And nothing continued to happen for several more unbearable seconds until a completely random voice abruptly shouted, "GET OUT HERE, BITCH! CAUGHT US BY SURPRISE YESTERDAY, BUT TODAY WE'RE GONNA FIND OUT WHAT THE FUCK'S GOING ON IN THERE!"
"Yes!" Carl whispered to himself, subtly pumping his fist in the air. "Looks like we should take care of that," he said more loudly, already turning around to walk out of the situation he thought he'd never be able to talk his way out of.
"Don't worry about it," Vol said, waving him off, her bandanna already back on her face and her hand already on the door's handle. "I'll get this, you work on getting things under control here, master." She pumped her eyebrows at him once and then opened, walked through, and closed the door in a single, hard-to-follow motion.
A moment later, Mina slid out from under the car, her front and face covered in an unbelievable amount of grease. "Carl, how has your morning progressed?" she asked, smiling up at him. She grabbed a nearby towel and began to wipe her face off.
"It's the worst," Carl grumbled. "Everything's the worst."
Mina gave him a worried look, her hands grasping the towel tightly. "What's happened? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I mean, I guess other than having Vol meet her," he grumbled, gesturing to the stupid doll.
The girl looked down at herself and grimaced unhappily. "I'm going up to quickly change my clothes, but I'll return presently." She dashed towards the stairs, taking the circular staircase two steps at a time until she disappeared from view.
Carl glared at the doll.
"Did I do good, master?" she asked with a big grin, bouncing up and down on her feet.
"No," he said quietly but firmly, shaking his head. "You didn't. And we're never going to have sex, so stop fucking asking," he hissed.
The doll stared at him with her head tilted, seeming confused. "But you want to."
"No, I don't," Carl whispered, again shaking his head. "Fine, you're attractive. What's it matter? Not happening. Not now, not ever. So stop."
"Oh," said the doll.
"Go sit in the corner." He pointed.
"Okay," the doll said in a sad tone that didn't affect him even the tiniest bit. She walked over to the front corner of the workshop which wasn't partially occupied by a workbench and sat down in front of it.
"Sorry," Mina called, racing back down the steps. She ran over and threw her arms around him. "You'd have been covered in grease," she said, squeezing hard. "Is everything alright?"
Carl hugged her back, making sure to use less force just in case he'd been accidentally crushing her all this time. "Yeah," he sighed, "just a weird morning."
She hugged him even tighter. "I'm sorry," she said again.
Carl frowned, then ruffled her hair. "Don't be sorry. I brought you some stuff."
Mina pulled back, her expression complex. "No, you shouldn't have."
Carl opened his inventory and took out a still-steaming cup of tea with a saucer. "Tea to start with."
Mina accepted the saucer with some reluctance.
"I fucking love this city sometimes," Vol called, slamming the door behind her as she re-entered. "Don't think you'll be hearing from them again."
Mina jumped, spilling some of her tea onto the saucer and nearly the entire saucer before he managed to steady it with his Dad Reflexes.
"Vol," Carl said in a warning tone.
"Oh right," she said, her voice quieting. "Sorry," she whispered at a comically loud volume. "Hi, I'm Vol." She waved.
"Bandanna."
"Uh, right." She took off the bandanna again, revealing a very ordinary smile. "Hi."
"Um, hello," Mina said, glancing up at Carl. "I'm Mina."
"Good to meet you," Vol said. "So you're a driver? Racing today?"
"It's nice to meet you as well," Mina replied, inclining her head slightly. She stirred her tea. "And yes, I'm registered to race this afternoon. How are you acquainted with Carl, if I might ask?"
Carl realized at that moment that he hadn't specifically said anything about keeping any part of their deal a secret, which would've been a very smart thing to do since Vol seemed like a bit of a loose cannon who was likely to talk about everything in—
"Your father and I agreed to be close friends just for today," Vol said, avoiding the whole issue. "But that's boring. I'm gonna be watching your race. Convince me why I should become one of your admirers. Do you have a driver title yet? Is this your first race? What do you think about racing?"
Mina stared at Vol as the barrage of questions washed over her, then she brightened. "Well, if it's racing you've an interest in speaking about, please, let's sit," she said, ushering the older woman over to the stools in front of the workbench.
Carl sighed in relief.
"Carl let's get one of those food trays out here," Vol called.
"Yes, I'm feeling peckish now that you've mentioned it…"
----------------------------------------
"Can I try driving?"
"I'd prefer you not," Mina said with an anxious expression.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Maybe another time that isn't just before a race," Carl said in an attempt to be diplomatic and potentially defuse Vol's enthusiasm in a safer way. Can't believe how well she and Mina hit it off.
The two had sat for over an hour by the workbench in avid discussions about all things racing-related. Mina had the knowledge of how the cars worked, but Vol knew more about the history, how it related to the city, and everything related to betting, which was apparently an important aspect of racing that he hadn't considered. Drivers and gladiators alike were ranked based on the total amounts that bets for each race or fight took in, which seemed to usually—but not always—correlate to the contender's likelihood to win, so it was important to be exciting and dynamic with a suitable amount of flair.
Mina soaked it all up along with a cup of tea, showing an eager grin the whole while.
Carl had been hesitant at first, standing nearby in case things had gotten out of hand, but Vol seemed like an entirely different person. She spoke animatedly and without even a single f-bomb as she walked Mina through the city's rich history, which he'd completely tuned out since it was lore.
He was Carl Maximus Weathers, and he still wasn't gonna start learning about game lore even now when games were way more advanced and high-level than they'd ever been.
After the first minute or two, he'd gone back to his recliner near the stairs so as not to bother them, setting his Dad Sense to alert him when all lore-related discussions had completed so he could pay attention when they started talking about anything related to rules. He spent the interim considering a number of things that he'd been putting off.
