Urban Fable

Jaxson sighed. He hated the night shift. It was often quite boring as very few repair calls came in overnight. Most of the calls that did come in could wait till morning, but some people, important people, can’t sleep unless there is someone working for them. So Jaxson poked around the shop tidying up the workbench and examining what the dayshift was working on. There was an actuator torn apart on the far bench, probably waiting for parts. The engine in the corner sat unchanged as it had for several months. It needed and new aether containment system, but the customer didn’t want to pay for the replacement and the motor was useless without it, so it sat.

Swooo Thunk! Jaxson jumped.

Even though no one was around Jaxson swiveled his head back and forth to see if anyone saw him jump. Jaxson walked over to the air delivery system and extracted the tube that recently arrived. Popping the cap off the tube and extracting the paper. He unrolled it and examined the message. There was no indication who it was from. Just an address and the word URGENT marked in large bold letters. There were no other markings on the paper. Jaxson held it up to the light to see if there was a watermark present. There wasn’t. Jaxson pondered the request for a moment. Normally the request would come through with a date and time that the service was requested. The requestors name would be on there with the address and a description of the work to be completed. On occasion someone to want to remain anonymous, sometimes because it was a sensitive issue, or the person did something quite foolish and didn’t want anyone to know, but this request was likely a third alternative. It was someone of importance wanting something that may or may not be on the up-and-up.

Jaxson sighed. It didn’t really matter what the issue was, it was his job to respond and repair. That would make a good slogan for the optimizers Jaxon mused “To Respond and Repair”. He would maybe mention it to the higher ups in the morning. Packing his tools into the repair pod Jaxson hummed the words “To Respond and repair” in his head. It was quite catchy. Plugging the aether crystal into the power port Jaxson started up the pod and made is way toward the address listed on the paper.

The pod found its way to the warehouse district. There were no other people around, no other pods or animals, just him. Jaxson squinted at the doors of the buildings looking for address markings in the dim yellow streetlights. Pools of light splashed intermittently along the road and rarely in the direction of the buildings, giving Jaxson an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Piloting the pod to a crawl he began to scan more earnestly for address markers as he was sure he was in the right area. He was in luck, the address he was looking for was printed on a sign attached to a fence near the road. The sign had seen better days. The paint on the wooden sign was pealing and the edges had evidence of the early stages of rot.

Jaxson pulled into the drive and stopped at the gate. He waited for a moment, because sometimes a night watchman or guard would be monitoring the gate and open it. But that was not the case this time. He got out of the pod and found the call button and pressed it. He waited for a moment then pressed the button again, this time holding it down a little longer to indicate his impatience. Still no response. Jaxson tested the gate and found it was not locked, surprisingly it was not even latched. Someone must have left it open for him before they left knowing that he would be there and need access. He would have to remember to find a way to latch and or lock the gate when he left.

Swinging the gate open wide enough to drive his pod through. Jaxson drove the short distance to the warehouse and removed the crystal from the dash and plopped it into his pocket. Unsure of what he was getting into, he popped his goggles onto his head and grabbed the two tool bags that he would possibly need.

Shouldering one bag to give him a free hand Jaxson knocked on the door marked ‘Office’. No answer. He knocked again “Hello? Hello? This is Jaxon from the Optimizers guild” No answer “I received an urgent call to this address. Anyone home?”

Jaxson tried the door and found it was not locked. He pushed it open wide enough to peer into the room beyond and said “Hello?” again, this time quieter. Still no response. Jaxson pushed the door wider to allow himself and tool bags access to the interior of the small office. Shuffling himself inside, he closed the door behind him. And looked around. It certainly looked like an office. He stood in front of a long desktop that was about level with his belly. No one was behind it, in fact there was very little behind the desk. It looked to him that the office hadn’t been in use for quite some time. There was a layer of dust on everything, no papers laying about. The crystal receivers were devoid of power crystals, so no lights. In this room anyway. It is possible that they moved the office to the back where more of the action was. Jaxson spied a small vestibule behind the desk and to his left, partially obscured by some shelving.

