"Men have become the tools of their tools." - Henry David Thoreau

 

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Ed leaned against the reception desk with one hand, supporting himself with his cane in the other.  Handsome and dignified for his age, his face belied a troublemaker within.

 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was stuck out in the desert with two jarheads like you?", Ed asked Arlington.

 

Arlington affected a worried look from behind the desk.  "Is it a loud story, Ed?  You know, we're supposed to keep it quiet."

 

"If I tell it right it is.", Ed said.

 

Arlington held up a hand.  "Does this story involve homosexual sex of any kind?", he asked.

 

Ed furrowed his lower lip.  "Not until after I left the marines alone, but I'll skip that part.  Wasn't a direct witness.", he said.

 

Arlington allowed his head to drop and shook it without retorting.  He really did want to hear Eds story.

 

Ed launched into it, his body and face filling with animation.  "O.k. so it was out in the desert, and the three of us were stuck overnight in that cold-ass god-forsaken hellhole...Damn marines evidently can't navigate.", he said.

 

He continued animating with his free hand, "But I'm a navy man, see.  A corpsman!  So I set up a real big campfire, and got it goin' real good.  I mean it was really big.  And hot.  And we had a nice dinner and some Jack Daniels that you idiots seem to prefer - disguisting stuff."

 

Ed scrunched up his face and shook his head at the thought of it.

 

"A mans drink.", Arlington corrected.

 

"Then one of the jarheads starts braaaggin' an' spouting off and talking tough, and he feels he's got to justify himself, see?  So he says,

 

'I'm the meanest, toughest marine there is.  Why, just the other day, an MP-71 walker went berserk and destroyed half the base before I wrestled it to the ground, by it's infantry spikes, with my bare hands!'

 

So this is complete bullshit, see, but the other jarhead can't stand it.  He says, 'That's pussy stuff.  I was walking through this very canyon a couple patrols back.  A fifteen foot python lunges out out from the rocks and comes at me.  Well, I grabbed that snake with my bare hands!  I bit it's head off, and I sucked the poison down, and I made a dick warmer outta that thing!  But it didn't fit!  So I gave it to an officer for the same purpose!'"

 

Arlington was already stifling a laugh as Ed pounded the desk for emphasis. 

 

"And I suppose you're wonderin' how I topped that?"  Ed waited.  Arlington tried to ask, but when he looked at Eds face the old man had such a funny shrunken apple glare that he just busted up again.

 

"I didn't say a word.  I just kept stirring the campfire coals.", Ed paused for effect, "...with my dick."

 

Arlington busted up, but got it under control after a few seconds.  "Is that what you call that pea-shooter they issue in the navy?"

 

Ed guffawed, "That's what they teach infantry in school.  Shootin' each other with pea shooters.  There oughta be a law."

 

Arlingtons huds dropped a reminder in front of him.  Four sensors down in Al Tanakas room.  None of them important. He waved it onto his todo list with a come here motion.

 

Ed interpreted the wave as "Bring on another one."

 

"So this blind guy walks into a cyborg bar.  An' he wouldn't-a seen anything anyway 'cause it's pitch black in there - like those cyborgs like it."

 

Arlington was pretty sure no one could hear that, but he grimaced anyway.  Ed was such an anachronism.

 

"So he kinda feels his way to a barstool and orders a beer."

 

"This is a MAN?", Arlington interjected.

 

"Hell yes, it's a man!  A real navy man.  Blinded cause he saw too much damn action!  Now where was I?  So he orders a beer, naturally."  Ed overacted so well that Arlington could almost taste the beer.  "And he gets the beer, an takes a sip...Ah!  And he says, 'So did you hear the one about how stupid cyborgs are?'

 

The person to his right says, 'Now listen, mister, I'm a cyborg!  An' I weigh eight hundred pounds!'

 

The old guy just sips his beer.  

 

The cyborg to his right is still peeved, 'And the guy behind the bar is a cyborg, and he's got a shotgun built into his forearm!  And the two ladies to your left are cyborgs, and they are masters of exo-skeleton-fu!  And the guy behind you is a cyborg, and he has a microwave transmitter built into him that'll light you on fire!'

 

Old guy just takes another sip.

 

'So you have to ask yourself ooooold mannn...do you still want to tell that joke!"

 

The old guy finally looked up and says, "Nah.  Not if I gotta explain it five times!"

