Tonight, as a favour to our friends at the New Fiction Writers podcast, we present Space Job.
The Skinner Co. Network
NFW - Space Job, Chapter 1
- Hello everybody and welcome to the new Fixing Writers podcast. We're so glad you could be with us and we hope you tell all of your friends. My name is Tony and my name is Jay and we'll be your host. Thanks for stopping by. - Welcome back Tony. How you doing? - I'm good Jay. How about you, man? Is everything good? - Oh, yeah, everything's all right. Getting by. - All right. So we got some exciting stuff to talk about on this episode of the new Fixing Writers podcast. - Absolutely. - Of course, we have you recently did a story for Scott Roach on his podcast, The Omniverse. - Yeah, the story was called Old Friends. - Yeah. What was that about? I haven't heard it yet. - Well, it's a short one. It's I think it's only the whole episode, I think, for about 20 minutes long. It is about a vampire and a werewolf who have a gentleman's agreement to meet once every four years. - Oh, that's no point in time and the werewolf doesn't show up this time. - Oh. - Yeah, it's the vampire. The vampire goes to look for him, but ultimately it's such a short story. I don't want to - Oh, yeah, you don't want to give it away. - Yeah, but it's a good little interlude that got some Russian voices in there. - Oh, cool. So you got to stretch your vocal muscles a little. - There you go, a little bit of exercise, yeah, for sure. - All right, good deal. All right, that's cool. Well, I'll have to get over there and listen to it. I did one for him, too, about a little kid. Did you hear that one? - No, is that up and running? - See, we don't even listen to each other's podcast. That's sad. - Oh, so busy trying to - - You're busy trying to write podcasts at it all. - Trying to produce one ourselves. We don't have time at all that. - Absolutely. Absolutely. - And so, last week, we were talking that - I noticed that I thought it was kind of funny that not as many people listened to part two of the Order of the Benevolent Souls as listened to part one, or not as many people downloaded it, I should say. I don't know. You know, you really don't know how many people downloaded something and then never listened to it. - Or does it give you numbers on streaming? I know that - No, and it doesn't do streaming, and that's a big thing now, and I forgot about that. - Absolutely. I don't necessarily want to put stuff on my iPhone if I don't have to. If I'm next to a Wi-Fi connection all day, I'd much rather stream the episode and not use the memory or wait for it to download for that matter. - Right, and we were talking and you mentioned that some people have told you, like Denise told you and your wife, I believe, told you that they're having trouble downloading the podcast on mobile devices. - Absolutely, yeah. It doesn't - it does not jive well with the mobile download. - And I noticed that too. And it's kind of frustrating. I noticed, though, that if you did go through iTunes and you download the podcast or subscribe to the podcast and iTunes, it would download it. But it seemed to have trouble just yanking it out of the air, you know? - Right. - And so anyway, we were talking about that, and you were talking about that you use Downcast. - That is correct. Yes, I use Downcast, the app for my phone. - Yes, and I went and checked that out. That's a great app. I downloaded it on my iPhone as well. And that thing works really good. And of course, there's lots of great podcasts you can get right there and stream right to your phone, which is cool. - Absolutely. Well, I think that - I think Apple has sort of given up on the podcast, whereas it's starting to become popular. The new iOS update that they've done for the iPhone has cut it completely out of the music program. - Right. - It's no longer - it no longer situates in your music. It situates in its own app called the podcast app, which is really basic. It's not very good at all. - Right. - This Downcast, I think the gentleman who wrote the app is Chris McFarill and McPhale. - Uh-huh. - And he's a former podcast or turn programmer. And I'm not sure if he still does podcasting. But yeah, it's a great app. Like, you go in there, it keeps everything current. You can create a playlist that will automatically update your podcast at given points of time. - And it actually works. - Oh, absolutely, 100%. - Yeah, it works great. - I've been using it. Yeah, I've been using it for about two months and I'm very pleased with it. - Yeah, so I put a link to it on the Facebook page, New Fiction Writers. And by the way, some people have told me that it's hard to find New Fiction Writers' Facebook page. And I think that may be because when I first did it, I did New Fiction Writers like it's all one word. - Oh, okay. - You know, I capitalized New Fiction and Writers, but I stuck them together. - Right. - I think that confuses a lot of people and it confuses Facebook, I believe. So if you're looking for it, it's New Fiction Writers and it's all jammed together. And I can't go in there and change it now. I thought I was being artistic or something. I don't know why I did it like that, but I did it so anyway. - I'm curious, too, though, if people would prefer a group over a