2013 Tucker Tornado – Google Docs
2013 Tucker Tornado
This car came flying out of an anomalous sudden cyclone just north of Sydney on June 19, 2017; while the car itself suffered only minor scuffing damage, everything organic inside (including the three human passengers) was dead. And ‘everything’ means everything. Some of the sealed objects and surfaces inside were more sterile than an operating room. The car itself is a very nice four-door sedan, light blue in color, in reasonably good shape but still showing some wear. The brakes and steering are on the standard American automobile pattern, but it’s powered by a kerosene burning steam engine and there isn’t a single transistor in the vehicle (or on the bodies). What electronics there are uses strictly vacuum tube technology.
But here’s the thing: the engine is not primitive. It is in fact about as sophisticated as a modern gasoline engine, and is certainly machined to similar tolerances. Likewise, the radio doesn’t use 1930s-style vacuum tubes; it uses the kind of vacuum tubes that we’d have today if we had never invented the transistor. The rest of the Tucker Tornado is like that: the parts are all standardized, clearly mass produced — and don’t show up in any automotive parts catalogs. Interestingly, some of the companies and brand names found inscribed on the Tornado’s various pieces do correspond to actual businesses, and some of those parts even look like actual parts made by those companies, but there’s no record of their manufacture.
As for the corpses: well, three men, all in their early twenties. Two Caucasians, one ethnic Chinese. Their clothes were unremarkable, although the brands were another mix of known and unknown manufacturers: there was very little in the way of synthetic fibers in their garments, although the trunk had a couple of polyester windbreakers in it. According to their documents, all three were juniors at the University of Sydney: school records have no information about two of them, but the third corpse (Greg O’Connor) is indeed a physics student at the University. A rather gifted one, in fact.
And he’s alive! In fact, he’s currently waiting downstairs, and Mr. O’Connor is a very confused and apprehensive young man right now. As would you be, if you got brought to a secure Australian black ops facility and asked odd questions about every strange doodle found in your notebooks and trash. Not to mention that one four hour session where a bunch of not-quite-shouting people tried to get him to admit that he had a hitherto undeclared twin brother. But now that the special SEATO… ah, sorry: “ANZUS”… team is here to take matters into hand, perhaps this mystery can be put to bed. Or at least confirmed that it’s the kind of mystery that everyone seems to think that it is. Even for the job, this is kind of a weird case.