There are times in our lives when we labor so hard, for so long, that it may feel that we have nothing to show for it. That we have failed. We get discouraged, because we don’t achieve what we yearned for or anticipated.

But a lack of desired results doesn’t mean we failed…it means we have locked our sights on the end result, instead of focusing on the process itself.

No one can guarantee your success.

What you can do, however, is consistently act—progressing towards your goals, so that your chances of success grows exponentially with each step you take.

Morty sighed heavily, his shoulder slumping forward as his forehead rested against the warm metal cylinder of the PROMIS. For several minutes he kept his eyes closed, concentrating on the lowering hum of the machine powering down. There had to be a solution to this. An entire lifetime had been spent in this specific pursuit.

Was this so bad—wanting to follow in the footsteps of his own father? A gnome who desired to become a tinkerer among the most intelligent race of the planet? Morty had exceeded his father’s expectation growing up, latching on to the desires, hopes and dreams of his parent…and translating them into success. In school he was always at the head of the class. In University, he astounded the professors with his comprehension of math, energy manipulation and mechanical engineering—all the skills and more, that Morty would need to complete this one task. To create a perpetual energy source for the gnomes of Clockworks.

“Where did I go wrong?” he whispered to himself. Lifting his head ever so slightly, he thudded it against the metal. “Where did I fail?”

The stressful statement was followed by a warm and lingering kiss on his cheek.

“You, my love, have not failed.” Deloris’ soft finger combed through his white, wiry hair jutting out from behind gigantic ears. “You have discovered another way this will not work. So scratch it off the list and lets get ready for the next test.”

“But I was so close,” he replied, “I was convinced that I was at the finishing end.”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the PROMIS. Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she smiled sweetly, “You are close. Closer than you have ever been. So don’t give up now, when you have worked all your life for success. Cross this off the list and use what we’ve learned.”

How did she do that? No matter how down Morty felt, Deloris had the ability to pull him out of the darkness. Shine a light on the here and now and provide a perspective. She didn’t carry him. She never carried him. He didn’t need that. No tinkerer wanted someone else to do the work for them—that was the whole point of being an inventor in the first place. No, what he needed was another view point. Something to clear his senses and if needed, to lock onto and use for himself. She uplifted, encouraged and prodded him…but never carried him.

“You’re an amazing girl,” he whispered, the gratitude sparkling in his eyes, “you know that, right?”

“And brilliant,” she added with a smirk, “for marrying such a cute and inspired tinkerer.”

He chuckled, “Looks like I’m one lucky guy.”

She started giggling, looking around at the scorch marks on the walls. “Especially since I never married you for your money.”

They both laughed.

“Right,” Morty beamed, clapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously, “let’s work this out.”

Undoing the container locks, he yanked and pulled on the handle until the battery tray came dislodged. Foam bubbled over the connectors, where the cables had melted clean away.

“Not the batteries too?!” he growled in frustration. Three high voltage units sat completely fused to the tray. The tops of each battery were cracked open, the acid within drained. “It’s worse than I thought.” Snatching his insulated gloves, he dropped to his knees and reached into the tray’s compartment. Wiping his hand along the baseboard, he inspected his fingers. He frowned. “That’s…not right.”

“What is it?”

Using his elbow to get upright, he held his fingers in front of him. “There’s no acid. The compartment is dry.”

Deloris mimicked his frown. “Shouldn’t there be acid all over? If the batteries broke open, everything should be wet. Shouldn’t it?”

“Exactly. I should have pitted metal or even holes, but dry?” He glanced back at the tray. “The batteries didn’t explode.” Curious, he knelt by the tray, pulled a glove from his hand and held his palm over the open tops of the batteries still bubbling. “It’s cold.”

Deloris snorted, “Now this isn’t making any sense at all. A melted battery would come from acid or heat. Since it’s built to contain the acid, that’s not likely, so that leaves heat.”

“Feel this!”

She knelt at his side and held her palm over a battery. “It’s…”

“Cold.”

Puzzled she looked to her husband. He was grinning from ear to ear. “What?”

“I’m not sure if I’m right,” he whispered.

“Yes you do,” she smirked, “you always get that look when you know you’re right, but you want to prove it to yourself, just to make sure. What is it?”

Morty put the second glove back on his hand and unlocked the tray, pulling it completely free from the PROMIS. “These batteries were used up. The shard doesn’t create electricity—and that’s what these batteries are made to absorb and store. But I tested this in smaller quantities—so I know the energy is similar. When the PROMIS was turned on, it multiplies the energy present—which means we had too much of what it couldn’t store.”

Deloris looked at him and smiled awkwardly. “Okayyyy? …and that means, what exactly?”

