It's a quiet Wednesday morning at Club Carnivale, and while the place is open and a few of the games are running, the carousel currently is not. Joel had invited Maddox by to check it out and Sid of course was invited to poke around as well. Joel had the beer, and was kicked back on one of the benches between the horses just waiting for everyone to show up. The access door was open and ready.
Sid was sitting on one of the horses backwards telling JOel something with idle anomation to him. He was drink free apparently not because he was being good but efficient and finished his a bit ago. "So you actually got to meet this cat huh?" He was curious as hell and it had nothing to do withthe carousel. Okay it had a little to do with it.
Enter the electrically charged train wreck that is Maddox. The man pushes his way into the club, with enough force that the door ricochets, slamming itself closed as Maddox makes his way further in. Electricity crackles around him, mingling with that blast of heat that is his mantle. The scent of heated asphalt and exhaust follows him. He's clad in his usual jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers, all grease and soot stained. His hair is a mess and he looks like he could use a shave, but those bright eyes are alert as always, darting to and fro.
Beneath that electricity, those machine parts continue to grind away with every momvent. He spots the carousel, and Joel seated on it, and starts in that direction. He's carrying a toolbag. He grunts in Joel's direction, growling in that southern drawl, "Where's the fucking beer?" If it's nearby, he'll help himself to one. He moves towards the access panel and plunks his toolbag down.
There's a glance to Sid, "Who the fuck are you?"
The beer is, indeed, nearby. There's a cooler with a few bottles in it. It's not hard to get more, the bar's a scant walk away. Joel gestures with his head in the direction of the cooler and then he says, "This is Sid. Sid's a cyclist and performer and all around Grade A guy. And he likes things that whirr and go spin. So, I opened her up for you. The DJ equipment is up top. On this level and down the steps are all the workings of the carousel. Go nuts." He leans back a bit, draping his arm over the back of the ride seat.
Sid was pretty much waht people wanted him to look like, wand what that looked like? Well that wasn't up to him. Still that didn't get the Satyr down who instead grinned "Awwww d'jooehar that? Joel said I passed. But yeah. Driver. Rider. Rivethead." He was, however, very curious about Maddox and had to ask, "So you're the guy withhte boat Lucky crashed? Nice t'meet you."
Maddox helps himself to a bottle of beer, twisting the cap off even though it's unlikely it's a twist-off. He doesn't seem to notice. He pockets the cap and takes a swig, grunting absently at Joel, "Yeah, cool." He's not big on itnroductions, it seems, his attention already straying towards the open access panel. He scoops up his toolbag with his feet hand.
Then Sid's mentioning Lucky. He looks back at the man, giving him a more intent look, studying him without attemptin gto hide the fact. Rivethead. Ok, not so bad. Not as machine as Maddox, but there's a definite machine lean. At least in Maddox's eyes.
"/That/ fucking guy? That fucking guys needs to change his goddamned name. He fucking jumped on my goddamned boat, drew this fucking giant leohawk whatever the fuck it was. /Right/ as we were passing through a rpid-choked ambush point and shit. Then he's screaming at me to /help/. Who the fuck's gonna drive? The hobs? Yeah, they can hold shit down on the steadies, but not in the rapids. Only I can do that."
He gets a bit worked up, that Mantle flairing. And he adds with a glare, "And we didn't fucking /crash/. Because I saved our asses." Well, truth be told, gravity was probably the biggest hero that day.
Joel raises an eyebrow and glances between Sid and Maddox as the story starts to come out. He must have missed that one. There's a little twist of amusement on his lips as he listens to Maddox go on about the boat and his piloting abilities. In the meantime he tips his beer back and takes a swallow from the bottle. He isn't in any particular rush, so the delay in starting doesn't bother him none. He props his feet up against the butt of the horse in front of him. If he had popcorn, he'd probably be eating it right about then.
