Jamie's New Hire

Having Adam in the shop on Monday was beyond terrifying for Jamie. Nobody, not even Jen, had gotten past his gruff barrier. Personal conversations in the shop simply didn't involve Jamie for a reason.

He spent most of the day hiding up in his office, combing over countless resumes and contract offers. More often than not, he found that he hadn't actually remembered anything he'd just read, and had to re-read entire paragraphs over again. He started hoping that Adam would start screwing around again so he could have a legitimate reason to fire the model builder, but much to Jamie's surprise, it seemed like there was actually some merit to the recommendations backing Adam's resume. By two o'clock, Jamie realized that he hadn't actually gotten anything done. He stepped out of his office and stood on the top of the stairs as he looked around the shop for Adam. After a few seconds, Jamie noticed him digging around in one of the boxes that were stacked along the walls of the shop.

"Adam!" Jamie called across the shop. When Adam looked up to see who had called him, he saw Jamie standing on top of the stairs, motioning for him to follow his boss up to his office.

"What'd you do?" the intern that was helping Adam look for the parts he needed asked.

Adam shrugged nervously before going to see what Jamie wanted. He walked up to Jamie's office and shut the door behind him.

"What's up?" Adam asked cautiously. "I forget to do something?"

Jamie shook his head. "No," he said. "Sit down."

He sat down in front of Jamie's desk, growing increasingly suspicious that he was about to be sacked. He tried to remember about some tool he'd forgotten to put away or some nasty mess he'd neglected to clean up.

"If this is about the drill bit, I told you I'd give you one of mine tomorrow," he said.

"Adam..." Jamie said, shaking his head. "This... It's not about the drill. It's about Friday."

Adam furrowed his brow. "Friday?" he asked. "I thought you already told me no more horsing around--"

"Adam," Jamie said, cutting him off. "I mean Friday night. After work."

Adam thought back for a moment, not recalling having stayed late. He suddenly remembered their conversation at the bar, and quickly ran through everything that he remembered saying. "Oh... Oh!" Adam suddenly realized what his boss was talking about. "Listen, Jamie," he said, nervous that his job might be sacrificed in order to keep a secret. "I already said that it's no big deal. You don't want anybody to know, and that's cool. I won't say anything. I mean, you're a fairly big name in the business, and you've got a reputation and--"

"Well, I'm glad that you understand, Adam," Jamie said, cutting the younger man's rambling off once again. "But I don't even know you."

"Who am I gonna tell?" Adam pleaded, trying desperately to save his job. "You've got a lot of pull in this industry, and could probably black ball me in an instant. If it's assurance that you want, I want desperately to keep my job. I think on that alone, we can at least trust one another a little bit."

Jamie sighed. He'd been told Adam was good at what he did, and he'd bore witness to a small sample of just how good he was on Friday, but the guy made him nervous. Still, firing someone because they made you nervous wasn't yet legal in California, and Adam hadn't really done anything wrong... yet.

"You haven't said anything to anyone down there?" he asked.

Adam shook his head. "What's there to say?"

Jamie leaned forward in his chair, getting intimidatingly close to his new employee. "You say anything," he said in a low, almost growl-like voice, "and a very expensive piece of shop property will be found in your car," he threatened.

Adam wasn't sure if Jamie was for real or not, but he knew that extortion wasn't exactly legal. Nonetheless, Adam did need the job. He didn't really know much else outside of tech work. Maybe he could always run off and join a circus, but somehow, that idea didn't sound as cool as it did when he was eight.

"Yeah," was all he could think to say.


Ω Ω Ω


Adam's behaviour in the shop had definitely improved since his first day. He did seem to break a lot of things, but was always more than willing to replace them himself, or just give Jamie the money to fix it. He was insanely hard on all of the tools in the shop, but the speed at which he worked more than made up for his clumsiness. Occasionally, he'd wander out to the parking lot to throw something around or wrestle with one of the other guys in the shop, but he still managed to get his work done ahead of schedule, and it was a small price to pay to keep him quiet.

Jamie slowly made his way through the shop, checking up on the progress of the various projects that were going on. He frequently had to stop and help the interns fix their mistakes or get a machine working properly. The band saw was starting to seize up, which was taking far too much time out of projects. Shaking his head, Jamie took off his beret and handed it off to the young college student so that he could climb under the stand and see what was going on. Nothing looked outwardly out of place, which only meant that the whole operation would have to be torn apart or replaced entirely.

As Jamie climbed back to his feet, he heard Adam screaming from somewhere in the rear of the shop. Adam screamed and hollered a lot when he and Tory would play around out in the parking lot, but this wasn't the same. This was an "I caught my hand in the drill press" scream. Jamie rushed back to see what had happened. As he pushed the machine room door open, Adam practically ran into his arms; his already pale face was as white as Jamie's work shirt.

