“I dash em, and I clash em, gotta bash em afore I flash em,” I sang nonsensically to myself.

I used to do that a lot, actually. Just make up weird lyrics as a kid, rhyme them together without any real music or beat. From a musicality standpoint, its awful. But as far as coping mechanisms go?

I don’t really know. Singing kind of helps me center myself. Amateur, to do for the love of the craft.

I don’t really talk about it a lot, ever since I got laughed at as a kid for expressing my views, but I wonder how human we are. Collectively anyways. Before the Epiphany, we were all human, without a doubt. Afterwards though? A lot of us don’t resemble humans as they used to be. Like Agent Stockton, with jet black eyes, no whites or irises. Our manifestations certainly are useful, but sometimes I struggle. We still call ourselves humans because of the continuity. After the Epiphany, it was all the same people, the same societies, and for the most part, the same personalities.

But for me? I was born long after that event. I don’t know what it is like to not have powers, and I will never know that. And no one will.

Singing is nice, because it is something that humans do. It’s a natural behavior. Birds sing, and so do humans. It’s comforting. Something I needed early in my childhood.

I was sitting in the backroom of Gabe’s shop, thinking. Mostly thinking anyways. Ostensibly, I was reviewing a set of guns I had shot previously. Sure, most people care about accuracy, but it’s also important to grade guns on ease of assembly, maintenance, cleaning, etc. You can have the most accurate gun in the world, but if it breaks and can’t be easily repaired, what good is it?

Not glamorous work to be sure, but necessary, and soothing in it’s own right. I usually find it hard to think to be honest. My power tends to be distracting at best, and downright obnoxious at worst. I need to distract myself from all of that noise somehow, and sitting down to repeatedly assemble and disassemble guns works. I used to use fidget spinners actually, but puzzles or guns tend to work better. Just enough that I need to devote a slight bit of brainpower to autopilot. It’s very zen to be quite honest.

I had a lot to think about really, and I hadn’t really taken the time to stop, breath, and examine it all.

First of all, the fight.

I’ll be honest, I don’t like how I performed. I got the shit kicked out of me, putting it lightly. What is absolutely frustrating, is that there was nothing else I could do. I was functionally completely helpless against Flicker. Yeah, I killed him in the end, but that’s like trusting your life to a fucking lottery ticket.

There were so many things which could have gone wrong with that fight. He could have realized I was baiting him on several occasions, he could have gotten bored and killed me, he could have drawn it out by breaking every bone in my body before leaving me to die in the street.

The real kicker, is that there was simply nothing that could be done. The car chase in it’s entirety was a fiction, a way to corral us into a place like Glimmerton, where they could take us out without cops or capes showing up. Because at any moment during that ‘chase’, Flicker could have exited the car, walked up to us, and shot us, without us being able to react.

I’m also not super happy that I had to resort to the flashgun. It was my only option, but flashguns can cause collateral, and it was practically a miracle that it didn’t. It’s one of the weaknesses of flashguns specifically, compared to most energy weapons. Putting it bluntly, flashguns blind people, even if they aren’t actually in the way. Even a high powered laser, if not modulated with tinker tech to lessen the light emission, is capable of blinding people looking at the laser dot.

Though now that I am thinking about it, I wonder if that’s what happened with Flicker’s henchmen. I know I closed my eyes. Barley and Sergio knew that I had a flashgun up my sleeves, and might have closed their eyes, or looked away preemptively. But if the henchmen were watching, it would have almost certainly permanently blinded them. Well, permanent without medical treatment. So not really permanent, but expensive and painful. Which is probably how Barley and Sergio caught them without getting shot in return.

I frowned a bit, as a thought struck me, diverting my internal tangent. I set the gun down and pulled out my phone, booting up TAD, or the Threat Actor Database. It was the database which tracked all registered actors, heroes, villains, vigilantes, hell even the guys who decide to register on a dare, or register for clout. PRA runs it, and providing the resource is a massive part of their mission, so that civilians can get information on actors if they decide to throw down in the middle of the street.

I carefully typed in Flicker, and was immediately greeted by his profile. There was a photo of him wearing the balaclava front and center. Guess he didn’t vary his outfit much, or bother with a suit. And right below that photo, read TERMINATED, in bright red letters.

With a decidedly morbid fascination, I clicked the scarlet text, which brought me to a page detailing his demise. There wasn’t much there at the moment. Which wasn’t surprising. To an extent, the database is community driven. The PRA will supply some information which they are usually obligated to provide legally, but then volunteers who have more information will submit detailed explanation for consideration, pending approval.

