"What the hell is she doing now?" Assault sighed, watching the scaled figure of Raptaur guiding a large flat-bed truck with hand signals and shouted instructions as it slowly and carefully backed down the access road to the park. It stopped next to the children's play area, the engine idling down while the brakes came on with a hiss. One of the two men in it jumped out, walked around to the side, then started operating hand controls with the effect that a hydraulic crane swung into action, the boom lifting and pivoting into position. A set of stabilizing legs came slowly out of the vehicle sides moments later, Raptaur quickly adjusting them to sit on the ground.
The driver of the truck climbed onto the back and attached the crane hook to the straps around a large rectangular object that was wrapped in plastic, whatever it was being about seven feet tall and perhaps four feet square, and apparently fairly heavy. Raptaur was in the meantime releasing the other straps that held it down to the truck bed, showing a considerable amount of experience with them, then coiling them up neatly and putting them on the truck.
When they were ready, she moved back and made a circling motion with one finger in the air, the crane operator nodding and moving a lever. The engine revved up as the crane took up the load, the object lifting slowly into the air with the driver cautiously steadying it to prevent it swinging, then the boom pivoting around to finally lower it next to the playground, following the hand signals of the huge lizard. Looking pleased, she adjusted it slightly while it was a couple of inches off a prepared concrete pad that he knew wasn't there the week before.
Finally, it was lowered to the ground, landing with a crunch of metal on concrete. Assault glanced at his wife, who was also watching with curious interest. They'd been on patrol through the park, basically showing the flag since crime in this area was so low at the moment, and it was a nice day for a walk anyway. Neither one of them had expected to meet one of the Family here, although all things considered, perhaps they should have. The reptiles did have a tendency to show up in the oddest places.
"Thanks, Greg, Mike," Raptaur said happily, handing each of the men an envelope, her deep voice faint with the distance that separated them.
"Any time, Raptaur," the driver, apparently called Greg said, putting the envelope away and smiling. The other one nodded to her, then they got back into the truck and slowly drove off. The lizard-woman ran a taloned finger down the plastic wrap in one swift move, the material parting as easily as if she'd used a box cutter, then pulled the stuff off and wadded it up. With a look around, apparently for a garbage bin, she eventually shrugged when she didn't see one and simply ate the ball of plastic, which made Assault wince.
Revealed now that the wrappings were removed was a large box, bright blue, that seemed vaguely familiar to him. Possibly something he'd seen in a TV show, perhaps. There was a door on the side on their left, which they were at an angle to, but could just make out. She pulled this open, ducked her head, and went inside.
Ethan stared in shock. The box was definitely too small to contain Raptaur, she took up probably about twice the volume of the thing leaving aside the way she was over a foot taller. He glanced at his wife, who was also gaping. Neither had time to say anything before the lizard came out, a satisfied look on her face. A sound up the access road made them look, to see another truck reversing towards them, this one being guided by Metis, one of her weird cousins.
The black and scarlet reptile walked backwards down the road making hand signals of her own, the truck following obediently. It was piled high with building supplies such as timber and concrete blocks. Past it, at the end of the road, they spotted Ianthe waiting beside another vehicle, which seemed to be carrying a large amount of metal bars and tubes.
"I hate to ask what on earth those three are up to," Battery sighed. "The worst outcome is that they'd actually tell me. Then I'd have to go and get drunk to forget it. Remember that little statue they presented to City Hall?"
Assault shuddered.
He remembered all right, no matter how much he wanted not to.
The way the entire hall full of people had gone totally silent was still one of the most eerie things he'd ever experienced.
Sitting on one of the park benches, Battery sitting next to him, they spend the next half hour watching with confused disbelief as all three lizards unloaded enough supplies to make a fairly large building, all of it disappearing into the blue box! His head was aching trying to figure out how the fuck they managed to do that. Both trucks left, another van with a DWU sign on it turning up which disgorged a large amount of tools and equipment, including a very large generator that Metis simply lifted out of the thing like it was a box of crackers.
