Metal Man

Chapter 1: I set a shed on fire

A week or two before the automaton came to life and destroyed half of Italy, the shed caught on fire. Funny how some things change.

My name is Rosemarie Carpenter. Now, I know what you're thinking: Oh, Rosemary. Like the herb. Nice name. No, actually, it's Rosemarie. Say it with me: Rose, Marie. Again, Rose, Marie. Very good. Now we're off to a nice, fresh, start. As long as you haven't read the Italian newspapers.

My father died when I was two. My mother disappeared when I was ten. After six months of investigation, she was proclaimed dead. Suicide, they said. I'm not one of those storybook characters who are sure her parent is alive, and is obsessed with finding him or her. In fact, I don't care if she died, or committed suicide, or just disappeared. I'm glad she's out of my life. She was horrible to me.

So now, I live with Aunt Elisa. She's the one who's obsessed with finding Mother. We live up on her ranch in the California Mountains, with only one guy to upkeep the place. His name is Joel. You'll hate him. More on him later.
Aunt Elisa doesn't like strangers, so I have nobody except her and Joel. I don't care. I like it that way. I can work on my automaton more.

Automaton? you say. It's currently only a leg and a blueprint. But yeah, an automaton. I work on it after school in our rickety old shed. That's how it caught on fire. I'll start from the beginning.

Normally, I take the bus to the closest place near the ranch, walk the rest of the way, and make a beeline to the shed. One time, Joel caught me doing it and I had to show him my automaton. He was pretty impressed.

So as always, I went to the shed and began working on the other automaton leg. Now, I only have so much scrap metal from dumpsters and such, and most of the time it's covered in grime, and I figured out that when you put it in fire, lots of it burns off. So I lit a fire.

I've done it billions of times, but as I was turned around, a flame licked the side of the shed. It grew until the flame was feeding off the side of the shed. I cursed and grabbed an old rag to try to smother the flames, but it was useless. The fire crackled happily as I ran outside to get the fire extinguisher. I could see the flames eating through the side of the wooden shed as I ran into the house.

Just as I was opening the door, I heard a sizzling sound. I whipped around and ran all the way around the house back to the shed. Joel was holding our ridiculously long hose while the shed was steaming.

"Try not... to do... that... again." he panted.

I stared at my shoes. "Sorry." I muttered.

He shrugged. "It's fine. How's the automaton project going?"

"Well, as long as it didn't get rui-" I ran into the shed to make sure it was okay. It was. So were all my tools. "Good. It's going good."

Joel ran a hand through his hair. "Working on the other leg?"

I was surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

He shrugged. "Just looks like it. Well, be more careful next time. Hopefully I'll get time to repair this tomorrow before Aunt Elisa sees."

I snorted. "Since when does Aunt Elisa come out of her room?"

"Since she had the idea that your mom left a clue as to where she was, here."

"My mother is dead. And doesn't Aunt Elisa have a job?"

"She either quit it or they give her a lot of days off."