Oh, thank goodness for another chapter! I'm loving the post-it war between Piper and Annette, and the pictures in the nursery are a lovely touch.
Good luck with your IT-adventures, I hope all goes well for you.
Parts are ordered and I'm definitely feeling good about this new computer!
Dear Annette,
I thought my founder became an evil pain in the neck. He has nothing on you. Thank you for some perspective. [apologies on the language!]
Thanks for editing.
I actually had a few founders worse than Annette. I failed with them because there is a limit to how much badness a founder can have but still run a dynasty on.
And the subtext for one of them got way too dark, though I thankfully pulled the plug on that dynasty before my writing could take me there. Not that Annette isn't, and I'm pushing the rules I'm supposed to enforce with a character who's a criminal-turned-widow-turned-rude, maybe bigoted drunkard.
Chapter 113: Dōmo Arigatō, Mr. Roboto
Lily pulled Tegan aside late one afternoon.
“Bryant is free.”
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Tegan said, reaching out to feel her mother’s cheek for any obvious bruises. “I thought our plan was foolproof, to be honest.”
“I thought so too.”
Let’s go back a bit.
Tegan called International Robotics to say that she sat on the decision to build a robot, and thought it was a nice final project for her. She wore her comfiest nightshift and grit her fangs through a crowded teleconference to discuss the plans that the engineers at IR devised beforehand, and this invention needed something more than recycled scrap. Tegan jotted down the materials. Palladium was a key component of the electrodes in the bot’s inner workings. Hard, fine parts were best worked with pink diamond. The family had none of that.
“Sounds good, guys,” Tegan said, before hanging up. “Mum, where do you find palladium?”
France had rich deposits, but Twinbrook was bare of palladium. “Don’t worry Peapod, you can always make a deal with grandpa Franco about that,” Lily said, “Plus, that old grouch is bored out of his skull. I think he needs a job. Anyways, Phil is crying right now, and I think it’s your turn to take him.”
“It’s my pleasure, mum,” Tegan said. “And he needs a lot of love and support, lest he be some problem child.”
“Point taken, but you don’t need to be so uptight about it. You two are the sweetest parents ever, so how could you raise a hellion?”
I blame that Racket blood.
Placated by the promise of raising a normal son (oh Tegan, you poor girl) once the crying thing stopped, Tegan lumbered downstairs and into the nursery. Sometimes Phil cried because of an actual problem, but he probably felt alone. She took note of a guest in the house and bent over to pick Phil up.
As noted earlier, Piper sometimes invited Kylie’s uncle Horace over to help her with her homework. It was a lazy day for everyone, especially for Horace, because he dragged himself over to the Waverly mansion, fought off Annette who drank at 10AM, and still considered helping his niece’s girlfriend the best way to spend a day. He limped with some half-dead slump and insulted Piper with a lazy collection on insults that didn’t even get homophobic.
“Are you okay, Mr. Coddle?” Piper asked.
“No. I’d rather die right here, blondie,” he mumbled.
Whether divine intervention, fate, or cyanide pills did it, Horace kept true to that promise.
And Piper mourned for a loss for her in-laws.
Tegan barely knew Horace, but she gave Lily the news and dug up nostalgic feelings about Julian. “It wasn’t really that long ago when Julian died,” Tegan said. “And now his kids are. Like, of natural causes. It’s sad, and Horace reminds me of Julian a bit anyways.”
“It’s in the eyes,” said Lily. “Horace wasn’t a nice guy, but it’s tough to think about Julian’s own dying off. He was older than me, but by what? Twenty years? Okay, honey, I just feel old about it, that’s all.”
“That’s awful sweet of you, mum.”
“And I just want to kick aging in the family jewels and finish this dynasty for good!”
“You do that. Anyways, death will give way to life, or an artificial one. Time to build a bot.”
“Bug your grandpa about the palladium first. This thirty day squat challenge won’t do itself,” said Lily.
Sometimes, I wonder who the most sane of us was. Often, it had to be a relative thing, as we all had issues that made us a bunch of loonies to the public eye. I loathed that. I didn't do much to counter those claims either. Franco might have done a better job on most days. It made sense. He dressed well and had an old-fashioned charm, and an angsty, melancholic air that a lot of women seemed to regard as a turn-on. Was Franco sane? Maybe sometimes.
