Down Jersey Drive-shaft

Chapter Seven: Slick Baby Blues

From the sleepy heavens the Special Technologies hangar looks like a curled up armadillo with a tail inky black. The black is smoke, river swimming Slicks having guzzled ST's diesel and started to pound the empty barrels with bullets. It's an awful thing to behold, these monsters tearing apart this new thing, the only fortress in town. Barbers Basin looks like pairs of flaming chopsticks as the docks are on fire.

Benny sees it, sees La Donna turning sharp on the end corner of Tilbury Road, trunk gun blaring to the beat of war. While he departed to handle the one threat on the fuselage, a second squadron arose to torch headquarters. Milkman angles up to the vertical, rising into the sky, pushed to the limits of its power before the pilot angles her down. Milkman sputters on the rise before roaring to glory on the descent. The plane gains momentum, lining up parallel to the ground, to the rear of the hangar. Down for the shooting arc it travels while Benny's leg slips into dreary awkwardness.

Bullets fall as flashing articles from above and from the side, as Slicks take the news hard. Legs and other assorted components give way to the destructive power of man-made murder. Milkman sweeps up most of the robots at the rear. Shell casings fall as bullets pierce. Milkman delivers fresh death to robots who don't know when to duck.

The streamlined fury of passing Milkman is contrasted by the blunt driving of Frederica and the bullish La Donna. She drives over the cement curb to enter the hangar lot, ramming down a section of metal fence. The big gun pops out and up. Shots dance all over the land like scurrying bees from a hungry bear. Crank pummels a few hapless wanderers making for the hangar's front door. The hangar takes a pounding, trading its glossy paint shell for a cratered makeover. The door is blown off its top hinge, courtesy of Frederica's tactless shooting.

"Milkman to Crank! I've cleared out most of the back, circling to land and finish refueling. What's your status?" His face is smeared with black gunk. Smoke rises, disrupting the calm look of the city.

Crank puts her baby in a hard park, jerking her head and cap forward. She looks at the now swinging door, ashamed of her rampaging lack of accuracy. The front of the hangar is a flaming junkpile. "Crank to Milkman. Okay. I'm coming around the rear to be your backup."

Robotic legs lacking upper bodies ambulate about Barber's Basin, whirring and spraying electrical fizz.

"Roger that."

                                                                                __________________

She's leaning on her car's vibrating hood, trying to appear in control. But inside, the sudden attack from the river has left Crank out of sync, harp strings in an earthquake. She can't wrap her head around Motherville's purpose, or what special need she has for the Milkman S-47E. Surely, she thinks, Motherville would want back the hep engine Crank shoved into her car. But no, this unseen force desires a plane that, though special, lacks the power and advances under the hood of La Donna.

Milkman sits pretty, splashed in a fuel mascara and scissor scribble scratches along the checkered front. Benny walks hard, trying to play off the injury while his baby drinks in the good stuff. He shot up the Slicks in the nick of time, as three barrels of fuel tucked way in the back remain. The back of the charnel house hangar may as well have been the streets of Anzio or the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Charcoal smoke drifts in five separate plumes.

The duo have to kick plenty of spare robot parts around to clear a path, shatter many a lens lest they remain able to see and record. Milkman continues to eat between the fire and the fumes.

Crank watches the plane eat. Benny attempt to stand tall, feels a tinge of jealousy from the kid with a broad depth of respect. "How do you do it, Benny?"