What Rats Do - Julie Steimle (best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT) 📗

from their work as he approached the darker recesses of the room. Most of the middlecity Labor Class men swept disparaging glances in his direction as he crossed the room, though one of his father’s co-workers walked over to Jafarr like an old friend.

“Jafarr, your father couldn’t wait. He left to Mandrin’s already,” said Tegorrii Melzdar a middle-aged a guard class man whom Jafarr’s father had an open acquaintance with outside the shop also.  

Jafarr smiled kindly at his father’s friend and headed toward the door. Before passing the two broken flight scooters and a reconstructed engine, another co-worker grabbed a broad, rimmed flight pad with a tool kid and handed them to the boy.

“Listen. I know you are Zeldar’s kid and he has high hopes for you and all, so see that you don’t get killed coming here,” the man said. He wiped some blood off of Jafarr’s chin with his thumb, showing him the bright trickle. He lifted his eyebrows in understanding. “Okay?”

Jafarr forced a smile and nodded, taking his handkerchief out again to dab the open wound in his lip.

“Anyway, your dad wanted you to take these parts when you got here,” the man said. He handed the remote to Jafarr then wandered back into the shop. 

Sighing once, Jafarr pulled the vehicle into the open street. He automatically steered to the right and unlatched the door where they kept their makeshift flight scooter. It was in a dank smelling yet dry shed. Slipping beside the crude vehicle where he could reach the controls, he pressed the ignition button and adjusted the gears, listening to it hum pleasantly within the metal walls, a loose metal piece rattling just slightly. The scooter may not have had all the high technology like the Surface Patrol scooter, pieced from different parts of discarded flight cars and scooters he found at the scrap dump, but it functioned just as well. The rattling he left for effect.

Pulling it through the door, he parked it next to the flight pad, gently clicking on the parking brake so he could make his last adjustments. Mostly he had to make sure the flight pad would follow the scooter by the laser tow light. Once everything linked up, Jafarr pulled on his helmet, adjusted the straps and started off into the traffic above, leading the scrappy-looking materials platform behind him.

His journey took him into a nicer part of the middlecity, requiring him to take the transit tunnels to get there. But that part was easy. Whenever he rode the rickety-looking flight scooter, flight cars maneuvered defensively around him, merging and making room for him so they would not be a casualty if ever his vehicle decided to break down, which was exactly why he preferred driving the junky scooter rather than the nicer cargo truck they also used. In this case, he had all the space he wanted. It worked so well, he had no care to improve the look of his vehicle or even tighten the loose metal cover that made it rattle. 

Mandrin’s restaurant was only a few blocks away from a transit tunnel exit, which made it easy for Jafarr to find. It was a nicer area than even where he went to school. Many people stared with disdain at him as he slowed down to his destination. He stopped right next to the utility car his father had driven over, gazing over at the job he had to help on. Mandrin Andell, the proprietor of the establishment and a short lean looking man, stood outside next to his father, pointing at the sky as he spoke.

Jafarr settled the engine, setting the brake with one eye on the men as they discussed their business privately. He climbed off the vehicle and approached them, checking his lip to make sure it was not bleeding. His father Jamenth Zeldar, a grown blonde version of his son, took his eyes from the sky to watch him walk up. “Jafarr, you look a mess. You really should be more careful when you come over here.”

Jafarr checked his lip for bleeding again. It was dry.

“Your face looks pulverized. What did you crash into?” His father peered hard at Jafarr’s eyes most especially, shaking his head.

Mandrin removed his eyes from the sky panels and tried to hide his gasp as he eyed Jafarr also.

Going to the side mirror of the utility car to check out the bruises, Jafarr only leaned in for a brief look. He had a black eye but it wasn’t that swollen, and the side of his lip was split. “Oh. These are nothing. I’m fine.” 

His father rested his hand upon his son’s shoulder. He could feel the muscles stiffen in Jafarr’s back just before Jafarr brushed him off.

“Jafarr…”

Taking a step back from him, Jafarr retorted before the argument could begin. “It was they who crashed into me.”

Jamenth Zeldar shook his head.

“So what is the problem,” Jafarr asked, changing the subject from the condition of his face.

Mandrin stared at the boy for a moment but listened to Jafarr’s father explain the predicament to his son. Jafarr nodded then offered suggestions, which Jamenth seriously considered, all of which made Mandrin shake his head with disbelief. “You aren’t sending your son up there to do the job are you?”

Jamenth glanced over at Jafarr who already climbed up onto the utility vehicle and was activating the extension ladder to reach the ceiling sky panel. “Don’t worry. He is training to do this as a career. I have full confidence in his abilities.”

As the ladder rose through the passing traffic, Jafarr switched on the flashing yellow lights on the handrails to warn them to get out of the way. Most parted without so much as a blink, but one vehicle slowed down, circled then parked on the opposite side of the road. Jafarr peered at it, emitting a small moan as he recognized the P.M. issue flight scooter. The rider was already shifting in his seat, fiddling with his helmet straps yet leaving the helmet on to keep a sense of mystery around him. The position of the P.M.’s gaze remained stationary, staring across the street at them.

