[Original Novel] Champion of the Little People, Part 16

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I couldn’t convince the little guys to part with the music player. They absolutely love that thing. So it would be up to me to make the music. After we’d lain for a time, looking up at the stars, identifying satellites and the space station and holding hands, I started singing. She seemed surprised but didn’t stop me.

I didn’t know any popular recent love songs. I don’t keep up with that sort of thing. I just picked a song my mom used to sing to me because it captured the same feeling I wanted to share with her.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are grey.
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.
Please don’t take, my sunshine away.”

So it went, each of the verses burned into my memory. When I finished, she didn’t say anything. For a while I wondered if she was weirded out, if it was corny or something. Then she rolled over, partly on top of me She rested her head on my heart, and wrapped her arm around me best she could in that position. “I won’t”, she whispered.

After that we got to pointing out constellations. I didn’t really know any so I just began making up names for them. Some time around “Bimbleton the bear shaver” she realized what I was doing, burst into laughter and twisted my nipple. I cried out in pain but was still laughing too hard to be angry.

The next day was mostly spent diving. Jenny lay on the shore watching anxiously. There proved to be plenty of air in the tanks according to the gauge but the kit had been sitting unused for who knows how long. Yet everything went more or less smoothly. The jugs were as awkward out of water as I remembered so I didn’t lug any of them onto land.

Instead once they were at the surface, pumping my legs to keep it there, I quickly pried out the cork with a remover my mom often uses on wine bottles, and wedged in the new T-valve. It took nearly an hour to complete the procedure, including linking the jugs on the bottom with the rubber tubing. But once I’d done that, the hard part was finished.

I screwed a cap onto one end to seal it, and another on the opposite end, Both with some sort of rubber lined ring around a hatch inset in the center, added by the little ship builders. They were really insistent about that. Not my business though. I was wearing only one of the cylinders, having brought the other down with me, disconnected from the regulator so I could use it to purge the tubes of water.

I couldn’t see very clearly in the murky water so at first it seemed like nothing was happening until all the water was out. Then a thin plume of bubbles rose from the seam where I’d stretched the tube over one arm of the T-valve. Excess air escaping, my cue to move on to the next tube section. It proceeded like this until all the tubing was purged, then I opened the T-valves.

I stayed on the bottom long enough to watch little processions of glowing green lights I knew to be foxfire lanterns winding their way up the branches of their respective bushes, then cautiously explore the full length of the corridor now linking all of the jugs together.

Groups which hadn’t so much as seen one another except as moving lights in the next jug over for more than a year, finally reunited. Able to freely visit one another as desired. It made sense of the shipbuilders’ scheme, although at that time I’d only begun to understand the extent of it.

As I swam to shore I felt something tug at my leg and wrap around it. Once out of water I discovered it to be some sort of netted enclosure full of minnows. A trap? Or were they farming fish now?

The purpose of the little round hatches in the end caps also became clear when I checked on the pier and shipyard. The little submarine had a new nose with an identically sized hatch and simple mechanism for gripping the rim of the other one and holding the two tightly together.

Jennifer had followed and again marveled at the detail of the facility. “You really go all out with this stuff.” I had nothing to say by this point. “Oh!” she blurted out. “Another one of your submarines. Are these radio controlled or what?” Sure enough a sub identical to the one under construction had surfaced and docked to the pier.

“We should go”, I said. “They’ll want to get out and recharge it, refill the air or whatever. They can’t do that while you’re around. They only show themselves to me.” She looked smug and nodded. “Uh huh. Your little elf buddies. Okay.” Winston came into view galloping along the shore, chasing birds which for all I knew bore itty bitty riders. I didn’t mention it. She only tolerated that sort of thing in small doses.

Winston tackled Jenny, slobbered all over her face, then did the same to me. I checked his shoulder and found the spear wounds were now healed over. He really shouldn’t have been caught up in it, but I wondered whether we might’ve lost had he been absent. For better or worse he’d developed a taste for Tyrants.

Something he reminded me of by horking up one of their arms. Jenny shrieked and hid her face. I laughed. “He probably just ate a frog. His ancestors were wolves yenno, can’t get rid of that hunting instinct.” He flopped over and I rubbed his belly, further strengthening the association. I didn’t know much about how to train dogs, but I knew I liked dead Tyrants.

We were disqualified from participating in the regional robotics competition. I hadn’t anticipated that the entry criteria would be more stringent. A team of volunteers scrutinized each robot for signs of rule violations and when they discovered the processor module on the metal Tyrant wasn’t hooked up to anything, questions arose.

One of them eventually peered into the cockpit. The pilot had the good sense to duck out of view, but the seat and controls were fully visible. “You guys won’t believe this. I think he’s trained a mouse to pilot this thing.” The other laughed and rejected the idea until they too peered into the metal tyrant’s head through the viewport.

“That’s the most creative way to cheat I’ve ever heard of, kid. Gotta hand it to you. But this event is for actual robots. I’ll do you a favor and keep this under wraps so PETA doesn’t hang you, but for obvious reasons you can’t compete. Sorry.” Jenny took it much harder than I did, swearing up a storm until she was asked to leave.

“That’s bullshit!” she shouted. “There’s no mouse in this thing! It’s a real robot!” She looked at me for affirmation as we walked out to the car. I shook my head, and she looked puzzled. Tired of games, I popped the hatch on the back of the metal Tyrant’s head and pulled out the pilot.

“You see? I was telling the truth”. She looked at the little guy in my hand. Then back at me. “I wonder about you”. I didn’t understand until I looked down at the Homunculus. He was holding a pose, such that he resembled an action figure. “No!” I objected, “Look closer!” But she just laughed and got into the car.

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