"But they are, sweetheart, they are. That's what brought us your way." The vent is manly, trying too hard to emulate the nasal certainty of Clark Gable. Out of the many shadows this place has to offer step a group of flyboys, two flight jackets laced with the insignias of the United States, five others hailing from Canada. The one speaking is tall, blond with a pencil moustache and a winning smile. On the upper sleeve of his dark uniform is the word CANADA, the breast hosts a patch of a royal crown with wings and the insignia of RCAF at its center. "Corporal Carson Wilkes, Canadian Royal Air Force. And yes, these are prototype automatons, well, the pieces of them anyway for fighter planes."
Crank wanders about the room, pulling down tarps, left cheek stuffed with food. The lighting is poor; many of the bulbs are blown. Dust carpets her clothing and the men around her. Yes indeed, these are manufactured pieces of large robots: three-digit arm/wings, turn shafts on ball joints for retracting/lowering legs and RADAR boxes. They would easily go into a plane, one built with the proper components, like a jigsaw puzzle. But...
"ST had nothing but failures with the old Milkmen, or whatever they called them. So what are these? The rejects?"
"These are the extras, for the war they saw coming," says Benny, stepping out from the dark, a file in his hand. A steel brace grips his left leg.
"Vecchio!" Crank runs right at him, battering ram style. She hugs his torso, spilling coffee on the back of his black leather ST jacket, squishing ketchup on the other side of it. Her foot taps the injured leg as he hugs back. The Brown Bear grips Crank in a death roll while shaking his head, and the pains come rearing back. She pulls away, stretching her back and near to crying. Benny hobbles on the leg, already bandaged tightly.
"Glad to see you too, kid, but easy on the leg! And the jacket..."
Crank sees the hand holding the file trembles more than a splintered fan belt. She takes the folder, caresses the large fingers, gives Haskins a deep, satisfying look of longing. He calms down. "I'm just so happy to see my ma--partner in good shape."
"Hey kids, if you two are done playing doctor, can we get on with the conversation?" This new loudmouth is a runt, dark hair, hands in his pants pockets, legs spaced far apart like he's staking territory. "Larry Jensen, I test birds for Republic Aviation. At least, I did 'til they up and vanished. Look baby doll, the Newark and Farmingdale factories are devoid of workers. Zilch! Nada. It's an invisible war alright, even the civilians can't be seen!" There is terror behind Larry's bravado. He can't disguise it. Crank swallows, but burger is stuck in her throat. It goes down slow, a death slide along with her heart, right to the pit of her cold stomach.
Recovery in 3, 2...
"What do you mean vanished? There's nobody working? What about the other people in North Jersey?" It chills her to the bone, for Crank has cousins up north.
Larry approaches her. Benny tries to get ahead of Crank, but her reassuring hand on his broad chest stays him. "Yeah sweetheart, vanished. Oh, plenty of guys and gals are livin' their lives up there, only the factory dames went kablooie! Or, they got captured, who knows? All’s I know is circumstances have dropped me out here in the sticks with you bumpkins, an' Larry ain't a happy pilot. You catch my drift?"
Crank fumes, her laced hands making laced fists. "No, I don't!"
"Well, can't say a guy didn't try to educate ya."
She's about to swing for his face, but Jensen walks away, trying to look cool.
"Calm yourself lady," Wilkes prescribes. "We need your brain right now, and Benjamin here says you're the finest mind Special Technologies has. Maybe we should back up to the beginning..."
"Where we share our suspicions about Coursey," Benny kicks dust and points to the file. Crank opens it, absorbing information while Carson Wilkes narrates.
"We could begin with your Traveler's behavior, but I'll start with my own understanding. You might be surprised to find Canadians this far south, me and my fellow comrades." He waves a hand backward, where four seemingly pre-pubescent boys in identical uniforms lean on the wall, faces shadowed.
"Uh-huh," Crank acknowledges, though from a mental distance. The file has her attention.
Wilkes notices he has competition, and increases the volume. "As I was saying, the lads and I were ordered weeks ago to test pilot five SBC-3's, get a feel for them. We found it more than odd considering their supposed obsolescence, they weren't even SBC-4's, but the order came from a joint directive between our government and yours. So, we complied, taking a leisurely drive to New York state. In a hangar exactly like this one in the middle of the forest we met a few men in black uniforms."
