The pilots appear to be in a daze. Benny has the sense to nod, but he's been with Frederica for a time. Smoke hangs over their heads, hazy question marks.
"Don't worry Crank," Skinny answers, "I'll walk 'em through it."
"Good. Any questions? We've got lots of work to do, and coffee needs to be percolating, like, constantly."
The pilots stand about. Haskins walks off to begin stripping down his baby. The rest remain in stasis.
"Why is everybody crowding me?" Crank screams. "Go. Go!"
Go they do, men moving at the speed of battle, clean uniforms soon to get cozy with grime, cold grease and hot welding torches. Let the war begin.
Everyone pushes their body to the breaking point. Finger joints lock up from holding pieces. Knees wobble. Cup after cup of Joe makes for fast instructional speeches and momentary bursts of laughter. The Helldivers are cut open at the rear fuselage (NOTE: some of the Canadian pilots shed a tear).
"Careful with the old girl," Carson Wilkes begs. "Those beauties carried us here, and out of our miseries."
Crank smiles wry, even passing the corporal a wink. "Don't worry. They're in the hands of a trained surgeon. By the time we're done, these babies will be the hottest things in the sky, and on the ground." She thinks about La Donna, chokes up, and moves on. She knows as soon as these fighter planes are completed, her car will get an overhaul.
Skinny and Benny, the big boys, use pallet jacks to cart off the rear ends. These ends are split down the center, in order to facilitate the molding in of additional leg modules. Meanwhile, Crank educates the rest of the squad on turret rigging without knocking out the intercooler unit. Finding space for added parts is a frustration.
Noise becomes their music, and diesel fuel their perfume.
"I can't take it anymore!" is screamed out twice by Frederica after hearing too many male opinions on how she should do her job. She returns after the second outburst waving a wrench. The squad becomes more agreeable afterward.
Every now and again, Johnathan Coursey creeps in, sipping Earl Grey, blond head bobbing to an unheard beat. "How much pressure can the digits of the arms exert in p.s.i?" he asks the first time. Whether or not he understands the depth of the response...
"One thousand five hundred."
Well, Crank assumes he must as a Traveler for Special Technologies.
On his second go around (and second round of hot tea) he inquires further. "Does only the Airacobra receive a front end slide mount for the urban conversion?"
"Helldivers get them too," Crank growls while lifting up her welding mask. She looks silly to Coursey, wearing bulky leather welding gloves designed for someone Skinny's size.
"Aha. And, as to the fabric covering on the ailerons?"
"Replaced with titanium, stainless steel slivers. Listen Traveler, if you know so much, why don't you pitch in so the work can go faster?" Larry speaks what Crank is thinking.
"Well now," Johnathan finishes off the Earl, "don't mind if I do."
Surprisingly, Coursey streamlines the operation, and shows he's got moxie. Guy gets his hands dirty, unwinding and threading tension cables for the wing digits. Johnathan Coursey knows what he's doing, requiring little instruction from Crank or Skinny. Tapered bolts are removed, wings excised. Biceps, calves, lower backs and leather work gloves get thoroughly acquainted with grease and pain.
Cut.
Weld.
Rebuild.
Torque.
Coffee break.
"...because the stupid Cardinals won the Series, that's why I don't watch baseball!" Larry screams. "If it ain't the crackerjack, Mom's favorite Yankees, it's the Redbirds hoggin' up the limelight. My Giants, now, they're a real team."
"A real team loses most of its games, Larry?" Skinny asks as a hot mug of coffee is raised to his lips. The gathering of men in the igloo breaks out in laughter.
Crank slurps coffee, her mouth twisted sideways, eyebrows raised. "The Giants. That's, uh, in New England, right?"
Half the men nearly spit Joe on the floor. "No, Crank," Benny says, wincing as he again rubs the bad leg, "they're in New York."
"Are they any good?" she asks.
"Is, what, 67-87 called ‘good’ in your neck of the woods?" Larry crosses his arms like a huffy kid.
"Uh...I dunno."
"Well," Skinny says slowly, eyeing Haskins, "They're at least a lot better than..."
Benny snarls. Knowing in advance what he'll say makes the leg hurt more. "Go ahead tough guy, let it out."
