by Khavi » Sat May 22, 2004 12:43 am
(ooc- car model years are running off of what you told me that this is set approx. 1200 years in the future, so a classic car is only 1140 years in the future, etc... also assuming same old car companies are still around then, because it's easier that way. just tell me if i've got to change anything.)
There was a dreadful, piercing squeal cutting through the gloom. Ellie Ludwig, known to everyone but her father as "Buzz," flopped over in bed, and slammed a hand down on the screaming alarm clock. She pushed her head out of the pillows and looked at the wicked red numbers.
7:30 AM.
Too early to be awake, especially on a Sunday morning, but she had a comission to do. She rolled onto her back again, and sat up properly, grumbling and swearing to herself. She felt like someone was repeatedly slamming a hubcap into her temples, and her stomach was made of lead. One of her eyes was half-swollen by the large purpling bruise beneath it. The result a bar fight she only remembered bits ans snatches of. A pack of Marlboro-Camel's sat on the bedside table, and she liberated one of the cigarettes from its bindings as she stood up. The lighter had fallen off the stand, though, and, unlit cigarette between her lips, she crouched to peer beneath the little table.
Buzz grasped the lighter from its place in the dust, sat back on her haunches, and lit the cigarette. Standing, she left the lighter in its proper place and took a long drag. It was definitely too early to be awake, let alone getting ready for work.
In the time it took her to finish her morning cigarette, Buzz managed to pull on clean pants, tie on her boots, find her belt and her goggles, and locate her traveling lighter and cigarettes. She stubbed out the butt in the ashtray by the front door, and exited her apartment. Down a short hall, a flight of stairs, and she was at work.
Buzz had installed her apartment above her garage to keep from having to commute from one part of the city to the next. Much as she loved her cars and enjoyed drive, she valued the time sleeping in and not spent in morning traffic. Rush hour was an unpleasant time for everyone.
The garage itself was located in one of the upper-middle class, blurred sections between the slums and the high-class homes. A garage in a slum generally didn't do very well, while a garage in the rich inner-city was swamped with flashy sports cars needing a new paint job to fit the day of the week, and boys with size-issues wanting to soup up the cars they had gotten for their recent 16th birthdays. Living in the middle class section got Buzz exactly what she wanted: regular tune-ups on normal cars, a few well-paying, fun commissions, and a strong lack of teenage boys wanting to prove they had the biggest dicks.
"Morning, Thom," she said as she passed one of her few employees. Thomas Herring, known at the garage as 'Airbrush,' was in charge of the high-end paint jobs often requested by Buzz's cliets. He had a knack for making classic vehicles look modern, and fresh off the line.
"You're up early, Buzz. I brought coffee and donuts, they're in the office," the man replied. "You done with that kid's car yet?"
"That 3165 Ford New T-bird? Almost. I have to re-attach the bumper and order a few old-model parts. You can't find half the things that punkass rich kid wanted on the market anymore," she said, running a hand through her short hair. It was falling in her eyes, so she pulled her goggles up from around her neck to work as a headband for the moment. "I don't know where a boy that age got that kind of money to afford everything he wants here. You know he doesn't have a job."
"Daddy's checkbook does wonders," Thom replied, taking a swig from his coffee cup. "Damn rich kids. You have to admit though, you were pretty well off when you were his age..."
"I was wroking in my dad's garage and running the racing circuits on a regular basis, Thommy-boy. Off to work, now, you have to finish airbushing that old Chevvy. Get it done and I might let you go home to your kids," Buzz said, motioning towards the paint room. She could see through the plate glass window that Thom was nearly done with his job on the Chevrolet Corvette. Racings stripes with Asian-style dragons wrapped stylishly around them. One of his better jobs.
"Slavedriver," Thom laughed, and continued towards his paint room. Buzz headed for the partially-dismantled car at the corner of the garage she used for her special commissions.
The partially dismantled car was the 3165 Ford New T-bird, rear bumper lying on the floor behind it, hood sitting on a table nearby, and only two windows, one of which was cracked. Not bad, considering she had gotten nothing but a body with four cracked windows and half a windshield, hallf a rear bumper, a badly dented hood, and what looked strangely like bullet holes in the front bumper and along the side paneling.
The body, however, was the only truely desperate part of the car; most of it's internal structure and the generic framework were nearly flawless. Buzz could only guess as to where a 17 year old rich kid from the inner city had found such an anomaly. As a general rule, cars people brough to Buzz were spot-on bodyt wise, but competely trashed under the hood.
She decided not to think of it as she pulled a welding mask over her face, and lit the precision blowtorch to beging welding the rear bumper back to the body of the car. Easy things first. She could hammer the dents out of the hood and patch the panneling later.
She had just crouched behind the car and set to working when one of the sliding metal doors at the entrance of the garage was hauled open. Buzz frowned and swore behind her mask as she clicked off the blowtorch.
"We're closed, I'm doing a commission. Come back on Monday, during office hours," she said, standing and pushing the welding mask away from ehr face. It was impossible to make out who the person was, for they were silhouetted against the bright morning sun. Whoever they were, they didn't respond to her prior words.
She removed the welding mask altogether from her head, and walked around to the front of the car. Lighting a cigarette, she squinted against the light, still trying to make out out the person's face. "Well, what do you want? You got me smoking now, you bum, I can't start working till I finish. So what can I do you for?"
I was so mad, I could have chewed up nails and spit out paper clips.