Every day in life began with a single sound. Click.

Then the sun rose with a soft florescent blue glow, the wind started howling from the south, and the voice of the Mighty Hewlett-Packard was heard from above.

“Awake! Awake! It is a new day, and the Author needs us!”

Endocrymon felt himself shaken roughly, and saw the ruddy bronze face of Thalamus, master of the printing device, three nanometers away from his nose. It was a very ugly face, all squashy and ill-formed, and Endocrymon jerked back in disgust. “Gerroff, I’m awake, I’m awake!”

“Get up and get to work,” the device driver snarled, wiping ink off his nose. “I want you on your stilts in three seconds, you hear?”

“I got it, I got it,” Endocrymon said hastily, sitting up on his pallet and rubbing his shining silver head. “What’s failing?”

But his puffed-up, hoity-toity master was already past the next three of Endocrymon’s fellows and had not the time for his inquiry.

“This could be the day, you know,” said Syrene dreamily, the stilt-wearer next to Endocrymon in the patch of printer that served as their resting place. Endocrymon smiled. Syrene had a soft-looking, heart-shaped face that was filled with kindness when it wasn’t filled with daydreams. She was running her fingers over her arms, her soft metallic skin glowing in the soft blue light, and Endocrymon shuddered with a sudden recollection of another time, and another gremlin.

“If this was the day, Computer City wouldn’t be slowing down,” Endocrymon said, dismissing both his memory and her statement. “Thalamus gave us three whole seconds to get to work. Just last month it was two seconds.”

Syrene shrugged. “One of these days, the Author is going to have to Print something.” She paused, and Endocrymon heard the gentle hesitation in her voice. “And if you wanted to, you could always choose to be one of the Fixers.”

Endocrymon shook his head roughly. “That life’s not for me.”

It was a conversation they had had often, since Endocrymon had been bussed over to the printer. The words never went farther than this; Syrene never let on that she knew why he’d never want to help the Fixers, admired him for his attitude and thought he was a kindly moron when it came to matters of the heart: he was one of the most brilliant gremlins she knew.

And that was saying something, by the standards of you and I, for gremlins are much smarter than humans. For all that their bodies are small enough that literally thousands of them could live in a computer, their brains had the capacity such that while it took us centuries to create our civilization, it took them merely decades. Some of them have the ability to remember pages and pages full of words; others are the most brilliant imitation painters the world had ever seen; and still others have been working for decades on a communal knowledge of how to care for their homeland of silicon and plastic. They are ruled by the mighty Fixers, those electrical geniuses who knew so well how to keep the city running that watching them work would be to us like watching glassblowers at their torch, or a potter at his wheel, or a blacksmith at his forge. Sure, it looked simple, but anyone who knows anything about these sorts of procedures knows that those who actually practice such a craft for their living must be magicians. This is the very way, in fact, that the First and Most Important Fixers became known throughout the computing world as Installation Wizards.

Endocrymon had been one of them, once. Not an Installation Wizard, no, never that high, but a Fixer indeed. Sadly, that’s another story.

This is the story of what happened after, when he was a well-known bum with one of the worst jobs in the city, dancing the printing stilts whenever the Author decided that putting words on paper was necessary. It wasn’t all that often.

Endocrymon hadn’t turned to ink after the incident, and that was something. Gremlins can’t drink a lot of ink before collapsing; they don’t have the capacity for ink that some humans have for drink. For one thing, as I mentioned before, their bodies are many, many times smaller than ours. A gremlin has sleek metallic skin that never stains, and his entire body can be used as one of our brains, if need be. Endocrymon was one who had been taking that route until recently. Until recently, he hadn’t had any need to forget.

Still, Endocrymon made an effort not to remind himself of these sorts of things. He had enough where he was and that was that.

Syrene looked at him sorrowfully, and for once made a hesitant comment about their unspoken conversation. “You know,” she said, “you don’t have to do this.”

Endocrymon stiffened, and tried not to grimace. It came out in a lopsided smile. “What could you possibly mean?” But he thought he knew exactly what she meant.

