Chapter 54: Race Day Approaches
DING.
[ Day 99 check-in complete. ]
[ Congratulations — Intersect 1.0 fully loaded. ]
[ Note: Chuck Bartowski has not yet received a new system module. Subsequent check-ins will generate universal XP until an upgrade becomes available. ]
Simon was standing in the Buy More's break room reading the notification when Devon came in looking for him.
It had taken three months and three days of daily check-ins. Ninety-nine consecutive days of proximity to Chuck Bartowski — coffee breaks, floor shifts, operational situations, a firefight in a retail store. And now the Intersect 1.0 database was fully loaded and integrated.
He had, in his head, the complete classified intelligence database of the NSA and CIA as of its last synchronization date.
He sat with that for a moment.
Then Devon started talking and pulled him back.
Devon Woodcomb was a large man in his late twenties who moved through the world with the easy confidence of someone who was very good at his profession and genuinely liked people — both qualities that made him unusually effective as an ER physician and, apparently, as a person trying to propose to his girlfriend.
He was currently manifesting neither confidence nor ease.
"I've planned everything," Devon said. "Restaurant, reservation, ring, speech — I rehearsed the speech. I know, I know, that sounds—"
"Rehearsing is smart," Simon said.
"She's going to say yes," Devon said, not quite convincingly. "Right? I mean — I know she's going to say yes. But what if—"
"Devon." Simon looked at him directly. "Ellie's going to say yes. You know this. The uncertainty you're feeling isn't about her answer — it's about the moment of asking being out of your control."
Devon stared at him.
"You're a doctor," Simon said. "You operate in controlled environments with clear protocols. This has no protocol. That's what's uncomfortable. Not the outcome."
Devon processed this for about four seconds.
"That's..." He exhaled. "Yeah. That's exactly it."
"The answer is yes," Simon said. "Go ask the question."
Chuck, who had been in the break room for this entire conversation, spoke up. "What he said. Completely. And Ellie — she's going to be happy about it. I know my sister."
Devon looked between them. "I should've come to you guys first instead of spending three days spiraling."
"That's what we're here for," Simon said. "Go. You have a dinner reservation."
Devon shook their hands with the vigor of a man who had just received exactly what he needed, and left.
Simon looked at Chuck.
"If Devon can do it," Simon said.
Chuck looked at him.
"I'm just noting," Simon said, "that Devon is proposing to someone tonight. He's terrified and he's doing it anyway." He picked up his coffee. "I'm not saying anything else."
Chuck's expression did several things simultaneously.
Simon went back to work.
The text came at eight forty-seven PM, during the last hour of his shift.
No greeting. No explanation. Just a date, a location, and a start time.
December 2-4. Mojave Motorsports Complex, California. Entry confirmed.
Simon looked at it for a moment, then pocketed his phone.
The invitational. Three days, starting in eight days.
He found Big Mike in the office, which was where Big Mike spent most of his time when the floor wasn't actively requiring his presence.
"Mike. I need December 1st through 4th off."
Big Mike looked up from whatever he was reading. "Okay."
Simon waited for the follow-up question.
There wasn't one.
"Okay," Simon said. "Thanks."
He left.
He drove to Dom's garage after his shift.
"Test run tonight," he said, walking in. "Who's running with me?"
Letty looked at him. "Against your car right now? No thank you."
"You don't know what it's running yet."
"I know enough," she said. "I've been listening to that engine for two weeks. I'm not racing it."
"Dom?"
Dom looked up from the Charger's engine bay. "Pass."
Jesse shook his head without looking up from what he was doing. Vince made a gesture that communicated his answer without requiring words.
"Fine," Simon said. "I'll take it out myself."
He got into the Mustang.
The startup had become one of his favorite sounds — the 5.0 catching and settling into its idle, the particular voice of an engine that had been rebuilt from first principles and knew what it was for. He'd put approximately three hundred hours into this car since October. Every component that could be optimized had been. Every system that could be upgraded had been.
He pulled out of the garage and found the on-ramp.
At two hundred and twenty-eight miles per hour, the Mojave Freeway at midnight felt approximately the right width.
He held it there for fifteen seconds — long enough to confirm the stability, to feel the aerodynamics, to verify that everything was talking to everything else the way it was supposed to — and then backed down.
Not because he was out of power. Because he wasn't.