page. - I don't know. - In a Facebook group, you can interact and it's all private. Nobody else, none of your friends and your family can see what you're right in the group. - Unless you've been invited to the group. - Exactly. If you're not a member of the group, you don't see what happens in the group. - Well, we can always start one. - It's an option. If people are interested, I would like to get some interaction with the listeners to hear what kind of short stories they'd like to hear, classic fiction comments on the podcast. We'd like to know. We don't get much feedback, right? - No, we don't. And it seems like it'd be pretty simple to contact us. Of course, you can always email us at newfictionwriters@gmail.com. I mean, that's easy to remember. New fiction writers@gmail.com. - If you didn't like it, you can tell us that, too. We won't be offended. - Yeah, we would actually like to hear that. We would really like to hear some real pissed off listener, man. Just go off for a while. Let me tell you something great to read on the podcast, so don't hesitate. - Absolutely. And if you're really, really angry and you promise to keep the language fairly reasonable, you could record an MP3 and send it into a war play on the show. - Oh, yeah. That would be even better. That would be great. We could riff on it instead. - There you go. Anybody up? - Yeah. Come on. Somebody send us something good. - Right on. - But of course, you know, when you go to the Facebook page, new fiction writers, status, what's on your mind is the question written right there. So please, feel free to tell us, even if it's something that you don't think we even really care about. We'd still like to know what's on your mind. Why not? - Absolutely. Absolutely. - And let's see, what else? I think that's all I have to ramble about at the moment. What you got? - Well, I was going to ask you about this family guy thing you were talking about before the show. You wouldn't let me know, and now I got to know. - Oh, yeah. It's trippy. You never watch family guy, do you? - No, I don't. Well, I have to admit, I don't either. I don't really have time to sit around and watch television really that much. And when I do, I kind of watch really just mindless stuff like this on the Discovery Channel, like Sons of Guns or something, you know, something that I could just kind of glaze over and stare at. I don't really have to put a whole lot of effort into it, you know? - Absolutely. Because by the time I get to the TV, I'm done for the day. I don't really want to have to interact with it anyway, you know? - It's the last resort for me. I've come home. I've done everything I had to do. I've sat down and I've wrote for a couple hours, or I've gone on the computer and I've edited a bunch of audio. And then TV is like, "Okay, I'm going to put this on, put the sleep timer on, and I will not catch the last 10 minutes of the show." - Right, exactly. So anyway, I just happened to be walking through the living room. I think it was yesterday, or the day before, and my son watches Family Guy thinks it's the funniest thing ever. I didn't realize how crude it is and how really out there on the adult end of humor that it is. It's really a very irreverent humor, much worse than the Simpsons ever did. - Right. - You know how The Simpsons has that kind of twisted look at the reality of our world in a cartoon form? - Absolutely. - Well, so I'm watching it, and the Family Guy, there's a character, the baby. I can't remember his name, Huey. - His name is Stewie. - Stewie, there you go. So Stewie's just tripped out baby with a British accent. I guess that's British. I'm not sure what the accent's supposed to be. - Yeah, it's supposed to be like Harvard or something. - Yeah, okay. - He's an evil scientist ready to control the world. - Yes, that's it, right there. And so it's like the world through Stewie's eyes for a few minutes, and I'm standing there, and I just happen to catch. He goes into his bedroom, his mom picks him up, puts him in his bedroom, and says, "10 minutes before bedtime," and she leaves, and he goes, "All right, I have time for a quick one," and he stands up and opens the closet door and goes in, and he has a time machine in there, right? Yeah, right. And he goes back in time to Kurt Cobain, who's sitting on the floor with a shotgun in his mouth. And that right there just blew my mind off. I was like, "I can't even believe this saw a television, right?" And he tells him, "Kurt, don't do that. We need you around or something," he says to him. I forget exactly some stupid little thing. And he talks Kurt Cobain out of killing himself. - Okay. - And so then he goes back to his present time, and he goes back to his mom's album collection that looks through and finds it sure enough. Nirvana is still around, but Kurt Cobain is this big fat guy now. - Oh. - Yeah. And so then there's a couple other things. And one of them, he hears his mom and dad having sex, and he imagines it as they're chopping trees down. Chop, chop, chop. He can hear the bad guy. That's right. Chop, chop, chop, right? And so it only lasts for a few seconds. And the old man falls asleep. And all of a sudden, you know, in Stewie's imagination, you see his mom start up a chainsaw. You can hear a buzz