Franklin and the Robot

Benjamin Franklin's workshop was never quiet. The printing press knocked and clattered in the corner. Papers covered every surface - notes, drawings, letters half-written and set aside. Jars of ink lined one shelf. Coils of wire lined another. On the workbench sat a flat metal printing plate, a design slowly being carved into its surface. Franklin kept coming back to it between other projects. He wasn't sure exactly what the design was, but he just kept adding to it.

His newest invention was something he called a lightning rod. It was a long pole mounted on the roof. The idea was to have it catch any lightning strikes and send the power right into the ground so it wouldn't light the building on fire. He'd just installed it yesterday. Outside, a storm was brewing. The first test.

It was nearly midnight when Franklin woke up to a loud BOOM! Lightning had hit the rod. The current ran down the wire, but Franklin had miscalculated the power. The wire wasn't thick enough. A bright arc of electricity cracked across the workshop and struck the metal plate on the workbench.

The plate blazed yellow. Brilliant, blinding, the color of a lightning flash held still. Ben shaded his eyes against the bright glow. And that's when the spare parts started to move. Screws rolled across the bench. Springs coiled and uncoiled. Small brass fittings lifted off their shelf. They came together fast - clicking, snapping, locking into place - and then a figure stood on the workbench, blinking. He had a small body, a big head, and huge eyes.

Franklin stared. The robot looked around the workshop. His eyes moved fast, taking everything in. He noticed the wire connected to the lightning rod. It was burnt. He hopped off the bench, grabbed a thicker wire off the wall, and fixed it in thirty seconds.

Franklin watched him the whole time. He decided to name him Tinker.

That was just the beginning. By the next morning Tinker had fixed a loose hinge on the supply cabinet, cleared a jam in the printing press, steadied a workbench leg that had been wobbling for months, unstuck a drawer that Franklin had stopped even trying to open, and patched a slow drip from a pipe fitting in the corner.

Franklin settled at his desk, his glasses perched on his nose, as Tinker fixed and tweaked everything in the workshop. He read from his notebook for a few minutes, then picked up his other glasses, his distance glasses, to check on what Tinker was doing. Then set those down and picked up the reading glasses again and turned back to his notebook.

Tinker stopped what he was doing. He watched Franklin switch glasses three times in the next hour. Tinker walked over, picked up both pairs, and studied them. He looked at Franklin. Looked back at the glasses. Set them on the workbench and got to work. He cut and drilled and glued. Franklin just watched over his shoulder, curious as to what the little robot was doing.

When he was done, Tinker held out a single frame with both lenses fitted inside - close vision in the bottom half, distance in the top. Franklin put them on slowly. He looked across the room. Clear. He looked down at his notes. Clear. He looked up, then down, then up again.

Near and far. Both at once. What a brilliant idea.

He laughed - loud and real. He took the glasses off, looked at them, put them back on. Shook his head.

He said one word, "Amazing."

Tinker had already moved on to the next thing.

Two days later, Tinker stopped at the printing plate. He hadn't paid it much attention before. But now he stood in front of it and something moved in his gears - a pull he couldn't name, a certainty he couldn't explain. He knew what it was. He didn't know how he knew.

He reached out and touched it. The plate blazed yellow again - the same brilliant flash from the storm. A beam of light emerged from inside it. And in the light, a doorway.

Tinker looked back at Franklin once. Franklin looked up from his desk. He didn't move. Tinker seemed to hesitate.

"Well, go on," Franklin said. Somehow he knew this moment would come.

Tinker blinked once and stepped through.

The light went out. The plate went dark. The workshop was quiet except for the knock of the printing press and the sound of rain starting up again outside. Franklin sat for a long moment. Then he walked to the plate and touched it. Nothing.

He stood there looking at the empty space where Tinker had been standing. Then he reached up and adjusted his new glasses - near and far, both at once - and went back to work.

On the other side, the light opened into a wide plaza. Four others were already there - arriving at the same moment. Tinker looked at each of them. He didn't know where he was. But something in his gears said 'this is exactly where you're supposed to be.' The one robot, a short yellow one, spoke.

"Hello."