He woke to discover that Dank had gotten up early and gone to finish fixing the cooler at The Rusty Tankard. The mere thought of the bar make Junior's stomach flip and attempt to turn itself inside out.
He looked at the pile of parts on the floor. That pile needed to be a combat ready Beater in two days.
Junior knew he was screwed.
Dank returned to find Junior trying to piece together a leg joint. The frustration on Junior's face suggested he'd been trying for quite a while.
"Take a break, Junior," Dank suggested, "We'll get it pieced together in time."
"Don't need no break, Dank."
"Sure you do." Dank's tone was conversational, "Shipment's landin' any minute, I got a note to you from Lizzy and, most importantly, yer tryin' to put the left lower leg on the right lower leg assembly. It'll just git tore up if you keep pickin' at it."
"A note?" Junior looked up for the first time.
"Here," Dank handed him a wax-sealed envelope, "She said it was important."
As Dank went to work on the leg assembly, Junior sat down and opened the letter.
Dear Junior,
Thank you for defending me from those assholes in the bar last night. I fear you will be hurt and/or killed Saturday night on my behalf and it just warms my heart.
My shift ends tonight at 10. How about you meet me for a swim?
XOXOXO
Lizzy
She had left a bright red lipstick kiss imprint under her name.
"She wants to go swimmin' tonight." Junior announced.
Dank's non-committal grunt was his only acknowledgment. He didn't pause in his work until the crash from outside announced the latest arrival.
"Let's see if today is the day fer yer cylinder heads, Junior," he remarked as he threw open the door.
The two started off down the bowl of the crater without another word.
Junior spent his day in the crater wrestling with distraction. Thoughts of fighting Beater to Beater with a three-time world champion vied with thoughts of swimming with Lizzy for the title of top psychological stress trigger.
He and Dank found the requested parts but no appropriate cylinder heads.
They retired to the shed to continue the assembly until it was time for Junior to head into town to meet Lizzy at the bar.
Lizzy stepped into the neon glow at precisely two after ten. The sound of boisterous and drunken laughter followed her into the night.
As the door swung shut behind her, she smiled in a way that made Junior's knees feel spongy like the seat of a John Deere riding mower.
She wasn't dressed at all for the traditionally chilly EcoHope 11 nights. Wearing a short skirt and sheer top over a small halter, she shivered her way over to him.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Where can we swim in Impact?" Junior replied. The only swimming areas he knew of were private pools made from converted fuel tankers half buried in the perpetual mud and dust.
"C'mon," she gestured, "I'll show you."
He dutifully followed her down the main street and left towards the spring. He knew they couldn't be going there. The water was always near freezing and stank of minerals.
Nonetheless, that was where she led him.
They walked along the bank and Lizzy huddled against Junior. She didn't feel any warmer, but she also didn't seem to mind the cold too much.
"Lizzy?"
"Yes?"
"This water is awful cold."
"Trust me."
A loud mechanical sound began to hum in Junior's head, and they walked towards a more brightly lit area where the spring formed a little pool.
As they neared the edge, the large, loud object eclipsed the light source. In darkness, Lizzy stepped from Junior's side and, with a high-pitched titter and the quick rustle of cloth, she dove into the spring.
Junior stripped to his shorts and followed her, pleased to discover that the water was pleasantly warm - warm enough to carry a thin layer of mist across the surface.
"See?" Lizzy surfaced behind him, "This here runs all the time and heats the water up real nice."
She tapped the dark object with one hand to demonstrate.
He tried again to make out what it was but the back lit darkness and fog confused his vision. The motor noise was another distraction this close. "What is it?"
"It's Big
"What?" Junior was stunned to be so close to an actual title-winning Beater, even though a tiny part of his brain reminded him he'd probably b a lot closer -- too close -- on Saturday.
"Hey!" Lizzy sounded offended, "You kept your shorts on!"
To his credit, he kept them on. They swam and splashed and laughed, but Junior found himself stealing more glances at the Bessy than at Lizzy.
When he returned to the shed, Junior found Dank still working on the Beater, which was now standing upright.
The steel skeleton was joined together with pulleys and wires and covered in various forms of armor plates.
The feet were comprised of large truck wheels (minus the tires) turned on their sides.
Corrugated sheet metal made up the shin plates and the thighs were covered in empty oil drums packed tight with foam.
The knee caps (which covered the now correctly assembled leg articulators) were hubcaps.
Junior's gaze swept upward, past the seat and control panel to the chest guard (open for access at the moment) with its proud phoenix emblem.
Directly behind the seat was the engine, or at the least the parts they had managed to gather so far.
The upper arms were covered in more corrugated sheet metal and hubcap elbow guards (to protect the articulation point most likely to take damage in combat) gently led the eye to the forearms, which were each made up of three steel pipes ending in large heavy mitts of cooled slag, each weighing in at over two hundred pounds.
Dank had suggested that the three-pipe forearm could catch the weapon of a "piercer" Beater and, with a quick twist, break or remove that weapon.
Perched on top of the shoulder mounts was a small, mostly decorative head crafted out of a metal trash can. This was where Dank planned to mount the monitoring equipment.
If the Beater were capable of sitting down, it would most certainly crush the fuel tank.
Chapter Three Interlude
File: Datanet Core Server Gamma Delta Twenty, Galactic Science, Era: Modern -105, Index Alternative Energy Sources, EcoHope 11, Combustibles, As reported by satellite and atmospheric monitoring stations
Having neither the technology nor enlightened ecological insight of the Faithful of the Benevolent States United, the denizens of EcoHope 11 still rely primarily on explosive carbon-based fuels to meet their power requirements.
One of the first things the political prisoners did upon arriving, freed by the kind Benevolent States United (long may they mercifully reign), was begin harvesting the native grains. These were not ground to make breads, as regular shipments of food were already arriving thanks to the extremely efficient World Waste Removal Initiative the Faithful enjoy on Earth Prime. Instead, these grains were distilled using salvaged tubing, copper wire and unsanitary liquid receptacles into a poisonous liquid form of alcohol.
In primitive rituals and social settings, the residents took to drinking this liquid intentionally.
They later realized that it tended to burn at a set temperature and could be used as a reliable (if ecologically disastrous) fuel source. Or perhaps they just got lucky.
Ethanol has since become both the fuel and beverage of choice on EcoHope 11. The long term effects on the environment and gene pool both have studies pending.
As an interesting side note, as the distilling process has been refined, several different varieties of fuel have been developed. The lowest quality, termed "beer" by the locals, is used most often as a drink.
Dank glanced up from his screen and announced, "Beer'll work, but we need a lot of it."
"Where we gonna get that much beer?" Junior's gut still churned at the thought of that much beer, or any beer at all really.
"Doc owes me a favor for fixin' his cooler, but it'll still cost us a month's worth of extra rations," Dank replied, already missing the non-food rations that he'd planned to spend on electronic upgrades to his Datanet terminal. In annoyance, he bumped the side of his flickering screen.
"We gonna be ready by Saturday night?" Junior tried to keep the stress out of his voice.
"No problem, man."
