With the sun fairly high now in the sky, and the other team members rather agitated, Charlotte and Watson veered out of the tent as the rest decided to just… rest…
“Can you believe it? It wasn’t even sundown, it was sunrise! And here we were rushing everything trying to get that thing prepared, even though we had so much time!” Charlotte groaned. “Well, at least we get to see some other people today…”
“Among all the things that I hadst found difficult with watch malfunctions, attempting to discern the current time and timezone is indeed one of the more painful ones. The rest you could manage with a wide enough vocabulary and understanding of linguistics, and just being good tempered. I’m surprised you didn’t know the time, either.”
“I was in a rush, okay?!” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Anywho, I guess we should actually keep looking around. It smells like there’s some good food going on here, you hungry, Detective?” Her feline nose immediately picked up the strong stench of barbeques and other such meals taking place as she poked at him. All around them, tents were filled with different people of different species, ethnicity, race, backgrounds, and whatnot. More important to Charlotte however, were the different types of automobiles present in the campsite. Big cars, small cars. Not fast ones, and decently fast ones. You get the gist.
“I could go for a snack or two, just have to find someone willing enough to share.” He said as he looked around. Watson was tense, even though his body language had not made it clear. He was constantly on guard, and his very own senses seemed to be capturing something as he followed the black-furred feline. Meanwhile, Charlotte looked upon the cars, most of them were certainly shitboxes, going well with the theme of the rally, and so she felt rather conspicuous when she glanced backwards towards their tent, with the rather flashy and decently clean enough Yamada SUV sitting before the entrance.
Just like the two of them, Watson spotted as two other guys were walking just in front of them. However, his senses told him something was up with them, or rather, one of them. He gently tapped one of the men on the shoulder, and the man eerily turned his back around to look at Watson. Without a change in his demeanour however, he began to ask, “Sorry to disturb you, mind if I asked you something?”
“No, I don’t. How can I help?” The man quickly replied in a disturbingly calm and neutral tone, and after he had replied, the other man he was following had also stopped to turn around and face them. Watson looked confused for a moment, but stayed calm. He glanced around before walking up closer to the man and spoke in a fairly low voice. “You’re not of this era, are you?”
As he did this, Charlotte simply looked at him rather puzzled. The man proceeded to reply again with the overly neutral, rather, offensively neutral tone. “Depending on what exactly you define as an “era”, this statement may or may not be true.”
“He’s some fancy-ass police-bot from like 2030-something. How he got here? What do i know? All i know is that he’s now here and apparently at my service.” The other man chimed in, replying in a much more casual conversational tone than the first one, but his little blurt-in was followed up by yet another neutral sentence from the first man. “I am temporarily bound to Mr. Tim Redwood until both of us return to my partner.”
“Police… bot?” Watson looked at the two of them, still rather disconcerted about their ways of speaking, before looking back at Charlotte with the same look. Charlotte shot him a rather miffed glare.
“Shortened form of robot. Police robot I guess.” She looked at him with a concerned look. “Please tell me you know what a robot is…”
“You mean those mechanical hunks of steel vaguely shaped like a human?” Watson looked back at the so-called robot. “Impressive… People hadst advanced that much through one hundred years to be able to create machines that not only resemble humans, but leap through the fabrics of space-time as we know it. You can clearly understand me, right?” He said, waving.
"What the hell are you saying? Charlotte said, still very much puzzled, and so was the other man, who presumably was actually human. “Yeah, I guess… I mean… you are talking to him.”
“Both parties are speaking fluent english. I see no reason for a language barrier to be present.” The robot replied. “May I ask who you are?”
Watson was about to reply, but Charlotte moved in front of him, almost shoving him out of the way. “Well, like you, he’s a time traveller. Just call him Watson.” After addressing him, her tone had a sudden shift in tone to a much friendlier one. “I’m Charlotte, by the way! Sorry for such an awkward introduction, that guy’s from like, the 1930s or whatever, doesn’t know much about how we go about nowadays.” Charlotte looked over at the man behind the robot, and offering him an innocent smile. “I believe he called you Tim Redwood, didn’t he? Nice to meet you! You’re here for the rally, aren’t you?”
