The space heater is on in the small hangar, albeit turned down to barely a hum. The locals are calling it a warm day today but Regina doesn’t trust it. She’s elbow-deep in the deconstructed engine of her plane, carefully removing components and arranging them on a towel spread across the folding table she’d dragged over.
She loves her new aircraft and feels indebted to Brian for hooking her up with it, but she doesn’t yet know it the way she knew her baby back home. The only thing to do, then, is disassemble and reassemble it until she can do it blindfolded. One-handed. While under fire.
There’s trashy, catchy pop music blaring from the speakers of the cheap shop stereo, but the volume is low enough for Gina to hear her ‘link sound off, reporting a message.
“Volume one,” she calls out into the echo-y shop, and the music level drops accordingly. Wiping her grease-covered hands off on her coveralls, she strides over to the counter where her commlink and various other personal effects had been tossed when she’d arrived here early this morning. She reaches for the device, then hesitates, seeing what a poor job she’d done cleaning her hands off. Huffing a bit, both and frustration and to blow a sweaty strand of hair from in front of her eyes, she uses her cleanest knuckle to clumsily jab at the device, accept the message, and send it to the AR display of her one cybereye.
It was from Brian:
<<Just got a job offer for you. Handsome S-K fellow, goes by Dr. Schmitt, want's to hire your talents for a big job. Says to come tonight to Charly's Bar'n Grill, Steward street around 6.>>
She reads the text a few times before blinking it away, waving at the air for effect. She turns to look in the direction of the garage door, having only now noticed that it had been opened. Brian Delaney stands there, leaning his shoulder against the threshold, smiling that idiot smile of his.
Regina gestures down at the now-greasy commlink, staring at her associate and mentor with a “what the frag” expression.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Felt more official to tell you that way,” he replies through his still-widening grin.
“You should be excited! Finally something to do, so you stop pulling apart everything in my garage.”Now she smiles too, dropping the ‘annoyed’ act.
“Our garage. And I am excited; this is what I asked for. Thank you.”He nods in response, happy to have made her happy. Then, after a moment:
“Get out of here. Go get cleaned up and go to your meet. I’ll deal with…” he gestures exhaustively toward several hundred plane engine parts,
“this.” Regina glances back at the plane, then to Brian again, making a reluctant face.
“I have time. I don’t want to give you work.” He waves a dismissive hand as he moves further into the garage, shutting the heater off as he goes.
“No no no. Don’t make yourself late for your first job. Go.”