Preparing The Project

“This life ain’t all it’s made out to be,” Matteo said, mindlessly drilling this one part onto this other part. He honestly had no idea what he was actually doing for the factory. His job was to take the thingamabob, and put the screw through it into the whatchamacallit, then put the nut on the other side to fix the two bits together. He did it, a thousand times a day. The most boring of jobs, but at least it wasn’t about to get him killed and payed well enough.

“What,” his coworker, Vittoria, asked, “You thought it would be more adventurous?” She worked the line right before him, taking the two parts and putting them together with the right orientation.

“At least your job requires some thought,” Matteo shot back.

“Says you,” Vittoria joked, “Not all of us need to think to remember our numbers below five.”

“Hey,” Matteo said with a chuckle, “Five is real big, you know.”

The two of them laughed as they worked. They needed to laugh, to joke, to have fun, when they were doing the job, or else they’d go insane. As they laughed, the alarm rung. “Shift change,” Matteo said with a fist pump.

“Oh, you got a big date or something?” Vittoria asked, a smirk crossing her face. She knew Matteo well enough to know he didn’t.

“Yeah. Huge,” Matteo replied, “My son’s got a school fair thing tonight.”

“That’s awesome,” she said, “What’s it on?”

He nodded along. “Kid’s a genius. Clearly from his mother’s side. He’s making some transmitter that’ll work without the relay.”

“Really?” Vittoria asked. She was genuinely surprised. Not because of Matteo’s kid being smart. Alex was probably the smartest person she’d ever met, even at only ten years old. She just didn’t think that was possible. “Without any garbling or rela-whatsit interference?”

Matteo, clearly proud, nodded. “That’s what he says, anyways. Astro bosses’ll be there to check everyone’s projects out, and if they like it, he might be a shoo-in for R&D school already.”

“Dang,” Vittoria said back, “That’s damned impressive. You think it’s gonna work?”

“His small-scale test model? Yeah. We’ve run it a couple times already,” Matteo answered, “Getting into trade school this young? Possibly. I mean, remember that news story about the seven-year-old?”

“Well, yeah,” Vittoria tried to slow the hype down some for Matteo’s sake. “But that was Security school, and the kid was trained by a fucking monster already.”

Matteo nodded. “Right, right. Manage expectations. Don’t fall into the trap of over hyping it.” He took a deep breath. “If you want to come, I could take you?”

Vittoria laughed. “Oh, no. This is all you, my dude. I’ve got a date with alcoholism.”

Matteo shook his head at his old friend. “Hopeless drunk.”

“Lovesick dumbass,” Vittoria replied in the friendliest of fashions. That was their joking epitaphs for one another, back when they flunked out of engineering school together. Matteo couldn’t stop yearning for his not-yet-wife, before they had a kid, before she joined the Security Department’s space program as an engineer, before she left the planet and died for the company on the Uccisione. Vittoria, on the other hand, had the opposite problem. Whereas Matteo spent days, weeks working up the nerve to talk to his “One True Love”, Vittoria had spent every night at the local pub, drinking heavily and sleeping with anyone who had a pulse. She worked up such a debt at the pub that, when she got kicked out of school, she had to take the first job which came up to avoid getting her legs broken with a baseball bat.

With a nod and a smile, Matteo added in a simple, “Enjoy your night, Vee. Kick the strangers out of the place before Alex wakes up in morning.”

Vittoria laughed. “You worry too much, Matteo. I’m sure the kid knows about his aunty Vittoria’s tendency towards evening guests already.”

“Doesn’t mean I like having him exposed to them more than necessary,” Matteo replied, raising his eyebrows judgmentally.

“Fine, fine,” Vittoria relented, “Be that way.” After they pressed their thumbs against the pinprick to punch out of work and the small trickle of blood spilled down onto the receptacle, they gave one another a quick half-hug and went their separate ways.

Matteo headed into the garage area. He had to swing by the apartment, pick up Alex and his stuff, then they would head over to the general education school’s gymnasium to set up the whole shindig. According to Alex, the thing would only take a half-hour to set up, but he’d give the kid an hour, just to be certain it was all in place. He wasn’t about to take any chances, not with the kid’s future on the line. Possibly, in any case. He didn’t want Alex to repeat his own mistakes, and the sooner he went to trade school, the less likely he’d run into similar love-based issues while in school. Just while he was working, and with a mind like the kid had, that wouldn’t be too hard to manage while working. Shaking the thoughts of his kid’s future out of his head, Matteo climbed into his car, and pressed the button labeled ‘Home’.

The car lurched to life, and it slid perfectly into traffic, going full speed the entire time. Full automation kept the cars at perfect distances, and meant they never slowed down to below the speed, nor went above it. Matteo looked longingly at the picture of his wife that he kept on the car’s dashboard, beside the map and the energy consumption gauge. She’d be proud of Alex, he was sure. Tears welled slightly, but he pushed them back. Now was no time to be melancholy. He could do that any day. Now was a day of hope. He popped open the water jug that he kept in the car and poured himself a small glass. Healthiness was an important part of happiness, the screen before him reminded the man. He forced a smile as he drank his glass of water. After a few minutes, the smile wasn’t even forced. It was a good day, after all.

Ten minutes later, the car slid to a stop at the foot of his building. Matteo and Vittoria shared the townhouse, her taking the lower floor, and him and his son taking the upper. He hopped out of the car and headed up the stairs and into the main floor of the apartment. “Alex, how’s your homework coming along?” he asked, shouting.

From above, he heard his son say, “Give me a couple minutes, and I’ll be down to my math.”