and blow, you know. - So, okay. I was flipping out, watching it, man. I couldn't believe it. I might have to spend a little more time with family guy after all. - Well, I know that, like I said to you, when you asked, I have heard Seth McFarland on numerous comedy podcasts, and the guy is a very, very astute individual. Pretty ballsy, though, too. I know that family guy had done a couple of anti-Islam-type cartoons. He got death threats, and they were told to pull it off the air, and it was pretty serious. Like, they've pushed the boundaries in a lot of spots. - Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wide open, man. I couldn't believe how intense it was. The Muslims are very, very uptight about Allah. You have to be very careful what you say about Him. I mean, they just get really pissed off if you say something derogatory about Him, or the Quran. - Yeah. You have to tread carefully. It's not even a matter of line of respect anymore. It's a line of, "I just don't want you to come over and cut my head off." - Yeah. We want you guys to just be as calm as you can. - Yeah, exactly. I honestly feel bad for the ones that don't feel that way. - I did, too. - Because I know, it's just, it's like the Elavange, what do they call it, the Telavange - Telavange. - Yeah. - Yeah. It's like them versus your mundane, I don't really go to church on Sunday Christians. You have your levels of every group, and you have to be religious. You can have your levels in the PTA, too. You get some people that show up every once in a while to see what's going on with their kid, and then you got the mom who's running the PTA. She's the president of the PTA. She shows up to all of the fundraisers for the PTA, right? Some people just get extreme about an idea. - Yeah. She's a zealot. - Exactly. - They're freaked out. - Yeah. - Very stuff. - Man, it is. It's just insane. I hope family guy stays away from that. Because he could really kiss some people off. I could see that right now. - Oh, I think he does that on a regular basis. - Yeah, it was crazy. I couldn't believe it. You know, I was just, you know, I was just shocked because I wish I could remember all the things that he said to Kurt Cobain. I was just going, "I don't frickin' believe this, man." - See, I had a story idea once where it was involving a time machine and going back and convincing that figure of history to not do something that caused me death. And then to come back and realize that it didn't matter because what the official story was wasn't true anyway. And that person was never going to do it in the first place, and they were just taken out. - Oh, yeah. - And then that character, all of a sudden, goes, "Okay." So then they actually try and get to the truth because they know the timeframe and time period because they went back to try and stop it. And now they can trace the people who are actually really close to the guy and find out that it's a real story. - Right. - I thought they'd be kind of... - Yeah, that would be cool. There's, see, there's another thing to muddle up your mind with. - Oh, absolutely. I'm trying to stay focused on this story that I'm working on with RJ Keith and not delve off. And there's just so much, so many things that come up. - That's hard to do. And like you said, we were talking earlier, if you start messing with something, like you have a story idea and you have it pretty much hashed out. So you've got three quarters of it done, seven eighths of it done, and it's sitting there and it's this fragile ball of sand band. And you decide, "Well, I'm just going to scratch this one little area and add just this one more thing." And it just collapses. And you realize that the whole story doesn't make sense anymore. You're like, "Oh, no, I wish I've never..." - Yeah. - Yeah, I don't look at it as like a ball, but I definitely look at it like a delicate sand sculpture, like you've built the sand castle. And you go, "Oh, that turret needs a flag." And you go to put the flag on the turret and the back castle falls off. - The whole wall falls over. - Exactly. - Yeah, man, it's crazy. So we're doing one of your stories this week, "Space Job." - That's correct. It started out as just a short story that I wrote and posted on new fiction writers. I read the rules. This is what you have to do to posting. So I posted it. It was one of the first ones that I posted. I then stand up taking it, and I have finished the story because, according to actually both you and my wife, when I wrote wasn't a short story, I wrote a prelude into a longer story because you can't just leave someone floating off in space. - Exactly. - I mean, you can, but we probably would like to see what happens next. - Exactly, right? So this is the continuation story of Ira. Ira, he is a deep space construction foreman. And he is running the detail of building an environment dome for future inhabitants who are on their way. - Right. It's cool story. I think everybody's going to love it. We're going to do it in little one chapter at a time. - Yeah. You know, each chapter is going to be, Earth can turn out to be a 15 to 20 minute recorded podcast. So, you know, may as well break it up a bit. It is a longer story. It's about 30,000 words. So that we certainly couldn't do it in one