The Delta 88

Posted on Sat Jul 17th, 2021 @ 11:59pm by Watch Leader Frederick Hollywood

Mission: The Factions
Location: Bradenton, Florida
Timeline: 1990's

Lorde was thinking to himself that he needed a fancy car for meetings and maybe a few other things and browsed the internet trying to make a decision. Suddenly, like a voice calling from the past he thought of his first car. Many people called it The Tank. He looked up the old vin number and honestly just hoped it hadn't been crushed or turned into parts. After some searching he found it. In fact it wasn’t far from where he had purchased the car so long ago. He even knew the junkyard and hoped for a little extra he might be able to use the facilities after closing.

After checking to make sure it was still there Frederick offered twice the price as long as he could pick it up and work on it for a bit at their garage. All he asked was that as few people be there as possible. The answer was an emphatic yes. So after making the deposit he transported himself to the right place and time. He walked up to the front door. The place was now called Al’s Pull n Push All. He rang the doorbell and soon after a man in a security uniform came to the door.

“Can I help you?” The large man asked Fred.

Fred smiled and handed him his paperwork and driver's licence. “Yea I am here about this car. I was told I could be here after hours.” He couldn’t help but feel a little like a kid again.

The guard looked through the paperwork carefully. “Yes yes, I gotta ask man why did you want this car so much.”

Frederick shrugged. “Honestly I had a car exactly like it when I was a kid. This one is almost an exact match.” Save for a circadian rhythm he mused.

The guard nodded. “Well money buys you everything right? Well follow me. They said you would find your way once you got to the yard?”

“Oh yea I used to come here way back. Back when it was called Gophers You Pull. I figured it was worth seeing if anything else looked salvageable.” Really he just wanted to see the car by himself for a couple of reasons.

When they got to the glass door leading out to the scrap yard the guard shook Fred’s hand. “Hey good luck man I hope you find what you are looking for.”

The mad time traveler gave him a look. “Hey if I do there will be a bonus for you tonight, you hear me?” With that he stepped out and didn’t wait for the big man’s answer. He walked along the dimly lit dirt path. He had the lot number and a rough idea of where he was going.

Suddenly he heard a honking or maybe it was in his head. Fred could tell what direction it came from and hurried his pace a bit. Could it be his old friend? That car had always been strange and that was in a world nearly devoid of magic at all.

When Lorde turned the corner he could see blinking headlights in time with the horn. When he walked just a bit closer passing some vehicles that blocked his view he could see the headlights of a Oldsmobile Delta 88. When he touched the car the honking stopped. A strange feeling came over him and he opened the hood. There was no battery. He ran his hand over the car. “So that was you huh?” He used his magic to see the unseen. There was something in that car, but whatever it was, looked tired or sick like being left here was killing it. “It will be okay. I'm gonna make it all better, maybe even better than before.”

Frederick looked the car over. He couldn’t just mend something like the battery and the car would likely need gas to move. So the time traveler popped to another time and purchased some things for the car. When he came back he wired in the battery first then started mending any broken parts first. This was quite a long process all by itself. In some cases he had to take apart the part and mend a few parts before it would work.

Suddenly the car honked again.

Lorde looked the car over and saw that the thing inside seemed at least a bit stronger. “You want to move? I still need to put gas in and fix those tires but we can at least get you to the garage after that.”

The car honked twice.

“Okay well let me get to it then.” Fred fixed the tires and put the gas in.

As soon as he finished the car roared to life as loud as ever, and gave two more approving honks. Before he could reach for it the door opened on its own.

Lorde couldn’t help but wonder if this was a ghost or what. Whatever it was had to be over twenty five years old. He stepped in. At this point he was already a bit invested. After all, he always believed his car had been alive, and he never did hold being human or the lack thereof against a being in question. Heck in fact he had always made supernatural friends far easier than normal ones in any place they existed. Often even with barriers of understanding they seemed easier to talk to. Perhaps because he worked at overcoming those sorts of differences or maybe because he genuinely cared about what made them special.

