Down Jersey Driveshaft (Book One of the Diesel Series 1)

by William J. Jackson

  In the cacophony of warfare, Crank never hears Benny's verbal trauma. If she had, she would have heard something like this:

  "You could have shot them the whole time? There's been a gun, a machinegun, in your trunk all along? So...what is wrong with you when you're behind the wheel? Is this some Catholic guilt thing? Huh? Can't do something without taking out people's livelihood, committing a few felonies, almost kill a cop? Huh! Crank. Crank! I know you hear me...!"

  And she probably does. But, better to ignore him and drive full speed to the hangar, down the quieter side of town and its rows of Victorian homes. She can only think about getting word to Special Technologies. Crank dreads it. Explaining that Salem is under a rainstorm of antagonistic robots also means explaining how she missed this particular tactic, never saw it coming. Ah well.

  What's done is done.

  As the Slicks begin flying again, as Benny continues his rant and grabbing the dashboard as if it were a lifesaver, Crank zooms down Broadway, feeling the anxiety of the near future well up inside her body.

  Chapter Six: The Tough Get Going

  La Donna veers into Barber's Basin, an emerald bat with piercing high beams. Brakes screech as Miss Musa slams her baby into park inside the hangar. The massive garage door closes, as two young ST bucks peer out into the horror movie night, looking for Slicks to land on their heads at any time. Crank had radioed the alert on the mad dash. No war comes to the Basin, yet.

  "Are you insane?" Benny's got the high pitch going again as he exits the Crankmobile. "You call that driving? That was driving to you?"

  Frederica gets out, slams her door shut. Like an angry tot, she storms off, arms swinging perfectly straight, head battering ram forward, lips in a 'looks even better when she’s angry' bend. She heads for the dome break room. Benny follows, whining about machineguns and store eaves. The other two guys follow, but not due to nosiness. Something's going on. They're pointing the opposite direction and stuttering, but the mechanic and pilot are too caught up in their tussle.

  The door to the dome slams shut. Crank takes a seat and crosses her arms high up on her chest. The door rips open before slamming again. Here's Benny! He wags a lecturing finger at his partner. She puffs her cheeks, looks the other way. "Listen here, sweetheart! I don't know what you thought that was on Broadway, but it's reckless driving in my book! And don't even think about blaming me this time for the Stylemaster's dings!"

  The door creeps open, as the two young bucks stride in. This is not indifferent Bobby Meyer. Nope. It's Ninny, as in of the nervous persuasion, a nail biting Joe fresh from the bloody rice fields of the Far East. He's accompanied by Skinny Bubba, the hangar's lone colored mechanic (ST doesn't discriminate...unless you chose to be a dame). At six foot five, he's only skinny in his ankles. They try to interrupt...

  "Hey guys!"

  "We're talking here!" Benny roars. Crank keeps up the holding breath routine.

  "But guys - -!"

  "I said we are talking here! Where was I? Oh yeah. Look Crank, I can get over the fight with the ladies, the crazy movie like German cinema gone haywire, even the Slicks changing course. But you gotta clue a fella in on your mad tactics! What's the benefit of destroying half of West Broadway, except making Motherville's job easier?"

  "Benny!" Crank snaps the name like a bullwhip. Hands ease down to the hips like flesh triggers for her gun of a mouth. "Now is not the time, okay! I care about Say-lem just as much as anybody else, but at the end of the day, I'm the only one who's going to pay for it!"

  "Yeah, speaking of paying..." Ninny interjects.

  Benny leaves Frederica to roll up in Ninny's haggard face. "Listen Brother! I don't know why it's so blamed hard to get you to understand the English language, but this talk is between me and my partner. Bad enough Calamity Jane just about got us killed with her lack of field experience, but now I gotta come here and chew you slackjaws out? Mind your own business!"

  "Ease up, Dad!" Skinny Bubba offered it nice, but a voice that deep from a cat that tall, well...

  "Stop calling me Dad! Why is everyone calling me that! Can we stay on topic for one - -?"

  The door to the dome opens again. This time, the guy entering doesn't have on a one-piece jumper, or greasy rags in his back pocket. Oh no. This cat comes well groomed, spit and polish, the whole shebang. He's a tall guy, six-one maybe, but his uniform silences the room. It's black as night, crisp with three gold buttons on the leather jacket and a rectangle of funny insignias on the upper left pocket. Pants are pressed, black shoes reflect the light. He wears black leather driving gloves this blond man under the dark ST cap. He reminds Benny of Joseph Cotten.