episode. - Right. Right. We're going to take the time to do a serialized thing, and maybe we'll do a lot more of those. Take longer stories and break them up into pieces like that. - Absolutely. And if somebody has one that they'd like to do like that, please. New fiction writers is interested in presenting your work to the world. - We absolutely are. And we'd love to have you on the show too, by the way. - Absolutely. Absolutely. In this particular one, Tony, you do the narration for me, which I think is just a great contrast between my crazy voices. - Yeah. It turned out good. I like it. Of course, I'm a little biased. - Well, me too. But the way it's through the feedback. Oh, yeah. We don't get any of that. - So we just gave our own feedback. - Yeah. Our own feedback. Great. - Yeah. It's a good story, man. I think people are going to love it. I'm sure they will. So we mentioned that we were on a list. - Oh, no. I didn't mention the list. Hang on. We, yes. New fiction writers is on a list of the top five podcasts for fiction writers, podcasts that help you polish your writing skills written by Pamela Sorzana at the Yahoo Voices blog. That's pretty cool, huh? - Absolutely. Get our names out there. - Yes. The New Fiction Writers' Community of Writers. This website offers a form for new and seasoned fiction writers. You can become a member and post a picture or avatar. She says that the members are friendly and offer helpful and friendly feedback. How about that? - There you go. - We're like number two on the list, man. - That's awesome. - Yeah, it is. I thought that was pretty cool. You know, a friend of mine was Googling New Fiction Writers trying to find it to turn on to some of his friends and came across this list. I didn't even know it was there. - Oh, okay. We were on another list, too. Did you see that? Tabitha Grace Smith? We were the fourth one on the list and it talked about the last episode. The episode we had done before Benevolent Souls, your Edgar Allen Poe. Oh, no, sorry. No, the short story we did before in order of Benevolent Souls, which one was that? - I don't know, man. I didn't see that. - Yeah, but anyway, it's on there and we're on the list and it's recent, actually. - Oh, cool. - Because, yeah, it's two or three episodes ago that the individual had listened to that podcast. - Well, that's all right. I didn't know we were there. So there's people talking about us. We don't even know it. - There you go. Well, and that's the Internet. - Yes, it is. - You know, that's the Internet. So... - That's a cool thing, man. - It's wild. We live in an age that no one else has ever existed in. - Oh, yeah. - Our activist information is ridiculous. The communication. Who would have thought that I would know someone in Virginia? - Right. - And be recording a podcast on a Sunday morning. - Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy all by itself. I think about that a lot. Here I am, a friend of mine who lives in Canada. I have a podcast that we do together and I mean, it's a cool thing. You would have never known me. I would have never have known you. - Well, and then the neat part is we've never actually met in person. - No, we haven't. We just look at each other's pictures and go, "That's how that guy is coming." That guy is kind of goofy looking, doesn't he, man? - Yeah. I could cut mine out of a magazine and it, you know? - Yeah. Yes. Big muscle body and everything, man. - There you go. - With my little small head on top. - So I guess we ought to go ahead and get on with the story. On Jay, what do you think? - I think that's a good idea. - All right, man. You guys take care of each other out there. - And be good to yourselves. - All right, ladies and gents. This one's by J.G. Lengance and it's space job. - I'm going to go ahead and get on with the story. I'm going to go ahead and get on with the story. - All right. I'm going to go ahead and get on with the story. I'm going to go ahead and get on with the story. [music playing] - Space job by J.G. Lengance. [music playing] - Chapter one. The blueprint was clear enough. Max had missed a relay that was clearly marked. I rehated it when guys missed stuff on the job. Going back into the system and getting to the relay locations would cost three times what it had cost in the first place. He shook his head. He was never going to get this environment ready at one time. As it was, he was using his last camera bot to investigate this mistake. I resumed the camera in a little closer. At least Max had clean weld lines. Ira was constantly having to correct other welders over their cleanliness. True, the weld once done was good enough, but Ira had seen how the government's people inspected the site if they saw crappy welding on their way into the environment. The only reason why they never got close to the welds was because they were on the other side of oxygen. Ira had been building environments on colonies for the last two decades. He had grown up on the moon in Liberty State. He had gone to trade schools there as well. When Ira was growing up, there was always a lot of things needing repairs on the moon colony. At the time, it was only one of three colonies out in space. Now, of course, there were seven. And Ira was on the newest one. He had