Bernal’s Auto Shop was one of those places you’d see from the roadside and not give much more thought than, “there’s an auto shop at Austin and 30th”. The old brick building was set off the road a ways over a strip of gravel and dwarfed by corrugated warehouses selling scrap and farm tools. Sitting in the cracked asphalt parking lot was a row of cars that may as well have been a tour through the decades of the American muscle car industry.
According to tax documents, the proprietor of the shop was one Tomas Bernal, but as he’d rather spend his oil money living the high life in the big city, actual management of the shop fell to his son, Luis. And perhaps it was for the better, after all, Luis was the sort of manager that made the profession of people pushing look like an art. He had a comfortable yet directed air about him that made one feel that yes, their concerns were being listened to, and that yes, he would make it all right, and that yes, your vehicle was in the best possible hands, my dear most valued customer. He was a man one felt like they could trust. He also didn’t know the slightest thing about cars. No. That was a task he delegated to his son, Rikeh, and the rest of the auto shop staff. And now perhaps, the new guy.
The new guy was sitting across from Luis, watching him intently, sat in that tense sort of way people tended to sit at job interviews. Arms crossed tightly around a frayed backpack and legs locked uncomfortably around the chair legs. Tall and thin, practically swimming in an oversized aviator jacket, about the same age as his son Luis guessed. Probably fresh out of high school if the absolutely lacking hastily scribbled resume was anything to go by. The handwriting was atrocious, if he was being honest with himself, Luis could only make out the kid’s first name with any clarity: Sirius.
And if he was being even more honest, the kid simply didn’t have a long enough resume to make hiring him the enterprising choice, but he sounded earnest and perhaps he’d pay off in the long run. And his last technician, Dave, had just taken an internship across the state. That left him with just himself, his son, and a couple of college kids that preferred to spend their university breaks out of town. He didn’t fault them for that, after all he understood the value of family time, but it meant that the holidays were always a little short-staffed. If the kid was willing to work the holidays, it meant they could take more customers. More customers meant a little extra padding in the budget for some much needed shop upgrades and maybe even a dedicated advertising fund.
So perhaps the benefits of extra hands were worth the risk of hiring a complete unknown.
On the other side of the desk, Sirius Mercer-Kalinin waited as the shop owner looked over the crumpled notebook paper that he’d scratched a few details on in place of a resume. This had been the fourth shop he’d been to today and the loudly clicking clock on the wall told him it was only just past noon. He’d been laughed out of the first two as soon as they saw the paper, and the third wanted a laundry list of qualifications that he simply didn’t have. If he didn’t get the job here…
“You’re hired”, the manager said.
Sirius’ attention snapped back to Luis, “Hired?” He almost thought the man was joking, but nothing about his expression seemed to belie any deceit.
Luis nodded, “Hired. When can you start?” He returned the resume sheet to Sirius.
“I can start right now”, Sirius said as he shoved the paper into his backpack.
“Great!” Luis said as he stood and gestured for Sirius to follow, “I’ll give you the tour and introduce you to the team, then we can worry about the onboarding paperwork and work out a schedule and training”.
Sirius followed the man as he pointed out the key elements to the auto shop. Employee lockers, bathroom, supply closet, vehicle bays, the admin office they just left. It was a short tour and then they were standing outside a cramped breakroom. Inside, a young man who resembled a slightly thinner, much younger version of Luis except with a mess of curly hair tied back in a barely managed pony tail, was sitting in stained coveralls, his focus directed to what looked like a disassembled disposable camera in front of him. He was soldering something to it. Luis knocked, and he nearly dropped the iron in his haste to stand up and shove his project just out of sight.
“Oh, hey dad, thought you were still on lunch”, he said. Noticing Sirius he nodded in his direction, “I didn’t know we had an interview today”.
“This is my son, Rikeh”, Luis said to Sirius, then turned to his son, “Rikeh, this is Sirius. Wasn’t scheduled but he came in on his own time so only courtesy to hear him out. He’ll start working as soon as we can get the paperwork done. He’s going to be replacing Dave. Make sure he knows what’s what”, Luis explained, “and that better not be another one of your prank projects, I swear I’ll- “, he stopped himself and threw his hands up in place of voicing whatever threat he was thinking of, “Just keep the new guy out of trouble”, he said, nodded at Sirius, then left.
Sirius watched Luis go and then glanced back at Rikeh who was looking at him with a guarded expression. No wonder, he was saddled with babysitting the fucking new guy.
“You know, you can keep all the circuitry in the camera case if you just pry off the panel by the capacitor”, Sirius suggested.
Rikeh’s expression shifted to a sly smile, “You’re absolutely right, but I was actually replacing the capacitor with one that has a little more…juice. Bigger one doesn’t fit too well in the case, better to print a new one”.
“Want a hand with it?”
Rikeh shook his head, “I got this one almost finished, but I have a buncha spares from my prototype builds if you want to make one too. I just popped the case off, discharged the cap, took it out and put the new on in. If you hot glue it to the board like I did it makes it real easy to put into the case I designed and hook it up to the contacts. I’ll get the printer to print you a case”.
“Cool”, Sirius said as he sat down and pulled one of the cameras toward him, “Thanks”. It took a little fiddling with a screwdriver, but he popped the board out of the casing. There wasn’t much to it. Just a battery, a board, switch and capacitor and some other more camera-y parts that weren’t important now.
“This is insulated, yeah?” He asked Rikeh holding up the screwdriver he’d grabbed.
“I think so”.
Sirius bridged the gap between the capacitor’s contacts and an electric jolt shot up his arm sending tingles through his fingers and up his shoulder.
“FUCK!” he shouted and threw the board down.
Rikeh burst into laughter and took the screwdriver out of Sirius’ hands, “Well shit, I swear I thought it was insulated. Guess not. Try this one” he said as he passed a different screwdriver to him.
Sirius tested it against the capacitor’s contacts, but either it was insulated, or he’d emptied the charge because he wasn’t shocked a second time. He took the opportunity to remove it and install one of Rikeh’s spare ones.
“If you think that was bad, you don’t wanna get hit by the ones I’m replacing them with”, Rikeh commented, “it’ll knock a man clean out”.
“I’ve had worse”, Sirius said, “that was just a light nip”.
Rikeh raised an eyebrow, “A light nip, huh?”
Sirius smiled, “Not bad at all”.
Rikeh also smiled and then nodded, “So, what? Are you a student or something?” Rikeh asked.
Oh, no, not the personal questions part, Sirius thought as he finished hot gluing the capacitor to the circuit board, “Kind of?” he replied, “I’m supposed to start some welding classes at the technical school in a few days”.
“I’ve heard good things about the program”, Rikeh said, “You’re not from here, are you though? I would definitely have seen you in high school”.
“You got me”, Sirius’ smile grew tight, “I got into town today”.
“So where are you from?” Rikeh asked.
Sirius frowned and crossed his arms, “Does it matter?” he countered, trying to keep his tone light.
Rikeh shrugged, “I guess not. You got a place to stay?”
No, but he doesn’t need to know that either, Sirius thought as he set the assembled taser onto the table, “I’m staying with a friend”, he lied.
“That’s awful nice of them”. Somewhere under the electrical debris, a smartphone buzzed and Rikeh set his project aside and unearthed it from a tangle of wires, “That means lunch break is over, ready to get started?”
Sirius nodded, “Let’s go”.
Some hours later, as the sun was just dipping below the horizon, Sirius left the auto shop. He headed towards a dusty old motorbike and gunned it out of the gravel parking lot. Eventually, like the sun, he too had disappeared past the horizon.