This is not a tale of that sanity.
In fact, it's pretty silly.
One funny thing I learned is that "Franco" is an Italian name meaning "French." Naturally, then, he held the Visa to France and signed his name on the deed to the cottage we owned. He knew the landscape well and took it upon himself to comb the idyllic French countryside for the poor man's platinum. The tablet app to do that helped too.
He ran and ran for a few days, collecting ore along the way. Any ore that stuck out enough for him not get dirt under his impeccably manicured fingernails was there for Franco’s picking, though most of it ended up being cheap iron. After a few generations, he was finally tired of Champs Les Sims! He did a few laps around each side of the river bank and saw all of the soft grass and butterflies he needed to. And he had half a suitcase full of palladium ore.
Franco called Tegan, and waited a long time for her to pick up. But she did.
“Yeah, gramps?” she said.
“How much palladium do you need, honey?” he asked.
“However much ore will make 10 bars. I bet you’ve done great!” Franco hung up without saying good-bye, and uttered an ungentlemanly “well, crap” upon looking at his half-empty suitcase. All of the surface ore was exhausted from the town, and he didn’t have much good karma built up in the next one over.
He decided to paint in the garden to decompress, only to notice a large yellow machine sitting idle near the clothesline. A drill hovered close to the ground. Annette used one of those at home, and got police citations for disturbing public property, wildlife, and peace for it. As long as he wouldn’t lose his Visa over it, it was worth a shot. As Annette said, nothing weird lived underground anyways.
The lawn hated him after that, and Franco hated it too. He prided himself on a lot of material things, including a nice lawn no matter what home it was. The gaping hole was for his granddaughter.
As were the dirty clothes, and the fear of what could be beyond. If it wasn’t underground civilizations, it could be a collapsing tunnel, or an underwater ocean that would engulf him whole.
Actually, that is what I would worry about. I think Franco really, really didn’t want his nice vest scuffed up by the earth.
In short, he learned that his mum was wrong, or just had a different experience. He came across what he called “a comely cave-lady. In order to woo her, I took on the garb of her people. Listen, honey, it had been about four whole days since I had last been with another woman and it was getting to a bad point.”
“So did you get lucky that day?” I asked him.
“It wasn’t as good as I expected, but yes. And I got to keep the clothing she gave me too. Oh, and some more of Tegan’s palladium in the next cavern over.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the first to hear that story. He recounted it as soon as he returned to Twinbrook to Kraig, his grandson. From what I heard, Kraig just awkwardly nodded and wondered why his overweight and fashion-savvy grandpa thought that the cavesuit was in good taste.
Franco's temporary insanity went on in Twinbrook too. Maybe a friend told him that the fur wrap was sexy? They sound like a crummy hypothetical friend, especially because it led Franco to go public with his new habit. He mined in front of City Hall. He really needed to burn those furs.
His own descendents could only watch in horror. Benjamin Knack’s big eyes stared off into the distance. Rachael teased him about how embarrassing it was.
It turned out to be embarrassing enough for even Annette to drag Franco home by the ear and have a stern talk with her elderly son. “You’re acting like a fool. That’s my job!” she said.
“I need to get laid, okay?” he muttered. “Not getting that is driving me crazy.”
“Get your nice clothes back on and smile for once. You haven’t fathered a child in over a generation, so be happy about that!”
“It is pretty nice not to be nooboo-crazy.”
“So stop being a Negative Nancy, or a Crazy Cathy. However I’d describe going out like that. Really, I enjoy having a technically sane household, and if Heph is able to not be crazy, why can’t you?”
I dunno, Annette. I found the story hilarious when it was recounted to me years later.
But really, it was a blessing that Hephaestus took a permanent turn for the better. He spent most of his days doting on Phil and battling the other elders for that privilege. “You have all the time in the world later,” he said. “I wish I did, but I know that the world doesn’t work that way.” He said that to Lily, who was waiting for her turn with the little larva.