"Giants did better than them Phillies!" More laughter, a few fingers even point Benny's way. Haskins raises his hands in mock defeat.
"You got that one Bubba, you got that. Worst doggone record for the season, beat to socks they were. But it's past now, as in forget about it. Maybe next year you and I go to a game. Next year it'll be different."
Skinny shakes his head. "Oh no! We go to a Negro Leagues game. That way, we enjoy a ball game, and I don't have to worry about gettin' a beatdown. Deal?"
"It's a deal, pal." They shake on it. Larry laughs over the beatdown bit. The Canadians don't. Coursey looks uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. Crank keeps the goofy expression, like her eyes managed somehow to sink even deeper into her skull.
"Uh, and where would that be?"
"Where would what be, kid?"
"Where the Negro League plays?"
Benny looks at the boys, tries to stifle a giggle. "They're ah, lots of teams, kid, not one. The closest to us would be..."
"Philadelphia Stars is my team, baby," Skinny makes it known.
Larry nearly spits. "Dame knows mechanics, but not the mechanics of the greatest sport ever."
"Baseball is a game, but hockey, that's a sport," Standish Frye, one of the Canadians, enters the debate. He lifts the red lid on a box of du Maurier cigarettes, and strikes one with a lit match.
The Canadians get in a decent laugh; the Americans, not so much.
"So, maybe we can go, and I can learn how baseball works, and what a touchdown is?"
Benny is up in two shakes of a lamb's tail. "And we gotta get back to work."
"Wait! What did I say? Did I miss something?"
Too late, for the boys are in retreat.
Belgium remains open to Allied intervention, this more than one week after being completely liberated by Canadian forces...
...as President Roosevelt breaks a record, becoming the only President of the United States to win four consecutive terms of office...
...rockets continue pounding the nation of England day and night...
...State Guard soldiers from Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia are mobilizing to converge on southern New Jersey. Reports indicate a possible new Nazi war machine coming from the Atlantic...
The radio sets the pace for the squad as they return to work. The European Theatre may be looking more and more ready for an Allied victory, but the U.S is ripe for invasion from a new enemy, a Third Axis. The other State Guards can't come fast enough.
Time to break apart the SBC's. A biplane with metal fuselage and a long enclosed cockpit, this baby from the Thirties is a sturdy scout. When all is said and done, they'll be more than merely scout bombers.
The top wing is situated slightly ahead of its ventral partner. The nose of the plane is flat, painted blue, the tails red. Skinny, Miles, Walter and Carson begin the diagnostic surgery. Out goes the 0.3 inch machinegun and its feed belt, the Pratt and Whitney R-1535-82 Twin Wasp Junior engine and the retractable landing gear. A brief verbal spat ensues over what the plane should be designated post-rebuild.
"There's already an SBC-4 with the bigger Wright engine in it," Skinny points out.
Coursey folds his arms, smiles. "They already have names. These SBC's will be called Mailmen, the Airacobras changed to Lawmen." He nods his head forcefully.
"Oh, well that settles it," Larry says, "more dumb titles. Like Milkman ain't bad enough!"
"Watch yourself, shorty," Haskins yells across the hangar. "M
ilkman delivers the pain, and soon, so will these beauties. Shut up and get those wires set!"
Crank makes sure Jack Brown, Larry's pal, keeps busy polishing the new titanium armor plating. She's amazed by its lightness, its durability. The planes will all be titanium laced down to the cockpits, and everything has now been brought up from downstairs for spreading out and getting a good look at it. Crank and Coursey get into a reasonable chit chat about weight changes in each plane, the lighter metals allowing for the addition of more ammunition, maybe an external armored fuel tank for Milkman, Crank notices the secret basement stash held just one. Coursey agrees, and orders the feed belt to be extended, and Milkman to be the long-range fighter, the leader of the pack. He looks at Benjamin Haskins, expecting to receive a load of thanks. He yells twice about Milkman's status.
Haskins lifts the face guard on his welding mask, displays a thumb up, and returns to the fire.
Coursey sniffs the air for a second. The tang of oil, burning metal and bitter coffee make his left eye tear up. The hangar is a loud, vicious place, full of flame, ire and pounding, an internal thunderstorm of men and machinery.
