//Forever, Forever\\ ((Never)) {Lalia}

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me doomed to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way
And say I've been getting along
For long before you came into the play

There are days when I am simply not a people person.

The whole world just dropped dead of shock, I know. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that most people would insist that statement applies to all days when it comes to the cuddly ball of sparkles and frolicking unicorns that is Bang Bang Harlow, but, I'll let you in on a little secret: it's all by choice. The majority of the time I'm obnoxious because kindness bores me or because I enjoy watchin' people writhe uncomfortably in their own skin, not because some deeply seeded emotional plight is causing me to lash out against the world. I swear this on the empty space behind my ribcage where someone once told me my heart was supposed to be.

As for why I'm dead set on kicking up a fuss today? I don't know. I suppose I have feelings... somewhere... deep... deep down... but it's not like they get much use; I just haven't quite figured out how to kill 'em off yet. The inner workings of the human body would be far easier for me to recalibrate if they were, you know, actually mechanical. Really though, I'm fairly certain it's today itself that has me on the warpath — maybe I'd play a little more nicely if it did.

Morning greeted me by punching me in the face with a fist full of sunshine and my head hasn't felt the same since. Suppose that's what I deserve for being too lazy to go inside last night and sleep under the blissful protection of a roof, but at four a.m. the scrapheap I was lounging on seemed like a perfectly legit place to curl up and catch forty winks. I must have inhaled too many fumes while blowing up some old carburetors before wandering into the land of Nod, although by now you would think my lungs would treat toxic exhaust like oxygen, so I can't be too sure. In any case, that's the real reason I'm not inclined to be in a particularly friendly or helpful mood when I hear the front gates screech open to announce the arrival of whatever unfortunate soul has decided to venture into my junkyard fortress of doom.

"There's nothin' here for you," I howl out across the lot in a tone that would only be considered welcoming if the two of us were meeting in a Hunger Games arena. Even then, it's pretty clear the only thing I'd be welcoming would be the impending death of whoever this newfound opponent of mine is. "We're outta everything — spark plugs, glowplugs, tryptics, pistons, piston rings, nuts, bolts, nails, screws, kistals, turbine blades, crankcases, crankshafts, regular ol' cranks, cylinders, cylinder heads, intake valves, exhaust valves, connecting rods, pushrods, stumps, wrist pins, lynch pins, dampers, bearings... you want it? We don't have it." Right now I don't remember what half the things I just named even look like and I think I may have made a few of them up; all I know for sure is that each beat of my pulse is echoing unpleasantly across the inside of my skull and the more I talk, the faster my blood starts pumping. This type of chain reaction isn't beneficial to either of us.

"We had some carburetors in stock just yesterday," I mention conversationally, the memory of last night's miniature explosions and splayed steel aftermath soothing my thrumming mind slightly, "but we... disposed of those to make room for a shipment of inventory we're clocked to receive tomorrow." Suddenly I realize how many times I've said we in the past two minutes. It's a habit I still can't quit, even though it's been more than a year since my old man, Igby Plaith, kicked the bucket and I ended up running the junkyard on my own. There's no plural here when it comes to the reason those carburetors oh-so-mysteriously went boom in the night — there was just me, with a gimcrack detonator in one hand and an inexorable itch to hit the trigger button in my other.

Igby wouldn't approve of my current conduct. Sure, he had his fair share of ornery in him, just like I have, but he respected his customers — unless he knew 'em well enough to slide by with a few good-natured jabs. That man would've tore me a new one for the moonshine bilge I was jabbering out right now. Maybe that's why my head was pounding. Maybe the hand of that geezer's ghost was swinging down from the sky, tryin' to knock some sense into the worthless brat he'd tried and failed to raise up right. Oh yes, I know I'm too rough cut to be worthy of the kindness that man showed me and I know I oughta make a better effort for his sake, if nothin' else, but sometimes thoughts like these make that empty space in my chest start hurtin' like there's actually something in there. I just don't have it in me to start saying and doing all the things I ought to for the sake of that man; life aint long enough to try and repay that kind of debt.

