~Clank: mood = ??? ~
~Fleetwood is a horrible being, on many levels, but he did not lie when he said the task he expected of Clank was within his skillset. Manifolds are not just things that transport and divide intake gasses. They are also things that distribute and harness combustion products, making superchargers the instruments of power that they are. So creating a manifold of high-tension ignition wires to harness a plasma stream was really not so hard, once the conceptual barrier was overcome. As the task and the completion unfold in his hands, the mechanic feels oddly detached.~
(sound track for the rest of this post, open link in new tab)
[quote]Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high[/quote]
~The mechanic reviews his handiwork. It is a thing of beauty, actually, despite the use to which it will be put. It is nothing less than a force-field, roughly spherical, and nigh impervious to physical attacks. The van driver takes a weird pride in having engineered it so that narrow sliver of electromagnetic radiation that we call visible light can penetrate, but nothing else. Of course it all depends upon the ridiculous power output of which Marion is capable, so it must move with that entity. The force field would be large enough to contain one or two vehicles besides.~
[quote]Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I’m dreaming,
I can hear them say[/quote]
~Clank comes to see the Craftsman, not just as a disembodied voice, but a blinding white work-light, illuminating the most worn, grime-covered recesses of his mind, showing the truth that was engineered there, when Clank was a young driver, back before … ~
http://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boingboing/original/2X/4/4f67d48fb899ec935471f049a4529dbeaf2ff797.jpg
~He was such a shiny thing in those days, and the whitewalls… an affectation then, but a charming, nostalgic attempt to seem more mature when seen through the lens of … what the hell was in those mushrooms?~
[quote]Carry on my wayward son,
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more[/quote]
~No paltry limitation of equipment can stand in the way of speaking to his friends, and he has no fear of interception, though what they make of his words remains to be seen.~
I know this place.
I am in the way of knowin’ what might come to pass.
The turntable, there is more than one.
They can confound you, but also your foes. Respect them but do not fear them.
[quote]Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man,
Well, it surely means that I don’t know[/quote]
The steam lift hides a secret of which Fleetwood has no knowledge.
It has been used and abused before.
[quote]On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune,
But I hear the voices say[/quote]
They were simpler times, when every death trap had a weakness, and every foe could be defeated with just one cliffhanger.
Wayne kept them all, hidden away in the dank, unused passages, stored as trophies for his vanity, some are still useful.
[quote]Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more no![/quote]
And perhaps most important of all…
This. Still. Works.
~The mechanic comes to know that the blinding white work light is NOT the Craftsman himself, but only a representation. The cord that provides the power comes from a place even higher…~
~Clankenstein rises, without moving, to a space ineffable. The broadcast, if that is what it was, fades.~
[quote]Carry on,
You will always remember
Carry on,
Nothing equals the splendor
Now your life’s no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you[/quote]
