Science and Sorcery Box Set

by Ryan Tang

  Jared smiled sympathetically. Jared had heard the same thing from some of the other kids.

  He knew first-hand just how strenuous the Southern Robotics schedule could be.

  Jared reached out a hand.

  "I'm sorry. What was your name again?"

  Getting started always cheered the kids up.

  It was a miraculous thing, seeing your home rise again from the ashes, even if it was a "tiny piece of shit" like the girl said. Jared always felt a small spark of guilt whenever he saw the tiny cube homes. It was the low flight of Southern Robotics's Paragons that caused building regulations to become so strict. But the lobbying division had nothing to do with him. Back when he worked at Southern Robotics, Jared had only built Paragons. He didn't have any influence on the rules around them.

  "Alice!"

  They shook.

  "Alright. Let's get to work. The first thing I need to do is set the foundation. After that, make sure to tell me where everything goes."

  He lifted the remains of the home off the ground and set them aside.

  His hands were impeccably steady. The floor had three beds jammed tightly together, but they didn't move a single inch as he lifted the floor high into the air.

  Jared smiled. The surviving beds were a serious stroke of luck. Beds caught on fire easily. Most of them had burned.

  The smile slipped off his face when he remembered how many people had burned to death in their beds.

  "Hey. Are you alright?"

  Alice was looking at him strangely.

  Jared forced his smile back on. He had to appear confident. He had to act like the legendary Paragon pilots Alex was always telling him about.

  "Yeah! I'm fine!"

  The most important thing was to build a strong foundation. Nothing could help more if another quake happened.

  The powerful fingers dug deep through the ground, carefully spacing out ten even holes on each side of the four-sided plot.

  The sound of his gel-coated fingers scraping against Eternium hung in the air long after he finished moving the covering layer aside.

  The sound was drawn out and muted, a soft but beautiful opera that compounded each time his hands returned to the Earth. The noise sounded cushioned. Jared remembered Alex telling him that Eternium took on the properties of whatever it came into contact with – perhaps it was the same with the legendary metal's sound.

  Jared grimaced when he saw the core. The metal was cracked, chipped, and dented. The flaws were jarring against the forever black. It shouldn't have been possible.

  Alice chatted happily as he continued his work.

  "I'm worried about how hard it is to find a job though. There are only five librarians! Maybe I'll just end up working at Southern Robotics like my parents. I hope not!"

  She scowled angrily.

  "I can't believe they're making mom and dad stay overnight every day! How the fuck is that fair? And it's not like things are getting better. They don't know anything about the quake yet!"

  Jared didn't know how to respond, so he just kept on working.

  Putting the poles together was easy. The giant hands could efficiently forage scrap metal and repurpose it into new parts. Fallen lamps, broken pipes, and upturned roads littered the streets.

  Jared picked up a broken piece of road, then crushed the metal to pieces. The soldering device danced along the side of his wrist, fusing the shards into new shapes that were precisely the length and width that he needed.

  Before long, he had all ten poles and an upper foundation. He sat and gently kneaded at the Eternium. He was careful not to go anywhere near the damage. It took time and patience, but the Eternium eventually yielded.

  The legendary metal was impeccably resilient at first touch, which made it perfect for warfare. But with enough time and diligent effort, even a bare human hand could reshape it, which made it also perfect for construction.

  "Look! I planted these into the core. Now the new foundation will move while the colony shakes. Now tell me where everything else used to be, and I'll set it right again."

  He placed the floor back in place, then carefully followed her instructions as he set the walls back into position.

  "Wow!"

  Her grin went from ear to ear.

  Nothing could be more important than a place to live in and a roof to sleep under.

  She climbed down the ladder. Jared opened his cockpit for the next resident to enter.

  "Who's next?"

  They worked and worked. Before long, Jared fell into a rhythm that was as easy as breathing. It'd been the same the last few days too. Once he got started, everything fell into place.

  The neighborhood rose again, stronger than before.

  He worked long past nightfall; he worked until he was so tired he could barely feel his fingers against the controls. His vision started going in and out of focus. His thoughts became a messy blur.

  He stopped when he knew he'd pushed himself as far as he could. Making a mistake in a Paragon wasn't a risk he was willing to take.

  Jared sighed.

  He'd built 28 new homes, but it wasn't enough. There was still so much more to be done.

  He was too tired to fly home, so he transformed his Paragon into its box-like storage mode. He climbed out of the chair and fell onto the bed he'd placed in the far corner two nights before.

  He fell asleep as soon as he hit the mattress.

  ____

  He awoke the next day to the cackle of mocking laughter.

  "This thing? This ugly thing? This is what you guys call a Paragon?"

  The voice on the other side was vaguely familiar, but in Jared's groggy half-asleep state, he couldn't hope to recognize who the speaker was. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. He was so exhausted. But the false sun blazed bright above him, and he had work to do.

  He forcefully pushed himself up and off the bed.

  "Come work at Southern Robotics, and you'll see a real Paragon. You might even get the chance to pilot one!"

  "No! Your Paragons suck! They can't even move!"