The Delta was just like that and roared to life when he stepped in. Not even waiting for him to attempt to put a seat belt on. No one ever put a seat belt on inside her anyway. She peeled out and flung dirt on the cars behind her and took the crazy man to the garage he had rented out for the evening. Then opened the doors for him like an invisible valet. He stepped out and inspected the tools. He could short cut many things but there were some things he wanted done just right.

Lorde had always wanted the Delta to be done in black with a red interior. Her upholstery was originally red so that wasn’t hard to manage but her paint wasn’t even paint and it had been a strange color of red he guessed was high in lead or iron. So after cleaning all the rust-paint off his old friend and storing it for later analysis he began the process of getting the paint on. He almost cheated that but thought hey with his current agility level and understanding of the process if he couldn’t do it now he would never be able. So he tapped the things he didn’t want to paint and found the black he had asked for a real shiny black with metallic flecks. Then he turned on the lamps to dry the paint faster and shut the garage doors. The time traveler thought about having smoke while he waited more for nostalgia than anything else but that was a habit he had kicked for longer than memory served. No need to get back into that. So he hopped forward the right amount of time and reopened the garage. The paint looked good. He felt it needed something but just couldn’t make up his mind about it, besides he had a ton of other things to add and fix on the old girl. He beefed many things up like he was forging a weapon. Added some specials almost like a Bond car. Lastly he called Aryel.

“Yes Lorde?” Her voice always sounded so chipper to him.

“Hey can you use the radio in this vehicle to talk to me or do I need to make modifications?”

After a short pause his golden girl answered back. “Well it functions on old crystal technology so all I have to do is mimic the frequencies it normally uses and cancel the other ones. So as long as you are nearby I can do that Sir.”

Well now the Delta had new toys and a voice. At some point he would try to see if he could see if he could get her talking on her own, but it was time to see what his works had got him. He had a target in mind that was local but just before he asked Aryel he realized that would have consequences that would block him from checking something else. He transported himself and the Delta 88 to his old apartment complex in 1992. It always had ample parking especially at night and this was the year before. He checked with Aryel about one thing. It dawned on him there may have been reasons the old elf had been in that hospital. “So by the standards I have taught you before is this a good guy or bad guy I am after?”

“He is a bad person.” Aryel had looked through his records and found multiple arrests two of which dealt with sexual assault.

Frederick positioned the car where he wanted it exactly. Some people might have thought this was about revenge. While that factor wasn’t totally absent, this guy just seemed to be perfect for the test he had in mind for The Delta. “You ready?” He asked the car and it gave two honks. “Okay Aryel, call this guy and get him to come outside. Tell him he has won a pizza from the Hut and that the delivery guy is having trouble finding the place.”

In short order Lorde’s test subject walked out to the small road looking around the parking lot. Frederick punched the gas pedal. The first thing he noticed was the upgrade he had done to the shocks allowed the car to go right over the speed bumps without even making the car lift up or catch air. He would most likely add a switch for that later so he could make the car catch air if he wanted. The car roared and moved faster and faster from the front entrance of the complex. The Delta easily pushed well passed her old max speed and while the speedometer could not keep up with that, Frederick guessed she reached around two hundred miles an hour. Just before he impacted with the kid, The Delta’s horn blared real loud and Frederick’s test subject spun around to see what was about to collide with him.

It looked like something out of a B horror film. The guy's body erupted and sprayed all over the car. This was most likely due to the fact Lorde had used magic on the car that upgraded his weapons. “Fuck ya!” Frederick couldn’t help himself. Being both very pleased with what the car had done and with the fact that he had gotten rid of an asshole the world didn’t need.

Lorde started to think this could be a thing to do in his spare time. “Home Aryel.” He would clean off the car and finish it’s upgrades at the tower. As he stepped out he took another look into the heart of his old friend. The spirit in there had coalesced into something much more recognizable to him. Not knowing for sure if it was the original inhabitants appearance or from what he had just done, the madman just patted the car. “Well I guess you like that idea anyway, right?”

The Delta answered by honking twice and playing one of his favorite Metallica songs on her radio.