Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (8 page)

Alice studied me a bit longer, her green eyes shifting intuitively. She must have known I wasn’t alright. Perhaps it was the way I’d slumped myself up against the wall, or the look on my shiny and slacken face. Whatever she’d noticed, whatever had tipped her off, Alice kept it to herself as she came over to give me the hug I so desperately needed just then.

“I’m fine.” She squeezed me tight. “I’m better than fine. You gotta see this.” Her voice grew squeakily excited toward the end of her statement. She turned to Zeke and gave the thing a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Show Miles what you just showed me.”

The robot turned and lowered its gaze to the workbench. There was another shifting of mechanical innards as an optical plate dilated on its head like the lens of a camera, emitting about ten strips of neon-green light. They seemed to oscillate in rapid succession as each individual strip became all but indistinguishable from the next, coming together to form a single sheet of emerald light. I could see three-dimensional objects beginning to form within the thin mass, melting away at the edges, and somehow casting shadows until it formed a person.

I could see Alice in my peripheral and didn’t have to look directly at her to know she’d been deeply admiring my state of disbelief. An obvious and indisputable grin had pulled her cheeks apart as I’d started to lose what control I had over my jaw. It was practically on the floor. I snapped it shut, pretending to be simply fascinated rather than astonished.

“That was my reaction also,” she admitted, knowing full well that I was in awe.

“This is incredible.” I put out my hand, half expecting the light to have a slick and smooth texture, as my fingers sent pillars of darkness into the image. I pulled my hand back, letting the picture ripple back into focus. Zeke had projected a hologram of Tim, the kid who’d just paid me a visit. He was on the move, surely heading toward whichever cozy location he’d made his home. Too far of a distance to walk, I’d heard him start up a vehicle outside. I could see then that it was a small dirt bike.

“This is how we watched you,” Alice revealed. “Zeke gets the image from Arcturus.”

“This is incredible,” I blurted again, wishing I had something better to say. My mind was swimming with this robot’s potential. Not only did we have all the benefits of a superhuman machine, we now had eyes that could reach well into the city. It just kept getting better.

“So the kid risked his life over a memento, huh?” Alice asked. “Not too bright of him.”

“Yeah, I guess he did.” I glanced over at the plush toy suspended by its pull cord. “But it’s wrong of me to insult his intelligence. I suppose I would have done the same thing.”

“You would have,” she agreed. “You’ve stuck your neck out for less.”

“So maybe you should insult
my
intelligence.”

“I would, but I don’t think you’d get it,” she grinned.

“Ouch.” I smiled and looked back at the robot, pointing to the boy on the dirt bike. “Zeke, can you follow him? I want to know where he’s going.”

Zeke nodded, tilting its head as it processed the request.

“What do you want with him?” Alice suddenly seemed concerned, but there was an edge of frustration brewing within her. I felt an argument on the horizon.

“Nothing, I just think he’ll need a friend sometime ... eventually.”

“What does that mean?” She could tell when my wheels were turning. She knew me better than anyone.

“Kid’s got himself in a tough spot, that’s all—might need a little help someday.”

“You’ve always gotta be the humanitarian,” she smirked.

“Saved you, didn’t I?”

“And, believe me; I’m only trying to return the favor when I say this ....” She put a hand against my face, a surface as abrasive as a low-grade emery cloth, and tried to cushion me for what was said next: “But maybe it’s time to put a little coagulant on that bleeding heart of yours.”

“Is that supposed to be poetic?”

“No, just good advice.”

“Well, thank you, but my heart doesn’t bleed,” I corrected. “It just sympathizes in a manly way.”

“Call it whatever you want, but one day it’s gonna get you killed.” The conversation grew instantly serious. “And what happens to me when you don’t come back? What am I supposed to do then?” Alice’s voice began to firm in her throat. There was an iciness about her now.

“That’s what Zeke is for,” I answered calmly, tapping the machine on its chest as the hologram disappeared.

“Yeah, is he your replacement? Does he give you the peace of mind to go out on some stupid suicide mission? Why can’t you just leave it alone? Why can’t you ever just let yourself be happy? Why don’t you feel like you deserve it?”