Careful not to snag the tool bag slung over his shoulder on anything, Jaxson threaded his way to the vestibule and as he correctly guessed there was a door that led to the larger area of the building. Opening the door and stepping through, he called again “Hello? This is Jaxson from the optimizer’s guild. Anyone around? The door opened into a large open area. In the absence of any light, it was hard to tell how big the room was, but it was probably very large, judging by the length of time his voice bounced off walls and came back to him. Jaxon switched his goggle lights on. The small goggle lights seemed extremely in adequate in this large room. They were meant for illuminating close objects for working on with your hands, not brightening up rooms. Jaxson swivelled his head side to side but was unable to make out anything “Hello?” he called again, only his echo’s returning his call. He decided to do a right-hand sweep of the building to locate the originator of the urgent call, or even something that obviously needed repairing. Keeping the wall to his right-hand side Jaxson walked for about 20 paces when he came to a corner, turning ninety degrees to his left he continued walking, all the while keeping the wall to his right. Jaxson noticed that his footsteps made very little sound. The floor was composed of hard packed dirt. ‘Storage’ Jaxson thought to himself. Dust and dirt were hard on equipment. Dirt got into gears and pulleys, into the electrical and optical systems and made a mess. So he surmised that this was a storage facility and not a manufacturing or operational facility. That meant that whatever he was called to repair was likely brought out of a facility and brought here to get fixed and stored till needed.

“Hello?” Jaxson called again, now not even expecting a response. He had lost track at how far he had walked along this wall, but it was more than three times his first length from the office to the first corner. Reaching the second corner he continued along keeping the wall on his right side. Occasionally Jaxon would send his little light beams to his left to disappear into the darkness hoping they would settle on something solid, but no. He reached another corner and turned again. He was about to give up when a structure jutted out from the right-hand wall into the main part of the building. It had wooden walls attached to the outer main building wall and a flat roof at about 8 feet high.

Jaxson did not see any window on the structure, nor did he see any light escaping from around the door. Cautiously Jaxson knocked. “Hello? This is Jaxson from the Optimizers guild. Is there anyone there?” No answer. He tested the knob, and the door was not locked. Swinging the door inwards, his goggle lights searching the internal darkness for anyone or anything but finding nothing. “Hello?” he repeated. No answer. He stepped across the threshold into the room or building within a building or whatever it was. The air was noticeably cooler here and it smell damp and dusty. It smelled… old. It reminded Jaxson of the time that his family received a trunk from his uncle when he had passed away. The trunk was locked and there was no key with the delivery. Jaxson’s dad guessed that the key was long lost, and the contents of the trunk were forgotten about. When the lock was cut, and the trunk opened the old smell was almost overpowering. The clothes inside the trunk were promptly taken outside and hung up to air out. It was almost the same smell here, like the door had not been opened in a very long time.

The room was not very large. After a couple steps inside the door, the lights of his goggles could reach the other side of the room. After a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree survey of the room it appeared empty. Same dirt floor as he was previously on. The wood walls looked sturdy enough even though he could tell that an amateur had built the structure. Ready to leave the room he took one last look around. Wait, what was that? In the back corner of the room, there was something there. He had almost missed it. It looked like a dark cloth or curtain, but it was covered in a thick layer of dust, and it blended in so neatly with the rest of the room, he almost didn’t see it. The cloth was draped over something concealing it. The object looked to be about 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Intrigued, Jaxson slowly walked up to the object and gave the cloth a yank.

Surprised, Jaxson jumped back and gasped. As he did so he sucked in a large amount of dust and commenced coughing violently all the while keeping his eyes locked on the person shaped thing in the corner. Once the coughing subsided and he wiped the tears from his eyes, he studied what he thought must be a statue, a little closer. Taking a cautious step followed by another, Jaxson realized that he was not looking at a statue. Another step. He was not looking at a statue, but the alternative wasn’t possible. They were urban fables. Another step. They were things of kid’s stories, fireside tales to scare children from going out at night. Last step. It had to be. There was no other explanation. The technomancers had said that they didn’t exist and there was to be no discussing or fantasizing otherwise. The technomancers were never wrong. They were the rule, they were the authority, they were the creators of all that existed. If they said that the Aeutoman were not real, then they were not real. But proof otherwise stood in front of him. Jaxson’s heart raced. He looked around wondering if this was some sort of elaborate trap, or if he had stumbled on this by accident and someone would be taking him to prison.

