[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Up to Mars (closed)
Jan 2, 2019 2:00:59 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2019 2:00:59 GMT -5
Week 2 Day 6 – Time: 1430
Location: R-4809
----
Carly crossed her fingers and prayed for a cool Autobot.
I mean, she had a cool Autobot right in front of her. Okay, ex-Autobot. The tank sat in the shade of a nearby Joshua tree in its blue and black urban camouflage paint and loomed very impressively. Even at low idle the rumble of its engine thundered through the ground. She had personally witnessed that tank wipe out a bunker on a cratered hillside two miles away with a single howling shot from its main gun. Once he had walked out of the desert with a bleeding wound under his arm, patched up with a ROAD SIGN, zero rounds left in his machine guns, and four fresh kills to his name. He could be cool and even a bit intimidating!
Just…
Not at this particular moment.
Carly leaned back on the hood of the car, kicked her heels against the bumper, and resignedly listened to the unfolding grown-ass adult discussion.
“Look, I don’t claim to have any great insight into the argument,” said the grown-ass tank. “I acknowledge my ignorance on the subject. I’m just saying that the moment she put an entire lit cigarette into her mouth was the moment she won my vote.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair.”
The grown-ass man sitting beside Carly nodded diplomatically. “That's fair, and you’re entitled to your opinion. But can we at least agree that Shelley Long paved the way for the introduction of Kelsey Grammer’s character, and that she was irreplaceable for that fact alone?”
“I didn’t like her. Carla was right. Too stuck up.”
“Okay, well, consider this! Through the Grammer connection we also got Neuwirth. I know you like Lilith. That's gotta be worth a point in Long’s favour, right?”
Grudgingly, the tank said, “Yeah, maybe.”
Carly resisted the urge to put her face in her hands.
She really couldn’t have predicted her day would go like this. Breakfast granola, coffee at the base admin office. A two-hour briefing about the upcoming series of test trials that Black Rock aimed to perform in coordination with willing Autobot volunteers, all very grim and professional. Now there was highly sophisticated equipment crammed in the trunk of Agent Washburn’s car, a top secret military satellite was monitoring their transmissions for a top secret military field trial… and she was sitting out in the desert listening to a Department of Defence agent and Black Rock's own Murder Machine argue over casting choices for an eighties sitcom. What was her life! Christmas with the family was going to be interesting this year. How is your new job with the military going, honey? Great, mom! I designed a bunch of drones and made a Netflix account for a giant space robot. He's getting a bit intense about it. Pass the gravy, please!
And this was only the first trial! A prelude, sorta.
Carly silently prayed for the assistance of an Autobot who was nice and friendly, and maybe also a bit of a badass. Max said he had specifically requested a scout, if one could be spared. Scouts were quick and shrewd, which was exactly what they were looking for. Please be cool, please be cool. Max himself had lost a few cool guy points the instant he'd bought that cell phone. And where had he gotten that from anyway? When she'd asked him he'd just said Vegas slot money. Good Christ. Some days it was difficult to remember that he was a death tank from an alien planet ravaged by war. Then she'd remember the time he bare-handed snatched an interceptor missile out of the air and deliberately allowed it to detonate in his fist just to prove a point, and it all came rushing back to her. That had been an exciting day on the test range, wow!
She became dimly aware that someone was asking her something. Oh, it was Agent Washburn, hooray.
“Don’t look at me!” she said. “I'm trying to internally go over my notes for the test. Besides, I’m a Woody fan. Did you see what Harrelson looked like back then? Rawl!”
She made squeezy motions with both hands and grinned. She was a proper grown-ass woman sometimes. A grown-ass woman who was gonna meet another Autobot in like five minutes! Not gonna lie, this job could be pretty amazing sometimes.
Carly leaned back and smiled into the blazing Nevada sunshine. She was happy to wait.
Location: R-4809
----
Carly crossed her fingers and prayed for a cool Autobot.
I mean, she had a cool Autobot right in front of her. Okay, ex-Autobot. The tank sat in the shade of a nearby Joshua tree in its blue and black urban camouflage paint and loomed very impressively. Even at low idle the rumble of its engine thundered through the ground. She had personally witnessed that tank wipe out a bunker on a cratered hillside two miles away with a single howling shot from its main gun. Once he had walked out of the desert with a bleeding wound under his arm, patched up with a ROAD SIGN, zero rounds left in his machine guns, and four fresh kills to his name. He could be cool and even a bit intimidating!
Just…
Not at this particular moment.
Carly leaned back on the hood of the car, kicked her heels against the bumper, and resignedly listened to the unfolding grown-ass adult discussion.
“Look, I don’t claim to have any great insight into the argument,” said the grown-ass tank. “I acknowledge my ignorance on the subject. I’m just saying that the moment she put an entire lit cigarette into her mouth was the moment she won my vote.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair.”
The grown-ass man sitting beside Carly nodded diplomatically. “That's fair, and you’re entitled to your opinion. But can we at least agree that Shelley Long paved the way for the introduction of Kelsey Grammer’s character, and that she was irreplaceable for that fact alone?”
“I didn’t like her. Carla was right. Too stuck up.”
“Okay, well, consider this! Through the Grammer connection we also got Neuwirth. I know you like Lilith. That's gotta be worth a point in Long’s favour, right?”
Grudgingly, the tank said, “Yeah, maybe.”
Carly resisted the urge to put her face in her hands.
She really couldn’t have predicted her day would go like this. Breakfast granola, coffee at the base admin office. A two-hour briefing about the upcoming series of test trials that Black Rock aimed to perform in coordination with willing Autobot volunteers, all very grim and professional. Now there was highly sophisticated equipment crammed in the trunk of Agent Washburn’s car, a top secret military satellite was monitoring their transmissions for a top secret military field trial… and she was sitting out in the desert listening to a Department of Defence agent and Black Rock's own Murder Machine argue over casting choices for an eighties sitcom. What was her life! Christmas with the family was going to be interesting this year. How is your new job with the military going, honey? Great, mom! I designed a bunch of drones and made a Netflix account for a giant space robot. He's getting a bit intense about it. Pass the gravy, please!
And this was only the first trial! A prelude, sorta.
Carly silently prayed for the assistance of an Autobot who was nice and friendly, and maybe also a bit of a badass. Max said he had specifically requested a scout, if one could be spared. Scouts were quick and shrewd, which was exactly what they were looking for. Please be cool, please be cool. Max himself had lost a few cool guy points the instant he'd bought that cell phone. And where had he gotten that from anyway? When she'd asked him he'd just said Vegas slot money. Good Christ. Some days it was difficult to remember that he was a death tank from an alien planet ravaged by war. Then she'd remember the time he bare-handed snatched an interceptor missile out of the air and deliberately allowed it to detonate in his fist just to prove a point, and it all came rushing back to her. That had been an exciting day on the test range, wow!
She became dimly aware that someone was asking her something. Oh, it was Agent Washburn, hooray.
“Don’t look at me!” she said. “I'm trying to internally go over my notes for the test. Besides, I’m a Woody fan. Did you see what Harrelson looked like back then? Rawl!”
She made squeezy motions with both hands and grinned. She was a proper grown-ass woman sometimes. A grown-ass woman who was gonna meet another Autobot in like five minutes! Not gonna lie, this job could be pretty amazing sometimes.
Carly leaned back and smiled into the blazing Nevada sunshine. She was happy to wait.