The Day the Founder Died by Robert Silverberg 0700 hours.
Plink. Get up. “But it’s too early,” Wilcox murmured.
Plink. Half an hour too early. Nevertheless, Wilcox was going to get up, because the double-double alarm was hitting the edge of his sleep-swaddled consciousness, and it wasn’t going to stop.
Plink. A quick repetitive needle of bright sound tirelessly pricking his brain,
plink plink plink. And the red light flashing on the bedroom wall,
get up get up get up.
The double-double meant that something in the City needed fixing and it was his turn again for repair duty. Ordinarily the City repaired itself, but occasionally it happened that there would be a systems failure of the second order—that is, a breakdown beyond the capacity of the machines that usually fixed things—and then they would flash the double-double alarm to summon one of the men who repaired the fixing machines. There were about a hundred such repairers. Wilcox was one of the youngest and, he believed, one of the best. He could repair any kind of machine. He had a natural aptitude for his work, an intuitive feel for the sinews and crevices of a mechanical construct.
Plink.
. . .
