Hülkenberg
”Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Emmerich. The temperature outside is around 12°C, and the local time is 8am. We thank you for choosing to fly with FlyHülkenberg.
Meine Damen und Herren, wilkommen zurück in Emmerich…”
Home sweet home. Well, airport sweet airport. After two hectic trials in Liventia and Diarcesia, Dario was finally back on Hülkenberger soil - not that he would be there for long, since he had to be in Auruna the day after, but still. He would be able to rest, recuperate, and do many other things that begin with “R”… including “race”. If he wanted to get any better, he’d have to get himself back up to speed with racing, and he knew just the place that would be able to do that.
HMG Entwicklungszentrum
Emmerich
Dario hadn’t spoken to HMG since he had his last debrief as a rally driver, but he was still technically an employee of HMG-Rally, which allowed him to enter the building without any need for him to obtain a visitor’s pass (not that he’d need one, considering he’d probably have gotten in anyway) or any other sort of access card. Hence, he walked straight into the building and headed towards the office of Jöhan Turbringer, Head of Development at HMG (and Team Principal of HMG-Rally).
*knock knock knock knock knock, knock knock*
“Christ, careful! You’ll break the glass if you knock it too hard.”
“Well, I had to get your attention somehow, didn’t I? It’s Dario, by the way.”
“Mate, I can see you through the glass - I knew it was you as soon as I saw you coming down the hall. Now, what are you here for?”
“Right, so you know how I’m an überfamous WGPC driver with bucketloads of money?”
“Yes, you mentioned all of this when I hired you for the rally team.”
“Well, I have a teeny-weeny question that I’d like to ask you.”
“Go on?”
“Can I use your simulator?”
“What, the simulator that’s built for rally cars?”
“Yes, that one. The state of the art simulator that YOU mentioned when you hired me.”
“It’s not best suited for simulating WGPC-spec vehicles, Dario. I mean, you’ll remember from when you used it - the steering wheel is rally-spec, the instruments are rally-spec, every single bit of it is rally-spec.”
“What, so you can’t just download WGPC simulator software onto it?”
“It’s possible, but it wouldn’t be much better than, say, just playing it on a games console.”
“Can I do that? The playing it on a console, I mean.”
“Well, yeah - there’s a console in the break room, if you’re wanting to use it. It has a copy of ‘WGPC: The Game’, albeit it’s not the latest version out there.”
“Ach, bugger it - I’ll go and play that then.”
“Oh, but make sure you don’t disturb any of the adjacent rooms while you’re at it - they’re working on some top secret stuff, and they won’t want any überfamous übernumpties disturbing them.”
With that, Dario walked over to the break room and tried to forget about the fact that his employer had just called him an “übernumpty”, no matter how true that statement was. He strode over to the console, turned it on, and grabbed the game from the adjacent shelf. On its cover was the Driver’s Champion from the year before the game was made… that being Stang Crax, Driver’s Champion of WGPC 11.
”Christ, this is a bit older than I was expecting. Meh, I’m sure it’ll be just as good.” said Dario as he inserted the disc into the console and selected the game on the screen.
SELECT YOUR DRIVER
Dario pondered the driver select screen for a while, unsure of which driver to select. Two drivers stuck out to him - Toralmintii and Cruisin - as they were still active WGPC drivers, but the rest were either completely unknown to him or only vaguely recalled from old stories of the sport.
”Hmmmmmm, who to pick…” thought Dario, endlessly scrolling through the list of drivers.
”Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a tiger by the toe, dum de dum de diddle dum, diddly diddly diddly dum! Looks like I’ll be racing as Toralmintii, then.”
After selecting Toralmintii, the game automatically selected the Talbott Autodrome as the track, and within seconds he was on-track in the #15 ‘WGPC Motorsports Two’ car.
”Catchy name for a team. I wonder if the car will be as catchy, hah.”
The car, needless to say, was pretty rubbish, both in how it was rendered on-screen, and how it performed - but that sense of vehicular connection that Dario felt during the PB trials returned to him, as if he was driving the real thing once more. As he got more used to the way that the ‘WGPC Motorsports Two’ car drove (as well as the heavily-compressed scream which was supposedly the sound of the engine), his virtual lap times began to steadily improve, and every going round every corner felt like a hot knife going through butter - gloriously gliding around the digital track.
”Man, I could really get used to this…” said Dario, fully engrossed by the set of polygons and pixels filling up the screen.
THREE HOURS LATER
The break room door opened, and into the room came Jöhan.
”Dario… how on Earth are you still here? Surely this old game isn’t THAT good - after all, it’s ancient.”
“I’m having the race of my life over here, don’t distract me! This Motorsports Two car is brilliant, man! The setup is perfectly suited to my driving needs, and the suspension is SOMETHING ELSE!”
“It’s only a game, Dario. You’re not even competing against real people, just coded software that’s meant to try and drive around the same track as you.”
“The cars, the surroundings and the tracks may not be real, but the racing is. The racing is certainly real. I could do this forever!”
“Well, you can’t - after all this hyping up you’ve done, I’d quite like a shot at the game myself, considering that I’m the guy who actually does work around here, AND you have a trial to go to tomorrow.”
“Jöhan, how would you know that?”
“You linked your email to HMG when you signed, and we saw your email exchange with Viska.”
“You can’t do that, that’s illega-“
“Oh! It says here that you’ve got an email from a guy called ‘Tauro Volante’. Let’s take a look at that, shall we?”
“No! These are MY emails, Jöhan!”
“Look here, Dario! It says ‘This is Tauro Volante, representing Badai Angin Tim Motorsport, second runners-up in the last World Grand Prix Championship season.’ Doesn’t that sound very interesting?”
“GETOFFMYFUCKINGEMAILS!”
“Fine, fine. You can thank me later for telling you about that Badai Angin Tim email, though - you should really take a look at it.”
Dario stormed out of the break room, enraged that HMG had the power to sift through his emails at any given moment. What had they seen? What could they do with this power? Had they done anything malicious? He couldn’t be sure, but he was still absolutely fuming. This didn’t stop him from responding to the email, however.
From: dnülke@hülkenbergmail.hü
To: [Tauro Volante]
Subject: RE: Badai Angin Tim private test offer
Servus!
I have received your invitation for a private test, and all I have to say is: you can absolutely count on me coming to Jakulta International Raceway! I’d be delighted to test out the BAP003, especially considering the team’s finish last season. I’ll have to participate in the Viska trials before I get there, but you can absolutely expect me to be there!
Regards,
Dario Nülkeschläger
(Former) WGPC and WSRC Driver
With the email sent, it was time to go back home and get ready to fly out to Veratuna. He was sure that his newfound experience on the console would help with this trial, and he hoped for the best…
(It did not help, and he did not get the best of results. Needless to say, he hoped for much better at the Badai Angin Tim test :P)