"Crooked Special Technologies," one of the shadow boys yelps, a sliver of a French accent, lighting a cigarette.
"We don't know that for certain, Miles. Every military organization has its secrets. Anyway, the men at the hangar gave us little to go on, only that they were with ST, and now so were we. The paperwork was all in order, but we found it funny..."
"You mean suspicious, right Corporal?"
"To an extent, Walter. You'll have to excuse Walter Teller and Miles Gillette, Miss. The past several days have taken a toll on them. Now where was I? Oh yes, a quick call to our superiors assured us things were on the up and up. So, we again complied. The planes were older, and odd, but we were informed that they were part of an experiment in 'cross-engineering' by none other than Roscoe Turner. It astounded us, but he has a track record for airplane design, not just winning the Bendix Air Race. Facts aligned, though evidence made for suspicion, as my men readily point out. However, we flew the planes, tested them and their strange gloves and helmets, and no sooner had we found them better than fit when--"
"Slicks attacked," Crank looks away from the file. She looks away not only to finish Wilkes' narration, but to avert her gaze from a page in the file depicting an autopsy of a Slick.
The date for the autopsy is June the First, 1921.
"Yes, and you can imagine our surprise when, in the middle of the forest where this hangar existed, robotic servitors come flying overhead. Nonetheless, we took to flight and survived the day, but the hangar was destroyed. It lacked the secrets of this model sad to say. Another radio message to command ordered us to place a call to a man named Johnathan Coursey, a Traveler in the ST circuit. We had no idea what it meant, but I made contact. Your Traveler sent us to Newark, New Jersey, a busy city, in order to procure two special P-39's."
"Where we met," Larry snips. "I was already working with the dames, flying birds back and forth from Farmingdale to Newark. These peepers weren't seen as good enough for air combat, but great for local flight. Jerks! One day, I land in the Newark site and, boom! Nobody's there. I'm walkin' around like a dope yelling girls' names, but not a soul answers." Larry lights a cigarette. He shakes worse than Benny.
"Hey pal," Haskins consoles him, "it's okay."
"Yeah man, we all gotta..."
The nervous pilot straightens up when Skinny approaches. "Boy, don't you even think about puttin' your hands on me!"
Skinny takes the warning as any self respecting person should. "Who are you calling ‘boy’?" The move to comfort becomes the hunchback of defensiveness.
The Brown Bear positions himself in the middle of the controversy, one open hand raised to Skinny, the other an accusing finger in Larry's pinched face. "Hey! We're all brothers here! And you'd best get that through your thick head Larry, or you won't last long! We got enough to contend with trying to figure out how people vanish, and not only does the War Department churn out news in Europe and the Pacific like all's well on the homefront, but nobody in the state of New Jersey noticed a few hundred women are gone?"
Crank watches the male display, and moves off to study the machinery. Her mind is jumping.
"Suffice to say," enters Wilkes, "our investigation revealed that both factories were devoid of laborers. We made inquiries at homes and businesses. Everything else was par for the course, daily routines and that sort. However, both populations were convinced the fac
tories had been relocated, part of an avoidance strategy to get munitions away from the coast. A few housewives even showed us fliers explaining as much. But Larry here swears those factories were fully operational the day before."
"They were! I was there! Josie, Annette, Myra and a lot of other girls were at work the day before!" He forgets about Skinny and Benny, sitting on the dusty floor, the cigarette nursing him.
Crank observes the automatons. "So, when Coursey said he called some pilots to come our way..."
"He had already recruited them. They were coming here from upstate, having seen the truth. But Coursey said they were coming by boat."
"Perhaps he meant an additional unit of men from elsewhere?" Carson Wilkes lights his own smoke. The room is shrouded in curls of white smoke and cobwebs.
"Maybe, but it doesn't feel right. He knows we've got missing women, missing airplanes and this tunnel. So why not let us know what we're up against? If we're fighting a much bigger army than anticipated, why isn't he trying harder to round up reinforcements?"
"Maybe he is," Skinny offers, "but he's bettin' on us putting these robots into the new planes and making it work."
