Generation Breakers
By Sinead
Chapter Two
Relevant Song: Yuki Kajiura "Cynical World"
.o.O.o.
The car moved beautifully. Stopped on a dime, turned on a penny, and breezed through a brief thundershower that helped clean the odd dusty yellow coat of paint that just seemed to glow in the oddest way. As if it were almost pulsing, moving to a beat that only the car could hear. But that was silly. It was probably just her eyes playing tricks upon her, caused by the streetlights. It was wonderful to be able to move in a car that responded so perfectly to the slightest touch of her hand.
As she backed into the driveway, just over half a tank of juice remaining, she rolled up to the garage, then left the car running, parked, while she opened the garage door. Getting back into the driver's seat, she backed him up just enough so that she could walk around the Camaro with about three feet of space on all sides. Raevyn was glad that she kept the functioning half of her garage impeccable. The other half neatly stored a half-working go-cart, two ride-on lawnmowers, an engine from a 1983 Pontiac Firebird, and a few other odds and ends.
Sighing, she turned the engine off, and just sat in her . . . her car, hands gently tracing the odd pattern set within the very center of the steering wheel. Without meaning to, she began talking to it, her voice soft. "Mom's not gonna tell me what it is the government's hiding this time. I don't even know what she does for a living. It . . . it pisses me off. She's never got time for me anymore, Boy. She's always rushing out in the morning, and never comes back until after I'm in bed. And whatever days she has off, she spends with that . . . chick of a sister of mine." She loosened her white-knuckled grip that had been wringing the black steering wheel, then climbed out of the car, closing the door carefully.
Beginning to move everything over to the unused half of the garage, the side used for storage, the twenty-two year old continued talking. "Gloria's the perfect daughter to her. I mean, hellfires, the girl's name is Gloria Heaven, for crying out loud. She has to be the perfect daughter. She rides horses, trains kids to ride horses, has horse meetings, and above all, looks like she just stepped out of a show-jumping magazine, not a hair out of place, the horse groomed to within an inch of its life." Huffing, she spilled soap into a bucket, opening a valve to send water through the hose that she held in her hand, not caring that it was freezing water, and that it was barely sixty degrees in the summer night.
"I'm the first-born. I'm the failure in Mom's eyes. I'm not working in the area of my studies yet; I'm always getting dirty," she snarled, clearly imitating her mother's voice, possibly a tad more nasally than reality. "All I do is spend time out here tinkering with old engines, with grease and grime, almost dragging it through the house to the shower." Throwing a sponge and a cloth into the sudsy water, she pulled the thick plastic sheet between the two sides. It would catch any stray water that would inevitably bounce off of the car. Her movements were angry, jerky, and tears were beginning to flow down her face. "The only person who sees me as I really am is Dad. Sis just sniffs at me, always making a face that I smell, or making a comment that I look like I just got mauled by some car-monster or something. Mom doesn't understand how a tomboy like me popped outta her."
She shot the water at the car, rinsing it off thoroughly before making another comment about her life. "I mean . . . Dad's taught me everything that I could really use in my life. Taught me how to defend myself, how to fight. He taught me not to follow anyone's path but my own. I want to be a mechanic, and work on cars as gorgeous as you are. I want to be able to design something like you, and then make 'im." With a sigh, she began scrubbing at the car, leaning in close to look at the paint itself, seeing a shimmer and shine beneath the color that gave it such a deep character. Scrubbing all that she could reach, Raevyn was glad that she had put her work-clothes in a bag that had been left here during her joyride. She never wore work clothes while biking to and from her work. "You are such a gift . . . How can I ever repay Dad for you?"
After another half hour of silence, she buffed a coat of wax on, treated the chrome, and then began an intensive cleaning of the interior. Opening a window to let the breeze through, airing out the garage, she threw the soiled water through the screen, hearing it pop against flesh, fabric, and leather, which inevitably caused a piercing screech of shocked horror. Immediately, Raevyn hit the switch to close and lock both the garage doors. The light went out as well. Those two actions took her away from the window, and as she got closer to it again, her head down, moving from one deep shadow to another, her eyes adjusted to the dark, and her ears remained as sharp as ever.
"Ugh! Ah! I'll never forgive her for this! Oh, my best riding chaps . . ."