Jaxson quickly turned the lights off to his goggles and waited in the dark. His heart pounded so hard it felt like it was going to come out of his chest. Seconds dragged by and nothing happened. He strained for his ears to pick up a sound, any sound, but nothing came. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath. He slowly let it out, trying not to exhaust it all in one loud release. Slowly he fumbled his way to where he thought the doorway should be, waving his hands around in front him searching for the door or wall or something that would let him know that he had traversed the room. Quite a few shuffling steps after he thought he should be at the wall his fingers finally found the wall. Jaxson searched right then left till he finally found the doorway and stuck his head out. The darkness was complete. There was not even a sliver of streetlight creeping its way past a door jamb. Freezing completely still he listened for anyone approaching all the while fully aware of the Aeutoman staring at his back across the room. The longer he stood listening for the noise that never came, the more the Aeutoman became a larger looming presence in the corner.

Convinced that no one was coming Jaxson, closed the door to the room, just in case there was someone wandering around the building somewhere, and switched on his goggle lights. Slowly approaching the Aeutoman he started noting details about the structure of the unit. It was definitely humanoid in shape. Two arms, two legs, fingers, toes, facial features, no ears, or hair. The outer shell of the body was made of metal, copper or maybe brass. There were large metal plates on the chest and back that looked like they might be access panels.

Wedging a fingernail under the lower corner of the front panel Jaxson pulled up, and with the index finger of the other hand, he was able to get enough of a hold that he could pry the door open. The door popped open from its latch. Jaxson pulled the access door open. The hinges squealed shrilly as he opened the door fully and peered in.

“Whooooah” he said out loud.

The googles shone over gears, pulleys, chains, belts, wires. All crammed into such a small space, Jaxson wondered how anyone could ever work on such a contraption. He recognized a power system, but it was the old type without the overload safety circuit. And there was no aether crystal in the power port. He didn’t want to try the one he had in his pocket from the pod in case it overloaded or something. Opening the back access door Jaxson was able to see right through the torso. Now that he was getting a good look at it, it wouldn’t be that hard to work on after all. You could have access from both sides. All the parts were more or less handy to get at. Glancing at the inside of the back access door Jaxson noticed a small box attached to the door. Opening the box, he spied the power crystal. Taking the crystal, he shielded his eyes and turning his head a bit in case something exploded, inserted it into the power port. Nothing. Crystal was probably dead, or internally fused or something.

BANG.

Jaxson jumped. That sound came from the larger building. Hix heart leaped into his throat, pounding veraciously. He fumbled for the light on his goggles and switched them off. “Oh crap, oh crap oh crap” he muttered to himself then reminded himself to be quiet. Scrambling in the dark till he found the cloth and carelessly threw it back over the aeutoman. As quickly and quietly as he could, he gathered his tools and groped his way back to the door. Not daring to turn on his light as to give himself away, he continued his right-hand sweep until he found the door that led to the office. He quickly made his way through the office and out the front door. Tossing his tools unceremoniously into the pod, he threw himself into the front seat, jammed the crystal into the port and sped his way back to the guild. It wasn’t till he was several blocks from the warehouse that he allowed himself to breathe.

“Wait till Ding hears about this” he said out loud. Jaxon often talked to himself when he was trying to puzzle out a particular stubborn problem. “He’s not going to believe me.” The drive back to the guild was uneventful. He unpacked the tools out of the pod checking the surroundings as he did so to see if there was anyone watching him. There wasn’t.

Inside Jaxson finally felt safe. No one would come in here to question him or arrest him or whatever would happen to someone who was tinkering with an imaginary aeutoman. Settling into his workstation he plugged the stations power crystal into the power port and waited for the machine to be ready. Once the prompt was flashing, he put in the details of the request what few there were and submitted it. The submission came back almost immediately.

“That’s strange” Jaxson muttered “What’s the matter with my report” he looked at the screen. In red letters next to his report, it said ‘Incorrect Address’. “Incorrect address. Hmmmm lets look.” He opened the file and checked the address against the request that he had received. They were the same. “That’s weird. There was an address marker on the fence, and it didn’t look new” Jaxson didn’t really know what to do so he left it as it was. He had decided on the way back not to put anything in the report about the aeutoman. He wrote it up as a crank call. No one there, nothing to fix and left it at that. He leaned back in this chair and went through the night’s events again and again, hoping there wouldn’t be another call till after shift change.

Deep in the warehouse that Jaxon left in such a hurry. The eyes of the aeutoman began to glow.