Okay, who doesn’t want to be a writer, right? Not me. I think that the thing I love most about the Golden Age of Science Fiction is the novelty of the genre. It’s a tabula rasa, man. Anything goes! Not really, but most things go, if they’re sciency, and fictiony. So, here goes. I reworked part of Wrench Monkey to make it more like a short story. It’s a vignette, smack in the middle of a thinking guy’s life.
Enjoy.
Wrench Monkey
A guy said you’re midas if you do the things other guys aren’t willing to do. A lot of guys try to do the same as me, twelve on and three off on a Reeler. I’m slinging fiber on the Jupiter Array, and I’m banking gold. There aren’t many that make it, not out here. Too many downs, not enough draw. See, a lot of the other Reddies got families shipped to Blue, and gravity pulls on them. Especially the noobs. They feel the drag of the gravity well and it makes them scratch their heads about priority. Their startup package included a relocate for partners and pups, so they’re stuck at half scratch with the rest going to four walls and formula. I was a Reddie, doing okay in one of the dome metros, working half-year lines keeping lights on, right out of service. They asked me to ride rocks out of the belt, and I jumped at it. Astro-mining? Bro. Strap a thruster on and hit go on someone else’s mark? What’s a little roll, pitch, and yaw, right? No problem unless someone doesn’t carry the one, then it’s straight toward the rock next door with an empty tank. Or you’re in open vac with no tether, hoping for a pickup before your O2 or power cell is dry. That’s a midas line, stone, but I stepped off after my run. Willing, right. I’m not that willing. Give me a blind jump. Anything except mining those grinders! Sure, lots of gold for space-mining iron and nickel, but what you don’t hear is a guy has a half-life of a one-year run in there, and…you’re only midas if…
So I stepped back down to swapping out LED mega-switches on the Olympus Comm Towers, then slung deep fiber sensors into the New Phoenix Wells, then ran repair on the Transarctic Web, across the top of the ice cap. I was set up on Red, consecutive, and they were putting me up, but gravity wasn’t pulling me, and the gold was… thin.
So when J-Array Recruit held a job draw, I put in with every box checked, and bro, they got back to me for the narc and psych screens before I got onto the cross dome lev. Stone, they did. Narc was never a problem. Some guys test out from bufosynth or p-cube, or, what, a hundred other GM organarcs? But their priorities are one-eighty out of phase. You don’t blow the mind that dreams you! Pickleheads. Steambrains, right? Let ’em stew. And I guess psych didn’t tag me out either. They had my public record, so they knew… Orphaned by the Global Flu in Pandemic I. Bussed off Blue and raised in conscription at a Red scatter town. Drawn to Active at fourteen, deployed in the Sino Migration Deterrence on Blue. Back to Red for DefCon Scholarship, because Reddies and Blues don’t mix. Straight to contract. No holes. No social. Maybe my record, with my high tower, deep aqua, and polar shelf stretches, pegged me the right kind of crazy. I don’t know. They won’t show mental on the public worker profile without auth. Maybe space was just the next thing. Whatever. They saw what they needed to, I guess, because they bought my contract, and waved the contingent.
Not a week I got fitted, loaded up with anti-rads, and shipped out. Probably dreamed of Red distancing off, because I sort of remember, but I don’t think I would’ve craned my neck to say goodbye to that ball. My clock wouldn’t start until I drifted through the hatch on the Sleeper, I didn’t know how many months out. Still don’t, and why do I care? It felt like a long nap, though. Some dreams. Some nightmares. Sometimes wide awake in liquid pitch wondering if being a solo was the new stretch.
Now I’m year three into my four, and all ready to box-check if the re-up bonus is midas enough. I’m free-floating. Zero G is my nirvana. Who needs bones, right? J-Array will get back with a number, but it’s a good stretch for me whatever. Someone said JA’s completion’s at three percent, but knowing is above my grade. Best case? One percent per year. That’s job security, bro.
Day in the life? My sleep and eat isn’t a trial. Float never got to me like some. I think no up no down like breathing. I wake up at bell, grab a folger, butterdoughs, crisps and moo, anything, and I’m good for the first six. Some guys regurge in their bunks, and kick and scream through morning chow. Some get shipped to Red, to wait for the next freight to 1G. You pick up the wrong call, I guess. Real stinkers, but not me. I’m head down and keep shoveling. I’m fifo.
Suit up, shield down, battery charged, tanks full, tools clipped. Put in a day drifting on tether, align to black, wait for NOC to confirm link, fine tune to the edge, tighten, drink lunch in the suit, and someone says go. I’m top slinger, so I usually get my twelve up first if no NOC wally bones it up.
Back to the Sleeper, the big chow, visor vids, and the ball rolls around. When I bunk up, I’m brain off. Let someone else think of tomorrow. It’s an old theory out here anyway.
So, there’s a down, right? Sure. The down is that nothing sings in the void. Yeah, one in six of us is a jill, and, no, they’re good as a jack out here on tether, don’t twist my tale. My crew is all jacks, but a pro is a pro, never mind parts. It’s back at base, in our veins, we’re all tweaked by the anti-rad drugs. See, the Sleeper bobs in a nuclear wake. Anti-rads block the, well, rads, duh, but what we don’t know going in is they saltpeter all us guys. The jills are fine; all sorts of four year girl-girls in the crews. But no jack and jill anywhere. So everyone’s a bro, and no one’s a go. Bro.
What else is the world’s a shell! We get a strap cot—not even biomold, so lay still or you wake up on the bulkhead—and a text screen at bunk. A text screen! Primitive, bro! A patch home is a stand-up in the hallway. No skin off my horn, but guys with ties to Blue have to say their goodnight honeys with wallies vid-bombing. And we stream immersion vid at a pale 4k on the GB visors, but it chops when guys get patched to Blue for goodnights. Everybody shares the b-dubs, they say, but a chopped immersion is like being slapped awake from a dream! The rest of the ‘Verse lives the walk-around fantasy. How about some TB for the flesh out, bro! That’s a big down on off days. And shoot. That’s the only real thing besides the line.
Remember I said twelve on three off? Yeah, well, Day Thirteen, right. A lot—most—of the guys hunker in the rec room and marathon the game backlog from Blue. I don’t follow that stream, and rec always stinks of feet. Guys with partners watch the ticker, and cut out of whatever when their patch to Blue comes up. There’s a jill med gets a patch to Red, but she doesn’t take it half of every Thirteen, and drinks it real loud why. She’s girl-girl, full-time, but so? And it’s always love hate like a bipolar, with her, but everybody who slaps her back gets a beer and a peep at the miss you vids. That’s their gig, but what’s a solo like me do after folgers on a Thirteen?
Look, I’m no whining wally. No narcs, I get. A hard vac rote, with narcs in the mix, means death by bone up a hundred ways, mostly O2 jetting, for some reason. Guys say JA drifts you home in the dark if your narc test reads two lines. And there’s no re-up after rehab.
Getting the panoramic, now, I bet. No jack and jill, no total immerse vid package, no biomold. What’s left to sing? We works, eats, falls asleep. Life’s a rote, and it can wear a guy to the edges. But the message on the mirror for me: Finish out my runs. Cache my gold back on Blue. Eight years and I’ll be feet up. Ocean fab Earth housing is my Martian dream. Immerse and live off the fat until I get my bones back. And that sings, bro. Arms back, that sings.
Thanks for reading my stuff. I’ll probably do more.
John Racette