Thinking it through
Posted on Mon Dec 2nd, 2019 @ 11:45pm by Cornelius Warner MS
928 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Canary
Location: Cornelius' Abode
Timeline: An hour following "...They Will Sing"
The distorted tune of an electric guitar, paired to the rich tones of a bass reverberated the isolated cottage off the beaten bath. The living room had all it's furniture pressed to the side and the engine of a 2000 Hayabusa disassembled, and Cornelius held an empty beer bottle up to his lips, a poor man's replacement for a microphone. As the synth accented the instruments, he sang along, off key and forcing a bad British accent
"BEHOLD, MY TRANSFORMATION,
And you, you, you, are empowered to do as you please."
The old worlds of Muse followed him as he paused to look down at the mine mechanical workings of an engine built around the time of the Eugenics Wars, not long before. These would have still been common place back then. The bike itself sat up on the non-mechnical lift, a gap where it's once beating heat had sat. It was how he thought, a little beer, a little mechanical work, and music from a different time. He shouted along more with the lyrics and as the song came to an end with a long held guitar note, he stepped down off his coffee table, and looked at his chaos. Piston rings, pistons, a fuel pump, radiators, all the hoses and wires to plumb it up. And like the situation before him, something was missing. For whatever reason the bike refused to turn over, refused to give him a spark.
Placing the bottle down, he picked up a racket, and spun it around on it's head, the satisfactory click-click-click-click-click-click proving the centuries out of date tool still worked. He picked up a valve cover, his eyes studying it for imperfections, as he frowned at it. "Handler" had faded into "Defector", the irony of that not lost on him. But he couldn't help it, "Drones" had such a good rhythm, it drew him in, and helped keep his mind free from looking too hard at the little details. There was nothing wrong with the valve cover. There was nothing wrong with the casing, the block, the injectors, everything should be working. He tossed himself onto the couch, letting out a heavy sigh as he did. His foot caught on something under the couch, and absentmindedly he rolled it around casually, his eyes closed as he hummed along to the twenty-first century rock, mocking the movements of a synth in front of his face as it played. Standing abruptly with the crescendo of the song, he'd forgotten the little piece under the couch, but it had not forgotten him. As his foot moved forward, transfering his weight, the object rolled under him and threw him flat on his face.
Cornelius laid among the engine parts for a minute as the song he'd been about to jam to faded and moved to the next, and he rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Finally sitting up, he looked down to see what had caught him off guard, and found the small familiar form of a spark plug. Picking it up, he stared at the piece, studying the finer details. The slight carbon scoring on the ends, and the small gap that allowed the spark to form. Staring closer, he finally saw it, the little electrode was damaged, likely not causing a spark. His eyes traced the obvious cracks, and a frown formed on his face. He'd ignored the spark plugs, they had been good, so he had ignored them. But that had been before it had been moved to the planet. Carefully standing up, he walked over to the replicator, keyed in his request, and watched the four little pieces form. He placed the other one down, picked up a new one. It was nearly indistinguishable from the other, a near perfect molecular copy of what one of them would have looked like new. It was as close to an OEM one as one would ever get, and would be enough to fool the motorcycle for sure.
In was nearly three in the morning, but the bike was back together. There was a creak of the front door, and Warner turned around to find Tamara standing there looking at him. "I came to drop off the night's reports," she looked him up and down. "I fully expected you to be asleep, was going to sneak these in and head home. Is this why you took the night off?" Her look was that of a mother amused by her son, and he rolled his eyes.
"Yes, I had to figure it out. Been here since eight," he lied. "I needed to figure out what was wrong, it's been bothering me for a week now." When the woman nodded in amusement at him, her face twisted by a raised eyebrow and pursed lips. "Yes I fixed it," he added to answer her unasked question. Stepping up on the bike, he slammed the starter and the bike fired up, the traditional high revving sound of inline-four engine, causing her to shake her head. He killed the engine quick, so as to not suffocate them both.
"Okay then boss, you and your bike have fun," she said laughing and turning for the door. "Get some sleep, I hear that the councillor is coming tomorrow for lunch. Don't want to keep her waiting to meet you," she added coyly before stepping out of the room and out onto the steps, walking away. As if to accent her statement Cornelius yawned. Yes, he own revelations could wait. He had a cover to keep.
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