learned all he had to know for the trade on the job, school he endured to get the right to vote. Only registered degrees from universities would get you that right. And Ira valued that very much. He'd spent time in the trenches, that was for sure, working as a rookie welder on Pluto's colony's environment. Was not something once revived without being tough. On three separate occasions, he had to face certain death, death for failing to do his job. It was the Wild West in space after all. Pluto's environment dome came after the planet was already inhabited. The dome was built around the existing smaller individual building environments, connected underground through the basements. But if the proprietor didn't like you, well, let's say a spacewalk was so common that you didn't bat an eye. Ira had come over on the second stage of the build. He was lucky. The survival rate of the rookie in the first stage back then was ten times less likely than living through the second stage. He spent two of his three brushes with death out in the deep dark of space. The first time he had been tied to the beam he had messed up, let out twenty feet, and flown there like a balloon until his shift came back on from a nice meal and good two cycles of tank sleep. If it hadn't been for his quick thinking, then he would have died, and that morning they would have just cut his tether and let him float away. End of shift they would report me missing, and that was that. Who was going to do something about it? It wasn't like a rookie could ever be prepared for that kind of punishment. At first he'd even thought it was a joke. He kept telling himself that they would come back, but he was stiff and asleep when they finally did. But that was the past, and you couldn't space a person anymore. You needed to show respect to the person. He was fine with that. He would actually be running his crew the same way, even if it were different. Enough with the reminiscing for now. Right now he had a job that needed doing. I recede in the comm number that was assigned to Max. Forty-five, nine or three. Do you copy? He knew the other end would crackle and sputter his voice into the earbud of Max Henderson. Ah, copy base. All right, what can I do for you? Max was casual. I looked over to the clock on the wall and saw it was ten minutes into lunch. Well, Max, I need to speak with you right away. Ira released the button on the comm and waited for the inevitable complaining to come over the radio. He knew from years of experience that it was coming. Nobody on this crew ever liked to do anything on their lunch breaks, let alone come see the boss. Oh, come on, Ira. Can't wait ten minutes. I'll just heat it up my rivalry. I got here to leave it in here. These vultures will eat it before I even have my breakfast soon zipped up. Max was always just about to start something whenever I recalled. Not today, Max. I can't wait. I need to see you pronto. See you in my office in five. Ira was about to turn off the speaker when the voice of Max came back. Fine. For five minutes, that's barely enough time to ride the skip from here. Then you better get him move on. Ira wasted no time in cutting him off. Ira had made it to his office faster than five minutes, many times before. Ira went back to his monitor and put the camera bot on standby. He was going to have to show Max his mistake before the man would admit it. Ira had to get this over with now. He would have to dock his pay for the repair and fix it before the next visit from the inspectors. He hated the inspectors. They were the least educated people in construction, and half of them couldn't tell you the difference between their ass and a pressure valve. It was a rich boy job. All it took was knowing the right people. Ira had spent much of the last years in heated debates with snot-nosed kids that didn't know any better. But because their daddies had money, they figured that they knew it all. He felt that he had the right to hold them in contempt. After all, he had never had an environment fail. His were all still standing and in use. He had, however, been called in to investigate collapsed environments before. Someone, somewhere, always wanted to know why. Even if the why, a guess is based on evidence. Most environments failed because the contractor rushed the job, and that happened most of the time because the governments sold land on planets faster than it was possible to claim. Ira had avoided this by slight changes in his standard contract. He was able, by some obscure legal loophole, to force the inspector to come on scheduled visits and that his schedule that he posted on the beginning of the job never changed. That was the problem right now. If he couldn't get this fixed right now, he was going to have to alter one of his schedules for the first time since he had started out on his own. Max was in the process of fucking with his reputation. That was definitely not acceptable. He had already ordered the missing part to be brought up from storage. He figured he would give Max a choice, fix the mistake on his own time, or have his wages docked for someone else to do it. That was one thing that he really enjoyed out in space. He had no labor laws to follow out here except for the provisions of room and board. He