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The first time an engine pulled the grabby bullshit, Slick wasn’t even on post.
She was in the mess shed, hunched over a cup of milky coffee and a morning roll. She’d got composite-toast soldiers as a side, because her day was already miserable enough to justify the treat. As per, she’d been dragged out of her bunk on not enough sleep to face, with the joy of a truck staring down the scrapyard, her day job.
She really should have liked it more. She was lucky to have something this steady, fresh out of training— the yard was growing, which meant there’d be even more business five or ten years down the line, and she’d be kept in high demand. But god was it tiring sometimes. She’d certified officially nearly a month ago, and she’d still not quite settled in. She was waiting to grow into a full-size tank, grow out of having nobody to talk to but annoying junior racers.
She yawned, rolling out her neck in the manner of someone far her senior, and took another sip of her coffee, trying to stop her nose from wrinkling. Most of what she’d had back in her pre-cert days had been blandly sweet or just plain tasteless, so it was a big jump. But— and it made her feel incredibly grown-up to have this complaint— she needed the energy.
Technically, she had a two-truck job. But split-shifts meant it could work with just her, so that meant 5am starts. Breakfast didn’t come until nearly 7, her first break, after filling her tanks and completing her “checks” of the early-shift stations. Nobody was in that slot, and she knew that, so she’d just filled out the sheet and snuck in so she could get something to eat. Even in the chaos of the breakfast rush, it was the closest thing she’d get to peace— until.
A sharp yanking at her side, and she about jumped out of her steel plating, batting instinctually at the fingers that had begun picking at her bracketing.
“What the—” She looked up. “Fucking hell Flash, have you ever heard of asking?”
“I’m starving,” the engine complained, rattling the hose in its bracket again. They were yanking at it like they might just rip it free if they didn’t get access soon. “Racers are training at this time, not that you’d know.”
‘Racers’ her wastepipe, Orange Flash had qualified for exactly two training camps ever, both at troubadour, and been in the same skill development class two years in a row. Chances were she wouldn’t even make it to competition-level.
“I’m on my break!” Slick protested, trying to pull away.
“So? I’m running on empty here, give it!”
There was a real firm pull then, clawing fingers making it all too obvious that powered stock were strong. Even just a hand hooked into the holding bracket scooted Slick a couple inches along the bench, entirely against her will.
“Okay, okay!” She reached over to flick open the unlock. “You’d think they never feed you.”
Orange Flash didn’t answer, too busy popping the fuel cap in her side paneling and wrenching the nozzle out of Slick’s hand. Slick folded her arms, huffing through her nose in frustration as the engine failed to offer as much as a thank you before tethering them together.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it, fuel truck?” Flash plopped down on the bench beside her, resting their chin on their hands. “Now everyone’s happy.”
Slick rolled her eyes and picked up her roll again, trying to ignore the glugging sound of so much liquid moving. Flash didn’t tend to fuel by mouth, but their throat still worked as they drank, the shifting machinery creating a siphoning suction that sped the process up even more. Slick didn’t like when the engines did that; it made her feel all floaty and off-balance.
But it was good work, at least. And the pay was worth it.
Still connected, Orange Flash reached over to Slick’s plate and took one of the soldiers. The moment they attempted to swallow it, they upset the rhythm of air pressures and choked, spraying chewed up crumbs everywhere and making diesel bubble up around the fuel nozzle.
The pay was mostly worth it.
After a few years on the job, Slick decided that impatience was the least of her worries.
She was at her usual post, sitting cross-legged on a low concrete pedestal near the engine sheds. Technically it was supposed to be the base for… something, some structural component of something they no longer needed, maybe? But she’d kicked it over and dragged it down to the clearing near the points, so she at least wouldn’t have to wait for arrivals stood up the whole time.
“Afternoon, fuel truck.”
Her appointment was early. She abandoned the game of klondike she’d been working on, nodding to Green Arrow as he stepped off the tracks and crunched across the ballast towards her.
“Arrow,” she said, dreading it a little bit. He wasn’t quite as much of a prick as the others, but he was slow, and annoying, and she didn’t like wasting time or energy with trains who were either of those. “The usual?"
She got a brusque nod. Didn’t know why she bothered asking, half the time- he’d never want anything else. She stood, brushed herself off, and skated toward the shed. He’d follow.