Jafarr turned off the ladder and climbed out of the vehicle. Stepping closer to his dad, he whispered. “Perhaps Mandrin is right. I can hand you tools from down here.”

Giving him a look of exasperation, his father snapped, “Jafarr, it’s not like you haven’t done this job over a thousand times. This is routine.”

Shaking his head first, Jafarr whispered even quieter. “Dad, P.M.s.”

He nudged for his father to peek across the street. His father did, spotting the flight scooter nestled comfortably on the other curb with the People’s Military officer still astride.

Taking a deep breath, Jamenth turned to his son. “Do it anyway.”

Jafarr gaped at his father for a moment, unmoved from his spot.  His father stared back and gave his call as if Jafarr was just being lazy. “Hurry it up, son. We haven’t got all day.”

Jafarr shook his head to himself, but he hopped back onto the utility vehicle where he pressed the ladder button again to reactivate it. That twisting gut feeling told him without out a doubt that he was cursed to end up on the Watch List, and his father was driving him there.

Once the ladder finished extending, Jafarr climbed up the length of it to the top. With the cavern still several feet over his head and the flight vehicles zooming so terribly close to the top extension, Jafarr hung on tight, waiting for his father to do his part while fighting off the impression that everyone around him was trying to get him killed. His father immediately climbed inside the utility vehicle and activated the hover lift, taking them at a very slow and cautious pace the rest of the way to the top.

The sky panel they were aiming for was darker than the rest in the middlecity ceiling. Had it been in the undercity, they would have ignored it and gone on to more important matters such as cleaning out the air flow ducts or repairing the purifier. In the middlecity, it was another matter. No self-respecting High Class man would eat at a restaurant where the sky panels were patchy, and Mandrin’s was a classy restaurant that needed its High Class customers.

Jafarr tugged on some heat resistant gloves then reached up to the warm panel where he pressed upon the release latch, lifting a corner. The rotating hot lights seared heat upon his skin the moment he removed it, but he maneuvered the lamps aside onto a repair hook so he could crawl into the empty crawl space above. Above the lights in every cavern was an in-between gap with a few girders holding up rows upon rows of rotating lamps. It was an uncomfortably warm place. The space itself ran for miles while it stood about three to five feet above the rotators so a short Arrassian technician could walk upright though taller ones like him had to crouch.

Jafarr lifted his legs off the ladder so he could hook the top edge of the ladder to the edge of a girder. By this time, he was inside, sliding upon his knees across the rarely used maintenance catwalk, staring down at the light joints and components. A Harvii bulb was burnt out. The long heating bulb had corrosion on one end where the heat itself had melted the glass over time. Jafarr unlatched the bulb and called through the opening for a new one.

“Which size?” came the faint echo of his father.

Jafarr sighed and was about to respond when his eyes caught upon a strange object attached to the node where the bulb hooked in.

“Dad,” Jafarr poked his head out of the hole, his hair dangling into the open cavern. “I think I also need an Okorii junction.”

His father stared up in bewilderment. “What for? I thought this was just a blown bulb.”

Peering at the object again, Jafarr was sure now what it was. “Yes, I definitely do need an Okorii junction. This one’s faulty.”

His father continued to look confused at his son’s request, but he sent up the part anyway. Typically, an Okorii junction functioned for an eternity, though occasionally it cracked when the wrong light with the wrong size connectors were shoved into it.

As Jafarr looked down for parts, he noticed the P.M. on the street had moved from his spot, lifting his scooter off from his curbside view so he could watch the procedure at a higher altitude, not far from where they were working. Jafarr shuddered, knowing the P.M. would be trouble if the man knew what he had just found. 

The parts sat nestled in their carriers as they rode along the right rail of the ladder to the open light panel. Jafarr quickly pulled them in and set them on the catwalk so he could work with his hands free. Leaning downward upon his stomach while hooking his feet onto the catwalk rail, he hung over the light fixture and detached the Okorii junction taking especial care not to let it bump anything while he set it aside. He attached the new junction with little work and sighed with relief once it was on. Then he sat up on the catwalk where he carefully pulled apart the pieces attached to the old junction—including chips, tiny compact chemical containers and tubes that didn’t usually go with such pieces of machinery, sliding them into his boot sleeve. He rammed the remaining Okorii junction against the catwalk, snapping it in half so it had the typical crack. Laying the rest of the parts onto the catwalk, he finished his job by changing the rotating lamp then climbing down into the lower cavern, resetting the lamps so that they were straight once more.

Jafarr hopped back into the ladder, pulling himself completely through the fake sky, resting his feet securely. He took a breath and stuffed the broken parts into their carriers, sending them down the ladder.