– Hey guy.
– Yo.
– What’s you doing in the workshop? What’s with the huge sheet of aluminium?
– Oh, nothing. I’m preparing for a new tank for the museum.
– What? I don’t know any tanks that use aluminium for repairs, and anyway armour doesn’t come in whatever weird shape like that one you’re cutting out.
– Oh, that’s not for repairs or anything. It’s… special.
– Come on, don’t be coy.
– You know recently we have invaded some weirdo place with the feudal society and slaves and knights and stuff, the whole deal, but somehow it also has access to wacky sci-fi guff like shield generators and plasma weapons, the works, really. Can’t believe what those boffins are saying.
– Man, the military are really putting out unbelievable stuff these days.
– No, this guy claims it’s alien. All of the military says that.
– Well they really are!
– What, you too? …well whatever. So anyway I heard they have tanks, and you know I love my museum a lot. So I went and asked my “contacts”—
– Ha.
– —if I can have one after they’re done with it.
– They said yes, evidently.
– Evidently.
– So what’s the big deal? What’s that got to do with the weird shapes you’re cutting out of the aluminium?
– Well, it’s the previous owner.
– The army?
– Previous previous owner. Big lord guy, they said. Supposed to go down with his kingdom, but he surrendered. I guess there’s only so much a guy commanding a single golden tank can do against three entire squadrons of tanks, planes and missile launchers.
– Golden!?
– Yeah. Big and pretty, supposed to send more of a message than any practical defence. There’s plenty of that though. What that means is that it’s got the previous previous owner’s name and other personal identity things all over it. Well, not literally his name, but…
– Ah. He’s embarrassed he got captured instead of dying like a man.
– I hope that explains the weird aluminium shapes.
– But wouldn’t that ruin the tank? You like to keep them in at least visually mint condition.
– That’s what I said to the lord guy. But he was adamant that he doesn’t want anything that links the tank back to him to ever show up on the museum. It took until the guys with the fancy badges to remind him that it’s not his tank anymore. I just gave the lord guy the compromise – he can still “own” it, but it lives in my museum, and the only thing I would do after restoring it is to put removable covers over the name, his coat of arms, whatever he wanted, and he gets to visit it—
– Uh—
– No offensive power, obviously! …and get to sit in his pretty “throne” inside the tank – it’s definitely luxurious in there. He agreed, and so did the military guys as long as the really scary weapons are removed from the tank. Only defensive features like the shield thing.
– Well that’s reassuring. …but how are the covers removable?
– Put some rope around whatever’s convenient and hang the aluminium over the “important” parts.
– Clever. Well I’m glad everything’s sorted. When’s it going to show up?
– In a few days. But they’ve already sent me diagrams of what it looks like so I can do this beforehand.
– Looks like you’re more or less done. Care to pop down to the pub later?
– Absolutely. See you at around 7.