The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty (10 page)

Billy knew he could get everyone to shun Bernie, but the way his Uncle Shemal ruled this division, Bernie might not even notice people weren’t talking to him. No, he needed a much better punishment. He needed full-strength Righteous Retribution. Bernie needed to go. Bernie needed to be fired. And to sweeten his revenge, Billy would tell his coworkers he was going to do it. They would watch it happen. It would be a great double lesson: punishment for Bernie for his crimes, and a not-so-subtle reminder of how important it was to respect Billy.

Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw a tall figure walk by and go into the cubicle next to his. He heard someone sit in the chair. He waited thirty seconds for Bernie to settle back and relax. Timing was everything. Billy stood up, looked over the cubicle wall, and waited for Bernie to notice him. As Bernie turned toward him, Billy smiled as Bernie’s face registered the shock of seeing his school foe.

And, because quiet is more powerful than loud, Billy slowly whispered the words, “Hello, Ber-Nerd. I haven’t forgotten that I still owe you.” Then, before Bernie could do or say anything, Billy lowered himself back into his cubicle, smiling with satisfaction.

This is going to be fun
, thought Billy.

Bernie’s Journal

Journal Entry

I never thought I would make another journal entry after I finished school. But Mom’s still working, and I just have to tell someone about my awesome day.

I spent time with the personnel director, Ezrah. He’s a really cool guy. He took a lot of time with me and made sure I understood everything.

Ezrah gave me the most incredible assignment. I get to build
my own universe
. I can make anything I want. I even get whatever supplies I need. No one will tell me what to do. I can do
anything
. This is so exciting! My biggest problem will be trying to figure out what to do.

When we were done, Ezrah took me to meet my new boss.

Shemal seems like a good guy. I mean, he sounds kind of strict—he scared my cloud—but I’m sure he’s fair, and everyone does a good job because of it.

I wonder what Dad’s first day was like. I read in his book that he started in the Custom Planets Division. I wonder if he was nervous on his first day. Probably not.

I saw Suzie in the personnel department. I was so excited I forgot she would be there. When I saw her, my cloud grabbed my shirt and started pulling me toward her. Every time I’m near her, that stupid cloud goes crazy. It’s always doing something to embarrass me, especially around her. When I finally got it under control, I tried to get her attention but she wouldn’t look at me. I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings. It’s frustrating.

One bad thing happened. After two years of not seeing him, I bumped into Billy again. He works in the cubicle right next to mine. He said he still owes me. I can’t imagine he’s still carrying a grudge after all this time.

I’m sure we can work it out.

The Manuals

Bernie’s brain reeled. He’d finished reading the big thick manuals Shemal had given him. His universe would have to wait. Learning the employment rules was a priority; he didn’t want to make any mistakes.

It took three days to read them all. Fortunately, he found the bathroom rules early on the first day. He was relieved to find he could go whenever he needed to, although excessive time spent in the bathroom could be a rule violation. He didn’t discover the section about lunch breaks until late the third day, so he missed three meals. Bernie couldn’t find anything about whether people from Personnel and people from the building divisions ate at the same time, but he hoped he could see Suzie there. He found a section about a water cooler, but in spite of a full trip around the office, he couldn’t find one, although he did see a place where it might have been once.

There were so many rules. Many of them contradicted each other. In school, they said there are only two kinds of rules: hard rules and soft rules. Hard rules are clear-cut and never contradict each other. All the students learned to pay attention to hard rules because if they didn’t, their universes wouldn’t work right.

On the other hand, soft rules were different and confusing. The most confusing soft rules were in psychology and sociology where there didn’t seem to be any hard rules at all. Well, there might be a few, but sooner or later someone would figure out a way to break them just to show they could. The School Board got tired of rewriting textbooks, so they added a paragraph saying any hard rule, under certain circumstances, could become a soft rule. And, just to cover all their bases, they added ‘and vice versa’. That cut down on the rewrites.

The Business’ manuals were full of soft rules disguised to sound like hard rules. For example, if you stole something from The Business, then you would be fired. But if you stole something and nobody caught you, then would you still get fired? If you weren’t, then this was really a soft rule. And, making it more confusing, none of it was prioritized. If two rules conflict, which one do you obey? Bernie wanted to obey all the rules, but it made his movements jerky. Every time he started to do something, he stopped while he did a mental text search for any rule he might be breaking.

For some rules, Bernie needed to ask someone. He tried asking people in the other cubicles, but they wouldn’t talk with him. At best, they answered him with a head nod or a head shake, usually followed by a shooing-away motion with their hands. When he asked someone if he should ask Shemal instead, she winced, shook her head no, and shooed him away. So Bernie stopped asking.

If he could find Suzie, maybe she could answer his questions.

Staring into the Abyss

Finally, Bernie was ready. The manuals read. The rules sorta understood. Potty time, lunchtime, and quitting time all clear. At last, his universe awaited.

Bernie cleared his desk of everything except the desk easel. He selected a large viewing window from his supplies and set it in the easel. Then he opened a jar of Universe Putty and placed it on the desk. He was ready.

Bernie began the process he’d done so often in school. He reached out with his hands and his mind in the way only a god could do, searching through the emptiness. Countless dimensions surrounded The World, each of them an empty void waiting to be captured and bent to the will of the gods. Capturing such voids from the infinite number of dimensions was like grabbing a slippery fish in a tank of slippery fish in a dark room. Finally, Bernie had one in his grip. He kept his concentration as he guided the void to the edge of the viewing window. Holding it with one hand, he used his other to scoop a dab of universe putty with which he bound the void to his window frame. He continued around the edge of the frame until he’d securely attached his void.

