Max Masters' Mechanic Shoppe (Patreon)

Inspired by a Reddit Writing Prompt:

You're a mechanic that creates custom vehicles for superheroes and supervillains for a living. After last week's showdown became a death race, every one wrecked their vehicle in one way or another. Now you've got to fix them all, and stop a rematch from happening in your waiting room.

Max Masters, owner and proprietor of Masters' Mechanic Shoppe, vehicular mechanic and repairman to the cape and spandex set, raised his eyebrows. "Say that again," he requested. Getting up from his comfortable office chair, he gave it a fond pat. Repairing custom-built vigilante-mobiles paid the big dollars, making him wonder just how many were secretly philanthropic billionaires behind those brooding cowls.

"We've got a big day today," Vera repeated crisply. At twenty-two, Vera was blonde, good-looking, and the best secretary he'd ever had. She also had the perfect appearance to be kidnapped by less scrupulous villains to force Max to repair their vehicles for free. "Everyone's coming in."

It had only happened once. Max had simply made it be known that he would be suspending operations until Vera was returned safe and sound.

Within two hours, a somewhat ruffled Vera had been dropped off by Baron von Blutrausch, whose V-24 engine had then revved to a thunderous roar as he accelerated away. There had been blood on his fenders; Max never quite dared ask what had happened to that idiot Sideswipe, the one who'd kidnapped Vera in the first place. He suspected he would not enjoy the answer.

"Everyone?" Max suspected he had some Italian ancestry, given the amount he liked to talk with his hands. Now he gestured aimlessly, trying to gauge the import of her words. "What do you mean ... everyone?"

She held up her tablet. "I mean everyone. Every hero, vigilante, secret masked racer, costumed courier, cowled antihero and actual villain who has an account with us is bringing their vehicle in to get fixed. Today."

On the tablet, as she extended it to him, he saw line after line after line, each with the unique bright red flag that screamed 'masked driver'. His heart sank. And today was going so well, too.

Making a beeline for the coffee machine, he started pouring himself a brew. "What happened?"

She sighed. "Testosterone poisoning. Die Fledermaus and von Blutrausch encountered each other doing drivebys on the West Side Demons, and Schädling taunted von Blutrausch into a race."

Max took a drink of coffee, then closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Die Fledermaus and Baron von Blutrausch--Flying-Fox and Baron von Bloodrage, when translated to English--were no more German than Max himself was, but they liked the sound of their names in another language. And of course Schädling sounded much better as a teen apprentice-in-crime to Fledermaus than 'Vermin' would.

"And the rest of them?" He didn't want to know, even though he had to.

"Due to a catastrophic series of events, they encountered Lawmaker on his rounds, so he went after them, trying to get them to cease and desist. Johnny Wheels saw the race and joined in, trying to beat Blutrausch and Fledermaus both. By then, word had gotten out and the others kind of flocked to the situation. They decimated traffic on Main Street West, went through the Hillside Mall at well over the speed limit, raced jets--and won--at the Challenger Memorial Airport, and finally converged at the docks, where they started obstacle-course racing among the shipping containers. Speedfreak hit the nitro at the wrong moment, spun out and crashed. Everyone else piled up with him, wrecking their rides to a greater or lesser degree. Nobody seriously hurt, thank goodness."

"How long do we have before the first ones get here?" Max eyed the big red button that was there for emergencies only. 'Drop everything, all hands on deck.' He didn't think he'd have to use it this time, but ...

Vera grimaced. "Fifteen minutes."

Max hit the alarm button.

The first one through the doors was one of the initiators of the race, Fledermaus. His Fledermobile—Max actually felt physical pain at the mashing of words—had a bent axle and was running on a temporary tyre. One fender was gone, and there were dents and bullet-holes all over one side. As the vehicle limped to a halt, Schädling leaped out of the passenger side and swaggered over to Max. “Masters, m’man,” he crowed. “You see before you the victors of a race you had to see to believe.”

Max cleared his throat. “That’s Mr Masters to you, young man. And I suspect I wouldn’t have believed it even if I had seen it.”

“What the hell you sayin’ to me?” The teenage villain’s face darkened and he flicked a Ratarang from his belt. “You know who I am?”

“Shut it, Schädling,” growled Fledermaus, taking his sidekick’s shoulder in hand and shoving him back toward the Fledermobile. “Sorry about that, Mr Masters. Won’t happen again. How fast can you get it done?”

Masters pursed his lips as he walked slowly around the vehicle, ignoring Schädling sulking in the background. The Fledermobile had suffered greatly in the race, but … “The basic chassis seems to be intact. Assuming no emergencies or undetected damage, it shouldn’t be more than an hour or two.” Turning toward Fledermaus, he lowered his eyebrows. “No biotoxins, mutagens or radiation leaks, this time?”

The cowled villain looked suitably abashed. “No, I’ve got everything locked down. Should be clean for your guys to work on.”