“You could be living in memory now, with a process control block and a process of your own,” Syrene said softly, looking up at him with a face full of pity.

Endocrymon shook his head, his smile tightening as he put on his stilts. “Not me, Syrene. Not me.” He checked to make certain his anger wasn’t visible to Syrene, and then made effort to calm himself. Once they plugged into the system network, gremlins all over the city would be able to check his feelings, if they thought about it. Even if they didn’t think about it, sometimes the louder emotions drew unwelcome attention, and Endocrymon didn’t want to end up in quarantine again. Once had been bad enough. Emmeline was still gone, and no amount of Fixing could change that.

“Come on, Syrene, the system network will be up any nanosecond,” Endocrymon said, a kindly voice taking the place of his flat tones.

And then it was there. A multicolor nation of gremlins swam along the stream of life with them, next to them and in them. The stream of consciousness had arrived.

Memorandum to Endocrymon from the Office of the Mighty Hewlett-Packard. “Present yourself without delay in my office.” End message.

Endocrymon felt the bottom of his world drop out underneath him as the words sunk in. The Gremlin’s office?! Endocrymon thought dazedly, a spark of fear running through his circuits. No! I won’t go back there again. But a message from The Gremlin was only a step short of the Author. Endocrymon dared not tarry.

At this point it might be worth the time to talk about the public transportation system used by Gremlins. Busses run throughout Computer City, as they do in all others, but they are not quite the same sort of busses as we humans ride to work and back home, and the grocery store whenever the car needs to be fixed. Gremlins have no cars. In fact, they do not even have roads upon which to walk. To get from the printer to the CPU, to main memory, or to the monitor all require a bus—usually more than one.

Busses that gremlins use don’t look anything like the busses we humans have that pollute our air, disrupt traffic and decimate small children’s skylines. They don’t have rails to hold onto when there are not enough seats, and they don’t have seats at all. Picture an escalator with hundreds of steps, continually moving in one direction or the other, and then imagine that the only gravity that matters is that the steps are where a gremlin’s feet go. In this manner, gremlin busses can travel in both directions at the same time, and they never have to stop for passengers. This was the type of bus that Endocrymon needed to use. Today was the first time he had used any bus in months. It had been months since he had left his world behind because it was no longer worth living.

The bus to and from the printer was empty most of the time, unless the Author had something to print, and then it was so crowded that a traffic jam for us would hold for gremlins no meaning whatsoever.

The printer hadn’t had anything to do for the longest time, and thus the stepping-off point was deserted. Endocrymon stood there, hesitating, gazing at the long dark tunnel that awaited his return to the city’s hub until, shocked at his idleness, he made that first step.

Long before Endocrymon had come to the printer, life had been idle. Endocrymon knew that Syrene, the eternal optimist, still thought something exciting could happen before their city’s time ran down to oblivion, but Endocrymon didn’t hold up much chance of that.

His boarding of the bus last time had been brooding and determined, not like this. Endocrymon had decided he would never go back home again, but now, with his hand being forced, he had no choice.

“What could The Gremlin possibly want with me?” Endocrymon wondered aloud. I haven’t done anything recently to make this call seem necessary. Sure, there was that mess when I left, but they brought me in for that one. Endocrymon shuddered. Confinement hadn’t been fun.

Endocrymon began preparing for the worst.

The bus to the first station, also called the USB bus, or the Unspeakably Slow Bus, was nevertheless quite short, in our terms. However, one whole minute for a gremlin is a lot longer than it is for us, and Endocrymon had time to think, and worry, and rub his knuckles so much that it started hurting. He didn’t notice the physical pain; not when it hurt so much to relive his wife’s last scream, over and over again. So it was, at the time that the ISA (Interport Serial Association) Bridge came into view, Endocrymon had to blink himself out of his horrid state, and wonder if this place really could have changed so much since his last passing through.

The giant I/O Station had once sped thousands of gremlins to work and back several times a day through its five busses. It was always crowded, and so loud Endocrymon couldn’t hear his own thoughts among the masses, but today there were no passengers. There was no real work being done at all, except for the steel-skinned gremlin sweeping the immensely dusty floor with a push-broom, and the two Fixers attacking one of the walls where paint was peeling and wires were sticking out alarmingly.

