(OOC: With thanks to Hapilopper for providing some details about the building!)
Just outside Hapilopper Television Network Headquarters, Hapilopper City, Hapilopper
Post-Season
Olivia saw the HTN building before now, in pictures – the ones she looked at on the map to guide her way ere. In person, it looks a little taller than it did back then.
Hapiloppian skyscrapers, like in many countries, tend towards the strictly utilitarian: towers of unpainted steel and glass, look-alike monoliths looming above the brick and concrete pavements below and the people who walk upon them, and the HTN’s is little different. The red letters emblazoned upon its heights and its doors are its only distinguishing mark.
She looks back down to ground level, blinking as her eyes focus on her more immediate surroundings again: the sound and smell of combustion-engined cars rushing along the street a few metres ahead of her, the flashes of black, white and occasionally dark-coloured business clothing from the people walking past, the weight of her coat’s hood fallen from her head and the cold clarity of the rushing air upon it.
Her gaze centres on Baxen standing across the pavement from her, sure and attentive as ever, his tablet in his hands.
Brendan and Cygnus’ performance… Had been what it had been. Olivia smiles fondly. It seemed strange that she didn’t care so much, at least at first, but as she considered the matter it made more sense: she was never committed in the same way she had been when she was driving. Instead, being part of that team, with a plucky crew and an up-and-coming driver discovered from nowhere, helping them as best she knew… It felt good, meaningful, regardless of result.
It makes the fact that she cut ties with them only days ago a touch painful. No need to sweep them up in whatever Maelstrom might result from this.
Olivia takes a breath. Looks up again.
I’ve seen thousands of these at home. The only differences are the lack of green, the lack of any connecting walkways to see it from anything like an equal height and the fact that without those letters I couldn’t have picked it out of a half-dozen others if I’d tried.
In that light, the great neon lettering seems less proclamative, more… Desperately attention-seeking, compensating for its anonymous surroundings.
Doesn’t quite take the shivers away, but it helps.
Olivia nods. Baxen rejoins her. He raises his device’s camera.
Then he halts the air in a glowing, horseshoe-shaped barrier around them.
(A relatively small one. No sense in being arrested for blocking a public thoroughfare as well as vandalism.)
“Hey.” It’s fortunate that the barrier, by its nature, deadens sound. The confused voices of the people outside would be even more of a distraction than they are floating over it. (Also, it would produce quite the echo.) “My name’s Olivia Stone. Some of you might know me as a racing driver; plenty of you probably won’t know me at all.”
“I’m currently standing outside the offices of the Hapilopper Television Network. I’m here because I want to correct the record at what happened at the Grand Prix here a few weeks ago.” True. Would it help raise her profile? Probably. But… Answering that revulsion against the idea of letting things stand as they are is more important. The truth pounds in the back of her mind.
“Some of the people in the building behind me seem thought that Nexus Racing were responsible for painting over that target. They weren’t, unless I dreamed of sneaking onto a track in the freezing air at night with several buckets of paint. Seems too clear in my memory for that, somehow.”
She smiles. Calm, now. Relaxed.
“So, yes, that was me, and my race engineer and dear friend Baxen Aurora, and also an artist away from the track that we commissioned so we actually had something that looked nice come out of it, whatever Duke Postlehwaite’s own aesthetic sensibilities have to say about it.” Zara, they’d talked to beforehand – they’d been genuinely enthusiastic about being implicated alongside them. “We didn’t have help from any of the teams or other drivers, and they didn’t know anything either.”
“You’ll have heard any number of people saying any number of things about the campaign, and how distasteful it was, and all of that. Why we did it, though, was a lot simpler.”
Olivia raises a hand to her chest. “I know that being a racing driver comes with fame, and everything that comes with that. I know that, out on track and sometimes off it, people are going to be looking at me, and cheering me on, or rooting against me, or speculating about where I’ll finish or, yes, whether I finish at all. And that’s fine.” And it is.
“But there’s a line, and that line is what we need to be people.”
“It’s why I stepped in when Rudy Edwards was getting hounded at Hwoarang. The stress he was under, having the eyes of the world on you – I know that stress, and sometimes it’s just too much to function. Because we’re people. That’s the line. But even more than that, to race and get joy out of it, to find meaning in it, we need to know that everyone running it is trying as hard as they can to prevent something that could hurt us – not treating it, and us, as a commodity. Because we’re people. That’s the line.”
“I’m glad that people in the motorsports community seemed to agree, and that they made bringing more attention onto this worthwhile. You’ll probably know that, because of them, Venerable are going to be doing Hapilopper’s motorsport coverage instead of HTN from now on. Of course, the question to ask, then: why am I here?”
“Part of it’s like I said, to correct the record. I don’t want clouds over anyone else’s heads for this; it’s mine and Baxen’s to own. But the other part is because HTN is also made up of people and, now that all the facts are known, they have a right of reply.” She glances up at the monolith, once more. It doesn’t seem quite so imposing this time, somehow. “If someone from their sporting division wants to come down to announce that they’ve seen the error of their ways, or to rant at me and call me a disruptive child, or something else entirely… Well, they can. They have until someone from the Hapilopper City Police notices this twii.tur post, because after that I’ll be going with them!”
“So… Yeah. That’s all of that. Ah… Hope that you all enjoyed the season, and that you’ll be seeing a little more of me when the next one comes around!” Olivia grins. “Gah, I don’t know how to finish this – Baxen, just cut the camera.”
And he does. And Olivia lets out a laugh, and slumps.
Satisfied.
“And…” Baxen taps decisively. “Posted. For the world to see.”
“Good… Good. Thanks, Ba-” Olivia freezes.
Imagination – did he notice he stopped focusing on the barrier – he’s Baxen, he would surely – maybe he ran out, or…
Oh, that’s a lot of people standing there. That… That light hid them all pretty well, didn’t it?
Eep.
