Click

Click

heavy cn hunger, thirst, homeless child

Two days, maybe. Depending on the temperature and if it would rain. The amount of variables was comprehensible, but their nature was.. unclear. He didn't like that. In addition he could already feel how his cognitive capacities declined due to lack of nutrition and hydration. In fact, he had felt it for days and in a corner of his normally very rational mind, something disgusting had begun to grow. It felt like a silent rot, clawing into the clean strands of his thoughts and corrupting his mind, and he hated it. 

Two Days, maybe. Depending on wether or not one of the passing traders and engineers felt gracious enough to toss him a sandwich or the rest of their morning coffee. Coffee would be good, it drove the beast back for a few hours and cleared his mind for the time being. He had always admired the engineers. His father had been an engineer, his mother had told him that. He could still remember wanting to be like him, seeing him sit over his desk late at night. "Go to bed, little berry", he had always said. That felt.. warm. It almost drowned out the cramps of hunger in his belly.

Two days, maybe. He could not help thinking about that over and over, as he watched a local man strut past. It was a dwarf who wore a grey overall and black leather boots. His mighty beard was black with hints of red that made it look like a fireplace, much like the one the boy had had back home. Suddenly, the dwarf stopped and plucked a device from one of his pockets. He lifted it up and began speaking into it. Strange, it didn't look like a phone. The Boy could not quite understand what the conversation was about, he just overheard something about a shipment being late. Then the conversation was seemingly interrupted, apparently by a malfunction of the gadget. The dwarf looked at the device, his face distorted. Anger, the boy recognized. Now he could identify the device as well: It was a robust kind of phone after all, especially built to withstand rough conditions. He had seen similar models before, his dad had worked on them in his spare time and even showed him how they worked on a couple occasions. "See, little berry? If you wire the circuits this way.."

Two days, maybe. Unless.. "Can I.." he began, but his brittle voice broke. He gathered his courage, cleared his throat and tried again. "Can I see that for a second? I can help." Only now the man became attentive of him. He turned and looked down on the boy, in his eyes an odd expression. "Help, you say? How could a street rat like you.. ah, I'll be damned. Indulge me. I suppose there's no danger of you running away with it, is there?" With that he half-heartedly threw the phone towards the boy, whose torso was propped up against the wall. The boy reached for it, grasping it just barely and dragging it towards himself before turning it around and starting to dismantle it with a self made proxy screwdriver  he had built out of boredom. Within seconds, he had opened the device and identified the problem. He could almost feel the electricity flowing, see the blueprint of circuits and circuit boards. There, this one had fallen out of place, if he just.. ah, just like that. with a satisfying, sharp click the board snapped back into place. He quickly reassembled the entire thing, then reached up with his little blue hand, reaching the dwarf his now repaired phone back almost like an offering. "It should be working again. Do I.. would you maybe buy me some coffee for this?"

The dwarf looked surprised. He started the phone, checked the screen and, with a satisfied smile, stowed it away in his pockets again. "I'll tell you what, boy. You can have a coffee, if you want. But you look too young for that, my lad. You got nowhere to go? I can take you with me. By the blasted capitol's order, I have to take in an apprentice every year, and you seem to have both the wits and the nimble fingers to make a fine mechanic. Your.. condition.. won't be a problem, most of the work is done with your hands anyway. So, what do you say?" There was the expression in his eyes again, and this time the boy could identify it. He had seen it in his dad's eyes many times. It was curiosity. That made sense. It seemed like a good deal for both of them, and it probably meant he would get to eat the full meal for the first time in over two months soon. That was.. good. The boy caught himself do something he hadn't done in a long time: He smiled. "That sounds good, Sir. I.. I would like that."

"Ah, splendid! Come on then, I was on my way to get lunch anyway. Pick whatever you like, to celebrate our new contract! Seems like you need it!" There was a short pause. Then the dwarf asked: "What's your name anway, lad? You'll need one if I'm to introduce you to my other students!" 

The boy thought for a second. It felt strange to use the one his parents gave him. That had been someone else, not the one he was now. The other kids called him different names, but he didn't want to use any of those either. He felt it was appropriate to pick a new one, for the person he was hopefully about to become. Something unrelated to the streets. Then he remembered the sound that the circuit board had made. It had sounded right, good, as it was supposed to be. Yes, that was perfect.

"Click."