He still had engine management room. The tune was conservative on the boost curve because he'd been building toward the invitational conditions rather than maxing for a straight-line number. He could feel another fifteen to twenty miles per hour sitting in the system, waiting for him to ask for it.
He took the exit and turned back toward the garage.
"Two twenty-eight," he said, when he walked back in.
Letty whistled. Then stopped herself.
"Still not racing it," she said.
"I know." He opened the hood. "I need to adjust the boost curve and the fuel delivery. I think I'm leaving power on the table."
Dom walked over and looked at the engine.
"The intake temperature is running high at the top of the curve," Dom said.
"I know. I need a wider intercooler outlet or I need to drop the boost ceiling two PSI and compensate on the fuel side."
"Wider outlet," Dom said. "The fuel compensation approach caps your peak at a worse number and costs you throttle response in the mid-range."
"That's what I thought," Simon said. "You have anything that fits?"
Dom walked to the parts shelves. Came back with a component that was approximately the right size. Handed it over.
"Try that," he said.
Simon spent the next ninety minutes on the intercooler modification, the boost curve adjustment, and a fuel map recalibration that he ran through three iterations before the numbers looked the way he wanted them to.
By midnight he had what he needed on paper. He'd verify it with a run tomorrow.
He closed the hood, cleaned his hands, and looked at the car.
Eight days.
The Buy More's parking lot, when Simon arrived the next morning, had three police cruisers in it.
He parked and walked toward the entrance with the careful pace of someone who was approaching an unknown situation and wanted to read it before entering it.
The store's interior was visible through the glass doors.
He stopped.
The Buy More was empty.
Not quiet — empty. Every product was gone. Every display was cleared. The shelving units themselves were gone. The floor was bare concrete from wall to wall, and the police officers inside were walking through a space that had until last night contained approximately two million dollars of retail inventory and now contained nothing.
Simon pushed through the door.
Chuck was standing near the center of the empty floor with the specific expression of someone who has experienced something so outside the normal range of events that their face hasn't quite decided how to respond.
"The store was robbed," Chuck said.
Simon looked around.
"All of it," Chuck said.
"All of it," Simon confirmed.
"Every product. Every display. The shelving units. The display tables." Chuck paused. "And Devon's engagement ring. He'd left it in my locker this morning because he was nervous about having it on him all day, and he asked me to hold it, and now my locker is also gone."
Simon absorbed this.
"Devon," he said carefully, "is proposing tonight."
"Yes."
"And the ring is—"
"Gone. Yes."
Simon thought about the operational implications. An entire retail store emptied overnight, silently, without triggering any alarm system or leaving any evidence of entry. That was not a robbery. That was a controlled government sweep — the specific kind that happened when an intelligence agency needed to remove something from an environment and had decided the cleanest method was to remove the entire environment.
Which meant something in the Buy More had become a liability to the operation. And Casey's team had handled it the way Casey's team handled things — comprehensively and without warning.
"Dev's going to—" Chuck started.
"Call Sarah," Simon said.
Chuck looked at him. "Why Sarah?"
"Because whoever did this—" Simon chose his words. "She'll know how to fix it."
Chuck's phone rang.
He looked at the screen. Showed it to Simon.
Casey.
"Take it," Simon said.
Chuck answered. Listened for thirty seconds. Ended the call.
"I have to go," Chuck said. "Casey needs me."
"Now?"
"Now."
Simon looked at the empty store around them — the bare concrete, the police officers doing their work, the complete absence of everything that had made this a retail establishment twelve hours ago.
"I'll cover with Mike," Simon said.
"He's going to—"
"I know. Go."
Chuck went.
Simon walked toward Big Mike's office, which was the only thing in the building that appeared to still contain furniture, and knocked on the door.
"Come in," Big Mike said.
Simon opened the door.
Big Mike was sitting behind his desk looking at his phone with the expression of a man who had walked into his store this morning, found it completely empty, and was still working out how to file that as an insurance claim.
"Chuck had to leave," Simon said. "Family emergency."
Big Mike looked up. Then looked back at his phone. Then looked at Simon again.
"The entire store," Big Mike said. "They took the entire store."
"I know."
"The shelving units," Big Mike said.
"I know."
"Who takes the shelving units?"
Simon had no answer for this that he was in a position to give.
"Someone will figure it out," he said. "Is there anything you need me to do today? Given the—" He gestured at the general situation.
Big Mike looked at him for a long moment.
"Go home, Simon," he said. "I need to think."
Simon went.
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