Chapter 4 | The Etch Factory
A gravel road and train tracks lead up into the mountains outside of Sketchtown. Thick trees engulf the road, along with telephone poles and power lines, the hum of transformers here and there. Warning signs to KEEP OUT of the research center. Further up, the road peters out as you arrive at the gates of The Etch Factory. A chain and lock, rusted from the rain, keep the outsiders out. Around the perimeter, signs of unsuccessful attempts at breaking and entering, but hardly anyone comes here these days. This is where they made the Etch machines, contraptions you could make worlds with, limited only by your imagination. It started as a simple device with a wood frame and knobs. You could hold it in your hands and get lost for hours, creating castles and dragons and ferris wheels, white knights, and damsels in distress. With just the right magic, you could make your characters leap out and head straight into Sketchtown, mere miles down the road off the mountain. They honed and tuned and improved the machines, making them bigger, with more knobs, and tubes, and wires. Batteries so you didn’t have to crank them any more. Two hundred and fifty six colors. Eventually, they added music, with keys and strings and mouthpieces. Bigger and bigger they grew, until you couldn’t fit one in your house. They built centers where you could come and play and fiddle with friends, collaborating on monstrous projects that could no longer be contained in the monstrous machines, now so big that small children were afraid to play with them. Still they grew, with more terrifying power, till nobody would play with them, except for advanced degree graduates who were now putting the Etch machines to use in TOP SECRET government projects. Whole blocks down by the river were razed to make way for Etch machine compounds, for what purpose nobody knew.
Chessboard’s dad, Dan, an inventor of interchangeable parts, is standing outside the B Street compound, where the last still functional Etch machine is stationed. He’s tall, slightly gaunt, and wearing a long coat and hat. Horn rimmed glasses complete the look, and it’s Sunday, so he’s skipped the daily shave. A large skeleton key in his hand and a key code in his head get him into the building as his car, alone in the parking lot, sits idle.
