Free The Glitch in Sleep by John Hulme Page B

to the need for a page one redesign. “Give me a second, okay?”
    “Everybody stand back,” announced Briefer Frye. “Give the man some space!”
    Becker closed his eyes, and using the old-fashioned way, reached out with his 7 th Sense to hone in on the Glitch. Judging from the goose bumps that sprouted up along his arms, he had picked up the trail, but it was still faint.
    “I wish I could stay to help rewrite your recipes,” apologized Becker, “but I have to get my hands around this thing before it trashes the whole department.”
    The Snoozemaster understood but still appeared quite shaken.
    “But what about ze Snooze? Sleep cannot be mixed wizout ze precious Snooze!”
    Becker stepped over to a vat, dipped his finger in the sludge, and took a sample taste.
    “It’s almost there. Maybe an Energy reduction would enhance the flavor of the underlying Exhaustion?”
    “No, no, no. Zis is crazy. It will never work . . .” Simly and the Tireless Workers dropped their eyes to the floor. “Unless . . . ”
    “A little bit of Love?” Becker seemed to read his mind.
    “Exactly!”
    A spark shot through the room.
    “Can you do it in time?” the Fixer asked hopefully.
    “Not only can I,” bellowed the Snoozemaster, turning toward his line cooks with fire in his eyes. “But it shall be ze heaviest, most satisfying Snooze anyone in Ze World has ever seen!”
    A roar went up among the Tireless Workers, but as they scrambled to gather the necessary ingredients, Simly couldn’t resist taking a taste for himself.
    “Needs paprika.”
    WDOZ, Department of Sleep, The Seems
    “W . . . D . . . O . . . Zzzzzzzzzz.”
    Becker’s goose bumps had led them to a small radio station on the roof of the department and while the jingle lingered in the air, he and Simly waited for the disc jockey to finish up his act.
    “And that was ‘The Sound of Rain Outside Your Window on a Lazy Afternoon,’ by the Somnambulists . . . an oldie but goodie, designed to ease your mind into the soft, sweet paradise of Sleep.”
    WDOZ had been established to broadcast soft tones to the subconscious minds of the people of The World—helping them to relax in preparation for the arrival of their Good Night’s Sleep. The DJ pulled another forty-five from the library in the booth.
    “Up next, I’ve got a fresh take on a deep cut from back in the Day . . . ” He put the needle to the record, which was entitled “The Hum of the Air Conditioner (Remix).” “My name is Johnny Zzzzzzzzzzz and you’ve been listening to WDOZ, greasing the hinges on the ol’ inner doorway since 13303.”
    As the record began to spin, the balding, pony-tailed jock lowered the volume and exited the booth to join Becker and Simly.
    “Look, brother”—his off-air personality was a far cry from his on-air one—“I don’t know what anyone told you, but there ain’t no Glitch in my station.”
    “I’m not here to blame anybody,” Becker assured him. “It’s just that Glitches can be tricky. Maybe it got into the board.”
    “A Glitch got into the board?” The DJ shook his head, insulted, then pulled out a pair of headphones and jacked them into the slot. “Be my guest.”
    Becker gave Simly the okay to put the phones on, and Johnny Z cranked up the volume on what was being broadcast to The World that very moment. In a matter of seconds, Simly’s eyelids started to get heavy and he began to make space for himself on the floor.
    “See? The Z-man never fails.”
    This guy reminded Becker of Joel Waldman—a kid from Highland Park who had a major attitude problem—but the Fixer still wasn’t convinced. He reached into his Toolkit and pulled out a dog-eared copy of the one book that every Fixer cannot do without.
    Its official name was The Compendium of Malfunction & Repair, but everyone who had one called it “the Manual” and (as promised in the foreword) it contained “Everything You Need to Know to Fix.” Becker turned to chapter 6, “Schematics