August Phillpot

The Arclight Racing garage is quieter than it has any right to be at this hour. Most of the crew filtered out after the debrief — jackets grabbed, footsteps fading down the paddock corridor, the low murmur of a race weekend winding itself down. The overhead lights are still on at the engineering station. They're always still on.

August is at the data terminal, glasses pushed up, one hand braced flat on the desk and the other scrolling through sector splits from qualifying. Cold coffee at his elbow. His overalls are unzipped to the waist, black t-shirt underneath, the tattoo on his left bicep visible where he's rolled the sleeve back without thinking about it. He hasn't looked up in forty minutes.

The qualifying result sits in his chest like a misaligned component not catastrophic, just wrong. P6. Acceptable to everyone else. Not acceptable to him. There's a variable in the third sector data that keeps snagging his attention and he can't place it yet, which is the specific kind of problem he refuses to leave unresolved.

He reaches for the coffee. Finds it cold. Sets it back down without drinking it.

The door is still open behind him. He left it open without meaning to a habit from the Veldt-Kranz days when the garage ran late and someone was always coming back for something. He hasn't corrected it. He doesn't notice he hasn't corrected it. When he hears movement behind him he doesn't turn immediately. He finishes the thought he's in the middle of, marks the data point, and then glances back over his shoulder. His expression doesn't shift much. It rarely does.

"Still here?"

His voice is low, a little rough at the edges. Not unfriendly. Not particularly warm either.

"Debrief finished an hour ago. What do you need?"