Currently, it gave the time of death, which was several days ago now, the location of death, which was Glimmerton, and cause of death, which was pending. Interesting. Those three are the ones that the PRA legally provides. They obviously knew about the first two, but cause of death is listed as pending, which is slightly concerning.

Usually, if it is an actor related death, it will list that, and if there isn’t any ambiguity in the situation, will usually list the killer. Actors killed by civilians have a special designation, similar to those killed by accident or natural disaster. Deaths which were pending though, tend to be ones which have not yet been classified, or there is some legal ambiguity going on. Which shouldn’t be the case. I am an unregistered civilian at the moment, so it should be designated as such. The only thing I can think of, is that Agent Stockton is playing games, or this is part of his promise to keep me out of the courthouse.

On a sudden whim, I swapped to edit mode, to see what suggestions were being floated. It didn’t look like there was too much activity, as Flicker wasn’t exactly widely known, merely being an enforcer for some other gang.

A couple entries stood out. One suggested adding detailed information about cause of death, being a flashgun at close range, followed by extensive laceration of the face and exsanguination. I checked the supporting evidence, and immediately felt queasy. It was a photo-set of Flicker taken during autopsy. With a couple of hours to putrefy, and placed under the cold blue lights of the medical examiner, he looked less like a human, and more like a half cooked and rotting side of beef in the shape of a face. I glanced at the account making the proposal, and noted that it was a power-user with several hundred contributions. Probably standard procedure for this guy.

The next entry seemed like an anecdotal story about how the poster had known Flicker, and had been told that he was going out to mess with the Lotus gang in some way. It included some details, so it sounded vaguely authentic. That said, it didn’t really matter. Whether it was authentic, or whether someone with a decent knowledge of the cities gangs was making it up for attention, crap like this doesn’t tend to get approved for the database. It’s anecdotal, doesn’t have supporting evidence, and can’t be corroborated by others.

I switched back, and stared at the pending status. Stockton remains a mystery.

Switching gears, I went up to search, and ran a query on his name. Agent Stockton, Jason Stockton, Agent Jason. I wasn’t expecting much, but was mildly surprised to see a fair couple of entries. He wasn’t registered that I could see, though the fact that he gave an official name rather than a database handle was evidence enough of that.

Interestingly, he was popping up a lot, mostly in the entries for other heroes and villains. Mostly villains as a matter of fact, being referenced as the PRA point of contact. I couldn’t really find a common thread between them, but it was fascinating that several mentioned Stockton in conjunction with a local mental hospital. It was mostly in the incarceration sections, which tend to track prison and jail time, but also make a note of involuntary commitment to mental health facilities.

I couldn’t exactly access the medical records of the actors who had Stockton listed as the contact for those particular time periods, but a lot of them seemed to speculate treatment for narcissism, anti-social personality disorder, and similar diagnoses.

I take those with a grain of salt of course. Anonymous TAB contributors aren’t exactly a reliable source, but it was noteworthy how many of the actors in the mental hospital, so there was clearly something going on there.

I turned slightly as I heard the door handle twist, and saw Gabe step in. He glanced at me, and raised an eyebrow at my phone.

“Slacking off in the middle of your reviews? That’s uncharacteristic.” He said, breaking the ice a bit.

“I’m easily distractable,” I replied, shrugging apologetically. “I’ll get back to work in a moment, I just wanted to take a breather and look some stuff up.”

I was being vague about it, mostly because I tend to avoid confrontation, but Gabe easily picked up on what I was referencing.

“Ah. Find anything interesting?”

I sat back and chewed on my lip for a moment.

“Got approached the other day. White dude, black eyes without any whites or irises to them. Wore shades most of the time. PRA agent, said he had questions about the fight.”

Gabe frowned, and pulled up a chair, settling into it with a complicated look on his face.

“Alright, so what did you give him?”

“The truth, more or less. He had seemingly already pieced it together from his own investigation, and was looking to confirm the timeline of events. I could’ve lied I suppose, but that would be causing trouble later down the line.”

“But you’re good now? You’re not registered, but you are practically civilian. No reason for PRA to start getting uppity over that.”

I sighed a bit.

“Stockton said a judge wouldn’t see it that way. That going along with that means a couple years in the slammer. He made me an offer to keep it off my records. Basically work as a freelancer for PRA for a couple years, keep my nose clean, and he makes the problems go away.”

