B had the day free from his usual livestock work on the family’s ostrich farm. This was great for B since he wanted to get some prototypes done. Instead of getting his usual work clothes on, he wore jeans and a bright green flannel over his breast binder. As he looked over the hand-made blueprints he’d been working on for his newest creation, the ‘universal remote’, and compared it to the supplies he had in his workshop of a bedroom, he noticed some things were missing. With a groan, he knew exactly where they were and headed straight to the perpetrator.

As he marched to the front door and worked his feet into some shoes, B’s youngest sister, Darleen, wandered up to him.

“Hey B.” the chubby-faced girl with a round button nose, a stark contrast to B’s high cheekbones and thin nose, obliviously greeted him. They shared the same blue eyes, freckles, and blond hair.

B replied with a grunt as he flipped his boot around to put his foot in it.

“Where are you going?” She asked as she took a sip of water from her little metal mug.

“Sue took my parts again! I bet it was for trading, that cow.” B spat with vile disgust about his eldest sister.

“No she didn’t,” Darleen said in a sing-song voice.

B stopped and looked at her baby sister.

“Then who did?” He asked dumbly, now unsure of who the perpetrator was now.

“Mom came out of your room this morning making this face.” Darleen put her finger up to her lips and hushed B before mock sneaking off toward the other side of the living room.

“Did she have my things?” B asked, with a mix of excitement and rage.

Darleen shrugged.

“Darleen!” B yelled in annoyance, “Answer me!”

Darleen giggled and ran away from B as he tried to get up and hop to her with only one boot on.

B quickly got his other boot on and decided to just go into town and see if his mom did have the antenna and speaker.

He marched into the town square, about half a mile away from his house, where there was a courthouse and three long buildings making a literal square. Each building was more crappy than the last, in B’s opinion. He went to the second least crappy one closest to the direction where he came from and entered the front door.

“Mom!” B yelled, pointing accusatory as he entered her workshop.

“B," She calmly replied, much to the confusion of the people in line with questions about their broken messengers. The blond, middle-aged, woman with freckles looked much like B, only older and more tired of B’s dramatics.

“You took my antenna and speaker,” B said with an air of arrogance, as he crossed the room and around the confused, and now annoyed, line of people waiting.

“No, you took my antenna and speaker.” His mother corrected, “I needed it back for Mr. Shobber’s messenger.”

“But you said I could have those!” B whined while he laid his head on the wood counter separating him and the line from his mom.

“If you were using them, but you weren’t. They were collecting dust in your room.” She replied ignoring him for the most part.

“But I was going to use them today,” B whined again this time sliding off the counter and on to Mr. Shobber.

Mr. Shobber, a thin farmer type, looked annoyed from B to Mrs. Prosmith, gesturing to B. Mrs. Prosmith was turning red in the face.

“Beatrice Prosmith!” She snapped. “If you want those parts so badly, go ask around for replacements.”

At the sound of his birth name, B shot up straight and leaned over the counter.

“Don’t dead-name me and,” he said softly before yelling “I WILL!” B turned from his stern mother’s face and stomped out of the building. It wasn’t the most graceful exit he has ever made, but it got his point across.

B wandered around downtown for a bit. The buildings were built-up the best they could, considering all that has happened since the raider attacks in the past year. Most of them were made of wood, excluding the courthouse of course. After pouting in the town picnic area for a while, he ended up wandering to the friendly neighborhood doctor’s office.

He was greeted by a bored-looking Proxima Centauri woman with light purple skin with pale pink hair and eyes, in a lab coat and earthling clothing. Proxima Centauri people are bipedal like humans and, for all purposes for this description, were human-looking, except for the bat-like wings they had with their extra twin limbs that stuck out of their backs. But for some reason the doctor never wanted to get into it, were damaged.

“Hey Doc,” B said.

“Hey B. Nothing life-threatening I’m assuming?” She asked.

“No. Well, actually-” B started. There was a spark of hope in Dr. Tiffany's eye for something exciting to do that day. “I was wondering if you had any spare parts lying around from your big medical machines.” Dr. Tiffany looked almost amused for a moment but was bored again.

“B. If I had anything to spare, I wouldn’t be trading my services with the Fae this week,” she replied with a sigh,

“Can I do that?” B wondered out loud.

