The World Grand Prix Collateral Committee

Conclusions

So there he was, hyperventilating in a loo stall. Almost like a regular car about to be sentenced to death.

Well, he wasn't sure he'd get a death sentence, but even removal from the field would feel like one. And he already felt half-dead from the overnight flight back to HQ; they'd made him fly commercial, so he was almost assassinated about five times. Between those attempted assassinations, he ruminated on his regrets.

At least there weren't any new regrets. No, he had already made an exhaustive list about what went wrong during the WGP while he was on bed rest. He'd tried to put it out of mind, but ever since the Committee visited him, anxiety had loomed in his engine. He was no stranger to collateral damage, but there had never been a task force dedicated to cleaning up after his screw-ups. After the last major infraction (the Great Flamingo Disaster of Jersey City, it still sent a shudder through his frame), he was informed that he was at risk of being "Instructed." As in, being made an instructor at the Agent Academy.

Oh, how he hated the Academy. The trainees were sharks. They had to be; the instructors were all forcibly retired Agents, bitter toward the handlers and too willing to channel their frustration into criticizing the students. And while he hoped he could be one of the uplifting instructors, he suspected he'd eventually end up one of the resentful ones. He'd only had one instructor who actually liked their job— his martial arts instructor, probably the only reason he even stayed to graduate.

(He'd also excelled in his language classes, but only because he wanted to prove his instructors wrong when they said he "probably couldn't handle more than five languages.")

You know, maybe a death sentence wouldn't be so bad. Death was inevitable, after all— there wasn't any shame in it. And he'd killed plenty of cars, directly and indirectly, so it only made sense that he wouldn't get a peaceful demise—

The restroom door's slow, deliberate crrrrreeeeeaaaak sent his RPM skyrocketing. A low hum grew louder as someone entered. "Finn? Are you in here?"

Holley. Dash it all. He instinctively froze in place, hoping against hope that she would leave. He'd suspected she might come after him— she'd tried to talk to him when he first rolled into the lobby, before he slipped away and holed up in the loo.

It wasn't that he specifically wanted to avoid her, but she just happened to be around cars he did want to avoid. Like several vehicles that bore the insignia of C.H.R.O.M.E.'s investigative branch. Or his handler. Or those beady-eyed blokes from Accounting, who had probably drafted his redundancy package by now.

Despite his best efforts to phase through the floor, Holley's purple-tinged shadow stopped directly in front of his stall. "I saw you come in here... half an hour ago... Are you sick? Or did your suspension break again?"

Only a heartless terrorist would refuse to respond to such a worried plea. And Finn wasn't a heartless terrorist (at least, not on purpose). So he forced a chuckle loud enough for her to hear (but not so loud that it sounded fake). "Seems like I finally got you in the men's loo, Miss Shiftwell."

"Y-Yes, I suppose. It's lovely. Anyway, they're about to start. You should be there."

"The investigation team has already made a verdict. It doesn't matter if I'm in the room or not. Tell me how it goes."

"Finn, I think our handler is here— I don't know what they look like, but—"

"And I'm almost certain our handler has me on a tracker, if they care to find me."

"Don't you want to say something to Siddeley? I'll have him on a video call, since he can't fit in the meeting room. He probably won't talk much."

Lucky chap. "You can give him my regards."