Endocrymon took a second to stare at the Fixers. He knew, or had known, Andromedon and Coriatha well in his time. Coriatha and her husband had tried to convince him to come back to work after Emmeline’s deletion, but there was no way he could concentrate on keeping the computer running to help the very Author who had had her deleted.

As the weight of Emmeline’s absence slipped once more over his shoulders, Endocrymon couldn’t stop a grimace and a spike of anger from escaping into the system network, and Andromedon and Coriatha turned around in surprise.

And fear. Endocrymon knew that bitter truth. Whether it was conscious or not, his friends feared him for what he had done after the Author had deleted Emmeline.

“Endocrymon?” Coriatha said, looking stunned. “But you left!”

“I’m back,” Endocrymon said dully, unable to meet her eyes.

“I heard about the summons,” Andromedon said conversationally, walking towards him a step. Endocrymon noticed that this step just happened to put Andromedon between himself and Coriatha, and sighed privately.

“Yes, well, when The Gremlin invites you to his office, it’s an order,” Endocrymon said, resigned to his friends’ attitudes. “I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“Good, good,” Andromedon said, relieved. “Just go on, there’s a nice chap.”

For some reason, either Andromedon’s relief or his efforts to patronize a gremlin who used to be a friend, this made Endocrymon snap like a newly broken switch.

“Fine,” Endocrymon said harshly, a strange fire burning hotter and brighter in his circuits. Andromedon made a small gurgling sound and opened his eyes wide at the feelings flowing from his former friend, but that only increased Endocrymon’s fury as he stumbled off toward the bus straight ahead of him, vision so blurry he hardly even noticed the dusty sign overhead that stated “Ready Queue.”

The second bus was just as empty as the first had been, only more so, because it was a wider bus. The ride gave Endocrymon time to restrain his anger, and quiet it down until it simmered just below the level where those around him would get blasted by it through the universal consciousness network.

Gremlins stared at Endocrymon as he arrived on the platform. Not many gremlins. There weren’t many gremlins around, though there were quite a few more on the second bridge than the first. Some of them were so inquisitive about him that Endocrymon’s heart skipped a beat and threatened to falter because of all the curiosity running through the network. As he moved toward the CPU queue, Endocrymon looked around and became quite certain he had once known some of the prying faces, too. He felt his cheeks redden. Endocrymon noticed one of the female gremlins hug a child closer as he brushed past, and he felt his teeth clench.

“I’m not going to hurt your children,” Endocrymon said quietly, but the crowd, for all its small size, was loud and bustling, and the lady gremlin was far out of hearing by the time he finished the words.

The wait for the bus to the Central Processing Unit and the Mighty Hewlett-Packard’s office was by far the longest line in the station. Gremlins were always coming and going on the CPU bus, and many of them turned around when they stepped off to get right back into line again. There was another bus that ran out to main memory, Endocrymon, recalled, but it was just as well he’d never need to go there again. The last time he had visited their home in memory, it had felt echoingly empty. Dully Endocrymon admitted to himself that it was probably still empty, for all it’s magnificently roomy interior, for he hadn’t sold it and the Fixers wouldn’t have taken the time or energy necessary to repossess it to build it into apartments. It was a special, haunting place in Endocrymon’s memory, and it would remain that way. It had better, Endocrymon thought darkly, finally stepping off onto the bus.

This bus was darker than Endocrymon remembered, but the lack of elbowroom hadn’t changed; it was just as crowded as the last two busses had been empty.

“You’re stepping on my foot!” a young gremlin ahead of Endocrymon grumbled, shoving another youngster to his knees.

“Now, now, ‘Nine, Verdy, no playing on the bus,” their mother chided, and Endocrymon was hit once more by a sudden pang of loss. His heart felt rung dry from his sojourn, and the reminder that he and Emmeline would never have the children they had longed for wasn’t helping. Endocrymon bit his lip, and wished bitterly that he could call that leak of emotion back, but he couldn’t. The pain was too intense to bear alone.

