TJ: At The Shop

One evening, as TJ is working a wee bit late with a particularly stubborn Ford Focus, she sees a pair of Doc Marten's walk up wand pause next to her head as she lays under the belly of the little four-door.

"Beggin' yer pardon, Miss Foster," says the voice, decidedly Cockney, "but if y'could spare a few moments, I was told you were the girl t'see about a broken vehicle."

TJ had cursed several times out loud about the pesky vehicle and side wanting to nearly throw in the towel for the night. But, of course the customer would be back first thing the next day and needed to finish. Noticing the shoes close to her head she looked over at the voice.

"I guess you would be hearing right" She said pulling herself from under the car on the little scooter like thing and standing up. She pulled a rag from her back jean pocket and wiped off her hands as best as she could.

"TJ," She said first introducing herself. "What can I Help you with?"

The man is stocky, with a close-buzz of blonde hair. He is obviously British and his clothes harken back to the '80's London punk scene. Perhaps in his late twenties, he seems more rogueish than intimidating.

"TJ, then," he greets with a nod. "My name's Bristol. I need a part salvaged from a junk car an' I got neither th' tools nor th' skills t'do it. Think you can help? I can offer you some fairly temptin' compensation, I think."

TJ eyes him lightly. His style is dated back some time, though she could say anything for herself. She was wearing Jeans with holes in the knees and a basic mens muscle tank. "Nice to Meet you Bristol" She said stuffing the rag back into her pocket.

She contemplates for a moment. "Junkers can be a tricky subject to get parts out of, but depending on the part, and the condition of it, I'm sure I can manage to at least give it a try. Is the car here? Or is it locational and in need of going some place else?"

"Oh, it's most definitely locational," replies Bristol. "But I can get us there a'fore you can say 'Bob's yer uncle'. Just let me...see about..." and he delves down into his pocket, retrieving what looks to be a small ruby with one flat side. "Here we go. Hmm..." A quick look about and he spies the door the leads from garage to the interior waiting room/check-out counter of the shop. "That'll do. C'mon, then."

And Bristol strolls over, pressing the flat side of the gem to the door, where it sticks. "Ah, right!" he says, speaking at the gem as though it were a microphone or an intercom. "E & H Car-Crushing Company, if you please. Over on Gloucester." His hand takes hold of the handle, the door is tugged open and, instead of the waiting room, a sprawling, vast, dark scrap yard can be seen on the other side.

TJ watches him before gathering several of the tools she will probably need; wrench, screw driver, ect. Before long she has a small bag hugged over her shoulder and placed at her side. "Okay, Lets go" She said watching him pull what looked like a small rubie from his pocket. Following to the door frame she stands to the side watching his movements with curiosity.

"Sir, that leads to the..." She paused onces the gem was placed and the door was open to reveal what looked like some old scrap yard, just like the one he had noted before.

"How did you....That's not possible. That's supposed to be the waiting room, and its now an entrance to a scrap yard?" Looking around for any sign of the other mechanics and workers she looked back at him when there was still no sign of them.

"wow...I...I dunno how to even respond to that..."

"An' if you think this is somethin'," Bristol replies, "imagine what sort o' compensation I can give ye. Say...a part you can fit on your vehicle of choice so that it never needs gas? Mm? Come on."

He walks through the door, then waits on the other side for TJ.

TJ grew weary of the gentlemen. She wasn't exactly sure what to do or if he was to be trusted. Of course her brother would have told her to stop going after the unattainable but still...

Looking around once more and fixing the bag at her hip she followed through the door and onto the other side where the once waiting room, now junk yard was. "So what part exactly am I pulling out of said vehicle...?"

As she walks through, the doorway and door vanish, and the ruby plinks to the ground. Bristol retrieves it and pockets it, surveying the area with a critical and...oddly enough, somewhat wary eye. "Somethin' that ain't gonna be easy to get," he replies cryptically.

The scrap yard is huge. The ground is dirt and slightly muddy in places, and even squinting in the dusklight, TJ can't see the end fences of the place. It goes sprawing out in an expanse of metal junk for what seems like miles. Huge towering hills of old cars rise up grimly in every direction - at least a hundred or more mini-mountains. Scrap metal litters the place. In the distance, she can hear the thunderous echoes of three giant car-rushing machines, pounding and steaming. TJ is reminded of any of a number of grim places from children's books and movies: the Deadly Desert of Oz, the Fire Swamp of Florin and the Swamps of Sadness of Fantasia spring instantly to mind. This is not a good place.