 

Arlington bent over the long, curving, reception desk, trying to control his chuckling.  He didn't want to look up - that would only make it worse.  Tears began to form and roll down his reddening face, which he buried in his huge crossed arms.  

 

That didn't stop Ed.  Ed just leaned his tall silver-haired countenance on his cane, and kept on telling jokes.  Ed knew he could always get Arlington to crack up, Eds crude, cornball pantomime was incongruous with his advanced age, but tailor-made for Arlington - and today Ed was pouring it on thick.  

 

As soon as Arlington thought he might be able to get it under control, Ed hit him with another punchline.  Five or six jokes in, Arlington was beyond the ability to laugh out loud - his face frozen in a wide smile - his laughs like little regular quiet coughs - tears on his cheeks.

 

The fact that Arlington was supposed to keep it quiet in the senior center was not lost on either one of them.  

 

Arlington took a deep breath and swiveled in his chair, now laughing out loud, probably loud enough to annoy a few of the older ladies with better hearing down the hall.  He stumbled, bent over, to the sink behind the counter, where he splashed his face with water as Ed slacked off for a minute, then wiped his face with a paper towel.  

 

Ed could hear Mrs. Yan coming down the hall to yell at him, so he made a final comment to Arlington, his timing impeccable:

 

"Well, looks like you're going to have to entertain the ladies again, young Arlington.  And by that I mean tell them a bedtime story.  And by that I mean keep doing it until they have a happy ending."  Ed made a funny face, lifted his cane, and moved his hands in the universal sign for intercourse just as Arlington looked up.

 

Then, at a pace calculated to just barely provide Mrs. Yan with an unsure glimpse of him disappearing into the opposite hallway, Ed began to limp off.

 

Mrs. Yan came around the corner with her walker at that precise moment, yelled and shook her fist at Ed, and then fixed Arlington with an evil eye and wagged her finger at him.  "You don't let that guy crack you up!  He's not funny!  He's a pain in the ass!"

 

Arlington continued to wipe his eyes with his sleeves and looked compassionately at Mrs. Yan, while still trying to control his laughter.  "I'm...I'm sorry Mrs. Yan."

 

"Why you just sit there?"

 

"I.."

 

"Shut up!  You go on patrol next time he comes by."

 

"I have to stay at the desk while the robots are on patrol.  Mrs Yan...he knows when..."

 

"I don't care!  Be quiet.  And get a girlfriend.  Then things are not so funny!"

 

Arlington worked as hard as he could not to laugh at Mrs. Yan, but she was always kind of funny, too.  He suppressed it.

 

"O.k...o.k...yes, Mrs. Yan."

 

At that, Mrs. Yan turned around in her walker, only pausing at the corner of the hallway to look back and see if Ed would try to re-appear to crack another joke just as she rounded the corner, which he sometimes did.

 

Arlington knew that this was one of the ways Ed Johnson played with Nancy Yan - they kept their love affair ostensibly secret.  As soon as Nancy got around the corner, Arlington resumed laughing conspiratorially - muting his laugh by crossing his arm over his face.  This quieted him down a little, except for the uncontrollable snorts he produced periodically.  Arlington really did feel guilty.  The seniors definitely needed their sleep.

 

After a minute of this, Arlington was back in control.  He took a deep breath, let it out, put his HUDs on, and sat down.  

 

The security bots were sitting on the lawns and the roof, scanning and picking up video and audio when there was any movement or audio to pick up.  The "patrols" of the tiny frisbee-sized robots consisted of moving slowly to get useful observation angles on the grounds.  When they stopped moving and sat like that they were done with their patrol.  Arlington scanned the patrol logs.  Couple coons had passed by.  Nothing ever happened here.

 

Arlington grabbed a multi-tool off the desk.  He walked over to do some diagnostics on the repair mech parked in the closet.  As he walked, he pulled up a few chess games that he was playing with chess buddies around the world.  On his way, Arlington passed Eds room, Mr. Yee's room, Nancy and Leilas room, and Old Man Prasads room.  All people that had played with him when he was a kid, when Klamath was a smaller town.  He had good memories of every one of them - even passing by their rooms gave him a good feeling.  He saw an obvious opening one of his chess opponents hadn't.  He smiled.  God, he loved this job.

 

The narrow robot closet opened as Arlington approached.  The trash can sized repair mech was there, rolled onto it's charging base, along with the cleaning and delivery bots, silently charging in the dark.  Arlingtons HUDs detected the light level and provided a daylight view of the room and everything in it.  

