hard to learn any language and it was easy for her to lose it, the only reason she had gained any Japanese in the first place was because of her love of Manga in its original language. She wondered if her well thumbed through English-Japanese dictionary was still on her bedside table at home. German had only come to her because of her taste in music, Rammstein being one of her favourite bands back home.
The two drivers were trying to hide their giggles when she stumbled over and horribly mispronounced some of the longer words and of course, her strange accent. They only giggle harder when she started swearing in Japanese, complaining about how German was a stupid language.
Alex had decided to poke his head in and speak fluent German setting off the German drivers laughing when Max insulted him in every language she knew how to swear in. Which was a lot, and partially the reason she hadn't learnt so much German in school, looking up swear words had been so much more interesting back then.
She was interrupted from her tirade when both Alex's and her own ear-pieces, which connected to their radios, squawked into life alerting them to the fact they needed to know something. It was a courtesy in case they had company as the information was not something that should become public.
"I swear if it's about those cherubs then I'm quitting," Max grumbled as she left, she would fill in Alex, leaving him with the two German drivers. She knew they were probably laughing at her grasp of their language but she didn't mind as much as she let on, it was a way of breaking the tension.
"Rho here, Report? Over," she spoke clearly into the microphone that rested on her cheek an inch or so from her mouth.
"A man has been apprehended at the end of the pit lane. Be on the look out for anything suspicious. Out." Max smirked, having seen it from her clones view point, she clicked a button to acknowledge the info, it kept down on the radio chatter. The less chatter there was, the harder it was to identify their frequency and listen in.
The worst part of a mission like this was the waiting. Especially if you have a gut instinct that something will happen, something big. Max had that gut feeling. But by the end of the second free practice there had been no sign of trouble. End of the practice for the day wasn't the end of her day though, there was still plenty of time for something to happen. It would just be less interesting with no cars going around the circuit with the music of their lovely V8 engines.
Max considered the rest of the weekend, letting herself figure out what she would do and when she would likely act. She probably should have done this earlier but she often forgot. Now she was sat on top of the newly built wing immersing herself in her imagination, looking for the plan that someone else was going to set in motion.
It was difficult when the target could be many things. Maybe someone would want to screw up the race and cause all the cars to crash by some form of sabotage, or perhaps not let some of them race by kidnapping or threatening them. F1 drivers earn a load of money, sometimes on par with football players, so it wasn't unlikely that there could be a ransom situation. Similar with a car, worth a million pounds each and loads of high tech stuff, it was easier to steal a driver though.
It wasn't just the drivers who were high profile potential targets with all the guests that would be around on the race day. That was going to be a nightmare and a half.
The sun had long since dipped below the horizon by the time Max got back to the guest home. It was nice to see it in one piece, hopefully she would find the guys in one piece too, and with any luck her dignity would also be intact and no embarrassing stories were shared. She held very little hope for that last one.
She snuck into the sitting room, creeping up on Itachi, holding a finger to her lips to indicate to Tony that he shouldn't point her out. When she was close enough she put her hands over his eyes, her mind pointing out there was no way he didn't know she was there, she just wondered what he would do. It didn't quite end how she had expected as seconds later she found herself sprawled ungracefully in Itachi's lap.
"Hola," she greeted, twisting around so she could see them both, now lying across Itachi's lap, letting his warmth seep through her wet clothes. All of the tension from her muscles seemed to melt away as she relaxed.
"Stressful day?" Tony asked, giving her a pointed look, he wasn't quite comfortable with how she was lying across Itachi but as an older brother he had a right to disapprove.
"No, just boring, nothing good happens during Friday practice other than the occasional detour off the track," Max yawned, she shivered a bit causing Itachi to pull her up into a warm hug and push his cup of hot chocolate into her hands.
"Wear a jacket tomorrow." There were unspoken words between them as They remembered the result of the last time she got ill. Tony noticed the atmosphere turn awkward but chose not to delve into it.
"So, what happens tomorrow?" Max smiled a bit and explained, there would be the third free practice in the morning then qualifying in the afternoon. Qualifying had three parts, after the first one the seven slowest drivers were knocked out, their places were confirmed on the grid in the last seven spots, after the second qualifying the slowest seven were locked in place and ten went to the last qualifying session to decide that order. After each session the times were reset so they had to do at least one lap during the session, unless they hadn't made it that far.
Also the top ten cars, once qualified in the third session, were not allowed to be altered in any way and the drivers were weighed to make sure their car met the minimum required weight with them. Max narrowed her eyes as she explained the last point, if she had to pick a time to kidnap any drivers that would be it, just before the press conference with the top three drivers. Assuming any of the drivers were targets. She had a sinking feeling about this.
Any resemblance to real people in entirely coincidental :P
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