“Doubt it. They rarely used anything metal, in case it has a silver alloy in it. They are that allergic to it. I think they are morally against plastic too, but who isn’t these days,” Dr. Tiffany joked.

B’s mom had been friends with Dr.Tiffany ever since she found her in the canyons; running from what B could only assume was mountain lions. The adults who found her, his mom, the mayor, and militia leader, who were basically the executive powers of the town, never told anyone what exactly she was running from. Just that she would be living with us now. Most of the town liked her enough to accept her medical help since she was way better than our last doctor. But nobody really talked to her, B made an effort to try to talk to her every day.

“Hey, Tiff?” B asked.

“It’s Doctor Tiffany.” She said with a sigh.

“What’s Proxima Centauri like?” B asked.

Dr. Tiffany’s jaw tightened and her eyes darted to the clock.

“Looks like I have some time before the only appointment of the day…” she said with an even voice though her movements looked shaky as she tried to busy herself with stacking papers.

“Proxima Centauri is… well, it’s a planet that is about the size of Earth but Spins on a zero degree axis around the sun around the same speed so that one side is always a hot desert and one side is always a cold ice caps-.”

“And you guys lived in the band where the desert met the edge of the ice caps where the ice melted. Bla bla bla, I know that.” B interrupted, “I want to know what it was like. Like the Centaurians. Technology. That kind of stuff.”

Dr. Tiffany looked stern at B.

“I’m telling the story.” Dr. Tiffany said with a huff.

“Sorry.” B apologized sheepishly.

“Well, the Centurion civilizations are different depending on where you were born in the ring. it changes how we treat each other and you guys, I guess. That and where you were born, your skin color would be darker or lighter and that would cause some issues between us for some dumb reason or another. We eventually got past that and the wingspan, which I doubt you humans will get, but it’s like measuring human genitalia-um… how old are you again?” she suddenly asked a bit worried.

B doubled over laughing. Dr. Tiffany soon relaxed and she patted B on the head.

“Hey, my appointment is soon you better go if you don’t want to catch the flu.” She looked very different after talking about her home planet. She was relaxed and not as bored.

“I’ll see you later Dr. Tiff,” B said as he started out of the office.

“Oh and if you still want some parts why not try Groundo’s trash?” Dr. Tiffany added before B left.

“Thanks!” B called out in a much better mood than he was when he walked in.

Groundo's home and trash heap were not too far from the courthouse. Mikey Groundo was the wealthiest and third most tech-savvy person in the town, second to only his mom and himself of course. Being the militia leader had its perks too. There were few people he answered to. He usually builds weapons, but nothing close to what B and his mother made.

B walked the quarter-mile extra to Groundo’s old metal rectangle of a house decked out with barbed wire that circled the roof and garden. B saw bullet-sized dents on the side of his house and wondered how loud the ricochet noise was on the inside of the house. He also wondered how bad Mikey’s hearing was if he was inside the thing if that happened.

B snuck around to the back of the house. He figured that Mikey was out patrolling the area now. B found the pit where he burned or buried their trash and by the looks of it, Mikey hadn’t burned anything in a couple of days. As B dug through the piles of refuse, he heard someone clear their throat in the direction of the doorway. B froze for a second, hoping that they didn’t see him, then slowly turned to face the noise. It was Mikey. B guessed his hearing was doing pretty good today.

“What the hell are you doing in my trash?” The tall, dark bearded, militia leader clad in sunglasses, black leather vest, and jeans shouted/asked.

“I need a speaker and-” B started

“You looking for militia secrets?” He asked gruffly. He took a step off this back porch.

“What? No!” B spouted.

“Because I got a message this morning from someone asking me for my log-in details because of a security issue due to programming of a company who programmed it.” He took another step closer, taking off his sunglasses to reveal bloodshot eyes, “I sent back ‘nice try.’ You know why, B? You know why?”

Mikey had the ‘crazy eyes’ going on. It didn’t help that it looked like he had some foam coming from his mouth too.

“Uh…” was all B could muster.

“Because your family programmed my shit. Was there a security issue with the programming B? Was there?” Mikey’s bloodshot eyes were in B’s face now. B tried not to shift his eyes from Mikey’s because if he did, Mikey would know.

“MIKEY!” and an old woman’s voice called from the doorway. The pair locked in a staring match looked over to see one of the few people that Mikey had to answer to, his mom.