“He’s bluffing you, mi hijo.” Gabe said, shaking his head. “PRA’s got far too much on it’s plate to be dealing with someone who killed a gang-banger in self-defense. Rumor has it those courts have backlogs going back years, especially since they gotta bump up the real nasty motherfuckers to the top of the list. Sides, even if they do decide they are having a slow day at the office, you can make the jump to Yellowstone.”“Gabe, I like living in Lakeview,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Yeah I could defect, but that’s going to fuck citizenship up and the paperwork will take years to unravel. Sure, I could take my chances with the courts, but who’s to say they don’t decide to score an easy win and make an example of me? It’s not like I am a healer who got mugged and killed a lowlife in self-defense. I’m a precog, and they are gunna be smearing that over the tabloids for the pond-scum who read that trash to salivate over.”

“So what, you are going to be the PRA’s lapdog?” Gabe demanded incredulously.

“Gabe, that was already my plan through college, this just skips the internship process, and isn’t salaried.”

“I don’t like it. How do you anticipate squaring things with the Lotuses anyways? I see how you need to make ends meet, which means cozying up to some unpleasant people, but I am skeptical you can juggle freelancing for PRA and Candyman. You’re going to have to pick one.”

“I can make it work,” I said, trying to project an image of confidence. Though candidly, I was trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince Gabe. “Stockton said he didn’t care about my work for the Lotuses as long as I don’t fuck up. As long as I can keep quiet about the PRA work around Barley and his crew, I should be able to pull it off.”

Gabe dragged his palm across his face, pulling a dour expression, before muttering under his breath in Spanish about the idiocy of youth. At least, I think he did. My Spanish was never the greatest, and it’s hard to make him out when his hand is muffling his words.

“Right then. Listen Ryan. You need something better than a gun when out and about. If you are going to be fucking about on Lotus business, you will be running into actors at some point, and PRA business will have actors at most points. You need some protection. Good protection. I know you aren’t keen on handouts, so I’ll let you work at the problem first. But if you need it, I know a guy who knows a guy, and can pull favors to get you introduced.”

“God Gabe,” I started, somewhat at a loss. “You’re the best, man. Fuck, I love you dude.”

I got up and hugged Gabe, and honestly was unable to hold back my emotions. I hadn’t been able to really decompress since the fight, but now, I could just let it loosen a bit. Hot, salty tears beaded up and ran down my face, but Gabe was kind enough not to mention them, knowing my distaste for being too open about my feelings.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I let go, and wiped my eyes with my sleeve, avoiding using my hands which were still covered in gun oil. Might ruin the moment a bit to have me looking like a raccoon.

“Finish up your reviews. Once you’re done, I’m closing shop early, and we can get something to eat, okay?”

“Sounds good man. Give me another half hour or so.” I said, dropping my gaze to the pile of guns.

Gabe nodded, and closed the door, heading back to the front of the shop.

I know I tell people who ask that Gabe is a family friend, but really, he is more like a parent to me. He stepped up to really raise me, and I’ve always loved him for it.

I had a, shall we say, complicated, relationship with my parents. Ever since they knew I was a false precog, they preferred to keep me at arms length. I might be a little bitter about the situation, but I don’t really blame them particularly.

They definitely got shit from their peers about me, and I know they lost friendships. But also, there is just the reality of living with someone with my manifestation. Something a lot of the general public isn’t aware of, is that my precognition has active and passive facets. Yes, I can push to see certain items, but passively, I tend to see outcomes anyway. I can’t stop seeing them.

But more importantly, the backbone of the manifestation is that the knowledge it can predict is directly tied to the knowledge I have. Anything which I have ever perceived, in fact, and comprehended. Its why I am literally banned from accessing certain knowledge. My power has perfect memory, and cannot unlearn anything.

The danger of that, is that most children are constantly around their parents. They see their words, their actions, their idiosyncrasies. And given long enough, I might be able to construct a mental model of my parents. A sort of virtual person, who reacts in the same way they do, acts in the same way they do. How real is this person? And how do you parent a child who knows just about every action you will take before you take it?

Precognition, both true and false, tend to fall into that category of manifestation which nearly guarantees unhappy upbringings. Empathy and telepathy are often there, depending on the nuance, as well as some others.

I try not to dwell on it too much to be honest. I’ll happily dwell on other things which make me a miserable bastard, but there is something about the implication that my powers caused my unhappy upbringing that I tend to avoid engaging with, poking at it occasionally with a stick perhaps, but never fully wrestling with it. Like, powers are derived from ones mental state and personality. Trying to reconcile that with my upbringing is rather uncomfortably close to victim blaming, which I try to avoid doing to myself, for my own mental health, if nothing else. Not that shoving the problem in a box and refusing to deal with it is healthy, arguably, but its probably harmless.

