ch 3
Yojimbo sharp teeth
Part #3
A New Beginning
When Jen woke up four hours later, his head didn't hurt as bad--and his arm was in a splint. J. Bot the service robot walked in on his stout metal legs, bringing in a tray with food. He said in his slightly human voice, "Good afternoon Jen. Are you feeling better?"
"Yes" Jen sat up slowly. A sharp pain shot through his back. Jen snapped back and hit his head on the bed’s backboard.
J. Bot said, "Jen, you have obtained severe mechanical damage. I would not suggest that you make it more severe, Jen. I would not want you to be further damaged."
Jen replied, "A little late for that. J. Bot, why are you talking so strangely?”
The robot answered, “I obtained damage from the heat. I was not built for extreme heat. I am operating on backup until I can repair myself."
Then he remembered "J. Bot? Are the kids ok?"
"Pardon?" said J. Bot.
Jen thought that they needed to upgrade his backup programming.
"J. Bot, what are their active states? Are they operative?"
"Jen, I'm not a little tin dog..! My word processing may be down—but not my logic circuits. "Yes, they're well." said J. Bot.
"Report," said Jen.
"They have a bad case of smoke-lung and a few broken bones. Falling on them could not have helped but all in all they are O.K." said J. Bot.
"J. Bot, what happened?"
"You pressed the emergency call button on your watch, Jen."
"If I erred in some way, I can bring you back Jen." said J. Bot.
"Yes, like I need to be burned alive..!" snapped Jen.
J. Bot looked at Jen uneasily. "It was bad enough to go in for you the first time. The thought that you want me to take you back is very upsetting. I don't want to even think about doing it again."
Jen said, "No J. Bot. I was being sarcastic…understand?"
"It’s difficult for me to understand." said J. Bot
"It’s like…an idiom. A single phrase that can be have various meanings," said Jen.
"I still don't understand, Jen" said J. Bot.
"I did not think you would." In the back of Jen’s mind ,he made a note to upgrade his childhood toy. J. Bot had become so much more to him – some robots did exceed their original uses.
After Jen had some lunch, he got out of bed and put on some new clothes--throwing the old ones into the incinerator. They were too ripped-up to bother fixing them. He walked in to the living room. Moms was on her pocket computer, reading a book on the Old Earth. "Moms, J. Bot's got that annoying C3PO glitch again. Honestly, I've tried to get that fixed but it’s no use." Moms looked up from her book. "Well, Jen…what can I say? He has “layers”--he is some of my work."
Grandma was also on one of her old laptops—one of those old clunkers that only held about 2gb of reusable memory and about 120 gigs of memory.
"Grams, why do you still play with these old computers?" asked Jen.
"Well, Jen" she replied, barely looking up from her computer, "Way back when I was a little girl, we only had two 2006 laptops for six whole months." Jenny lifted her head from the game she was playing.
"The last time you said it was two years and it was one ansible pod computer plus one computer game, the Fighting Fetus 5000" Grandmom's eyes glazed over at the memory. "Oh yes -- the times I'd be playing that the game where you'd fight off the people that wanted to abort you then crash anti-birth rallies." She sighed. "All the times I hacked, cheated -- the game was wacky fun."
With an annoyed expression said "Hey! Who's telling this lie?"
"Grams, where is Dads?"
"He's out on the west side, collecting wood for the cool cellar." Jen started to walk out the out the door to the outside then Moms called out. "Jen, you've just spent four hours in bed out cold and you have a broken arm -- you are in no condition to go out and lift heavy objects."
Jen turned. "Moms, you know that I don't like being lazy and I have a lot to do before this weekend--so I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine." Moms looked at him with an expression of disdain "I'm OK, Moms." Said Jen
"Moms, I won't hurt myself. Scouts honor."
As he held up his hand in the scout position, Moms replied, "Jen,you were never a scout and you know it! Do as you will but don't come crying to me if you crack your head open." "Moms, you always wore the best at the graphic details."
"Who said I was joking?" came the reply.
Jen laughed as he walked out the door. In the background, he heard "My son, the hero!"
Jen walked to the shed to put on his logging gear -- a small jump suit that was enabled the wearer to carry up to ten times what he could normally haul. It was invented in 2006 by Prof. Yoshiyuki Sankai—initially, sold to the physically impaired. Back then, one of these exo-suits would cost $20,000 or 2,000,000 yen—over time, there were many upgrades to the suits, but the general idea remained the same.
