Between the Lanterns(47)

August finally looked up to make eye contact, a mischievous look on his face as she said, “It was Chadwick Sheppard, babe.”

Samantha almost fell onto the couch.

“Chadwick Sheppard?” she gasped. “One of the richest men in the world? The head of Montek.Automaton?”

“The one and only, babe,” August replied, dusting invisible dirt from his shoulders. “He believed me… and he offered me a lot of Credit for my tech, babe. A lot of Credit. More than we will ever use. We are rich, Sam. Super-rich. Like… here, just take a look at our account.”

Samantha took the cellphone from his extended hand and looked at the screen, which showed their account summary. The number of zeros on the display had to be some kind of error. There was no way that they had that much Credit in the bank.

She gazed up with a bewildered look that then spread into a huge grin. August felt a wave of warmth spread through his chest. Samantha would get to take the journey around the world that she deserved. After all of the horrible things she has had to deal with over the years, he was content with the knowledge that she would never have to worry about anything ever again.

“I can’t believe it, sweets.”

“Believe it, Sam.”

“I guess we better get packing, then,” she said. “What are you going to do about the shop?”

August took his phone back and stuck it into his pocket, then shrugged his shoulders.

“I gave it all away,” he told her. “Just left the door open and put up a sign that asked people only to take one thing each.”

Samantha threw her head back and laughed.

“You know that the first person who comes by is going to take the sign down and call his friends to come empty the shop out so that they can sell it all themselves, right? Tell me you know that, sweets.”

August just shrugged his shoulders again, and said, “It don’t matter, babe. None of it matters anymore. We’re gonna be fine.”

Samantha reached over and held his hands in her own.

“Yes, we will be,” she answered.

Of course, only one of them knew that was a lie.





Chapter 20





DAY TWO





August woke up angry. At first, he couldn’t pinpoint why he was so furious, but after thinking it about for a moment, he knew exactly why. Samantha lay beside him, still asleep and snoring softly. Oblivious to her husband’s internal struggles, she smiled in her sleep. It should have made him feel better; it usually did. But even his wife’s beautiful face couldn’t work its usual magic this morning.

He got out of bed and went to use the toilet. In the bathroom, he found Woodrow in powered down mode. August woke the wooden automaton with a brushing touch on its shoulder as he passed.

“Mornin’, Woody. How’s it hangin’, man?”

Woodrow clacked to life with a sound like four baseball bats knocking together.

“MORN NING,” it said in reply.

After flushing, August decided to work out some of his aggression in the workshop. Tinkering with tech always calmed him down. The night before, in discussion with Samantha about what would happen next, they had decided to keep the house and not get rid of everything. She had said that it might be nice to have a home-base they could return to every once in a while. He tried to remember her exact words –

“When you need to feel comforted, where do you go? If you ever feel completely out of sorts and lost, the best place to go is always home. This is our home, Auggie, sweets. Let’s not abandon it the way you did your shop.”

And she had been right. After thinking about it, it would be nice for Samantha to have all the wonderful kitchen appliances he had made for her waiting for her here at the house should she ever feel the need to use them.

Right now, he was glad they hadn’t just gotten rid of everything immediately the way he had with Sweets, Inc. Not that he regretted doing it. August didn’t need those things anymore, and giving all of it away just felt right. They certainly didn’t need the Credit anymore, now that they were extremely wealthy.

Recalling the number amount of zeros in their account still felt weird. To know they could just up and buy almost anything they wanted right now was an unfamiliar feeling.

Lost in thought, August banged his elbow on the corner of his workbench, the old one that he had built long ago when living in that dump of an apartment on West Main Street. He swore a string of expletives and called out for the lanterns to come into the room and light the place how he liked it while tinkering.

They floated in and hovered above him, creating a warm glow in the room that made no shadows, and lit the little workspace evenly on all sides.

“Now where the hell did I put that SameSoul?” he asked himself.

August looked all over his bench for it. Under all the mess he always somehow seemed to have there, on the floor, in the waste receptacle (maybe Woodrow had tossed it out?), but he couldn’t find it.

“Oh well. I probably left it in my other pants,” he said sleepily, still groggy from restless sleep. “I’ll get it later.”

He didn’t need it right now, honestly; August just wanted to run some more diagnostics on the small and amazing device. After all of that talk yesterday about whether or not it would work, August just wanted to reassure himself. He was certain he had brought it home from the shop, and he was positive that Joshua Stevens hadn’t taken it. Well, almost positive.