dejah_thoris | [oom] A visit to the Milliways Garage with Adrian Shephard

"Sure thing," says Shephard, "but he ain't gonna fit in the cart. That ain't gonna be a problem, is it, boy?"

Hell, the calot's probably faster than most of the cars down there.

A moment before, Woola had been sound asleep in front of the fire. At the mention of his name, he appeared at Dejah's elbow, grinning happily. (Somewhere a waitrat was having minor coronary at the whirlwind he'd almost collided with.)

When Shephard spoke to him, he sat and clapped his jaws shut, virtually vibrating at the knowledge that were going on another adventure.

"No," Dejah laughed, resting a hand on the beast's massive head. "No, I'm sure he'll want to do some exploring of his own. As long as he can keep us in earshot, he can keep up."

"Fair 'nough. Gimme a minute to send my mob home. They ain't half as fast, and there's too damn many of 'em to ride in the cart."

Once the houndeyes are ushered out the front door and back into West Virginia, Shephard returns, briskly dusting his hands against his trousers. "Right this way, ma'am," he says, and heads over to the panel that is (as always) like every other panel until the down button is found and pressed.

She thanks the bar, and follows behind him, trusting Woola to keep close and not knock any patrons over. She stands back and watches him locate the down button, and then marks its position in relation to the fixtures around it. Should be easy enough to find again, she thinks.

Thankfully the carriage is big enough for all three of them. "Thank you, for doing this. When I first arrived, I had no idea how extensive this place was and I got rather lost in the Library. Even if the garage doesn't reconfigure itself, it's nice to have a guide."

"It's no trouble at all, ma'am," says Shephard. "All of us were new here once. It's only fair to fill folks in same as we got filled in."

The elevator ride is a smooth one, giving the impression of speed without the discomfort. It comes to a halt and the doors slide open onto a vista of... well, mostly passenger automobiles and some motorcycles; larger and smaller shapes seem to be clustered together many, many, many aisles away.

"This here's where we'd start, ma'am," says Shephard, gesturing to the nearest row. "Take a look around first, if you like. Cart ain't goin' nowheres."

Every time he calls her ma'am, she suppresses a grin. It reminds her of John, and his flawless Carolina manners.

She steps out into the room and peers off into the distance, looking for is an exit. "How did all these vehicles come to be here in the first place? Does anyone know?"

"Once in a while y'git somebody who drove here," says Shephard, "but I'll tell you what, I ain't run into more'n a handful of folks who got here that way. Barman don't seem to know where they all come from, and I ain't got an answer out of the Bar herself about it yet. They ain't all from the same universe, either- there's flyin' machines I know weren't nothin' but made up for the movies down here, and a couple things out of kids' cartoons, all of 'em alongside cars'n trucks'n shit as real as you or me just as neat as you please. No explanation whatsoever."

(He's not talking about the Flintstones' car when he says kids' cartoons. He's... not really clear on the target age group for Voltron.)

(But that thing's probably down here somewhere too.)

Dejah hums under her breath as she walks, scanning the rows of strange ground vehicles. "Most of these were meant to traverse roads, I believe. I'd have to say, from cultures where they never would have left a paved surface."

She indicates something gaudy with huge fins and some sort of tail rocket. "They look more like they're chosen for fashion than for their suitability as a means of conveyance." (She would never be able to identify the original Bat Mobile.)

"Is a cartoon another form of media, like movies?"

Shephard nods. "Only it ain't animated photographs or nothin'," he says, "it's animated drawings. You ever draw the same picture on a dozen pages with only a li'l bit of a change on each one? That's your basic cartoon, only the ones kids watch've got a lot more color'n detail'n shit."

"Wait 'til you git a little farther in. The flyers start fairly soon- the little ones, anyways."

"Oh animation, oh yes. Directed at children." She says the word 'children' the way some people might say the word 'xenomorph'. It's a concept she's aware of, but it is so strange to her, it's vaguely disconcerting.

Her gaze passes from one vehicle to the next, to the next, bouncing back and forth between the rows.

"Judging by the smell, most of these are still fueled with petroleum products. Rudimentary combustion engines?"

"Most of 'em, yeah," says Shephard. "I seen a couple with hydrogen fuel cells or shit like that, and there's this one fuckin' huge walkin' suit of armor kind of thing that's got to have two pilots- think it's got a nuclear reactor. No goddamn clue what the black lion runs on. Most of these, though? Four, six, eight, or twelve cylinder gas engines."

She wrinkles her nose, and keeps her opinions about sustainable energy to herself.

