Two turns.
Three turns.
Clara wiped sweat off her brow. Kneeled down in a corner of Spinner Mechanic's garage, the heat was getting unbearable. Setting down the screwdriver and taking a sip of water, Clara faced the other side of the workshop.
"Yenjo, can you turn off the heat already? I'm dying over here."
"Ahh, sorry, bun. Lemme get that for you."
The round, darker-skinned human, Yenjo Spinner, flipped over the instructional manual she was reading. She didn't want to lose her page after all. She waddled over to the thermostat. The red support beam's haphazardly installed temperature control system had its lowest knob spun around three times before stopping. The head mechanic enjoyed the tiny clicks it made. A satisfied smile formed on her face.
"How's that going over there, dear?"
"Just got in the last screw. After you fix up that circuit board, it should be ready for Ree to deliver it." Clara yawned, holding her arms up and stretching her spine as far as she comfortably could from the hard concrete floor where she sat. "Where is Ree, anyway?"
"Sent her and Burg down to Joe's to get me a bucket of nails," Yenjo said, flipping over her book again. "They should be back in a little bit."
"I see."
The rabbit sat there on the floor for a moment, visor-shielded eyes staring off into space. She didn't really appreciate the fact that Yenjo wanted her in so early, but she was promised that she'd be able to clock out before the shop opened up. Four hours wasn't the longest shift, and besides, it wasn't like she had anything else going on today. Teis gave her a string of vacation days after the disaster that was the fifth's whole dabacle.
For being the de facto owner of the city's crime syndicate, Teis was surprisingly lenient with her. Maybe her reputation preceded her?
After standing up and taking another sip of her water bottle, Clara asked Yenjo, "You got anything else to keep me busy?"
"Here," Yenjo said, holding up her prosthetic drill-tipped arm and tapping against the lid of a cluttered toolbox. "Put these away for me. Burg was playing with them last night, and Ree was too tired to clean up after him."
Clara sneered. That dimwitted kid was playing with power tools? She almost wondered if he'd have been safer if he had been left out on the street. There were fewer things to get zapped from or tendrils crushed by. Gripping Yenjo's toolbox, Clara headed to the opposite side of the workbench. The buckles holding the lid on undid with satisfying snaps. The workbench's top layer of drawers groaned as they were opened in unison.
As she dropped the unsorted junk into more specialized, unsorted piles, Clara exhaled softly. The metal tools were strangely comforting to her. Even though she had never been to any sort of formal education, the rabbit-eared woman could put a name to most of them, and at least half of those were attached to some noteworthy memory.
Oh, like this one.
"Where's this go?" Clara asked as she held up the orange-handled, battery-powered drill.
She vaguely remembered the time when she first heard the tool's awful electrical shriek. Back when Yenjo was still nursing her back to health, the mechanic was fixing up a carriage wheel, or something of the like, early in the morning. The sound of the drill had completely spooked the resting Clara awake. What happened after the initial spook had blurred heavily since so much time had passed; all the exact thoughts besides fear had long since washed away from Clara's subconscious.
She preferred it that way.
"That goes second drawer on the right. Did you forget everything your workshop momma taught you?"
Clara rolled her eyes. "You're only a decade older than me."
Yenjo looked up from her manual and gave Clara a playful look. Her freckled face glowed unnaturally bright in the workbench's artificial light. "Honey, don't get snippy with me. I already went through Ree's rebellious phase; I don't need to manage another."
Oh, Yenjo, you would not be able to handle hers. Be glad you missed it. "Ha, ha, very funny." The sound of Clara dropping a wrench into an already-filled drawer echoed around the roomy garage.
"You know, speaking about rebellious phases..." Sparks flew as Yenjo connected two wires. "I saw Yank Yenderson last night out in Gillsway when you were out with your girlfriend."
Shit.
Clara hissed through her clenched teeth and gave Yenjo an unflattering look. The older woman knew exactly how that wasn't the case, yet she was still insistent on teasing her anyway. God forbid Yenjo finds out about her friendship with Tez. Clara would never hear the end of it.
"You really are forcing this whole mom thing, aren't you?"
"I'll adopt a fourth kid and make them live with you if you keep running that lip of yours." Yenjo exhaled in amusement.
They went quiet as they became entranced in their manual labor, the only sound being the heater that Yenjo insisted on keeping high at all times. Clara's mind started to wander during the idle tinkering.
