And then there’s Miss Chief. I start getting up a bit earlier in the morning and riding my bike around checking doors to find the motor pool. I start with the hall towards what we’re calling the ‘Gas Station’, because it would seem to make sense to have the vehicles near the fuel, and find… Barracks! That’s military intelligence for ya! But they’re pretty cool so I give ‘em a look. They’re actually built like brownstones inside the massive rooms, to make the old fashioned Earth folks feel at home, I guess. Each room contains a large block. Each floor is a separate apartment, nice, but a lot plainer than the one in the bar, just like I expected. Except for the one at the very end of the hall, which makes the bar apartment look like a hovel. In this one, each unit is a three story, single family townhouse, with huge kitchens, living room, multiple bathrooms, bedrooms, sunroom, den, study, playroom for the kids, guest room, servant’s quarters, and even a full sized, open, attic loft. You get the idea. This is where the rich people live. I’m having one of these! Back outside I notice, on the floor of the hall down at the end here, black marks. They look like tire tracks, skid marks. There are a lot of them, overlapping. Some of them go right up to the wall at the end. When I look closely, there are even light black marks on the wall. Hmmm.

Days continue to pass. I’m off down the other side of the hall, checking doors and finding lots of stuff. Cool stuff, lame stuff, lots of stuff, not so much stuff, interesting stuff, boring stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. But no motor pool yet. Oh, stuff it! And the industrial wing here is probably four or five times longer than the residential side. I’ve gotten where I mark doors with a piece of tape just so I know where I’ve looked, and if there’s anything good in there I’ll write it on the tape so I’ll have a fucking clue. It’s not Trina’s excellent inventory lists, but it’s better than nothing. Then one day I open a new door, and it’s another room full of stuff.

Except that it’s not just stuff, it’s Parts! Axles, transmissions, wheels, tires, tubes, flaps, engines in crates, body panels, cabs, frames, fenders, glass… and shelves! Shelves and shelves along the wall stacked to the ceiling with small parts! Bearings, bushings, bolts, bumpers, and even things that don’t start with B, like clutches and axle shafts, and pistons and rods and valve springs, oh my! This is amazing! There must be enough junk in here to assemble at least twenty vehicles just from what’s in this room! It’s still not what I’m looking for, but it means I’m getting close.

So I try the door directly across the hall, and it’s wide open in here, mostly. It’s the maintenance shop! I can ride my bike around in here easily, so I do. Absorbing the sights of lifts, jacks, jack stands, huge roll around tool chests, massive compressors against the wall piping air to every workstation for air tools, tire and wheel machines, drums of various lubricants and pumps to pump them… Awesome! The back end is separated into two, smaller rooms. One is a full machine shop. The other is an engine room with tables and stands and all the specialty tools for assembling engines, differentials, transmissions, whatever you want. Oh man, I’m having a geargasm!

And when I open the next door down, a golden glow fills the air and I hear angels sing, “Ahhhh!” It’s the motor pool, yay! There’s jeeps, and more jeeps, and three quarter ton weapons carriers, and carryalls, a couple of deuce and a half’s, and even a few staff cars and command cars for the mucky mucks. Cool! I turn around and notice that near the door, up by the wall where it’s fairly easy to get out, is a weapons carrier that has had its bed removed and replaced with a very large transfer tank. On the side of the tank is painted Miss Chief, in the same flowing script I have come to know and love. I check it out and, it’s just a Dodge weapons carrier with a big tank on the back. This is not Miss Chief. This is just Miss Chief’s fuel mule. But the size of the tank gives me an idea of what to expect.

It’s time for me to get back for class, and I’m probably going to be late because I got carried away. But wait! Now I’ve got wheels! Wheels that will move! The mule is too big to be cruising around in for transport, but a jeep is just the right size for this place. I throw my bike in one, wheel it down to the gas station for a top off, and roll back to Door 42 with five minutes to spare. It’s a good thing that Bethy’s off on the loader and didn’t see me drive up in this thing or she’d make me teach her to drive it RIGHT NOW and the class would have to go fuck itself.

It almost does anyway. When she comes in for a break around noon and sees the jeep parked out front, it takes me the better part of ten minutes to convince her that, no, it is not just like the loader, yes, it is quite a bit faster, no, it is quite a bit different to drive, yes, I will teach her, no, I did not leave the key in it so she can go practice. She’s not happy, but class is in session so she doesn’t make a scene. Band practice is fucked for today, though.

I get through the class, and when I walk out the door at two thirty she is sitting in the jeep with her face firmly set in an icy ‘What took you so long’ look. I sigh and smile and make her move over to the passenger seat.

“But I wanna drive!”

“And you will,” I say reassuringly, “But I gotta show you some things first.”

I go through explaining the shift levers, and gear patterns, and brake, clutch, and gas pedals. Then I start it up and take us down the hall.

“Is it broken? Why is it so quiet and smooth?”

“It’s a whole different kind of machine. And it’s got a muffler, but we can cut that off later if you want it louder.”

She thinks about it and says, “Ok.”

Doing about ten miles an hour I go wide for the turn and then whip us down the hall towards the gas station. We almost get up on two wheels.

“Shit!” she exclaims.

“THAT is exactly the point I’m trying to make here,” I say, “This thing isn’t exactly what you’d call fast, but with the short wheelbase, narrow track, and high center of gravity, it can get real squirrely real quick. It’ll do forty five or fifty flat out, so it’s fast enough to fuck you up in a hurry if you screw around. Understand?”

“I do now. I think I might need to change into a clean jumpsuit.”

She’s developing a healthy respect for the machine, that’s good. I head on down the hall, get us up into fourth going about thirty, and put on the brakes. I don’t slam them on, but I press the pedal firmly. They’re not awful, they’re not great. It’s a World War Two jeep, what do you expect?

“See the stopping distance there?”

“Uh huh.”

“You have to think about that shit while you’re driving, and remember to slow the fuck down so you don’t die.”

She’s paying close attention now, that’s good. I motor us down to the end of the hall, turn around, and stop.

“Ok, your turn.”

It takes her a while to get a feel for the clutch (just like everybody else) but after several bouts of stalling and smoking she hones in on the happy medium and we’re off. There’s a bit of gear grinding, and I explain the art of double clutching, and she’s getting the hang of it. A little shaky, but she’s doing good, and she’s not going all Speed Racer on me, for which I am thankful. The jeep runs for a lot longer on a tank than the loader, because it has gears and isn’t running flat out all the time. So we run up and down and around the halls until it’s time to go back and run Door 42. I don’t ever let her go further than the motor pool though. I don’t even know what Miss Chief is yet, but I know she’s down there and I don’t want Bethy around her until she’s comfortable with the jeep. You don’t bring someone into a cage with a lion when they don’t even know how to handle a house cat.