08-29-2016, 01:42 PM
Chip seemed somewhat surprised when Carmelita unfurled the plans for the base’s plumbing and immediately set about them with a permanent marker muttering under her breath.
“Uh, Carmelita? What are you-?”
“Shush! Someone had the bright idea to put the septic tank here, of all places, and there are at least ten unnecessary junctions in this building. Honestly, I’m surprised it hasn’t silted up completely, given it needed a pump to build water pressure. If instead we pull that up here, we can get a decent pressure even on the outskirts of the base.”
Chip stared at her in confusion.
“Wha-? I thought you didn’t know anything about engineering.”
Carmelita scoffed slightly.
“This isn’t engineering. This is DIY. Growing up in a slightly aged cottage we needed to replumb, then an apartment where the landlord would give me discount if I handled the piping problems, then living with a trio who, for all their skills with lockpicks, computers and vehicles, couldn’t put together a wire brush… I’ve learnt from experience.”
She also added crosses to the diagram.
“Also, no one expects backup weapons in the facilities. The number of times I’ve been undercover and had a hitman follow my unarmed person into a toilet or shower, I learnt to stash something just in case.”
Chip’s confusion gave way to a grin.
“Well, perhaps this won’t be so bad after all!”
---
“This is the worst.”
The two of them had begun rejigging the piping, and everything had been going great. The condenser had hooked up nicely to the new water tank, the heater and cooler had been easy to sort out and the showers and facilities were all in working order. Then they had had to begin dealing with years old sewage.
The smell when they opened the pipework had been intense, and as they had made their steady way through the large open sewer that serviced the whole base and dealt with each and every blockage in the pipes that lined the walls it only got worse. Carmelita had already put a mask over her muzzle and was grimly powering through it, merging pipes, adding U-bends and attaching sensors and sealed parts for shock pistols in various sections, but Chip was finding the whole affair particularly unpleasant.
Carmelita’s voice was muffled as she comforted the tri-eye.
“The sceptic tank is just coming up. I’m intending to remove the entire thing and its contents, so we won’t have to deal with that, just attach a new one three sections back that way.”
“Yeah, but it still stinks. Literally.”
Carmelita gave out a snort of laughter before looking down at the plans.
“If you want, I can handle the remainder. Al3x will probably need help designing that holographic hovering body of his, so I can finish up here.”
She waited for a response, only to hear the patter of Chip’s footsteps in the distance. She gave one last grin before she tackled the septic tank properly.
---
She emerged from the tunnels to the sun rising, having worked through the night. Carmelita had a shower, the first in weeks, and let the warm water soak into her fur. Her hair, in its bright blue, hung down around her shoulders like a curtain as she released all the tension she’d built up under the stream of water.
Sadly, she had installed regulators on the showers to minimise water usage, and the shower came to an all too quick end. She set about taming her hair with a towel and a brush before drying off her fur vigorously and heading over to the control tower to sleep.
As she entered, Carmelita could hear the sounds of laughter, and she poked her head round the corner to see Al3x and Chip joking around with each other as they made minute adjustments to a complex diagram on one of the monitors. Clearly, they had been having plenty of fun, and she decided to leave them be. She headed down to the mess hall and summoned another hammock, attaching it to the ceiling struts before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.
“Uh, Carmelita? What are you-?”
“Shush! Someone had the bright idea to put the septic tank here, of all places, and there are at least ten unnecessary junctions in this building. Honestly, I’m surprised it hasn’t silted up completely, given it needed a pump to build water pressure. If instead we pull that up here, we can get a decent pressure even on the outskirts of the base.”
Chip stared at her in confusion.
“Wha-? I thought you didn’t know anything about engineering.”
Carmelita scoffed slightly.
“This isn’t engineering. This is DIY. Growing up in a slightly aged cottage we needed to replumb, then an apartment where the landlord would give me discount if I handled the piping problems, then living with a trio who, for all their skills with lockpicks, computers and vehicles, couldn’t put together a wire brush… I’ve learnt from experience.”
She also added crosses to the diagram.
“Also, no one expects backup weapons in the facilities. The number of times I’ve been undercover and had a hitman follow my unarmed person into a toilet or shower, I learnt to stash something just in case.”
Chip’s confusion gave way to a grin.
“Well, perhaps this won’t be so bad after all!”
---
“This is the worst.”
The two of them had begun rejigging the piping, and everything had been going great. The condenser had hooked up nicely to the new water tank, the heater and cooler had been easy to sort out and the showers and facilities were all in working order. Then they had had to begin dealing with years old sewage.
The smell when they opened the pipework had been intense, and as they had made their steady way through the large open sewer that serviced the whole base and dealt with each and every blockage in the pipes that lined the walls it only got worse. Carmelita had already put a mask over her muzzle and was grimly powering through it, merging pipes, adding U-bends and attaching sensors and sealed parts for shock pistols in various sections, but Chip was finding the whole affair particularly unpleasant.
Carmelita’s voice was muffled as she comforted the tri-eye.
“The sceptic tank is just coming up. I’m intending to remove the entire thing and its contents, so we won’t have to deal with that, just attach a new one three sections back that way.”
“Yeah, but it still stinks. Literally.”
Carmelita gave out a snort of laughter before looking down at the plans.
“If you want, I can handle the remainder. Al3x will probably need help designing that holographic hovering body of his, so I can finish up here.”
She waited for a response, only to hear the patter of Chip’s footsteps in the distance. She gave one last grin before she tackled the septic tank properly.
---
She emerged from the tunnels to the sun rising, having worked through the night. Carmelita had a shower, the first in weeks, and let the warm water soak into her fur. Her hair, in its bright blue, hung down around her shoulders like a curtain as she released all the tension she’d built up under the stream of water.
Sadly, she had installed regulators on the showers to minimise water usage, and the shower came to an all too quick end. She set about taming her hair with a towel and a brush before drying off her fur vigorously and heading over to the control tower to sleep.
As she entered, Carmelita could hear the sounds of laughter, and she poked her head round the corner to see Al3x and Chip joking around with each other as they made minute adjustments to a complex diagram on one of the monitors. Clearly, they had been having plenty of fun, and she decided to leave them be. She headed down to the mess hall and summoned another hammock, attaching it to the ceiling struts before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.