When Jen got to the forest on the east side of the property, he saw Dads using the laser saw to cut down trees. The tree fell with a crash. Dads quickly limbed the tree and was about to pick it up when he saw Jen. Dads yelled out, "What are you doing here Jen?" Jen replied, as he continued toward Dads "I'm just out here to give a hand."
Dads face turned dark. "You should be in bed! How would your mother feel if I came back and had to say you cracked your head open?"
Jen looked over with a wry grin, "She told me not to come running, so I think I'm safe." said Jen.
"Did she really? Remind me to comment on her sense of humor."
"I will." said Jen.
"Well, I guess since you’re out here, you might as well give me a hand."
Jen started to pick up the tree and set it on the hover tractor.
"So how are the kids, Jen?"
"They’re doing OK. J. Bot says they should be right as rain soon."
"Good, I saw how badly they were hurt. I think you might have hurt them when you fell. I think that the boy has a broken rib."
"Dads, no matter how bad I could have hurt them, they only would have been hurt more by the fire."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that but that doesn’t make it much better."
Jen walked up to the driver’s side seat and sat down as Dads got in on the passenger side. Jen turned and said, "Dads, if they got hurt all that bad I will get very choked up," and with a pouting lip he said, "Honestly, there could be tears."
Dads groaned and rolled his eyes as they rode back to the house. They made many trips back and forth from the forest to the cellar. They did this until it began to get dark. Back at the house, things were pretty good. Jenny had put out some food from the chest freezer and heated it up. It was some of the surplus produce from last year. The first year they introduced bees to the farm, they were up to their ears in tomatoes.
About three thousand pounds of tomatoes…give or take a few.
So this should be one of the last tomato packs…I hope. As they say, everything in moderation--including moderation.
Jen walked into the living room and heard Moms say. "Did you crack your head open?" "No, Moms--still relatively intact." He heard out of the corner of his ear. "Oh, darn it." It sounded like Jenny.
Jen put the exosuit in the closet and yelled out. "Why shouldn’t I be, Jenny?"
"Of course, then I will get all the inheritance." Moms interrupted and said. "Honey, it doesn't work that way." Jen exclaimed, "Well, that explains all the hemlock that seemed to be switched for parsley in my salad for all these years."
"Actually, that was my decision, Jen."
This last came from Grandmom. Jen walked to the kitchen table and sat down and preset a button on the table. The placemat turned into a small screen. It popped up with his email and got the news for the day.
He pushed another button. The screen reverted to its former status. Jen got up and went over to the fridge. He got a glass of tea, picked up a bowl of stew and went back to his set. He started to eat, his long hair almost dripping into his bowl. Then, the two kids from the house came into the room, dressed in Jen’s old clothes.
They sat down. Jenny brought two bowls out for them and they ate ravenously.
Jen lifted his head to see how the two were doing. Jen saw that they were a little bruised but the cell regenerator had patched up most of their hurts. He felt satisfied and took a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table, saying "Hi." The boy looked up, about to return his greeting then stopped, stared then started to cry.
The girl looked up at her brother, perplexed. As she traced his gaze, terror raked her face.
She grabbed her brother and stared in terror at Jen.
Jen lifted a hand as if he was about to say something when they began to cry in unison. Moms rushed into the room and tried to comfort the kids. Jen decided it was time to have dinner somewhere else and walked out to the porch. It was some time before Jen stopped hearing the wails from the house.
Later, Moms came out with a long wrapped bundle under her arm. She sat down and looked at Jen. With heavy sadness she said, "I have a gift for you. It’s something that your real mom left with us as payment to look after you. I want you to have it."
Moms handed the bundle to Jen. Jen pulled the cord then unwound the strips of fabric. When all the fabric was removed, it revealed a short sword. He pulled it from the bundle, then stopped. He saw a pommel in the likeness of a dragon’s head, laid into a long black leather hilt, and a wrapped handle which led to a simple carved crossbar.
Jen drew the sword from its scabbard and glanced at its perilous beauty, which led into a thin two edged spring steel core light steel resistant edge. A deep fouler ran down each side, the length of the blade. It had a few dents, chips and laser-blade scorch marks in the blade. The sword’s sheath was a simple black leather with a Browne makeshift frog. The scabbard had a knife inlaid into the side of the sheath--he wouldn’t have known it was there if he hadn’t pulled back the frog.
The hilt of the knife was as black as the sheath. It wasn't a knife for fighting but more of a knife for field-dressing and eating a vulturestoat—something you wouldn’t do with your sword. But all in all, a beautiful blade. Jen looked at it in astonishment
"My God," said Jen, "Moms, what happened?"
