the construction zone. “Go home, ya scab amp!”
Jim doesn’t even look up, just leads me into the job site.
“Who are they?” I ask.
“Workers we replaced. They’re pure human. And young. But I tell you what, every man’s got a right to earn a living. Being young don’t earn you a damn thing in my book.”
A five-story, half-framed building crowds the work site. The rising sun flings skewers of light through its half-renovated steel skeleton. The frame straddles a deep, unfinished subbasement that makes a nauseating drop into crisp shadow. Jim tells me that, in a few months, this steep pit will be a claustrophobic parking garage for auto-driven cars. He says we don’t even have to run lighting down there—the cars won’t need it.
It’s still early. A crusty cement mixer filled with toolboxes swings overhead, lifted out of thieves’ reach by the site crane. A few elderly men mill around, drinking coffee. There’s hardly a worker here under sixty-five. Each has a maintenance nub, including Jim. Amps. When the old guys pass each other, they nod. Sometimes they give each other halfhearted little salutes. No smiles.
“Not a big talker, are you?” I ask Jim.
He shakes his head.
“My dad said I needed to find you. He said that you could explain why I’m here.”
Jim glances at me, eyes sharp and calculating. Chews on theinside of his cheek, considering. Finally, he shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “Probably not. Anyway, there’s work to do.”
The old man drops to one knee and fiddles the drawstring open on his canvas duffel bag. In a well-practiced motion, he rolls down the sides of the faded bag to reveal tangled columns of dust-coated metal. Under a frenzied pattern of scratches and dings, I see the thin tubes are light-gold colored. Titanium alloy.
An ID code, like a VIN, is stamped onto one tube.
“My ride,” says Jim. “Beats a wheelchair and it beats the living crap out of the goddamn scooters that civilians get.
Semper
fi,
kid.
Semper
friggin’
fidelis
.”
Jim grabs the lightweight frame, lifts it out of the bag, and shakes it like a dirty T-shirt. The tubes flop out onto the ground, connected like a skeleton, with legs and arms attached to a backpack-like trunk. Without a pause, Jim plants one boot onto a foot-shaped piece of plastic at the end of one tube. He steps in with the other foot and then shrugs on the backpack part. The skeletal arms hang loose, their unfastened straps lolling like tongues.
“You’re a vet?” I ask, reaching out and touching the loose metal wrist of the thing. Jim nods. A pair of dull pincers hang from just above the wrist joint, scarred with shining gashes. I lift the dead metal, and the arm bends, limp. An array of compact tools is folded underneath, ready to be deployed: screwdrivers, files, even a power saw.
The pincer clamps onto my wrist and I jump back. I reflexively wrench my arm away from the cold metal, shake it off like a spider. Jim lets out a hoarse giggle. As both robotic arms settle down to his sides, the old man taps the maintenance nub on his temple.
“Settle down, kid. The exoskeleton is linked to my amp. Works even for a guy with no arms and legs. Mind control. All a vet has to do is claim arthritis and the VA coughs these things up like nickels.”
He casually lowers his arms into the arm bars of the device, straps them in one at a time. “Makes us more employable,” he says.
Jim is in his late seventies. He says he retired from the military forty years ago and he retired from the workforce a decade ago. Now he’s standing in front of me wearing a government-issued medical exoskeleton and about to start another day of hard labor, and this is the reason that those young men across the street are huddled together giving us the evil eye.
The old folks have stolen all the jobs.
Jim speaks to the foreman on my behalf. The Pure Priders outside won’t work alongside the old men, so the work site has to bring in extra amps. They could
Jim doesn’t even look up, just leads me into the job site.
“Who are they?” I ask.
“Workers we replaced. They’re pure human. And young. But I tell you what, every man’s got a right to earn a living. Being young don’t earn you a damn thing in my book.”
A five-story, half-framed building crowds the work site. The rising sun flings skewers of light through its half-renovated steel skeleton. The frame straddles a deep, unfinished subbasement that makes a nauseating drop into crisp shadow. Jim tells me that, in a few months, this steep pit will be a claustrophobic parking garage for auto-driven cars. He says we don’t even have to run lighting down there—the cars won’t need it.
It’s still early. A crusty cement mixer filled with toolboxes swings overhead, lifted out of thieves’ reach by the site crane. A few elderly men mill around, drinking coffee. There’s hardly a worker here under sixty-five. Each has a maintenance nub, including Jim. Amps. When the old guys pass each other, they nod. Sometimes they give each other halfhearted little salutes. No smiles.
“Not a big talker, are you?” I ask Jim.
He shakes his head.
“My dad said I needed to find you. He said that you could explain why I’m here.”
Jim glances at me, eyes sharp and calculating. Chews on theinside of his cheek, considering. Finally, he shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “Probably not. Anyway, there’s work to do.”
The old man drops to one knee and fiddles the drawstring open on his canvas duffel bag. In a well-practiced motion, he rolls down the sides of the faded bag to reveal tangled columns of dust-coated metal. Under a frenzied pattern of scratches and dings, I see the thin tubes are light-gold colored. Titanium alloy.
An ID code, like a VIN, is stamped onto one tube.
“My ride,” says Jim. “Beats a wheelchair and it beats the living crap out of the goddamn scooters that civilians get.
Semper
fi,
kid.
Semper
friggin’
fidelis
.”
Jim grabs the lightweight frame, lifts it out of the bag, and shakes it like a dirty T-shirt. The tubes flop out onto the ground, connected like a skeleton, with legs and arms attached to a backpack-like trunk. Without a pause, Jim plants one boot onto a foot-shaped piece of plastic at the end of one tube. He steps in with the other foot and then shrugs on the backpack part. The skeletal arms hang loose, their unfastened straps lolling like tongues.
“You’re a vet?” I ask, reaching out and touching the loose metal wrist of the thing. Jim nods. A pair of dull pincers hang from just above the wrist joint, scarred with shining gashes. I lift the dead metal, and the arm bends, limp. An array of compact tools is folded underneath, ready to be deployed: screwdrivers, files, even a power saw.
The pincer clamps onto my wrist and I jump back. I reflexively wrench my arm away from the cold metal, shake it off like a spider. Jim lets out a hoarse giggle. As both robotic arms settle down to his sides, the old man taps the maintenance nub on his temple.
“Settle down, kid. The exoskeleton is linked to my amp. Works even for a guy with no arms and legs. Mind control. All a vet has to do is claim arthritis and the VA coughs these things up like nickels.”
He casually lowers his arms into the arm bars of the device, straps them in one at a time. “Makes us more employable,” he says.
Jim is in his late seventies. He says he retired from the military forty years ago and he retired from the workforce a decade ago. Now he’s standing in front of me wearing a government-issued medical exoskeleton and about to start another day of hard labor, and this is the reason that those young men across the street are huddled together giving us the evil eye.
The old folks have stolen all the jobs.
Jim speaks to the foreman on my behalf. The Pure Priders outside won’t work alongside the old men, so the work site has to bring in extra amps. They could
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