The awkward silence stretched up until the two of you were standing in front of the repair bay building. It has a large door for vehicles and a small door for people. Around the repair bay building are vehicles in various states of disrepair, mostly wheeled but a few treaded ones as well. “I’ve been in there more times than I can count.” Amber finally spoke up. “Vehicle repair is in the front, Valkyrie repair in the back.” Amber pressed a button and the small door opened. She pushed you inside and the door shuts behind you.
Immediately you are assaulted by noise, grinding, welding, hammering, and so on. The smell of melting metal and rust reminds you of your childhood. Of your days restoring old floaters with your mother in the garage after school. Before you entered the academy, restoring and selling broken-down floaters had put you through college. The Azure Federation uses exclusively flying vehicles so tracked and wheeled ones like these you weren’t familiar with.
Amber stops in front of a door near the back of the building. “And now I’ll introduce you to…” Amber said melodramatically. She opens the door with a flourish. As soon as you open it, a blast of loud music assaults your ears even over the sounds of repair work going on around you. From here you can catch a glimpse of a woman working at a workbench. “…d… …el…” Amber says something, but you can’t make it out. “WHAT?!” You shout. Amber gets closer and leans down to you. “I said! MAD DOCTOR ELIZA!” Amber shouted.
Amber wheels you inside and steps up to a wall console and flicks a switch, the room becomes quiet. “HEY!” A woman shouted in surprise. “Do you know what happens… to those who turn off my tunes?” The woman asks menacingly. “Yeah, you send me after them.” Amber shrugged. “Your music ruined my dramatic introduction so… tough.” As Amber finishes, the woman, Eliza you guessed, turns away from her workbench towards Amber and you finally get a good look at her. What you notice at once is that she doesn’t have odd-colored hair, eyes, or skin, nor any logos on her exposed skin. You’re guessing she’s human, one thing about Valkyries that makes them look obvious is the lack of any imperfections on their skin, but Eliza has her share of blemishes on her face and skin, nothing that detracts from her unkempt beauty though.
Eliza looks at Amber and grunts before turning her gaze toward you. “Eek!” Eliza shrieks and blushes deep red. “Put some CLOTHES on!” She yells and stares at you transfixed. That’s when you remember that you just came from the med tent and are still wearing only a hospital gown. It wasn’t something you thought of up until now. Eliza finally manages to tear her eyes away from you and turn around. “There’s a jumpsuit in that locker over there!” She waves in the general direction towards you.
“Uh… wha… right!” If she was flustered, you were worse. You hadn’t even been on a date since before you joined the academy, and none of the girlfriends you’ve had ended well. You shakily get to your feet and walk over to the locker next to the door. You open it and reach in, good thing these are one size fits all. You’re about to strip off the hospital gown when something occurs to you.
You turn around and look at Amber, she’s looking right at you with a grin on her face. “What? Don’t tell me you’re shy. I’m not really a lady you know. This is like being embarrassed to get dressed in front of your alarm clock.” She snarks, but you see her lick her lips sensually in anticipation and decide to look around for an alternative. You find a shelf that blocks you from her view and step behind it. “Aww… you’re no fun…” Amber shrugs. “Well if that’s the way you want it, see you tomorrow.” You catch a glimpse of her leaving through the door and quickly put the jumpsuit on.
“Okay… sorry about that.” You step out from the shelves and present yourself. “I’m good.” Eliza was still beet red when she turned around, but the blushing soon faded. “Good. Um…” Eliza looks at you and sighs. “I’m sorry for my reaction. I’m… not good with men.” She admits. “Well, I’m not good with women, so we’re in the same transport I guess.” You reply. “You are human right?” You ask.
Eliza nods. “Yeah, rare to see a real Mccoy around here, isn’t it?” You nod at that. “On the subject of women, I’ve come to see what state my Valkyrie is in.” You step forward and Eliza steps back. “O…Okay…” The nervousness in her voice is obvious. Not good nothing, she seems outright afraid of you. You decide to step back and sit back in your wheelchair. “Take your time miss.” You try to put up as nonthreatening a presence as possible.
Eliza gulps and then turns away back to the workbench. “You… um… you’re lucky the boss decided to keep this unit around. These mass production units are so cheap to make it’s usually cheaper to scrap them and get a new one.” She sighs and looks around. “Now where did I put that 5/8th…?” She asks herself.
You spot the tool on a nearby shelf and grab it. “You mean this?” You point at the tool in your hand. Eliza looks at you and nods. “Y…Yeah.” It takes her a moment to work up the courage to step up to you. You feel like telling Eliza to relax but at the same time you don’t want to spook her more. Apprehensively Eliza reaches over and grabs the wrench, lightly brushing your hand as she does so.
As soon as she notices Eliza blushes hard, quickly pulls the wrench out of your hand, and moves back to her workbench so fast she’s almost running. You can’t get a good look at what she’s doing from here, all you can see is her butt swaying as she works. “Allen wrenches… Allen wrenches…” You would expect a mechanic to be more organized than this, but you figure your presence might be throwing her off. “Over there.” You point to the Allen wrench set hanging on the wall to the right.
“Um… thank you.” Eliza goes over and grabs it. “Where did my battery analyzer go?” You smirk. “To your left.” Yep, you’ve thrown her off. After she grabs it, she glances at you very briefly and returns to what she’s doing. “You seem to know your stuff.” Eliza notes. “Not really? I just know how to fix up floaters.” You admit. Eliza spins around and looks right at you gaping. “REALLY!? I’ve never even seen one!” Eliza’s eyes were sparkling.
Suddenly Eliza is quickly walking right up to you. She puts her hands on the arms of your wheelchair and leans close. “Do floaters really have working anti-gravity units? Can they fly anywhere? Can they actually go 200 mph?” You don’t know which question to answer first. “Um… yes, no, and yes if you want to get arrested.” With her this close you can smell Eliza’s minty breath just under the smell of various mechanical lubricants staining her clothes. It takes self-control not to look down at her shirt to look at her considerable assets.
“THAT’S AMAZING!” Eliza squees. “How do they work? How do they work how do they work how do they work?” Eliza had gone from a ball of nervousness to a ball of energy in 10 seconds. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really know the science behind it, I can just fix and restore them.” Eliza pulled away as you admitted this. “Oh.” Eliza was clearly hoping you’d launch into a technical explanation of the things, but you were just a passable mechanic. “My mom and I spent my childhood restoring old floaters and selling them for money, before I went to college and then the academy.”
“Your mom sounds like a nice lady.” Eliza said. “Daddy showed me everything he knows about Valkyries and Einnies.” Eliza explained. “I’m really the only one around here who knows how to fix them. They only really bother to fix the elite units and the older ones and the rest they junk.” Eliza explains. “Like Amber?” You ask. “Yeah! She’s always getting broken and I’m the only one who can bring her up to snuff.”
“Well, that must be trouble.” You grumble. “Oh no, she’s great.” Eliza said, without a hint of sarcasm. “Really? Everybody else I’ve talked to seems to barely tolerate her presence.” You note. “Oh, she’s not so bad.” Eliza leans back against her workbench. “I literally know Amber inside and out, she’s a lot more passionate than she lets on.” Eliza states. “Maybe too passionate. Amber doesn’t seem to care much about how many Valkyries and Einnes she’s killed.” You note.
“Maybe… I’m not so sure.” Eliza said but shook it off. “A..anyway!” She turns away and works for a minute. “I’ve been working since the order came through.” Eliza said as she works. She fiddles with a few more things. “Well, she’s not going to be ready until tomorrow, but I could activate her now if you like.” Eliza notes.