First, this whole stat thing was crazy. He'd gone along with it for the morning, but the more he considered it, the more he decided that there had to be some kinda bug, because there was no way ten million Strength should be anything other than the best. He still didn't know exactly what Vol had done that time he'd tried to punch her, but he was suspecting that she'd just used some sort of counterattack skill since he'd been watching her the whole time and she'd never moved.
They wouldn't put skills without visual effects into a game this detailed, would they? Not for the first time, Carl wished he had some clue what was going on in Engineering, but he was just the guy that made sure everyone in Engineering could keep engineering and not someone who had read any of the design documents or even game docs.
With that said, he had enough casual interest to idly speculate on this kind of thing in his downtime and potentially ask the Vols he met about it when they were close by, but now that he was idly speculating during his downtime, he again recalled that he was most definitely not playing a game, and so there would never be any reason for him to bother doing any actual research outside the game because that time could be better spent doing any number of other things that would provide tangible benefits to his life—not that he had a problem with people who did actual research outside the game on the topic of stats, of course, because he was sure there were tons of those kinds of people, and he'd even been one at a certain point in his life, but now he was way busier than all of those people, and any activity that wasn't directly contributing to making him more prepared to face that important business was not something he was interested in, just like how he was absolutely going to log out the instant he came up with an idea for this network thing since, again, he was not here to be playing a game and was only taking in the various stimuli which would trigger his subconscious to pull out the exact idea that he needed.
Working backwards, the next thing he needed to consider was going to have to be Ir'alith. Fine. He admitted it to himself. She was hot. It was all tied up in a stupid thing he'd had a fascination with and forgotten about a long time ago, and then Annie had brought it back to the front of his mind. Fine. Whatever. He was an adult, he was a husband, he was a father, and he was perfectly capable of having a platonic in-game friend whose character model was very attractive to him. That was the point of games after all, to give people a way to have fun like they couldn't have in real life.
If she had fun looking like that, he was going to respect her as a friend by continuing to be a friend and not making a big deal out of it or thinking overly much about it. He didn't know why it had seemed like something that was a big deal at all, now that he was considering it. After delving into that question, he determined that he'd been concerned purely because something had been dredged up from a place in his mind that he hadn't been particularly interested in exploring.
He'd explored it now, and the exploring was over.
Problem solved, though there hadn't been a problem to begin with.
Ir'alith was hot.
Carl didn't care.
They were just friends.
End of thinking.
The next item he'd had to consider, now moving forwards since he'd skipped one, was Vol. His opinion of her had gone on a roller coaster ride that morning, that was for sure. In the end, it seemed like she was pretty cool? As long as he didn't bring up being friends or anything, she didn't get weird. There was probably a story somewhere, but it seemed unlikely he'd find out in the course of their single day bargain. There was still a lot of that day remaining, but he was feeling like maybe it wasn't going to be as much of a chore as he'd imagined it would be.
There was something else he'd been meaning to consider, but as he watched Mina smile and laugh while Vol told her some story or another about a race she'd seen, he couldn't quite recall what it was. Watching the blonde girl laugh and be merry made him feel pleased and happy in the same way that seeing Bobby or Sammy in the same state did, and it was starting to trouble him a little. He needed to write Annie that note to see if she'd be interested in having a chat with Mina sometime. The girl could use a positive female role model, and Annie was the best for that. He was doing what he could, obviously, but he was well aware from his own parenting experience that sometimes teenage girls really needed a woman's perspective that he was ill-equipped to provide.
But now, abruptly, the discussion had turned to getting in a little more practice driving before the race, and they were about to drive over to the lower track.
"Okay," Vol said, sulking a little. "Why'd you cover it anyway? Isn't that gonna make it hard to attack the other drivers?"
"I've no plans to battle, only to drive," Mina said with a smile that hadn't faded since she'd sat down to talk an hour prior. "I believe my steamcar's capabilities are considerably greater than your expectations of them."
Vol gave her a skeptical look. "They're gonna have to be if you're trying to be a pacifist driver. Seen a couple of those. Hasn't gone well."
Mina patted the side of her car affectionately. "Once we've arrived at the track, I'll give you a reason to become my very first admirer."
"Hey!" Carl protested. Dads are always the number one fan!
"After Carl, naturally," she said with a giggle, sidling over to give him a quick hug. "I'd never have reached this point without you."
Carl gave her a gentle squeeze. "You're here now, so give it all you've got."
"Alright, alright, you've got me interested," Vol said. "Let's get over there already!"
Mina looked between the two of them. "Um, I'm afraid my steamcar lacks the capacity to seat three—"
"Nah, I'll just sit on top," Vol said, gesturing with her chin. She started tying her white bandanna back over her face.
Mina gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. "If she says she can do it, I'm not gonna stop her. Ah, let me put it in my inventory real quick so we don't have to open the big doors. Inventory. Deposit."
Vol looked back and forth between the empty space where the car had been and him, her upper face showing surprise. "What the fuck?"
Mina giggled. "It's quite disconcerting the first few times, is it not?"
"But he just…" Vol stared at him.
"Why have you got that cloth around your face?" Mina asked.
"Means I'm looking for companionship, if you know what I mean," Vol replied, pumping her eyebrows. "Bit of a custom here."
"Ah," said Mina.
Carl opened the normal door and walked out, holding it open as the ladies followed. "Go back to guarding," he called to the doll. She didn't reply, so he poked his head back in and saw that she was now standing motionless where the car had been. "Guard?"
"I will, master," she said in a more solemn voice than usual.
He shut the door, and Mina locked it with her key, giving him the same excited and happy look she always did when she performed the act. "Next stop, the track." He pulled out the car and set it down on the street.