"I think..." She starts and then stops, drawing close to what appears to be a mechanical looking contraption. "Yes, this is one of ours. A light skimmer, Mr. Shephard." The vehicle looked as if someone had modelled a motorcycle after a bird and then made it out of brass and panes of stained glass.

It was covered in a fine sheen of dust.

"Huh."

Shephard's going to be circling it for a while, real slow-like, so he can get a good look at the thing's construction. He can appreciate the aesthetics of a good ride, but... well, even fixed-wing flyers can't be trusted. (Rotary wing aircraft are just murders waiting to happen.)

Still, this one does get an appreciative whistle, after a considering turn or two.

Dejah stepped up beside the craft, and brushed off the control consoles. She pushes something and gets no response.

"Huh. Hang on." She cracks a panel and her face is bathed in a pale blue light. "There you are. Wakey wakey." She tweaks something and the whole contraption shudders. She closes the panel and throws a leg over, leaning forward to grasp the throttle levers. A moment later, the flyer flexes and the wings unfold in a cloud of dust. Each 'feather' is a pane of blue glass and seems to swivel independent of the support structure. They angle towards the overhead lights, and the skimmer seems to shiver into the next stage of powering up.

"This is one of the older models. The kind I learned to fly on. They're a bit more fussy than the newer models, but I find them to be more responsive." She certainly sits astride it with an ease that implies more than basic competency. "The radium drive is still powered up, but it needs a moment under the lights to reach flight capabilities. Care for a spin?"

"Never heard of a reactor that ran on radium before," says Shephard, who's still a little hung up on the holy fucking shit is that thing an ornithopter factor. "How, uh. How high does- I mean, we're indoors, but-"

"I'm given to believe that what I call radium and what you call radium are two entirely different elements. And this is a skimmer, so it's designed for ground level transport, but it can get higher. It's more than capable of holding two."

Woola hears the radium drive spinning up and chuffs excitedly.

"Ah," says Shephard. So he probably doesn't have to go back upstairs and get a dosimeter, then.

Shit.

"I, uh...." He rubs at the back of his neck. "Long as we don't git goin' too fast on that thing, I'll ride with you. I got to confess, I don't deal with flyin' real well. Even when I'm the pilot."

She grins at him, and pats the seat behind her. "Tell me this doesn't look like more fun than that cart of yours..."

Her expression softened when she saw his trepidation. "I swear, on the sword of my grandmother, I will keep to a reasonable speed."

"Well, all right," says Shephard, because if nothing else his mother and father taught him to be respectful to ladies. And anyway, unless they get into the area where that Jaeger is standing, they probably can't go high enough to get into the thing's kill zone should something go wrong. As he moves to swing into the seat he adds, "It ain't gonna be a commentary on your flyin' skills if I git sick after. I always git sick after flyin'. Even when I'm the pilot."

"It's not flying, Mister Shephard. It's skimming. It should feel similar to your wheeled craft."

It might be a subtle difference, but she recognizes the psychology of the thing. She reaches back and grabs his hand, dragging it around her waist.

"Still. Better hold on."

She shifts her foot against a lever, and the landing gear retracts. The craft is quiet, the hum of the drive felt more than heard. The clattering of the wing's 'pin feathers' reconfiguring is louder. It shifts under their weight, and she pulls back on the skimmer's hand controls, moving it into reverse slowly.

"Yes ma'am."

Reputation to the contrary, Shephard does in fact know that there are times when it is better not to argue.

(Which doesn't mean that he doesn't close his eyes for just a little bit as the thing starts moving. He'll open them shortly. Really, he will.)

True to her word, she keeps it low and slow, even though she'd rather do exactly the opposite.

He can hear Woola padding along behind them as they back out of the slot, and he can feel the kah-clunk of the wings as they spread again. If he was looking, he'd see they could easily open to twice their current wingspan. But this seems a modest configuration for their purpose.

"Everything all right back there?" He can feel them shift directions, moving forward now, not even fast enough to ruffle his hair.

"Think so, ma'am," says Shephard. When he feels the direction shift, he opens his eyes. "I c'n manage, anyways. Go ahead'n pick up the pace some if you like. I ain't gonna git much worse regardless."

She does, but only a bit faster than walking. "I don't want to betray your good faith, Mister Shephard. And maybe, I'd like you to enjoy this little jaunt."

He can hear the grin in her voice.

"I'll try, ma'am," Shephard says. "Ain't makin' no guarantees, but I promise you I'll try."

After a moment he adds, "See that silver car up ahead? Turn left once you git there. That's the way to the helicopters- I used to fly some of those, before the damn things got destroyed back home."

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