Clockers Limited Life

Chapter 2- Perfect Redstone

"Bee-dubs! Bee-dubs!" Scar ran into the living room, clapping two grass blocks together. "Wanna come build with me?"

Bdubs thought about it. I was fun to teach his brother about texturing, and as he got older he was becoming a much better builder himself. But- "Not right now," he said. "I'm in the middle of something."

Scar lay on his stomach and propped his chin up with his hands to look at what Bdubs had created. "What is it?"

"It's redstone!" he said proudly.

"It doesn't look very good," said Scar. He poked a repeater.

"It's not about how it looks," said Bdubs. He took the repeater out of his hands, fixed the timing, and put it back. "It's about what it does. You can do almost anything with it. If you're good enough. Dad's a great redstoner," he informed Scar.

"Okay." Scar was back to playing with his grass blocks.

"Look, um, you know how you like playing with arrows?" Bdubs placed a dispenser and some redstone dust. "This can fire them for you! Just put your arrows in here and, um-" He'd done it! Perfect redstone! "Push that button!"

Scar pushed it, and the contraption worked just as Bdubs had planned. "Ow!" said Grian (their cousins the Bad Boys were having their yearly visit).

"Hawkeye!" said Scar. "Hey, your redstone is really cool!"

"What's resstone?" said Grian, breaking the arrow in his leg. "Hey look, buttons!"

"No!" cried Bdubs. "Don't touch-" Grian touched every button and lever in sight. The contraption went up in smoke. A stack of arrows fired at the wall, a piston launched Jimmy out the window, and Bdubs got a face full of slime.

"Whoops," Scar muttered.

"I like resstone!" said Grian.

"Grian, you wanna do some building?" said Scar, looking nervously at Bdubs.

"Yay!" said Grian, and the two of them ran off to play.

Bdubs scraped a glob of slime from his face, and poked the ashes of his redstone. "Ouch!" A bit of dust was still lit, and it was red-hot. Red-hot, but not working. Maybe he could salvage some of it? Not all the comparators were smashed, and this observer was just flipped sideways. He could fix it. He was a great redstoner, wasn't he?

"Mom!" he hollered. Cleo hurried in. "They broke my redstone," he said forlornly, and gestured to the mess.

"Oh, no." She bent down and let some dust fall through her fingers. "This isn't working, then?"

Bdubs sighed. Mom didn't know a lot about redstone. "It's not."

"I'm sorry B-" There was a commotion from outside and Cleo jerked their head around to yell, "Joel, stop trying to kill Jimmy! I bet you can fix it, Bdubs."

He gingerly flicked a lever, and the handle fell off. "Maybe."

"You made it once. You can make it again. You're a smart kid."

"Auntie Cleeeeee-ooooo! Scar's being meeeeeeean!"

Cleo rubbed her eyes and gave Bdubs a look. He managed to smile back. "What is it?" she said wearily.

"He made fun of my build," said Grian, who came into the room holding an unfinished house.

"Did not!" Scar cried from the hallway. Everyone waited for him to catch up with his littler legs. "I just said mine was better- look Mom, I maked a tree!"

"Very nice, but-"

"He's a meanie!" Grian crossed his arms.

"Scar, you need to apologize-"