Evening

“Alright boys, hurry up, I have to be somewhere later today!” Benedict says from the other room.

Inside Benedict’s office, Jonathan and Lewis are taking off their work overalls in replacement with the uniforms they came wearing. The dim lighting of the room allowed the light-blue light from Benedict’s monitor to mix with the orange tint of the sun flowing into the room from the half window near the ceiling of the office. Although by now the boys would usually be tired from their long day of work, they seemed energetic this afternoon.

“I really wished Mr. Greene would have let us stay longer.” Jonathan says.

“Come on Jonathan, we’ve stayed two hours past our shifts. Mr. Greene has to rest at some point.” Lewis says as he buttons up his school uniform’s white collared shirt. There is now a grease stain smearing a part of the sleeve from being stored in the locker; Lewis sees it and sighs.

“Don't worry, there's always tomorrow,” Lewis says, closing the locker.

“And who knows, maybe we could figure out how to make it do our work so that we can catch a break.” Lewis whispers, smiling at Jonathan as he pokes at him with his elbow.

“Good one Lewis. If they work well enough maybe then I might just use them to replace you!” Benedict says, his voice echoing from the main shop room.

“I-I was just kidding sir!” Lewis shouts.

“Even though he’s old he sure can hear well huh.” Lewis says extremely quietly.

Jonathan lightly laughs as he shakes his head while finishing buttoning the last button on his school uniform. Lewis picks up his bag from the floor, wiping the bottom of the bag of the dust gathered from the floor.

“I’ll wait for you outside.” Lewis says as he puts the bag strap on his shoulder and walks out the office.

“Hey, wait up!” Jonathan says as he also finishes dressing, he turns around to see that Lewis had already left the room.

Jogging his way out of the room, he suddenly stops as he glances at Benedict’s desk and takes another look. Next to the computer monitor lay the glass container with Dream; now dormant as it awaits its next commands. Jonathan approaches the table and takes one final look at the Purple dust through the top of the glass cylinder.

“It sure did give Mr. Greene a scare when that last command didn’t finish.” Jonathan thought remembering what happened after he touched the Dream.

After being examined by Lewis who found nothing too worrisome, Jonathan remembered seeing Benedict turn his attention from Jonathan to the computer. The command prompt failed to reappear even though the Dream was obviously finished computing its task and Benedict struggled to understand why. His desperation to fix the Dream almost reached the point where he was going to reset the entire container and program, but luckily before that came to pass the prompt suddenly reappeared on the monitor to which Benedict gave a sigh of relief.

“Still though, I can’t believe how much it burned my hand. Probably because of how fast it vibrated in the air at that moment.” he thought looking down at his right hand; now wrapped and banaged with a white cloth.

Jonathan looks back to the Dream and then picks up a handful with his left hand.

“Even so, I can’t wait to see just how much you are going to change the world.” Jonathan thought as he let go of the Dream, dropping it back into the container.

Exiting the room, Jonathan spots Lewis and Benedict talking next to the opening of the garage.

“All done sir.” Jonathan says as he closes the door to the office.

“Ah, Jonathan come here,” Benedict says, motioning for him with his hand.

Jonathan walks towards Lewis and Benedict and comes to a stop next to Lewis. Looking to Lewis to see if he knows Benedict’s reasoning for calling them over, Lewis just shrugs lightly.

Benedict readjusts his cap and clears his throat, returning the attention of both Joanthan and Lewis back to him.

“So did the two of you enjoy using the Dream today?”

“Is that even a question? I loved it!” Jonathan exclaims.

“I enjoyed it, but by the looks of it, not as much as Jonathan.” Lewis says, surprised by Jonathan.

Benedict laughs.

“I don’t blame you, Jonathan’s enthusiasm can’t be matched!” Benedict says as he pats Jonathan on the shoulder.

“So can we use it tomorrow? There is so much I still want to test out.” Jonathan says.

“Well about that…” Benedict begins, the smile on his face drops a little.

“Tomorrow I’m going to have to take the day off to go to town hall and do some documents. I’m going to have to close up the shop soon.” he says.

Unable to process his words Jonathan just looks at Benedict with his mouth agape in disbelief. He drops his gaze to the rough garage floor.

“What why?” Lewis asks.