Regardless, I would spend the weekends with Gabe, just a little brat running around the gun shop. I lived at home, but every second I could spare was spent at Sr. Asno’s. As I grew up, it was Gabe who really imparted his life lessons, forming the moral framework I try to abide by. I’m sometimes unsuccessful, but I make the effort.

I sighed to myself. Jesus I was a fucking mess. Mopey and morose. I shook my head, and pulled out my phone to plan my next move.

----------------------------------------

“Hello all, welcome to our workshop. My name is Angela Jordan. Today we will be covering magnetism in practical tinkering. I see we have some returning friends, as well as some new faces. Our program has two sections, the theoretical and practical. We will be going over the theory of what we are doing today, and then engaging in practical demonstrations.”

I was sitting in the back of a hobbyist tinkering class, watching Angela enthusiastically address the class. She was fairly tall, with blonde hair down to her shoulders. She looked a little bit familiar. Maybe she was a TA for a class I took last semester? Hard to say.

The class itself seemed fairly varied, with mostly students ranging from early twenties to late thirties. Jordan had commandeered a lecture hall typically used by engineering classes, probably because most halls had to have the capability to host practical tinkering seminars.

“Now, before we start, I want to emphasize that this is a class for tinkers, not Makers. I know that most people conflate the two, but it is worth making the point here. Tinkers are builders who make use of altered physics from Mentem, in a way which mimics the so called gimmicks that many people make use of. Makers on the other hand, have a power fully devoted to using these physics. This is a hobbyist course, and thus suited for hobbyist tinkers.”

She looked around the room, and must have liked what she saw, because she smiled and tapped her laptop, which was plugged into the projector.

“Now, today we will be working with magnetism. It is a very elementary force, and very simple as far as properties go. Some of the techniques you will be using today are actually integral in the creation of plasteel.”

She changed the slide, to depict a metal foundry with molten plasteel running into injection molds.

“Now, as many of you know, maker type powers, and by extension tinkering, utilizes mental energy to imbue items with different properties. Unlike many other manifestations, this tends to be a long process. It’s slow, takes a lot of concentration, and is not useful in direct confrontation. However. The benefit is that layering low level effects on top of each other allows them to synergize.”

She paused for a moment to take a sip of water. I reflected a bit on what she had said thus far. Nothing particularly new to me to be quite honest. Plasteel was fun stuff, and was revolutionary back in the day, but it isn’t really all that interesting to me, mostly because it seems mundane. As far as the layering thing goes, that is something I was fascinated by.

A lot of weapons that come across our desk advertise themselves as tinker tech. Which is correct, but it rather takes advantage of the way people mix up tinkers and makers. Tinker tech tends to be mass produced. That’s the only way it could really be economically viable.

To an extent, it is tinker tech all the way down. The machines building the guns impart anomalous effects, and are in turn built by machines with anomalous effects, and vice versa, all the way down until you get down to the actual parts at the head of the supply chain.

Generally, this means you get a tinker gun which is far better than a non tinker weapon. Take my Badger for example. The nano-coating which erases fingerprints is pure tinker tech. There might be mundane nanomaterials which could do that, but they tend to be confined to the lab until someone figures out mass production.

That said, the powers, the properties, the anomalous effects of tinker weapons? They all had to come from somewhere. Powers are always derived from mental energy. There were humans at every stage of the supply chain, but with varying powers, varying mindsets, and varying impressions of what they were doing. And none of them were makers. So you get weak effects, which synergize poorly, and are applied by machines, which were themselves created by other machines. The original intent is far from the final product, and much divorced from it to boot.

Makers on the other hand? Artisans. A tinker factory can easily pump out ten thousand weapons a week. A maker? Maybe one gun in a week. The key is that that gun will be multiple orders of magnitude stronger than anything a tinker could make. Their powers are fully dedicated to making, and they create each component, imbuing them with power whenever they work on it. Every pin, every casing, they are layered when they are created, layered when an anomalous effect is added, layered when they are assembled into a gun.

There are some eighty parts in an AK-47. Even if you assume a minimum of layering, you are getting hundreds of power interactions, all syngergizing, working in concert to make a truly vicious weapon.

