Moreau-Walter Amalgamated

Lilah Moreau-Walter

Friday, July 19th, 1991. San Diego, CA

Steam escaped and gears wheezed for a few moments as Rabbit waited for a young woman to finish pouring a bright yellow liquid into an Erlenmeyer flask. Standing in a long hall, he peeked in around a door-frame into a large laboratory in the basement of the Moreau-Walter family home in San Diego-a sprawling complex of labs below ground and gilded-age residential opulence above. Once she set the beaker down, he called quietly to her. "Miss Lilah?" Rabbit's voice echoed off the lab walls. She grinned knowingly as she turned to face him.

With any other member of the Moreau-Walter family, Rabbit would have bounded in and pounced on them, perhaps on purpose, upsetting whatever work they were doing. But to Rabbit, Delilah Moreau-Walter was different. She was Pappy's great-great-granddaughter and more so than anyone else who'd come before her, she was his spitting image. Her hair was short and blue-black and she wore it, perhaps purposefully, with the bangs long and they curled out the same way his had done. She was tall and lean, but her frame was rounder and softer on account of being a woman than Pappy's had been. And what was more, even though she'd never met her second-great-grandfather, she had a few of the same mannerisms he exhibited. One of these presented itself to Rabbit as she faced him and planted her fists on her skinny hips with the elbows cocked forward just a little. "What can I do for you, Rabbit?" she asked. "Need a tune up?"

The robot was dressed down in a plain pair of black bell-bottoms, a long-sleeved knit shirt and a red bandana over his copper skull. "Oh, no. N-not right now. Ya see, we got a show comin' up..."

Detecting that it would be a bit of a long conversation, Lilah took her gloves off, set them on the work table and walked toward the robot. "Yes, I know. A big show in at the stadium tomorrow with the Dollop-of-losers, was it?" she teased.

Rabbit made a face and raised a brow at the twenty-year old woman. "Lollapalooza. It's the name of the show, not a band."

"Right, right. Are you ready?"

"Well that's just it, see, I... Well, The Jon and The Spine, they're really nervous about it (the big babies) and I thought maybe if there was a familiar face in the audience they wouldn't be so... nervous." He blinked one eye then the other and pursed his lips.

For a brief moment, the young woman clenched her teeth involuntarily, then took a deep breath. "Poor Jon and Spine," Lilah sympathized. "I'm sure they'll do just fine once the show starts. You're all old pros at this, after all."

"Well, yeah..." Rabbit blew steam from his vents in frustration. "But it's been so long since we played anything b-b-bigger than the park and I... I mean, Spine and The Jon they're worried about how this new audience will like us. What if they don't like us? What if they boo us!"

Lilah put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure they will love you. The Steam Man Band wouldn't have been asked to play this event otherwise, right?"

"B-b-b-but..." he stammered and his shoulders slumped with a ringing crunch that made Lilah wince as he reached his tension's breaking point. "Crud."

"Rabbit," she said stepping away to get her tools. "You need to relax. It's really not that big a deal."

"But it is!" he whined. "They say there'll be thousands of people there! Thousands! They say there'll be moshing." He stressed the strange word as if it was synonymous with 'murdering' while pulling his shirt off over his head. He turned his back to her, knowing where he'd malfunctioned, and without being asked granted her silent permission to work on him. Delilah Moreau-Walter was also unlike any other member of her family in that she was the only one Rabbit allowed to repair him without argument.

"I doubt very highly that people will be moshing to your music. I heard you're going on first so the crowd probably won't be crazy yet. Not that I know much about rock shows. That's just what Patrick Reed told me yesterday." Rabbit reached a hand around and pointed to the offending section, his left shoulder, and she removed the copper panel. Sure enough, a gear had slipped its track and a spring had unwound. "Better sit down for this one," she said, sighing a little. He complied, shuffling his feet like a child who'd been scolded.

"Sorry," Rabbit said softly and took a seat on a lab stool. "Miss Lilah, I'm scared," he admitted, looking up at her with his mismatched eyes. He was about to swing around to show her his back again but she squatted down in front of him and put her hand on his knee. She looked up at him with sympathy and patience and let out a slow breath.

"And that's ok," she said, smiling. "If it makes you feel better, I'll come to the show for you."

He straightened up and beamed at her. "You will? Oh! Thanks, Miss Lilah! Oh! Thanks!" He hugged her and the slipped gear ground loudly against other surrounding parts. They laughed together.