“I won’t be here forever, Alice. Who knows how much time we’ve got? Yeah, I want to know you’ll be alright if I don’t come back one of these days. I want you to be safe. Are you happy?”

Alice turned and walked back toward the hallway. I could see her trying to harness the tears beginning to well in her eyes. She glanced back at me before she left. “I understand that, Miles,” she whispered. “I just wonder why you feel you’re worth so much less than I am.” She took another few steps away, this time not looking back. “Enjoy your robot,” I heard her mutter, and she was gone.

I looked up at Zeke, who seemed self-aware enough to be uncomfortable in the present situation. “I think I screwed up,” I told it, wanting so badly to have a conversation with someone—one of those therapeutic ball-busters I used to have with the guys back at work, or the playful banter I’d have with a bartender while tossin’ back a few at the Ol’ Pub downtown—but Zeke was the only one around. “You ... uh ... you don’t understand women, do ya, Zeke?”

The robot looked on me with its eyeless cranium. “Women?” it inquired. “What language?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You said it, Zeke. Well put.”

I
didn’t sleep well that night. Partially due to the robot, who’d been walking restlessly around the cavern for hours, but mostly because of the recent argument between me and Alice. I tossed about, staring up at the ceiling and mumbling random thoughts that entered my mind.

Reflection can be an ugly place. I found myself recapping an entire lifetime of trials and tribulations—past failures that continued to haunt me, digging themselves deeper into the cracks of my psyche. They hid in places I couldn’t reach.

If I were to write each of them down I’d have something as thick as the Bible, but ten times more daunting. Perhaps I was subconsciously answering Alice’s last question. Maybe I was convincing myself just how unworthy I really was to be left on this Earth. I watched as the memories poured through me like a dusty film reel, and it was there that I’d been subjected to my own brand of spiritual battery.

I felt a bit like a psychopath undergoing some new and experimental kind of treatment, all harnessed and shackled with eyelids pried open. Eventually I was able to drift off into some alternate form of sleep—a very dark and dreamless state—only to rise again at some point that night.

I’d been awoken by nothing in particular, the lids of my eyes had opened as I’d found myself strangely alert there in the dark. My limbs felt impossibly heavy beneath the rest I’d not fully obtained, as if they’d been injected with a steady stream of mercury. I slid a slick knuckle over each eye and pressed down hard, wiping the remaining residue from the crevices.

My body was still very tired but something in my brain would not allow it any further relaxation at the moment. There was something I needed to do, some task that had called out to me from some unknown stage of sleep.

I left my room and entered the hallway, there I turned left and let my fingers slide along the rough subterranean wall until they passed over the dip that signified the opening of Alice’s quarters. I quietly pushed the curtain aside and entered—uninvited.

The first thing I saw was a digital clock she’d always kept beside her bed. It was one of her earliest restoration projects. She’d discovered it in the junkyard years ago. Once just a useless collection of garbage, the clock had been smashed to bits, but Alice had insisted on gathering each and every single piece to mull over down in the shop.

I’d observed her thoughtfully as she twisted her shiny black hair between those slender fingers, running the mechanical puzzle through her head again and again. She was much younger then, and I had not yet completely learned of her unique gifts in the areas of engineering. I’d even told her to forget about it—told her she was just wasting her time.

But, of course, she had soon found a way to mend it, to refresh the digital elements within, and revive the light of which it had once been so capable. I guess that was another gift she’d been given—seeing the potential in things that others would surely overlook, and finding the light where there had only been darkness. Against all odds that thing sat there now, pouring its little neon blue numbers into the room, as it wearily advised me of the time. It was only four thirty in the morning.

Alice was facing me, her covers pulled up, as I came to kneel beside her. Not entirely sure what I was doing there, I resorted to staring at her as she slept. Dinah was curled up in a tiny ball by her feet, purring steadily into the night and keeping that little patch of sheets perfectly warm.