This line of thought is at least enough to motivate me to scale the precarious mountain of rusted steel that separates me from the girl I've been harassing and put a face to the voice that's probably regretting the decision to call out for me. She's lookin' twenty-seven different kinds of lost and if I felt like a human being right now I might've been half-tempted to take pity on her. Unfortunately for her, I'm pretty sure I've established that I'm not in the mood to be a people person today, so of course the next words out of my mouth are not only sarcastic and patronizing, but laced with enough sexist ageism to make me hypocritical to boot. Who am I to judge her for being a teenage girl in a junkyard? I'm Bang Bang Harlow, that's who, and I'm about to make sure this girl doesn't forget it.

"Oh yeah—" I wait until I'm certain she's noticed me, then pause my decent and look her up and down with enough critical disdain written across my face to make it clear I'm implying that she has no business here. When I start up again, I'm close enough for her to get a good look at the condescending smirk twisting its way across my lips, but still high enough up on the pile of scraps to lord over her, "We're fresh outta whoseits, whatchamacallits, thingamabobs, whirlygigs, and doodads too, sugardimples."

( B A N G B A N G A S H E H A R L O W )




If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it
I'm an extraordinary machine

There are exactly seven hundred ninety-two and a half reasons why I ought to give this girl the boot and go find a broke-down oven to hide my head in until this blasted sunshine goes away. That would be a productive use of my time. Yet, against the odds, I decide to pretend I care actually do my job and help her. I can count the number of reasons contributing to this decision on one hand. Where the logic is in that, I'm not quite sure, but if I were runnin' the books on this down at the rathskeller, I'd be filthy rich right now. Numbers like this are supposed to be a "sure thing"; not a one of those suckers woulda seen this kind of backwards jive coming, not from me.

Reason Number One as to what possesses me to oblige her forthcoming request? She's got enough spunk to be entertaining and so much gall as to make me certain that she's either a halfwit or a solid brass madcap — I mean, the kid starts off by blowin' smoke in my face. Clearly she has come here in search of the loose screw she seems to have lost. I'm less than two seconds from cuffing the cigarette straight outta her cheeky mouth when she saves herself by putting on a show. It's like an apology, but less annoying. "Aw darn it!" No, I retract that statement. The squeaky devilchild voice she's using makes me want to impale myself on the nearest deadly spike of rusted scrap metal. I have so many options — too many. Indecision saves me from myself. "Daddy's gonna be so mad if I don't get him that thingamabob!" The accompanying foot stamping is a downright precious touch. It's all I can do to stop myself from clapping, but I just know that if I start letting my hands swing through the air, I won't be able to resist the urge to let one of them take a swipe at her pretty little smoke exhaust of a face. I'm petty like that.

She quits with the devilchild voice; I commit to refraining from clipping my fist across her jaw. This is a fair trade off. "I'm not looking for any whoozamawhatzits, okay? And I'm pretty sure you're not out of everything." Under the naive impression that she's making a valid point, she looks accusingly at the junk piles surrounding us, but I just give her a shrug of indifference. I have half a mind to tell her how I'm pretty sure I'm out of anything I want to be out of. Need me to demonstrate how fast the click of a detonator button can make all this go away, darlin'? — but as I start to open my mouth to do so, Igby decides to swing his hand down from the sky again and smack me upside the head. Of course he saw that coming. Double-crossing nogoodnik. The resulting pain spasming through the synapses of my mind helps the empty space in my chest remain empty when I think of him this time, but my bruised and battered brain still knows that Igby is Reason Number Two and Reason Number Three for why I'm about to assist the girl standing in front of me. Firstly, because he would want me to, so I know I ought to. Secondly, and this is the one that really gets me: apparently, he will continue to reach down from the afterlife and beat me stupid if I don't.

Suddenly she's holding out blueprints with diagrams for all sorts of things I'm absolutely certain I don't give a rats arse about. "I'm looking for something like that. It's a motor, or a generator. I could build one myself, but it'll take more time than I care to spend on this project. If you could just tell me if you have anything like this here, and point me in the right direction, I'll get out of your hair." This brings me to good ol' Reason Number Four, the only one I'm actually in the mood to like. If I help her, she will leave. Then I can get back to that top-notch oven idea. This will be my new mantra. If I help her, she will leave. If I help her, she will leave. Oven. Oven. Oven. With each repetition, I feel slightly more accommodating. Before I know it, I've snatched the design sketches out of her grasp so I can take a closer gander, my face practically pressed against the paper as I study the components.

Secretly, I know this is Reason Number Five for why I'm willing to do her a good turn. There's a shortlist of unspoken rules around here that she can't possibly know about, but is thus far managing to follow. Rule number three on that list: want something unusual? Show, don't tell.