made his entire crew sign a contract at the beginning of the build, and he had them by the balls after that. Sure some called him an asshole, but Ira didn't care. He ran a successful construction company in deep space. It was probably one of the hardest deep space jobs. He slid his hands across the touchscreen to look at the systems that would be affected by the missing relays. He was surprised to see that these particular ones would directly influence the oxygen levels in the environment's atmosphere. Good thing he'd caught it. By the looks of things, the missing parts would never be caught in a systems test because they were after the sensors. The sensors reported the levels of chemicals and gases in the air being supplied to the environment. Ira wondered if Max realized how bad his mistake could have been. People could have been in the dome for months before they knew that they had been losing oxygen. By the time they would have figured it out, they would have had no chance to fix the problem. They would have died trying to get help. That was something that Ira didn't like about these deep space installations once the people had been dropped off. They were on their own. True. Before the government let them be independent, they would supply the environment with all of the necessities of life. But if something went wrong, way out here in the dark, it would take many months to get a repair crew or even a rescue crew out here. The remoteness of the recent environment made Ira wonder if the government was going too far. He thought that the last planet that had been occupied had been enough for humanity, but now he was even further. His door buzzer chimed. Enter. He barked this out. He was mad but the fuming anger he had felt was being replaced with the simmering anger of having to fix it and move on. He had never been someone that would hold his anger for days. He believed there was a time for it and the time was short. Max walked into the office. He had left his helmet in the ante room and was standing in just his suit. Ira could see a small patch of ravioli sauce at the corner of Max's beard. Apparently his food was more ready than he had claimed. Ira, you had to see me right away? Yes, yes I did. Have a seat, Max. He indicated the seat across the desk from him. The chair was cushy and well worn instead of tossing it when he had gotten a new chair. Ira had tossed the old rickety chair that he had used for these interviews. Max took a seat. The springs on the cushy chair made a small protest under the weight of his ass. As Max sat down, he pulled on the legs of his suit so that he could bend his knees. The suits were made rigid for space. The elbow and shoulders of the suit moved no problem. But the legs needed to be pushed and pulled to get them to conform to new positions. The gray of the suit blended well with the dark upholstery of the chair. Max, how long have we been working together? Ira was looking down at the roster and told him everything he needed to know about the men that worked for him. He could bring up information that had been stored over their employment. Six or seven years? I started welling for you on my colony. Max was still insolent. He knew that something was up and he was ready to defend himself. Yes, you started for me on the 21st of April, 2134. Your record looks good here and not more than a few infractions, all of which happened off duty. He was looking at the rap sheet he had gotten from the space police logs. That was standard procedure when hiring men to work for the government. Everything they had ever been caught for was given to the employer. And if they did anything wrong while in the employee of said employer, the employer had to dole out the punishment. The government no longer had room to punish people for anything less than murder. So the boss of a guilty man was responsible for exacting punishment. So far, under Ira's employee, the only thing he had to punish Max for was public drunkenness on stations during their down time. I've never had a problem with the side Ira. I'm always on time and I do a good job for you. Max was still not sure what he was in trouble for, so he was defending himself blind. I've ain't if there's a problem with the way I dealt with my apprentice last week. I'm sorry, but he should've known better than to switch off tanks during an active world. That's not why I called you in. But before we continue, I fully support the way you made, uh, what's his name? Frank. Yeah. Frank. Right. Anyway, I fully support the extra duties you enforced on him. It is the only way he's gonna learn. Don't you agree? Yes, Ira. But if it's not about Frank, then what's this about? Now Max was really confused. He obviously thought that the extra duties he had forced on Frank was the reason for his trouble with the boss. Ira liked the punishment that Frank was given. After all, he could've killed someone. Well, Max, that's due with the north side of the complex he finished last week. I was going over the surface of the environment with the camera pot when I spotted the error. Ira used his controls on his desk to activate the projector behind him. A large blown up copy of the blueprint came upon the wall behind Max. Please have a look at this blueprint, Max. You