“Good morning, Charlotte.” Connor looked over towards Charlotte. “My name is Connor, an android sent by C-” Before he could finish his introduction, Redwood steps in with his own dialogue. “Yeah. That “partner” of his deserves some extended vacation without 200 plus pounds of annoyance in tow, as he calls him. We do have a third member back at the car.” The smile is returned rather awkwardly as he explains the situation and gestures toward a not-so-bright orange Liftback Sedan. An absolutely ginormous young man with equally ginormous haircut volume is seen seated on the loading edge of the trunk. He seems to be dabbling about on his phone in search of something to do.
Charlotte is slightly startled by Connor’s sudden ‘good morning’, and she just awkwardly waves at him as she looked over towards the faded orange sedan. Connor initially attempts returning the wave with his right arm, but fails due to previous damage inflicted to it, leading to it not moving at all. He thus returns the wave using his left hand.
“Oh! A Dione, is it? As far as I’m aware, not a rare car by any stretch of the imagination, very much sticking to the theme of the race, arencha?” She says as she glanced at the vehicle. Redwood’s eyes seem to light up as he begins to speak a bit more enthusiastically. “Yes! My last one went bust because of brakes. Getting a new one was faster than fixing the current.” Redwood seems highly enthusiastic about his new old car and the race, despite it not being an offroader by any stretch and only having minimal mods done to it. Upon the loud exclamation, the giant looks up and towards the group before being approached by a bulky man in full military attire, but without a firearm. The two start talking to each other, but not loud enough to understand anything.
Whilst Redwood was busy being occupied by Charlotte’s nerdiness over anything with four wheels and a body, Watson looks back at Connor a second time, but once again is unable to peer into his robotic mind. Seems like his technique only works on humans. He sighs, and this time his expression takes a slightly more serious shift. “Right then, Connor. I’ll be straight with you. I can sense that you’ve managed to create a rip within the quantum space fabric, in other words, jumping timelines. Achieving this as a fully sentient machine is impressive to say the least, would you mind telling me… your methods of achieving such a thing?” Watson says as he pulled out a golden-coloured watch from his pocket. Anyone with keen time-travelling senses would undoubtedly be able to detect it’s mystical properties. Yet there was something off about it despite being a state-of-the-art time-travelling device, for the watch’s hands didn’t seem to move, and there they were frozen in place.
“I would like to, but am not capable of doing so, as i am not aware of any action i did that would have caused it. Even if the event has been intentional, i would have no reason to voluntarily cause it.” After having frozen for a bit, Connor began to explain rather sincerely, as Watson seemed deeply interested in meeting another time-traveller. Watson seemed to have begun picking up the pieces to the pattern, and so he continued trying to analyze Connor.
“You’re a robot right? Do you have any idea why your creator might have fashioned you in this way?”
“I have been built in order to assist humans in law enforcement and detective work. My current partner is on vacation and has temporarily reassigned me to Mr. Redwood.” He repeats what has been already said. Not that he has another choice, as the android has not a single clue as to how or why he is time-travel-capable. Upon hearing his name, Redwood just turns back to Connor and Watson. “You good?” He asked, and Connor turned back towards him to provide a very simplified answer; a simple “Yes.”
Watson was just pensive at this point. Either this robot’s not intelligent enough to know or his maker made him intelligent enough to avoid questions that might have him know their true purposes. He looked back at Connor and simply sighed. “Detective duty, huh? It’d be nice if you’d use those detective abilities of yours to figure out what exactly hadst gotten you here.” He looked behind Connor and towards Charlotte, who seemed to had been overhearing the entirety of the conversation despite her enthusiastic gossiping about automobiles, and when Redwood had turned around to address Connor, she quickly shot a disapproving glare towards Watson.
“Well then Connor, if you ever do find out that reason, or those methods… You’ll know where to find me. I think it would be interesting to have another discussion when I investigate the likes of you a bit more.” Watson walked past him and towards Charlotte, whilst lightly patting Connor’s shoulder with his palm, giving off a certain signal that only those capable of jumping the timeline fabric could detect, although as for Connor’s case, he probably wouldn’t even realize what had happened. Watson now stood next to Charlotte. “So what have you been discussing about?” He glanced over at the faded orange automobile.
“Mostly exchanging stuff about our cars and how we got to own them. What we did to them in preparation for this race, what have you…” Redwood also overheard the conversation between Connor and Watson. While he didn’t get every detail of it, it now seemed to him that Watson was dubious in nature. Also taking a look at his new ‘beauty’, he only now notices that the fourth crew member has arrived. “Also. Seems like reinforcements have arrived.”
