Between the Lanterns (24 page)

-

Bobby had passed away several years ago. Too much smoking. Just because the medical community had cured cancer didn’t mean that it had also cured emphysema. A year before he died, Bobby had come to visit August at the little bungalow in Malaysia where he had settled due to falling in love with the food. The food in Malaysia was life- altering.
 

During this visit, they had talked about life and love. Bobby had finally married Holly, the lady who cleaned August’s house. They had made some kids together, who were all grown and out of the house by the time Bobby visited Malaysia to see his old friend.

“Bobby, have you gone to see them?” August asked, his voice touched with worry. “Are they still there? Are they still workin’?”

Bobby laughed, which caused a severe coughing fit, and replied, “You always ask about those damn things, Auggie. I mean, I get it. I do. And to answer your question, yes, I saw them a month ago, and they are still working fine.”

August leaned back in his chair, the tension easing from his shoulders as he said, “Good. That’s good. And you need to have that cough looked at, Bobbo. It don’t sound too good.”
 

Bobby hacked a little more nasty goo from his chest, and wheezed scarily for a moment before, and waving August’s worries away with both hands.

“Holly always says that shit, too,” Bobby admitted. “I’m alright, man. I’ll outlive you all. But, uh, August, you should know something. Most everything in New Dothan has switched to solar power, man. Tesla gGenerators are ancient history now, you know, dude? Solar energy tech has leaped way ahead, and they’ve got it to where you can power a whole city for a month from an array the size of a football field.”

August shot forward in his seat once more, eyes wild with worry, hands reaching for Bobby’s, and said, “But they didn’t tear down the generator outside of town, did they? I bought it years ago, you know! They can’t tear it down. It’s still working, too, right?”

Bobby pulled his hands away and wiped them on his pants, as if wiping off some errant crazy left there by his old friend, and replied, “Man, yes. Jeez. It’s still there. I just wanted you to know that they might replace them with solar-powered ones. It’s gonna happen. They replaced all of the ones on South Oates with solar-powered models, but they all went out for some reason. Once they figure out why and fix the problem, it’s gonna happen.”

August nodded and sat back once more, saying, “Don’t worry, Bobbo. I’m gonna make some calls. They won’t be replacin’ those two down on West Main Street. I’ll pay a significant amount of Credit to make sure.”

-

August opened the door to their old bedroom. Everything looked the same as that day, except the bed had been made. He sat down and remembered the last time he had made love to his wife… to anyone for that matter. It had been right here in this bed, 30 years ago.

Over the years, there had been plenty of opportunities to be with other women, especially as a wealthy bachelor who traveled the world regularly. But he never had the need to be with anyone else because he felt Sam’s presence at least once a day when he cooked. And that was better than sex with a stranger.

Woodrow stood in the corner, wearing a navy blue dress with white dots all over it. The baseball cap that said, “Kiss the Cook” was now a little crooked, but the necklace holding Samantha’s engagement and wedding rings still looked the same.
 

August unpacked his bag onto the bed and got to work. 30 years was a long time for any robot to be idle, much less one made of wood. When they had built him, they had known he wouldn’t last for very long. He was just wood and string.

But the string was synthetic and strong as steel. It was fine. No maintenance required. The wood, on the other hand, was in need of some love. And that was something August had plenty to give.

A few hours of deliberate and gentle care later, August felt satisfied that Woodrow was up to the challenge. He stepped back and put his hand on his hips while looking the old, wooden robot over from top to bottom.

“Woodrow. Power on,” August instructed.

The automaton made of wood stirred to life. His eyes lit up, glowing for just a moment. And then they went out. August’s heart fell to the floor. It was supposed to work… it should work. He didn’t have a backup plan, this was it.

Frantically he looked at his timepiece and saw the hour was growing late. He rushed to Woodrow and threw open the panel in his chest, revealing the machinery within. The motor was fine. It was titanium and would last forever, basically. The circuit boards, on the other hand, were toast. They had rotted through for some reason.