"Adam, what the hell--" Jamie pushed the young man off of him and walked over to the bench where Adam was working to see what had happened. Just as he gave up his search, he noticed an animatronic spider sitting casually on the concrete floor beneath the bench, and an uncapped Sharpie just a few inches away from it. "Drop your pen?" he asked as he bent to pick up his spider. Jamie was growing tired of the initiation-by-spider prank that was pulled every time someone new was brought into the shop.

"What happened?" Tory asked as he rushed back to see what all the commotion was about.

Jamie held up the spider. "Apparently ol' Pete here gave Adam quite the scare," he said. He quickly looked over his tiny robot to make sure Adam hadn't tried to crush it.

"Kid Savage is afraid of spiders, huh?" Tory taunted.

Adam turned toward the door and waved his hand in the air. "Fuck you," he said as he left the room, not able to decide if he was more embarrassed about screaming like a little girl, or that he'd been the butt of a mean-spirited prank. As he walked out to the front of the shop, his cell phone rang in a happy samba tune. "What?" he snapped as the music stopped.

Jamie took a step toward Tory and held up Pete the Spider to eye level, its eight mechanical legs hanging limply between his fingers. "No more of this, okay," Jamie scolded. "I only got to keep two of these guys, and I'd like to keep them in one piece."

Tory nodded weakly. "Sorry, Jamie," was all he could think to say.


Ω Ω Ω


"Hey, Jamie," Adam called across the shop as he pulled a brown fedora out of his small locker. "I was thinking of hitting up the bar tonight. Wanna meet me there?"

Jamie turned around from the disassembled band saw, still unable to determine the problem. "Uhh." He tried to think about what else he should check on the machine. "I might. No guarantees."

Adam nodded and slid into his leather jacket. It may have been summer, but that didn't stop the rain in the Bay Area. "Alright," he said. He quickly pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and after looking at the screen briefly, smashed his thumb into one of the buttons.

Jamie wasn't sure why, but as he came to the intersection of Chavez and Potrero, he turned right. Home was the opposite way, but it had been a long time since anybody wanted to actually go out and have a drink with him. Even if it was a mildly juvenile model builder, the change of routine was gladly welcomed.

The schizophrenic bay weather didn't effect local traffic too badly; natives had no problem driving in the rain. It was the bonehead tourist with Arizona plates driving 15 under the speed limit that was getting on Jamie's nerves. Every so often, Mr. Arizona would all but stop in the middle of traffic, either checking for landmarks or street signs. After about ten minutes of only being a mild annoyance, Mr. Arizona stopped his car in the middle of the road and opened his door. Shaking his head, Jamie rolled down his window and leaned out as far as his seat belt would allow.

"Hey, come on, now!" he shouted at the tourist.

As the tourist turned around to face the white pick-up behind him, a few of the cars stopped in the line he'd created began honking.

"Where is Van Ness?" the tourist shouted over the blaring horns.

Jamie shook his head. He used to make a living off of tourists, but at this point in his life, they were just beginning to annoy him. "It's about ten block the other way. Now come on. Get off the road!"

He rolled up his windows and checked the traffic in the oncoming lane. Not even waiting for the tourist to get back into his car, Jamie let up off the brake and pulled around the silver sedan. The drivers behind him took his example, and followed his path around the parked car so they could continue on with their day.

By the time he pulled his truck into the Tornado's parking lot, the sky was completely black. He usually made it a point to park along the edge of the lot, but even so, he still had a small bit of difficulty finding a spot. He walked through the light drizzle to the door, all the while wondering if he shouldn't just turn around and go home. But it wasn't exactly like he'd been asked out on a date. This was just a night of friendly drinks between co-workers. All the same, it was probably a bad idea. He knew he should just go home.

Too late. He swung the heavy door open and stepped into the bar. A blast of warm air greeted his face as he came in from the rain.

Finding Adam wasn't exactly difficult. He was sitting at the bar with his back to the door, and still wearing his stupid Indiana Jones hat. It looked like this time, he hadn't bothered to go home to change his clothes. Jamie suspected that he went straight to the bar from the shop.

"Hey, Chuck," Jamie said as he neared the bar. He sat down next to Adam and took his beret off; the damp felt was already beginning to itch against his scalp.

"I was starting to think you'd never give up on that damn saw," Adam said. His unorthodox way of greeting people was somehow perplexing to Jamie.