Bristol seems to know it, and regards TJ with solemnity. "This is dangerous ground, Miss Foster. The things here are all abandoned or deliberately thrown away. As you might imagine, being tossed into this place and forgotten would tend t'make them a touch angry. Mind yerself."

He rubs his hands together and again gives the huge yard a once-over. "What we're lookin' for is a 1978 Nova, whose gear-shift is of a particular interest t'me."

The ruby plinks to the ground and TJ looks around. The sun is nearly set and it was making it hard for her to see where exactly the limits of the grounds rested. She takes a deep, quiet breath and nods at any remark he seems to be making. Her mind is flashing through all the different "not so nice" places she had seen in movies of the like. This wasn't a place she really wanted to be at the moment and the man seemed to know that as well.

"Knowingly thrown away...but if they're junk or scrap what's it matter. I mean, i'm all for custom cars from scraps...but..." She pauses looking around as he mentions the type of car he needs. The part is an unusual request. "A gear shift? What sort of interest could a gear shift have to you? I don't mean disrespect, but thats a really unusual request."

Bristol starts moving forward cautiously, looking about them as he goes. "The gear shift in question has a particularly valuable top knob. It's a diamond. Not just any diamond, either - a really ruddy BIG diamond. Capital gain aside, that diamond's a very necessary bit to something I'm putting together."

He pauses, checks his direction and veers left, wending a slow path through the piles of scrap, passing under the shadows of the tall mountains of totaled cars. "An' these particular things, Miss Foster, are sentient. Enough to be angry at being thrown away. They hate humans, because it was humans that did this to them, and humans who run the crusher at the far end of the yard."

He stops abruptly and takes hold of TJ's arm, pulling her into a deeper shadow cast by a heap of broken refrigerators and old deep-freezers. "Look, there -" he murmurs, pointing in the distance to something dark that is large enough to be a car...rolling unsteadily through the yard. "That's one of 'em. An' it's not just cars, my girl. It's all manner of junk. I had a toilet-seat cover try to whack me to death here, once."

"You talk like these things are alive Mr. Bristol...They're only objects, matter. They can't be alive" She whispered. Her eyes where open, focused and alert to the things around her. She followed the man cautiously through the scrap yard.

"And a diamond? Why would they get rid of a car if that was inside. None of this is making sense." She called at him. "And if they hate humans. Why are we here to get in the way. Even if they have a mind of they're own, what makes you think they won't try and throw us in the car crusher.."

She stopped when he did and yelped lightly as she was pulled into a deeper creves of the junk. She looked to where he pointed and shook her head. "This isn't logical. Things like that shouldn't be moving around at all. They're just things..."

"Well, they're 'just things' that have a nasty temper," Bristol replies. "Come on. Quiet, now."

And he leads her as silently and stealthily as possible through the junk and scrap. It seems to take ages before he finally halts their progress and nods yonder. "There she is."

A Chevy Nova, battered and old, two of its tires missing as well as one of its doors. It looks...defeated. Broken. Like a crippled soldier or a wounded animal. "All right. I'll distract it while you get the gear-shift knob, right?" He grins over at TJ. "Cheers!"

And he dashes over to the car. "Evenin', missus!" he greets to the vehicle. And, amazingly, the headlights snap on and shine at the Brit, who blinks but doesn't lose a beat. "What a fine night, eh? And how smashin' a figure you're cuttin'!"

He glances dartingly to TJ and inclines his head just barely.

"I must be losing my fucking mind" She whispers still following him through the yard. She sighs with reliefl when he stops and points out the car. She two missing tires and a broken spirit about her.

"Wait, distract it...I'm going in there while you DISTRACT it..." She tried to protest before he walked up to the car and began to talk to it. The headlights turned on as it seemed intune with what the man was saying. Waiting for the signal from him she made her way to the car and as quietly as she could tried to pull herself into the car.

She needed to work quickly and once inside she made sure to stay quiet as she tried to work and pry this particular shift gear from its hold.

As she wriggles into the car, Bristol coughs and begins to ramble even louder, doing a makeshift and imppomtu jig. If the car can feel someone climbing into its insides, it gives no indication.

Bristol had been right - inside this hunk of junk, topping the gear shift, is the biggest diamond TJ has ever seen. It's bigger than her fists and beautifully cut. Getting it loose takes a bit of work, but eventually she's able to pull it free.

