The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty (9 page)

“I can see from your expression this is all new to you. Let me tell you why we started this program. The Board of Directors thought we might be missing out on the creativity of new employees because they end up in one of the specialized divisions before we ever see what they are capable of doing. This is your chance to shine, Bernie. We want you to wow us. Knock our socks off. Show us what you’re really capable of.

“You’ll have six months to complete your project. Then we’ll take a look at what you’ve done. When we see your work, we’ll make decisions about your skills and decide what division to put you in.

“While you’re working on your universe, you’ll be assigned to one of the regular divisions. That division’s head will be your supervisor, and he’ll review your performance on whether you follow the work rules, get along with coworkers, and things like that.

“Even though you’re in the pilot program, you’re still a probationary employee. And if your boss decides you don’t measure up, he can terminate your employment, regardless of how you’re doing on your universe. Have you got all that?”

“Yes, sir. Follow the rules, and build a great universe.”

“Yep. That’s about right. Well, let’s go meet your new boss.” Ezrah glanced away, unable to look at Bernie.

The poor kid
, he thought.
His enthusiasm is about to get dashed. Shemal is the toughest manager in The Business. He demands high performance, and if he doesn’t get it, he has no problem terminating someone before their probationary period is up.

Ezrah felt badly about assigning Bernie to Shemal, but he thought it would be more merciful for everyone if things ended quickly.

Meeting the Boss

Bernie followed Ezrah up three flights of stairs, down long corridors, and up another flight of stairs as they moved through the strange ‘inner space’ the gods used to make their buildings. Buildings in town were invariably larger on the inside than the outside. Thinking of the building in three dimensions would invariably lead to getting lost, which is why Bernie paid attention to the twists and turns and ups and downs as he memorized the route.

All the major divisions had their own skylights; some said you could tell the power of a division by counting their skylights. This bore some truth. Divisions were always being reorganized, restructured, and renamed in an attempt to improve their efficiency, although some argued it was more about power struggles that raged among the corporate officers.

Today was no field trip where Bernie and fellow students had come for a tour. Today he started work as a builder. So far, everything was going perfectly. Ezrah seemed nice. He spoke to him like an adult instead of a student. Bernie wasn’t sure anyone had ever done that before. It felt really good. In fact, the only bad thing today was the weird way Suzie had acted. When he first saw her, his cloud got excited and by the time he got it calmed down, he couldn’t catch her attention. He was sure she’d seen him. Well, maybe she was having a bad day or something. He hoped that’s all it was.

Finally, Ezrah stopped and opened a door and ushered Bernie through. The sign said Standard Model Final Assembly Division. As they walked inside, Bernie saw cubicles stretching from wall to wall. Bernie couldn’t suppress a shiver of excitement as he surveyed the large room. These were all builders, hard at work creating new and wonderful things. And he was about to join them.

Ezrah steered Bernie to the corridor in the center of the room. At the far end of the room, in an office with windows on three sides, they found a big man wearing an angry frown as he stared at a paper in his hand.

As Ezrah knocked, the angry man looked up. “Ezrah. Come on in,” he said as the frown disappeared. “I see you brought me some fresh meat. Come on in, kid. I almost never bite on the first day.”

“This is Bernie. He’s our newest employee. He’s only been on the payroll for an hour, Shemal, so treat him gently. They only graduate once a year, you know.” They both laughed.

“Pleased to meet you, Bernie. You can call me Shemal. Thanks, Ezrah. I can take it from here.”

“Okay, then. Good luck, Bernie.”

“Thanks, Ezrah. I’ll do my very best.”

Ezrah closed the door behind him.

* * *

“Now, Bernie. I’m going to tell you the way things work around here,” said Shemal with a voice that thundered and echoed in the small office. “It’s very simple. I’m in charge. I’m the boss. You do whatever I tell you to do whenever I tell you to do it. Got that so far?”

“Yes, sir.” He remained still even though he felt the grip of invisible fingers digging into his shoulders.

“I used to spend a lot of time trying to teach people to do exactly what I want. But I found out most of the new kids aren’t very good at building, and they don’t follow instructions very well either. So I developed my own little evaluation system for new employees. So here’s how it’s gonna work.

“You have your universe to build. I’m sure Ezrah told you about it. You’re going to work on it. I’m not going to tell you a thing, although I’ll come over once in a while to see how you’re doing. You can build whatever you want.

“While you’re in my division, you’ll follow the rules and whatever else I tell you to do. I will be watching to make sure you do. And if I decide I’m wasting my time on you, then I’ll show you the door. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Bernie’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. The invisible force had hunkered down behind his back; he could feel it shaking.

“Now that we have the orientation complete, let’s get you settled in. I’m giving you work station number seventeen. There are two manuals waiting on your desk, so read them. They will tell you most of the stuff you need to know. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Then get out of here.”

As Bernie walked out of Shemal’s office he noticed a dozen or more heads raised above the cubicles watching him. He walked to the closest head, a young man who quickly turned away from Bernie and back to his desk. Bernie said, “Hi, I’m Bernie. Can you tell me where station seventeen is?”

The young man, without looking up, pointed at the small numbers in brass on the outside of the cubicle. Bernie noticed the number forty-two. Everyone watching him earlier was now too busy with their own work to respond to his attempts to say hello. He walked down the row of cubicles in the direction of descending numbers until he reached seventeen.

Inside the cubicle, he found two thick manuals and a beautiful set of builder equipment and supplies neatly stacked on the floor next to his desk. A rolling chair with an adjustable tilt sat waiting for him. Bernie walked into the cubicle and sat down. He tingled with excitement. His cloud, terrified just minutes earlier, was now patting him on the back. He closed his eyes and breathed in the satisfaction of having reached what had once looked like an impossible goal.

Life is good
, he thought.
No, life is great!

