"I'm God, Baby!"

A good machinist is hard to find.

The arrival of our first one predated my hiring only by a little, but he had already found time to fall behind on his work.

We knew we were meeting our new machinist that day, but after waiting for him for 20 minutes most of us had busied ourselves with our computers doing trivial work or trying to figure our if we had the time wrong. We barely noticed him when he wandered in: you don't normally expect strangers to show up on a federal base, and sometimes you just stop looking for them. The man wandered up to Tie-Dye's desk where he made himself comfortable, primarily by kicking his muddy shoes up onto my boss' keyboard. Tie-dye looked at him, then at me, then back at the man at his desk, trying to piece together what was going on.

"Excuse me," it was Tie-dye's very politest voice, "but, who are you?"

The machinist casually laced his fingers behind his head and pressed his feet into the desk to lean back, "Who me? I'm God, baby!" Turning to one side, he made a little clicking noise at Daniella and nodded at her in a manner I'm sure he thought was devastatingly attractive.

***

She was livid, "You have got to get rid of him."

Crash always believes in the best of everybody, "Aww now, I know you've had your misunderstandings... but he does great work..."

"You don't make Holocaust jokes to jews."

"How would he have known you were Jewish?"

***

I'm not sure if it was the fact that he tried to randomly purchase magnesium (a rather flammable metal) instead of aluminum, that he randomly powder-coated a component likely to overheat in black and billed the project for it, or the fact that he tried to make the body with tack-welds which fell apart. Personally, I was most amused by when Daniella tried to have a talk with him so they could sort out their differences and learn to get along, and he accused her of "trying to get him alone because she wanted him." No matter the cause, it wasn't very long until we sent him on his way.

"Fuck it," Crash threw the powder-coated tack-welded sheet metal box aside in annoyance, "I wouldn't use it as a urinal."

The next machinist misprogrammed an expensive CNC mill so that it thought the metal wasn't some place it was. It did a full plunge through the workpiece's surface, got stuck there, grabbed the part we were working on, shook it like a rag-doll, ripped it in half, and dragged the top half out of the vice and into the ceiling of the machine so it could trash that for good measure.

The next machinist hid his files on a secret server and regularly threatened to not let anybody have his work when he believed his paycheck was late. He was, in reality, one of the only ones being paid on time.

Another one sprayed Sys with a can of compressed air for cleaning things, turning it upside down so it sprayed it in liquid form. He thought it was pretty funny, but Sys got a hospital trip for the burn.

A good machinist is hard to find.

Who are the kids?

It is the fall after my first summer with the feds.

"It won't move,"

"Go for the 50's"

A year and a half ago they said we this was going to be the next big thing. I'm told they hired Ph D's and respected field experts and moved them out here to build this.

"Is there still space for the 50's?"

"Better be..."

A year ago a senator said no. He said the project had to be moved to his state or it wasn't going to happen at all, that the funding would be all cut. They laid off all those respected experts and moved the project south, where they milked the prototype funds for all they were worth. The proposal they returned to congress was thousands of times above budget and got laughed out, but it served the purpose they gave it. It was a bridge between that center's projects, and it kept their very finest scientists fed until the center could bring them a new project to sink their teeth into.

"You were right, lotsa torque in the 50's."

"I'm getting pretty tired, I may nap under my desk for a bit."

A year ago, when they all left Crash said no. He squirreled away all the funds he could find and started picking up labor as cheaply as he could. He continued the program, but kept it a secret. That included the internship program I was going to be in.

There is probably 500 feet of cat5 under my desk, and I barely shove it out of the way to crawl in the sleeping bag and try to catch an hour and a half nap. If we don't take one a day we get less productive.

Five months ago I realized I was assigned to two different labs at once for my upcoming internship. Rather than ask for clarification I opted to wait until I arrived and got to see both. This way I could figure out which one was cooler and could angle for it.

Four months ago Crash was standing in the hallway trying to convince me his was the better lab. He promised me this project would change everything, and I agreed. He took me, Tie-Dye, and Gemini out in the hallway and explained our situation. I was the assistant to the assistant to somebody important. Many people quit, including the important person. The Canadian was added to the staff, but he wasn't quite ever meant as a direct replacement. My boss quit after 3 months for more theoretical pursuits, and then it was just the Canadian, Gemini and me.

One month ago we got delayed because legal hadn't worked out who would get sued if we died during the demo. I wish I was kidding you. I called my school and told them that I wasn't coming back to campus, but that it would look great for the school if they let me call this my senior project. I had to call a few different professors before I found one who wasn't upset about the fact that I was only entering my junior year.