  "That’s what we've been tryin' to tell y'all!" the young bucks whisper.

  New Guy raises a hand, his arm precisely at a ninety degree angle. "It's...okay, gentlemen. I'll take it from here." A chintzy chuckle accompanies the sparkling smile above his indented chin.

  Crank pays attention now! Her fears well up until they become physical, a lump in her slender white throat. Gulp! "Traveler Coursey! What brings you to the Northeast?" She skips across the room and presents Coursey with a fine salute. Coursey returns the favor, but never looks at the young lady. He keeps his peepers on Benjamin Haskins.

  "At ease Mechanic. Hello, sir. Traveler Johnathan Coursey, head of North American and Central Divisions for Special Technologies. You must be the Milkman pilot I've heard about." He speaks with a cocksure tone, an egotistical wave in his voice that makes Benny's face wrinkle with every undulation. Coursey puts forth a hand. Benny shakes it, all the while noticing Coursey said the title Mechanic as if it should have quotations around it.

  "Riiigghht," Haskins slithers. "That's me. Ah, what's with the Traveler title thingie?"

  "You don't remember?" Crank withers from angry Joan of Arc to sulking Prima Donna. "The ranks of ST? I told you already. ST has one Chief, Fish, followed by regional directors called Travelers, twenty-five Scholars, and seventy-one Mechanics." She ends with a muffled, "Don't embarrass me." Her head lowers, hair droops over her face, making the eye circles deep dark chasms, a frightening beauty.

  Benny sucks his teeth at the remark. "Okay. So, what brings you by, Traveler?" He stifles a laugh, for the title sounds way too Buck Rogers for his taste.

  "Well, it would appear I arrived just in time, as our most recent data indicated a change of Slick dynamics. That data is accurate, as tonight's attack confirmed. I made it into town in a G505 full of special equipment. Others should arrive here by boat."

  "So what should we do?" Crank wonders. She starts to tremble from nerves. The Judge had arrived. She awaits being relieved of her duties for not knowing what would happen. Her mouth dries out. "I think Benny could take Milkman up and out for reconnaissance, maybe even find the current Slick hive."

  "What do you think, Captain Haskins?" Coursey asks it in an even more cocky tone. Benny finds himself backhanded by confusion and wanting to punch Traveler's voice box out.

  "Captain?"

  "Captain?" Crank echoes, moving into Coursey's presence. He never looks her way, or even Benny's. The guy stares off as if he were basking in the adulation of an audience made up of his own imagination.

  "A man can't train pilots unless he has rank. And I have received permission from Chief Fish to give that rank to whomever I deem." Coursey smiles to the invisible fandom. Benny and Crank forget their argument, staring at one another in absolute disbelief.

  "What about Crank?" Haskins remembers his partner's doubts. "If she's out, I'm out. Besides, where are we gonna find pilots around here? Last I heard, they were all in Europe or the Pacific. And, we have one plane. Robot. Plane. Whatever."

  Coursey takes a seat, dusting it off before sitting down. "The little girl here is fine, just fine. She has a Mechanic rating, after all." Arrogant guffaw. "But let's be honest. She builds and repairs. Real fighting is performed by soldiers of the land, sea and air. She's no fighter. You are. Congratulations on the promotion, sir."

  Ben
ny feels at odds. At last, he can get in the war! At last, somebody agrees he can handle rank. However...

  "Thank you. But let's stop the whole little girl routine about my partner. I came into this only under the agreement I work with Crank. She's my mechanic, my equal."

  The decree erases Coursey's grin. "Fine, Haskins. Fine." A fake grin replaced the narcissistic one. "Have it your way. She is a dish. Can't blame you for wanting to have your cake...and eat it too."

  Benny stampedes the Traveler. It takes Skinny Bubba at Haskins' shoulders, Crank wrapped around his waist and Ninny grasping the right ankle to keep the Brown Bear from wringing Coursey's neck. It would make a fine circus act if lives weren't at stake. Traveler sits cool as a cucumber, pulling out a steel file to clean under his fingernails.

  "Well now, if we're done with the introductions, shall we get to work before the Slicks beat down our door?"

