[Original Novel] Not Long Now, Part 10

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Breakfast was the same meal we’d eaten the prior evening. I thought to ask if it was always the same before remembering to mind my station. I dutifully finished everything on my plate, then joined the whirlwind of merry kitchen work.

When that was done, muscles aching anew, I dropped by my room to pick up my toolbox. I then set out to receive my first repair assignment of the day. From Agnes, it turned out. She wore a pleasant white bonnet today, seated before a sturdy iron table that those awaiting assignments were queued in front of.

"Today you're servicing the backup dynamo” she informed me once I finally reached the head of the line. “It supplies electrical power when the main turbine is down...Say, why are you already fouled up?"

I looked down at my hands, still stained with grease and soot from the night before. "...I spotted a linkage that needed oiling last night, so I took it upon myself to-" She smiled and gestured for me to stop. "Say no more! Off you go. Hurry it along now, mind the schedule."

With that, I ascended to the second floor for the first time since my arrival, and found there a most perplexing scene. Row upon row of stationary bicycles, all with a little generator in the wheel of the sort boys often attach in order to power an electric lamp.

Only there were no such lamps. Wiring from each bicycle trailed up to the ceiling, where a grid of thin metal restraints organized all of it and kept it off the ground. I boggled at all of it, though I could not rightly say it was the strangest thing I’d so far seen in this place.

I followed the flow of the thick bundles of red and black wiring to its terminus, a buffer of capacitors and some sort of converter box. I assumed it converted the irregular current from all of the cycles into something appropriate for the structure's larger electrical system.

"Bout time." I turned to find the grubby blonde boy from the night before, a wrench dangling from his hand. In this light I could see his skin was lightly covered in a mixture of dirt and soot, and he wore a ragged set of brown overalls with only one strap. There was something slightly off about his facial proportions and posture that I began trying to work out the nature of.

"My name is Frederick." I introduced myself in turn, then inquired what the problem seemed to be. "Sometimes spinner stops working. Bad day, lots of work stoppage. Miss Alice can't stand work stoppage. Mind the schedule, she says! Is fine today, so no pedalers" he gestured behind him to the fixed bicycles. "But power box have problem."

He led me to the mass of electrical machinery adjacent to the array of fat, menacing looking capacitors I saw on the way in. "Power can", Frederick blurted out. "One of them makes pop pop sound, smells like smoke. I have new one just made yesterday to put in."

Made yesterday? I pressed him for more and was informed that there was a level devoted to manufacturing replacement parts for the various electrical systems. I’d not seen it yet, but believed him. Ensuring this great machine could sustain itself independent of outside industry was after all something Grandfather harped on about at length in his journal.

The other thing which preoccupied me as I assisted the short, muscular troll of a boy with his work was that he spoke in a stunted fashion. As though he had some rudimentary education but not beyond the sort one receives by the age of seven or eight.

More troubling, he never quite focused on anything. Sure he’d look in my general direction, but with a dull, glassy eyed stare the likes of which I’ve mainly seen from drunks or the mentally ill. This, and his awkward manner of speech, led me to suspect his mother drank when he was in the womb.

Something of that sort, surely. Uncharitable thoughts to have, but then I’ve seen more than a few like him in workhouses before. Nothing at all makes that sort of man unsuitable for menial labor, and if anything they suffer the tedium less because of it.

“Hurry. You are clumsy with tools. Job will take all day if you work like that! Special supper tonight, I don’t want to miss.” I inquired what made it special. He flashed a lopsided grin, eyes almost making contact but not quite. Mostly on account of pointing slightly different directions. “I forget, you are new. Surprise waiting. I won’t spoil for you, was very happy day for me first time.”

He wouldn’t say more, so I let it alone. The mystery of it proved quite enticing, as well as the promise of occasional culinary variety. That made work go faster, which was a welcome mercy since the nature of it was mind numbingly repetitive.

There were just so many bicycles. I know well enough how to repair them, I’ve had my own on occasion that I used to run errands for the families I lived with. But to perform the same few repairs on identical machines, over and over…

Frederick didn’t seem bothered by it. On the contrary, by all appearances he was in his element. Humming and smiling, hobbling about in a spritely fashion. As I suspected, if anything his condition made him better adapted to his station in life than I’ve ever been.

As his sausage like fingers deftly removed the gear, several teeth of which were sheared off somehow, I overheard him singing softly to himself. A queer little song I assume he devised to make the hours go by.

"Alice say work, so Freddy boy work. Alice say eat, so Freddy boy eat! Alice say sleep, so Freddy boy sleep. Freddy been a good boy, gonna get a treat!"

I found it quite charming. But when he noticed me watching him, he fell silent. Self conscious perhaps. I averted my gaze, feeling a pang of regret for having embarrassed the spritely lad, and resumed re-spoking the wheel I had in hand.

The hours dragged on. Soon my fingers, knuckles in particular, were scraped up and slightly bruised from working with all the sharp, hard edged little bicycle parts. It turned out I'd been using my hands for a task that my toolbox included a device for performing. I briefly wondered whether Freddy was really the dim bulb between us.

But really, he seemed in all ways better adapted to this life than I. To hear Darwin tell it, that's what really counts. Evolution cares not for how bright you are, if it is maladaptive in the environment where you find yourself.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 11!}