  Jared knew who that was, but he couldn't remember her name. It was another one of Alex's students, the loud girl who was always running around. She was friends with Alice, the one whose house he'd rebuilt yesterday.

  "Everyone knows your secret!"

  He sort of stumbled into his chair. He spoke the words, and the panoramic screen flickered to life.

  There was a long line of Southern Robotics workers, all dressed in sleek white uniforms.

  A smile broke across Jared's face.

  Finally. Finally, they were here to help.

  There were so many people outside.

  The Block must have tripled in population.

  Everyone who'd been away at Southern Robotics had returned. He saw Alice talking to a man who looked so much like her that he had to be her father.

  "You don't know what you're talking about! You're just a dumb kid! The firm is bringing back Eternium. We'll have the greatest Paragons of all time, even better than the ones from Old Earth. We won't even need to fix the colony. We'll just go straight back to Old Earth!"

  Jared didn't recognize the man arguing outside his Paragon. He was rather young – perhaps in his late 30s – and dressed in the elegant suit and tie of an Inner Circle member. He must have been one of the people Stock brought in to replace everyone he'd fired.

  "This Paragon is rebuilding our homes! Can yours do that?"

  The man in the suit burst into raucous laughter.

  "Rebuilding homes! Rebuilding homes! Why would we waste our time doing that? Didn't you hear me? Our Paragons will be built out of Eternium! We don't need to rebuild homes. We'll just return to Old Earth. We'll return as conquerors!"

  Jared frowned as he climbed out of his machine.

  They weren't here to rebuild homes?

  So what were all these people doing here then?

  The girl with the loud voice turned to him as soon as he st
epped outside. She was powerfully built, and her hair was cut very short.

  "Tell him! Tell him how cool your machine is!"

  Jared smiled awkwardly at the manager in the suit.

  "Good morning!"

  He stuck out his hand, but the man didn't take it. He just stood there and sneered.

  "Oh, I should have known. A failed engineer! Look, everybody! A failed engineer!"

  He turned around and laughed mockingly, but his colleagues in their sleek white uniforms ignored him.

  That was strange. Normally, Southern Robotics workers dropped everything to laugh alongside an Inner Circle member. Not doing so could mean getting fired on some made-up pretext.

  Instead, they were all engrossed in conversation with their friends, families, and neighbors. Jared caught only snatches of what they were saying.

  "Free room and board."

  "Help save the colony."

  "You have nowhere else to go."

  He didn't understand what he was seeing until a worker pulled a thick stack of papers out from his bag.

  Jared immediately recognized it as a Southern Robotics employment contract. They weren't here to fix the colony at all. They were here to find new workers.

  He gaped as he saw Alice's father hand her a contract.

  What were they doing? Why would he recruit Alice? She couldn't have been more than 10.

  He handed her a pen, but she didn't sign. She yanked at the thick stack, and he repeatedly shook his head. When she tried taking the papers again, he pulled back so hard that she fell to the floor.

  He began to shout in a strange, flat voice.

  "Please talk to my supervisor! He will answer all your questions. I am very busy and must return to work."

  Alice's father turned and abruptly sprinted away, his feet moving so fast they kicked shards of metal up and off the floor.

  Jared stared.

  What the hell just happened?

  The man in the suit sniggered and pushed him aside.

  "Get out of my way. I need to figure out what's going on over there. Unlike some people, I have actual work to do."

  He swaggered over to Alice, who could only stare as her father dashed off into the distance.

  "What's wrong? Don't respect your parents?"

  "Why...why...why did my dad just run away like that?"

  She stared at the young manager. She was completely dumbfounded.

  "What did you guys do to him?"

  Jared quickly walked over. Alice's friend, the one who'd been arguing with the manager in the suit, promptly followed him.

  The man from Southern Robotics sniggered.

  "Nothing. What do you mean what did we do to him? He ran away because he has work to do."

  He pulled another contract out of his bag.

  "Why didn't you sign? He asked you to sign. We need as many workers we can get, even someone like you. We're going to rediscover Eternium and take back Old Earth. And besides, what else are you going to do? It's not like you have anywhere else to go."

  Alice pushed it away.

  "Ms. Alex says to always read through anything you put your name on."

  Jared smiled despite himself. Of course Alex would say something like that.

  "What did you do to my dad?"

  The manager abruptly started screaming.

  "Nothing! Nothing! We didn't do anything to him! Nobody did anything to anyone! I don't know what you're talking about!"

  He angrily waved the papers back and forth. The pages flapped right in Alice's face.

  "Sign! Sign! Stop showing an attitude and just sign it! Why didn't you just sign! I need you to sign!"

  Alice stumbled back and started to cry.

  Her friend sprinted forwards, but Jared gently pulled her back. He grabbed the other man by the shoulder.

  "What are you doing?"

  The manager turned. For a brief moment, sheer panic gripped his face and voice.

  "I need everyone to sign! I need to bring everyone back! I need everyone to sign! Can't you see what will happen to me if I can't get everyone to sign?"

