DP FICTION # 109A: “Level One: Blowtorch” by Jared Oliver Adams

edited by Chelle Parker

Content note (click for details)

Content note: This story contains depictions of risks to a child’s safety.

Usually Friend gives me three food pouches after sportsgames, but today only one. He spits it out of his chest slot, and I kick off the bulkhead to snatch it before it gets caught in that jumble of wires over by the vents. When I grab the nearest handhold and swivel in the air for the next one to come, Friend just floats there with his slot closed and his metal arms at his sides.

“Did I do wrong parameters?” I ask.

“Naw, Graciela,” says Friend. “You were grumper to the leez! You sealed your suit with no mistakes, and you dodged all the obstacles on the course. Nineteenth time in a row!”

“If I was grumper to the leez, how come one pouch?” I say. “I’m not a four-year-old anymore.”

“You made enough power on the wheel for almost three hours of XPs! Let’s go play!” says Friend, even though Home would say it’s time for plant care.

“How come one pouch?” I ask again.

“We’ll get more later,” he says, like it’s not a big deal. “You made it to Level 48 last night, remember? Don’t you want to see what happens when you finally connect that switch?”

“No! I did the sportgames and I get the pouches. Fru, and Veg, and Prot! This is just”—I turn over the one pouch—”Veg-9! That’s the worst one!”

“It isn’t so bad.”

“Veg-9 is yuck like a poop smell!” I throw the pouch back at Friend, who catches it fast as a blink. “I’m not proud of you!” I yell at him. “You are not doing great jobs. I’m going to talk to Nurse.”

***

I wish Nurse could give me a hug like she used to, but she had to go into the walls when Friend came. The striped cushions of her body were always warm and smelled like the old CNDY pouches.

I miss CNDY pouches.

I miss Nurse.

Home always says no waste, so the nursery is just another plant-care room now. The round bulge of the baby-growing machine has bottles taped all over, and each one has its own little spinach plant to water. Metal crates stuffed up with kale are bolted to the wall so you can hardly see the smiley sun and the rainbow and the kids holding hands. Before all the plants, whenever Nurse saw me looking at that picture, she would close my hand in her three fabric fingers to practice for being a big sister.

But I’m not a big sister, even though I’m all the way five.

Nurse’s old charging pod is a compost bin now. I dig in the stinky dirt while I tell her about Friend.

“You should apologize, Tender Shoot,” Nurse says from the speaker above the embryo racks. Friend made me a snuggle pillow out of Nurse’s fabric when he came and Nurse left. I keep it up there by her speaker and pretend she’s still there for real.

“But why is Friend doing this?” I ask.

“Rationing has commenced, Graciela,” she says.

“What’s a commence?”

“A beginning.”

“A beginning of what?”

***

It’s really commencing here.

It’s been a whole ten-sleep, and my tummy is making sounds like when Friend boots up. Am I turning into a person like Friend? Will I wake up tomorrow with a slot in my chest for shooting out food pouches?

“I’m too tired for sportsgames today,” I say, when he finds me in my secret hiding place behind the air scrubber.

“Not sportsgames. Something new. Some place new.”

I know every single place in Home. There is no new. Unless… “The No-No Door?”

Friend nods his rectangle head. “First, you need your suit.”

***

Nurse said once that if I ever went through the No-No Door, I’d be hurt worse than anything. When the door slides open, my heart bumps so hard that it shakes the temperature control panel on the chest of my suit. It’s just a small room in there, though, with another door. Is that the real No-No Door?

“You are grumper to the leez, Graciela Han Portuga,” says Friend, through the helmet commie. “And I am proud of you.” He throws me something. I catch it just as the No-No Door closes between us.

“Friend!” I shout.

“Your mission is beginning, Graciela,” says Friend, and it’s the exact words that start the XPs. The same boomy voice, even, not Friend’s normal jokey way of talking. I look down at the multitool in my hand, and that’s the same, too: three types of screwdriver, a knife, a wire-cutter, and a pen weldie.

“It’s just like the XPs!” I say. The little room I’m in is where you go when you lose your hearts and have to start over. “Is it the same outside, too?”

“Find out,” says Friend.

Popping open the control panel to unlock the door is easy, but I have to wedge my feet against the bulkhead and push with my legs just to grind the door open a single bit. A sliver of light shines out into the darkness.

I keep pushing.

My breath is fogging up my helmet by the time I can see what’s there.

The short passageway ends in jagged metal and floating wires. Past the hole is a stretch of Deep Dark and another passageway just as messed up.

I can’t see, but I know where it leads: a giant spaceship busted all apart. It’s broken and empty and dangerous, but you can fix it bit by bit if you’re careful.

That’s my job. For real. Not just in a game.

I feel like I’m back to being four again. Or maybe even three.

“You’re not coming with me?” I ask Friend through my helmet.

“Home, Nurse, Me, we have one job: to raise new humans. We’re not designed for out there. But you, Graciela, your parameters are not so limited. Step by step, you will fix it. And the more you fix, the more humans we can make. And when they are old enough, they can help you.”

“But what happens if I lose all my hearts?”

“Don’t,” says Friend.

That one word makes me scareder even than before. I look out the opening in the door, and all I see in that passageway is the different ways to lose hearts. You can rip your suit on the sharp metal. You can get shocked with the wires. You can jump wrong and float away into the Deep Dark. You can run out of air in your tank.

“Tender Shoot?” comes Nurse’s voice in my helmet commie.

She’s never talked through my helmet commie before, and I turn to look. All I see is that empty little room. An airlock: that’s what they call it in the XPs.

“We’ll be right here with you the whole time,” says Nurse, “like we’re holding hands.”

“All you gotta do right now,” says Friend, “is start at the beginning.”

I turn back to the open door. The beginning is always the same: you’ve got to find better tools for fixing.

“Level One,” I whisper. “Blowtorch.”

“Blowtorch,” agrees Friend. “I’ll be waiting back here when you find it. I saved you a CNDY pouch.”

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© 2024 by Jared Oliver Adams

1199 words

Author’s Note:

“Level One: Blowtorch” was written in January 2022, when my youngest son was a toddler. For Christmas, we bought him this little rectangle-headed robot that talked, sang, and rolled back and forth on its tracks. One of the things it said was “Hello, Friend!” Naturally, my son simply called it ‘Friend’.

At first, this struck me as delightful, but the more he spoke of ‘Friend’ like this, the more I realized that, as a kid born square in the middle of 2020 Covid restrictions, his entire conception of the word was tied up in that little robot. This story grew out of the complex emotions that evoked, along with a dose of fear for what lies outside the doors of all our personal airlocks and the courage it takes to step through them.

Jared Oliver Adams lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he writes, explores, and dabbles in things better left alone. He holds two degrees in music performance, a third degree in elementary education, and is utterly incapable of passing a doorway without checking to see if it leads to Narnia. Find him online at www.jaredoliveradams.com. 

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