See, I'm real good at what I do. Not only can I fix anything put into my hands, but I know exactly where everything I need to get the job done is around here. Igby used to keep inventory books, stacks of them bigger and more disorganized than some of the piles of junk we had layin' 'round, until I came along. I like knowin' where things are, so, just the same as I do with all the people I meet, I put 'em in their place. At first he got all bent outta shape, practically foaming at the mouth, when I started moving things around and burnin' his inventory books to free up space. I hated those useless, doggone books. Soon 'nuff he realized I had the whole inventory, in detail, kept up in my head and I could find parts for him without needing some lousy book to point me in the right direction. Only trouble was, I couldn't remember what anything was named. Now, I always knew what something was, or at least some part of me did; if a customer brought their busted whatchamacallit in, I could sense where ours were as if there were a magnetic pull tugging my body toward what I was lookin' for. Parts all have a different look and feel and Igby used to tell me I had some kind of sixth sense for them, whatever that means, but words all sound the same to me.

So this girl bringin' those drawings with is like her offering me a promise to do things my way. Considering I've given the old heave-ho to more than one individual who thought to come here with naught more than some good for nothin' fancy talk, she's found her way into whatever good graces I've got left in me today. Most of what she needs is easy enough to get — I don't have to scale the Six-Deep Stacks and necro the parts from an old hovercraft or nothin', we just need to raid Warehouse B. "Looks like we're goin' to Atlantis, sweetheart. Now, this yard aint been Y.P.I. for years — I do the pickin', so you don't touch nothin' unless you feel like you got too many hands and need me to help remedy your problem." I make a threatening chopping motion with my hand and return her papers by half-heartedly slapping them into her gut with enough blasé apathy to bore a person to death, assuming she's quick enough to grab hold of them before they hitch a ride on the breeze, and start headin' toward the south end of the lot where the warehouses sit. I don't look back to check if she's following; the sprawl of the surrounding scrap metal is like a deathtrap maze of sharp edges and lockjaw, so if she knows what's good for her, then she is.

"The only hiccup we got is that generator nonsense you got there. Plenty of rubbish 'round here you can jerry-rig into something like that, but it's real specialty. So iffin you're dead set on finding one that's exactly like your chicken scratch there, we gonna have to go down the rabbit hole to Wonderland and check the catacomb storage." Wonderland is Warehouse D, a subterranean labyrinth where all the low-demand special interest odds and ends go. It's the one area of the junkyard I don't know like the back of my hand. Most of what's down there is useless, we just keep it around on the off chance that someone like this girl shows up askin' for what nobody else wants, so I don't bother much with it. It was Igby's territory, he was always a one person's trash is another person's treasure kind of guy — used to say that's why he was able to get along with me. Ha. In any case, I don't really like Wonderland. It gives me these sentimental pangs that don't sit none too well with my stomach. "It's your contraption, so I reckon you can look over — no touchin', mind you — what we got in the main storage and see how hard you want to make this on yourself. You even know what that poppycock motor guff of yours is supposed to do, sweetcheeks?"

( B A N G B A N G A S H E H A R L O W )




I certainly haven't been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot
And by foot it's a slow climb
But I'm good at being uncomfortable
So I can't stop changing all the time

"My name is Nimitziminy," Nimitz-codswallop-iminy? I don't know what's more ridiculous, this girl's name or how she seems to have it in her head that I have an interest in using it. Good luck to you and the twelve-year-old tributes of Panem, princess. "Okay?" Sure ain't. "And if that's too much of a mouthful for you, just call me Nim. But no more sugardimples, okay?" I can't hold back the sharp bark of laughter that echos straight outta my gut following her request. With a name like hers, she oughta be thanking me for trying to give her a new one. 'Sides, she already asked me for something — this girl is gettin' awful greedy, expecting me to give her help and respect. "I don't know what it's supposed to do. Dad's blueprints aren't very clear. They never were. I'm not even sure if whatever it is will actually work."