Yank Yenderson, huh? When was the last time she even thought about him? He had taken such good care of her, but the last time she even saw him was back when Blema sent her to go save Fencien's stupid ass from the old plains bunker.
She smiled as her free hand came up and rubbed her recently cleaned visor. That old geezer was always nice to her, despite everything both she and Gunker made him go through, and now that Gunker was locked up and her paranoia had been discarded ... for the most part, at least. Maybe it'd be time to pay Gillsway a visit to check up on him?
"How was Yank?"
Yenjo sighed, meeting Clara's eyes. "Not well. He looked sick."
Oh. Clara's small smile turned into a subtle frown.
"What happened?"
"Well, he's getting quite old, and I'm not sure if he's all there anymore. Wandering around, staring off into space. I really do wonder if your little gang out there was keeping him composed."
The endless abyss of guilt that Clara worked so hard to keep locked away began seeping upward. The pace of her tool-sorting slowed. She never even considered checking up on him after all these years. Her time in the Outlands wasn't exactly ideal or remembered fondly, but she wasn't scared to visit there, especially if it meant seeing the man to whom she owed her life.
She sighed. "I wouldn't know."
"Speaking about your old life out there," Yenjo clicked her tongue after a moment of examining Clara's somber face. "Gunker was the founder of your little posse out there, correct?"
"Unfortunately. Why?"
Yenjo hesitated before chortling to herself in an uncharacteristically immature way. "Gunker Gang? Seriously? He come with that on the spot?"
Clara laughed a little as she thought about it. She didn't mention it at all while the big guy was still around in fear of getting her skull caved in, but it was a really, really bland name. There was a reason that Yank referred to him as the brawn when it was just him and Clara at the bunker.
"Gunker was a very, very humble."
Yenjo laughed.
Knock, knock, knock.
Both women flinched as the rhythmic knocking filled the room. They both spun around to look at the locked side door next to their garage door.
"Ree? Burg? Did you lose your key?" Yenjo shouted; a concerned face had completely wiped off her previous jovial expression.
Knock, knock, knock.
There wasn't a vocal response. The series of three knocks hit the door again. The impacts sounded more akin to metal-on-metal than sort of flesh hitting the door.
Clara's nervous eyes flicked over to the wall-mounted clock. It was only eight-eightteen. The workshop wasn't opening for another three-and-a-half hours. Her heart started to pick up. It had been years since she had been hunted, but this was an eeriely similar situation to the tiring months in which she hid out here and masqueraded as a normal Stem City citizen.
"Are you expecting anybody else this morning, Jo?" She whispered. It wasn't unheard of, for Yenjo kept the neighbor's important things overnight sometimes, but Clara didn't see anything in the workshop that really stuck out to her as being unusually placed.
Yenjo shook her head. "No."
The rabbit watched as her boss carefully stepped over chunks of scrap metal on the ground. Yenjo stood on the other side of the door, leaning into it. They both held their breaths and waited.
Knock, knock, knock.
It came again. Clara had zero idea when it happened, but the room was quickly becoming freezing cold. She wasn't just imagining that, wasn't she?
Yenjo exhaled heavily and spoke in the best monotone inflection her accented voice could manage to muster up: "Hey, sorry, but we're closed, hun. Come back in four hours; we'll be open then."
Clara quietly set the almost empty toolbox on the counter. She started to sweat again. The rabbit ears atop her redhead flicked as she tried to hone in on the stranger's response. Unfortunately, all the clues she managed to get were from Yenjo's disturbed expression.
"Uhh, sorry, but Miss Kalstein isn't in right now." Yenjo's eyes snapped over to Clara. With her drill-shaped prosthetic limb, Yenjo silently gestured towards the back entrance. "She's supposed to come in around one. Would you like to come back then?"
Clara's body was shaking. Who would be looking for her? Yenjo would surely recognize anyone who knew that she worked here. Clara's tail coiled around her leg as she shuffled around the several bits of heavy-duty machinery sprawled out across the garage floor. Taking out a spare workshop key from her belt pocket, the rabbit carefully unlocked the rarely used backdoor.
A bright green light shone brightly in her face. An emblem resembling a red skull sat in the center of the neon sign. A Lawman, far bulkier than any design she had seen before, stood there. Clara could hear the pistons in its limbs fire off as it stepped forward.
