frightfiction Chapter 409: Tumbler
Chapter 409: Tumbler
....
But the Tumbler, as he well knew, was only the first of it and this didn’t end here.
Simon let the silence run its natural course, then gestured with his head toward the far side of the garage.
"There’s something else."
....
The second area of the floor was separated from the Tumbler’s bay by a run of steel shelving units, not a wall, or a partition, just enough visual interruption that you didn’t see what was over there until you were already standing in front of it.
The work here was less complete and more exposed.
The kind of organised chaos that meant the hard conceptual problems had been solved and the physical execution was now simply a matter of time and precision and the willingness to do things over until they were right.
Two technicians were crouched over a component assembly on a low workbench, a third standing behind them with a clipboard and the particular expression of someone who had already identified the problem and was waiting for the other two to catch up.
"The shoulder mount geometry is still wrong."
"I think the geometry is fine, the problem is the rider position."
"Sigh... Dude the rider position is wrong because the geometry is wrong."
"Or everything is fine and Goy needs more time with it."
"He has been on it for three weeks."
"But that’s when the bike is still being built..."
A pause, and the sound of something being set down on a workbench.
"When is the front section integration test scheduled?"
"On Thursday..."
Simon pushed through the partition and Álvarez followed him and stopped.
The vehicle on the other side was not a motorcycle in any conventional sense of the word, though it had two wheels and was clearly meant to be ridden.
The proportions were wrong in a specific way, the wheels enormous relative to the body, the rider’s position between them rather than above them, the whole assembly communicating something about how it moved that was different from how motorcycles moved.
There were no handlebars in the normal position, and the control system was built into the shoulder mounts 0 the rider steered not with their hands but with the weight and angle of their upper body, which was either a brilliant engineering solution or a very specific kind of madness depending on your perspective.
A man in riding gear was crouched beside it, not on it, looking at the left wheel assembly with the focused attention of someone who had looked at this specific component many times before and was looking at it again because it still wasn’t resolved.
This was Jean-Pierre Goy, who had been brought onto the production specifically because the Batpod required a stunt rider of unusual capability and unusual patience, and who had been working with the vehicle for three weeks and had, in that time, developed a relationship with it that was somewhere between professional respect and genuine personal grievance.
One of the engineers from behind the partition came through and said to his colleague without looking at Simon or Álvarez: "Corbould confirmed Thursday for the integration test. He also said if the attachment mechanism isn’t ready he will make it ready himself, which I think means we should have it ready."
....
The Batpod existed because of a scene in the second half of the script, Regal’s half, the portion Álvarez hadn’t been asked to direct.
The Joker’s crew damaged the Tumbler beyond operational capacity.
Most scripts would have resolved this simply: vehicle destroyed, hero adapts, story continues, but Regal had resolved it differently.
The front section of the Tumbler, the wheels, suspension system, and forward structural components, detached from the main vehicle and reconfigured into a standalone motorcycle.
Not metaphorically, but mechanically.
The parts that had been the front of one vehicle became the entirety of another.
The Batpod deployed from the Tumbler the way a survival system deployed from an aircraft, automatically, under specific conditions, carrying the operator forward into whatever came next.
The engineering challenge this created was not small.
A motorcycle hidden inside a car, deployable on demand, functional enough to perform stunt sequences after the deployment.
The Batpod could execute turns at angles that conventional motorcycles couldn’t achieve, drive in reverse at speed, and navigate surfaces that would stop a normal bike entirely.
Its entire geometry was unconventional, and rider between the wheels rather than above them, shoulder steering rather than handlebar steering, a throttle system with no conventional analogue.
Goy stood up from the wheel assembly and said to the engineer nearest him, in a tone that was professionally neutral and contained multitudes: "The left side still pulls on deceleration. Do you know what’s causing it?"
"I have a theory."
The engineer went back to his workbench.
....
Simon watched Álvarez look at the Batpod the way he had watched him look at the Tumbler, the slow circuit of it, taking each angle separately, the pen moving in his hand against nothing.
He stopped at the shoulder mount controls, looked at the absence of handlebars and the rider position.
Then he looked back at the Tumbler through the partition gap.
He was doing the same thing Simon had done when he first understood the full scope of what Regal had specified, tracing the line from the primary vehicle to the secondary one, from the Tumbler’s front section to the Batpod’s complete form, understanding that the escape system was not an addition to the vehicle but something that had always been inside it, waiting for the conditions that would require it.
One vehicle that became two when the situation demanded it.
The hero’s primary transport contains, from the beginning, the contingency for its own destruction.
Goy stood up again, walked around to the right side, crouched and looked at the corresponding assembly there, and said nothing.
Made a small adjustment with a tool from his belt and stood up again and looked at the full vehicle from a slight distance with the expression of someone who had a complicated relationship with a thing they were going to have to eventually trust with their body.
....
Simon looked at Álvarez, who was still looking at the Batpod with the expression he’d had when he closed the script upstairs, the one where nothing quite matched, where exhaustion and something that wasn’t exhaustion occupied the same face simultaneously.
The practical effects team would handle the deployment sequence.
Every element of it, Tumbler taking damage, front section detaching, and Batpod emerging from what remained and moving away, was going to be achieved physically.
The same principle that governed the jump, the same principle that governed the afterburner, the same principle that governed every engineering decision made on this production from the first day Regal had said: if it appears on screen, build it.
Álvarez opened the script for the second half, found the sequence and read it again while looking back at the Batpod every now and then.
Made a note on the cover page below the one he had made about the rooftop chase.
Two notes now, both in his half and beyond his half, and the first thing he had written on the cover of the script all morning.
The work continued around them, patient and specific, in the manner of people who had been solving a genuinely difficult problem for four months and were close enough to do so that the proximity was its own form of pressure.
Simon looked at the Batpod, Tumbler beyond it and at Álvarez with the script open in his hands.
He was also very glad, for the first time since the pre-production began, that this particular combination of things was going to exist on screen in a film that was actually getting made.
Then he turned toward the door.
"It’s four o’clock..." he said.
Álvarez was already following, the script still open, reading as he walked.
....
.
[To be continued...]
●──────●◎●──────●
Hey everyone,
I wanted to ask for a small favor. A close friend of mine has just started their freelance journey in video/content editing. Skill-wise, I’d place them right between a beginner and an intermediate level; they’ve got the foundations down and are ready to grind.
If you or anyone you know is looking for an editor to help with projects, social media content, or videos, please consider reaching out to them! It would be a massive help.
You can reach out to them through their Reddit profile here: u/xnavxox
Note: Please make sure you both have a clear agreement and understanding of the project requirements and expectations before starting any tasks.
Thank you so much!
●──────●◎●──────●
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 Chapter for free, available for Free Members as well.
For additional content please do support me and gain access to +15 more Chapters.
--> [email protected]/OrgoWriters