“Hey, sometime down the road, things will be done with for us, and maybe we can bring you back to life,” said Lily.
“You guys still have a while to go, right?” he asked. “Eight generations?”
“It’s good to think ahead, and I’m glad that you’re doing so well with Phil. He’ll be a fine young man with a father like you. After all of the drama with Tegan, I want a low-maintenance immortal.”
“He’ll be fine, Lily. And even if he isn’t, it will probably come with some horrible narcissism that makes him follow your rules anyways so he can preserve his awesomeness for eternity.” He handed Phil to her. “But he needs a wonderful grandmother too, and you’re just the woman for the job.”
Tegan counted her palladium bars up and had more than enough. After giving her grandfather a bear hug for all of his work, she immediately ran up to Lily to ask her about procuring a pink diamond.
“Don’t worry Peapod, you can spend time with Phil. He’s only a nooboo once,” said Lily. “And I’m on good terms with Elizabeth over at the consignment shop. I think she can help me scout for one. They were commonly used in jewelry back in the 2040’s, unless Annette is lying.”
“Apparently Liz just retired,” said Tegan. “I bet that the new clerk will like you, though.”
Lily, clean and showered and out of any morning haze, took a jog down to the consignment shop one afternoon, before doing her squats for day 21 that evening. She expected to greet a fresh-faced newcomer forced into retail, or a seasoned elder not quite ready for retirement from the business (unlike Liz, I guess).
She opened the door, which rung a bell attached to it and drew the attention of the man in front of the cash register. The first thing most customers noticed was his jet-black hair that was messy in the front, but all Lily saw were two green eyes that she wanted to claw out, and a face that unfortunately healed well.
“Hag,” he mumbled under his breath. It was Bryant, somehow out of prison and/or the psychiatric ward.
“Can’t even grow a neckbeard,” she retorted. “Look, I need a pink diamond. They’re pretty common in charms and necklaces from the 2040’s.”
“You’d know better than I do,” he said.
“Okay, I can’t do this any more. I thought you were locked up.”
“Got out on good behavior, and with a cocktail of meds too! And no, I don’t have any necklaces. Is that nutcase you have at home dead yet?” Bryant asked.
“He’s hoping that he has many more years in him,” said Lily. “You probably wouldn’t even sell me a diamond if you had it, right?”
“Correct you are.”
“It looks like my work here is done. Rot in hell!”
“Same to you!”
After that, she came home to Tegan to deliver the dreadful news that could have been more dreadful. “I survived without a scratch, which I think is great! And don’t worry, love, I can find a pink diamond the same way your grandpa found all of that palladium.”
“You’d look a lot better in a skimpy fur wrap,” said Tegan. “Especially after those squats.”
“That’s exactly the point. And hell, maybe after you build this robot, you can get an android of your own to protect you from this guy. Law enforcement was a good idea, but I guess it didn’t work.”
Lily chose to dig at the elixir consignment shop, with her cousin Emma there as an emergency helper in case things went dreadfully wrong. To be fair, it was probably a bad idea to bring a pregnant woman along for that job. Lily congratulated her on the incoming nooboo, until she remembered Emma’s partner was none other than Horace, the dead one.
I think Lily got a slap for that, and no guarantee of getting help if she met a hostile cave society instead of a hot caveman that looked like Bronson if she squinted right.
She got none of that, but the fifth cavern down had a shining ore sitting in a crevice. It shimmered with a pale pink reflection when Lily shone a light on it. If it wasn’t a pink diamond, it would probably still look good inside of a ring.
She got it cut into a shiny hunk of gem, which she didn’t need to do, but it was more presentable to Tegan that way. After bearing the bad news about Bryant’s freedom, Lily needed to send any bit of happiness she could to her daughter. Even if Tegan was still aglow with new parent bliss and bags under her eyes.
“Ta-da!” said Lily. handing Tegan a box with the diamond inside. “I’ll leave you alone to build this now.”
“Aww, thanks mum,” said Tegan. “Hopefully I can get it done before Phil’s birthday. That creeped up on me so fast!”