A bored-looking secretary with silver skin was waiting at the end of the bus to check each passenger in as another gremlin checked passengers out on the other side.

“Name?” the secretary asked dully, staring into the eyes of the woman in front of Endocrymon.

“Winnefrey with Verdingia and Jardenine, registrars,” the gremlin said calmly, holding onto her children with a dogged grip.

“Pass,” the secretary said, waving them off the bus. She turned to look at Endocrymon. “Name?”

Her eyes were a bright purple, flecked with brown in a manner that Endocrymon found so entirely at odds with her bored attitude that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he found himself having to think about the question before he answered. “Endocrymon, Fixer,” he replied, only then noticing that his awareness of her had taken a much, much shorter time interval than Endocrymon had realized.

The secretary blinked, and Endocrymon was suddenly free of her spell. “Oh, you,” she said, immediately standing to attention. “The Mighty Hewlett-Packard is waiting for word of your arrival. Orders say you’re to go to the Green Room to wait until he can fit you in.”

Endocrymon’s anger tempted to flare again, but he squashed it ruthlessly as he stepped off the moving bus onto the cache aboard the processor. This is the CPU, for the Author’s sake, he thought disgustedly. Anger flares in here could be taken as indication of planned treason.

He found himself passed off from undersecretary to secretary to a pair of Installation Wizards who looked at him strangely and made Endocrymon squirm every time he felt their gaze on him, to finally a lady gremlin who was slightly taller than he was, and truly formidable.

And thus it was that Endocrymon found himself escorted through a tall, imposing arch, gilded in titanium and silicon. The desk was covered with files and a soft-looking, elderly gentleman was sitting behind it, hands folded, with his elbows resting on the desk and his face resting on his fingers. With a thundering jolt, Endocrymon realized—this was the Mighty Hewlett Packard. The ruler of Computer City was a withered old gremlin?

The old gremlin raised his head, and beckoned him closer. “Sit, sit, Endocrymon.”

Endocrymon blinked, and sunk into his designated chair with a loud thunk. It had been quite a few months since he had seen the city’s leader, but he didn’t think it had been long enough to destroy what had months ago been a hardy gremlin, ready to take on anything.

“You told my customs agent that you were a Fixer, Endocrymon. Why?”

Endocrymon shook his head. “I was a Fixer, sir.”

Packard rose to his feet, hands folded behind his back, and strode in a walk that was sort of a mix between stride and hop around his desk. “You were a Fixer. What are you now?”

Endocrymon looked down at his feet dully, conscious of Packard’s penetrating glare searching to catch his eye. “Nobody, sir. I’m nobody you should be interested in.”

“Why?”

Endocrymon swallowed a rising lump in his throat. “I believe you know, sir. The Mercury incident.”

Packard waved his hand, dismissing Endocrymon’s words. “That was dealt with last time you were here. You agreed to a month of confinement and five of hard labor. That’s over now.”

Endocrymon swallowed again, nauseated by what the city’s leader was implying. “But I made main memory shut down for weeks!”

The old, withered Mighty Hewlett-Packard smiled at him and shook his head. “Haven’t you ever heard of a second chance?” The Gremlin bumbled back to his desk shuffled around some papers in a nervous sort of way, and, without looking up, continued, “Besides. We need you back desperately, Endocrymon. You of all people should know that.”

Endocrymon shook his head numbly. Nobody and nothing needs me, he thought bleakly. Mighty Hewlett-Packard or not, he’s just saying that . . . .

“I won’t tell you that your wife’s death doesn’t matter,” The wizened gremlin said, finally looking into Endocrymon’s eyes once more. “But you should be glad to know your daughter’s been well taken care of.”

Endocrymon blinked. That’s not possible. Emmeline was only a month along when she… No. Endocrymon told himself harshly. You’re not getting into that again. “I have no daughter,” Endocrymon said, a puddle of despair leaking through the universal consciousness as a drop of liquid streaked down past his cheek. Endocrymon fought to keep himself under control, but it was all he could do not to walk out of that office crying.

