Chapter Thirty-Seven - Caroline

Timothy, or as it turns out, T1-M, was the name of the mecha Caroline had been working on. Moving it required letting the excitable young woman finish her work on its leg, reinstalling it, then walking the mech out into the yard around Caroline’s garage.

That took up the better part of two hours, even with myself lifting things and Clin... actually being somewhat helpful. He at least knew the names of the tools that Caroline called out for, and once he had oriented himself, he was about to predict what she’d need before she asked for it.

“I like him,” Caroline declared when I helped her out of Timothy’s cabin.

“The mech or the elf?” I asked.

“The elf,” she said. “Your best boy-toy yet.”

I snorted. “He’s not. Just a client. And I don’t think he’s my type besides.”

“Yeah, that’s what makes him better than all the other sleazebags,” Caroline said. “Alright, let’s take a look at Rusty. The poor dear has so many nicks and scratches. You really ought to treat him better, you know?”

“We’ve had a hectic few days.” It certainly wasn’t the worst condition I’d brought the mech back in. “He’s a tough old mech.”

“Just because someone’s tough on the outside, doesn’t mean they’re not a precious softy on the inside.” Caroline skipped over to Rusty and started patting the mech’s leg. “Look at this boy. Sure he’s all rusty and a bit scratched up, but he’s worked really hard to keep going. He’s a bit ugly, but he’s loyal and hard-working.”

“Right,” I said. Caroline got this way whenever the fancy took her. I stepped up before she could start rubbing herself on the mech’s leg. “We should move Rusty in, then head to bed.”

“Bed?” Caroline asked.

“It’s way past late,” I said. “When’s the last time you ate?”

The woman looked at me, confused for a moment before she narrowed her eyes and started thinking about it. “The sun was up...”

“So half a day ago?” I asked.

“It’s not that late, is it?”

“It’s so late it’s early,” I replied. “Come on, Caroline. We can heat you up a bucket of warm water to wash off with while I cook something up.”

“Nah, I’m good for another few hours, at least.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want you working on Rusty while tired. You’ll start getting ideas.”

“Ideas are great!”

“Ideas are why Rusty has an arm off a gnomish warmech instead of his original arm,” I replied.

“It’s way better.”

I shook my head and wrapped an arm around Caroline’s shoulder. Judging by how weak her protests were, she had been up for a while.

I wasn’t entirely familiar with Caroline’s home. It was mostly an open garage, doors facing down-wind, but there was a proper house attached to it all. It wasn’t a properly clean house though. There was an entire engine in the living room, and broken tools on the counters. I sighed as I had to tug some bits of metal off the couch to make space to place Caroline down.

“Give me a few,” I said.

I found Caroline’s water reserves in the pantry. A few large tanks that sounded near-full when I bumped a fist into them. The woman was well-off, in her own way. Being one of the only reliable mechanics for quite a ways meant that she never lacked for customers. She also had a tendency not to say no when she really ought to.

It earned her some favour with the folk over in Daggerwren, and even some of the scummier sort looked after her in their own way.

She was the only one that could fix the local street-gang’s sand-racers and dune buggies, and she did it gladly.

When folk depended on you to make due, they tended to treat you with a little more kindness. ‘Least when they weren’t morons.

I cleared some junk off of her stove and checked the core container on its side for fuel before lighting it up. After that, I started rummaging around for food. I wasn’t any good in the kitchen, but I could handle myself well enough. Caroline’s pantry wasn’t full to bursting, but there was plenty to be had. Some meat that I didn’t trust, some breads that had gone hard... I ended up breaking open a few cans and dumping their contents into a pot.

Nothing fancy, but it would keep us fed.

The water I boiled for Caroline to wash herself off was dumped into a big tin tub that I hefted up and put in her bathroom.

I returned to find the food gurgling, Clin poking at it with a wooden spoon and Caroline snoring on the couch.

Sighing, I woke the woman up, got her to her feet, then helped her to the washroom. “Come on, clean yourself up. Do you have any fresh rags to wear?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, Missus Smith does the wash for me ever since I fixed up Betty.”

“Betty?” I asked.

“Her washing machine.”

“Right,” I said. Poking my head out of the room, I called out to Clin. “Mind the food, and keep your eyes to yourself.”

Tucked away in Caroline’s room was a pile of clothes in a wash basket, left next to a bed that was covered in tussled blankets.

“Damnit Caroline,” I swore as I took in the state of her room. It was fortunate that the lights were out, else I might have figured out where the stinks were coming from. Caroline was proving to be a bit dirtier than I’d imagined.

I picked some things out for her and dropped them off in the washroom where Caroline was cleaning herself off between expansive yawns.

“We’ll be eating in a minute,” I said.

“Then we can get back to work,” Caroline said.

“No, then you can get back to sleep. I won’t let you touch Rusty without at least five hours of shut-eye.”

Caroline grumbled, but kept on rubbing at her face with a wet cloth. I eyed the water, brackish-brown with rust and grime already, and decided to get another bucket-full warmed up.

“I think this is almost done,” Clin said.

“Getting the hang of cooking?” I asked.

“We have servants for this at home,” Clin said. “Not that I haven’t made myself a meal or two, it’s not always convenient to ask the staff for a quick meal.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said as I filled a pot with water again, then grunted as I set it on a burner. I sniffed at the stew. It didn’t smell too bad. “Set that on the table, and look in those cupboards over there for bowls and such.”

“Right,” Clin agreed before he did as I asked. “You seem to know Miss Caroline fairly well.”

“Was that a question?” I asked.

“An idle curiosity. Maybe just a leading statement.”

I rubbed at my nose. It was getting too humid in the kitchen for my liking. “Yeah, I know her fairly well. She was out in the Flatbluffs for a long while, then she moved over to here. We met soon after. Helped her set up a garage over in Galenook, but that didn’t work out for very long. Now she’s a local, through and through.”

“Is she the only mechanic around here?”

I shook my head. “Nah. There are a few more, but she’s the only one I’d fully trust and who knows what she’s doing. She’s damned good at what she does.” I picked the pot off the stove, the water within just shy of bubbling-hot, then carried it back to the washroom.

Caroline was grinning when I opened up the door. “So, you trust me, huh?”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to stare at her in her state of undress. “I trust that you’ll clean yourself up. Maybe what I shouldn’t trust is the thickness of the walls in here.”

“Don’t be like that, Charlie,” she replied.

We emptied out the dirty water into a recycler, then I left her to it.

Clin was setting the table when I returned.

“So, we’ll probably be staying here for the rest of tomorrow... that is, the rest of the day. Hard to keep track of that when it’s so late. Afterwards, we’ll have to see. If Caroline’s got Rusty going again in tip-top, then we need to pick a direction.”

“East, I presume,” Clin said.

“Hmm, yeah, but straight east, or east and south? Flatbluffs and Cinderwich are southwards. There’s a train track leading all the way down to Flatbluffs from here, and another connecting Flatbluffs to Cinderwich.”

“That could save us a few days of travel,” he agreed.

“More than a few,” I said. “We can cross three days of travel in an afternoon if we time it right.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to head east from Cinderwich? That’s orcish territory.”

“Everything to the east of here is dangerous,” I said. “And it’s just as bad to the west and north and south.” I saw Caroline stepping out of the washroom, looking a good deal cleaner and a bit more awake. I sat down heavily, then faced Clin again. “We just need to pick our dangers. But we can worry about that in the morning.”

***