Page 69 of Dirty Air
While waiting for the third round to load, Fritz whips out his phone, takes a picture of the loading screen, and sends it to Henry.
I will not have time to sleep at this rate.
He’s surprised when he gets an immediate reply.
Who did you pick as your favorite driver?
Guess.
Me too.
Fritz’s heart does not flutter. Not even a little.
I picked William.
Me too.
Fritz laughs and tosses his phone away as the game starts up again. He’s lured into a false sense of security by the first two runs and doesn’t expect Dieter’s hand to fly past his face.
“Fuck!” Fritz exclaims, driving the digital car straight into abarrier. He feels immediately stupid for it, since this is the whole reason why they’re doing this.
“That was pretty bad.”
“Yeah, whatever.” It’s fine. He still has two more laps to make it up.
Another hand and Fritz freezes again, but at least he doesn’t crash. Still, the game has sound and the sudden cut off of the accelerator is loud in the otherwise silent room.
Fritz clenches his jaw and keeps his head down. He tries to finish the next lap in record time to make up for it.
Dieter jots down the average time that the game provides. Despite the congratulatory screen and the text that says he’s just as good as a real Formation 1 driver, Fritz knows his lap times aren’t going to cut it for tomorrow.
He checks his phone during the two minutes, opening his missed messages from Henry.
Mind if I join?
I can bring my charts, so you have something to do in between laps.
We can also go over a backup plan, in case desensitization doesn’t work.
Sleep is also important.
Fritz can’t imagine having more work to do when he’s already so exhausted, but having Henry there could help pass the time.
Room 1847
“Hey, my race engineer is on his way,” Fritz warns as thecountdown dips below ten seconds. “Can you open the door when he gets here?”
“You invited him to your hotel room?” Dieter asks with a leer, right as the game starts again.
“Shut up, I am driving.”
Henry arrives during the second lap, and Fritz strains his ears to hear them talk over the sound of his fake car.
“How’s he doing?”
“We did a few laps without interruption for a baseline, but he hasn’t been close to that since.”
“One secondisclose to that!” Fritz yells as he guides the fake car through the turns.
