The Lost Artifact Of Spode

25

Today was colder than usual. Mel could see his breath whenever he breathed out, and the warmer clothes he had weren't much help.

He took his space heater with him to his station today. Surely, there has to be a way he can overclock the thing and make the air it pushed out actually hot air. Because if he can't, he might resort to starting a fire inside the building.

Yes, he found it that freezing today.

He took the back off of the heater and tinkered around with the machinery inside. He took out most of what was inside, cleaned it all off, and shoved it back inside too. The Space heater is pretty nasty on the inside, to his surprise. Everything is caked in a layer of dust. Mel wouldn't doubt if that alone prevented the heater from actually warming up. But he still did what he could to crank up the heat even more.

Eventually, Mel decided the heater should be good enough. He did what he could. he plugs the heater into his work station and flips the switch on. Immedietly, the heater begins to produce a loud, cranking noise, as if a motor got stuck.

Mel hums to himself. "That can't be good." He turns to the other side of his table to grab a flathead screwdriver, when suddenly his eyes caught another pair of eyes staring up at him from behind his table. He jumps back and shouts in surprise, getting the little Proximian to jump back, too.

He then bursts out laughing. He wasn't expecting anyone to be at his station, it was a good scare! "Sorry," he chuckles, stepping back up to his station. "You startled me there."

He peers over his desk to the shy, little girl on the other side. It's the same girl from yesterday. The one he helped with a scraped knee.

"Oh, hello there," he greets. He looks around the area for the woman she was with yesterday, wondering where the girl wandered off from. "Where's your mom?"

The little girl took a moment to answer. "What?"

"Oh, right. Sorry," he waves away his words. "I forgot, you're learning Universal still," he says, more to himself than her.

"Eh... what?" She asks again, quieter. Mel can tell he was starting to discourage her. He needs to talk in a way she can understand him in better.

He hums for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Finally, he speaks, "Hello." He waves to the girl with a smile.

Her expression lightened. "Hello," she apprehensively says back. She then stutters out, "How are you?"

His smile couldn't help but turn sweet. It's adorable how she wanted to talk with him despite hardly knowing Universal.

He folds his arms together. "It's cold," he answers, "but..." He leans on his desk and holds up a thumb for her. "Good! How are you?"

She smiles at her progress. "Good," she answers back.

"That's good."

"Em..." She suddenly speaks. She falls silent for a moment. Mel patiently waits for her to find her words. Eventually, she points at herself. "Bead."

What an interesting name, Mel thinks. "Hi, Bead."

Her smile grows. "Hi! Eh..." she then points to Mel. "You?"

He points to himself. "Mel."

She hesitently speaks, "Hi, Mel."

He couldn't help but chuckle at how adorable he found her. "Nice to meet you."

"And... nice to meet you," she hesitently says back.

Before either one of them could think of what to say next, their conversation was suddenly interrupted.

"Dr. Mel Yazzie," Lyra suddenly spoke, grabbing Mel's attention.

"You really don't need to use my full name every time you talk to me, Miss Lyra," he responds, lifting himself from the table to face her. "Really, please. Just Dr. Yazzie."

Lyra is holding a clipboard again. She looks over Mel's work station. The sight brought a grimace to her face. "What are you doing?"

Seeing her expression, he couldn't help but glance over his workstation, too. "Am I doing something wrong?" He instead asks. Mel's attention then falls back onto his heater, which is still making that churning sound from when he first turned it on. He should probably fix that now, shouldn't he?

"That's why I'm here," Lyra continues as Mel finally grabs his flathead screwdriver. He shoves it into the space heater without turning it off, hoping to get whatever motor is stuck moving again. "To make sure you *aren't* doing anything wrong."

"I don't think so," he speaks, jiggling his tool around.

"What have you been doing?" Lyra drops the clipboard to the table, snagging Mel's partial attention once more. "I haven't seen any progress from you. Imperial Xia is getting on my case about it."

Mel bitterly turned his attention back to his heater. "I'm working as best as I can," he lies. "Get off my case."

"Working on what?" She asks yet again. Annoyance was beginning to show through in her tone.

"Right now? Heater. It's cold." Suddenly, a spark flies out of the heater, and the entire device turns off as smoke drips out of the vents. "Ah... üps."

"Have you been working on the engines at all?" Lyra demands.

"I'll get to it when I get to it, OK?!"

"That's been your only task since you got here! You should have already started long ago!"

Mel took in a deep breath, ready to shout back at Lyra, when his eyes suddenly landed on Bead, who's still here. She's hiding behind the desk, anxiously watching the conflict rising between the two adults. Mel quickly bites his tongue.

He doesn't know why the kid is still here, especially with how this conversation turned, but it didn't matter. He refuses to yell around children if he can help it. They don't need to be exposed to that.

Mel clinches his fists, then let's out a deep breath before turning his attention back to his heater, as if he didn't just break it. This time, he unplugs it before tinkering with it again.

"I don't work for you," he finally, calmly says.

Lyra marches around his workbench until she's standing directly infront of him, just across the table. She places her hands on the table and leans closer to Mel.

"Look, if I can't get you to work, then Imperial Xia herself is going to get involved. Trust me, you don't want that, so just listen to me and get your work done. OK?"

He barely gave her the attention. "Whatever."

"Do you understand?" She sternly asks.

Mel clenched his teeth, despising how he's being talked down on like a child. He's 44 years old, for crying out loud. He doesn't deserve this.

As much as he wanted to bite back, he had to avoid arguing anymore for Bead's sake. The only way he could think of to avoid arguing would be to end the conversation entirely.

Mel swallowed his pride and forced a smile. "Yes," he plainly spoke through his teeth. Without another word, Lyra left Mel's station, taking her clipboard with her. As she walked away, Mel muttered curses to himself in Spanish.

He then peers over his table and at the kid, who's still silently watching.

"You OK?" He asks, holding a thumbs up to her.

She shyly smiles and gives him a nod. Bead quickly glances in the direction Lyra has left before looking back at Mel. She points to him and softly asks, "You?"

He smiles. All that mattered to him was that she was fine. He nods. "I am now, yes."