Morty beamed. “It means I didn’t fail.” Lifting the tray, he virtually bounced to his work bench, setting the batteries down and yanking the gloves off his hands. “That means this energy is more potent than I thought and we need to do a few other test quickly.”

“Don’t we need to create a new type of battery? Something that will hold the charge?”

He shook his head, “This is about changing the way we look at energy altogether. The Lathya Shard is alive and emits a bio-electrical pulse, or bioelectromagnetism.” Popping open a few of his cabinet doors, nimble fingers shuffled through charts, books and papers. “The same kind of energy produced by living cells, tissues and organisms.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense, Morty—that’s a stone, not tissue.”

“If I’m right—that’s where the thinking has to change!” Tugging on an old, brown book with a torn spine, he pulled it free and set it on the bench. Flipping quickly to the back of the book, he scanned the index. “I’m not saying I know what’s going on, Deloris, but I have a hunch here…and it’s been a while since I’ve had a good hunch.”

She walked behind him, giving his shoulder a light, supportive squeeze.

“I think this has something to do with voltage-gated ion channels.”

She chuckled, “Ok, now you lost me.”

“Think about bioelectronics…”

“The synergy between electronics and biology?”

He nodded, “We use forms of it in cybernetics all the time. Look at Höbin in the next room—he functions perfectly using that technology every day. The devices use a combination of power cells and his own biological energy created by his cells to function. Even if his batteries drained completely, his own body, if given enough time, would replenish the batteries.”

“But the device usage would drain the batteries faster than his body could replenish them,” she countered.

“Right—but that’s where the Shard is different! It creates too much bio-energy for the batteries to store. It’s meant to be used, to constantly be in flux, not tucked away.” He flipped the pages, shrugging, “At least that’s my hunch, anyway.”

“I’ve been thinking about babies.”

Tapping the chapter heading, “I don’t think they can be used as batteries…,” he froze. “Wait,” turning to face Deloris, “did you just say…”

“Babies.”

“Yeah, did you just say that?”

She nodded. Blinking her long lashes, she searched his face. He looked stunned. Lost even. It wasn’t something she’d talked about with him for too long. The thought of having a child, of having their family expand was beginning to ache in her chest.

He blinked. Then again, his mouth still open in what she guessed was shock.

“But…”

“I know,” she whispered, looking away, “It’s too late to actually have a child. I mean, I’m too old to have a child. Thought my career was always so important…”

“Hey,” he cut in, stepping closer and turning her chin to face him. His smile was warm and comforting, his touch soft. “None of that, young lady. We both made our choices according to where we were and what we knew.”

“But you always wanted to have children.”

He grinned, tapping the end of her nose with the tip of his finger. “I still do. But my first priority was to be a supportive husband.” His face flushed, “And though I think it would have gone better if you didn’t think I was insane half the time, I did the best I knew how…and I’m proud of you.”

She chuckled, recalling so many arguments over the invisible wizard and his troll side kick. Chuck and Dax were most certainly real—but Morty had endured her doubts and accusations for years.

“Seriously Deloris—I’m glad we made those decisions, because you have helped a lot of people. Men, women, children, communities. Think of the technology you helped develop—that if nothing else, brought the Gnolaum back to this world!”

She hadn’t thought about that. What would have happened if that technology—having the ability to go into the very thoughts of another by linking… “That’s it!” she burst out. “You darling little gnome, you figured it all out!”

Bushy eyebrows folded forward, “I what? You found out a way to have a baby?”

“No! You said we had to find a different way of thinking about energy, right?”

“Well yes, but…”

“Well what if it’s not us that has to change? What if, instead of all the devices having to be altered, such as batteries to take a charge from the Shard…there was a way to change the way the Shard thought about the devices?”

“Hmmmm,” Morty said thoughtfully.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think,” he looked at her seriously, then winked, “that we can always adopt.”

****

Nestled quietly in the next room, Höbin had reached his own plateau. Even connected to the exclusive records and internal database of the FAF, he found himself falling short of his professional expectations.

“You’re losing your touch, old man,” he chided himself. “If this were an intellectual fight for the world title, you would have been knocked out by now!” With a huff and a flick of his metallic wrist, the names book flipped off the desk and slid across the cement floor.

“Author of thirty two books, winner of every major researcher and field award, the only gnome granted access to the libraries of the evolu, kutollum and human realms…” he took a deep breath, “ AND  a member of the Fishis Hall of Fame!” He slumped back into the leather chair, “Yet you can’t find the simple answer to who was the greatest tinkerer of your own people? Bah.”

He yawned and stretched his arms high over his head.

“You’re getting old, too,” he mumbled.