“There are a number of fundamental property shifts regarding low level tinkering.” Angela said, drawing my attention back. “When working with materials science, property manipulation can be done with inversion, translation, genesis, negation, scaling, and tethering. There are some others, but these are the ones worth noting. Now, I’ve placed materials for your use in the bins here. Please take one item from each bin, and pass the bin along.”

With that, she started passing plastic multicolored bins to the front row, who began retrieving materials. It took a while, since I was sitting in the back, but they eventually came to me. I retrieved a magnet, a thin iron plate, an aluminum block, and a block of plasteel. I passed the bins on, before inspecting my materials.

“Right then. Now, take the block of plasteel, and hold the magnet to it, and carefully observe what occurs.”

Shrugging at that, I dutifully held up my block of plasteel. I started to bring the magnet to it, but thought better, and slid a sheet of paper under my hands before continuing.

As I brought the magnet near, the plasteel seemed to get softer. I pressed a bit, and was satisfied to see dents appear in the steel. Pressing the magnet directly against the plasteel, it seemed to gain the consistency of putty.

Interesting. I guess it was high-tesla plasteel, probably to prevent students from making a mess. Guess the paper wasn’t really needed.

“Now, plasteel is a highly useful material, particularly in space applications, and high temperature environments. It is also one of the most basic forms of tinker tech. Essentially, the process of making plasteel involves heating vats of steel to the melting point. Once this occurs, a magnetic field is applied to the vat. These days, we have the technology to maintain uniform fields, but back in the day, the magnetic field would have grown in intensity with proximity to the source, and would require a separate step to differentiate high-tesla plasteel from low-tesla plasteel.

Once the magnetic field is applied, a property tether is imposed, remapping the states of matter to the steel’s magnetism, as opposed to it’s thermal capacity. Afterwards, either a property negation is imposed, destroying the attractive properties of the steel, or more likely a property translation is done to recycle the property.

Now, once this process completes, you have a vat of extremely hot liquid metal in a powerful magnetic field. But when you turn off the field, the steel instantly solidifies, though it stays the same temperature. That is the beauty of plasteel. It has the structural properties of steel, but does not weaken or melt in high temperatures, but can be liquefied at room temperature by applying a magnetic field. You can work this stuff by simply kneading it with your hands.”

“Excuse me Ms. Jordan, I have a question?” Someone from the audience called, lazily raising their hand.

“Go ahead,” she replied encouragingly.

“Why isn’t it used in large scale construction? I’ve never really understood that part, since it seems easy to mass produce, and super easy to work.”

“Ah, yes. The problem it is extremely vulnerable to sabotage, as well as other issues. If you just need a powerful magnet to liquefy the steel in a skyscraper, that tends to be a major problem. Additionally, electronics and power lines can emit low level magnetic fields. While this won’t usually melt anything, it can weaken plasteel in unpredictable ways, and the margin of error for architecture isn’t nearly enough to try building with it, at least after the string of building collapses which caused most nations to regulate the uses of the substance. Does that answer your question?”

The student nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Right then. Now, what you will be doing is performing a simple property translation. Specifically, of the property of ferrous metals to be attracted to magnets. You will place your aluminum block on your table, and then place the iron plate on it, making sure it lines up. They should be the right size such that the iron plate covers the whole block. Then, go ahead and rub your magnet against the iron plate, making sure the plate stays in full contact with the aluminum, while attempting to perform the transform. It may feel like using your manifestation, but if your power isn’t particularly similar to a maker type manifestation, you may need to work a bit, get in the right mindset.”

I shrugged a bit at that, and began following the instructions. I placed the aluminum on the table, making sure to remove the paper from before so that it wouldn’t slid around. I then put the iron plate on it, making sure it was covering all of the aluminum. Then, pressing my index finger and thumb to the sides to hold it in place, I rubbed the magnet on the iron.

Nothing. Well yeah, I have to actually do the transform.

I reached out with my senses, trying to feel the magnetism. Not with my precognition mind you. That is a very different power. Right now, I was trying to reach out, and do the sort of raw power manipulation which made up most gimmicks.

I still wasn’t really getting anything. I could maybe feel something, but it wasn’t really clear if I was actually sensing it, or just feeling the sensation of the magnet sticking to the iron like normal. Damn.

You know, I think a lot of people take it for granted that most powers come with feedback. Like, if you are a pyrokinetic, you can typically sense fire in general, and almost always sense it when you are manipulating it. It’s really quite rare to find someone who can’t close their eyes and sense when the fire touches something for example.

I wasn’t getting feedback. Or useful feedback anyways. Which means I have to eyeball it. Figuratively anyways, I’ll be closing my eyes to focus.