Sid listened happier than a kid at storytime. He was trying to hide his amusement as the man was unfortunately seiged. Unfortunatly the Satyr had zero guile and pressed a knuckle to his mouth snickering into his hand. At the end of it he shook his head looking to Joel and back to Maddox with a grin and a heartfelt genuine tone, "Welcome to Lucky's world, man." he looked to Joel laughing with a shake of his head, "Sooooo not the story I was told>" He nodded to Maddox though in an earnest respect, "He spoke highly of your boat piloting skills though. And thank you. So what are we fixing on this, guiys? Pleasepleaseplease don't make it play It's a Small World."
Maddox snorts at Sid as he mentions it being a different story than he heard. Maddox scowls, growling, "Yeah? Well, I think I remember it pretty fucking clearly. I mean, when your goddamned boat is fucking /vertical/ because there's a goddamned giant red lion thing when a fucking mohawk, you can't of remember that shit. Then it slamed down. He knocked some of the goddamned monkey things off with an oar, but it was gravity did the fucking rest, thank /god/. Fucking asshole." He grumbles some more, then snorts.
"Just wait. It won't fucking take me long." With that, he snaging a second beer, tossing it in his toolbag, and then heading into the guts of the machine. He tugs the panel closed behind him with a loud grumble, "And don't fucking bother me!" The man apparently needs some alone time.
One might consider Joel a little bit insane for letting Maddox go in there and tinker around with the machinery of the carousel without really knowing him all that well, but Joel has had surprising luck with hiring and trusting people out of the blue. So, when Maddox goes inside and closes the door behind him, he raises a brow slightly but then shrugs his shoulders. He's enough of a mechanic that he'll figure out what's different when he goes back in there. He looks over toward Sid and says, "Heard a different tale, eh?"
Sid eyed Joel and hopped off the horse with a wry grin. "Yeah, We'll say Lucky loves a euphamism and loves to elaborate the parts where he does things. 'Not that bad' he tells me with three bust ribs." The stuntman shook his head neither worried nor upset. Ribs break, it was the hallamrk fo a good time. He hopped up top careful not to hurt paint or the billionty tiny lightbulbs, "Maddox, I'm up top. I'll let you know how things look. I can spot ya from here to save time running around and schnapps" Oh that damn censorship board. To Joel he grinned, "I love it when I get all these stories because they never just start with 'So that didn't work'."
It away for a bit. More than a half hour, less than an hour, it's hard to tell. Meanwhile, there's clanging and cursing and a variety of wrenching sounds coming from below. But the man surely knwos what he's doing. Hell, if anyone's familiar with the hobs in the area, they have nothing but good (if envious) thing sto say about him. Well, unless they're his enemies. It's a gamble.
Regardless, maddox finally finishes up his word and he's drained his beers, leaving the bottles scattered about, but not the caps. He grabs his tool bag and heads back upstairs. He grunts, "You fucking ready?" He drops the toolbag and goes for another beer.
Joel snickers just a little bit as Sid explains Lucky's habit of embellishing the truth. He nods just a little bit and then glances up while Sid goes climbing all up around the carousel, shaking his head just a bit. He takes another swallow from his bottle as the two of them chat and wait for Maddox to get done with whatever he's doing in there. They chat about this and that for about half an hour or so. When Maddox comes back out, Joel nods and says, "Show us what you've got."
Sid hung his head and said to Joel, "Ya know sadly, I think he's going to take that entirely in context." that said he rolled out of the top beam and dropped down with a bounce. It was a circus show, climbing on shit was the norm and he loved it for that. His hands had some dirt and grease but he wiped them off on his shorts anyways. "Maddox, we get the burrs off the gears so it stops making that whining grinding noise?"
Maddox grunts at them all. He doesn't smile, or any thing like that, but there's a sense of pride about him. He got a /lot/ done in a short amount of time. He spruced up the engine's efficiency. He repacked wheel bearings with an experts toucch. The Carousel is going to glide along like it never has. Maddox is good.
He snags another beer, twisting the cap off and pocketing it, and the moves to lean against one of the horses nearby. He pulls out his phone (he replaces them every couple weeks, because they have a tendancy to short out for some reason), and types in a command. He looks up at the carousel, waiting, ready to show them his triumphant moment.
And nothing happens. He tries again. Still nothing. He scowls and throws the phone on the ground, stomping on it. Apparently shot circuiting isn't the only concern.