This was soon chugging away next to the mysterious box, thick cables coming from it and disappearing into the partly open door. A while later, all sorts of odd sounds started coming out, crackling sounds of welding accompanied by arc-white light that flickered through the translucent windows at the top of the door, hammering and sawing sounds, the noise of a chainsaw, and several loud explosions which made them jump.
Quite a large number of people stopped and stared, but he thought it somewhat odd how many of them moved on without comment when they'd read a small sign on a post next to the box, which Ianthe had pushed into the ground on her way inside.
Ethan wasn't sure if he wanted to read it, or go away and pretend none of this was happening. In the end, the indecision meant he simply sat and watched with his mouth a little open.
Another half hour passed. Battery nudged him in the ribs. "Come on, we can't waste the entire day watching whatever it is that those insane creatures are doing. We have a patrol route and we're late."
"But..." He pointed helplessly at the box, which was now humming loudly and emitting a faint cloud of smoke.
"I know. Believe me, I know. But it's them. We should stay out of it, for our own sanity."
Nodding absently, he stood as she did, then followed as they resumed their walk, looking back over his shoulder every now and then until the box was out of sight.
"Tell me again why we're doing this the hard way when you could just make this from nothing?" Lisa asked, lifting the business end of the welder from the neat weld she'd just finished.
"Partly because there's no harm in learning new skills, partly because it puts a lot of money into the local economy buying the materials, partly because it's actually a lot of fun, and..." Taylor grinned at her friends, "mainly because of the reaction people have when they see everything going inside a box way too small to contain any of it."
"So, mostly because you think it's funny," Amy suggested.
"Yep." Taylor chuckled as she made a hammer, then began smacking six inch nails flush with delicate blows at the speed of a nailgun. "I'd have gotten Brian involved in this but I thought it was a nice day out for us girls as well."
Shaking her head and grinning, Amy resumed measuring the heavy wooden beam she was working on. "I have to admit I'm really enjoying this."
"It is fun, you're right," Lisa smiled, moving to the next weld. Her power seemed to be very good at showing her how to learn skills of this nature, something she'd never have discovered in all likelihood without the last few months having happened. Conversation died as they resumed work.
On the way back through the park about four hours later, Ethan stopped to watch a large cement truck that was stopped outside the box, a chute going from the rear of the rotating drum into the thing. Liquid cement was sliding down the chute in vast quantities.
After a short period of gaping, he firmly shook his head and allowed his wife to pull him onward.
Three days later, after having seen at various points almost every sort of building material one could imagine disappear into the box as he passed by, his curiosity couldn't take it any more, even tempered with his common sense. The box was simply standing there, vague sounds of hard work drifting from it now and then.
Having slipped away from Miss Militia, who he was supposed to be patrolling with this afternoon, he cautiously approached the strange construction. Stopping next to it he looked at the sign.
All-Weather Non-Euclidean Playground
For Children up to Sixteen
No Smoking
Mild Conceptual Hazard, Adults may be Disorientated
Donated to the City of Brockton Bay by BBFO, LLC, in association with the Brockton Bay Dock Workers Union
Opening this Tuesday!
Ethan read the sign four times, his sense of unreality growing each time. After a very long and hesitant pause, he moved slowly to the door and gently pushed it open, putting his head inside.
He froze.
He looked from side to side.
He looked up.
He looked down.
Then, just as slowly, he removed his head and stared at the box, before walking around it muttering under his breath.
Eventually, he looked inside again.
Finally, after another thirty seconds of staring, he withdrew his head, shook it somewhat dazedly, and wandered off in search of an Irish coffee with no coffee in it.
"How the fuck can it have a swingset on the ceiling?" he mumbled. "That slide went around corners that can't exist. And where did the trees come from?"
Deciding that he really needed a holiday, he sped up, walking briskly through the park.
A horrible thought struck him.
"Oh, Christ, if Vista sees that, we'll never get her out again..."
Sometimes Brockton Bay was too much even for him, he mused, now almost running towards the nearest source of blessed liquid memory cleanser.