"What!" Moms replied, all indignant. "Do I need a reason to give a gift to my son?"
Jen raised an eye to Moms’ side as he dipped her head. "I don't want to say this, but you can’t stay here." She paused. "I'm sorry, Jen."
"Why, Moms?"
"Jen…the kids are scared of you. According to them, you killed their parents."
“I didn't, Moms."
"I know, but they won't believe …I'm sorry Jen." Moms stood up. As she walked to the door, she paused and looked back at Jen--then walked in.
Jen walked up to his room and started packing…then the wave hit him. Tears came to his eyes and he came down on one knee. He started to cry--Dads heard, and came in.
"Jen, what’s wrong?"
"Just regretting what I said."
Dads sunk down to be at eye level with Jen "That if anything happened, there could be tears. Well, here they are." Jen then laughed at his ineptness.
"Well Jen, I understand. I had to leave my parents." Jen looked up into Dads’ eyes and he relented. "Well, maybe I didn't…but I understand what you are going through. I want to help you, so I have this." Dads offered a box, and Jen opened it.
Jen looked inside. "Jen, this is something that you might need for this day". Jen closed the box and stuffed it into his bag. "Thank you, Dads." Jen slung his bag on his back and picked up his rifle—it had been rescued from the fire, and he was glad that it had not been consumed. He had worked two weeks to finish the job on that rifle.
Jen walked out of his room. "Jen, I have another gift for you," said Dad as they walked outside of the house, Dad gestured to a hoverbike. Jen smiled. Moms came over and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead.
Jen asked, "Isn't Jenny going to bid me farewell?"
"Jenny is interested in the kids."
"Typical," Jen said, laughing slightly. Moms looked into Jen’s face as if to say “take good care of yourself”. Jen smiled with fake enthusiasm and walked to the bike
Jen climbed aboard and was about to start it—but when he put the key in the ignition, the bike didn't kick over. He tried again—and examined the key. Jen got off the bike and walked over to Dads…who gave him the right key for the bike. Jen thought, “So much for a dramatic exit.”
Jen got back on the bike and rode out past the field…past the house, blackened and dead. Jen pulled over to the side of the rode to think about what had happened that day. He looked at the house, mounted his bike and rode away. The tears began to flow down his cheeks as he rode on into the night, wishing this day to end…wishing the day had ended better.
Yojimbo sharp teeth
Part #3
A New Beginning
When Jen woke up four hours later, his head didn't hurt as bad--and his arm was in a splint. J. Bot the service robot walked in on his stout metal legs, bringing in a tray with food. He said in his slightly human voice, "Good afternoon Jen. Are you feeling better?"
"Yes" Jen sat up slowly. A sharp pain shot through his back. Jen snapped back and hit his head on the bed’s backboard.
J. Bot said, "Jen, you have obtained severe mechanical damage. I would not suggest that you make it more severe, Jen. I would not want you to be further damaged."
Jen replied, "A little late for that. J. Bot, why are you talking so strangely?”
The robot answered, “I obtained damage from the heat. I was not built for extreme heat. I am operating on backup until I can repair myself."
Then he remembered "J. Bot? Are the kids ok?"
"Pardon?" said J. Bot.
Jen thought that they needed to upgrade his backup programming.
"J. Bot, what are their active states? Are they operative?"
"Jen, I'm not a little tin dog..! My word processing may be down—but not my logic circuits. "Yes, they're well." said J. Bot.
"Report," said Jen.
"They have a bad case of smoke-lung and a few broken bones. Falling on them could not have helped but all in all they are O.K." said J. Bot.
"J. Bot, what happened?"
"You pressed the emergency call button on your watch, Jen."
"If I erred in some way, I can bring you back Jen." said J. Bot.
"Yes, like I need to be burned alive..!" snapped Jen.
J. Bot looked at Jen uneasily. "It was bad enough to go in for you the first time. The thought that you want me to take you back is very upsetting. I don't want to even think about doing it again."
Jen said, "No J. Bot. I was being sarcastic…understand?"
"It’s difficult for me to understand." said J. Bot
"It’s like…an idiom. A single phrase that can be have various meanings," said Jen.
"I still don't understand, Jen" said J. Bot.
"I did not think you would." In the back of Jen’s mind ,he made a note to upgrade his childhood toy. J. Bot had become so much more to him – some robots did exceed their original uses.
After Jen had some lunch, he got out of bed and put on some new clothes--throwing the old ones into the incinerator. They were too ripped-up to bother fixing them. He walked in to the living room. Moms was on her pocket computer, reading a book on the Old Earth. "Moms, J. Bot's got that annoying C3PO glitch again. Honestly, I've tried to get that fixed but it’s no use." Moms looked up from her book. "Well, Jen…what can I say? He has “layers”--he is some of my work."
