The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty

by Steve LeBel

  Breeding dissent was easy. The temple had lost one of their members last year under mysterious circumstances. It was child’s play to convince them the king had been involved. Punishing the king was the obvious solution. However, the king was well regarded, so there was some reluctance to assassinate him. Nor was the Great Zinnew interested in such a simple solution. This was just the opening move. Billy needed to build the strength of the almost forgotten temple before he was ready for any open confrontation.

  So how do you punish the King for his treachery? The answer was simple enough: you hurt him back. The king’s daughter was eleven. It was decided she would pay the price for her father’s evil deed. They chose poison and were careful to leave no evidence that pointed to them. The king and queen, heartbroken over the loss of their daughter, had no suspicion of foul play—until Billy, appearing to the king as the ghost of his dead grandfather, planted the idea in his head. The ghost revealed to the king that his daughter had been murdered by the tradespeople because of a recent tax increase. Billy was not ready to put the priests in play yet; they were still far too weak.

  To get things moving, Billy used one of his three godly interventions to kill a priest, leaving his body hanging from the castle wall for all to see. This outraged the temple, who had no choice but to retaliate.

  And so it went. Billy planted a seed here, a whisper there, and then used his power over time to move days or even months into the Klashians’ future, watching as his deadly seeds were harvested. For Billy, minutes passed. For the people, there were months and months of assignations, kidnappings, torture, and other outrages. And for every act, there were retributions as each side sought vengeance for the wrongs they had suffered. And the great god of vengeance, Lord Zinnew, cheered for them all.

  Billy used one of his miracles to generate a hoard of gold for the temple so they could hire mercenaries. The official story, that the temple needed guards to protect their priests and priestesses, was discounted, although no one discounted their growing strength. As chaos reigned in the world of Klash, the temple grew in strength. The followers of Zinnew, though often victims of the conflict raging around them, were known to suffer less than the others. The Mighty Zinnew was known to protect his chosen.

  Finally, the tradesmen, furious over the capture and torture of so many of their own, began allying, one trade after another, with the temple. As the temple’s power grew even greater, so too did their boldness.

  It wasn’t long before war broke out.

  Manipulating the various groups was easy. Billy delighted every time he found someone who resisted one of Zinnew’s suggestions. That person became an example for the rest. And the wrath of the Great Zinnew was terrible indeed. There were no second chances.

  At last, the strength of the temple began to rival that of the king. Billy wanted a few thousand more to change sides. It only took one godly intervention to do it. All he had to do was kill the youngest daughter in every family who refused to declare their loyalty to the temple. Overnight, he had all the soldiers he needed for the temple. Those unwilling or unable to change sides deeply regretted their inability to serve the Great Zinnew.

  By the end of the weekend, Billy had both sides lined up on whatever battlefield he chose—ready to die for the greater glory of their cause.

  And they did. Oh, how they did…

  Suzie’s View

  Suzie arrived early and was sitting behind her desk in the Personnel Office. She wore a special dress from her school days. It was the one she wore the day she and Bernie had almost had a conversation about something other than school. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and the seahorse earrings she always wore dangled every time she turned her head. Only her shimmer revealed her anxiety, as it occasionally altered intensity.

  Suzie’s teachers had called her a serious student. She was self-conscious and quieter than most, but polite and eager to please, which goes a long way. She had worked in the Personnel Office as a co-op student for two years and learned a lot about The Business. She knew her boss, Ezrah, liked her. When she graduated, Ezrah had offered her a full-time job. She had been thrilled to accept.

  Her crush on Bernie had begun in the fourth grade. She liked the way he always got excited about things. She was pretty sure he liked her. Well, maybe he didn’t. He never said so.

  Ah, she thought, but your cloud tells a different story, Bernie. She chuckled, remembering the time his cloud had tied their shoelaces together. Bernie had been terribly embarrassed, but she knew it was the cloud’s way of trying to keep them close. Nor, of course, would she ever tell Bernie all the times she had felt an invisible hand patting her on the shoulder. Her biggest challenge was not reacting when it happened—Bernie would be mortified if he knew. And she didn’t mind. In fact, she rather liked it.

  Bernie was so afraid of showing his feelings. Whenever she had tried to change the subject to something besides school, Bernie would get tongue-tied and mumble some excuse and run away. Maybe he would be different if he knew she liked him, but she had never told him. And she knew Bernie would never be able to figure it out for himself.

  Guys like Bernie didn’t understand girls. Well, no one did, really. The School Board tried many times to come up with a special Understanding Females program, but never found enough material to fill a semester, let alone an entire curriculum. Suzie, as a member of the girl world, took some pleasure in knowing she was unfathomable to half of the population. Some of the elder gods even called females one of the Great Mysteries. And perhaps they were.

  Suzie hadn’t seen Bernie since the graduation ceremony a month ago. She had been seated with the graduates who had chosen non-builder professions, dressed proudly in their multi-colored caps and gowns that contained every color of the rainbow. Bernie wore the special all-white cap and gown reserved for the builder grads. The white color was a special symbol, chosen because it included all the rainbow colors and yet was a special color of its own. She had been very proud of Bernie that day.

