Mr. Fix it

Demitri Gear could not believe that the twins were back. The strange feeling of uneasiness that had bothered him at breakfast came back and made the hairs on his neck stand up on end. It wasn’t that the twins gave him a sense of uneasiness, it was the fact that the twins had returned so soon that made him feel like he in the calm before the storm. Ratchet, of course, was unfazed by the uneasiness of his master, and got up to say hello to the twins my licking their faces. Being the big wolf he was, Ratchet barely need to lift his head to lick the features off the twin’s faces.

Of course, the twins hadn’t escaped this time, for there was a car outside. Another car door slam echoed through the store room. A woman walked up the ramp after the twins, and stopped at the entrance to the room. She had fiery red hair that was in a mass of curls around her face. Her eyes were emerald green, and seemed to have a blaze to them, as if inside them lay a hearth with fire burning in it. Freckles dotted across the top part of her cheeks and crossed over her nose. The teeth in her mouth were a sparkling white, and seemed perfectly straight, showing that she had had braces on her teeth.

Her figure was perfect, showing all the right curves in all the right places. The skin that covered her body had the color of dark wood. She wore a green shirt with darker green flowers that highlighted her coloring, along with dark khaki pants that stopped just short of the ankle. Her shoes looked to be boarder line slippers, with thin looking soles and dark green fabric for the covering. Not shoes one would work in.

When she made eye contact with Demitri, a look of surprise and then fear appeared in her blazing emerald eyes. Demitri raised an eyebrow at her and asked

“Can I help you?”

8 8 8

Grace could not believe it. The twins had taken her straight to the man that she had seen (for a brief second before he disappeared) out side her window! She couldn’t believe it! How he had met the twins, she didn’t know, but when she had seen him with the other man and a dog, they must have been scoping the place for something.

His hair was the dark brownish red she remembered. His eyes were a deep midnight black, so dark that they seemed to have no pupil. In those eyes, there seemed to be something powerful lying dormant, as though Grace were looking into the eyes of a sleeping lion or wolf, its potential not shown, but there. He had a scar that ran down from just above his left eyebrow to the lower top of his left cheek, breaking only for his eye and its socket. The right ear on his head was missing a triangular chunk out of the side, reminding her of the ears on the cartoon versions of tough ally dogs. He had a wide, square jaw, but it didn’t have the sharp angles that she had seen on many other men.

Black like no other tattoos Grace had ever seen, these pitch black tattoos ran up his for-arms and up his mid arms until it was hidden under his sleeve. They ran down to his hands too, but became smaller and didn’t really overrun his skin the way it did on the rest of his arms. The design was unlike any she had ever seen either, like a mix of Tribal and Gaelic, the bands of the tattoo ran over his arm, and crisscrossed and merged and separated and merged, becoming thinker and thinner, some ending in drawn out points, others in swirling vortexes. Grace wondered how hard it would be to escape from had the tattoos been a maze. The strangest thing about the tattoos was that all the hair on the was as black as the tattoo itself, but the hair on bare arm was a dark, burnt, rusty, orange, like a lighter version of the hair on his head.

His body build was the same as she remembered too, a strong, wide frame full of muscle, but not overrun by it, with wide legs, wide arms, and a wide chest and shoulders. In fact, nearly everything about him seemed wide, but not in the fatty way. His slightly tattooed hands were wide as well, but his fingers were long as well as wide, so rather than having fat looking hands, his hands looked normal, but bigger than they should be on a man his height. His skin color was a deep orange color, bordering on light brown, with a faint green undertone. It was an odd color.

He was wearing a dark gray T-shirt, and blue jeans smeared with grease. His dark brown work boots looked really worn, and Grace hoped that he was thinking about getting some new ones.

“Can I help you?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

What!? Oh, you did not just ask me that question. Before Grace could reply, Gwen cut in.

“Yes please!” the little girl exclaimed.

“With…” the tattooed man asked while rotating his hand, indicating that he wanted more information.

“With a robot I broke.” Ben confessed.

“What!?” the mans voice cracked, “You want me to repair a broken robot!?” he asked with disbelief all over his face. The twins bobbed their heads in unison, answering his question. “Why? Can’t you have her pay to fix it for you?” he asked them, nodding toward Grace.

“If we have her pay to fix it, then people will know we broke it, and then people you don’t want angry at you will get angry at us.” Gwen quickly stated. He gave the three of them a measuring eye, and, looking as though he couldn’t come to a conclusion, turned to a rather big dog Grace had failed to notice earlier.

“What do you think Ratchet, should I fix the robot for them, or kick ‘em out?” he asked the dog. Grace felt her muscles tighten with anticipation as she stared at the dog who had all of her hopes riding on his back. The dog walked forward, up to Ben and Gwen, and licked both their faces with a tongue that looked like it should be on display for a museum.