Green Arrow liked a bit of privacy, ‘cos the rest of their lot didn’t half take the mick if they watched him. As a fuel truck, Slick couldn’t speak on that sort of thing without getting a clart round the ear- but it was pretty funny.
“Auxiliary fueling” was the proper term for it, if you asked the engineers. It wasn’t weird or nothing, just not all that polite, like a human eating with their hands- and most trains grew out of it. Properly developed the parts for linking up with standard systems. She’d never worked out if Arrow had some kind of fuel cap issue (he’d got one, she’d just never seen it open) or if it was just a weird laddish preference or what, but it meant a bit of peace, so she wasn’t too fussed.
There was some boring chit-chat as she prepped, something to do with a junior racer he was thinking about mentoring. Aux fueling meant swapping out a nozzle and keeping everything cleaner; those systems tended to have more fiddly delicate bits. When she gave the all clear, Arrow half-pushed her onto one of the low benches in the engine shed, plopped down next to her, and hooked up.
It wasn’t too bad. This sort of thing paced itself a little slower than usual, so there was less of a jarring shift. And he, at least, wasn’t weird about it-- just leaned against the wall like she wasn’t even there, clearly focused on the product.
But there was a downside to that.
The first scrape of steel at the hose was so faint she nearly didn’t notice it. Then, just after, a rougher bite, the beginnings of his single worst habit.
“Oi,” Slick snapped, waving a hand to get his attention. “You’ll not get fueled if you break anything, yeah?”
“Awrigh’, shorry,” he slurred a bit around the hose, sounding very offended for someone chewing on essential tech like an untrained puppy.
Ten more minutes, tops. Then she could tap out. Bored, she glanced around at the sparse decorations on the walls, the discarded cans in the corners, more expensive versions of the crammed-house mess than she usually saw. And then--
“Ow!” There was a definite pop that time, and she swatted instinctively at the back of his head. Green Arrow spluttered, bright red dyed diesel overflowing his mouth as the pressure widened the splits in the hose. “Oh, fuck’s sake—”
With a heave of creaking steel and fluid, Slick slid off the bench, reaching for her tank-side shutoff to the hose. Arrow was already yanking at the nozzle, hard enough that he’d damage the connectors if he kept at it.
“You’re just going to make it lock doing that, hold still before you break yourself!” Starlight, she sounded just like Momma scolding one of them. Eugh. There was an awful, expensive-sounding crunch. “I told you!”
“’m drowning,” Arrow gurgled, rasping as fuel found its way everywhere but the intake.
“Shut up.” Slick could have waited for the system to drain, but she couldn’t be bothered-- instead, she crouched in front of him, and jammed her hand into his mouth to find the manual release bar. When she safely got the mangled nozzle free, he looked up at her morosely.
“That was hardly half a tank,” he complained.
Slick stared at him. At the red diesel dripping from her poor broken hose like blood from a wound.
This was a good, stable, job, she reminded herself. One that she was lucky to have, given her date of construction. One that she wouldn’t keep if she stomped a reliable customer’s head in.
“...do you think you could get it from the holes?”
Slick hated race season.
She didn’t work alone, or not quite— but she was still contracted for yard service. Control didn’t want to bring in any other tankers, so unless someone had their own— thank goodness for the Swiss racers, who were snobby enough to pull that— it was all between her and a handful of stationary fuel pumps, which nobody liked.
In the darkness of the pre-dawn shed, her alarm blared. She groaned, curling up in her bunk and dragging her blankets over her head. Even in the summer it wasn’t nice, to leave a cosy bed and go traipsing about the yard setting up.
Especially not when you’d been… out, the prior evening.
Which was just another reason for her to get up early. She kept her customers— and co-conspirators— by giving them just enough of what they wanted. She couldn’t show favour in her day job, but if she happened to set up shop a little early, then who was anyone to accuse the engine that got there first?
Slick could hear Lumber across the room, just about snoring the walls down. With a creak of plates and bolts, she stretched. She’d switched to evening loading in preparation for the rush, and a full tank made her lazy; physically weighed her down— she had to judge each movement around the weight of it. Good for sleeping, not so good for dragging herself out to the little living area at the arse end of the witching hour.