Cursing almost-silently, Raevyn winced. Guess that her sister had wanted to snoop on her again.
"Nevermind your chaps . . . look at what landed on your jacket." Dominique, one of Gloria's entourage. Her groupies, who followed her everywhere. Like a pride of lionesses, they seemed all maternal and caring . . . until you got between them and what they wanted. Like a good-looking boy, or the newest Coach or Gucci bag. Then all hell broke loose.
Wait. Jacket? Uh-oh . . . Not the jacket. Please, God not the jacket. That had cost Luna almost four hundred . . .
Gloria shrieked, her voice rising to an inhuman pitch. "I'm gonna skin her!"
"Can I help? I can't wait to get her back for what she did to me in the tenth grade . . ." Another goupie . . . Zita.
And Raevyn hadn't done anything, other than catch the eye of one of the freshman in Harvard, Randall, on the football team. Besides, like Gloria, Zita was two years younger than Raevyn. It was a doomed infatuation on Zita's behalf. Speaking of that guy, he was supposed to call something this week to hang out over at another jock's, Darian's, garage to see the latest pit of decay that was dragged out of the back of nowhere. Darian had the gift of finding a diamond in the rough.
Then again, Darian did demolition derby as a hobby.
Randall helped rebuild muscle cars. He was going to freak out about her yellow Camaro.
"Nobody gets between me and Raevyn!"
An alto-toned growl interrupted. "Is that so, young lady?"
Raevyn pulled up enough guts to see her mother glaring at Gloria. Luna huffed a sigh and shook her head. "Look at what you did."
"What I did?! She threw that slop out here intentionally!"
"I saw it, Mrs. Starwalker!" Dominique said with a half-whine.
"And she was laughing at Gloria, too!"
Luna chuckled smugly, and leaned towards her daughter and the other two twenty-year-olds.
All three had been hand-picked to go to a private school in Milton, a semi-city just south of Boston, and they had gotten the preppy attitude to go with it. What wasn't known was that Gloria had been second-choice to go to that school. They had wanted Raevyn for her intelligence and quick thinking. They wanted to train her up, having scouted her out through a school science fair in middle school. And during the meeting that they had talked to her, her parents, and her principal about the honor, the prestige and the status that would come from going to this school, Raevyn had outright laughed and stood up. She told the recruiter that she had been accepted at another school that would teach her all that she needed to know about what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to be a mechanic first, then make enough money to go to a car designing school.
The voice of her mother cut through her reverie. "And do you think that I am going to believe that, when I have been watching Raevyn for almost the last hour? I saw you pull in, I heard you decide to sneak up and scare the living daylights out of her. Above all, I saw how she threw the water out, and how she reacted when you clearly declared your distaste for being given a slight drenching. You three are lying. As long as you are under my roof, Gloria, you will not lie, nor revert to such childish behaviors."
"But, Mumma, my jacket . . ."
"Pay for the cleaning bill yourself, if you value the jacket so much. It's yours, not mine, and is as much your responsibility as those three horses of yours are." Raevyn watched as Luna took a step closer and looked down at her daughter with an iron face. "I can and will restrict privileges while you are here upon summer vacation. Be mindful of that. And don't track any of that water through the house." Turning upon her heel, in comfortable sneakers, she knocked upon the garage door. Raevyn moved away from the window and opened it. As soon as Luna was inside, she turned the light on and looked at the car. "Your father chose well . . . I used to have a Mustang that looked almost like this. Racing stripes and all. Back just before you came into our lives."
All Raevyn could do was stare at her mother. Luna only chuckled and shrugged, closing the window and sitting upon a chair right in front of it. "Now. One your father starts to chew Gloria out a little, I can tell you about what's been going on, and how I need your help."
As if she were timing it, a snarl came echoing from the kitchen of their house, the windows open wide to catch the night breezes. "If you think that yah can jest waltz in here like that and not expect a reprimand, young lady . . . Oh are you sorely in trouble. I heard the entire thing. Zita, Dominque, go home. Gloria's grounded, and y'all're not going to see her for a few days. Scram."
Luna smiled very endearingly in the direction of their house. "Oh, that's why I married that man. He always says the right thing." Turning back, she didn't mince her words. "Aliens are real, and they're among us."