“You do, you know,” Packard said, looking at Endocrymon in curiosity, lifting a hand to shift his glasses out to the end of his nose. “There’s no need to cry. She’s living in main memory, wondering where her father is.”

Endocrymon shook his head. “I don’t understand what kind of trick you’re trying to play on me, sir, but please stop it.” He paused as another tear escaped his eye, and took the time to wipe it and its sibling off his face. “Why did you invite me to come here, sir? To play games with me?”

Packard slowly took his hand down, and stood. “I think, perhaps, you do not understand me, Endocrymon. In that case, I will make you understand. Walk with me.”

And with this, the Mighty Hewlett-Packard strode from his office, and after a second spent looking at the guards still remaining in the room, Endocrymon turned and fled after him.

“Sir, wait. Where are we going?” Endocrymon panted, his breath hitching in his throat as he caught up with the surprisingly spry old gremlin. A matching pair of silver guards bowed them through the next set of double doors. This isn’t the way I came in, Endocrymon thought, noticing a mirror hanging on the wall of the passageway. He frowned as he glanced into it, and swept his hands over his face to erase the smear marks the tears had left. Not that I don’t have reason enough to cry, with the Mighty Hewlett-Packard gone so outdated he couldn’t remember that Emmeline and I never had a child. Endocrymon’s mouth twisted as he followed Packard once more, but the tears stayed inside his furiously blinking eyelids.

“You’ll see when we get there,” Packard assured him, and Endocrymon frowned as he tried to remember what question he had asked. Packard noticed. “You asked where we were going,” Packard reminded him gently.

“I knew that,” Endocrymon said sharply. Of course I did. You really convinced him, didn’t you? He may be old and senile, but he’s not an idiot.

“You forgot ‘sir’,” Packard told him, a hint of glee in his voice. “That’s a nice change. Keep it.”

They had arrived in a little-used bus station Endocrymon had never seen before, but that had three or four busses attached to the main platform. It would have been deserted, if not for the guards standing at attention next to every opening.

“But sir—” Endocrymon protested, his jaw dropping.

“What did I just say?” Packard strode forward onto a bus labeled “GUI”, and Endocrymon followed in shocked silence.

“You said—I forgot to call you sir, sir,” Endocrymon said apologetically.

“Not quite,” Packard said, and that was all Endocrymon heard before he discovered the perks of priority.

Busses respond to priority. In his travels, Endocrymon had had middling priority; he had been summoned by the Mighty Hewlett-Packard himself, but he was in disgrace, and not performing necessary actions for the survival of the computer. Now that Endocrymon was traveling with the gremlin who had the highest priority in the entire transit system, bussing felt almost like flying. It was so fast that before Endocrymon had time to remark on how fast it was, it had stopped, and he had to step quickly to get off the bus before it threw him off. Packard wasn’t so lucky; he had to pick himself up off the floor.

“Dratted priorities,” Packard grumbled as Endocrymon helped him stand. “But as I was saying, there was a time when no one called me ‘Sir this’ or ‘sir that’. Don’t call me ‘sir’. I like not being called ‘sir’.”

But Endocrymon wasn’t really listening. His attention was on the GUI interface on the other side of the 300-story wall in front of them. “Why are we in the monitor, sir?”

The Greatly Used Imaging device is controlled by thousands of gremlins, each the size of a tiny dot on one of our computer screens, working in tandem to control what the Author sees. They stand on scaffolding flush against the GUI with a paint brush in one hand and a scraper with the other, ready to change the interface whenever the order is given. It’s grueling work, let me tell you. When the order is given through the universal consciousness network, it’s completely up to the Painters to let the Author know his commands have been received and are being obeyed. Responsibility is heady enough to make anyone snooty, but looking on others with distain seems to be a disease particular to the Painters.

Endocrymon hadn’t liked Painters even before Emmeline had been deleted, and being among them now only filled him with distaste.

“These gremlins fulfill an important purpose, Endocrymon,” Packard said quietly, noticing Endocrymon’s discomfort. “Without them, we’d never be able to communicate with the Author.”