Benny waves his hands toward the automatons. "Well that might increase our chances short term. This whole robot-in-a-plane gig works wonders, and I oughta know, but having eight total ain't no army!"
"These are different than Milkman," an echo of Crank's voice replies. They can't see her as she's lost in the valley of parts. "There are new engines here, Pratt and Whitneys, but they're souped up. I mean, really souped! Twenty cylinders? Looks like titanium plating here and there, eight engines in all, some fancy ammunition labeled as explosive...yeah, this will work. Oh boy! We're gonna sock it to Motherville!"
"She seems unconcerned about the whole disappearing persons tale," Corporal Wilkes remarks.
"Oh she's processed it already. Trust me, we'll get to the bottom of this mess. Crank got me one stormy night, and we've been thriving and surviving ever since."
Carson rubs the back of his neck in an effort to erase his many doubts. "But, what do we do with Coursey?"
"Yes, what do we do with me?" The new utterance startles the suspicious herd. A few of the Canadians whip out their M1911-A1's, ready to gun down the source. Everyone turns to face a tired, disheveled Johnathan Coursey. "The folks here in Salem are a tough crowd. Their city is dead, for all intents and purposes. No commerce, most of the dockets at the courthouse have been suspended. Many people are missing. Volunteers from the Office of Civilian Defense have covered every window in the city in blackout curtains. I've assured them the government has men on the way to look into the missing persons. But we have a war to win!" He straightens his necktie, attempts to radiate an aura of competency.
Nobody buys it.
"Yeah, well, listen pal," Larry is the first to pop his cork, "you got some real good ears and soft feet, but I ain't liftin' a finger until I get the gist of what's goin' on. What do you know about the missing gals and these crazy machines?"
Coursey eyes his wary interrogators. "Friends, we are on the cusp of creating the next generation of fighter airplane. While Motherville has proven successful, even prescient, in her tactics to violate our forces, we here will be the ones who turn the tide." He lifts up onto his tiptoes at the last few words.
"What you're saying is we're losing terribly, and this collection of Elektros are a last ditch attempt at saving the human race. Now how's about you actually answer a question?" The man asking is the other P-39 pilot, an American with curly brown hair and a wild hazel stare.
"Pssst! Benny!" Crank calls for her partner from inside the robotic canyon.
Haskins slips away while airmen verbally dogfight the only commanding officer for miles. "Yeah Crank. What's up?"
"Look at these engines. I mean, this is 'B' Series alright, same as in Milkman, but the extra two cylinders? That's a lot of heat! These jokers had that problem anyway, but I've never seen cooling fins this thin. And this box? I think it holds some form of coolant, to assist the natural air cooling. There are also switch boxes like in Milkman to perform the ins and outs of transformation, but the cathodes are streamlined, more advanced. The boxes are even labeled for five SBC's, two P-39's, and one S-47E." She turns to take notice of the indecipherable screaming match going on with the airmen and Johnathan.
"I'm seeing superchargers too," Haskins noted. "Crank, will this stuff fit into the older planes?"
"It's labeled for them, so yeah, I can make it work. These babies will be the hottest things in the sky! Only thing missing is ordnance. We've got explosive rounds, but no rockets or bombs."
"Right. But it still doesn't answer the bigger questions about why our Traveler here is keeping secrets. We got a war to win!"
"Hey, kids!" Larry's dispassionate tone weaves around the pile of parts, "We can hear you! Why don't youse come out so we can play tag together, huh?"
Along the way out of the maze, Crank picks up a wrench, one Benny tries to take from her hand to no avail.
Coursey is back at the entrance, fiddling with the fuse panel, fake smiling all the while. "Listen folks, everyone here should be well acquainted with the term 'Top Secret'. At least, I hope you are!" False laughter dribbles from his lips. "In wartime, we can't afford to allow the enemy one iota of intelligence from our end. In the past, Roscoe Turner was asked, along with some other gentlemen of note, to design a new stage of fighter for street combat. Fly fast, stop on a dime, walk between alleys and so on. It took a tremendous amount of effort, and most of it remained in the planning stages until the proper engines could be constructed."
"I take it Milkman was the first successful prototype?" Wilkes asks, his voice hoarse.