Grandma was also on one of her old laptops—one of those old clunkers that only held about 2gb of reusable memory and about 120 gigs of memory.
"Grams, why do you still play with these old computers?" asked Jen.
"Well, Jen" she replied, barely looking up from her computer, "Way back when I was a little girl, we only had two 2006 laptops for six whole months." Jenny lifted her head from the game she was playing.
"The last time you said it was two years and it was one ansible pod computer plus one computer game, the Fighting Fetus 5000" Grandmom's eyes glazed over at the memory. "Oh yes -- the times I'd be playing that the game where you'd fight off the people that wanted to abort you then crash anti-birth rallies." She sighed. "All the times I hacked, cheated -- the game was wacky fun."
With an annoyed expression said "Hey! Who's telling this lie?"
"Grams, where is Dads?"
"He's out on the west side, collecting wood for the cool cellar." Jen started to walk out the out the door to the outside then Moms called out. "Jen, you've just spent four hours in bed out cold and you have a broken arm -- you are in no condition to go out and lift heavy objects."
Jen turned. "Moms, you know that I don't like being lazy and I have a lot to do before this weekend--so I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine." Moms looked at him with an expression of disdain "I'm OK, Moms." Said Jen
"Moms, I won't hurt myself. Scouts honor."
As he held up his hand in the scout position, Moms replied, "Jen,you were never a scout and you know it! Do as you will but don't come crying to me if you crack your head open." "Moms, you always wore the best at the graphic details."
"Who said I was joking?" came the reply.
Jen laughed as he walked out the door. In the background, he heard "My son, the hero!"
Jen walked to the shed to put on his logging gear -- a small jump suit that was enabled the wearer to carry up to ten times what he could normally haul. It was invented in 2006 by Prof. Yoshiyuki Sankai—initially, sold to the physically impaired. Back then, one of these exo-suits would cost $20,000 or 2,000,000 yen—over time, there were many upgrades to the suits, but the general idea remained the same.
When Jen got to the forest on the east side of the property, he saw Dads using the laser saw to cut down trees. The tree fell with a crash. Dads quickly limbed the tree and was about to pick it up when he saw Jen. Dads yelled out, "What are you doing here Jen?" Jen replied, as he continued toward Dads "I'm just out here to give a hand."
Dads face turned dark. "You should be in bed! How would your mother feel if I came back and had to say you cracked your head open?"
Jen looked over with a wry grin, "She told me not to come running, so I think I'm safe." said Jen.
"Did she really? Remind me to comment on her sense of humor."
"I will." said Jen.
"Well, I guess since you’re out here, you might as well give me a hand."
Jen started to pick up the tree and set it on the hover tractor.
"So how are the kids, Jen?"
"They’re doing OK. J. Bot says they should be right as rain soon."
"Good, I saw how badly they were hurt. I think you might have hurt them when you fell. I think that the boy has a broken rib."
"Dads, no matter how bad I could have hurt them, they only would have been hurt more by the fire."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that but that doesn’t make it much better."
Jen walked up to the driver’s side seat and sat down as Dads got in on the passenger side. Jen turned and said, "Dads, if they got hurt all that bad I will get very choked up," and with a pouting lip he said, "Honestly, there could be tears."
Dads groaned and rolled his eyes as they rode back to the house. They made many trips back and forth from the forest to the cellar. They did this until it began to get dark. Back at the house, things were pretty good. Jenny had put out some food from the chest freezer and heated it up. It was some of the surplus produce from last year. The first year they introduced bees to the farm, they were up to their ears in tomatoes.
About three thousand pounds of tomatoes…give or take a few.
So this should be one of the last tomato packs…I hope. As they say, everything in moderation--including moderation.
Jen walked into the living room and heard Moms say. "Did you crack your head open?" "No, Moms--still relatively intact." He heard out of the corner of his ear. "Oh, darn it." It sounded like Jenny.
Jen put the exosuit in the closet and yelled out. "Why shouldn’t I be, Jenny?"
"Of course, then I will get all the inheritance." Moms interrupted and said. "Honey, it doesn't work that way." Jen exclaimed, "Well, that explains all the hemlock that seemed to be switched for parsley in my salad for all these years."
"Actually, that was my decision, Jen."
This last came from Grandmom. Jen walked to the kitchen table and sat down and preset a button on the table. The placemat turned into a small screen. It popped up with his email and got the news for the day.