"Yeah, yeah," I wave her words off with a flick of my hand and a sarcastic drone. This Nimi—

My mind cuts to a blank, reeling against the awkward slur of letters. Her folks must've thrown darts at a picture of the alphabet while blindfolded to come up with a moniker like that. I'm not convinced she could say it straight a second time, so how I'm supposed to remember it when I have trouble enough with sparkplug or carburetor is beyond me. Niv— Nitst— Ninfitch— Nihkipish— "Nitziptarip-dip-a-bibbity." Close enough. "Sure thing. You got a name; it's a real doozey too. I see why you think it's a bright idea to start makin' demands that I use it. I'm sure I can find some way to make it useful. 'Til then," I pause and jerk my head at the warehouse in front of us, "welcome to Atlantis."

It looms over us, like a cathedral of scrap metal, as if the rusted junk it's built from were holy. I suppose if ever somethin' could make me into the religious type, it would be this. Hauled in from District Four, Atlantis is a broke-down steamship, stripped of it's machinery, hollowed out, and renovated into a warehouse. Despite being half-buried under decades of stray junk, there's no concealing the smokestacks or propellers that jut out from beneath the wreckage. There's history in every seam of metal and line of rivets stitched across its hull, hinting at stories I couldn't begin to imagine, but that Igby was keen to prattle on about as we worked. Every word outta his mouth was rubbish when it came to that boat — I know that as sure as I know when I'm spouting hokum outta my own mouth — but that doesn't stop me from remembering every cock-and-bull yarn that man told me about it.

There's a point where even I'll admit that I don't understand something and myths about cities under the ocean — and, frankly, the ocean itself — make that list. I remember Igby scratching a picture of a mermaid into the dirt one day, rambling about fish tails and gills as if I knew what they were. Fish are fairy tales to me; I've never seen one and his stick-drawing certainly didn't give me a heck of a lot to go off. Still, that man was nothin' if not stubborn and, after changing his tactics to utilize things I was actually familiar with, one of his outlandish creatures came to life in my mind.

Although I've spent the morning mouthing off like a mock-grimalkin with a foul temper, a moment of somethin' sincere flickers through my voice after I swing open the bulkhead hatch and lead this girl inside. I try to convince myself it's a sarcastic jab laced with another whopping dose of sexism, but the scent of dust and sea salt sticks in my lungs afterward and I know it's not true. "Watch out for the krakens." The story of a gargantuan rat with eights tails and teeth like demolition spikes, living in the depths of District Four's ocean and big enough to devour the entire junkyard in one bite, flashes through my mind. For half a second, I am eight-years-old again, jolted awake by nightmares as Igby smooths my hair and mutters sorry, sorry, sorry, swearing up and down that it's not real. Only, I know it is; this is where it's children live, their tiny rodent eyes glinting in the shadows.

I push it down — all of it — as my head echoes with pain once more and I find myself unable to shift the blame to Igby's ghost this time, even though the angry, sobbing child within me wants to. I know his lingering guilt over my mention of the krakens would prevent him from taking another swing at me right now, no matter what I say to Sugardimples Nishvitskitsahicky next. Maybe my guilt is at war with the memory of his or maybe I'm punchdrunk on the pain in my skull, but I don't lash out at the girl behind me like my instincts are hounding me to. "Don't worry," I don't know who says these words, only that it can't possibly be me. I start to gag on the aftertaste of my own awkward kindness, but still can't stop myself. "If you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone too." It could be that I respect her a little for admitting that she doesn't understand her father's blueprints — because I'll never admit to her that there are things I don't understand either — or, for all I know, maybe I just hate rats more than people.

I'm crouched next to the doorway, still unwilling to look at her to see if she's listening, but for a whole plague of different reasons than the walk here. My hands are cranking an electrical generator into life and I channel my resurfaced memories into the task, determined to snare them in the centrifugal force and rid them from my body. Lights spark above us, their stuttering glow pulling the rickety catwalks out of the darkness from between the rows of fifty foot high shelves. There are no rooms or floors here anymore, simply isles of high-rise, utilitarian storage. Somethin' within me clicks back into place and I'm cackling with laughter before I even turn to catch her eye. "So." The warehouse is meticulously organized, but homes scads — and scads, and scads, and scads — of parts. Pulling myself back up, I nudge her forward and point at the expanse of inventory as her earlier remark replays within my mind: If you could just tell me if you have anything like this here, and point me in the right direction, I'll get out of your hair. "This is me, pointing."

Krakens or no, Igby definitely smacks the back of my head at that. I flinch, but even he can't knock the idiot-grin off my face.

---

(OOC — Sorry for being MIA and slowww. I hope the whole rats="krakens" thing and all the Atlantis nonsense wasn't too confusing.)