Chapter Five: The Maniac Magee

The first thought that comes to my mind as I step out of the police car into the Saginaw Train Depot is that it’s a miracle that the gigantic but ancient grain elevators looming over the little place haven’t burned down yet. The second is “God my back hurts.”

I had spent the night with Maribelle, she ordered me a pepperoni pizza and a 12-pack of DP Zero, hallowed be its name, which I proceeded to consume before somehow passing out beneath that same awning I had sobbed my eyes out under just hours earlier. I was sore and groggy as fuck when a Corpocop shined a flashlight in my face, and so, so embarrassed to have to show him my work credentials to convince him I wasn’t lying about having graduated the night before and that I didn’t have a place to stay for the night. He laughed at me as he offered me a ride in his cruiser to work.

There’s no way in hell I’d turn down free anything, even if it was incredibly, horrendously awkward the entire time. The entire time he kept asking me questions that I was forced to answer, since the first lesson you learn when on the streets is to not piss off a Corpocop.

“Never been to Saginaw before, Grim?”

I turn to look at the cop with a raised eyebrow. Officer Colton Kristenson is in my eyes the premier icon of the Corpocop stereotype. He’s a stupidly huge white man, at least six feet tall with as much muscle as he has fat, his biceps may well be larger than my goddamn waist. His dark beard, the only hair visible on his entire body, is styled meticulously to be as eye-catching as possible, the curved mass of hair sticking out what has to be half a foot off his face. The man even has on the typical riot gear that Corpocops wear, minus the stupid helmet because he’s too cool for that thing and he is rocking that chrome dome.

Anyways, he’s getting out of the car as well, and I have no idea why. Somewhat nervously, I mumble, “I haven’t… Um, don’t you have more work to do, sir?”

With a shrug, he shuts the door. “Yeah, but it wouldn’t be right for a man like me to not make sure a little lady gets where she’s going safely.”

I narrow my eyes on him. “You just want to tell my new boss about how you found me, don’t you?”

He chortles as he slaps the roof of his cruiser. “Do I ever! They’re gonna get as much of a kick out of it as I did, and I wanna see it!”

Groaning, I run my hand down my face. “I’m never going to live this down.”

He just keeps laughing as he moves towards the only train in the depot at the moment, his feet crunching against the dry, tan dirt with each step. I toss my lonely bag over my shoulder and follow right behind him, dreading the coming few minutes.

Sitting at the front, (or maybe the back, I’m not sure,) of the train is what I assume is a pair of armored locomotives, a necessity for traveling between settlements in this day and age. It shares a lot of the design philosophy that went into the diesel powered engines that dominated before the war, but with oodles of armor distributed throughout since the engine doesn’t have to be as heavy. The thing that really catches my eye though are the huge gatling guns installed on the top of each one, obviously designed to be able to aim in every direction. Those definitely aren’t standard to the model, and it makes me really want to talk to whoever is in charge of engineering these things.

Looking up as we approach, a pair of who I assume are my coworkers share a look that I can’t read with each other, then turn to face us. One of them, a tall man in a gray striped suit, his salt and pepper hair meticulously trimmed, stares daggers at us.

“Good morning, I’m Elisah Jones, the conductor of ‘The Maniac Magee.’ Is there anything I can help you with, officer?”

Colton slaps me on the back with a hearty chuckle, knocking me forward a few steps. “Nope! I’m here to deliver the annual ‘homeless for a night’ Engine to their workplace safe, sound and early.”

“Hah!” The dark skinned woman beside the conductor, puts a hand on her hip as she blatantly eyes me up. “We don’t usually get these in our line of work, this is a bit of a surprise!”

Glaring at Colton as I regain my footing, I mutter, “Annual? Seriously?”

Calmly, the conductor, obviously doing his best to not look at me, explains, “Unfortunately. It’s a rather well known fact that apartment complexes near Engine schools have a tendency to offer leases that end the day they graduate. It ends up with one or two of the new adults sleeping on the streets for a night, many of which ending up in the situation that you are now in.”

Awkwardly, I scratch the back of my neck. “Is it a poor omen?”

The woman shakes her head. “Nah, but it’s hilarious enough you’re going to be the talk of the community around here for a day or two.”

I groan as Colton turns to walk away, waving over his shoulder at me. “I’ve seen her off, so I’m back to work. Work hard out there, kid!”