I placed my hand on Alice’s pillow and felt the thin fabric, still damp from the tears she’d invested in it earlier. With a handful of blankets clutched in her fingers, it looked as though she’d cried her way to the edges of sleep.

I wanted so badly to touch her—to crawl in bed beside her. Instead I ran a hand just an inch or so above her, feeling the smoothness of her skin, if only in my mind, passing the slope of her right shoulder and continuing down her arm.

It was there that I saw the dark marking poking out from beneath her t-shirt, the mark that spanned the outside of her bicep. It was a mark given to her by those that had created her, although its true meaning had continued to remain a mystery. Being a collaboration of circles, lines, and half-moons, the tattoo looked a lot like any crop-circle design that the media would have posted, at least back when that sort of thing topped the news.

The design was quite beautiful in all its premeditated eccentricity, but ominous in its lack of translation or direction. I’d initially not known exactly how to feel about it, but because of it simply being a part of Alice, I soon found I’d grown to love it.

And Alice, perhaps becoming sick of my curiosity, had come to me early one morning with her final decision as to what that marking meant. With her hand politely covering a mouthful of raccoon meat, she had shared with me a single word, “Hope.”

And I found it beyond perfect.

As I admired Alice without her knowledge, beneath the hindrance of excessive illumination, she almost appeared to be entirely human. The aspects of Alice that made her slightly different from me were suddenly softened; her rubicund complexion appearing only as a deep tan, and complemented by the darkness of her hair, had transformed her into some exotic island goddess in slumber.

It reminded me of my early days in the military and the forty-eight hours I’d spent in Singapore, respectfully requesting to have those two days free from the ship. I’d ended up spellbound by one of the country’s beautiful natives. Looking at Alice, I found myself back in that hotel room in Singapore, back when the world had made sense and back when everything seemed so magical in its unwavering and unquestionable endlessness.

A good friend of mine once said that we all have to go a little insane sometimes, even if only for a night, just because that seems to be the best way to protect our sanity (as odd as that sounds). I never really knew what that meant until I started to give into that fantasy, loosening just a few of reality’s painful screws, and allowing that radical whimsy a little room to breathe.

And there, for perhaps only the wink of a moment, I found a sliver—a mere glimpse—of peace somewhere within myself. But the euphoric remembrance was ultimately broken by Dinah, who had lifted herself up from the pleasant nest she’d created to hiss at the six-foot robot standing over me. I looked up, pressed my index finger to my lips, and quickly returned to my room.

I arose a bit later that morning and gathered what I could before I left. I found Zeke by the monitors, pointing to a raccoon in a trap. “You’ve caught an animal,” it boasted.

“Yeah, they’re really not as clever as they look.”

The sky was in a milky haze as I emerged from the cavern. I noticed the clouds had compacted overnight, churning and rustling together until they formed a single bulky and bulbous overhead mass, as I went first to stand atop a large freight door. It was thick and sturdy and flattened to the earth’s surface like the last remaining relic of some forgotten factory. Its metal rippled in solid three inch waves—its undulating texture beneath me. Although it had once been drenched in a gleaming coat of safety yellow, patches of rust had long since seeped into its edges, crept along its angles, and graced it with the brittle appearance of an autumn leaf.

I gave the door a hard stomp, instantly disappointed by the hollowness that echoed within. Anyone with half a brain and a heavy boot would know there was a generous void under that door.

The thing was anchored down to a rack and pinion, and capable of a motorized back and forth motion. Acting as a horizontal garage door, the pit below housed both my Kawasaki and my (rarely driven) Jeep Wrangler, along with several very large containers of gasoline. And yet the door’s weakness wasn’t at all in its construction, but rather in the telltale manner in which it gave away my storage chamber. “This could very well be our undoing,” I huffed, stomping down one final time.

The pitter-pat of soft-falling raindrops tapped and clanked as they collided with various metals and plastics within the junkyard, trickling down to create tiny rivers that would eventually lead to larger puddles. The mood was somber.

Even that raccoon we’d caught looked immensely solemn, virtually soaking wet and dangling there. It had been completely open to discuss the terms of its surrender. The negotiations were short and its struggle was minimal at best.