The saucer wasn’t like the tablet. It didn’t have the same feel to it. The metal was smooth and soft to her, but she didn’t feel the subtle hum or the strange coolness. It was just a hot chunk of metal baking in the sun. Laying against the chain link fence near the side gate it was just like any of the other wrecks on the Desert Sands lot, a hunk of useless metal. “Do you really think it’s just a Hollywood prop?”
Germ crouched beside the mantis, external clutch plate and bolts resting in an old baking sheet beside him. He muttered something, but it didn’t seem like he was even listening. Jynx knew that he didn’t much like playing with girls when he was younger, and that probably hadn’t changed much while he was gone. She figured jail wasn’t for people who played well with others. She pulled the tarp back over the front edge of her saucer, thinking that it probably wasn’t good for it to be sitting out in the sun for too long.
“Whatcha doin’?” she asked, hovering inquisitively over his shoulder.
He checked the setting on his torque wrench, twisting it a few clicks and setting the socket against the nut. He muttered something under his breath and inspected the notches in the flywheel. He licked his thumb, wiped a notch, and glanced over at her as if she’d just walked into the yard. “Hmm?”
Jynx shifted nervously, realizing that it might have been a bad idea to interrupt him. “What are you working on?”
He glanced at the flywheel. “I’m having a hard time with my starts. I’m not getting enough compression,” he mumbled, mostly talking to himself.
Jynx squatted down beside him, eyeing the engine pieces like a curious pigeon, collecting the various components in her mind, assembling all of the factors. Austin always said that machines told their own story, sometimes you just have to sit back and listen. She had spent years watching Austin fiddle with his Pony or his truck. So far as she could figure, they were all pretty much the same. If she ever saw a real, working engine, she wouldn’t know how it worked. All she knew was collections of pieces sprawled around a yard, spare parts that the boys most definitely didn’t want her to touch, so she was pretty good at putting them back together without touching anything. She spotted a blue smudge of silicone on one corner of the head. “Oh!” She pointed out the marker.
“What?” Germ sat back, looking mildly annoyed, or just trying to keep his distance.
“Well with the bored-out cylinders you should probably be running a heavier flywheel.” She leaned in, peering at the flywheel. “That’s stock, isn’t it?”
He glanced down at the flywheel and back at Jynx. “What do you mean ‘bored-out cylinders?”
Jynx pointed at the head gasket. “Manny marks his head gaskets with blue silicone when he bores them out.” She pointed at the blue mark on the edge of the block. “Red silicone is for rebuilds.” She gently poked at the flywheel. “With the larger cylinder you should have the compression to run a heavier flywheel. You’ll just need to adjust your idle.”
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He sat up on his rolling mechanic’s stool and stared at her. “How in the hell?”
Jynx regretted saying anything. She knew to stay out of the boys’ way when they were playing.
“How do you know that?”
Jynx shrugged, embarrassed. “That’s how Manny taught me the colors. Red, rojo, arreglado, Blue, azul, aborrado.” She backed away slightly, hoping she hadn’t upset him.
Germ stared at her. “Damn, Jynx.”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, kid. I’m impressed. I didn’t even know that.” Germ shook his head again. “I guess you must hang around this place enough.” He stood up, stretching out his long, lanky limbs. “Figures you might pick up a thing or two.” He looked her over as if seeing her for the first time. He started hanging out there at about the same age. If Los Nudillos had still been a thing, they might have elected her mascot. “What were you saying about the saucer?” he asked.
So, he was listening, it just took him a while to respond. “Do you really think it’s just a prop?” she asked, backing away slightly.
“Your scrap?” He side-eyed her as he wiped the oil off his fingertips. “Probably?” He shrugged. “Simplest explanation is generally the best.” He pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his coveralls and placed it to his lips, squinting off at the saucer like it was a hundred miles away, but just another busted-ass wreck. “I took a poke around inside it, but I didn’t see any moving parts. There’s some sort of boxy type thing inside there, but that wouldn’t make it fly or anything.” He looked annoyed. “I’m guessing it fell off a plane or off the back of a filming truck. Either way, it’s probably worth a few bucks to someone.” He sauntered over to the shade of the trailer, swiping his forehead with the greasy rag and stuffing it into his back pocket.
Even if it was a prop, that didn’t explain the tablet. The tablet was definitely something else. Maybe she just needed to find a way to charge the saucer, just like the tablet. While she pondered exactly how to go about finding a wireless charging pad big enough for a midsize car, she watched Germ pull a beer from the mini fridge. He popped the cap and tossed it into a coffee can full of them just beside the little table. “Trash is just trash unless you bury it for a few hundred years, then it’s an artifact. That thing was buried long enough that it should be worth something to the right people.”
Tilting the beer back to take a drink, he looked just like a beer commercial, like he should be drinking in slow motion. It just looked so satisfying. Wiping the sweat from his brow again, squinting off towards her saucer, she realized that he was actually kind of cute, in a grown-up Austin sort of way. He glanced over at her, and realizing that she was watching him, maybe more than she should, he opened the cooler and pulled out another bottle to offer her. “You, uh, want a beer?” He peered down into the fridge as if there might be a Capri Sun in there, or anything appropriate to a girl her age. “I guess I could grab you a soda out of the machine?” Watching him move she decided that he was like Austin, but better. He was older, smarter, and more confident. He was the source of every stupid jaded thing Austin ever said to her, and so he was probably okay. “Nah,” she shrugged as casually as she could. “A beer’s fine,” she said. She was thirsty, after all.
It smelled a little like rotting garbage, like when she had to take out the trash and the bottom of the trashcan had to be cleaned. She took a tremulous sip. It tasted just as bad as it smelled, but it was fizzy and cold at least. She made a face at Germ.
“Yeah,” he laughed. “It’s an acquired taste.” He reached as if to take the bottle away, but she yanked it back from him.
“Get your own,” she said, smirking.