Week 2 Preparations
“Getting Green over Cape Verde”
“I’ve got it,” Tracey exclaims.
“Precisely what have you acquired,” asks her teammate.
“I know what the last two rockets are for.” She turns to her hamster in his cage and uses baby talk, “Isn’t dat right, my widdle Hamlet?”
“Very well,” the doctor says ignoring the creature, “I might have an idea or two, myself.”
The doctor heads to the front of the vehicle and just stares for a moment. Tracey thinks to herself, Hmmm, how am I going to get these doors off? And then … “I know I’ll go talk to May. She might have what I need!”
With that she heads to the other end of the ship. Seeing them working there, she calls out a friendly, “Hey guys!”
"Heya Tracy! We've got all of our stuff packed. All Josh has to do is input the standby, and compact mode and we'll be all ready to go," she says turning towards Josh who was, again, under Bias.
Tracey notes that their purple ship seems no longer purple but rather more like a steel alloy. Josh’s face glows green from a terminal down there. He pushes deliberately like punching a code.
Suddenly the machine shrinks rather rapidly. "May," Josh shouts. The small metal machine hovers for a moment and then starts to drop. May jumps and catches the metal ball before it reaches the hard surface below.
Once the panic moment passes, Tracey says, “Before we left you mentioned you had extra parts. Do you have any hydraulic pistons, bolts, brackets, hinges, a screw driver, and a metal saw?”
"We've got shocks and all that left over from the 'hog. Feel free to take what you need," Josh says.
Tracey paws through the shrapnel pile that is their old vehicle. She grabs some door and trunk hinges, several shock absorbers, hoses, a couple of motors, and vast assortment of miscellaneous small parts. “I guess this will do.” Looking up from her haul, “Do you have the screwdriver and metal saw? And, May, could you help me carry this back to the bus?”
"I'll grab the 'drivers and saw, meet you up front, Josh," May sets the small machine that is their ride down. She turns and goes to get the things from the building they had borrowed from.
"Yep yep," Josh says, picking up the remainder of the pile that Tracey didn’t grab.
The two make their way back to the van. She carefully puts the stuff down and turns to Josh, “Ok, here’s the deal.” The ship bounces a little. Tracey’s stomach is uneasy. “We need to get the side doors off.”
The ship bounces again. It’s too much for Tracey. She races to the edge and retches some of the contents of her stomach. After a moment she hobbles back weakly and smiles slightly as May arrives with the rest of the stuff. “Sorry,” Tracey apologizes, “I may have to do that more. I thought I was good. But I guess I’m sea sickness impaired.” She shifts gears while gaining strength, “Anyway, I need to get the two side doors off the van, so we can put them back on.”
"Ok," is all Josh says.
May looks at him then turns back to Tracey, "You gonna be all right, Hun?"
“Yeah, don’t mind me. I’ll run to the edge if needed. I can’t have that much in my stomach.” She pauses and looks at them, “Ok, who’s the best with the metal saw? Just in case I need to run again.” Then she remembers her teammate, “Doc, can you give us a hand here?”
Doc’s voice drifts over to them from the front of the van, “My apologies. I am quite deep in my own project.”
"Don't worry, we're both fluent with it," Josh says.
"Just hand ‘er off when you need ta," May says and smiles.
“Great. One of you work on the far door with the saw, and I’ll work on this one with the wrench. That way I can stay close to the water.” Tracey reaches into the van and pulls out her tools. She starts loosening things releasing the door.
Slowly the doors come off with minor interruptions, that is, a few 5 minute breathers so Tracy can re-gain composure. “Ok. Now, Josh I need you to modify these shock absorbers, with the tubes and engines if you need them, to create something to lift these doors up and down on command. May, I need your help hinging the wings onto the body.”
“Wings?”
“Yeah. Oh wait, I didn’t explain it all. It must have been the sea sickness.” She pauses and reorganizes the thoughts, “Ok, These doors are no longer doors. They are going to be wings. Not true wings, but they should get the job done. I need them hinged at the bottom of the frame. They also need to be able to be locked into place because they are going to have the last two rockets attached to them.”
“Right.” The three work in unison giving the side doors a new function. Once that is done, the last of the rockets are attached to the outside so they will be below the wings. Despite the frequent delays of Tracey emptying her stomach, the job finishes up quick.
“Thanks, guys,” she says, eyeing the new buttons on the dashboard. Three red buttons for the sets of rockets, one new button for the raising and lowering of the doors, and a button she doesn’t recognize. “Doc, what’s this for?”
He looks in to where she’s pointing, “Oh, that? Why that is for my newest invention that I just completed. Come and look.”
Tracey exits the van and heads to the front. There she finds a large propeller that somehow doesn’t hit the ground. “It’s a propeller.”
“That is correct.”
“Does it have a name?”
“Spin-o-Propell … Errr, no it doesn’t.”
“And …,” she prompts.
“And it will blow away any cloud attacks that blow our way.”
“Like the pink cloud last race.”
“Correct.”
“Ok, so how does it spin? We push the button?”
“Actually, your little friend will be doing all the work. The button just engages or disengages the clutch connecting to the drive shaft connected to the hamster wheel that your brother set up.”
“Wait. My brother connected the hamster to the drive shaft?”
“That is correct.”
“So, if we ran out of gas, Hamlet could move us?”
“That is correct.”
“My brother is a genius!” She steps back into the car through the passenger door, “That’s great, Doc!” He follows her in. She pushes a full sheet of GlasSteel to the side to get in the door to the back, “I was talking to the other drivers and one of them mentioned a Neural Inhibitor. I know we have those back at the lab, but is there any way we could get some ready for the race?”
He starts following the idea, “Because temporary paralysis would slow the other racers down. Yes, that might work!” He heads into the back and pulls the spare bots out of the fridge.
“And now that I think about it, after having to repair our tires last race, what would we do if the metal got ripped off our van?”
“Hmmmm, metal bots might be helpful there. I’ll get right to work!” She leaves the panic room.
Now, what can I do, while he works on that? The ship sways and she rushes for the edge of the ship.
Time passes as the ship sails on. Days later, they arrive at the coast of Cape Verde. A bright light flashes across the sky and lands inland somewhere. The pair exits the ship and head toward the start line.
When they reach there they see some racers that they hadn’t seen at the end point of the other race. There before them is a giant bunny head car. “That’s quite unusual,” remarks the doctor.
Then there is a giant attack robot or something. And finally there is a deadly looking car that appears to be shimmering or something. All the rest of the drivers are here except …
“Where’s the giant spider … I mean, the Shin Schadenfraulein Fury?”
“If they don’t arrive shortly, they’ll miss the race.”
Tracey agrees, “That’d be a shame. After all the work they seemed to put into it.”
“We had better get into position. I believe the race will be starting soon.”
“Right. Who’s driving first?”
“Should we flip a coin?”
“No change.”
“Me neither. Rock, Paper, Scissors?”
“Sure. 1.2.3.” He shows Scissors; she shows Paper. They both look confused.
“I guess I’m driving,” he heads to the seat in the front. She heads to the back. The brightly colored VW Bus takes its place in line waiting for the race to start.