4:00, blinked the digital clock on the worktop. Rusty would just be waking up.
If he’d still lived here.
She didn’t like to think about that. The conversions. Only two or three, so far, but the pattern was familiar. The threat of the tide turning. Maybe if something happened— something public, dramatic, but not as bad as last time…
“Morning.”
She about jumped out of her skin, spilling the instant coffee.
“Jesus,” she said. “Morning, Porter.”
A hand landed in her hair, playfully ruffling it as he passed.
“You’re up early.”
“First day of race season,” she said absently. “Gotta get to work.”
There was a pause, after that. The kind of quiet that felt almost cold.
“Guess you will do, huh,” Porter mused. Stole away the kettle to add enough water for another cup. “How’s that going, since…?”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Both of them knew what he meant.
The championship.
“Not too bad,” Slick answered. She didn’t know why her ears were going unpleasantly hot, her tank rolling like it was turning over. It wasn’t like his hands were clean, either. “Still got the bastards hanging off me every chance they get.”
She’d wrote all her appointments up on a big chalkboard at her usual post, so any stragglers could just glance at it and realise every slot was full and fuck off. That just meant more of her job than usual was reading out the sign, but at least they didn’t get the chance to bite that way. Arrow still owed her for the repairs. Fucker.
Porter scoffed as he picked up the kettle.
“Lucky,” he said, laconically.
He left her with a cup of coffee— black and four sugars, as she liked it— and a bitter taste in her mouth, something sharp and awful twisting in her chest.
By the time she left, he'd gone back to bed.
It was a busy day, when it happened. Which was why she didn't really have time to react. She'd regret that, later— but she was there to shift product and run back to the stationaries to refill. Slick couldn't waste time, not when she got paid by the litre rather than the hour.
She was gearing up for the midday rush, the clatter of wheels and screech of brakes echoing across the yard as shift change started. The first engine to approach her was one of the visitors- Golden Eagle. Out of schedule, too, trying to jump half the bloody queue.
“There’s a stationary down by the north guest shed, if you’re in a hurry,” Slick said. “I’ve got my next engine due soon and three after that, ‘n then I'm off for a half hour.”
“I'll wait,” the engine said, grinning. He leant up against the shed wall beside her, a hulking colossus of gold and fuscia, shining in his racing plates. It wasn't often that Slick felt small, but the racers certainly reminded her.
“You'll be waiting a long time, then,” Slick groused. She was of two minds about Eagle, always had been- she'd never got on with any of the racers, but stars above was that a fantastic design. Power crammed into every inch, pistons purring in his chest, just on the edge of hearing with him this close. “But… after I'm back, maybe. I might have a gap if I'm quick on my break.”
“How long’ve you got now?” Golden Eagle turned to her, the summer sun glinting off his intricate livery. His tongue flashed at the edge of his mouth. “I reckon I could drain you dry before they get here. If I wanted.”
Slick stifled a laugh at that. Presumptuous fucker.
“Ten minutes, maybe?” She rolled out her shoulders, straining a little under the weight of her external tank. “Just go to the feckin’ stationary, Goldie.”
“I'm not just some freighter, oil truck. I can't risk a stationary.” It was the words of the complaint without the tone of one; he was flirting. “Besides. It tastes a lot sweeter straight from you.”
That wolfish smile again, and a hand on the hose, already pulling. She wasn't getting out of this.
Slick resigned herself.
“Just make it quick,” she sighed, knowing that quick now meant fast enough and rough enough to hurt, that the sudden shift in pressure would make her body feel as if it was caving in. She held on, though- throughout the clunk of the line connecting and the strange yawning feeling as air rushed in to fill the glugging void he left.
She had never liked the sensation. But that was what money felt like. The transfer equipment clicked as fuel moved, counting up the ounces. From his speed, the steady click, click, click grew more and more rapid, culminating in an uncomfortable pop as a pressure valve broke into a permanent open position. Slick hissed through her teeth in pain, but didn't stop him.
“Cheers, fuel truck,” Eagle said, when he disconnected. As if there'd been a choice. “Knew I could count on ya.”
“You don't like being a fuel truck?”