  Out went the leisure pace of mechanized planning, the putting together of cars with special properties ala La Donna for a war in the streets. While the mechanics in ST had thus far rebuilt three '42 Fleetline Aerosedans (Crank drives Chevy. Crew drives Chevy) for urban combat, three may not be enough. Sensing this in advance, Johnathan Coursey ordered pilots from Millville to come to Salem. Five hours passed with no word from them, no knock on the hangar door or ship at the dock. Problem Number Two Hundred.

  The pace quickens. Benny goes over the new way to wage war with Crank. Together, they pour over notes in a pamphlet lodged under the seat of Milkman, notes supposedly penned by one Roscoe Turner on making the machine do flips in flight, transformative combat, quick hop take offs and so forth. Ninny and Skinny finish armor plating the Fleetlines, but manage (under Frederica's tutelage) to place collapsible anti-aircraft guns in the back seats. They work nonstop, everyone learning something new, wondering if it would all work.

  In the meantime, Coursey sips on tea with lemon and listened to local radio chatter.

  ...metallic curiosities, sighted by a respectable police officer in the city of Salem, have aroused panic in the population...

  ...the governor of New Jersey has been called upon to assess the situation directly...

  ...was the Jersey Devil really an army of foul-smelling robots all along?

  ...recruitment at the Salem branch of the State Guard has amplified tenfold. Captain Wiswell O'Neil states...

  It was reality now. No longer could ST keep the Slicks a secret. People would want answers, their fears alleviated. Johnathan Coursey knew he could not offer it. The only answer he had any authorization to elicit would be by bullets and bombs. He looked out of the dome's window at his laborious crew and its female leader, and felt pride at the group he selected. Find the Slicks and wage the battle, while finding the small army enroute, and hoping they survived the night.

  Come daybreak, ST would go on the hunt.

  Dawn in Salem County, and Benjamin Haskins is in the mirror. He now wears a different kind of fine suit, one of jet black, tailor made overnight using the standard ST pattern. A black tie is tucked snug into the button shirt, the shirt tucked into the high pants and sealed by a black leather belt. The belt holds three pouches: a nifty Special Technologies hand radio, personal tool kit and survival pack. A holster supports the ST Revolver, not just any old handgun. With a larger barrel, this baby takes three unique types of ammunition: flare, explosive, .64 caliber. After all, the enemy is an armada of robots. Normal handguns don't make the cut. He pulls a single piece of lint from the pants with the flared sides, pilot's pants. Benny is a pilot, and a captain to boot.

  Over the shirt comes the exoskeleton. Pardon, on goes the ST 'mechanized extension'. Not only is this iron gray wonder an extra spine and serious brass knuckles for our pilot, but it's also radio linked to Milkman, allowing Benny to control the plane's functions as long as he's within a half mile of her. Those ST guys think of everything. Well, in this case, the ST gal does. A gal named Frederica Musa.

  On the other end of the hangar, Crank stares in a mirror as well. Black cap, tight black uniform, Army boots. Roger that! Black lipstick. Check. Lace gloves? A must! Tool belt, gun in holster? Check. Ready to use the ST gun? Maybe. She is nervous, and inside Crank is positive her bones are ramming into one another from her trembling self doubt. Hotwiring foreign technology is a cakewalk. Shooting someone, even something, square in the kisser is altogether different. The revolver seems bigger than her own head. But last night, she had two bizarre things occur. She received some form of recognition from this organization she loves so, and had her first date. Well, it wasn't exactly one for the old diary, but first is first.

  Benny and Crank cross paths as he walks to Milkman, and she to her Stylemaster. She stands with her hands crossed before her, innocent like. He smiles at her, gives a tip of his cap, and sees her as a polished woman. He jumps up on the wing to get in.

  "Benny!"

  "Yeah, Kid?"

  "Did you enjoy our first date?"

  Oh God, she's into me! "Ah, yeah. Yeah. That was, different. Maybe next time we skip the vomit and movie monster surprise, go someplace more quiet."

  "Really? You mean it?"

  He slides back the cockpit cover, placing on the wired gloves, the insectoid helmet. "Yes. I mean it."

  Crank's left leg lifts backward. She jumps, and skips to her loo toward the driver's seat. Benny shakes his big head, and starts Milkman's engine. She throttles like a fleet of lions, vibrating his body, diesel exhaust filling his nostrils.

