Happy Shack pt. 3

The next installment. Also re-read part one, as I added a paragraph to describe the world better. Hey...it's a work in progress!

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The Sweet Slurp was the color of emeralds and every ice chip was a diamond on my tongue. Not just from the cost of sweetener. No, my friends, I was celebrating a victory!


“Enjoy it man. That’s the last one you’ll ever get outta me.” Fiddler (on account of his spaz hands) glared green-eyed at my beverage. “Still can’t believe you got her to laugh.”

“That wasn’t a laugh.” Pea (on account of a badly placed mole)  sat down with a basket of starch chips. “Ask me, I think the damn thing’s on the fritz. Warranty’s up or some shit.” I didn’t say anything, because sometimes it’s better to just enjoy your Sweet Slurp. Plus, my silence was putting them on the glitch.

The mechs were going about their business. Servers were serving and taking orders and gleaming smiles. Cookers were bent over cutting boards and grills, poor bastards. Spatulas and fry baskets instead hands and fingers. I always wonder what they do if they have an itch? Do cooker mechs dream of scratching their noses? Probably, they don’t even have itches.

The mechs executed their commands quickly and efficiently. No scratching noses. They moved like choreographed dancers or the intricate workings of a clock, never an extra movement. Even Erin, whose laugh had spilled beautiful, was back at her job. But I swear I could see something in her eyes, beating against the glass, screaming to get out and take that first icy breath of life.

I scanned the dining unit. No sharks. Good.

“Finish it.” I slid my Sweet Slurp across the table to Pea and clamored out of the booth. Erin had serviced about four customers and now powered down to a sort of stand-by, her dirty blonde hair pulled back over her ears, a paper hat pinned to her head. She came to as soon as I reached the counter.

“Welcome to Happy Shack. How may I serve you?”

“A date.”

Erin paused, her processers whirring. I was expecting another blast of laughter.

“Dates are not on our menu,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Would you like raisins?”

“No, no. Not the date you eat. The date you go on. You and me. Let’s go out.”

Pause. Whirring.

“If you’d like to make a comment, you may fill out a form located--”

“No comments, no raisins. I would like to take you out of Happy Shack and…” I hadn’t planned this far. “And show you the sunset at the end of Net 11.”

Why the hell I said that I have no idea. I mean, Net 11 is the dumps. Literally! Nothing warms a gal’s heart like getting hit in the brain with a chunk of frozen sewage, or worse getting caught in a dreck storm.

“I’d like that.” I remember when she said that she wasn’t smiling, and it was the first time I’d ever not seen her teeth. I thought I could look at her not smile for the rest of my life. Silly, isn’t it?

But yes! She said yes. Well a sort of yes. And hey, the nets had a certain charm. You could look out over miles and miles of ash clouds. A floating and roiling sea, lit up by an ocasional flash of lightning. I could hold her hand and we could laugh about those poor saps down on Level 12. Net 11 was home, and I guess there was a certain pride there.

“I’d like to,” she was whispering. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?” I had gotten this far, I wasn’t giving up.

“I am programmed to work.”

“Until when?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She was programmed to work. Until the end. Until The End. The was no quitting time for a mech. They worked until they could work no more, and Erin would work until those thin fingers cracked at the joints and the plastic bones shone through. I’ve seen it. Once or twice out on the nets. A piece, tattered and ripped, would drop through. I’d never keep it. I’d just pass it along, hoping it would reach that last net where the Untouchables could finally put it to rest.