 

Plugging the multi-tool into the repair bots serial port caused Arlingtons HUDs to pull factory diagnostic updates.  Arlington reviewed the update log before deciding to apply it.  The update software compared biometric scan data from Arlingtons HUDs with the encrypted version of that data on the tool, the bot, and the update server, then declared that the update would take fifteen minutes.

 

//Damn this tool is slow//, Arlington thought, and left the closet to go for a walk.  

 

The Klamath senior center was big.  Arlington walked almost the full kilometer of looping hallways, making chess moves as he did so.  The hallway he was walking down was depicted in vector graphics behind the chessboards on his HUDs.  

 

He shared with his opponents the vector graphics view of him walking while he made moves on multiple boards.  He also gave his opponents access to all his past matches.  The vector graphics view showed only the most important details in wireframe.  Even people who can truly multitask can't keep adding information to their environment without taking some information away somewhere else.  Better to choose the details you want than to let your subconscious choose them for you.

 

Plenty of Arlingtons opponents couldn't go about their daily business while they played chess in real time.  Arlington had no problem with it.  He had played Chess-Boxing for years when he was younger, a game in which players simultaneously played speed chess while boxing.  He liked his opponents to know that.  

 

As he passed David Hewes room, he stopped.  With a swiping motion of his right hand the chess boards and vector graphics view disappeared.  He dimmed the hallway lights and gently cracked the door, peering in.  David lay sleeping quietly, tubes and machinery obscuring what would normally be a lower body.  Davids bed and condition were uniquely complex, and so were the modes of his injuries.  David had lost his lower body in combat, replaced with machinery that kept him alive.

 

That machinery was of particular concern to Arlington.  Arlington silently slid into the room and brought up its systems status.  

 

The patient was healthy, but the chemputer in the beds waste processing unit needed two new filters.  They were in pretty bad shape, backing up the whole waste processing system.  The whole thing would need cleaning.

 

Arlington held out one hand in the position he usually used for a left-hand steno keyboard, and his HUDs overlayed a steno machine in his field of vision.  He sent an urgent message to a delivery bot, followed by a message to the author of the monitoring software - the software that had failed to alert him of the filter failures.  Arlington was blunt in his message, a bug report, and had to edit it before he sent it to filter out the cursing.  If the monitoring system failed, and Arlington hadn't checked Davids systems status for a few days, this kind of problem would be fatal for the patient.  Fortunately for David Hewes, Arlington checked the status of his system, in particular, several times a day.

 

Arlington climbed underneath the legs of the bed.  The delivery bot arrived with the filters, which Arlington replaced, and with cleaning supplies, which Arlington first used on the waste system, then himself.  He then triple checked the waste processor system, and took more diagnostic data and some video.  

 

He climbed out from under the bed before adding the new data to the bug report for the monitoring software authors, copying the filter and systems manufacturers, and the Klamath senior-medical list.  

 

When he had finished, systems status was green.  He visually examined David, closely examining his head, taking out a cream for his sores, and gently applying it.  The bed David was in ensured his skin was exposed to air, and regularly relieved pressure on it, but it was still hard to keep ahead of the sores on a guy in Davids condition.  Finally, Arlington put his hand on Davids forehead, and prayed.

 

"Lord, this man is a sinner.  Please grant him entry.", Arlington whispered.

He closed the door and leaned his forehead against it.  

"Night, dad.", he said, and continued with his shift.

 

Just as Arlington arrived at his desk, his wrist implant, the only one he had, buzzed.  Looking down at his wrist, the huds translated the message into a text overlay.  "A.HEWES.USMCR.538.231.4987.3.REPORT TO UNIT HQ.TECH.1.14.7.0. ACKNOWLEDGE.". It was a rare callup of his Marine reserve unit.  

 

This had happened once before, when all the active duty techs were called to an exercise.  A "maintenance callup" they had called it.  That time, Arlington had been away from home for a week - the reserve units took over patrol and maintenance duties for the active units.  Arlington had spent the better part of that week cleaning the active duty units crappy motor pool.  His cat, scruffy, had almost perished.  

 

Arlington immediately called the daytime guard to relieve him for work.  Then he called his boss to arrange the night shift replacements until he returned.  He briefly considered calling his sister to take care of scruffy, but he came up with a better idea.