Chapter 4 – Earned Rewards
“Are you sure you can do this, Bryce? There’s going to be a lot of people standing in line beneath this frame. We have to get everything right on the first try.”
Bryce double-checked the gauges on his welding unit. The machine was set to the proper polarity. The amperage would fall within an acceptable range. He was confident he had chosen the proper type of electrode for the job. All that was left was for Rebecca to trust him and let him complete the job of welding together the parts of the metal scaffolding that would support the large, electronic sign the franchise delivered to the bookstation. He had been practicing the last several months to develop the required feel and technique to successfully employ the welder. The job demanded care, but Bryce knew he possessed the needed skill.
“I can get it done, Becky. You need to concentrate on programming the display grid for that sign. We won’t be able to get everything done in time and have the sign bolted above the bookstation entrance if you try to do everything yourself. I have this.”
Bryce positioned his hands and the electrode close to the first joint and flipped down his welding hood before Rebecca could think of any other reason to prevent him from working. He flicked his wrist, and the electrode that extended from his holder barely touched the metal before a brilliant blue arc cracked into life and filled his vision with light. His hands quickly found the proper distance between the tip of his electrode and the metal, and soon Bryce was commanding that small pool of molten metal to fuse the separate pieces of that frame into a whole. He reminded himself to slow down and feel the rhythm, and he concentrated as his welding bead coalesced into a consistently-shaped bead that looked like a row of tiny metal dimes stacked down a line. He made finer adjustments to the welding unit before he struck new welding arcs and completed all the other welds the scaffolding required to possess the strength to safely hold the massive sign delivered by the franchise above the heads of the waiting customers. Bryce removed his welding helmet and grinned after he completed the final weld. He had come so far. It had been but a handful of months since he had discharged a weapon at an alien robot named Gorn, and already that welding unit seemed no more difficult to operate than one of Rebecca’s chop saws.
Bryce felt Rebecca set a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think I could’ve done as well. Your knack for this kind of work never ceases to impress me.”
“Do you think I need to clean up any of those welds with the grinder?”
“Don’t worry about it, Bryce. No one’s going to see those welds on the framework behind the sign, and we don’t have the time for that level of polish.”
Bryce knew they didn’t have time for any delay. The marketing managers at the home offices of the bookstation franchise dropped a big surprise when they announced that the Magpie the Sage and Gorn robots would team together to compose a commemorative strand of fiction that blended together the most popular elements of science fiction and fantasy. The franchise’s brightest marketing gurus believed that limited edition paperbacks featuring such fan favorites as Nigel the Timeshifter and Lady Owlblade sharing adventures would generate a new spike in revenue. Thus the franchise dumped a truckload of advertising props at Rebecca’s bookstation to help really get the readers’ blood pumping. There were life-size, cut-out displays of every popular character posed for action. There were boxes upon boxes of small action figures designed to hint at the bad guys Nigel the Timeshifter and Lady Owlblade would soon be facing. There were piles of vintage, collectible records holding a specially-composed soundtrack to enhance a customer’s reading experience. And there was the massive, electronic sign that the home offices of the franchise instructed Rebecca to mount above her bookstation’s entrance. The home offices didn’t give her any directions or advice. The franchise assumed that a keeper of the automata would know how to work such details out for herself.
“I suppose that’s all we can do for today,” commented Rebecca. “Now, I just have to worry all night long that the crane’s going to arrive in time come morning to hoist this sign up onto its mounts before the first customer arrives to buy a commemorative ticket.”
Bryce winked. “You could spend some time writing if you can’t get to sleep.”
“Oh, I’m too tired to write. There’s too much going on in this shop.”
“It would break my heart if you let this shop keep you from your stories,” frowned Bryce. “I couldn’t put your latest work down. Tell me what I need to do to make sure you get more time to sit behind your typewriter.”
Rebecca untied her leather apron and removed her hands from her work gloves. “There is something you can do. Bryce, there’s a lot of other shopkeepers like me who wish they had more time to idly dream. But the bookstations keep cramming more and more work into our days. That’s why we’re always looking to find new repairmen to help us keep the automata in good order. It’s not easy to find people with much any kind of skill anymore. It’s getting impossible to find anyone with the kinds of skills our shops need. But you’ve got a natural aptitude for this kind of work.”
“It does make me feel a little proud.”
Rebecca’s head tilted as she considered her shop mate. “Be honest with me. This shop makes you feel good, but fixing robots isn’t the activity that gives you the most pride, is it?”
Bryce nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for what you’ve shown me, but I still don’t know if keeping the automata working is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“You’d rather write,” Rebecca smiled.
