No Freaking Thanks

Chapter 13

"Meet me at the scrapyard at nine," Terry said as he walked his way out, "Get that, everyone?" His friends nodded without looking away.

The moon roamed over the dark landscape. It is usually hard to see what is up ahead especially when driving. In this case, a doe and her fawn were walking onto a road when Jared's car approached them at 45 miles an hour within a ten-second span. The two took notice of the high beams and hopped over to the other side. Along with some fauna by the road, dead leaves and twigs fell down to the ground. A couple landed on Jared's car but left no damage behind. While driving with his sweaty palms on the wheel, he took a quick sip from his bottle of alkaline water. Jared had some comments and questions in mind.

"What are you pulling from your top hat, Terry? What could be your equivalent to the Manhattan Project? You better not take inspiration from Disney's atrocious Superstar Limo ride, sign a contract with an economic hotel chain, or—worst of all—pull the same stunt we did back in Pennsylvania! You are better than that! Come to think of it, where would Riley establish his Crypto-Joy park at? Would he host it somewhere in this country—probably in this state—or through the many servers as part of a deal with those trout-poaching dicks?

"But what if Riley is sending a mole or two to our park? Could it be possible that the lodge owner's mole got caught telling stories outside of class?" His thought process froze as he made his destination: the scrapyard. With all the other cars sitting in front of the entrance, Jared gave himself a quick rinse in a nearby restroom before meeting up with his friends.

Terry, Vince, and a Japanese woman were playing a game of Go Fish while Sonya roasted marshmallows with a blow torch for s'mores. She looked up to see Jared approaching them, "Glad you came, Jared! Now, I am making s'mores for us, but I know you can't consume chocolate, so I made an alternative just for you. Terry will show us his 'big project.'" She handed Jared a homemade rice cereal treat with strawberry chunks and spinach leaves. He munched on it while Terry got up on his feet. The combination of tight jeans and Terry's MILF-esque figure made Jared's face go red while his penis grew more erect.

"What the hell is wrong with you, me?" he thought while shaking his head, "That's my friend! A man! I can't be fantasizing about us going to town! You are here because he told you to...for a business meeting...in a fucking scrapyard!" He continued to clean the dirty thoughts by smacking himself in the forehead. His friends stared at him with concerned looks. Jared defended, "This is not related to whatever we are going to discuss. No need to worry about me."

"No one should be feeling awful," Terry said, "Because what you are about to see should be radiating positive energy—and I really mean it!" He strutted over to open a chest in the back of his car and lifted a pair of black-and-blue gloves with small sci-fi-looking barrels protruding from each glove's two interdigital folds—one between the index and middle, one between the ring and pinky. Connected to them is a base made of a circuit board containing a lithium battery and chips (including a Bluetooth module) along with wires connected to a power button, LED lights, a micro-USB charger port, a safety switch, a wide button on the upper palm where the four fingers meet, and two particle accelerators the size of soda can tabs linked to the barrels—all covered by a faceplate. Accompanied by the gloves is an application implemented in Terry's smartphone. Theoretically, one operating the pair would input what parts they want and aim at a compatible material (preferably some scrap). Then, a good push of the front button with the fingers would eject two arcs of ionized electricity at that material, changing its form into something else.

Terry lined up some scrap metal, took a step back, aimed his gloves, and blasted the ionized electricity at the material. Due to the blinding lights, his team could not see what was happening (even after putting on sunglasses to partially counter the brightness). Once he was finished, the arcs receded to reveal the parts of a rollercoaster track taking the scrap's place. The team gave him a round of applause (with Jared doing it slightly slower).

"With the technology in my hands literally," Terry said, "I could let the ride engineers mold any material into various parts. Now, considering that the arcs are powerful, you would need to get everyone including yourself at a safe distance—probably out of the cone because the electricity could be conducted off to the side. If it weren't for Penelope, I would see us living in the slums."

"Penelope?" Jared said. He turned to the Japanese woman, "Are you Penelope?"

She chuckled, "Oh no. Well, let me get her from my car."

As the woman walked to her sedan, Jared asked her, "Let me guess: Penelope is a child prodigy? Like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory?"

"Not exactly," the woman replied, "My name's Erica Nakano and I am a ventriloquist."

Everyone's eyes widened as she pulled out a wooden puppet donning a pink wig and bunny ears, a purple dress, white gloves, and black Mary Janes. The face is decorated with red circles on the cheeks, black eyelashes over solid sky-blue eyes, and a cute button nose. Erica woke the puppet up and it looked around back and forth before asking, "You work with these people?"

"Sure I do. Everyone, this is Penelope. A little girl with a great history on computer science—"

"...and some help from Erica, my mentor," Penelope declared with hints of sarcasm.

"Well, you saw me input code in C++ and asked about becoming a programmer."

"Are you gaslighting me?" Penelope asked. Joy and Vince shook their heads with smug smiles. Jared grew a straight face and made a facepalm. Penelope turned towards the groups and asked a similar question only to receive some shrugs. Erica's watch vibrated and she looked down on it, "Oh dear! It must be bedtime. I got to get going."

She laid Penelope back into a ventriloquist's trunk before driving off. The rest followed suit, that is, what Jared assumed everyone was doing. He reached for the car door and...

"Hold it right there, tiger."

Jared turned his body and squinted his eyes at Terry standing menacingly in front of him. "'Tiger?' Are we going by some callsigns now?"

Terry strutted over to Jared before getting a nice grip of the latter's cleft chin, performing a [left] leg kabedon on Jared's car, and scratched his blonde hair with the other hand. Then, he lowered his right hand to give Jared a back scratch.

"Why are you doing this, Terry? I thought we were friends."

"We are, laddie. You were looking a bit stressed," Terry replied as he pressed his pec against Jared's face, "Besides, no one wants to be in any form of distress. That is why I decided to learn about dealing with mental health."

"And what inspired you to do that?"

"Glad you asked," Terry said as he stepped away before looking up at the moon, "My mum told me and Joy this: when I was around fifteen months old, my parents and I went over to a county fair to watch my cousins show their pigs. During lunch, when my pop was feeding me, we heard a scream over at a Round-Up—Brits call it the Meteorite. We then rushed over to find a woman giving birth to a baby boy—as said in a newspaper issue—and they had to be taken to a hospital. As if that's not shocking enough, that kid didn't even get to see his twin sibling flying!

"I guess it's best to head home now," Terry said as he got in his car and drove off.

Jared's thought process got caught in limbo and he asked himself, "Did that really happen; or did Ms. D get drunk on red wine, went home, and spat it out to the two? If that were the case, wouldn't Terry just debunk the story? Unless..."