The man looked at the two little (now giggling) children. “Your lucky Ratchet likes you two so much, otherwise I woulda’ said no.” he told them. Looking up from them to Grace, he said “Now, where is this robot?”

8 8 8

After Grace had helped the strange tattooed man unload the car of its burden, she watched him separate out every little piece of the broken robot and lay it out on what looked to be a fold out work bench, thought she couldn’t figure out where the bench folded into. After a moment of just staring at the pieces, the man finally sat down and began to work. Tired of licking the two little kids, the big dog went back to its masker and layed down at his feet.

“Demitri?” Gwen asked the man. He grunted in response. Gwen continued “Could we play with Frank?”

Demitri shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. Go ask him. He’s upstairs eating in the kitchen I think.” The twins smiled an ran up the stairs with excitement.

Now was Grace’s chance to get some answers.

“So, Demitri is it?” Grace questioned the man.

“Yup” He said with out even looking up from the robot parts.

“That is a nice name” stated Grace. There was an awkward pause, and then Demitri asked, “So, what’s your name?”

“Grace” She replied. He grunted in acknowledgement.

Demitri suddenly got up, and walked away from Grace. He walked over to a door near the stairs and walked into the room beyond. There were clanks and clunks, and other familiar sounds of someone going through a drawer full of tools. Grace bent over the parts that were spread over the bench, and noticed a drawer on the side of it. Before she could even reach her hand out to open it, a voice came from the other room.

“Don’t touch anything please!” it was Demitri. A growl started up, and Grace noticed the dog. She had figured that it had gone to the room with Demitri, but instead it had been watching her from its spot at the foot of the bench the whole time. Bending back up, Grace smiled at the dog, and it stopped growling and put its head down. Okay, that was pretty freaky... Grace said under her breath.

Demitri popped back out of the room, holding a couple of strange looking tools in his arms. Setting down the tools.

“Okay,” he said, “I should have this thing put back together in a couple of hours.”

“That is great news!” Grace exclaimed. She felt relief rush through her body, and let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m not going to ask how this happened, because I am sure you wouldn’t tell me anyway. However, I would like to know how you got the chance to break a robot such as this.” he looked her straight in the eye. His midnight eyes seemed to read her soul, and she felt that if she lied, he’d know it. So, she decided not to lie.

“I am a daughter of a great general.” She said while giving a look that warned him to go no further.

“Ah. A general’s daughter… that explains much.” He grinned and bent down to his work.

Grace was nearly red with fury. THAT EXPLAINS WHAT!? She screamed in her head. Before she could start yelling at the disrespectful bastard, he looked back up at her.

“Ya’know, it is kinda hard to work while you have somebody staring over your shoulder. This isn’t going to be done for a couple of days, so go home for now, and take the twins with you.”

“But how will I know when it is done?” Grace asked, her anger cooling off.

“I’ll give one of the twins a beeper that’ll beep when the robot is ready.”

Grace called the twins back down, and after a couple of moments, the scampering of their little feet on the metal grated staircase could be heard. When they finally got to the bottom, Demitri got up and whispered something in their ears, while handing them something. They saluted him, and than rand over to Grace giggling.

Grace told them to go wait in the car, and they obeyed, bounding down the ramp of the ship towards the car. When she turned around, Demitri was standing next to her.

“Cute kids” he smiled. Grace chuffed.

“Only when you don’t live with them.” she said slightly irritated. The strange man made a sound in acknowledgment.

“One more thing before you go” Demitri said as Grace started down the ramp.

“Yes?” Grace asked with caution.

“About my payment…”

Grace’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t even thought about paying the man! Thinking quickly, she said “We will discus this when the robot is done, so I can appraise the job you have done.” Demitri frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but Grace cut him off “Relax, Mr. Demitri…” Grace paused so the man could complete his name.

“I have given to you the only part of my name I wish to give. You can just call me Demitri. Besides, we wouldn’t want you looking me up in your father’s data base, would we?”

Grace glared at him. “Okay, fine, Demitri. Do not worry about payment. I will not run off with the robot with out paying you first. I will inspect the robot when it is finished, and then we can haggle over the price of its repair. When you have received your payment, then and only then will I leave with the robot. Happy?”

The fool man nodded and smiled! Grace let out a frustrated scream and stomped down the ramp, got into the car, slammed the door, and sped off into the night.

She watched the lights from Demitri’s ship behind her fade away, glad to be away from the strange and annoying man. But as the lights from other buildings blurred by, Grace couldn’t stop thinking about those deep midnight eyes.