He looked and tried to figure out why. Then he noticed something missing. Dust. There was no dust on the automaton at all. Not a single speck. Which meant that Holly had eventually been able to clean him.

Looking closer at the circuit boards, he took them out. They fell apart in his hands. No wonder he couldn’t power on. August thought carefully. He needed to replace the ruined chips and put in new ones. And he needed to do it quickly.

August rushed back to the workshop where he tore and rummaged through everything inside. He found six of the same circuit boards, the ones he needed, only they were rotted through, as well.
 

“Where can I find more of these damn boards!” August yelled.

They weren’t memory or programmed functions boards. They were power circuits that he designed, so it’s not like he could walk down and buy some from the local tech store. August had developed this type of chip when he stole power as a broke twenty-something to power his cellphone. Then he began using them for anything he wanted to be fuelled by the Tesla generator outside of town.

“My cellphone!” he shouted in triumph.

August yanked it out of his back pocket and looked at the little cellphone. As he did so, August realized that it was too small. The chip wouldn’t fit.

“What else did I use them for in the house?” he asked himself quietly, thinking hard.

“LifeLanterns!” he said.

He had manufactured tons of those chips for his LifeLanterns. He quickly remembered that all of them had been at the shop. He had abandoned the shop, hadn’t he? They had all been stolen 30 years ago. But hadn’t he bought two LifeLanterns in Thailand? They still worked. He used them all of the time in his bungalow. He just needed to go and…

His bungalow was in Malaysia… on the other side of the world, right? August had forgotten where he was for a minute.

“Fuck! I can’t believe this!” he screamed, pounding on the workbench. “I came all the way around the world just to fail? Why, God? Why are you doin’ this to me?”

That was when August remembered there were still two working lanterns in this town. He had forgotten what he had asked Bobby to do with them at first, but now he knew exactly where they were.

On West Main Street.

Chapter 28

BETWEEN THE LANTERNS

There wasn’t enough time to get down to West Main Street, take the boards out of the lanterns, come back here, and then install them. He knew that without question.

August tried to pick the large, wooden automaton up to take Woodrow with him to West Main Street, but there was no way he could carry him all that way. August’s mind was all mixed up, and he couldn’t think straight. It was incredibly frustrating for him, to say the least.

In his workshop, August once again tore through everything with reckless abandon, not caring what he broke or damaged. He needed to find something… anything… to help him move that robot.

August’s eyes went to the back corner of his small workshop. Leaned against the wall, old but hopefully still working, was his old maglev sled. He had used it years ago to move around heavy equipment or junk that he found lying around or in dumpsters.

He pulled it out from behind some boxes full of now useless tech, and it tipped over, falling towards the floor… and August’s feet. If it didn’t power on, it was all over. That sled weighed more than he did, and it would crush his feet and legs, leaving August incapable of going anywhere.

The maglev sled hummed to life and floated a foot off of the ground. August breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He gently guided it into the bedroom and, as carefully as possible, moved Woodrow’s prone form onto the sled. Once positioned well enough, August didn’t waste any time.
 

Out the front door, August moved the hovering sled as fast as he could over to his AutoCar. He hated driving one, and preferred to use bicycles, but his knees weren’t up to the challenge much anymore. August shoved, pushed, pulled, and struggled to get the wooden robot into the back seat, and eventually succeeded.
 

The magnetic levitating sled went into the trunk, and August peeled off faster than he should on this street. He should really slow down. There were children in this neighborhood.

Racing through traffic, he swerved to dodge in between slow- moving AutoCars whose owners weren’t paying any attention to the road. They were too caught up in a good book, a movie, or news vids.

August wanted to run every red light but thought better of it. If he were to be pulled over right now, it would be tragic… absolutely tragic.

As he turned onto West Main Street, his heart raced faster than it should for a man of his age. He drove down to the very end of the downtown strip, all the way down past the bars and restaurants. All the way down past the clinic, the Baptist church, and the new office buildings.
 

