Utterly Mad

    As soon as the hood was up, Catnip got to work. She took stock of every piece and part, every tube and wire, running her fingers over every inch. “Turn it over.” She requested. Kyle did so and Catnip listened carefully. She made a key turning gesture where the mutant could see it, and the engine clicked off. She listened to it run down as well. “Hm… It’ll all have to come out.” L smirked at her, but Kyle asked “What’s wrong with it? We just had it tuned before our trip.”

     Catnip wiped her hands off with the sheet in the back of the truck and explained, “It’s full of sand. You know how it is, sand gets everywhere. Though… I’m not sure how it got in the fuel pump filter hose thingy mabob. If you keep running it like this, it will be ruined in no time.” She gave a few testing prods at some tubes with a screwdriver Kyle handed her. “These tubes could stand to be replaced too. Look at how cracked they are. And this wire bundle! Some of these have been snapped, I’m surprised it runs at all! The timing belt needs to be replaced and the cooling tank is nearly empty.”

     “Huh, I hadn’t noticed the wires or the timing belt.” Kyle said, scratching the back of his head. “I’ll tell Mark. If it’s as bad as you say then yeah, the whole thing will need to come out. How long do you think this’ll hold us up?” Catnip did a quick burst of arithmetic, throwing away the results when she’d finished since they had no bearing on the question asked and the answer likely being both wrong and inapplicable to the repair at hand. “A day. Make it two, three at most. Do you have chocolate? I accept chocolate, shinies, and plutonium cells.”

    L scoffed. “Chocolate? Plutonium? Girly, how about ‘we just saved you from dying in the desert?’ The least you could do is fix our truck.” L had forgotten about calling Catnip a crazy or a liar. Maybe she was a mechanic after all. A free check up on the truck would be sure to please Mark a little. “Alright," said Kyle, "I’ll go tell Mark and get some tools. Oh, and a word of advice Catnip, don’t drink the water around here unless you want to end up like me.” He waggled his eyebrows and gestured towards his face, his lopsided eyes and malformed skull showing the results of drinking the water of Prescott.