Kendrick "Shade" Sullivan's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

By mid-afternoon Shade had the stabilizer coil half free of its housing, and the sister had not moved from six feet behind his shoulder. She stood on the concrete pad with her arms folded, watching every turn of the wrench. Every time he loosened a bolt she leaned closer. Every time he set a tool down she asked what it was for. The ringing in his left ear pushed against the sound of her voice, and his hands slowed. He put the coil down before he cross-threaded it. One bad bolt on a racing rig cost more than a week's rent. He wiped his hands and turned to her. "Come here," he said. "I want to show you something." He walked her around the side of the shop to a canvas tarp weighted down with cinder blocks. He pulled the tarp back. Under it sat a low hover cart he had built over two winters from scrap: a delivery van's nose, a pair of bike thrusters, a bench seat from a wrecked sedan, all welded to a frame he had cut himself. The paint was three different reds. "Made it from pieces nobody wanted," he said. "Runs clean. I take it out on quiet mornings." She crouched and looked at the seams, and for the first time her hands were still. "You built this alone," she said. It was not a question. He nodded. She ran a finger along the weld at the nose. "My brother would lose his mind over this." "Your brother's rig will be done faster if I have room to think," Shade said. He kept his voice level. "There's a place two blocks down called the Cactus Cantina. Orange glass, big cactus out front, you can't miss it. Ask for Aiden. Tell him Shade sent you. Get yourself lunch. I'll call your phone the minute the coil is seated and the panel is back on." He held out a shop card with his number. She looked at the card, then at the rig on the orange lift plate, then at him. She took the card. She walked off down the block. Shade watched until she turned the corner, then pulled his phone and thumbed a message to Aiden: "Sending you a customer. Racer's sister. Feed her slow. I owe you one." A reply came back inside a minute: "Bro, say less. I got her." Shade pocketed the phone and climbed back onto the pad. The coil came out clean in eight minutes. He seated the new one, torqued the bolts to spec, and closed the side panel. When he called her, he could tell her the rig was ready before her drink was empty. The shop had held. He had bought himself the room to work, and the racer would get his machine back on time.