recognize it, of course. Max would recognize it. He had his own red ink over the areas that had differed over the original design. Nothing worked both on paper and in reality. Max turned and looked at the drawing. Ira thought he saw Max tense. Could he know he had missed something? Yeah, I remember this one. Christ, I gave it to you three days ago. What's the problem? The problem is here. Ira brought up the video from the camera bot. Do you see a problem? Because I do. With the print parallel to the video feed, it was so obvious that you couldn't miss the problem. No, Ira. I don't see what's wrong. Come on, Max. I didn't keep you on my crew for this long to have you miss this, where the fuck are the relays that are supposed to be in that connection line. I don't know. It must have been missed. The sulky tones of Max made Ira wonder even more why he was lying. Must have been missed. You gotta be kidding me. Do you have any idea what could happen if we don't fix this problem? Ira's anger was flaring up again. He had expected to send Max away with instructions to fix it, but now he wanted to know what Max was hiding. No, I don't know what could happen if this problem will go unnoticed. I really didn't know we'd missed it. Ira was sure that Max was lying now. He hadn't turned from the screen when he answered. Max, look at me. Max turned his red hair, reflected with its dark undertones. Now I know that you're not stupid, and I hope you realize that I'm not as well, so why are you lying to me? Ira was holding back the yell he was feeling in his thought. He never let himself be taken for a fool. Ira, believe me. I'm not lying. I had no idea we missed it. I'll fix it, Pronto, OK? Max said this with brisk words, trying to sound as if he was embarrassed. That will be left up for discussion. What I really want to know now is do I have to go over all the work you've done here on site? I mean, I haven't been doing regular checks because of the downpots, but I will go over with a fine-tooth comb if I have to. No, you don't have to do that, Ira. I swear this was a mistake, and I'm willing to fix it for free. Max was now acting out of character for a welder. They never offered to fix their mistakes for free. And it was always the boss who made them do it under their own time. I'm willing to let you fix it, but you're going to need more than just yourself for the repair. Who's going to pay the crew that has to go out there with you? I will authorize the payment options. It can come directly out of my account. Just please don't let me go. I need this job. Was that it? Max was afraid of getting fired? Ira wondered if this was why he had felt Max was lying. I'm not going to fire you, Max. I need you now. I just need to know that I can count on you. You know I rarely fire anyone, but it does worry me that an experienced man like yourself could miss this. I mean, we're talking a major system that would be compromised. We have only one inspection left before we're finished. I can't have problems like this now. This is unacceptable. I understand that, Ira. That's why I'm willing to fix this now. Max seemed eager to get on the problem. His hands were clenching the arms of his chair. Okay, I'll authorize you to do the repair work. But since this has to happen right away, you'll be doing it on my time. So make sure that your current project gets finished on your time. You get me, Max. I'll get you, Ira. I won't let you down again. Max was getting to his feet. He had the knees of his suit in his hands and was pulling the material out from himself. Let me know when you're done. The pieces you missed should be orbiting the work platform in that sector. That is all, Max. Max left the office. Ira was confused. He had never expected the conversation to go that way. There was a certain dance that was always played when the worker had made a mistake, but this time Max had not danced. The fact that he had only one working camera bot made him even more worried. Max was one of his best foremen. If he was missing things way out here, what could have been missed by others? [music] It's your last job. [music] [music] OK, everybody. That's the show. Before we go any further, me and Jay or Jay and I would like to thank J.R.D. Skinner, Apoponax and Jessica May, and all of the loyal listeners of the FlashPulp podcast for letting us play on their airwaves or gigabytes. Play with your gigabytes. That's kind of provocative, isn't it? Sounds like giggly bits. OK, anyway. Our Drupal operating system crumbled like a sand castle, and we're trying to get it back together, so it was super cool of you guys to allow us to get a show out, while ours is under repair. Jay put a lot of work into this story, and I think he did a great job on it. I can't wait for chapter two. So stay tuned, guys. The New Fiction Writers podcast is protected using a Creative Commons license. You can download it and share it with your friends. In fact, we encourage you to do so. Just don't try to change it or make money with it. OK, that's all I have for you. Again, we thank our gracious hosts at FlashPulp, super cool folks, one and all. And as always, thanks for listening. You guys, we go to each other out there, and we'll see you next time on the New Fiction Writers podcast. [MUSIC]