  This was another big day. Bernie would arrive soon, and she was very excited. For days, she had been thinking about how to make Bernie’s arrival a perfect experience. She decided Bernie would see her sitting at her desk, full of papers—a clear display of the important work she did. She would time it so their eyes met at exactly the same moment. As he looked at her, a familiar face in alien territory, she would smile, get up, and walk over to him. She would graciously welcome Bernie to the Personnel Department and his first day at work. She practiced what to say and even planned to wink at him as she spoke, so he would know she was still the same Suzie, even though she had an important job now.

  As she sat thinking, Bernie walked in, all wide-eyed and excited, as usual. But when he noticed Suzie, he jerked to a stop and quickly looked away. Suzie didn’t even have time to smile. Bernie looked everywhere except at her. What was wrong? Had she done something?

  Ezrah greeted Bernie, and the moment was ruined. She slumped at her desk. She couldn’t bring herself to look up as Ezrah escorted Bernie into his office. She sat at her desk pretending to be busy while Ezrah and Bernie talked and filled out paperwork. When Ezrah’s door opened again, she kept her eyes on her desk as they left to meet Bernie’s new boss.

  Why had he done that? She wanted to impress Bernie with her job and how professional she had become. Maybe something had changed with Bernie. Maybe he had a girlfriend. The knot in Suzie’s stomach growled out its hurt. Suzie turned back to her desk and the stack of papers.

  She restacked them again, as a tear trickled down her cheek.

  Orientation

  Bernie showed up wearing pants with frayed cuffs and a shirt with two buttons undone. Ezrah wondered again why he’d given in to Suzie. He’d seen people like Bernie before—he was just a rube from the outer edge of town, who somehow got through school, but would never amount to anything. Well, this was a necessary part of Suzie’s education. Bernie would be an object lesson for Suzie, to teach her what happens when h
iring decisions were made for the wrong reason.

  “Hello, Bernie,” said Ezrah as they shook hands. “Are you ready for your first day?” Ezrah maintained his professional smile as he pointed to the buttons on his own shirt and then pointed to Bernie’s unbuttoned shirt.

  “Yes, sir, I think so,” said Bernie, as he quickly re-buttoned his shirt.

  “Good. Then let’s get the paperwork out of the way.” Ezrah led the way into his office, where he handed Bernie a folder of forms and invited him to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  Ezrah watched Bernie extract a pair of wire-rim glasses and adjust them on his nose. One lens had a crack across the lower left corner, and the wire frames had bends in places that weren’t supposed to bend, mostly because Bernie carried them in his pocket. As he slid the glasses in place, a newborn cowlick rose up in all its glory over one ear. “I mostly just need them for reading,” Bernie said as he patted his empty shirt pocket. “May I borrow a pencil?”

  “Sure.”

  As Ezrah waited for Bernie to finish, he thought of how different their world was from the universes they created. The kids here don’t know how easy they have it. Life is simple for them. They don’t even have last names, for goodness’ sake. Ezrah had seen planets with so many people they had to use numbers to keep track of each other.

  As Bernie filled out papers, Ezrah reminisced about the retirement party he had attended the previous Friday. That was another part of his job that was simple. Some universes had to take care of their old people when they couldn’t work and support themselves anymore. That was never a problem here, and not just because they didn’t get old.

  Sure, gods retired from time to time, but it was usually because they got bored. Then they moved to some universe they had built over the years. It wasn’t as if they needed a pension check or anything. If they needed something, they could just make it. The biggest problem retirees complained about was the crowds. No matter how much they disguised themselves to blend in to the world they had chosen, the people knew they were different—probably the shimmers—which made it hard to find a life of quiet solitude. Unless they were careful, that darn shimmer would shine through. Females had more control over it, of course, since most of them took classes in shimmer management. But even they had problems.

  Ezrah managed an inward smile recalling the toasts at Friday’s retirement party. They were honoring a builder who was settling on a system he had made eons earlier. It had three suns and eight or nine planets, typical of retirement worlds—at first. Many retirees would become bored and end up filling their universe with all kinds of extra star systems. The standard toast at builder retirement parties was, ‘May you never build a galaxy.’

  “I’m done, sir,” Bernie said, abruptly ending Ezrah’s reverie.

  “Oh, thanks, Bernie. I’ll take that. We’ll use this to get your personnel file started. Then we’ll fill your file with performance reviews, transfer requests, and all that other stuff. Before we get started, do you know about our pilot program for new employees?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t study much about The Business,” said Bernie as two buttons on his shirt quietly unbuttoned themselves. “They just taught us what we needed to get a job.”

  Ezrah was about to say something, but before he could, the buttons re-buttoned themselves.

  “Umm…” Ezrah collected his thoughts. “The pilot program started a few hundred years ago. It was designed to give new employees a chance to show us what they can do. You’ll be given complete freedom to create a universe of your own. Anything you want—anything at all. No one will tell you what to do or how to do it. And you’ll have whatever supplies and materials you need.