“Excellent.” Max clapped his hands twice, and members of his crew ran forward. Swiftly and efficiently, they hooked a cable to the attachment point on the Fledermobile. A winch started up, far back in the workshop, and the unwieldy vehicle was dragged into the darkness. “You know where the waiting area is.”

“Sure thing. We should be fine.” Fledermaus led the way, with Schädling trailing behind.

Less than thirty seconds later, Johnny Wheels showed up. He was in a regular car, with the bright red and white technomorphic motorcycle that he used for his highly-illegal cross-city race challenges on a trailer behind. As Max’s mechanics used a forklift to unload it, he explained that someone (he wasn’t sure who, but he had his suspicions) had hit it with a high-end virus, causing the frame to morph into something that looked more like modern art than a motorcycle.

“We can deal with that,” Max assured him. His workshop had every iteration of Johnny Wheels’ firmware on file. If need be, they’d purge the system and reboot from scratch. “You know where the …”

“… waiting room is, sure, sure.” Johnny took one last lingering look at his stricken bike, then headed off in that direction.

The next arrivals were Baron von Blutrausch, Lawmaker and Speedfreak. Lawmaker was another bike user; his mount, though functional, was barely so. Blutrausch’s monstrous black-painted vehicle was missing on most of its cylinders and had a huge dent in the side, and Speedfreak’s car was being towed on a flatbed, given that all four computer-controlled wheels had come off.

When Max got there, Lawmaker was continuing an argument that was surely going on from the previous night, threatening Blutrausch and Speedfreak with arrest for vehicular mayhem, leaving tyre tracks on the sides of skyscrapers, destroying traffic lights and numerous other offences.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Max reminded him firmly. “This is a place of business, and I offer everyone my business equally. And in any case, neither of them is capable of leaving tyre marks on vertical surfaces. Speak to Fledermaus or maybe Car-Achnid about that … after you leave here. Now, I have bays prepared for your vehicles. You know where the waiting room is.”

“Yeah, okay … sure thing, Mr Masters … ja, mein herr …”

All three slunk off toward the waiting room, and Max sighed. He had a suspicion it would only get worse.

He received and in-processed four more cars, two motorcycles, a turbo-charged Segway and a Skateboard of Doom (broken in half, with a Baron von Blutrausch tyremark across the deck) before his phone rang. As he answered, he saw it was Vera. “What’s the problem?” Because of course there was a problem.

“It’s the waiting room,” she said worriedly. “I’ve tried to calm them down, but they keep flaring up again.”

“Okay, I’m on it.” He took a deep breath as he saw another flatbed truck pulling onto the forecourt. “You’re going to need to come out here and process them in, though.”

“I can do that.”

“I know you can.” He ended the call and started for the waiting room, lips pressed into a thin line. Just think of the money … just think of the money …

The waiting room was somewhat misnamed. It was large, spacious, and had several very comfortable sofas placed around it. There was a fridge with complementary snacks (he’d given up on the honour system for obvious reason), a pinball machine, and a hugescreen TV. Right now, there were also more than a dozen superheroes, villains, and rogues of every stripe rubbing elbows with each other. Some would normally have been willing to kick back and wait for their ride to be repaired, but others were naturally prickly and some were willing to prod them and see what happened.

And so when he opened the door, it was to a scene of mayhem. Nobody had pulled weapons yet (which was a minor miracle in itself) but Speedfreak and Speedway were arguing ferociously about who had rights to the ‘Speed’ name, von Blutrausch and Fledermaus were yelling at each other over who’d actually won the race, Schädling was taunting Lawmaker over the damage to his bike (apparently the teen had had a hand in that) and Johnny Wheels looked ready to go to blows with Car-Achnid for some reason Max had yet to determine. This didn’t mean the others in the room were in any way quieter. Tempers were flaring, and could explode at any moment.

Drawing in a deep breath, Max Masters expelled it in a shout that shook dust from the ceiling. “SHUT. UP!”

Stunned into silence, everyone turned to him. He knew he had to talk fast; his power allowed him temporary ascendance over people, the influence lasting longer with how loud he shouted, but it never went for more than a few minutes. Still, if he could get his point across …

“Thank you,” he said into the newly created silence. “Now, I will tell you that if anyone starts violence on my premises, they will be blackballed from my shop for one year.”

The stunned silence was swapped out for a horrified one. Nobody wanted to go there.

After a moment during which he let that sink in, he went on. “The waiting room is for waiting. Not for arguing. Fledermaus, control your protégé. Lawmaker, stay away from Schädling. Speedway, Speedfreak, you can share the name. Johnny Wheels, Car-Achnid, don’t even think about it. Everyone, settle down and watch some TV.” He went to leave, then turned back. “Oh, and the race was judged a draw.”

As the groans rose from within, he let the door shut as he hurried back to work. Not every day was like this at Masters’ Mechanic Shoppe, but there was more than the fair share of excitement.

At least it wasn’t boring.