“But they’re so—” Endocrymon made a vague gesture in the air, and continued when Packard didn’t seem to understand. “So condescending. Every time I ever had to fix one of their panels, I was jeered at because I wasn’t fast enough, or I wasn’t on time, or I was early. Some of them were just disgusted because I wasn’t a Painter.”

“It’s one of their main failings,” Packard agreed. “But it doesn’t have to be one of yours.”

Now that Endocrymon had the chance to notice, though, the monitor was in a bad state of disrepair. Some of the scaffolding had broken down, and glitches, tiny streaks of light and energy, were running amuck around the control area, alarming the technicians inside who relayed specific information to the individual Painters.

Endocrymon opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a dangerous-sounding voice behind them.

“What are you doing in my device?” the dark voice asked. Turning around, and then looking down Endocrymon saw a tiny gremlin, glaring up at them from Endocrymon’s waist.

“I’m just giving Endocrymon here the tour,” Packard began, and the small gremlin bared his teeth.

“Not on Darylh’s watch, oh no. Not if you were the The Gremlin hisself would I let you come in and disrupt this interface,” the device driver grimaced menacingly.

“Well, actually—” Endocrymon began, but it was like swimming through coolant.

“Quit your whining and go,” Darylh told them.

Packard puffed up his chest, and announced in a booming voice, “Young gremlin, do you know who I am?”

“Yes. A windbag who needs to get out,” Darylh snapped. “Go away.”

“Darylh,” Endocrymon said protestingly, “this is The Gremlin.”

The device driver hesitated, then clicked his fingers against his brain. “I wasn’t born yesterday! Get out, ya hooligans.”

With that last sentence, Endocrymon found himself back on the bus, with Packard beside him, and a silence reigned. Good grief, Endocrymon thought. It’s no wonder he doesn’t get out much.

Packard finally spoke first. “When I get that boy back to my office, he won’t know what hit him.”

Endocrymon felt himself grinning at the thought.

“So you see, Endocrymon, the job I need you to do is very simple,” Packard said, pausing. “Simple, that is, to a gremlin of your talents.”

“I still don’t understand,” Endocrymon said softly. They were back in the Mighty Hewlett-Packard’s office, and Packard had lost the embarrassed sheen that had been on his cheeks.

Packard growled, and Endocrymon jumped in his seat. “We don’t have enough time, delete it! I need you to get me more.”

Endocrymon’s jaw dropped. “Get you more time? I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”

“No, sir,” The Gremlin said sarcastically, slamming his hand down on the desk. “You don’t understand. Computer City is in dire straights, and we don’t have enough time to fix it before the Author decides to give up on us. I need someone to help me Fix this mess, and it’s going to be you.”

Endocrymon’s eyes widened in surprise, and he shook his head. “You don’t want me. I’m a nobody, and an out of practice nobody at that.”

“You’re the one who managed to fix it so that mercury would put the bus between main memory and the rest of the computer out of commission for a whole four hours. If I need anybody, it’s you,” Packard said firmly, and then dropped his voice. “And thank you for not calling me sir.”

“But what do you want me to do?” Endocrymon asked, not protesting. His shoulders were eased back, and he was no longer fighting The Gremlin’s assessment. I never should have done that. And I should still be doing hard labor to make up for that mayhem.

“I need you to go Outside, Endocrymon,” Packard said, leaning forward. “Navigate through the printer to where the blue light can be seen no more, and shadows creep over glaciers. Find the Author. Reveal us, and demand that he give us more time.”

Endocrymon stared at him blankly.

“Find the Author, Endocrymon. I daren’t trust anyone but you with this mission.”

Endocrymon couldn’t think how he had managed to make a polite departure, swim through The Gremlin’s guards and secretaries, and end up on the second bridge back towards the printer, but it was obvious he had done this, as he was now once more staring at Andromedon and Coriatha, and they were staring back at him.

“A daughter,” Endocrymon said finally. He could see his one-time friends holding their breath. “He told me I had a daughter.”

Coriatha smiled sadly. “You have a daughter, Endocrymon. She lives in your old sector.”

Endocrymon nodded. The Author can wait. He turned and marched purposefully toward main memory.