The Workshop

A couple of days later, both of them arrived at the factory, and upon asking where I was, they pointed to me running around the building at a slow sprint. They headed over to the office building, which had long become my and Evelyn's domain. 

As one would approach the two-story office building, its exterior still carried the stolid, professional appearance of its former life: clean brickwork, trimmed windows, and an unassuming brass plaque by the door bearing the building's original name, now faded with time beyond recognition. Newer wooden signs say to not enter without protection and at one's own risk.

I stopped smiling as they both looked at the curved piece of metal that was replacing my normal prosthetic leg. I leaned on my remaining leg with my hands on my hips after I waved at them and said between breaths, "I thought you…would be here…tomorrow?"

Charlie chuckles and says, "Yeah, well, we thought we would surprise you. 

Edmund just seemed to stare at my leg in confusion as I said, "You're not gonna make it grow back, you know." I had dealt with a few people kicking up a fuss about me wearing this since it was supposedly 'inappropriate, but fuck them.

He snapped out of it and said, "No, no. I've never seen anything like that."

"You like it, huh? It's great, isn't it? Uncomfortable as anything." Both of them seemed shocked as nonchalantly I popped it off and swapped it with a normal walking leg, which was leaning against the door. 

As we enter the building, I hand both of them a pair of rubber gloves as well as a mask that covers the lower part of their faces to avoid fumes. 

Charlie puts them on but asks, "What are these for?"

"Because if I know anything, it's that if you tell a man not to touch something, they will touch it anyway. So I might as well make sure you get to keep your hands." I said, grinning.

But the moment they step inside, both of them are face slapped with a surreal blend of chaos, creativity, and confusion.

The lobby, originally designed to impress with polished tile floors and a grand staircase of brass and oak, had been utterly transformed. Above, a web of ropes hangs back and forth with hundreds of strips of almost impossibly bright cloth hanging down. The air smells faintly of machine oil, ozone, and lavender, mixed with the sharp tang of other chemical experiments. Piles of half-built contraptions, tools, and components occupy every flat surface, with the entire entrance hall having at least half a dozen workbenches placed in orderly rows. On every wall is mounted dozens of tools, from hammers to files. The whole thing was intended to give off the message of organised chaos. 

In the several rooms of the ground floor are countless amounts of random barrels, tubs, and crates where the true chaos of the microscopic world unfolds. Nah, it's more boring than that. It's just storage.

"Hello?" I shout as Edmund grabs a piece of bright blue cloth the colour of the midday sky in amazement. 

From the top of the stairs come distant sounds of jazz music. And from a set of double doors to the right comes a constant humming sound with occasional cracks ripping through the air. 

"There she is." I say as if I just spotted a deer in my sights as I head into the workshop.

Inside are countless more barrels and crates piled up with raw materials and components. All over the place are massive vats, pressure chambers, extruders, centrifuges, and countless other custom-made shit for experiments and prototypes. 

The noise comes from someone welding as I say, "Stay here." 

I put on a welding mask and walk towards Evelyn as she welds together two panels of sheet steel. I tap her on the shoulder and she looks at me before turning off the arc welder and removing her mask.

She has an energetic appearance, and from the looks of it, she is perpetually smudged with soot. She looks over and shouts "Welcome!" at our guests as she brushes a stray lock of hair stuck to her face, leaving a streak of grease in its wake. "Mind the wires; you can trip. Uh, maybe don't touch that. She's a bit temperamental today." 

Edmund immediately jumped back from the centrifuge currently spinning out several samples and causing the humming sound. 

I passed her a towel as she wiped the sweat and soot off her face. 

I turned off the centrifuge as I said, "Come on up to the office."

Up the stairs had been repurposed into being a sprawling laboratory for the less destructive experiments and an office/study at the same time. Walls that once divided neat rows of offices have been torn down to create a single, cavernous space lit by an eclectic mixture of electric bulbs and the sunlight streaming through skylights retrofitted into the ceiling. 

In one corner, a radio receiver spits static and the occasional snatch of jazz, while another on the opposite end of the room competes with a crackly rendition of a Beethoven sonata. Several desks, chairs, and stools are scattered. With all the walls occupied by either large blackboards covered in hastily scribbled equations, diagrams, and more than a few doodles of whimsical cartoon characters from my previous life or massive bookshelves filled with organised notes.

"So what do you think? I was going for a Frankenstein-esque ambiance, but it doesn't quite fit." I said.

Evelyn rolled her eyes as Edmund said, "Nah, it feels more like Dr. Jekyll lives here." He glanced in concern at a detailed map of Sweden detailing military bases, roads, railways, and supply depots with several arrows pointing towards Stockholm, which had been circled multiple times.

