Half, pt. 6

  The brown building stood before Eve. 
  She reached into her sack, pulled out the newspaper ad, and squinted at the address, then blinked back up at the building. She was in the right place, but it certainly didn't look like much of a laboratory.

  It was a long, dark building. A dirt road stretched across the ground, wound around the building, and continued on to the right, as far off into the trees as Eve could see. Dirt wasn't good for a hovercraft. Eve had taken the subway as far as she could, but that had only taken her to the edges of the city, to the little towns on the outskirts. She had had to take a taxi the rest of the way.

  She walked curiously towards the door and pushed it open. A blast of musty air met her, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark surroundings. A delighted smile spread across her face.The room was filled with gleaming mechanical devices – hanging from the ceiling, lined up on tall and leaning shelves, crowding the tops of tables. Sunlight from the open door illuminated the dust that swirled indefinitely across the air and gleamed off the foreign creations. Eve reached up and touched one of the globular devices.

  “Why, hello there!” cried a voice. Surprised, Eve snatched her hand away from the metal orb. A man in a long white coat stepped into the light. He was taller than Eve. He had short dark hair sprinkled throughout with gray and a short beard with similar coloring. A pair of soft brown eyes peered clearly through his bronze-framed glasses, bright with amusement. He took two huge steps forward and grasped Eve's hand warmly, grinning at her.

  Eve swallowed. “Hi,” she said softly, putting on a small smile. His presence was gentle and strong, and his kindness soothed her nerves.

  After shaking her hand, the man seemed to notice her wrist. Instead of letting go of her hand, he brought it closer to his face, his eyes wide as he stared at it. He moved a hand up to the temple of his glasses and tapped it, and two magnificating lenses, like tiny bronze telescopes, sprouted from the frames to zoom in on Eve's wrist. “My darling, you don't have a clock!”

  “I know,” muttered Eve.

  But the man spread his arms wide, letting Eve's wrist drop to her side. “No matter!” he boomed jovially. “It's quite fascinating, actually. It's very nice to meet you, my dear. Do you think you could disclose your name to me?”

  “I'm Eve,” she stammered, flustered. “I'm here for the job. In the newspaper.” She yanked the crumpled ad from her pocket and held it up to him. He took it with a flourish and motioned toward a long desk near the door, still looking odd in his zoomed-in glasses.   “Yes! Of course!” 
   Eve awkwardly sat down in a chair in front of it, which was crafted from gears and beams of metal and didn't look very stable. her mind raced as the man moved around to the other side. How could he just dismiss her clock like that? Was she being played with?

  The man sat down heavily behind the desk and straightened his glasses. The tellescopes popped back into the frame, disappearing. He folded his fingers and leaned forward, looking steadily at Eve. She stared at him, wide-eyed, then plastered on a small smile because she didn't know what else to do.

  “So, Eve,” said the man happily. “Tell me about yourself.”

  Eve swallowed nervously. “Um, sir, what is. . . your name?”

  He moved backwards in a peculiar way, like a sort of ecstatic leap, his face lighting up with mirth. “Oh, yes! I forgot to tell you!” he laughed. “I'm the Doctor!”

  “Doctor... who?” Eve asked, hoping that she wasn't being too forward.

  “Doctor Beckett!” he said happily. “But you can call me Doc.”

  “Okay,” Eve said, pretty sure that she wasn't going to call him Doc, ever. “Okay, uh,” she laughed nervously. She dug a hand inside her satchel, closed her fingers around something cold and hard, and placed it on the desk. “I like to build things. Small things. This is one of them.” It was a spider, constructed from a lightbulb and a few intricate pipes and joints. It gleamed in the dim light, and Eve swiped a bit of dust from the lightbulb part.

  The doctor picked it up delicately. “Fascinating!” he exclaimed. He ran a finger softly across one of the tiny, thin pipes making up the spider's fifth leg. His face was etched with delight and sheer joy. “What does it do?” he asked, his voice raised with excitement. Eve watched him with surprised amusement. He was like a child, happy over a new toy.

  Eve gently removed the spider from his palm and turned the tiny dial on its underside. “It just. . .” She set it down on the desk, and it began scurrying towards the doctor. He gave a small exclamation of surprise and let out a laugh. “Fascinating! Absolutely incredible!” he cried. “Where did you learn to build something so detailed?”

  Eve blushed, looking down to hide her face. No one ever praised her work, aside from her mother. “I started off just building creatures out of wires and screws and things,” she explained. “But then I wanted to see if I could make them move. So I tried using more advanced pieces, on a smaller scale-”

  She couldn't finish her sentence before the doctor had leapt up, startling Eve and making her grin. “It's PERFECT!” he boomed, his face radiant. Eve laughed. “I don't. . . um, thank you,” she spluttered, but the doctor had already raced through the doorway that he had previously emerged from. “Silas! Silas! Look at this! Look at it!”

  Eve couldn't see down the hallway behind the doorway. She took a few urgent steps forward. A different voice, raised in admiration, was audible from somewhere. Eve entered the doorway and turned a corner down a musty hallway. In front of her was another doorway through which light burst, allowing her to see the doctor crouched over something – a person, it seemed. “That's marvelous, doc,” they said. The Doctor cried, “It's completely incredible! Totally amazing! Absolutely fascinating!"

  Eve entered the room silently and tentatively, slightly embarrassed by his delight at her work. Her foot bumped a random pipe on the floor, and a metallic scrape echoed throughout the room as it moved a few inches forward. The doctor's face snapped around to meet hers. Someone sitting behind him tilted slightly to the left to see her.