  The two men stared awkwardly at each other.

  Then the manager's face hardened and he shoved Jared away.

  "What the hell is wrong with you? Don't touch me! Don't touch me, you failure! I don't want your failure to rub off on me."

  He sneered and picked the contract back up.

  "How about you? You'll have to start from the beginning again, but you'll still be doing more than you do now."

  He pointed dismissively to the ruins all around him.

  "Building homes? What the fuck is building homes going to do? Get realistic! If we don't stop the quakes, they'll just fall back down again. And once we get back to Old Earth, we'll never have to worry about quakes again!"

  He spat on the floor.

  "Even if we could build homes, we shouldn't. Haven't you heard of Tough Facts? Overpopulation is a serious problem. We have too many people on the colony. Who cares if a couple of them die off?"

  It took Jared a while to understand what the other man was saying, but when he did, white-hot anger burned through his heart, head, and stomach all at once.

  Overpopulation?

  He suddenly remembered the bizarre article he'd read on the Forums the night of the quakes. He'd completely forgotten about it during the chaos, but now it came roaring back to him.

  A lot of people died that night.

  A lot of people couldn't beg for help because the Forums had been taken over to broadcast some irrelevant theory.

  "What are you saying? We should just let people sleep in the streets? We should just let people stay outside until they die?"

  Jared pointed to the people around him. He pointed out to the ruins. He pointed out at the Block he'd spent the last god knows how many hours trying to repair.

  "You think they should just sleep in the streets?"

  The manager stammered for a moment, but he recovered before long.

  "Southern Robotics is offering free room and board to anyone who works for them. If they want to sleep on the streets, that's their choice. You shouldn't build their houses for them. You've forgotten what the Director thinks about charity – it's just lazy people leeching from the real workers."

  He shook his head and sneered again.

  "I've wasted enough time here."

  The long line of workers in their white uniforms thundered back to join him, moving with unearthly discipline. They were so coordinated that they even all stepped at the same time.

  Jared gaped.

  Stock had always demanded coordination of his assembly-line workers and technicians. He was always going on about how he wanted a finely tuned machine. He was known for personally inspecting the assembly-lines and firing workers who stepped out of tune or whose uniforms were slightly disjointed.

  But Jared had never seen anything like this before.

  It was like they were all one person.

  The uniformed workers brought with them many fresh recruits, even children and the elderly. At least a quarter of the Block had joined them.

  The manager smiled poisonously.

  "See? Nobody wants your charity. Everyone knows the most important thing is to create Eternium again. Nobody wants to wallow in the mud, rebuilding homes."

  He pointed out at the crowd and jeered.

  "Look who stayed with you. Cripples, idiots, and brainwashed kids."

  Alice and her friend started screaming at him, swearing so violently that it took the man in the suit a long moment to collect himself.

  "Fuck you! Fuck you, you stupid little kids! Show me an attitude again! See what happens! You'll starve! You'll starve! I promise you'll starve! Nobody will ever hire you! You're dead! You're as good as dead!"

  He stomped forward. For a moment, it seemed like he was going to hit them. Jared prepared to step in between the man and the girls, but then two of his colleagues in their white uniforms caught him.

  He got off one last
sneer as his co-workers started dragging him away.

  "The tournament! Don't forget to attend the simulator tournament! You'll know what we've accomplished then! You'll be sorry for how you treated me!"

  Jared stared. He couldn't believe what he just heard.

  The simulator tournament?

  They were still hosting the simulator tournament after the quakes?

  ____

  There were still a lot of people at the Block, a lot of people who hadn't joined Southern Robotics.

  Like the manager promised, some of them were just lazy. But that couldn't be said of most of them. Some were no shape to work and others were just kids. The majority distrusted the company, muttering about Block 12. Like Alice, they thought that Southern Robotics had done something to the workers.

  Jared shook his head. Block 12 was an absurd conspiracy, but he couldn't help but wonder a little bit.

  Why had Alice's father suddenly started running away?

  That was so bizarre.

  He'd never seen anyone act like that before.

  When he thought about the man sprinting away, his brain insisted to him that he'd made it up. It couldn't possibly have happened just five minutes ago.

  And why hadn't he let his daughter look at the contract?

  Back when he first joined the firm, Jared remembered his recruiter getting annoyed when Jared asked to read the contract. But they weren't allowed to hide it from you. Like Alex, Jared's mom had warned him to carefully watch what he put his name on, even at the risk of not being political.

  He shook his head and returned to work.

  He focused on building homes for the people who stayed, but it was important to build for the ones who left too.

  They might not want to live at Southern Robotics headquarters. The buildings could hardly house a Block - and the company had undoubtedly been recruiting elsewhere as well. No doubt, all the new workers were tightly cramped together.

  His work continued until the end of the night, until once again, Jared was too tired to fly back home.

  He was just about to go to sleep when he heard a very familiar voice.

  "Jared? Are you there? Jared? We need to talk."

  It was his father.

  He pushed himself up and out of his cockpit.

  A tight-lipped grimace tormented his father's ordinarily calm face.