  “I can see from your expression this is all new to you. Let me tell you why we started this program. The Board of Directors thought we might be missing out on the creativity of new employees because they end up in one of the specialized divisions before we ever see what they are capable of doing. This is your chance to shine, Bernie. We want you to wow us. Knock our socks off. Show us what you’re really capable of.

  “You’ll have six months to complete your project. Then we’ll take a look at what you’ve done. When we see your work, we’ll make decisions about your skills and decide what division to put you in.

  “While you’re working on your universe, you’ll be assigned to one of the regular divisions. That division’s head will be your supervisor, and he’ll review your performance on whether you follow the work rules, get along with coworkers, and things like that.

  “Even though you’re in the pilot program, you’re still a probationary employee. And if your boss decides you don’t measure up, he can terminate your employment, regardless of how you’re doing on your universe. Have you got all that?”

  “Yes, sir. Follow the rules, and build a great universe.”

  “Yep. That’s about right. Well, let’s go meet your new boss.” Ezrah glanced away, unable to look at Bernie.

  The poor kid, he thought. His enthusiasm is about to get dashed. Shemal is the toughest manager in The Business. He demands high performance, and if he doesn’t get it, he has no problem terminating someone before their probationary period is up.

  Ezrah felt badly about assigning Bernie to Shemal, but he thought it would be more merciful for everyone if things ended quickly.

  Meeting the Boss

  Bernie followed Ezrah up three flights of stairs, down long corridors, and up another flight of stairs as they moved through the strange ‘inner space’ the gods used to make their buildings. Buildings in town were invariably larger on the inside than the outside. Thinking of the building in three dimensions would invariably lead to getting lost, which is why Bernie paid attention to the twists and turns and ups and downs as he memorized the route.

  All the major divisions had their own skylights; some said you could tell the power of a division by counting their skylights. This bore some truth. Divisions were always being reorganized, restructured, and renamed in an attempt to improve their efficiency, although some argued it was more about power struggles that raged among the corporate officers.

  Today was no field trip where Bernie and fellow students had come for a tour. Today he started work as a builder. So far, everything was going perfectly. Ezrah seemed nice. He spoke to him like an adult instead of a student. Bernie wasn’t sure anyone had ever done that before. It felt really good. In fact, the only bad thing today was the weird way Suzie had acted. When he first saw her, his cloud got excited and by the time he got it calmed down, he couldn’t catch her attention. He was sure she’d seen him. Well, maybe she was having a bad day or something. He hoped that’s all it was.

  Finally, Ezrah stopped and opened a door and ushered Bernie through. The sign said Standard Model Final Assembly Division. As they walked inside, Bernie saw cubicles stretching from wall to wall. Bernie couldn’t suppress a shiver of excitement as he surveyed the large room. These were all builders, hard at work creating new and wonderful things. And he was about to join them.

  Ezrah steered Bernie to the corridor in the center of the room. At the far end of the room, in an office with windows on three sides, they found a big man wearing an angry frown as he stared at a paper in his hand.

  As Ezrah knocked, the angry man looked up. “Ezrah. Come on in,” he said as the frown disappeared. “I see you brought me some fresh meat. Come on in, kid. I almost never bite on the first day.”

  “This is Bernie. He’s our newest employee. He’s only been on the payroll for an hour, Shemal, so treat him gently. They only graduate once a year, you know.” They both laughed.

  “Pleased to meet you, Bernie. You can call me Shemal. Thanks, Ezrah. I can take it from here.”

  “Okay, then. Good luck, Bernie.”

  “Thanks, Ezrah. I’ll do my very best.”

  Ezrah closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  “Now, Bernie. I’m going to tell you the way things work around here,” said Shemal with a
voice that thundered and echoed in the small office. “It’s very simple. I’m in charge. I’m the boss. You do whatever I tell you to do whenever I tell you to do it. Got that so far?”

  “Yes, sir.” He remained still even though he felt the grip of invisible fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “I used to spend a lot of time trying to teach people to do exactly what I want. But I found out most of the new kids aren’t very good at building, and they don’t follow instructions very well either. So I developed my own little evaluation system for new employees. So here’s how it’s gonna work.

  “You have your universe to build. I’m sure Ezrah told you about it. You’re going to work on it. I’m not going to tell you a thing, although I’ll come over once in a while to see how you’re doing. You can build whatever you want.

  “While you’re in my division, you’ll follow the rules and whatever else I tell you to do. I will be watching to make sure you do. And if I decide I’m wasting my time on you, then I’ll show you the door. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Bernie’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. The invisible force had hunkered down behind his back; he could feel it shaking.

  “Now that we have the orientation complete, let’s get you settled in. I’m giving you work station number seventeen. There are two manuals waiting on your desk, so read them. They will tell you most of the stuff you need to know. Any questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Then get out of here.”

  As Bernie walked out of Shemal’s office he noticed a dozen or more heads raised above the cubicles watching him. He walked to the closest head, a young man who quickly turned away from Bernie and back to his desk. Bernie said, “Hi, I’m Bernie. Can you tell me where station seventeen is?”