“You need to finish your math, too,” Matteo scolded.

Alex’s infectious laughter echoed through the entire townhouse. “But I always just wait until the bus to do it. Makes it a bit of a race, you know?”

Matteo cleared his throat, and Alex groaned. “Fine,” he muttered.

Matteo smiled to himself and headed over to the kitchen. He’d cook up a quick meal, probably some beans and rice, then they’d eat and head over to the fair. It’d work out well enough. Waving his hand before the sensor, he fetched the food from the pantry.

He was just finishing up mixing the food together when Alex came sliding down the railing. “So, where’s aunt Vittoria?” he asked, seating himself at the kitchen table.

Matteo smiled as he brought the food out to the table. “Tomorrow is our day off, kid. Vittoria’s out making poor life decisions.”

Alex chuckled. The kid knew that was code for drinking the adult beverages and making strange friends. With a sniff, he dug into the meal. The two, seated across from each other, enjoyed the peaceful and relatively quiet meal. Finishing up at record pace, Matteo stood up. “So, get everything you need for the presentation.”

Alex nodded, and ran up the stairs. Matteo gathered the dishes and placed them in the enormous can in the corner of the room. A minute later, he removed the cleaned dishes from the disposal can, and placed them back on the shelf. He took in a breath to ask Alex how long it would be, when rushing down the stairs, his eager son shouted, “Are you ready, dad?”

Matteo chuckled. “Yeah, come on,” he said, opening up the front door. Alex rushed out to the car, and Matteo slowly followed, locking the door behind him. Climbing into the car, he pressed the button on the screen labeled ‘Alex School’, and the car erupted to life.

Turning to his son, Matteo asked, “So, Alex, how was your day?”

Alex shrugged. “Fine.”

Matteo waited, clearly expecting more. Nothing more came. “You know, this’ll be a real boring ride if you don’t talk.”

Alex groaned. “Fine, dad. Let’s see. Math was boring. Same with science. Art was fun, like always, but Jess threw paint at me, so it wasn’t all great. Um, Lunch was lunch. Then there was history, and music, then literature. All fine.”

“Did you actually go to history today?”

Alex looked away. “Yeah.”

“So, what was it about?”

“Uh, the, um, war of the Service?” Alex said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Matteo shook his head. “You gotta start going to history. You remember our deal?”

Alex nodded, his face bright red. “Yeah, I know, if each class I skip tightens my rules at home. When’s my curfew now?”

“With today? You need to be in your room by sundown.” Matteo’s voice was calm, but firm.

Alex sighed. “Alright, dad. Can I get a break next week, though? There’s a dance, and Vito says that Jess said that Paula would be there.”

Matteo shook his head, doing his best to hide the smile he felt coming. “Nope. You’re stuck in your room.”

Alex gave out a stubborn grunt-like sigh and folded into his seat. The car pulled into the school’s parking area and stopped. The two of them, a slightly grumpy Alex carrying a large box and a humored Matteo clambered out of the car and made their way to the gymnasium, to get everything set up. Matteo had a feeling Alex would enlist Vittoria’s help to sneak out for the dance, but he didn’t mind too much. He’d just have stricter rules put in place afterwards. The kid could go seeking out his cute youthful crush, he simply couldn’t condone it openly. Leading his son into the gym, he found his way to their designated booth area.

Alex got to work setting everything up for his project, so Matteo wandered to the organizers. He wasn’t going to be much help to his son with the actual set up. He barely understood the mechanics of making the thing, much less how it actually worked. Greeting the General Science educator, Ms. Caterina Ventura, at the judges table, he asked, “Hey. So, are the rumors true?”

“You mean about AI coming today?” Ms. Ventura replied, “Supposedly. Evidently, one of our older students, Ernesto, is a possible recruit. Why?”

Matteo smiled. “You know little Alex,” he said, “I’m hoping his display might draw some interest.”

Ms. Ventura raised an eyebrow. “For the future, right? Because I seem to recall Alex has a less than full grasp on attendance requirements for both history and literature.”

Matteo nodded. “Of course, for the future. He needs to mature some before that,” he meekly replied. “Anyone with interesting projects, though, Catia?”

Ms. Ventura laughed. “Interesting? Certainly. That you’d understand? Less so.” They both were well aware of his education level, that his understanding of anything other than mechanics and some simple macro-engineering theory and practice was less than stellar. Furrowing her face in thought, she did add, “Though I think a couple of our older students worked together on a new base-ship design. You might find that interesting. Maybe even help them improve.”

Matteo laughed. “Unlikely, but I’ll be sure to check it out.” His tablet buzzed. It was a message from Vittoria. ‘How’s the hot date going?’ Matteo winced. He hoped it was just Vittoria knowing him. That he wasn’t that obvious. He couldn’t afford to get his mind off of his kid’s future, not right now. Messaging back a quick, ‘shut up and go get wasted’, he smiled at Ms. Ventura. “Anyways, thanks. I’m going to go check on Alex.”

Ms. Ventura smiled. “Don’t be a stranger, Matteo,” she replied, walking away to check on some other people.

Shaking his head, grumpy at himself, Matteo returned to Alex. As the kid had predicted, he was all ready in under a half hour. There was fifteen minutes to go and leaned over to Alex. “Ready to blow everyone’s minds?”

Alex smiled. “Ready.” Then, in a hushed whisper to avoid the teachers wandering around the gymnasium hearing him, he whispered, “Time to kick some ass, right?”

Matteo laughed. “Exactly. Well put,” he said, cracking his neck. The kid was certainly going places.

#nsfw #GalaxyIncorporated #sciencefiction #fiction #SF #story