Another moment

 Another moment of fear and doubt swept over him.  He clinched his fists in futile frustration focusing far into the past.
   "Damn it!", he yelled while his white wrought knuckles cracked, snapped and popped. The rapid movement of his eyes took him back to that backward day of loss.

   "I have the better paying job, I can provide a better environment than my...she can...!?", he pleaded.

   "My decision is final, these proceedings are closed." the judge said firmly as the gavel swung true.

   "Smack" went the sound block, he twitched and took a deep breath.  He turned to his wife, with their wide-eyed child staring back at him, as she quickly pulled her away through the court room.  In this moment his daughter was whisked wildly from his sight, his head dropped in defeat and hung heavy with plight.

     The room came back into focus, the room, the work shop.  It was covered in racks of whirring fans, flashing lights and towers of wires, connectors, switches and parts galore. The dimly lit work space was his life, his home.  The small lamp that illuminated his desk snapped on, shedding light on his complicated mind.  

     He looked now thru a pile of cables and wires, 

   “Twisted pair un-shielded , nope, cat9.5, nope", he squinted and pushed through the tangles and saw the connector,

    "There you are, shielded twisted pair with 3.5mm connector, Nice!", his excitement refocused his mind.  

     He continued over to another dimly lit area, one single CFL hung over the project.  The canvas cover, shown grey in the right, emitted a dull shine like an alter bathed in moon light.  He stood admiring the simple sight and proceeded to find the positive lead. A speakerphone jack, which he took care in attaching gently with his stress laden hands.
     The smoldering gun soldered as he made the connection permanent.  He up-righted himself and let out a sigh, time for another test run he thought.  He clumsily clambered over a pile of hardware and wires to the seat at the desk.  With a shake of his hand over the IR panel, the work station awoke.  Three dark monitors sprung to bright, each displaying digitally designated strings of information.  The system consumption blipped dial dipped away, like an electrocardiograph showing signs of life. The memory indicator read 50% and the heat indexer hung steady at 45°C.  A smile grew across his shadowed face. His heart began to race with anticipation.  In the single black and grey window he typed command>initiate.  A small window began to jump and spit strings of code pushing the information slowly pulsing and gaining speed.

     From across the room a gear began to whir and the sound of the initial boot processes beeped.  He turned to monitor number two and began punching code like a secretary creating copy.  The few lights flickered and he took a deep breath.  B.E.T.H. whirred and servos ground slowly as a presence grew under the canvas cloth.  Then as steadily as it rose the project started to slow.  The system began to systematically shut down with the dull sound that only comes when a mechanical system has power loss.

   "No, no, no! “, he frantically began manually switching wires, port 73c to port 101b, his mind spun producing its own heat. Then the lights went down to a fleeting flicker, the entire room looked like a storm of welders not knowing where to weld.  A bright white flash and pop as the main circuit breaker sparked then sizzled smoke.

     Again his heavy head grew and he plopped himself down onto his chair.  He knew the problem, the components needed to be generation 6 not 5.3.  The power consumption start-up ratio had again broken its high-end threshold, he needed more efficient parts.  He pulled a drawer swiftly open and reached for the bottle, it sloshed from the jolt.  A flip of the wrist and the top spun open, it went to his lips like a humming bird kissing a stamen.  The burn of whiskey tore down his throat and into a growling stomach.  He re-spun the top of the bottle then looked to the browser...blinking... awaiting his next move.
      He swiveled his chair to the crowded shelves behind him.  It was covered with magazine after month of magazine covering every electrical, technical and fore-frontal topic know to hu-man-s. He then saw the corner of yellow.  He tugged quickly at the book, resulting in a cascading pile of popular science's surfing to the floor.  Was the old man still in business? Was this even the current phone book? His thoughts turned over and over to the cover and read the year.
   "Good.", he spoke out loud.
Continuing his search to the service section, he found the listing.

As he spoke the command the call was made, an echoing call to a world gone by.  A wind of moment in time and then the future took over. There must be someone...?
   "hello, hello", the phone sounded answered.

   "What, what do you want? “, a voice spoke.

   "This is T56 Tango, repeat T56 Tango", he spat.

   "Descend to Bravo 2 6 zero and repeat.”, was the response.

There was a small pause as the connection was fuzzed...click.click...click...clicklick...bbbzzzzzzz.

   "System 2 protoplasm, Need series 6, Bravo, Bravo, X system 2 Run Run...Stat."

     Another small pause was followed by a digital response..."SyS2 copy, copy SR6 fax fax, copy"

The call went dead and silence tickled around the remains of test 3.24.

     The ASP power initiated and the lights came back on. A flick of his hand over the console produced an array of desktop icons.

...to be continued...