While the putty dried, Bernie moved into his new universe. He’d never found a dimension with anything in it, but his teachers said it was prudent to check carefully. He was pleased to see the dimension was a flawless void, extending forever in every direction.
This is perfect
, he thought.

Bernie settled back to consider his next move. Completely unbidden, he heard the voice of his favorite teacher, Beatrice, urging him to
Plan First, Then Create
. He wrote these words on a little sticky and mounted it on the frosted glass window in front of him. Then he got out a pencil and paper to make his notes.

And that’s as far as he got. Hours later, the void was as voidy as ever. No suns. No planets. No inspiration. A plain and simple case of creator’s block.

The problem, he decided, was too much freedom. Bernie had so many possibilities he didn’t know where to start. He’d never had freedom like this in school. No one did. No teacher ever in the history of The World ever told a student to create whatever he wanted.

In school, everything had been done inside a little box. Well, not a box exactly, although a god might think of it that way. For example, if the assignment was to ‘create moons on at least four of the five planets in a solar system,’ then they gave the students a solar system with the planets already made. They only had to worry about the moons. The planets, where to put them, how fast they moved around the sun, how big they were, or whether they should have atmospheres, were already done for you.

The gods called this modular creation. The goal was to teach one thing at a time. The division where Bernie worked was the one that supplied standardized universe kits to The School. Their job was creating identical universes so each student could focus on learning just one or two tasks. When the class ended, the universes were blinked out and re-voided.

Meanwhile, Bernie, frustrated with his inability to come up with design ideas, began wondering why they were subjecting him to this. After all, who needed to build whole universes by themselves, anyway? Only people who wanted to win awards and stuff. And maybe a few builders in the Research and Development Division. And maybe the Maintenance Division had to know their way around. But other builders, who worked in divisions like this, specialized. Specializing began to sound like a good thing to Bernie. Life would be simpler if you only had to worry about one or two things at a time, like back in school.

He wondered if his father had this problem.
It’s possible
, he thought.
Mom said she helped Dad with lots of ideas for his universes.

In a flash of inspiration, Bernie turned to his building supplies. Searching quickly through the boxes, his expression turned to disappointment when he failed to find what he’d hoped for. There were no pre-built suns, no pre-fab planets, no life-in-a-jar. No kits of any kind.
So much for that idea.
They apparently wanted him to build everything from scratch.

The problem was, if he couldn’t come up with ideas for his universe, he certainly wasn’t going to make it through his probationary period.

Lunch with Lenny

By lunchtime, not much had changed. The void on Bernie’s desk still taunted him. The universe supplies still sat on the floor. And that darn pad of paper remained blank as it waited for a plan. Any plan. Bernie had heard of gods who could build a whole universe in just six days and be home resting on the seventh. Of course, they probably didn’t have to spend the first three days reading manuals.

Desperation rather than hunger sent Bernie in search of the cafeteria. He filled his lunch tray without thinking. It was only when he started looking for a place to sit that he thought of Suzie. The cafeteria was large, but he didn’t see her anywhere.

“Bernie? Is that you?”

Bernie wasn’t used to having anyone talk to him. No one in Final Assembly talked to anybody. Turning to look, he saw a god waving from an empty table. He looked younger than twenty-five—about the oldest a god ever looked—and his voice lacked the resonating qualities of an older god. The god’s unkempt hair was accompanied by a hopeless attempt at beard growing.
That would make him a little older than I am
, thought Bernie. There was something familiar about the eyes.
I’m sure I know him…

As recognition came, Bernie’s expression changed to a smile. “Lenny! How have you been? I didn’t recognize you with the beard!”

Lenny had been the first to greet Bernie when he walked into the OWT meeting. Bernie wouldn’t have been there at all, except his guidance counselor had urged him to get involved in an extra-curricular activity. ‘The Business wants well-rounded people for their builders, Bernie. You need to get in some groups or clubs.’ When Bernie chose the Off World Technology (OWT) group, the counselor had not been impressed. ‘Is that the best you can do? You don’t want them to think you’re just a geek, do you?’

A quick look at the other eight OWT members told Bernie he was among his own kind. They all had that gaunt and haggard look you get from staying up all night, playing with computers, desperately trying to avoid social contact, and slapping down energy drinks. They had something else in common: they were all fascinated by technology found on intelligent worlds.

“When did you start?” asked Lenny. “Where are you working?”

“This is my fourth day. I’m in the Final Assembly Division.”

“Oh, that’s not good. You’ve got old man Shemal for a boss.”

“Why do you say that? He seems okay.”

“Everybody hates him. He’s fired more people than anybody. You remember Julie? She used to work for him, and he fired four people before she could get her transfer approved. She said people are so afraid of him they won’t even talk to each other. And it isn’t just Julie who hates him. Everybody hates Shemal.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Final Assembly had lots of complaints about their kits from The School. The Board of Directors set up the Quality Assurance Division (QAD) to look into the problem. Before any kits could be shipped, QAD made them pass all kinds of tests so The School wouldn’t have anything to complain about. For a while, QAD rejected so many kits, no orders were being shipped at all.

“Shemal claimed it wasn’t Final Assembly’s fault. He claimed the other divisions were sending him defective suns and planets. So he set up his own QAD to inspect the stuff they sent him. If he didn’t like what he saw, he refused to accept the parts. To justify Final Assembly’s shipping delays, he sent a report on all the components he rejected to the Board of Directors and blamed the other divisions for the delays.

“So, heck yes, they hate him. They hate the whole Final Assembly Division.”

Bernie didn’t know what to say. So he changed the subject. “Did you have to make your own universe when you hired in?”

“Sure. Everyone does. What are you working on?”

“I can’t decide. Any suggestions?” Bernie tried not to sound desperate.