It was rare that a day went by without Hydra giving them all a reason to hate him, but the incredulity on their face was maybe one of the worst. Thank fuck Porter was out back of the shed with Lumber and Rusty; he was probably the most likely to start swinging in response.
“Why would I like it?”
Slick had to raise her voice slightly, above the whine of gas transfer. Hydra had the latest little project in their arms, an infant trainlet with adorably chubby cheeks and an apparently insatiable appetite for hydrogen. Ever since the hydrail hub had broke ground, there'd been a swarm of the things in varying numbers, skating in and out of the wide white rooms and cluttering up the yard.
“Why wouldn't you?”
“It's a sh— rubbish job, int it?” she argued, correcting when Hydra winced. “Not now, ‘cause you're a racer, but before then. Getting shouted at, trains being grabby with you, acting like you can change the way gas flows.”
It wasn't as if Hydra would get it.
Not living in a place like this. With the kind of luxury that let you furnish with something other than sturdy steel bunks and benches, a repair team on tap, a client base that was barely more than his own family. But Slick wanted, in some way, for that effortless comprehension to pass between them anyway.
She'd watched, bitterly annoyed, as he selected the correct gauge of nozzle from an expansive collection and settled in an honest to god rocking chair to fuel up the trainlet. Unlike her customers, this one was calm, too small to really be much trouble. All it could do was wave its little hands about. But she didn't have a single other oil tanker to whinge about it with. Not anymore.
“I don't think it's like that at all.” Glancing at a gauge, Hydra deftly twisted the nozzle to disconnect the hose. A series of valves clicked automatically shut, pumps spinning down and fuel settingling. “Have you done any work on customer service skills? I had six months of training before they let me out-”
Manuvering the trainlet upright, Hydra caught her eye. Paused.
“Or maybe diesel engines are just rude?”
“Well of course it's not like that for you!” Slick slumped back against the bench where she was sat, gesturing at the scrunched-up little thing Hydra was currently patting on the back. “Half of your work comes from those things!”
“Woah, I'm just sayin’, it's not all bad.” Hydra shrugged. “It's what we're built for— they'd not get round the track without us. We're the ones that keep the railway running, and isn't that beautiful?”
The trainlet hissed loudly, a gauge set in their side dropping slightly out of the red as they vented. Eugh. At least the diesels didn't do that.
“You've just not got enough trains yet.” Slick sighed. Hoped that every single yard got an electrolyzer and a compressor unit and anything that would bring on for him the desperate, angry underscore of her entire life.
“Give it a bit. It'll make sense.”
It was the morning after the best day of Slick's life, when someone finally spoke on it.
She'd woken up with her head resting on Greaseball’s chest, Dinah's arm thrown warmly over them both. They were all tangled up in blankets and pillows, the room smelling of spilt fuel and faintly, the powdered-sugar sweetness that followed Dinah everywhere. She could hear the sound of Greaseball's engine purring away in her chest, low and warm.
If she could have, she'd have never moved.
Instead, her eyes found the clock on the wall.
“Shit,” she hissed, suddenly frantic. “Greaseball— fuck, lemme up.”
“You've got time, Slick,” Greaseball answered. “I'll give you a lift. Least I could do.”
“Oh.” Slick settled back into the engine's arms, slightly uncomfortable with the continued proximity. When it was just her and Greaseball, she was always out the door by sunrise— was she showing off for Dinah? Proving to the coach that her big bad engine could be nice after all?
A hand came up to rest on Slick's shoulder, solid and warm like everything about engines was.
“Easy.” Greaseball was smiling, the amusement clear in her voice. “Don't wake Di.”
“Sorry.” Slick felt a little bit giddy. Exposed in the absence of her armour plating, in a location she could best describe as heaven— it was difficult to think straight.
Greaseball was quiet for a moment, one hand stroking gently over Slick's hair. Then-
“I talked to Golden Eagle,” she said, quietly.
“That was ages ago. Start of the season.”
“So what, I'm not meant to do anything when someone hurts my truck?”
Her truck.
“Not if they're paying your truck's rent,” Slick mumbled. “And he practically does by himself, the greedy bastard.”
Greaseball snorted in agreement.
“Tell me if he pulls that shit again, awright?” And it sounded so much like posturing, but when you were in Greaseball's good books the threats would come due. “I'll boot his fucking teeth in.”