We proceeded to talk for the next few hours as I showed them samples of several things I had achieved, like synthetic dyes, polyester, nylon, and other non-dangerous things, while ideas for things like fertiliser, explosives, new metal alloys, plastics, antibiotics, etc. were all kept away for now.

Charlie just seemed impressed, while I could physically see Edmund contemplating while we spoke. Afterward, I showed them around the factory itself. We got there just in time to see the beginning of the vulcanisation. 

They ended up staying a few days with Edmund, slowly taking over the management of the plant, with me getting to know him better. It was over dinner one night when I asked. "So are you both interested?" When I had brought up starting a corporation that would own Albion Chemicals as well as other future companies.

They both seemed shocked as Charlie looked at Evelyn, who already knew what I had been about to ask. 

"Sorry, but what does this have to do with me?" he asked as Edmund seemed more confused since he thought he was here for a job. 

I sighed before responding. "I'm offering both of you 25% stakes in not just Albion Chemicals but a corporation I'm founding."

Charlies simply shut his open mouth while Edmund asked. "Excuse me? I don't think I quite heard you right."

I chuckled before saying. "Look. Both of you are aware how greed, ambition, or simply apathy can cause people to do horrendous things. Now look at all those things I showed you; think about how much influence, money, and power a single company that had large stakes in all of these industries would have. I don't want to be the one in control of all that, so I'm finding people I can trust to help."

"Why me? I get him, but…" said Charlie. 

I waved him off and said, "Sure, you're not as smart as us, but I've seen multiple times as you've navigated groups of people, not just that I told you I needed someone and you found Edmund."

"But aren't you worried we might try and steal your work?" asked Edmund. 

I shrugged. "Sure, that's a possibility. But if I try to rule over everything like a tyrant, I'll hamper growth, plus I have better things to do. I'll still be director of the corporation that owns all the future companies we'll start, and I'll just set it up so that one needs a 75% vote to remove or override the current director, so everyone else will need to vote. And even if that happens, I'll still own all the patents since they're in my name, not the corporations."

After my explanation, Evelyn simply shook her head in amusement as both of them looked slightly miffed as Charlie said, "You really have thought about it."

"Please, while I may seem rash at times, not a single decision I make has not faced hours of contemplation if possible. While I personally think that being paranoid is a trait one should strive for, I also realise that I need to trust others since it can go too far. However, that doesn't mean I can't have both."

After some more talking, we retired for the evening as I sat in the office simply reading. I raised my head from my book as I heard Evelyn come up to the roof holding a tray with a tea service on it. 

"You didn't have to." I said as she sat on the chair next to mine and passed me a cup.

She just smiled and said, "But I wanted to."

"Today went well," I said.

She nodded and then said in a tone that said she wanted an answer, "I still don't quite get why you're doing this."

"For you." I said seriously while still looking down.

She paused mid sip and looked at me, then asked confused, "For me?"

"Yeah. You getting an equal share to me was a given, and the company was never going to go public. But that's not fair to you, since you would be the only one to challenge me on anything, and there would be a high chance of us having an irreconcilable falling out. This way if everyone else thinks I'm nuts, it will be easier for you to make the decision to try and stop me and harder for me to hold it against you." I continued reading as she seemed to mull over it for a moment.

"You really are heartless sometimes," she said, upset. 

I sighed before not quite thinking about what I said. "Well, that's just something that's a given for me."

There was silence for several moments before she said now with a slightly distant voice. "Henry, are you ever going to tell me the truth?" 

"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely confused.

She stood up and started to talk as she paced back and forth.

"You know, at times, you seem to just be a different person. I can see you're the same, but you seem to hate yourself; you seem to treat yourself to a higher standard than any other person, and when you do that... I hate it." She paused, thinking about how to continue as I let her. To be fair, I was, and combined with the slang or mannerism I sometimes let slip around her or songs I would hum and whistle, it must seem like I'm crazy.

But what she said next really confused me. "I've tried to get you to tell me what is wrong, but every time you brush me off. You refuse to get on and marry me. Do you understand how I feel? It seems that you don't actually like me, and you're just waiting for someone better to come along."

I stood up and hugged her as she began to cry.

"Please, where would I find someone better than you?" I said joking in an attempt to avoid the conversation that I had been dreading. 

She pulled on me tighter as she sobbed, "Everywhere, look at all those amazing things you made; soon enough you will be famous, and there will be hundreds of women willing to marry you."

Damn it. I had been kind of ignoring the fact that even if I find her attractive, she has her own insecurities. I loved her. But I had been putting off getting married because I wanted her to know everything first. 

Time to get on with this then.