Tegan became one of those hard workers who devoted more energy into creativity than getting dressed. It got to “getting meals delivered to her” levels. The vague promise of having a robot army to remotely beat up Bryant drove her. However, the robot had to be delivered to International Robotics, put into production, and only then could she order a personal bodyguard. But it was a step in the most radical direction, especially because no one expected Bryant to reform or for his meds to work.
It was probably the evilest Tegan had ever been, and she still had justification for it.
It got her to the point of successfully assembling a leg and its twin, and then an arm. The most delicate electronic parts went into the torso. Tegan strained her eyes. The magnifying glass was a good invention for its time, perhaps, but it made her eyes hurt. However, it put life in the diodes and tiny wire ends as she let her fingers meet technology yet again. It pained her a bit. Bryant liked taking apart computer hardware when he was young. He did that over lunch. Tegan sometimes watched from afar.
This was the last thing she needed to do, so she stuck through it. Tegan put together delicate machinery right through putting in a long-lasting battery into the belly of the electronic beast.
Once the battery snapped in, her last creation was jolted to life.
“Ah, finally!” she cheered. “I’m free of this darn business!”
“Hello International Robotics, I am Ginger Snap 3500, built by Tegan Stoneham Curious.” She programmed phrases into him so he could present his case to International Robotics themselves. “However, my choice in words in programmable, and this is just a demo recording.”
“Let’s just get you off the bench,” Tegan said, using a remote to get her android on its feet.
“As you can see, I have a human range of motion,” Ginger Snap continued. “This means that I can take on human tasks with ease.”
“Maybe he can find his way to the institute, too,” Tegan said, in a whisper to himself. “It’s within his capabilities, and it sure would save me some time. Yeah, let’s just use the location ability.” She pressed a button on Snap’s torso compartment to enter in the coordinates of International Robotics’ headquarters, somewhere on the west coast. He had a long journey ahead of him, but the battery was designed to last for a year of constant use.
“And please, stay out,” were her last words to him before he left the room, but she regretted that. Ginger Snap 3500 was the reason she cleared off her workbench for the last time and sold her power tools to a second-hand seller, where they likely got a nice home. She turned off her phone for the night and turned off the lights in her workroom. And that is when she went downstairs into the indoors garden, kneeling down in front of the closest vine and giving it and its supporting post a hug.
“Nothing can separate us now,” she whispered to the plant. “It’s over, and all because of Ginger Snap.”
He still made a face at the mess in the front garden. And no, Tegan didn’t have a robot army to defeat Bryant with either. But she had her freedom as Ginger Snap 3500 jetted across the country.
Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto. He deserved the thanks.
Word Count for this chapter:
2,919Word Count so far:
238,993Notes:
- Oh man I really wanted to use that as a chapter title ever since...um, anyone who read the Ironstars probably remembers Alhena. I wanted to use that chapter title since I decided that
she would supermax inventing. And this was back in April 2013, if I remember correctly.
For anyone who missed the reference, I lifted it from
"Mr. Roboto" by Styx. And the line translates to "thank you, Mr. Robot."
- Ginger Snap's name is either a reference to how I'm naming all of my devices now ("Toffee Crunch" and "Butter Pecan"), or to the names for Android's operating systems (Ice Cream Sandwich, Kit-Kat, etc.). Either way, it's some lame joke about naming technology after desserts.
The game named him Chris, which was fine but it wouldn't do with another minor character named Chris who featured in Tegan's lifetime.
- Palladium really is, sort of, the poor man's platinum. It sells at a lower price, and it's in the same family of metals.
- Franco's caveman suit was actually lost in a game crash.
But that tidbit was too funny to me not to include.
- Bryant running the consignment shop was originally going to be a gag about him being angry about the breakup and not selling Lily the diamond because of it (a joke I would have ripped off from Turoskel anyways,
because she had a bit in her dynasty about not getting a camera because the clerk at the time was on bad terms with Dallas the dynasty husband. Also, read her dynasty if you haven't because it's good, and actually finished!). Then I came up with the darker saga over Bryant, but he wouldn't sell her the diamond then either.
My guess for the story on why he's out is really just parole and therapy. You still haven't seen the last of him!