Muscle memory she hadn't used in half a decade fired off; she tried shutting the door as fast as possible. It was too late. The Lawman forced its way inside, pushing both her and the door out of its way with ease. The Lawman held tightly onto an elongated baton. A technological hum surrounded the air as small sparks of electricity flew off of the blunt weapon.
She stumbled backwards, almost tripping over. Clara knew that she needed to move past the robot, but her legs locked up. Anxiety grasped onto her spine's discs and held her in place like a statue. This exact scenario had happened dozens of times in nightmares before.
She knew this wasn't a dream, though. This was real.
Clara snapped out of her delusion as Yenjo violently tugged at her from behind. The high-powered whir of Yenjo's drill hand reverberated around Spinner Mechanic's garage.
"What the hell is this?! What do you want with her, bolt-for-brains?!" Yenjo yelled as she pushed Clara further and further behind her. The red rabbit gasped as she hit the workbench in the center of the room.
The Lawman did not approach. Instead, it stood there, staring blankly as the red skull graphic danced around on the visor.
Time came to a crawl. Clara's weak heart overwhelmingly pounded against her eardrums. Anxiety and guilt clashed, trying to rip and tear through her stomach. Memories upon memories of being chased by Lawmen in train cars, forests, and dark city streets flashed before her eyes. She thought this was over. She had been so confident that this would never happen again.
She was told she would be free to find out who she was. All records of her would be gone and would continue to be gone.
Why? Why was this happening?
Blema. This had to be her fault. That heartless bitch had played the rabbit, hadn't she? This was the plan from the start, wasn't it? Make her think she can live a normal life after doing one itty-bitty favor, and then send out the tincans to poach her when there's a slow day? That sick, twisted, sadistic bastard. If she ever saw Blema again, she would kill her... No, doing just that would be too merciful. She deserved a lot worse than death.
Clara clenched her fists as tears started to roll down her pitch-white cheeks. Her nails dug into her skin.
"I never took the infamous Red Rabbit of old to be such a crybaby." An unfamiliar woman's agitated voice mocked her.
Suddenly, time resumed with a crashing boom. Clara's blurry eyes shot upwards. Over Yenjo's shoulder, her gaze met a green-haired Stem Ram's own judgmental glare. Two more of the highly armored peacekeepers stood lifeless in the alleyway behind the stranger.
"Who the hell do ya think you are?" Yenjo snarled.
Instead of responding, the stranger strolled past the robot of hers that had entered first. Her neck nonchalantly craned around the workshop, her eyes seeming to inspect every little inch of it.
"I've seen messier garages than this," she commented flatly. "You're a professional, Ms. Spinner."
"I'm not going to repeat myself again. Who the hell do ya think you are?"
The stranger let out an annoyed huff as she turned to face Yenjo again. "I am Juke Clorentine, Stem Tower's head researcher. I am here to take Clara Kalstein in for interrogation."
"She's a free woman, ya know," Yenjo said, pointing the rotating drillbit at Juke. "She did Blema's dirty work years ago. She was told by your superior that she was not to be arrested, chased, or investigated further under any circumstances. Do you hear me? We'll believe your boney ass when your skank of a boss to come 'ere herself."
Juke ground her teeth together. "Under Stem Tower law, it is illegal to disobey a direct order from a representative of the tower. If it is not obeyed, the Stem Tower representative has the legal right to deliver whatever punishment they see fit. Please hand over Clara Kalstein, ma'am."
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Yenjo didn't back down. Juke's face wrinkled in frustration.
"As one engineer to another, Ms. Spinner, let me lay out the instructions as clearly as I possibly can: If you don't back away and let me detain Clara Kalstein, you will be murdered."
The workshop was dead silent.
It was only broken by four knocks shaking the Spinner's sidedoor. None of the women looked away.
The seven-year-old Burg's voice squeeked out from the other side: "Momma, we're home! We got that thingy you wanted!"
The blurry silhouette of Juke's eyes broke contact with the others.
Clara could hear Ree's voice berate Burg outside. The words were indistinguishable from the aching pounding in her chest.
"Kids' brains are like tiny little sponges." Juke's annoyed face twisted into a dastardly smile. "Trust me; it's heartbreaking to watch your mother die."
Ree's spare workshop key slotted into the sidedoor's alleyway lock.