I wave back, then nervously glance at my new coworkers. With a sigh once he’s out of hearing range, the woman’s eyes shift once to the leaving cop before returning to me. The conductor shakes his head as he begins to tap away at his tablet.

“I was warned about your situation, but jeezus Beatrice did not do your power justice.” She offers me a hand. “Brianna ‘Holmes’ Smith, the Vanguard. You’re Minea ‘Grim’ Rafflesia, right?”

I shake her hand, nodding. “That’s me. Nice to meet you.”

Elisah sighs, glancing up at me. “I’ve still got some things to check before we set off, Brianna, take her to meet the others, if you would.”

My coworker does a lazy salute, then turns to walk away, waving at me to follow. As we move, Brianna’s long and tightly braided ebony hair waves in the wind, brushing up against her lower back. She’s in a traditional dark grey Engine combat suit, skintight with padding in case of bumps and jolts when in the cockpit. She turns to glance at me with a pair of large amber eyes multiple times, but I can see her tensing whenever she does.

“So uh,” She starts as we near the first locomotive, “We’ve got five Engines on staff now including you, making six total people on the crew. We’ve all been excited to meet you!”

Looking up, my eyes follow the length of the train, taking in how it seems to just stretch unto the horizon. I take note of five unique, larger cars placed right after the locomotive, each of which obviously is designed to match them. Beyond that though, there only seem to be standard grain hopper cars as far as I can see. I momentarily glance up at the ancient grain elevators, wondering if they still see use even today to load these, or if they’ve become just monolithic testaments to the ingenuity of humanity.

Brianna kicks a rock and runs forward to brush her hand along the edge of one of the more unique cars, then turns towards me, gesturing at it with a huge grin on her face.

“These five cars at the front are what I like to call Vanguard’s Rest.” She spins around to continue walking down the track stopping to gesture to each car in turn. “In order, it’s the non-combat barracks, a refrigerated pantry, the cafe, my own personal sleeper, and last but certainly not least, the Vanguard Hangar! It’s not much, but after a while it’s kind of become home to me.”

She smiles brightly as she puts a hand on her hip. “You probably won’t be up here much, considering you’re going to be our rearguard, but typically speaking if we’re stopped and you’re not on duty, the cafe is the place to be!”

I nod, and she continues. “When you are on duty, you can send an order in, and at most times at least one of the crew is on cooking duty, so they’ll send it back to you with a drone. Quality may vary though.~”

“We typically have 30 to 45 cargo cars that we split responsibility on, but we’re on the lower end at the moment since the wilds north of Texas have been a bit prickly the last few times we’ve gone through them.” Brianna pauses, then looks over her shoulder at me with a grin. “You up for a run, Grim?”

Without giving me a chance to respond, she takes off, and in my panic to follow I realize immediately that I have to boost to keep up. She nods in approval at me when I catch up, before smirking as she speeds up further. Brianna leaves me in the dust, and I don’t manage to catch up with her until we reach a pair of cars different from the rest, where I find her yelling up at one of the sleeper cars.

“Hey, Marc!” Her hands are cupped in front of her face to throw her voice better. “Wake up!”

There’s an extremely loud clatter that I immediately recognize as glass bottles, followed by the door to the sleeper opening. A blonde man in a combat suit steps out, groaning with a hand against his head and his eyes closed.

“It’s too goddamn early, Bri. What are you yelling about?”

Impatient, Brianna scoffs before slowly intonating, “The. Newbie. Is. Here!”

Groggily he reveals a pair of jewellike pink eyes, and he flinches when they lay upon me. It’s then I’m immediately struck by how absurdly pretty he is. He’s symmetrical and perfectly pleasing to the eyes in a way that doesn’t seem natural. I can’t help but imagine that this is the kind of man that teenage girls get obsessed over. It’s to the point it’s more than a little offputting for me.

I grimace, moving to put Brianna between us.

“What the…” He wipes his eyes, then flinches when he looks at me again. “What is up with that? That isn’t natural fear…”

Brianna laughs, then sings, “You didn’t read the memo.~”

He immediately snaps at her for that, “No, I didn’t, because I was fucking mourning!”

Physically recoiling from the words, Brianna gasps and looks between us. “U-Um. Sorry.”