"Yeah, well," Jamie started. "What'chya gonna do?" He picked up his cocktail that Chuck had automatically made up for him and took a sip.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, both content to just listen to Eddie Vedder serenade some nameless lover from the juke box. Adam finished off his bottle of beer and promptly ordered another, his head bobbing lightly to the beat of the music.

"Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about something," Jamie said after a few minutes. Adam looked over at his boss, but didn't say anything. "A buddy of mine told me about this new sport that seems like it might be worth getting into."

Adam cocked his head, not sure if he heard correctly. "What kind of sport is fit for a couple of tech nerds?" he asked. "I'm not sure about you, but I'm not exactly the athletic type." He chuckled slightly, realizing just how true the statement had been.

"It's nothing like that," Jamie assured. He took another sip of his drink. "Fort Mason just started doing this thing a few months ago where people bring in robots they've built, and fight them against each other."

Adam sat up straight as Jamie finished his words. "No way," he said. "You've gotta be kidding me. They fight robots?"

Jamie nodded. "I've done a little bit of looking into it. There's no real money to be made, but it looks like a fun little project for the weekends."

Adam leaned forward, wanting to hear more.

"They have events every couple of months," Jamie continued. "You just gotta have your robot registered with the... the venue a few days before the competition."

"Count me in!" Adam exclaimed, not even taking a moment to think about it. "And I thought the stuff at ILM sounded fun."


Ω Ω Ω


After about forty-five minutes, they moved to a table along the wall. Every now and then, Adam's cell phone would ring from somewhere inside his jacket, and every time, he canceled the call without answering it. Neither really had anything to say to the other, and in lulls in the conversation, Adam began rocking to the beat of the music and drumming his fingers against the table. When they did talk, they hardly learned anything about one another's personal lives; conversation was mainly focused on past project they'd worked on and new gizmos and gadgets that were set to hit the market soon. Jamie did learn that on top of models and reproductions, Adam could also sculpt and design, which he knew he could probably find some use for around the shop.

Growing tired of the latest grunge phase to hit the juke box, Jamie fished a few quarters from his Dockers and made his way through the thick crowd to pick some new music. After leaning over the glass top for nearly five minutes, he turned around and nearly plowed over a college-aged blonde.

"Excuse me," he said as he tried to step around her.

"Hey!" a loud voice behind him said before he managed to get away from the crowd. Jamie turned to see what was presumably the blonde's date. Judging by his size, his buddies all probably called him something like Moose or Ox.

"My mistake," Jamie said as he tried to leave.

"Did that guy just try to feel up your girlfriend, dude?" one of Moose's party members asked, clearly egging the ogre of a kid on.

"Hey," Jamie said, trying to avoid a brawl. "I didn't see her, okay?" He tried to take a step backwards, but he felt someone push his back, shoving him right into the drunk college student.

"Mother fucker!" Moose growled.

Before Jamie had a chance to react, Moose wound back and dropped his massive fist into Jamie's face, sending him reeling to the floor. Adam quickly jumped up from the table where they had been seated as Chuck dove over the bar. As the bartender threatened to call the police if the group didn't get the hell out, Adam knelt down to help Jamie to his feet. Once he was standing again, Adam bent down and picked up what were at one point, Jamie's rather stylish rimless glasses, which had been snapped right down the middle.

"Aw, man," Jamie moaned as Adam handed him the busted frames.

"You alright, man?" Adam asked. The last thing he ever thought he'd see was Jamie getting floored.

Jamie nodded. "Yeah, I think so." He tried to walk back to the table, but stumbled and almost fell back to the floor.

Adam shook his head. "You're not driving home," he said. "Stay here." He quickly ran over to Chuck, who was just walking back from the front door and paid their tab. He and the bar tender exchanged a few brief words before he rushed back to the table to grab their hats. "Come on," he said as he crammed the fedora over his head. "I'm parked right out here."

As they walked out to the small sedan, Adam tried to make sure that his boss didn't take another tumble into the pavement. He unlocked the doors and the two climbed into what was essentially a mess on wheels. The floor of the car was littered with empty soda cans and old papers and magazines and god knew what else. Jamie tried to ignore it as he fumbled with the seat buckle.

"Which way's home?" Adam asked.

Jamie rubbed the spot on his nose where his glasses broke, and wondered if he'd managed to break his nose.

"Jamie," Adam said, trying to get his attention. "Where do you live?"

When Jamie didn't respond for a second time, Adam flicked on the overhead light to survey the damage in proper lighting. There was a small bruise forming on the bridge of his nose, and his eyes weren't exactly focused on anything. Adam sighed and shook his head as he flicked the light off. He quickly checked to make sure Jamie had buckled himself in and started the car.