  Wait a minute, his mind wanders. Someplace quiet. Oh no, she'll think we're an item. She'll think I'm up to proposing! Young ladies are prone to thoughts like that!

  Too late for takebacks! La Donna has turned for the hangar's front door, along with the other three Chevies, as the back door lifts to give Benny clearance for liftoff.

  Doggone question and answer distractions! Now his mind is on Crank and how good she looked and how looking at her must be a crime somewhere and how he didn't care and how great her hair smelled in the theatre her fighting was so wrong yet so enticing and...

  Get your warpaint on Haskins! He smacks the helmet. You're back in the driver's seat, and a war has blown into town. War is hell. Flying is freedom.

  The morning is cold, but the cold has lost its stinging wind. The sun peeks through a hazy curtain as the Milkman roars on the narrow runway. The Salem River glistens multiple swirls of cocoa between the beige reeds. Benny gives the plane its power, the Pratt and Whitney hums, and Milkman takes to the sky.

  Hours equate to boredom. Boredom equals slow death.

  "Crank to Milkman. Crank to Milkman. Do you see anything? Is the sky marked?" Crank is on the radio in her baby, leaning on the steering wheel. A fur collared bomber jacket is over her shoulders, emblazoned on the back are the letters 'ST' surrounded by wrenches of differing lengths that form two wings spread out above an oval globe of the Earth colored bronze. She's cold, and bored. One hour into the defense of the city yields one hour of staring at Broadway. Aside from the ruined storefronts, nothing happens. Nothing moves. No one is outside walking, working or even checking the skyline. Last night's attack is keeping folks inside behind locked doors. The Slicks in pieces were picked up by Ninny and Skinny (and Bobby, late to the party). No further invasion, no police activity. All is quiet but not well in Salem City.

  "Where is the war again?" Bobby asks in a dreary way. He whines like Bing Crosby sings, sleep deprived.

  "Stay focused," snaps Mechanic Crank. "Everybody knows they came last night. They must have a plan." She bites her lip. "I'm going to drive down Market toward the bridge over Fenwick Creek. Bobby, you and Skinny continue down Broadway. Ninny, head back for the bridge to Pennsville."

  "Milkman to Crank. I'm gonna need to refuel. Headed back to the hangar. After, I'll run the circuit a few more times." He yawns.

  "Roger that Milkman."

  Benny makes a wide turn in the air. He flies over La Donna so Frederica can see the plane. Salem sits like a picture postcard, orderly und
er the winter sun, souped up automobiles driving at snails' paces on dark Garden State roadways.

  Milkman veers down and circles once more, aligning with the hangar's low runway. As she descends, the arrow legs drop down. The powerful hopping springs ping. The wings flap like stiff birds as the propeller angles down for a softer touch. Hop, skip, slide! Benny is gaining mastery on the landing. He imagines it's not much different from bringing in a Blue Meanie, except for the obvious leg difference.

  Some Joe, Benny can't recall his name, waves as he runs low to grab the fuel hose. The back of the hangar reeks of diesel. Benny enjoys its effervescence. The hose plugs in. Milkman drinks. Benny lets slip the mask a bit to breathe the fullness of the gasoline air.

  He hears something. It's a clunking sound, like a person on metal stilts crossing a boardwalk. He looks around. Where's Joe? The hose is inside the plane, but Joe is AWOL. Haskins sees a blue rag on the dock by the fuel barrels. Joe had a blue rag in his back pocket. Joe isn't careless, like Benny is with the names. That means...

  The cockpit hatch slides back and bangs loud. Benjamin is out of the seat belt, jumping up like a madman. "Milkman to Crank. Milkman to Crank. We've got a problem!"

  "Crank to Milkman. What's wrong? Is Henry sleeping again? Man, I'm going to give that guy - -!"

  Benny hits the ground running. He's switched to the hand radio and runs to the other side of the plane. He snatches the hose out, diesel spraying the plane, Haskins looking around like crazy. "Henry! Right! No, I was refueling when he vanished. I think - -!"

  A black image, mechanized scarecrow, walks in front of Benny. It looks the same, but the propeller on its back is much smaller. The one large lens atop the other is too jarringly familiar. The Enemy is on home ground. Haskins doesn't catch on. It's too small for flying, so where’d it come from? But one thing’s for sure, his heart is big enough for skipping beats.