And that’s when he saw them. The two lanterns hung motionless in the air, levitating like all the other ones in New Dothan. There was nothing outwardly unique about them. They gave off the same light, fueled by the Tesla generator outside of town, providing pure, clean, wireless energy.
 

No poles were holding them in place. The magnetic levitation plates on the bottom kept them at the perfect ten feet above the automated sidewalks. They were just normal, everyday lanterns. And between them is where he and Samantha had met for the very first time.

August’s heart skipped a beat as he saw them and then looked at the spot on the road where he had first met, and then later kissed, the most perfect human ever put on this wretched planet.

There were no parking spaces available, of course, but he didn’t care. August pulled as close to the spot as he could and threw the car in park. He left it running and left his door open as he ran back to the trunk to remove the maglev sled.
 

He began extracting Woodrow from the back seat of his AutoCar. It was slow -going, and a few people passed by. No one offered the old man any help, of course. Typical.

August eventually got Woodrow out and pushed the sled into the middle of the street, directly in between the lanterns… The lanterns that hovered 10 feet above him.

“How am I going to get them down?” August whispered.

They were far out of his reach. He grabbed at his gray hair and pulled, trying to pry any ideas out of that once razor-sharp mind. His breathing slowed and his pupils dilated as a memory crept back into his mind. He looked up and knew that, although they looked the same as the other street lanterns in New Dothan, they weren’t the same. He had modified these two unique lanterns.

Hoping beyond all hope that they still functioned correctly, he called out to the lanterns. Would they still recognize his voice commands after all these years?

“Lanterns, lower to four feet off the ground, and dim lights to 50% percent, please and thank you.”

For a twisted and torturous second, the lanterns didn’t move. They stayed right where they were, 10 feet above the ground.

But then they made a whirring noise, and their light dimmed to half of what it was. And thankfully, they floated down to four feet off the ground, exactly as August had told them to do.

Again, August wasted no time, as that was a resource he was quickly running out of. Opening both up, and disconnecting the power boards, the lanterns went out but remained floating. The magnetic levitation didn’t run off Tesla power, but the ability to alter the strength or weakness of the levitation was now gone, along with the lights.

Finally, he had the boards he would need to get Woodrow back up and running. They were in fantastic shape, as they had not been subjected to whatever it was that damaged the rest of the boards.

He opened the panel in the newly cleaned and maintained wooden robot’s chest. The two slots were still empty from where he had removed the damaged boards back at the house.
 

With expert care, scared to break the last remaining boards like this in North America, he placed them into their respective ports inside of Woodrow. August then closed the chest panel and stepped back.
 

 
He crossed his fingers for luck and said, “Woodrow. My old friend. Power on.”

A car horn suddenly blared, scaring the bejesus out of August. Flashbacks of being hit by an AutoCar 30 years ago flickered through his mind. The resulting injuries twinged in his arm and ribcage as he braced himself for the impact.

But the impact never came. He spun around to see a teenager leaning out of the window of a very new and expensive AutoCar.

“Get out of the road, you crazy old bastard! I’m late!” the young hooligan yelled at the top of his lungs.

August laughed nervously, nodded his head, and replied, “Sorry about that, youngin’. Please just go around me.”

Gesturing to the side, August heard a sound like a load of freshly chopped wood being dropped by the fireplace.

“GO A ROUND,” Woodrow added, gesturing to the side.

August whirled around as fast as his old bones would permit. There, standing upright and looking like no time had passed at all, was the wooden automaton he and his beautiful wife had built a lifetime ago.

Fresh tears fell from August’s eyes as he ignored the loud teenager asking ignorant questions about what the hell that mahogany thing was. August had only one thing on his mind, and no one would distract him from this long-awaited reunion.

Reaching into his pocket, August pulled out the SameSoul. The little box that had changed the world, that had changed his life, and most importantly… that held the essence and consciousness of his long-dead love. He looked at the little box and the port on Woodrow where it belonged. And August hesitated.