A week ago the team agreed. We would take the last night off to be will-rested, calm, and collected for the director. Three days ago we found out the networking equipment wasn't compatible. This morning the man in the suit wanted to try to cancel for rain. Four hours ago we found out the 20's didn't pull enough to power the drive system. The rest of the night blurs, although I remember realizing this was the third 100+ hour week in a row, that I didn't want to see another fast food container for a year, and that there were marks on my arms from falling asleep in piles of communications cabling.

At 5:08 AM the robot drove for the first time. Talk about cutting it close.

It is 9:50AM. The director is arriving in 40 minutes, plus or minus 20. I brush my hair and wash my face in a bathroom sink, and try somewhat in vain to brush my teeth. With my hoodie zipped up the whole way you can not see my ratty tie-dye tank top, and my cargo pants are long enough to mostly hide my knock-off Birkenstock sandals. Funny, this is not how I envisioned looking when meeting one of the most powerful people I'll ever encounter. I throw Gemini my hairbrush and he tries in vain to make his hair lie down.

It's 10:05. The man in the suit is a little horrified at our appearance. He is slightly pacified by the fact that Crash changed into his suit in his truck. There isn't time for Gemini and me to go home and change anyway.

It's 10:30. Guess there was time, but we missed it.

At 10:40 the director arrives. My first thought was how human he seemed. All we knew was his history: a general who was told the military politically couldn't do this science, so he left the military to run this place instead. We were instructed to still call him general anyway. I liked him because he swore a lot and laughed while he did it.

Somebody ran over a cable with a truck and I'm on the radio shouting instructions while Crash stalls. We pull it back online and I stand next to the television. Gemini sits on the other end of the telecon in the red dirt, looking a mildly disheveled but entirely unfazed. He use to be so relaxed about everything. Crash is rattling off specs, but the director looks bored and is watching the two of us.

"Huh," the he asks, "Who are the kids?"

"The," Crash stutters, "...boy is a fresh college graduate, and the girl is a junior in college. They are our interns."

"Huh." There is a pause. "Keep 'em."

And this is probably what made my career.

Food

"Don't be shy, don't walk by, once you try you can not deny, you have to buy..."

A smiling Indian man is gesturing to a row of foil squares. I can see where one piece of the foil keeps getting folded back and forth to expose the contents as its created a permanent crease.

"Spicy or mild?"

Pacem stands next to me, one hand above his eyes blocking the sun, "Spicy."

***

"Mild," Tie-dye says two years ago, almost to the day.

For a person who moves around a lot a familiar haunt is an odd place.

"Can't believe this place is so good."

***

"American,"

It might as well be my name I guess in Hong Kong.

"American, buy."

An excited man is pointing to a box of strawberries. At first I think they are some bizarre albino form but around the edges I can see the beginnings of them turning pink.

"America!"

"Uhhh..."

"...no like?"

"These...are not...they aren't ripe."

"Ripe?"

"Good."

Wrong thing to say. The man's face scrunches up and now he's shouting, "NOT GOOD? I SELL GOOD!"

Seemed like a good time to leave.

Over the next few weeks it became increasingly apparent that strawberries were in fact just the thing to be selling to your local Gweilo. All of them were the same pasty white mess. I even broke down and bought a small container to see if I was just being biased against some local variant. They were nasty. It wasn't until a few days later I caught sight of an advertisement in an ice cream shop. The banner ran from end to end of the shop stall top, featuring a bright pick background and another pair of albino strawberries.

This was ideal?

***

Yellow.

I'm sitting next to Ginger facing a nine inch pie dish that's heaped over with scrambled eggs. Both of our eyes are fixed on the dish.

My uncle smiles, "You don't see them like that in your grocery store do you?"

The three roadtrippers looked at each other somewhat nervously. Obviously there was something wrong with my uncle's chickens, but nobody wanted to really say anything.

They were probably the best scrambled eggs I have ever eaten.

***

Gummy bears, Tillamook cheese sandwich on rye, and a Kiwi Strawberry Snapple. Same lunch as the day before, and the day before. Costco bulk made high school lunches simple.

***

Something was up with the soda fountain in the Subway in the Newark Liberty International Airport. The same thing was up with the bottle I bought in the cafeteria, and the Starbursts I found on my dresser. I cracked open a Snapple and it tasted so nasty I was unable to finish it. In high school I had considered drinking one of these the day nearly the hilight of my meal.

"High Fructose Corn Syrup," he said.

"It...tastes so fake..."

I'd spent a good portion of my time in Hong Kong eagerly awaiting the day I would return to my preservatives and partially hydroginated veggitable oil, only to find out I'd been away long enough that nothing back here seemed quite right either.

***

I find it so odd that our society is slowly becoming conscious about what we eat but it doesn't seem to be that anybody has any idea of what food actually even tastes like anymore.