Nightshift 42: Hal's Used Cars

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

[from here]

The business had been open when the changeover happened, so the doors were unlocked. Juri pushed them open with one of her feet. It was too quiet as she stepped into the dark showroom. It wasn't as big as she expected such things to be, but silent cars surrounded the offices. The stench of the dead filled the air though. Her ears didn't catch any sound of movement, other than her schoolmate, but that meant nothing.

"There have to be some in here," she told Utena. "Get ready."

From behind one of the cars, two zombies shuffled toward them. "Leave us alone!" Juri screamed and charged at the monsters with both of her makeshift weapons. They had to get rid of them long enough to find the keys and take one of the cars.

Comments

[revolutionise]

Utena breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they wouldn't have to deal with keys to get a car going. "Thanks a lot. We're glad for the help. I'm Utena, by the way," she said, following Juri quickly to the door. Suddenly, she was feeling self-concious of her ridiculously pink skirt again; combined with not appearing to know that much about cars and her age, the getup made her look a lot more feminine and helpless than she really was.

They made their way out to the lot and Utena looked over the cars, trying to figure out which one looked the most secure. Despite herself, her eyes kept going back to a late 90s model red sedan. She supposed it was a sense of familiarity and homesickness that was doing it, even though the car wasn't the same type as the one she had seen around Ohtori campus. "That one's as good as any," said Utena as they got closer to the car. 

[toxicspiderman]

And they never said what they meant. Women. Whatever. Red suburban housewife grocery-mobile it was. He strolled over and tried the door. Open, no alarm. That saved him a lot of trouble. And the panel didn't require a screwdriver he didn't have. That saved a hell of a lot more.

"It's simple. Pop this panel off here." He pointed to Juri, since she looked less invested in the whole car plan. "You can make sure we don't end up as zombie kibble while I figure out what the color scheme is under here." Somewhere along the line, car wiring harness design had sacrificed clarity for a false veneer of security. Went with the wood trim. The ability to slow down potential thieves for thirty seconds or so had trumped the simplicity of red=hot, and so on. Either that or the designer was colorblind.

S.T. yanked a handful of wires free and stared at them. No wire cutter. Eh, a mouthful of lead solder wasn't going to kill him today. He stripped the wires with his teeth, holding them carefully clear of each other when he got to the ones he thought were live.

"When you turn the key, it completes a circuit. All we're doing is skipping the middleman." He connected two wires. Nothing. "Like this." The second pair was the auxiliary power -- the dash lit up and the windshield wipers came on, plastic squeaking over safety glass. Then another two, and the engine drowned out the noise with a dull roar.

"That's all there is. Keep those two pairs of wires together and you're in business." He twisted the insulated sections together, and dropped both pairs. The ends fell apart, and the car went quiet. "Find something to hold those together. And don't touch the wires with bare hands." The latter should go without saying, but not everyone could be Sangamon Taylor. Or even versed in basic electrical theory.

"Now, are you sure you two'll be okay on your own?" He looked back to where Spider was dicking around with something on the car. They could take two more -- two guys, two gals, a couple of cars and quiet small-town streets. It had all of the trappings of an entirely different movie genre. Well, and Spider. Self-described acute victim chronic sex deprivation. On second thought, the zombies would only eat his brains. These two would quite possibly kick him in the nuts just on general principle alone since he had shown up with Spider.

[heading back to here after being turned down]

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

Juri watched what he did. When did he think she'd need another reason to steal a car. "Thank you," she said, trying to be gracious at the last. When he vacated, she sat in the driver's seat and slipped the sleeve of her flimsy jacket over her hand to twist the wires back together. She hissed at the heat even through that.

"Utena, do you have anything that can hold these together?" Juri's poker and candlestick were sitting outside the car beside her.

[revolutionise]

Utena watched attentively until S.T. was done. While she doubted she would ever need to know how to hotwire anything else again, it was still something she had never seen done before, and thus it was interesting.

She got in the passenger side after Juri. "Not sure," she responded to Juri's question, looking over the inside of the car quickly. The last thing her eyes landed on was her own skirt, and suddenly, Utena had an idea. "Hang on a sec," she said, gripping the bottom of the white material where there weren't any thick seams to contend with. With a bit of effort, she got it to rip, and within a minute, she had two strips of white fabric off one side of the skirt. "That should do," said Utena, handing the strips to Juri. "Just wrap them around and tie them off."

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

Well, that was a direct solution. Juri took the strips and tied them around the wires, knotting the thick cloth as firmly as she could. She lay her poker and candlestick across her lap then and closed the car door. "This might be bumpy," she cautioned and put the car into reverse.

[revolutionise]

Utena had to grin a little bit as she watched Juri tie the fabric around the wires. Even if it wasn't much, she liked to think that she had taken a little revenge against her stupid, floofy skirt. She would have been tempted to throw the thing off altogether if that didn't mean running around Zombieville in her underwear.

"Figured as much," she said as the pulled out of the dealership, already plowing into a few approaching zombies as they headed out onto North Street.

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