The sim room was cold, not by accident but by design—machine heat and mental pressure had a way of building up, and the engineers preferred chilled air to tempers flaring. The only light came from the monitors, casting a faint blue glow over carbon-fiber chairs and blinking equipment.

Max sat in the simulator rig, jaw clenched, headset loose around his neck. The telemetry graph flickered across the central screen: sharp inputs, a fraction too much brake into Turn 10. His lap delta dipped red again, by just enough to annoy him.

Someone cleared their throat near the monitor bank. Max didn’t turn. He knew who was scheduled to observe the session. He’d seen the file—sim strategist, esports background, recruited from a sector that lived in 1s and 0s instead of g-forces and tire degradation.

He took another lap. The tires felt wrong. No—he felt wrong. The car was too twitchy in sector two, the braking too late or too cautious and somehow both at once.

Another lap. Another small mistake.

The voice that finally broke the silence wasn’t smug or eager—just calm. Analytical.

“You’re chasing the apex too early. It’s bleeding speed into the chicane.”

Max exhaled through his nose, half a scoff. Not because it was wrong. Because it wasn’t.