But he knew it wasn’t actually his research skill, so much as his open frustration with the gnome habit of exaggeration. That was the key. No matter where Höbin looked, regardless of the records, every tinkerer—backed by their specific guilds—touted and hyper-promoted their success. Every inventor was talked about as if they were the best. But not everyone could be the best. So how did he sort it all out.

Dropping his face into his hands, he yawned again.

“Höbin!” morty cried, flinging open the door and startling the old historian.

Morty stopped short. “Ooo, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you, but I could use your help!”

“What’s up?” Höbin tried to smile. What he really wanted to do was find some of the less desirable characters from the Black Market and taser them. It always made him smile to taser a truly nasty individual. Someone who deserved to be put in their place.

“Do you have access to more than just the FAF database?”

“Sure do. DMV, IRS, BBD, AAWLI. All the major systems, why?”

“BBD? AAWLI?”

“Book Binding Division and Animal And Wildlife Library Index. Good information sites, trust me.”

The tinkerer shrugged, “If you say so. But do you have access to the Patent Office? I want to see if there’s anyone with some extra-ordinary designs for transformers.”

Höbin sat up and pulled the laptop forward. “Let me check.” A few clicks of the buttons, and…” He stopped typing. “Patent Office.”

Morty nodded, “That’s what I said.”

“No, no!” Höbin beamed, clicking away on the keyboard faster than ever. “That’s the answer I needed, stupid fool that I am! I’ve been stuck trying to sift through who the top tinkerers actually were, but I get stuck. Gnomes brag like old women at baking competitions. But what happens when someone actually invents something accepted and used by Clockworks?”

Morty snorted, “They create a patent for it, of course.”

“Exactly. So what I need to do is take these names and cross reference them with the Patent Index and…” His laptop beeped back at him, flashing the list of results on the screen. “…I get a list of possible family lines to choose from.”

Deloris walked through the door. “Did it work?”

“Haven’t gotten to it yet,” Morty replied without looking up. “I think Höbin may have found his own answers about the seal.”

The historian grinned, “And there he is. The most famous of all tinkerers.”

“Really?” Morty beamed, “What did he invent? What’s his name?”

Höbin glanced up, perplexed. “I can see why I had to go through all this trouble to get a name, if an accomplished tinkerer like yourself can’t even make a guess.”

“I wouldn’t point fingers,” Morty snorted, “tinkerer’s are more common than historians. Yours is a regulated field, mine isn’t. Anyone with a mind to build something is encouraged. There are no qualifications, regulations or licenses required to start. The Tinkerer’s Guild is a series of guilds within guilds with tens of thousands of members—with hundreds joining and quitting daily.”

Höbin nodded, “Noted. Sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted. So who is he…or she?”

“It’s a famous…family, it looks like. The first member who put the family on the map was Jarus Bucket. He invented the furnaces, the hot water heater and designed the first stage of the generators we’re still using today.”

Morty let a long whistle escape his lips. Glancing at Deloris, “That’s…quite a list.”

She smiled. “Not hard to be amazing when not much has been invented in the first place.”

“Oooo, you’re a harsh judge.”

“Just prejudice, that’s all.” She winked.

Höbin scanned the screen, scrolling down a list. “Looks like his family was famous for a slew of inventions that literally built our way of life. Generation after generation, his descendants remained tinkerers. From the pumping systems and industrial lifts, to synthetic materials, microchips and digital copiers. There has to be more than a hundred inventions here.”

“And they get royalties on all those items?” Deloris asked stunned.

“Only the original tinkerer gets the payout. It doesn’t transfer to the family after the inventor dies, unless they developed the invention as a business. What I’m seeing here are patents for public projects. Most were commissioned by factions.” Höbin clicked a few more buttons, “Yup, paid for by the city counsel.”

“Which means?”

“Which means,” Morty said with a sigh, “that the inventions were paid for in advance, so there wouldn’t be royalties. It was a flat commission to perform.”

“Ouch.”

Morty nodded, “Ouch is right. No one does that anymore. Too many tinkerer’s were taken advantage of. That’s why it’s against Guild policy now.  They want their members to be protected.”

Höbin scribbled something on a notepad, “Good enough for me. I have an address to go see them.”

“Go? See them?” Morty choked, “Are you nuts? You’re a wanted gnome, Höbin, or have you completely lost your mind?”

The historian laughed. He pulled a ring from his pocket and held it up in the light. “I thought I had, but you solved that, my friend. With this ring, I’ll be able to travel safely enough I think.” Then, more seriously, “That last seal has to be found, no matter the cost.” He looked at the name and address he’s scribbled down.

“Now I know exactly who to look for.”