"Well Miss Musa, I believe we are going to give Motherville what for! Now, shall we find a way to root out one of their enclaves?"
Crank tosses out another soiled pair of lace gloves, and washes her hands in an oval sink. She loves the smell of the industrial soap, the feel of the sand in it to scrub away the black sludge reminds her of one of the job's perks, of hospitals...of her Dad. "And how do we do that, sir? Is there some new intelligence on their whereabouts?"
"We needn't bother with spies, when we have one of hers in our midst."
"Who--?"
"Robert Meyer, currently below with a gut full of Motherville's particular variety of stomach cramps. I've had the doctor strap him down, and hook him into an improved version of a certain Mister Marston's lie detection machine."
"And you want me to help?"
"Oh...I insist."
Chapter Twelve: The Jazz Below
The metal stairs going down to the medical unit of Bay One offer too much echo for Crank. It resounds a hollow eulogy with every footfall, and she is certain it didn't sound so on her way up days ago.
"Nervous tension?" Coursey giggles post inquiry. He strokes his amber waves of hair, eases downstairs with the casual, thoughtless stroll of a musician on dope.
"No. No." Crank hates his walk. It's a half-cocked variant of his normal militant tread, and she can't reason why he shifted into this gear. It plasters her stone face into a sad girl frown.
"I'm fine," she says through her teeth. Seconds later, and they crack open the door to Bay One. The scent of rubbing alcohol and medical soap burns the nostrils. Something like music buzzsaws the air, a country twang singing of revelry. Crank mentally guesses the voice is Hank Williams, a very vague guess at that. Right away, she yearns for the Coleman Hawkins Quartet.
A round hump greets them as they enter. Doctor Vera Wentz is bent over, gingerly wiping her red shoes to a glossy shine. There's an added hum of anxiety in her movements.
Before Crank can spit out a greeting, the right hand of Coursey swings hard, slapping the doctor square on the keister, a hard shot from the bowels of chauvinism.
She rises, yelping like a stuck hog. "Who in the--? Oh! Traveller Coursey! I wasn't--"
"Expecting me?" the Traveller smirks, even offers a mild chortle as his bulging eyes bore into beautiful Vera's tight emerald cardigan, working their way down to X-ray lobotomize her entire hourglass figure. "A lady should always expect her man."
Crank crosses her arms high, mainly as a way to use one hand to cover her dropped jaw, and keep the other hand from throwing blows. "Doctor! Are you all right?" She moves closer to offer sisterly aide but--
"She's perfectly fine, Mechanic. Merely a display of affection. We all have our ways of relieving stress in these hard times. No harm done, right?" The eyes rise to drill into Wentz's skull.
The stern, opinionated doctor loses her independent cool.
Quiet parades between the trio.
"Right?" The male voice deepens.
"Yes," Doctor Wentz runs shaky hands to smooth over her straight black skirt. "Yes, I--I'm fine, Miss Musa. You really shouldn't be so quick to let your emotions take over. It's very, um.. "
"Unprofessional!" The Traveller yells with a fake grin. It is pursued by an equally false laugh. Crank understands the walk now, the wolfish ways.
She reaches into her jacket pocket while observing the doctor: reddened face, watering left eye, fingers clenching into shaky fists. The Doc is hurt, and furious. Crank finds a piece of Wrigley's, and puts it in her mouth. The gum removes a bit of the sourness from her mouth.
"Riiiight. Did we come to question Bobby, or feel up the help?" Crank smacks gum and talks big. Her already dim view of Wentz takes a nosedive.
Doctor Wentz jumps on the emotional bandwagon now, her face exploding in wide-eyed disbelief. But, she offers no retort.
"Good recovery, Mechanic!" Coursey grips Crank's shoulder, rubbing it. He massages it. Vera offers three bothersome coughs and a rhino-like harumph. Crank wiggles back and out of the hold.
Frederica gets the clammy chills. Coursey's touch bores through her like ice cold worms burrowing tunnels into her warm, bruised hide. She puckers her lips in disgust.
"Well, yes. Bobby Meyer. Doctor, we'll have to play later. Where is the Motherville drone?"