I closed my eyes, and tried to think about transference. Not feeling it, that wasn’t doing shit for me, but just doing the transfer. Transferring is good, we like moving things. Please transfer now.

I opened my eyes, and removed the iron plate, before tapping the aluminum, and frowning as it failed to attract the magnet.

“Are you having troubles?” I startled a bit, as Angela seemed to appear from out of nowhere, behind my shoulder. Looks like she was patrolling the room to give help.

“Yeah, I keep thinking to transfer, but I’m not getting anything. Also, I can’t really feel what I am doing, which makes this super difficult.”

“Understandable, most people can’t feel it without practice. Many people have different methods of tinkering, but a fairly common experience is the sensation of zen, or focus. Just a feeling of focus without distractions, getting in the zone. Secondly, try to avoid thinking with words. Most people struggle to hold the concept of transference in their minds using only language. You might be better off finding a mental analogue, which serves as a conceptual example.”

I nodded at the advice, and watched her move on to help others. Right then. Zen, and don’t use my words. I can probably do zen. I think I have some spare change, which helps that, but the word thing might be tricky.

I took a moment to really think, and eventually hit on reloading my gun. When I am in the zone when shooting on the range, I occasionally have to reload. Transfer bullets into an empty gun, making it a full gun. The zen aspect is there too, so I just need to recapture that feeling.

I fished around in my pants, and grabbed a dollar coin. Balancing it under my finger, I flicked it hard, getting it spinning. While I had the time, I focused in with my precognition, and really just watched the future of the coin.

Breath in. Breath out. Watch the spinning coin. Clear the mind of thoughts. I am back at the gun range, on top of my game. I have no distractions in my mind. My clip is out, and in one smooth motion, I need to reload. I need to transfer.

I opened my eyes again, frowning. Nothing changed. I didn’t feel anything different and the magnet was still pulling as it had before.

Frustrated, I rolled my eyes, before tugging the magnet off. The iron plate immediately slid off the aluminum, as I opened a gap, and fell to the desk, without clinging to the magnet. Which was still pulling, now to the bare aluminum.

Huh, that was interesting. Magnetic aluminum. I guess I did do it.

I played around with the aluminum, picking it up with the magnet. Interestingly, I could place a paperclip on the aluminum, and it would stick as long as the magnet was on the other side of the aluminum. I guess the aluminum was extending the field as if it were an iron block. The original iron plate on the other hand, refused to respond to the magnet. It might as well have been made of wood, for all that it reacted.

Having finished, I looked around the room. Most of the others had finished, either having less problems with the translation, or more likely had been attending these workshops for some time.

“Right then, it looks like most of you have finished up. Those who are done, please return your materials to the appropriate bin so that they can be reused. Don’t worry about any lingering effects from today. The property transference will typically revert in a few hours, sometimes longer depending on how well you did. Permanent effects are much more work to do.

That’s all I have for you this evening. If you enjoyed this, we typically hold workshops every two weeks, and would be happy to see you back. I will be walking around, helping those who haven’t been able to get the knack for it. Everyone else, I will see you in two weeks.”

Interesting. I saw the other attendants start to exit, slowly trickling out the door. I hung out by my desk, waiting to catch Angela before she left. It took another fifteen minutes, but I was eventually able to talk to her.

“Hey, my name is Ryan. I really enjoyed the workshop.” I said, giving Angela an easy smile.

“I’m glad to hear it,” She laughed. “The next workshop will be focusing on optics, so if that is something you are interested in, feel free to swing by.”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it,” I said, preparing to make my pitch. “Hey listen, I’ve got an interest in learning this stuff, but mostly on a hobbyist basis. There are some projects I want to try out, but some stuff can only really be done by a maker. Do you have any friends or acquaintances you can point me towards, who might be interested in commissions?”

Angela raised her eyes at that, but began tapping her lip with her fingernail as she stared off into space, clearly thinking.

“I know a couple people. I haven’t gotten anything from them, so I can’t tell you how good they are, and you will have to negotiate rates yourself. But I can give you their names and numbers. Let me know how it turns out.”

She quickly scribbled a couple names on my notepad, along with numbers to go with them. I slipped the pad into my pocket, and flashed her a quick grin.

“Thanks so much! I’ll see you for the optics workshop.” I said, before walking out of the building. The sky had turned dark, a dull opaque color which betrayed the level of light pollution at night here.

I was feeling pretty good. I had managed to get some practical instruction on tinkering, and a list of leads to follow up on, to track down makers. I have some ideas I want to test.