The Magic Factory

When the old inventor didn’t respond, Oliver went to approach him instead. But before he had a chance to even make a step toward Armando, he felt a strong hand suddenly clamp down on his shoulder. He turned, surprised, to see Lucas’s sour face glaring down at him. For an eighty-something man, he had a very strong grip.

“Don’t interfere,” Lucas hissed.

Oliver had already worked out that Lucas wasn’t fond of him, but the hatred in his face was unmistakable. Oliver couldn’t even begin to fathom why Lucas hated him so much.

“But where is he going?” Oliver asked.

“It’s none of your business,” Lucas barked back. His eyes narrowed even further, until they were nothing but slits. His thin lips twitched, as though reveling in the fact that he held more information than Oliver.

The fake factory wall squealed then. Oliver looked over to see that Armando was now gone.

Lucas released his grip on Oliver’s shoulder. He seemed to soften a little, Oliver thought. Some of the tenseness in his stance released.

“Let me show you around a bit more,” he said. “I bet Armando didn’t do a particularly thorough tour of the factory.”

Oliver couldn’t help but feel suspicious of the invitation. From everything he’d experienced of Lucas so far, he wouldn’t put it past him to have some kind of ulterior motive. Perhaps he had some evil plan to get rid of him. Maybe he’d lock Oliver inside the mechanized tank, or set a flock of mechanical birds on him!

“Uh… okay,” Oliver said with a wobbly voice.

He didn’t want Lucas to know how afraid he felt, so he kept his chin high as he followed the old man away from the workbench.

He was led, first, to a new corridor he hadn’t yet seen. Inside was a large red spiral staircase.

“Up there is my office and my room for when I do nights,” Lucas told him. “Off limits for you, of course.”

“Of course,” Oliver repeated dryly.

They went to another corridor, yet another Oliver had not been shown before. It shocked him how many there were in the factory and how easy it was to get lost inside.

“Down here we have all the plastics works,” Lucas explained, as he walked slowly along. He pointed into one room where there was an enormous molding machine and conveyor belt. “You can make anything you want in there. Just program the computer, add the raw ingredients, and let the machines do the rest.”

Oliver’s eyes widened with excitement. “Will I get to work in here?”

Lucas gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe one day. But I have an assignment lined up for you today and it doesn’t involve molding.”

Oliver was a little disappointed to not be able to use the cool machine, but he was sure his real assignment would be just as exciting.

In the next room, there was an even more sophisticated-looking machine. It was a 3D printer, Oliver realized.

“We use this for more intricate plastics,” Lucas said. “All the fiddly bits.”

Oliver’s eyes widened even more when he saw the 3D printer. He’d always wanted to try one out. “Will this be part of my assignment?” he asked.

Lucas shook his head. “The designs are far too advanced for you.”

Oliver pouted. He didn’t like being talked down to, especially when Lucas knew nothing about him or his abilities. Lucas had no idea how smart Oliver was or how quickly he learned things. But again, Oliver didn’t protest. He’d seen so many exciting things in the factory that he knew whatever he ended up working on today would be just as awesome.

Lucas took Oliver along still another corridor he’d never noticed before. It was extremely narrow, and Oliver worked out that it must run sandwiched between the one where his own bedroom was located and the one with all the plastics machines. It was so hidden it would be easy to completely miss it, to walk right past without noticing it was there. Indeed, Oliver must have done just that himself.

“Down here we have Armando’s room,” Lucas said. “It’s off limits, of course.”

“Yes, yes,” Oliver said with a sigh. Lucas sure seemed to enjoy rubbing it in how much he wasn’t allowed to know.

He looked at the door curiously, wondering what kind of room the old inventor would have and what kind of secrets he might have hidden inside.

They carried on along the strangely narrow corridor. It was quite claustrophobic and that wasn’t helped by the dim lighting. But then suddenly the corridor opened up, both in width and height, and there was just one enormous door ahead of them.

Lucas stopped. Oliver did too. The door was huge and made of thick steel. Yellow and black stripes had been painted across it and the words NO ENTRY had been spray painted in red. The door looked very secure, its thick steel clearly impenetrable with any kind of cutting machine.

“Armando’s secret invention is kept safe inside here,” Lucas said. Then he turned and looked at Oliver and repeated his favorite mantra. “But it’s off limits to you.”

Oliver noticed the smirk on Lucas’s face and realized this whole “tour” had been a charade, just a way to show Oliver all the things he wasn’t allowed to do and all the places in the factory he didn’t have access to. Lucas was just trying to make it clear that when it came to the pecking order, Oliver was at the bottom.

But his interest had been piqued by Lucas’s choice of words. Armando’s secret invention. It sounded very mysterious and Oliver’s curiosity grew.

“Can you tell me what’s inside?” he asked. “Even though I’m not allowed to see it, I’d love to know what Armando is working on.”

Lucas’s frown intensified. “That’s classified information,” he said evasively.

Oliver suddenly realized that Lucas didn’t know either.

“It’s off limits to you, too, isn’t it?” he said, hiding his delight that even the arrogant elderly foreman wasn’t quite as important as he liked to pretend.

Lucas’s silence spoke volumes. If being Armando’s foreman for seventy years hadn’t afforded Lucas any particular luxuries, Oliver could begin to understand the man’s resentment toward him. But he didn’t have to behave so unpleasantly because of it. Oliver was sure that Armando wasn’t keeping things secret to be cruel. There was surely a good reason for it. Still, he desperately wanted to know himself what was going on behind those doors.

“Come on, it’s time to start work,” Lucas snapped. He seemed to be in an even worse mood now that Oliver had exposed him.

Despite Lucas’s rough personality, Oliver was excited to begin work. He hoped his assignment would be something cool. He’d seen so many amazing things in the factory so far, from the chemistry labs to the plastic printers, the astronomy floor and the electrical rooms, that he felt his heart leap with excitement at the thought of finally being able to get started.

“You can help with that,” Lucas barked when they reached a workbench.

Oliver looked and saw that upon it were a thousand tiny cogs. His heart sunk.

“But what is it?” he said, frowning. “What am I supposed to do?”

The atmosphere was tense. Oliver could feel Lucas’s eyes boring into him. Lucas sighed loudly.

“It’s a rack and pinion gear,” he said. “We use them to power conveyor belts. And those things”—he jabbed his pointer finger at the minuscule cogs—“need to go in there to make it work.”

Oliver felt crushed. His first assignment was to fix what was clearly an insignificant machine, a broken conveyor belt, rather than invent anything important or interesting. He was just being used for hard labor.

“Why do you need all of them?” he exclaimed, eyeing the tabletop. There were at least a thousand cogs. It would take hours! “Even the most complex of gears don’t need a thousand cogs to run!”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “You’re not an expert on how rack and pinion gears work,” he said dryly. “This one needs all these cogs. So get to work.”

With a huff, Oliver sat on the stool and began his menial task. He couldn’t help but feel that Lucas was wrong. It didn’t make sense to have so many cogs for a gear! But he didn’t want to cause a fuss or go against his instructions. If this was what Armando had told Lucas he needed to do, then Oliver was going to do it. For all he knew, it might just be another test. A test of compliance and endurance.

As he worked, he started drawing diagrams in his mind, of how much more simply the machine could be designed. There were lots of unnecessary components here, so many, in fact, that it would make the machine far less powerful. With every cog came a transfer of energy, and there was a lot being wasted in the current design.