“A soldier? I didn’t hear of us going to war just yet.” Watson and Charlotte looked over towards the so-called ‘reinforcement’. As Charlotte noticed the man in camouflage, her face grew uncomfortable, and her body seemed to tense up slightly.
Redwood instantly regrets mentioning the fourth member in the first place. He didn’t think of the immediate intimidation coming off someone in full camouflage.* “Nah… no war. He’s not deployed here or anything. Nor is he infantry… At least as far as I am aware he belongs to the Navy…” He tries to calm down the others with potentially questionable success. From his point of view, he was safe, as he knew he was of substantial rank and exploiting it for anything would rid him of his career rather quickly.
Charlotte tugged on Watson’s sleeve, and visible on her face was a discomforted look. “R-right… I think… It’s best we get going…” Watson looked at her slightly confused at first, but eventually figured it out. He placed his hand over her shoulders and gestured to them.
“Looks like, we’ve ought to be going now. It was pleasant having a chat with you. I’ll look forward to meeting each other again.” He said as he began to escort Charlotte out of the area. As he looked back, he noticed a rather disappointed look on Redwood’s face. Likely because he apparently scared Charlotte off. Still, Redwood remained composed and wished them well, followed by a rather stoic version of the same thing from Connor. Soon after, the two head off, they went back towards their own vehicle as well.
As Charlotte and Watson continued walking around the camp, there was a distinct and very awkward lack of conversational speak between the two of them, even as they passed the tents with the people barbequeing, and they were getting very much awkward. Watson didn’t seem to be having it, however, and decided the best course of action was to just ask her right there.
“Did the soldier trigger an emotional response back there?” He asked in a very analytical tone with a slight hint of friendliness. Charlotte wasn’t able to pick up the cues however, and simply responded with coldly. “What do you think, Detective?”
“I think that you might have something against people in military outfits. Looks like something hadst rung a bell right there. Something to do with your royal background?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about that loudly.” She crossed her arms. “What’s it matter to you, anyway?”
“You’ve signed yourself up as Navigator. Now, not to bring down your Navigational Skills, but in general, if you’re in bad spirits, I believe we might end up into trouble much earlier down the line.”
“Uh huh.” She rolled her eyes and sighed before trying to switch her tone in a very obvious way. “Whatever, anyway. You think Ray’s brought snacks with him? I don’t think I’m in the mood to go grab a meal from another team. Don’t know who we could run into, after all.”
“Well, princess, if you may be so inclined, I could instead be the one to provide you with the sustenance you might be desiring at this very moment. Instead of thee going out and asking for the food thyself, I couldst instead go in thyne place so tha-”
“Oh, shut up!” She chuckled. “If you want to go get us food, then go ahead, I’ll head back to the tent.” She said, playfully shoving him out of the way. Watson had a small smile on his face as he went out to the other tents to see if any of them had anything snackable.
Meanwhile, Charlotte had made it back towards their tent, quickly looking to admire her rather sloppy job of placing the decals onto their vehicle. There were some air bubbles here and there, maybe a couple of folds and creases, but from a distance, to her, it looked more than good enough as she walked past the faded red vehicle and into the tent. And as she entered the tent, she immediately felt a sudden warmth envelop her as she found the three who had remained were off doing their own thing, Romulo had taken off his shirt as he couldn’t bear the heat of the Mojave as it beat down from the tent’s thin roof, and he was the first to notice and greet her back.
“Hey! Hope you don’t mind me stripping a bit… I have no idea how that blonde bastard even copes with that long-sleeved polo of his in this heat…”
Charlotte glances over at him, his body seemed to really be dripping in sweat, around his biceps and towards his shoulders were little beads of sweat lining it all around, and his chest dripped with the heat-dissipating fluids from his neck. She felt her cheeks warm up a little as she observed the slight shine on his fairly toned body, before she quickly shifted her gaze away. “I-I don’t mind! If it’s really that unbearable to you…”
She looked all around the tent, there weren’t a lot of ventilation holes and the entrances all seemed to be closed, and then it clicked. “Oh, I see now.”