“What are you doing harassing the Prosmith’s poor kid like that?” She accused him of doing. Mrs. Groundo was a short tan, plump, woman, with curly black hair. “You know they just want to make inventions! Remember when you were that young digging through people’s garbage so you could make your first flame thrower?” she asked as she closed the distance between them.

“But Ma! This is different,” Mikey whined as he yanked B toward the back of the house to meet up with her.

“You know that it was the misses that programmed the messenger. Now go do something constructive or meditate while I talk to, B was it?” she asked the blond young man being yanked around.

There was a pause where B cleared his throat signal to Mikey to let him go. Mikey let go of B with an eye roll. B straightened his own shirt.

“Yes, Mrs. Groundo,” B replied.

She invited B in with an old lady smile. Mikey took to the garden and started digging and pulling at weeds.

“Come in. Come in. Have a seat in the kitchen for now. Mikey needs to meditate sometimes to calm his paranoia. It works wonders for other issues too. I highly recommend it.” Mrs. Groundo said.

“Is this Mikey’s day off?” B asked peeking through the plexiglass window into the front yard, before sitting down with Mrs. Groundo at the kitchen table.

“They just got done doing a run-through for the trade going on tomorrow with the Fea, and he has been told to rest up before the big day. Would you like some water?” She asked as she went to get up again.

“No thanks. I’m ok.” B said quickly. Not that she was frail. More like, it looked like their water boiler looked like it was being held together with cloth and thumbtacks. At first glance, it looked ok though. B started to look at other things a little more closely and noticed the lights flickering.

“So… Why were you digging in our trash?” She asked snapping him back to the situation at hand.

B sighed, “I need a speaker and antenna and I know Mr. Groundo has a habit of throwing things he’s broken in the trash. So, I thought you wouldn't mind if it went missing from there.”

Mrs. Groundo nodded sagely.

“I am willing to part with the speaker in one of our extra-alarm systems in my room, which also has a small antenna in it. If you are willing to work for it.” She said.

“What do you want me to do?” B asked, with a big smile.

“My washer has been on the fritz lately. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I was hoping you could check it out, inventor boy.” She said with a wink and a cheeky grin.

B looked over to the water boiler and opened his mouth.

“I’ve got that covered. So, is it a deal?” She asked.

‘But does she though?’ B thought but decided not to pry.

“Deal,” B said, shaking her hand.

It turned out the way Mikey tried to fix the washer involved a metal fork. Which was technically a conductor for electricity, but B found a better conductor (some wires), and replaced the circuit board with one of the many old ones he had laying around the house. The last circuit board was corroded. With that, he finished the washer, and Mrs. Groundo met him in the front yard with lemonade and the speaker antenna combo.

“Here you go, for a job well done.” She said with a smile.

“Thank you Mrs. Groundo. If you need anything else fixed, don’t be afraid to ask.” B told her as he kept an eye on the water boiler as he drank deep from his lemonade.

“You know you’d make a good handyman. You can really fit into the community doing this instead of, oh you know…” She leaned in close and whispered, “amateur spying.”

B choked on his lemonade. It took him a little bit to get the lemonade out of his throat before he could defend himself from the smug look on her face.

“Ok. First off, it’s called hacking,” He said a bit too loudly and was hushed by Mrs. Groundo.

“Second off, how do you know any of this?” B hastily whispered back.

“Most of Mikey’s paranoia is grounded on some basis of reality. I also traced the signal through it did initially lead to CrudeOil City, it came back to this town. It was only a matter of time to find the one who did it.” She raised an eyebrow at B who was shocked and impressed.

“Guess who was first to learn the tech from the aliens before your mother was married into the town?” she asked sassily.

“You?!” B was astonished.

“I just want you to know if you turn on this town-” She very seriously started.

“I’m not going to turn on the town,” B said waving his hand dismissively. “I only use the information I steal to get parts.”

“You get parts here,” She said, about as stubborn as he was dismissive. “Look, you know what will happen if you get caught?”

B shook his head.

“Banishment.” She whispered.

B thought for a moment.

“Then, I won’t get caught,” B said matter of factly, getting up with his speaker in hand. “Thanks for the lemonade, Mrs. Groundo. I gotta head back before dark.”

She grunted and waved him off.