“I would. I still feel at my best when I’m writing.”
“Then why haven’t you ever given me anything to read?”
“I suppose I never thought about it,” stammered Bryce.
“No, I think you’ve thought about it a lot,” and a little of the fire reappeared in Rebecca’s dark eyes, “but I bet you don’t have the confidence to show me anything you write. I think you’re afraid of putting it on the line. I think you’re afraid of failing, and that your words won’t impress me. Don’t you think I have those same fears whenever I show one of my stories to you?”
“I love all your stories, Becky.”
“Then how do you know I won’t love yours?” Rebecca sighed. “I’ve been offering you more than you know, Bryce Munson. You’ve just not been able to see it. But I have one more thing that might just open your eyes. Follow me.”
Rebecca pulled Bryce to a door hidden behind empty tanks of welding gas and up a narrow and creaking flight of stairs to the building level just above the bookstation’s repair shop. She fidgeted with a loose doorknob and opened another door with a shove of her shoulder. Bryce held a breath when he followed Rebecca into the room, for motes of dust danced everywhere in the air, twirling in the sunlight that seeped through several windows. Dark televisions piled in the corners. Old, headless storefront mannequins stood along the walls, many still showcasing dresses and blouses that had been the fashion nearly a century ago. Empty refrigerators slumped against the walls. Pieces of old furniture lay scattered about the wooden floor.
“I wouldn’t have expected to find an antique store in a bookstation.”
Rebecca nodded. “The franchise was evidently unable to purchase the entire building when they chose this location for a bookstation. There’s a dozen floors above this one, and all of them are filled with the blinking servers required to house the automata’s artificial intelligence. But this floor is sure something different. Whoever still owns it has filled it with items belonging to a younger world.”
Bicycles hung from the ceiling. Pinball machines stood silent and dark. Bowling pins lay toppled upon shelves crowded with wind-up toys. Calendars of bygone years were pinned to the walls, the months filled with pictures of people long buried into the earth. Wooden, roll-top desks and the moth-eaten cushions of loveseats were strangely angled, like puzzle pieces, within the packed space.
Rebecca grabbed Bryce’s hand. “Our fellowship of sho
pkeepers started here. It started over there on the far side of the room, where all the curtained windows make it dark.”
Bryce hadn’t noticed the space, for the light was scant in the direction Rebecca pointed. His eyes needed time to adjust before they discerned numerous typewriters held on metal shelving. None of the machines appeared to be the same model. All of them possessed different colors and shapes, and Bryce thought such writing tools must’ve once been manufactured to appease a variety of preferences and purposes. Some held letters beneath keys of glass. Others appeared made of nothing but plastic. Some would’ve looked new and ready for use if not for the layer of dust covering their parts. Others were in severe states of disrepair. They were, in Bryce’s imagination, romantic machines, relics of an era before readers built robots to imagine for them.
“They’re a kind of treasure, aren’t they?”
“They are,” Rebecca grinned, “and we’ve prepared a treasure just for you.”
Rebecca pulled a canvas tarp off of a table and revealed a turquois typewriter. All of the keys were present, with sharp, sans-serif letters neatly painted on each. Bryce smelled a faint aroma of oil, and he smiled for the way the carriage return lever glistened in the room’s dim lighting. A stack of crisp paper rested next to the machine, pure white pages waiting to hold coffee stains and scribbled corrections in the pursuit of well-struck words.
“Can I try it?”
Rebecca laughed. “Of course you can. You can even take it home. It’s yours as long as you follow our terms.”
“Which are?”
“Put it to use. Do your best with it. Dream. Imagine. Write. And then, share the words you hammer out on that typewriter with the rest of us. The two of us are not the only readers the robots fail to satisfy. So take that machine home. Learn how to maintain it and how to use it. Just make sure to bring a story with you when you return to my shop, and we’ll turn you into a proper kind of a keeper.”
“You talk like I’m about to enter some kind of coven.”
Rebecca grinned. “I like that. It’s something right out of one of Mary Hecate’s books. Show us you can make a little of the magic.”
Bryce hurried back to his apartment’s housing stack with his typewriter. Rebecca would not allow him to lift another tool for the remainder of the afternoon, regardless of any of the stresses the franchise placed upon her shop. He would have to write before Rebecca showed him anything more.
Bryce’s fingers worked furiously. He typed until his eyes ached with fatigue. Only thirst, hunger and sleep made him pause, until Bryce banged out a typewritten story of his own after a week spent seated at its keys.
And he hoped Rebecca wouldn’t mind if his story failed to fit into any of the neat fictional genres or publishing shoeboxes that made the automata so famous, that made the bookstations so wealthy.
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