Charlotte proceeded to create some openings in the tent by shoving some of the tent’s walls out of the way, neatly tying them together to create some ventilation, much to Romulo’s dismay.
“W-w-wait! What are you doing?!” He exclaimed, as he reached over to stop Charlotte from creating any more pass throughs. “You’re gonna let the heat in!”
“Are you stupid?” She looked at him with a menacing glare. “That’s not how this works, you’ll just be trapping heat in here if you keep the tent closed like this.” She said as a cool breeze began to flow into the tent. “See?”
“Finally, someone with some sense! I sat here trying to argue with this absolute buffoon about why the tent should remain opened, but it was of no use at all!” Emily exclaimed as she sat up from where she was lying, her breast almost spilling out of her dress because of how far she had unbuttoned it. “I was very much inclined to strip right here and then!”
“If you did that, I at least would’ve gotten some eye candy.” Romulo smirked, before he felt a light object slam into his head seemingly at three times the speed of sound. “Ouch! What was that for?!”
“Insolent fool! How inappropriate!” Emily called out from across the tent, with another handfan still in her hand.
“It was just a joke! You brought it up, anyway!”
Emily just rolled her eyes at this. On the other hand, Ga’araiya seemed to have been woken up from all the commotion that had been going on, and when she awoke, everyone seemed to have paused for a moment as they observed her. She looked at everyone with a confused look, before getting up and grabbing a bottle of water from one corner of the tent. She managed to gulp the whole thing down in what seemed like barely a few seconds, wagging her tail as she did so, before putting the bottle back down and returning to Emily’s side. There she sat, with a rather puzzled look on her face as she looked around wondering why everyone was staring at her. She looked through the tent’s openings, and immediately managed to notice Watson as he began approaching the tent, a couple of boxes of grilled food in his hands, and she immediately got up to run towards him, jumping up trying to reach for the food he was carrying.
“Hey! Be patient!” He exclaimed as he lifted the boxes of food higher to prevent Ga’araiya from reaching them. Slightly annoyed, she let out a small growl before jumping up and clinging onto his arm with only the power of her jaws, which now were revealed to Charlotte and Romulo that her teeth were not human-like, but instead rather sharp like that of a large predatory fish. Watson seemed unfazed by this sudden provocation from Ga’araiya, and continued on into the tent. “I’ve brought everyone a meal, I suggest we start eating. Looks like the organizers are about to do a quick meeting of sorts in a bit.”
“I guess that makes sense. I think I’ll have to go out there since I was listed as the leader.” Romulo said, grabbing the box of food from Watson.
“Any team member can go if they want, so of course, I’ll be joining you~!” Charlotte said in a rather excited tone. “I think they’re going to start telling the other teams what’s about to happen. I can already imagine some of them not being very comfortable with it. Traversing the rift isn’t that scary anyway.”
“Can’t imagine it’d be any worse than jumping to hyperspeed like the Argo from Star Blazers…” Romulo smirked at Watson, but he didn’t seem to notice this as he did not understand the pop culture reference.
“Is that where you got the team name from?” Charlotte pondered.
“Yup, us jumping planes led to us being in this shifting zone or whatever where it looked like we performed an FTL jump. Pretty wild, and rather uncomfortable at first. But I don’t think I’d mind something like that again.”
“The rift is pretty different though, I won’t spoil a lot but it’s not going to be that instantaneous jump like you said.” She shrugged.
“Guess we’ll just have to see then.” Watson sat down before finally giving Ga’araiya the meal she was waiting for. The moment she received it, in an instant it the meal was gone and she looked very much satisfied. She let out a small burp, and her face seemed to flush red slightly as she covered her mouth with both her hands.
“She really doesn’t speak, huh?” Romulo pointed out with his mouth fairly full. Watson swallowed after a bit of chewing, and replied, “No, she does. Just not all the time.” He looked over at her, there was a small stain on her cheek which he wiped off after pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, before continuing with a smug remark. “Especially when she’s busy eating.”
That remark ended up getting Watson’s back slapped by Ga’araiya’s tail as her face flushed an even deeper red and her gaze avoiding everyone else’s.
“Watson… stupid…”
(formerly)
to even bring that up while I was describing the engine since I was in a rush, and didn’t realize until after the fact that I’d forgotten to elaborate on it. Either way, it helps prove the point that V8s and Mustangs are made for each other lol
