Kid

78

Neon never knew how difficult it was to help set up a circus. There were so many people who didn't even actually perform. And Nicky seemed to be one of the main people to go to for trouble, he was in charge of a lot of the electronic stuff. Neon looked around Nicky's main work station, it was a very computer looking room, the walls painted in TV monitors and the ground was criss-cross with cables and cords.

He was slowly twirling to just take everything in, for, what society considered him to be a nerd, Neon was amazed.

Made all of his little gadgets seem like amateur hour.

There seemed to be a lot of cameras aimed at different parts of the performing area, along with several switches and lights about as well. Based on what Neon could understand of Nicky everything in the room was to help make the show go smoothly. While there were people who physically set things up, some of the set up was done by Nicky and his back stage crew.

The lighting, the placing of props, the rising of platforms, of ropes, of silks, of tight ropes. Everything that involved being lifted up was generally Nicky's job to make sure ran smoothly and not crashed and burned into an explosion of flames.

Apparently that's happened before.

"Matchsticks and dolphins... no, not together, never together," was Nicky's vague explanation when Neon asked about it.

Neon was honestly impressed with what Nicky had apparently set up, and the people he surrounded himself with seemed nice enough, but Neon found it somewhat unrealistic that Nicky had set all of this up, or was the mastermind behind it. It seemed like it was too much for the partially insane little man.

Nicky was use to people underestimating him, he often used it to his advantage.

Neon sat at one of the chairs and Neon smirked as he leaned against one of the walls to watch.

Nicky looked to the screens, his eyes darting from one to the next, while someone could do his job for him, nobody, and that meant in living existence, could do it as well as Nicky could. His eyes watched every glitch and mentally knew why it was there and either pressed a button or flipped a switch.

Out of nowhere, Nicky gained a joy stick and started pulling it this way and that. Making cameras move, changing the setting only to change angles on the performing cameras, unfold the rest of the electronic grand stands, make sure the lights were actually on and triple checked the microphones in one swift motion and look.

Neon stood there, somewhat amazed and somewhat annoyed he was wrong. Nicky's hands flew across keyboards and seemed to fix whatever glitches were in need of being fixed. Some of his electronic crew sat either side of him, sometimes he muttered to them about something or they brought his attention to other things.

Neon felt like a sitting duck standing there.

Nicky turned in his chair and stood before him, "you can go help with something," he stuttered looking around like a hamster.

Neon was surprised by himself when he felt a surge of excitement when he found out he might be able to do something instead of watching.

But it quickly evaporated as he carried a pile of ropes from one side of the backstage tent to the other, grumbling to himself and mentally cursing himself for being excited in the first place. But it was in that moment he realise how weak he actually had become.

As a street boy, he didn't need to use strength, just speed and brains, and it had gotten him far in life. But the ropes he was holding were so heavy he was eventually forced to drag them behind him.

He looked up at what he had to tie them to, a thick central pole that kept the back stage from falling over. People passed Neon, some looking at him oddly, some not even giving him that acknowledgement. He watched as some ran out onto the stage for their rehearsal performances. He stood before the pole and wrapped one of the thicker ropes around it as he observed around him.