"God damn motherfucker! Technology can suck my fucking balls!" He kicks what's left of the phone, then heads back towards the access panel. "I'll be right fucking back." He's just ducking down to start up the machine. And he does. The old fashioned way. But kicking and yelling at it while he flips the switch.
It does start, howevr, and it does run a lot smoother. It doesn't put him in a great mood, though. Then again, when is he?
When the carousel starts up, Joel picks up the little cooler and puts it on the bench with him so it isn't a tripping hazard and leans back to enjoy the newly smoothened ride, bottle in hand. He takes another slow swallow and nods his approval, a couple of slow nods of his head. "That does, in fact, feel like a much smoother ride. She even sounds better, too." Not that she sounded bad to start with, but his attuned ear is familiar with every creak and groan and whirr of the old carousel, and even he has to admit that whatever Maddox did in there, it did a hell of a job. "So," Joel says when Maddox resurfaces after the kicking and swearing is done. "What do I owe you for the work?"
Sid hopped over and scooped the phone offering, "Let me try?" He held up the phone and said, "With the Phone! not with your..." And Maddox was off and the Satyr shrugged. "He'll... figure it out." He was standing on it still going around in a circle. "Wooooo totally adding carousel racehorse to the list of shrubs I can drive, Joel. Let's get that on my new business cards."
Maddox stomps back onto the carousel and grunts in approval as it /finally/ starts to move. Damned techology. He tried something new and he actually had a clever little program to remote start it, which he was going to share, but it only takes one little mistype to throw that all out the window. And that of course leads to him stomping on his phone.
When Sid recovers it, he waves a hand and grunts, "I don't fucking care. Only had it a couple goddamned days, anyway." His electric gaze shifts towards Joel and he grunts again. "Repacked the bears, fucking boosted fuel effiency, main motor was getting clogged with grease so stripped parts of that down, cleaned 'em off. Added some washers to shit so it would goddamned scrape because of this baby's a goddamned antique, but shit's worn out, you know?"
He takes a swig of his beer and then shrugs, "The deal was you let me look at it, I fucking spruced it up. I mapped that shit out and it'll hep with my own project. So we're even and shit."
Sid was fussing with the phone and offerd to Maddox simply, "I don't know phones, but I got it restarted for you. It might work better now." He offered it back to Maddox and while it wsas not doing what Maddox wanted it to do it was responding again. He considered and said, "Should let us comp you though. Our man kinda assailed your boat and while that's not on Joel or I? I like seeing karma balanced out. You also really did help us a bit. Will make some people pretty damp happy." He paused and tried again "damaged...defenestrated..." There was a flush of ire that rose to the bridge of his noew nad pointed ears and faded as fast the Dusk sighs, "Good duck stuck in a sunbonnet...Look people will be happy, ok?" Man that censorship board beat him down good. Get the popcorn.
The phone is in poor shape. It's been thrown to the grown, stomped on. There's likely a broken screen. Maddox seems to have lost all interest in it now that the carousel is started, yet he gives a grunt when Side passes it back to him. He glances at it, drawling in that growling voice, "Cool, you got it back on and shit." Then he tosses it aside absently. It's already outlived its use.
Instead, he's focusing on Sid and Joel. "It's cool. Fuck, I'm a goddamned Squire, so it's kind of what I fucking do. I just wanted some schematics of the fucking carousel." He shrugs. "I think, turned sideways and shit,t he bearing structure would be good for tracks, and roll smoother than regular tracks, because it's made for more fucking weight and more fucking movement, both of what we'll ahve."
His mantle heats up as he talks, getting into it. Then, he's grunnting, "wath about a fucking duck?" He looks momentarily confused.
Joel tries very hard to keep a straight face when Sid starts to attempt to curse in earnest and it comes out in a string of gibberish. He doesn't quite maintaini it though, lifting a hand to curl his fingers in front of his lips, smiling into the knuckles of his hand. "If you want to put it on its side and put it on tracks, wouldn't something more like a tank be a better idea than something like a carousel which is meant for vertical rather than horizontal pressure? You'd be putting vertical pressure on the wrong side. Though I suppose if all you're looking for is the engine to hook up to whatever other construct you're making, that could work.." Joel muses. He can't help it. He tinkers.