Marcus groans as he runs a hand through his hair, looking deliberately away from us. “No, it’s on me for getting mad. Whatever, good morning newbie. I’m Marcus ‘Adonis’ Crest, I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk more soon.”

With that said, he walks back into his sleeper, leaving Brianna and I alone once more. She nervously chuckles, then waves me to follow again as she begins to run. Thankfully, I don’t have to boost this time to catch up, so I actually get to talk to her during the process.

“I’ve known Marc for like, five years since we graduated from MIT in the same class,” She explains, “He’s not usually like this. He’s just having a rough time since we lost our last Rearguard, they were pretty close.”

“Is his power like…” I wave my hand around my face, making Brianna snort. “Making him look like that to us?”

She chuckles. “Nope, al naturale. My theory is that he was a GE baby, but I can’t know without asking him and that’s dangerous enough I’m not even going to try.”

“Right…”

The conversation dies off after that. There are multiple things that I want to ask about, yet can’t seem to find the words to say anything. My mind is basically blank as we run, and eventually reach the rear of the train to find the last three cars she needs to introduce to me.

She clambers up a ladder connected to the first one, and I follow her up. With a sly grin, she yanks open the door and walks in with her arms raised above her head. “Welcome to Casa del Grim! This entire place is your sanctuary, the place where nobody has the right to fuck with you, excetera excetera.”

I follow her inside, my eyes moving over the space. It’s shockingly big but a bit narrow, all together maybe twice the size of the little apartment I had lived in for half my life. There’s two more doors, one on the far side of the room from where we entered and the other attached to what seems like a second room. It’s thankfully already mostly furnished with what seems like basic hotel furniture, which is actually a bit of a relief because I was sort of dreading having to buy new things.

“I know it’s a bit basic, but this is how all of the solo sleepers come out of the factory.” She does a little spin, then walks over to one of the doors, yanking it open to reveal a tiny bathroom, where a toilet and vanity sit beside a cramped shower. “You’ll get used to the space constraints quickly, at least I did in my experience.”

She shuts the bathroom, then leads me to that third door on the end of the car. She walks through it out of the room, and I follow her as she moves to the car beside the sleeper, where there is a door with a keypad needed for access.

Her fingers literally blur as she puts the passcode in. “123456 is the code for now, you’ll have to change that or Elisah will get angry at you.~”

As the door slides open, I snort. “Speaking from experience?”

She sticks her tongue out at me as she walks inside. “Maybe, you can’t prove nuthin.”

I giggle as I enter behind her, then freeze as I take in something that makes my heart skip a beat. Brianna steps down into the space in front of it, grinning when she sees my reaction.

“Fitting, isn’t it? When we were selecting what model we wanted for you, Elisah noticed your callsign and declared we had no other choice.”

A Mecha.

My Mecha.

The dark gray machine of death is obviously designed after a canine, with its distinct canine snout and ears that I suspect have a functional purpose beyond looking awesome. It's laying down at the moment, digitigrade legs looking primed to pounce nonetheless. There aren’t any visible weapons installed at the moment, well, beside vicious looking claws that adorn each of the “paws” of the beast.

I immediately ask, “Those thrusters on its back…  Why?”

Brianna joyfully hops over and puts a hand on one of the Mecha's front paws. “They’re specialized to have a different function depending on which arrangement it is in. In quadruped form they work as maneuvering thrusters, but when you have it in a bipedal configuration they work as jump jets.”

I nod, slowly descending into the hangar. Other than the mech, at the far side of the room from where we are is a large locker beside a very heavy looking metal door. There is also a small workshop area nestled into the corner opposite it, as well as what I recognize as a desktop computer setup beside that. I walk over to it, and sink into the stationary office chair placed in front of it. I sigh in contentment, then flush as I see Brianna standing there with a huge smirk on her face.

“You sure seem happy.”

I chuckle nervously. “I’ve never had a space like this to myself before. Is it bad that I feel sort of numb?”

Brianna laughs brightly, walking over and back up the stairs towards the door.

“Nah, it’s normal when you first get out of school. I have some stuff to do, so I’ll leave you here to get acquainted with your new toys,” She pauses then says in a purposefully sultry voice, “Unless you want some help with that.~”

I can’t help but blush as I playfully wave her away. The last thing I hear before I’m alone is the cheerful laughter of my new coworker muffled by the door shutting behind her.

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