was a guy in Eugene who wanted a working camera and was willing to pay or trade for other supplies and collectibles. It was always a toss-up whether to work for payment or trade, considering he usually spent any extra money on new acquisitions. He could usually only afford nonworking items for which there were no parts, but that was okay . . . he could make the parts himself. It took more time, but the only cost was for feedstock; he could earn extra money as a machinist, same as his father. The problem was, no one wanted to hire a sixteen-year-old these days, no matter how good he was with a programmable milling machine and 3-D printer.
For now he worked on his online classes and spent enough time at the local school with Jenny and her classmates that they didn’t have a clue about his college-level curriculum. In the off-hours he worked in the museum and tried to pretend that it would make a difference. He couldn’t explain why he wanted to study history, or why he was enrolled in courses such as archaeology, library science, and cataloging, so it was easier just to not talk about it. That was one reason why he didn’t socialize much, but Jenny knew what he was doing even if she didn’t understand it herself. She liked him anyway, so he figured he’d better show up at the diner later. For Jenny; yeah, he supposed that was a good enough reason.
A couple of hours later he stood up and took off the hooded parka. The cold and concentration left his muscles stiff, so he did a few exercises to loosen and warm up. Once he felt ready, he hung the parka and left for the diner.
The look in Jenny’s eyes as she saw him enter caused that same shiver, even though the diner was sweltering compared to the workshop.
* * *
—
“Hey, babe, I found that book you wanted,” Jenny said as she entered their apartment. “A friend beamed it down from Lovell Station. I think he wanted a date, but I turned him down.” That was fairly typical, Winn thought, every red-blooded guy and even a few girls wanted to date Jenny. Winn was constantly amazed that she seemed to reserve all of her attention for him, the geeky, bookish guy who worked in a machine shop and disappeared every evening. Jenny had been a friend, a rival, and a near-constant companion since they were seven and eight years of age, playing in the halls and corridors of Armstrong. She was the one person who could pull him away from the museum, as well as the one who was closest to him now that he was all alone.
He had been working late that night. Jenny had come to tell him about the horrible transport crash, and sat by his side as Winn frantically checked the news channels and his parents’ personal comms. Jenny had been the one to hold him through the night after his worst fears were confirmed, and Jenny had been the one to stand at his side and hold his hand throughout the memorial service.
The loss of his parents was devastating, but Winn had come face-to-face with just how he felt about Jenny, not to mention the realization of how she felt about him. She had encouraged him to speak to the owner of the machine shop where his father had worked, and been thrilled with him when he was hired as journeyman machinist—even though he’d only just turned eighteen years of age.
Jenny also continued to encourage him in his less frequent work at the museum. Her contacts had led him to an actual rover, and not just a model or holographic simulation. It wasn’t necessarily period accurate, but it would go in the collection with the camera timer, golf ball, feather, sun-bleached photograph, and geologist’s hammer he’d obtained over the past few years. He’d spent hours tenderly restoring the rover, including printing maps and fabricating clamps for the makeshift fender replacement. Jenny had been right at his side the whole time. She’d studied more chemistry than he had; that was definitely a benefit in figuring out the rover’s antique silver-zinc batteries. However, even that knowledge wouldn’t restore the photo-oxidized family portrait that originally graced the photograph.
With his work and her college