"Oh, these are all successes, but Milkman's distinguishing characteristic is being completed first you see. That and being combat tested. The planes you were ordered to fly are all ready, cut and weighed for the parts down here. Getting them here was, shall we say, half the fun?"
No one laughs. Larry slams a cancer stick on the floor, snuffing it out while staring daggers at Coursey. "Look Traveler, I don't know what kind of rank that even is, and I don't care! But Jack and I flew these P-39's down here from Newark that were sitting under tarps and supposed to go to the scrap heap because you put in a phone call to Wilksey over here! Now if those planes were sitting around all this time, why'd you take your sweet time getting them together?"
Johnathan pulls out two fuses, replacing them with two more pulled from his jacket pockets. In two hot seconds, the secret chamber gains brighter lights, but keeps the ugly jaundiced tint. "Gaining authorization for these adventures is often fraught with red tape. Even Special Technologies has to answer to the Top Brass, gentlemen. Now, as we have lost the town and gained only in destruction, what say we begin the overhaul, followed by test runs?"
The Canadians hold a huddle in the corner while the Americans continue the shouting. "Just like that?" huffs Benny. He rubs the damaged leg with vibrating fingers.
Larry slaps his thighs, makes pained grimaces at the others. "Get a load of this guy! More crap than a rodeo full of diarrheic bulls!"
But Johnathan Coursey is not lulled into a second spat. "Gentlemen, I expect you to do your duty, to follow orders. Regardless of the details, the enemy is at our front door."
Suddenly, Crank takes the center of the floor. "What he's missing guys, is that you're going to fly the strongest, most sophisticated fighter planes ever made, and go down in history!"
Maybe it's her hypnotic Italian accent, her reputation for mechanics or Crank's cutesy sexy walk that does it. Whatever it is, the men quit their yapping (even whiny Larry) and pay attention.
"Well," Skinny Bubba breaks the silence, "long as we go down in history, and not down like Ninny, or down like...Robert."
Attentive silence is replaced by a mournful one.
"Then let us avenge those who went down before their time," the Traveler offers.
The airmen give each other fateful glance
s. They recognize the confidence on Crank's face, an eager awaiting to build and to strike back. They witness the sullen mood of Skinny, his mind lost on the dead. They feel their own fears, and one another's, a collective mute eulogy for those of the recent past, and for their own dire futures.
Benjamin steps up. "Coursey, you finally said something worth listening too. C'mon fellas, let's break a sweat."
Chapter Eleven : The Mechanics Of...
Apart from the members of the local New Jersey State Guard (who remain as watchmen for Barber's Basin), the citizens of Salem City at last depart. They leave only after Coursey promised the City Council he could deliver three freight cars of anthracite per week to the town. It's a promise that floors them completely, as Salem has been hit hard by the coal shortage (he has made other handshake deals with individual councilmen, but those are top secret).
With the hangar clear of civilians, it's time to hammer out the details. Stage Two of urban warfare begins in earnest.
"See here," Crank has laid out the new blueprints for the S-47E Milkman, the SBC-3's and the P-39 Airacobras. "Where the air pipes from the superchargers to the carburetors are smaller, but ribbed? This has to flow between the rudder cable linkage and under the seat of Milkman, but we have to angle the seat in the Helldivers to make that happen, due to the turret for the landing legs. On the Airacobras, well, I'll have to work it out as we go."
"Wait. Landing legs?" Corporal Wilkes asks, holding a cigarette away from the tight group gathered around the circular table Benny took from the igloo. "Is that even possible at the speeds we go?"
"Yeah. See, for fighting in the streets, Turner wanted planes that could drop from air to land. He designed these babies to slow down quickly, and land on spring-loaded legs. Advanced ailerons and pneumatic nozzles help it out. We'll have to take off the entire back ends of the Helldivers and Airacobras to weld in the turrets and remove the wheeled landing gears. Trust me, it works wonders in Milkman. That will also give us a bit of room in the wings for the bombs and turning motor for the armatures, squeezing the wires and cut frames for the digit controls between the ammunition troughs and the outboard ribs. But with the SBC Helldivers, biplane wings, only the lower wings shift into arm mode. As crazy as it sounds, the top wings will function as phalanx shields."
Down Jersey Driveshaft (Book One of the Diesel Series 1) Page 10