SoulStone
#50: Another Day at the Salt Mine.
“Yo Sam” Shelby said one day to his foreman “How’s stuff”
“Why hey there boy! How’s the Texan?” Sam replied. Sam was the shift foreman. He was a vet also as well as an amputee. He’d been in a different war than Shelby. Sam was missing one leg below the knee. He had, what he called a “wooden leg.”
“Fine, fine,” Shelby replied. “Ready for another day at the salt mine.”
“How you doing you old buzzard?” the small dragon on Shelby’s shoulder spoke up.
Sam’s eyes sparkled. “That thing sounds better all the time boy.....moves natural too. It damn near looks real. If it was a parrot or something I’d not give it no never mind. Why’d you choose a dragon for your puppet?”
“Some places won’t allow parrots. There aren’t any laws about dragons.” Shelby said.
Sam sighed. “You got THAT right. So many laws. It’s not like the old days.”
“That’s why we went to war isn’t it?” Shelby asked sarcastically. “To protect our liberty?”
Sam looked at Shelby a little odd. He decided not to comment on the political remark. Instead he said “I guess everyone needs a hobby. ”
Shelby said “Yup and I have two of them. I’m a smart ass and I’m also an animatronic tinker.”
Sam grinned at the self deprecating remark. It was true that Shelby’s wit was sharp. Sam thought he was a genius. God knows why he stayed on that glass bead machine. Sam had offered him any number of promotions into engineering. After a minute Sam replied. “Animatronic? Is that what it’s called? ”
They chatted for a while until it was time to clock in.
The business made a point of hiring the disabled. The majority of whom were veterans. Shelby run the glass bead machine which was a type of sandblaster.
It had a bench in front of it for him to stand on. Shelby rolled his wheelchair close to his work station then grabbed a roof support beam by one hand. With no apparent effort he lifted himself up and out of the wheel chair. Then he swung around and sat himself gently onto the bench. Still with one hand. Two workers who were walking by stopped dead in their tracks to watch him.
“Dayam” one of them said to the other “That old fart is STRONG.”
“Stronger than you think” the other one said “have you heard what he did to those gang-bangers who tried to mug him the other day?”
“No...what happened?”....the two walked off talking. Shelby heard some of what they said, he had good hearing...now. The story got bigger with each retelling. The truth of the matter was that he’d only broken a couple of their arms. Well maybe a leg or two also...and cracked a skull...and some teeth.....
That reminded him. He was getting seriously tired of this damn archaic wheel chair. He remembered fondly the arackanoid exoskeleton he’d worn during the last days in the tunnels. He wondered what ever had happened to it.
He was half tempted to make another exo-walker. It wouldn’t be hard. He recalled the techniques that he and the voice had used to build his equipment in Cu Chi. He could extrude a diamond sharp fingernail in a few minutes that would cut through almost anything. A smear of his blood would allow the blood-nanites to work their magic. Elvira would control the fiddly work just as well as the voice had.
He hadn’t done so because he’d had second thoughts. The public backlash toward too MUCH technology might get hairy. There was no telling what kind of conspiracy ‘theories’ it might spawn. The religious right could be even worse. Hell, some rightwing fundamentalist might call it the horse of the devil, ’satan’s steed’ or something. Then where would he be? No...on careful consideration he decided that he’d keep that card up his sleeve....for now. He’d have to think about it for a while.
Irregardless...he needed to do something about that damn wheelchair and soon. It was hard, even for him, to cary it up so many flights of stairs to his apartment. It was nice having one of the so called ‘penthouse’ apartments. He really liked sitting on the roof at night and watching the sky. But still, hadn’t they ever heard of elevators? Sadly, he knew the answer. Of course they had. The building had them and they were busted like so much else in the building was busted. The building owners would rather use the government subsidy money for something else. Why use it to repair things that broke down? The money was better spent bribing...cough that would be lobbying, congress for more grants.
Thus...once broke down or worn out, things were rarely ever fixed. So they never got around to fixing the elevators.
Shelby had been leaving the wheelchair in a closet on the bottom floor. Then he’d scuttle up the stairs like a monkey. He could get around just fine without the damn thing. He used it to avoid offending other’s delicate sensibilities. He had to be careful though. If he frightened the other tenants...too badly...they’d complain. If enough of them complained ....
....he’d rather not deal with that.
He’d have to come up with some kind of solution that didn’t look TOO alien and cause the poor darling’s to get their panties in a wad...maybe. He’d have to think about that. Luckily his job wasn’t mentally demanding and he could daydream while he worked.
Hell...maybe he’d just move.
He wasn’t really tickled about that old apartment anyway. Perhaps he’d squat on one of those abandoned barges along the river. There seemed to be quiet a few. From the looks of it he wasn’t the first to have that idea. It had looked like other’s lived there. Hell they might be all taken.
Shelby settled himself onto the bench, turned the machine on, stuck his arms into the gloves and went to work. He looked thru the window into the blast compartment as he held parts in one hand and directed the glass bead nozzle with the other. He leaned against the front of the machine and thought about a replacement for his wheelchair while he worked.
Hell...maybe he’d just move.
The Next Episode is
#51: Track Chair
The Previous Episode was
#49: I want a Dragon
the First episode was
#1 : Prologue
I'm
@everittdmickey
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I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
I have books on Amazon too.
Sometimes I also comment on the news
Sometimes it's hard to tell fiction from the news.
wow! cool post.......
great writing
Yep time to go find an empty barge, nice place on the water. lots of room.
I took care of a C2 quad for a year. I tried to get him out of the city, and back into the woods, but those damn skinny tired chairs suck for cross country. I suggested a tracked chair, which would let him go up stairs, etc., but he thought it would be too expensive.