  It was a boy seemingly around her age. It was always a boy, thought Eve begrudgingly. Boys and their soulmates and their cruel laughter. She assumed he was Silas, whom she had heard Doc yelling at a moment ago over Eve's spider. He had olive skin and short hair that matched the dark color of his eyes. He was sitting behind Doc, watching her with his eyebrows slightly raised. Eve looked at him expressionlessly. He had the same basic looks as most of the people in the city – dark hair and eyes with skin reminiscent of light coffee – but in a way, his face seemed different, more alive and more attentive than those of the people she knew. He probably had already found his soulmate, thought Eve, and would probably ridicule her for her lack of a clock.

  She was too busy staring at him, analyzing him, to realize that he had said hello to her, raising a gloved hand in greeting.

  “Hi,” she muttered, looking back at Doc. He was still grinning, practically quivering with excitement. He grabbed her hand and yanked her closer to the circle. “Eve, my darling! Your utterly fascinating little creation is most outstanding!!”

  “It's, uh, yeah, it's just a spider,” she blushed, Silas smiled, and she noticed he was still looking at her. She looked away quickly, blushing even more and already disliking him. He wasn't even -

  “Do you have any more?” asked the Doctor with vigor.

  Eve dug a hand inside her bag and began placing all of her little mechanisms on a nearby table. A bird, a frog, a mouse. She could just as well build larger machines that actually served some sort of purpose, but she enjoyed the intricacy of creating small things. She loved animals, and she liked to try to replicate their organic shapes and movements in something mechanical. The doctor picked up each piece with an exclamation of wonder. Soon Eve's satchel was emptied, and the doctor was examining each one, speaking in rapid intonations with the word “fascinating” clearly audible at random intervals.

  Eve looked past him, and she noticed a large structure standing in the corner of the room, against the peeling vintage wallpaper. It was tall and rectangular, covered by a heavy green velvet curtain. She squinted at it. The shape and size fascinated her, although it couldn't be anything more than an old bookshelf.

  “Doctor, what's that?” she asked, pointing at it.

  The Doctor looked at the structure, then looked at her.

  Silas spoke first. “That's the reason why you're here right now,” he chimed. Eve cast him a glance. He was leaning against the wall, a little ways away from the table where she stood with the Doctor, with his arms folded. He tugged on the sleeve of his brown corduroy jacket. He was dressed in a way that was simple and slightly boring, far behind the current city trends. The way he watched Eve, with a condescending, knowing gaze, made her roll her eyes and look back at the covered structure.

  The Doctor grabbed her arm and spun her toward the door. “You will learn about that mysterious object, but it will have to wait until tomorrow!” he said with glee, leading Eve back into the main room.

  “Does that mean I have a job?” Eve asked in wonder, feeling the weight of her empty satchel and realizing that all of her wind-ups had been left in the workroom.

  The Doctor stopped near the front door and swiveled Eve so that she faced him. “Quite possibly, my dear,” he said cheerfully. “But may I tell you that your skills are absolutely unmatched?”

  “Hold on,” said Eve, looking at him intently. “What about... my clock?”

  The Doctor seemed nonplussed. “What about it?”

  “Um, it's been sort of a problem for me lately.” She stared down at her markless wrists.      “No one really seems to... accept the fact that I don't have one. I can't get a job. Anywhere.” Her voice had descended into a quiet, embarrassed mumble. “No one else has this problem.”

  But the Doctor smiled and placed both hands on her shoulders. Eve glanced at his clock, with the numbers set at zero. “Dearest Eve. What's on your wrist doesn't matter to me.    What matters is what's inside your head, what's inside your heart. I need someone unique for this job, someone with who is skilled and individual. And let me tell you, Eve – you are very special.” He smiled knowingly, and his eyes gazed kindly into hers. Although she didn't understand why he was being so cryptic with whether or not she had gotten the job, Eve was comforted by his words and amazed that someone she had met not even an hour ago could be so kind to her, even like a father.

  “Did you see Silas today, Eve?”

  Eve nodded, slightly begrudgingly. She didn't really want to talk about Silas.

  “Did you notice...?” The Doctor trailed off and waited for Eve's answer.

  “Notice... what?” Eve said carefully.

  The Doctor shook his head. “Nevermind. That, too, will have to wait until tomorrow.” He removed his hands from her shoulders and removed a small card from his pocket, placing it in Eve's palm. “Here's my card. I'd like you to come back tomorrow, Eve, if that's possible,” he smiled.

  “Okay,” Eve shrugged, her heart soaring. The Doctor liked her. Maybe this time, she had a job. She glanced outside and was surprised to see that it was already dark out. She frowned, not happy with the prospect of taking a taxi back to the subway. The city was sometimes dangerous at night, and it was best to commute when it was light out.

  “Oh!” said the Doctor. “I didn't notice that time had slipped by. I don't want you going home in the dark. May I drive you home?”

  Eve looked at him in surprise and relief. His kindness was endless, it seemed. “That would be... wonderful. Thank you.”

  The Doctor gave a small nod of ackowledgement and walked back through the workroom, Eve following. When they entered, Silas was examining one of Eve's creations, a small foxlike creature with gleaming screws for eyes. “Silas, I'm taking Eve home in the hovercraft,” the Doctor said, and Eve narrowed her eyes, watching Silas closely. What was it about him that Doc wanted her to notice?

  The two of them followed Doc into a small garage where a customized hovercraft waited. It was covered with scraps of metal nailed into place, gears here and there, a few rods of metal twisted into strange designs. Eve stared at it, interested, for a moment before climbing into the front seat beside Doc. Silas took the back. Then the Doctor brought the machine to life, and it raised itself off the ground as the rickety garage door creaked open.

  Eve felt awkward in the silence of the hovercraft, but she was content. It had been a good day – a marvelous one.