It was indeed the biggest diamond she'd ever seen. And finally pulling the thing loos made her jump back into teh seat just a little at the mere size of the thing. Looking around making sure to not disturb anything else she sighs. TJ takes a grip at the gear shift and starts to make her way out of the car.

She continues to move slowly as to not make any more indication that she has indeed entered the car and set it off to crush her.

The diamond comes off easily. A little TOO easily for a restful mind about it. But she is able to wriggle out of the car without disaster.

And it would be a distaster-free endeavor all around, if it weren't for the fact that Bristol has stopped jigging and is now standing stock-still and staring past TJ's shoulder.

"How fast can you run, luv?" he murmurs softly, eyes fixed on a point behind her.

TJ sighed with relief once making it out of the car. Her heart was racing with adrenaline and fear. She put the diamond back into her bag for safe keeping as she stood upright. She noticed that Bristol was just standing there, his gaze fixed upon something that must have been standing right behind her.

She grew nervous at his question however. "How fast can i run? I don't know. I dance outside the shop, so i guess I can do okay running..." Curiosity over took as she slowly moved her head to the side to peer behind her at whatever it was the man was staring at.

Lumbering toward them, still at a respectable distance (thank God), was the unmistakable silhouette of a very, very big piece of construction equipment. And though it had no discernable human features, TJ is almost certain it looks angry.

"Extrapolate later!" Bristol says, his voice pitched up a bit in anxiety. "We've got to go. Now." And he reaches to clasp her hand and tugs her unceremoniously away from the old car, breaking into a run back toward the entrance of the scrapyard.

As her head turned and in some distance behind her was a large piece of machinery. Although TJ had no idea where exactly this was coming from or WHAT it was she knew she didn't want to be around it. She could tell it looked almost angry. "What the he--" Was all she could muster out before a hand clasped her own and they were at that moment off at almost a run back through the scrap yard.

"What did i just get myself into!?" She called looking back moments later to see if the thing was still coming after them. How fast could a peice of metal like that move anyways? It had to of weighed a few tons... But all she knew was she wanted out...she had what she had been asked to get and all she wanted was to get out...

Bristol seems only too happy to oblige, breaking into a full-on sprint and seeming to know that she'll be more than able to keep up. Behind them, the machinery seems to actually be gaining - either it's got some sort of booster on it, or it has machine-adrenaline that's giving it a nice burst of speed. Either way, it's getting closer.

Bristol yanks the doorknob out of his pocket and skids to a halt in front of a battered shell of an old semi-. He jams the doorknob right on top of the truck's door handle, turns it and wrenches open the wide door.

"In! In!" he says sharply, and then clambers into the driver's side of the semi - which isn't the driver's seat any more. It's the body shop where TJ works.

TJ could only imagine why the hell the thing was gaining speed. She took off after Bristol as fast as she could to keep up with him winding through the cars and pieces of junk in the yard. She really didn't like what she'd gotten into and was hoping to stay away from the weird after this. But, somehow she didn't think that was possible. There was a reason he came to her shop...

Watching him jam the doorknob into the semi, jerk in open and shuffle her inside, she found herself back in the waiting room of the shop she had been at moments before. Looking around she sighed in relief before picking through her back and pulling the rather large diamond from her bag.

"All that for this? Why did you need this?" She asked looking through and examining the large stone.

"Well, for one, it's a ruddy huge diamond," Bristol answers, closing the waiting room door and plucking the doorknob from it, tucking it back into his pocket. "Second...well, the second is going to have to come later."

He turns and makes his way over to the counter, taking up a pen and a scrap piece of paper and scribbling on it. "You want answers, luv, you'll get them at this address. Come on the 14th - there'll be other people there who're in the same boat."

The paper he tenders to her, then holds out his hand. "The rock, if y'please."

TJ just looks at him as he speaks. He can't give her answers, yet she's forced to really take in what the hell had just occured. She shook her head to settle her thoughts before taking the slip of paper and peering at the address.

"I make no promises. But I guess if i want answers i better be there..." She shoves the paper into her pocket and from there hands over the fist sized gem. "Just try not to get me killed by machinery next time we meet...huh?" She said with a hint of a smirk.

"Ahh, no promises there," Bristol replies with a saucy grin. "Wouldn't want your life t'get boring, now, would I?" He tips her a salute. "See you in a few days, luv."

And then he turns and strolls out of the shop, whistling airily.