He pushed another button. The screen reverted to its former status. Jen got up and went over to the fridge. He got a glass of tea, picked up a bowl of stew and went back to his set. He started to eat, his long hair almost dripping into his bowl. Then, the two kids from the house came into the room, dressed in Jen’s old clothes.
They sat down. Jenny brought two bowls out for them and they ate ravenously.
Jen lifted his head to see how the two were doing. Jen saw that they were a little bruised but the cell regenerator had patched up most of their hurts. He felt satisfied and took a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table, saying "Hi." The boy looked up, about to return his greeting then stopped, stared then started to cry.
The girl looked up at her brother, perplexed. As she traced his gaze, terror raked her face.
She grabbed her brother and stared in terror at Jen.
Jen lifted a hand as if he was about to say something when they began to cry in unison. Moms rushed into the room and tried to comfort the kids. Jen decided it was time to have dinner somewhere else and walked out to the porch. It was some time before Jen stopped hearing the wails from the house.
Later, Moms came out with a long wrapped bundle under her arm. She sat down and looked at Jen. With heavy sadness she said, "I have a gift for you. It’s something that your real mom left with us as payment to look after you. I want you to have it."
Moms handed the bundle to Jen. Jen pulled the cord then unwound the strips of fabric. When all the fabric was removed, it revealed a short sword. He pulled it from the bundle, then stopped. He saw a pommel in the likeness of a dragon’s head, laid into a long black leather hilt, and a wrapped handle which led to a simple carved crossbar.
Jen drew the sword from its scabbard and glanced at its perilous beauty, which led into a thin two edged spring steel core light steel resistant edge. A deep fouler ran down each side, the length of the blade. It had a few dents, chips and laser-blade scorch marks in the blade. The sword’s sheath was a simple black leather with a Browne makeshift frog. The scabbard had a knife inlaid into the side of the sheath--he wouldn’t have known it was there if he hadn’t pulled back the frog.
The hilt of the knife was as black as the sheath. It wasn't a knife for fighting but more of a knife for field-dressing and eating a vulturestoat—something you wouldn’t do with your sword. But all in all, a beautiful blade. Jen looked at it in astonishment
"My God," said Jen, "Moms, what happened?"
"What!" Moms replied, all indignant. "Do I need a reason to give a gift to my son?"
Jen raised an eye to Moms’ side as he dipped her head. "I don't want to say this, but you can’t stay here." She paused. "I'm sorry, Jen."
"Why, Moms?"
"Jen…the kids are scared of you. According to them, you killed their parents."
“I didn't, Moms."
"I know, but they won't believe …I'm sorry Jen." Moms stood up. As she walked to the door, she paused and looked back at Jen--then walked in.
Jen walked up to his room and started packing…then the wave hit him. Tears came to his eyes and he came down on one knee. He started to cry--Dads heard, and came in.
"Jen, what’s wrong?"
"Just regretting what I said."
Dads sunk down to be at eye level with Jen "That if anything happened, there could be tears. Well, here they are." Jen then laughed at his ineptness.
"Well Jen, I understand. I had to leave my parents." Jen looked up into Dads’ eyes and he relented. "Well, maybe I didn't…but I understand what you are going through. I want to help you, so I have this." Dads offered a box, and Jen opened it.
Jen looked inside. "Jen, this is something that you might need for this day". Jen closed the box and stuffed it into his bag. "Thank you, Dads." Jen slung his bag on his back and picked up his rifle—it had been rescued from the fire, and he was glad that it had not been consumed. He had worked two weeks to finish the job on that rifle.
Jen walked out of his room. "Jen, I have another gift for you," said Dad as they walked outside of the house, Dad gestured to a hoverbike. Jen smiled. Moms came over and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead.
Jen asked, "Isn't Jenny going to bid me farewell?"
"Jenny is interested in the kids."
"Typical," Jen said, laughing slightly. Moms looked into Jen’s face as if to say “take good care of yourself”. Jen smiled with fake enthusiasm and walked to the bike
Jen climbed aboard and was about to start it—but when he put the key in the ignition, the bike didn't kick over. He tried again—and examined the key. Jen got off the bike and walked over to Dads…who gave him the right key for the bike. Jen thought, “So much for a dramatic exit.”
Jen got back on the bike and rode out past the field…past the house, blackened and dead. Jen pulled over to the side of the rode to think about what had happened that day. He looked at the house, mounted his bike and rode away. The tears began to flow down his cheeks as he rode on into the night, wishing this day to end…wishing the day had ended better.
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