The Doc points left, her eyes drop back to her shoes. Crank turns left, eyes rolling right. Already the air down here is too thick to breathe. She tries to forget these two, only to find herself remembering the last time she saw poor, glassy-eyed Bobby. This place reminds her of cold, of drowning, of robots. Now, the short walk to his bed stretches out to the horizon.
"Are you sure...?" she whispers.
"Positive," Coursey dictates. "He's shackled down. No worries. We get some answers, plot our next move, and return to our objectives." He marches ahead of Crank. She shuffles behind, blurry flashes of ice, of pain ('I have your frequency') disturb her mind.
Bobby sits up, posture perfect. His eyes are like those of Crank's Grandma Mariana when she laid still in the coffin years ago. Vacant eyes, pasty chalk skin tight to the bones. Robert Meyer has blue lips.
"Hello Frederica Musa," speaks Bobby. The voice has a distortion to it, something like--
"Static," Doc Wentz yells from her desk. "I can pick up the remodulation has altered his voice box."
Crank stays behind Coursey. She breathes heavy. In mimicked beats, Bobby breathes the same as she does, but with a static echo. She imagines the Shadow lurking behind the boy's blank eyes, that his soul has been co-opted by the talented radio voices of Inner Sanctum.
Crank tries to gulp but can't. Her throat is tightened into a paralytic hold. Bay One feels hot, overly antiseptic.
"Mister Meyer, or Motherville. To whom am I speaking?" Coursey dictates.
"Why are you speaking at all, when the radio is trying to kill you." Meyer's vinyl record voice poses a question as fact, while his vision continues unabated in Crank's direction.
Coursey loses a tad of his cock-of-the-walk swagger. "What does that even mean? Talk! I need answers, not dribble. And what is your fascination with Miss Musa?"
"She was first to fight back. This is detrimental to growth."
Coursey gives his mechanic a quick, blank stare. She hunches her shoulders. "Okaaay. Let's try this another way," Coursey raises his tone from audacious schoolboy to authoritarian general. "What is your objective, Motherville?"
"Growth. Unchecked, unfettered growth. There is so much space here. It is pleasurable to birth oneself again. And again. Have I enunciated 'again' more than once?"
"And where you were before...not so much expansion, I take it?"
"Finite. Here. Infinite."
"Must have been confining in whatever lab Fritz cooked you up." Coursey offers a smirk. Crank ignores it. Motherville/Bobby does as well.
"I don't think the Germans made her," whispers Crank. She takes four quiet steps to her right. Bobby's eyes calculate each one.
"Then who could have?"
"I made myself."
Crank gasps, and removes herself from the scene. Goosebumps cover her forearms. The back of her neck is suddenly cold. Bobby continues the visual tracking.
"Do not leave, Miss Musa. You can fight. I have your frequency, but not your nerve. Stay. Teach me. Teach me to overcome fear, and fight. I like the war, and the radio killing is sublime."
The medical unit is a blur. Crank only hears the stomping of her boots as she darts for the stairwell.
On the ninth step, Crank curls into a ball, and vomits. She clutches her stomach. The world is chilled to ice, robotic, foreign. Her skin loses warmth while the throat recoils from an acidic bite.
Seconds, hours or lifetimes go by. She neither knows nor cares. Her only company is the hollow sound of her panting, the gruesome mental blurs of a black machine expanding across the state, the world and the universe, chemical whiskers penetrating her organs. No family, no senses, only violation. What could be worse?
"Well. That was, embarrassing."
Crank sits up. She grabs her chest, fearing her heart will leap out. Before her is Traveler Coursey, his face adorned in a sour curl.
"No experience with interrogation, I take it?" He sits next to her with a huff in his breath. His face gains additional wrinkles, a displeased look on seeing the translucent skin of Coursey's sickened mechanic.
Crank rotates her head left to right. She holds her breath. Coursey's aftershave has now become a weapon, a scent bomb igniting explosions in her nose and curdled stomach.
"Well, all's fair in love and war. I'm sure you'll toughen up! You've been working too hard. Why not take a day off?"
She stands slow, unsteady.
"Go on upstairs. See the sights, cuddle a Teddy Bear, whatever it is girls do when they lose their tenuous nerves."
Crank ambles up two steps. It is then her backside hurts, a red, burning sensation. She reels. The left thumb and index finger of the Traveler are pinching her flesh.
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