Sid just hung his head, he was fuming, but resigned to his doom in that regard. His jaw set off angle, annoyed, and working hard to just focus on Maddox and siad, "I got reverse fantan tourettes, ok?" Simplest way to put it. The Satyr looked to Joel and countered, "Buuuut if he wanted to make it able to roll or change direction from center of mass instead of from front or rear wheel drive he could in theory still incorporate it into the deisgn. Though really integrated and synced castor wheel type device might work." He looked to Maddox and said with subdued pride, "I've raced IKEA shopping carts."
Uh oh. Joel said those magic words. 'Wouldn't something something something.' Although Maddox doesn't smile, his mien brightens, electricity crackling out from him. He clenches his beer tighter and leans in Joel's direction, his sparking gaze intense. He growls, "that's the fucking /thing/! I'm /building a goddamned tank. And you'd think it's just building a fucking tank and all that shit, but you know how many tanks there out there abandoned and shit? Because something /went wrong/. It ain't just about moving forward, you know. It's about maneuverability. It's..."
He take a swig of his beer, wiping the back of his hand across his lips, "Tracks going forward, but a base that pivots. That's what I fucking think. Yeah, they got some models that /kinda/ fucking do that, but what pivots with the quickness and steadiness that a carousel has? And it's also carrying a lot of goddamned weight." It's somewhat brilliant in its simplicity. Will it work? Who knows.
He look over at Sid as the man explains himself. He grunts, "That's fucking great." He doesn't seem to really care At the same time, he doesn't seem to really judge, either. Sid's Sid and he actually didn't notice anything out of the usual. Because there is no usual. "What the fuck is IKEA?"
Joel nods with a little greater understanding once Maddox goes about explaining exactly what it is that he is trying to build and the maneuverability he's trying to build into it "Interesting application," he comments with a small shake of his head and he gets a little bit lost in thought trying to ponder alternatives and suggestions. He's brought back around though and grins over at Sid and says, "We should do that sometime." The whole racing shopping carts thing, not build a tank. No one wants to see what Lucky would do with a tank.
Sid actually looked to Joel with a worried look for a moment. "Yeeeeah I'd like to see State AND the town both in one piece by the end of the week. We should-" He looked to Maddox and pulled out his own phone not even afronted that he didn't know what Ikea was and did a google image for the cart. "IKEA is construction with training wheels. That's not important, this... is whats' important. 4 indepent swivel glide wheels so you can strafe without rolling the cart. Good base and all weather construction.Can prolly break a good 12-15 m.p.h. on that on the right hill. More with booster rockets though trying to steer it if it got airborn would be a bench"
Maddox grunts at the mention of racing shopping carst. He growls, "Shopping carts? Seems fucking boring. Unless you throw on an engine, some fins, some more durrable weehls, maybe an emergency break and shit. Thrusters." He grunts to himself, "Ok, could be fucking fun, I don't know. It has potential and shit, if people have /nothing fucking better/ to be doing, which is never." He scowls.
Shaking his head, he turns towards Sid as the man shows him that website. He blinks, snags Sid's phone out of his hands, electricity crackling (probably overcharging and frying the battery), and he's scrolling through the site. "What. The. Actual. Fuck. This is goddamned bullshit!" He moves to throw the phone. Side does, at least, hav a chance to either catch it or catch Maddox's arm.
"that's not how you fucking build shit!" He looks apalled. Whether or not he could throw the phone, he loosesn his grip, letting it drop if Sid hasn't already reclaimed it. "1427 Martin Street." He read the website. "I gotta fucking go." With that, he's draining his beer, tossing the bottle aside absently, and heading towards the door. He's got a mission.
Sid watched with interest pointing out the smooth glide wheel mecha...nism... and there goes his phone. He tretched and reached behind his back to catch it and flipped it back forward to his free hand and said to Joel, "you know Ikea has like a bunch of em lying around. but they're all put together with hex wrenches too. "Maddox, you know- ya know what, he'll figure it out. We gotta show him the Ikea hax pages."
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