Chapter 2
Robot Wars
April 4th 7.37pm – High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
"Ahem! Attention please gentlemen!" Snow announced before holding his mic in the air and tapping it with his other hand to create a 'boof'ing noise from the large speakers behind him.
The crowd of 23 nerds stopped chatting and looked his way into the centre of the arena in the basement of the Mosquito Inn.
"Since it appears everyone is here, we may as well get the first round started. The first battle will be between Pete Clarkson's 'Crushernator' and the Murphy brother's 'Scorpion 2'. Gentlemen, start your robots!"
The crowd clapped rather civilly as Clarkson placed the Crushernator into the 15 foot wide ring made of black tyres. Ryan and his brother T.J. both needed to lower the Scorpion 2 into the ring carefully, not because it was too heavy, but because due to a design flaw that they'd been arguing about for 2 nights, the chassis was too weak to support its weight unless all 4 sets of tracks were on the ground or being otherwise supported. It was however much too late to worry about that now, as they were about to face Clarkson's pink behemoth, a 2 foot high remote controlled sledge hammer.
That's not to say the Scorp wasn't heavily armed, it had a high powered pneumatic battering ram that could punch holes in breeze blocks, and thanks to a pivot between the 4 sets of tracks it had excellent manoeuvrability.
"We should win this." Ryan said to his brother, hopefully.
"Neeeyyyyaaaaa . . ." T.J. didn't really share his confidence as the hammer took a test swing and chipped the oil and flamethrower stained concrete floor.
Snow held the mic up close to his face so the bass of the last word would shake the floor, "Three, Two, One, ACTIVATE!"
Before Ryan had a chance to steer left, the Crushernator had sped forward and timed a hammer strike perfectly so that its forward momentum would give the hammer a little extra oomph, just enough in fact to decimate the front right set of tracks. T.J. activated the ram but all it did was glance the corner of its opponent, denting some bodywork and sending a couple of bolts flying. While he was recalling it for another strike, the hammer landed on the top of the cannon, buckling it and disabling the ram altogether. A couple more strikes hit the machine before T.J. threw in the towel. Literally, landing a small white towel on the now smoking mess of a machine.
"Robots, cease!" Snow shouted.
Clarkson reversed his nearly unscathed robot back to his starting position.
"Well, well, well lads," Said Snow, "Scorpion 1 appears to have a new friend in robot heaven tonight. That makes Pete our first round winner!"
Ryan and T.J. lifted what was left of Scorpion 2 from the arena and onto the trolley before wheeling it to the cellar lift, which took them out to the carpark.
"We need more speed." Ryan suggested.
"Well it would be faster, Ry, if you didn't insist on two sets of tracks."
"Its designed to look like a UNSC Scorpion, it has to have two sets."
"But it's supposed to be designed to win! There's not much good in entering something that looks cool if it's going to get hammered! Literally, in this case!"
Before Ryan could retort, his phone rang. "Hello?"
"Hi, is that Ryan Murphy?"
"Yes it is . . . who's this?"
"My name is Sandy Gray, I don't know if you remember me but you did some work for me earlier this year, putting together a psychokinetic energy reader."
Had they been in a cartoon, £ symbols would have rolled in Ryan's eyes. He grinned. "Yes I do remember. How's that working out for you?"
"It's broke."
"Umm, yeah, I . . . it was working when I gave it to you."
"No, I mean I broke it. I need it fixed; I was hoping you could help me."
"Uh, yeah sure. I mean, I'm kind of busy right now." He said, kicking the dead heap of metal by his feet. "But if you can make it worth my while I should be able to squeeze you into my schedule."
"Oh of course! Thanks so much. When can I come to your workshop?"
"Hold on." Ryan covered the mic on his phone. "T.J., are we doing anything tomorrow?"
T.J. Sighed. "By anything, I assume you mean anything apart from playing Warhammer and drinking Fosters? No, not really."
"Let me check my diary, hold on." Ryan paused for dramatic effect as he inspected his fingers, wiping the grease from the robot onto his overalls. "Yeah, looks like I can move some stuff aside and make room for you at around 12 tomorrow, is that cool?"
"You're a lifesaver, thank you so much!"
"No problem, see you then." He hung up. "Yes! Paid work." He said, offering T.J. a fist-pump, which he reluctantly accepted.
Chapter 3
White Van Man
April 5th 10.12am – Uxbridge, Greater London
With Black Sabbath blasting out of his paint covered radio, Will Careterro was hurriedly trying to finish installing a power shower before the Newcastle Vs Spurs kick off at 1pm. He referred to himself on the sides of his once white 1991 Ford Transit as a general handyman, but wisely, didn't actually make the claim that he was a qualified plumber. Despite that fact, people still phoned him to do kitchens and bathrooms, and he felt no need to mention that when it came to plumbing, he wasn't always 100% sure what went where.
His iPhone with the broken screen was on the bathroom windowsill when it started to ring. Carefully, with one hand still holding up the shower, he stretched out and got the phone just before it vibrated itself over the edge.
"Careterro, for when D.I.Y. won't do."
"Hey, it's me. Remember that hot goth-type girl you were asking me about?"
"Rachel?"
"No, the ghost hunter."
"What, the one that was in those Lara Croft shorts with the big tits?"
"That's her. You said to let you know if she's back this way, well she's coming to mine at 12."
"Alright if I watch the game at yours?"
"Game?"
"You know, football. The game you don't play with a keyboard or dice."
"Oh, right, yeah sure. See you later."
Spurred on by the thought of seeing those juicy juggs again, Careterro picked up the pace, put down the drill and picked up the hammer.
April 5th 11.55am – High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Thankfully for Sandy, High Wycombe was on the way back from the manor house, so she could stop in and get her P.K.E. fixed before going home. She wasn't expecting to stay away overnight so she looked a state, her hair in a mess, her face still dirty from the tunnels, her clothes messy and in some places still damp. It had been a two hour rescue attempt involving three builders removing the mesh cover of the pit and a team from Fire and Rescue coming down on a ladder to get her out. The moment she was saved however, she found herself being checked over by a paramedic as she was questioned by police. It seemed quite a few 'safe working practices' had been ignored in letting her on site, let alone in the unsecured crawl spaces. She'd been allowed in with nobody on site qualified in confined spaces rescue, and to top it off, while she was waiting to be cut out, she'd mentioned the skeleton in the tunnels, so there were now human remains to deal with too. A forensics team were called in to check it out and apparently found nothing, so she could have been nicked for wasting police time too, but was let off due to her emotional distress. She was ordered to report to the local station to fill out an endless barrage of forms, some of which she was sure were duplicates that they couldn't be bothered to photocopy, before being allowed to go. By that time she was too tired to drive home and fell asleep in the back of the car.
She still had the voicemail and she'd called O2 to find out if they had any record of who'd left it, but they informed her that they had no record of anyone calling her at that time, and that they couldn't explain why she had a message marked at that time. With no other lines of enquiry and a strong desire to never go back there alone, she just wanted to get her equipment fixed and go home for a bath.
She pulled up behind a formerly white van with a crudely drawn ejaculating penis etched into the muck of its back doors, took the P.K.E. meter from the glovebox and headed up the steps to Murphy's house.
