Debriefing
Ted is aimlessly fidgeting with the gun, his watch, his optic, and caressing the uplink port at the base of his skull, as well working the optical toggle behind his ear without mounting the optic, which disturbed the Auditor.
“Ted, buddy, the next subject of conduction, is technological remission, dealing with no human, no complications. I have chosen this to help you recover from the recent event.”
“Sure, Boss,” mumbled the little fellow with the white hair and red beard.
“The Rough Neck, Ben Lewis, the man’s whose foot prints I am sure you encountered at the cabin, has maintained the well in the high meadow above and east of your encounter with Travis at the fence line—well done there. The well is solar powered and must be remitted. Ben is currently, according to GPS, outside of Brie’s cabin, cutting wood I suppose. I’ve met him, a big gentle man, a good guy. He is emotionally attached to the pump. It provides water for the marooners and wild cattle, and is a safer supply for Brie than if she had to walk down into Coal Canyon with buckets.”
“I don’t like it,” mumbled Ted. “Da well only has ten years on it, a clean source of upland water fer da warm months.”
Matt felt sad, “Sorry, Ted. Would you like the day off?”
“On it, Boss,” and Ted, transformed into a task-oriented geek over the mere suggestion of rest from duty. He stood rigidly, the port glowing green under his white hair, his wrist watch closing like a metal clam.
“Be back by noon, Boss, got ‘er mapped.”
“Ted, you just came back from the cabin. Maybe tomorrow?”
“On it, Boss,” mumbled the grim little man, checking his gear as he turned and walked down the stairs, looking at his watch and whispering, “Go-time, Mamma.”
‘I feel so sad for him, a 13 year old virgin in a 60 year old body confronted with lust, love and tenderness at the end of his life.’
Matt was then awash in his own loss, ‘Jill—I mean Stewardess—are you bothering to track my final mission? Or have you moved on, taking up with some Uplift Administrator to feather your Martian bed? I think you picked the wrong colony, by the way. I hope the comet misses us both.’
Matt always became angry at himself when he was tempted to cry.
…
Conduction
The day star was shining down upon him, clean and clear as could be as Ted stood on Baby Girl’s running board in an easy epiphany, seeing the world more clearly than he ever had, realizing in his bones that he was old, unmending and on the way out. Psycho Girl kept up a constant sting of resentment, so he could not even tell if he was being watched. Peep Girl was pining to get mounted, which meant more pain. Baby Girl was hitting every bump, checking his hips and knees for weakness. Bad Girl was pissed, making his gun hand twitch so Baby Girl’s needlessly bumpy ride might toss him. Only Mamma, on his wrist, gave him any comfort with her comforting green light of active serentiy.
At 9:14 AM, February 15th, with no idea and less of a care as to what day of the forsaken year it was, Ted rolled up to the well head. The windmill, with a rooster weather main, was still at the top. Ben was no joke. In case his solar panels failed, he had the old wind-powered pump operational. Black Angus cows, a yearling and a great horned bull, grazed near by, a hundred yards or so off from this their water supply. There were no steers. He recalled steers from his youth. The cattle had been let go, and were looking narly as heck.
The pool at the base of the 20 foot galvanized stanchion held as much as a small pound and was made of the same metal. Knowing he was being watched by Matt, the day star and whoever spied on him, Ted spoke to Mamma, “By practice I’m s’posed to tear up the pool en take down the stanchion. But, bein’ friends now with the whackados up in dey cliff cave, I figure dey will eat up da zinc coating and let Earth take back her iron undaneath in her own good time.”
By the time he was done saying such, he found himself with his hands open and upward to the day star, his body facing the stanchion with its rooster on top.
Ted drew his machete from left, in the backhand, spine of the blade along his forearm, and took a knee, “By Pryeon, I dismantle the pump rod, but leave the weather main intact. It’s pretty, afterall.”
Ted rose, walked to the stanchion base, hacked into the hollow pump rod, backhand and forehand, and yanked the lower end, bending it around the stanchion as the rising wind caused the upper linkage to rattle and clack, as the arm still turned. He then cut the wires to the solar panel, climbed the stanchion, cut the linkage to the ruin of the pump rod, tossing it aside, and descended.
Here he bent to his work uncoupling the solar panels and the batteries from their mounts and moving them away, and slightly downgrade from the artificial pond.
This done, within five minutes, Ted opened his wrist watch, mounted his optic, dialed it in to “gadget range,” and drawled, “Baby Girl, yer man needz a scrap engineer fer Remission.”
The ETV hummed to life as the screen of the watch glowed green. The Kevlar saddle bag on the far side opened. A tinny clack sounded. Then another such noise clattered, as a crab drone with a wrench for one claw and pliers for another, hopped up onto the running board, then over, and skittered to the Remission site.
Ted was always amazed at the crab drones, with their stalk like eyes, their ability to arrange wiring with their pliers as they pinned the hardware with the wrench, standing on their fin legs, and plugging themselves in to the software.
Ted maintained a reverent pose on one knee, having sheathed his machete, and watched in a chilling kind of awe. To him, this was like what folks called a funeral for people, a ceremony he had often been tasked to observe after accidentally ending a life that should have gone to Uplift or Remission.
After some 15 minutes, the solar panel and batteries were all connected to the crab drone, who clacked its mandibles and retracted its eye stalks. On a three count the hardware caught fire, a weird white fire that always made Ted fearful, deep inside. The crab then backed away, uncoupling from the hardware wires, and used its backfins to fan the fire, which grew into a white hot blaze.
The silicon and rare earth melted into the snowy grass where the wind had blown off most the snow cover.
Ted then looked to the crab drone as the hardware melted of its own nature, and said, “Okay, Skitter Baby, well done.”
The mechanical crab then seemed to salute Ted with its pliers and wrench forelimbs, and motivated back to the ETV.
“Oh, wait, Girls,” mumbled Ted in an amazed tone, “Seems like Ole Travis missed some wire. I needz ta clean dis up—it all weird-like in loops.”
…
Debriefing Notes
Due to the events that soon followed, and the fact that I observed the entire conduction and subsequent acts through my telescope—this very device I am speaking into, hopefully to you, Stewardess Jill—I find it pointless to interrogate Ted as to the events he participated in. For I witnessed the following.”
-M. Styer