Billy Bully

Just a year ago, he had been a new graduate from The School, standing in line hoping for a job with The Business. Well, there was no doubt he would be hired. He had good grades, and his family tree was full of builders.

In the last year, a lot of things had changed. Billy hadn’t changed, but he sure changed things around him. The division was a good example. When he first arrived, he was just the ‘new kid’. Unfortunately for some of them, they hadn’t treated him with the respect he deserved. But they learned. They’d had no choice.

On the first day of each week, Billy made a point of arriving a little early and walking around the maze of cubicles that made up the Final Assembly Division. He paused in front of empty cubicle number eighty-four. He smiled.
Poor Stacey. You were the first to feel my wrath. Would it have been so hard for you to accept my invitation to lunch? Well, you gave me an opportunity to teach an important lesson to your co-workers, although I’m afraid it was too late for you.
From a nearby cubicle, a god witnessed Billy’s smile as he paused before the empty cubicle. The god shuddered and quickly looked away, lest Billy notice him.

As if taking a regal stroll around his kingdom, Billy sauntered up one aisle and down another, pausing in front of several more empty cubicles.
And, you, Jason. I heard you now have a job stocking shelves in a grocery store. You should have shown me proper respect. You might still be working here.
Billy smiled, recalling how Jason had approached him on the street and begged for his job back. Billy had laughed in his face.

The first few victims had been for the sake of example, really. It was necessary to get their attention and make them understand who he was. The strategy was similar to what he did on Klash: size up the battlefield and then, without mercy, destroy any who dared to oppose you. There was only one difference here: he couldn’t kill his enemies. He had to content himself with getting them fired. It was better in some ways—a god’s pain would last for an eternity. A Klashian’s pain lasted for only an instant.

Naturally, there had been the predictable counterthrust when some had tried to resist what he was doing. They were the most fun really, because they knew what he was doing, had made a conscious decision to oppose him, yet they were powerless to stop him. Billy took more pride in their termination than in the others. In just six months, the battle had been won. No one remaining dared to oppose him. These were smart people. They saw his power. They knew what he could do.

They learned that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they did whatever it took to stay on Billy’s good side. A simple rule, really. Anyone should be able to understand it.

* * *

The door to Final Assembly opened. The personnel director, Ezrah, entered, followed by a young god. Billy couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen him for two years. Could it be Bernie was going to be working in this division? Billy smiled his first genuine smile in days. This was the perfect opportunity to settle old scores.

While Bernie met with Shemal, Billy thought back to all the times Bernie had wronged him. It was a very long list. Billy and his posse had been the most-respected and envied guys at school. They’d been the cool kids with the best clothes and special tutors—all from good homes where both their moms and their dads were builders. All the girls liked to hang out with them.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Suzie didn’t, and that was another thing going on Bernie’s list. Billy knew she would have been another of his groupies, but for some reason, she followed Bernie around like a love-struck puppy. Billy had tried on numerous occasions to show her how unworthy Bernie was, but it just made her like him more.
Bernie is a nothing
, he thought. He lived in one of the project homes the Town Council built for the poor people out in Section Five. They weren’t even like real homes. They were even smaller on the inside than they were on the outside. It would be like living in a shoebox. His mom didn’t even have a real job; it wasn’t like she was a builder or anything.
Okay, Bernie’s father was a hot-shot builder, but he’d had the good sense to dump them both years ago.

Their feud lasted for years. Bernie deserved it. Everybody treated him differently because his dad was the ‘Great Simeon’. So what? Somebody had to show them Bernie was nothing but a dumb geek in secondhand clothes.
He always had his head in the clouds; if I hadn’t poked him from time to time, he would have walked into walls.

Usually Ber-Nerd would just take his lumps and go away. Things had changed when Suzie came along. Old Bernie had this little audience of one so he felt the need to stick up for her. At least that was Bernie’s excuse for the fight.

Billy seethed as he remembered what Bernie had done. Nothing could ever excuse it.
He turned me into a monster. Whenever someone looks at me, I see their shimmer flicker as if they’re about to faint.
Everyone gets the same sick feeling. And who wouldn’t? The horrible scar that ran half the length of his face reminded everyone of their own mortality. The healers said there was nothing they could do about it. But it was the first thing people saw; it was how they remembered him.
They think this is the greatest injury they can imagine, but it’s not. The greatest injury is what I’m going to do to Bernie. And even then, it won’t be enough.

Over the years, he had tormented Bernie at every opportunity. By the last year, everyone avoided Bernie. If they didn’t, then one of his buddies, RedDog or Butcher, would have a little talk with them about the danger of hanging out with social misfits.

But Bernie couldn’t leave well enough alone. He started fighting back. Without warning, Billy’s class schedule was changed, and they weren’t in the same classes anymore. A few more changes, and soon, they didn’t have classes anywhere near each other; Billy was reassigned to the toughest teachers who gave the most homework. He had been forced to run from one class to another to make it on time. He could never prove it, but he knew it was Bernie’s doing. Everyone knew Bernie was a geek. He probably hacked into the school’s computers. Or maybe he used something from that Off World Technology group he was in.

One day, Billy caught up with him after school. When he confronted Bernie, all he would say was ‘Really? You don’t say.’ or ‘And you think I did this?’ and other such nonsense. Everyone knew he did it. And for proof, the next day Billy’s classes were changed again. This time, his last class didn’t end until thirty minutes after Bernie had left for the day. Billy was going to nail Bernie before school the next day, but he never did. He was afraid his schedule would get changed again, making him come in earlier so they would never see each other. The other kids were laughing behind his back. It was all Bernie’s fault.

As Billy pondered the best course of action, a frown darkened his features. Billy’s frown was strangely similar to the scowl on Shemal’s face only a few minutes earlier.