“Even though I would love to continue working, sadly I’m getting old and it's about time that I retire.” Benedict says, taking off his cap.

“Sir no way,” Jonathan finally manages to say; raising his head back up to Benedict.

“There is just still so much to learn- like this for example,” Jonathan says as he rushes to take off his backpack.

Opening the bag he removes the notebook full of sketches; slightly battered, he flips through the pages revealing dozens of detailed drawings of the various cars they have worked on over the months. Over various of the sketches, comments had been written in marker and revisions made in pen.

“Just look how much I needed to revise and improve on the challenges you have given us, I know there is so much more to learn and-!”

Jonathan stops as Lewis grabs his shoulder, causing him to flinch. Jonathan looks at Lewis to see him shaking his head; eyes closed.

“I’m sorry Jonathan. Look, over these months that both you and Lewis have worked for me, I hope that I was able to teach you both enough of what you needed to learn so that you can continue on your own.” Benedict says.

“But sir-” Jonathan musters.

“And I understand when you feel that it's not enough, but believe me, it is.” Benedict continues to say.

“I know that you have it in you to become a great mechanic, Jonathan.”

“How about like the Takamura brothers?” he asks.

Benedict chuckles.

“Like the Takamura brothers, Jonathan. I’ve seen you rebuild that piece of scrap motorcycle back to life.”

“And I know you’ll be a great mechanic too.” he says, looking at Lewis.

“Me? But Jonathan is leagues better than me now.” Lewis says.

Benedict nods as he smiles.

“Even you,” he says.

Benedict chuckled, but it was noticeably dry. He smiles, though his saddened eyes betrayed his wide yet thin grin.

“I enjoyed both of your help these past few months. It reminded me that even at my age I can still be of help for the future.”

Coming close to tears, Benedict hugged Lewis and Jonathan.

“The shop will still run until next week, so until then I’ll show you both as much as I can.”

Letting go, he wipes some of the tears that had formed.

“Although it won’t be very much, you both can still drop by from time to time and I'll show you a few little things. Okay?”

They nod.

“I’m glad that the both of you enjoyed the nanobots so much. The shop will be closed tomorrow so your next shift will be the day after. We can continue seeing how wonderful the Dream is until then.”

Benedict turns around and starts to walk towards his office.

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow sir. Thank you for everything.” Lewis says.

“I promise I’ll visit you from now on after the shop is closed!” Jonathan says.

Benedict, opening the door to his office, wipes his face with his sleeve and turns back to Jonathan and Lewis. He waves goodbye to them with oil smeared on one cheek. Jonathan and Lewis also wave goodbye in return to Benedict as he enters his office. Now alone in the garage, they turn around and walk out of the shop.

Stepping outside to the rich orange of the setting sky, the hot morning had now given way to a cooler evening. Jonathan braces himself as a strong breeze passes by. Not a cloud in the sky except in the far, far distance can be seen.

“I really can’t believe that he's going to retire so soon.” Jonathan says as he stops to look at the sky.

“We still have this week left with him so let's make it count, right?” Lewis says, as he walks ahead of Jonathan.

“Right.” Jonathan says, picking up the pace to catch up to Lewis.

Together they walk towards the side of the building to retrieve their vehicles. As they walked, they glanced for a moment towards the faucet on the side of the building, still dripping with water, as they walked by.

“And it's not like we won’t see him after he retires anyways, we can always just visit him together and give him some company from time to time.” Lewis says.

Approaching where they parked their rides, Lewis goes to unchain his bicycle as Jonathan sits on his motorcycle; waiting for him. As Lewis struggles with fitting in the key, he stops for a moment and turns to Jonathan.

“He also said he’ll teach us a few little things too, so you’ll still have a chance to learn some things.” Lewis says. He then returns his effort to the chain.

“I guess you do have a point.” Jonathan says.

As the chain falls to the graveled ground once it releases its grip on Lewis’ bicycle, Jonathan turns the ignition key on the motorcycle. Coming to life Jonathan revs the engine lightly a few times to warm it up. Now ready for the road, they walk their rides out of Benedict’s graveled shop exterior next to the main road.

“Hey, since Sumi didn’t give us a call, let's just go to the mountaintop without her, right?” Lewis says.

“Sure.” Jonathan says as he nods.

Getting on their bikes, they hit the road; back up the mountain.