Ledman Pickup

Fourteen

  On the third floor landing, Kandhi whirled around and shouted at Zoey,

  "What do you mean, 'Next Stop Green Bay'."

  "Excuse me?" Zoey replied meekly, thinking she must have misheard, and surprised that Kandhi was even looking at her.

  "Right here on your Socialnet page,” Kandhi marched over and flashed her UPD screen at Zoey, who studied the device with alarm.

  "You have one of those too?" she asked.

  "What? One of what?" Kandhi said. "Will you answer my question? No, wait. Wait a minute. This doesn't make any sense. It says that you posted two minutes ago but you've been right here the whole time. Are you posting? No, of course not,” Kandhi continued the dialog solo. "So what does it mean?"

  "That device I was testing?" Zoey asked unsteadily, afraid that Kandhi was going to yell again. It was obvious that Kandhi was very unhappy with her, and she could understand it. She couldn't blame her. After all, the device had experienced an exception on her watch, and she had kept the fact a secret, even when Chris had called and asked her directly. It wasn't really her fault, but if she was to be blamed, she could handle it. She could face it.

  "No,” Kandhi retorted sharply. "This is not the same thing, not at all. Looks a bit like it, though. I can see why you might have thought so, but no, definitely not the same. I have to think now. This is important."

  "Can I get back to work now?" Junior butted in, and Kandhi waved her hand in his general direction without looking up.

  "Who cares? Go ahead. Get lost,” she told him, and he scurried off down the metal steps and hurried back to Ledman Storage and Pickup, anxious to tell Rolando all about these weird chicks and everything. In the meantime, Kandhi had started pacing back and forth across the landing, occasionally muttering something out loud, and sometimes turning her gadget around in her palm like she was pointing it at something, as if it was a game controller, but Zoey couldn't see that that was accomplishing anything at all.

  "We told you Next Day Air,” Kandhi said to Zoey. "We always tell you Next Day Air. Why didn't you do it that way this time?"

  "I did,” Zoey said. "I labeled it and paid as usual Next Day Air. I don't know what happened. I can't explain it."

  "And then,” Kandhi went on, "you drove all the way out here from Austin. How long did that take?"

  "All night,” Kandhi replied.

  "Why didn't you fly?"

  "I hate flying,” Zoey told her. "I'm afraid to. I know it's silly, but ..."

  "Never mind,” Kandhi cut her short. "You hate to fly. That's good to know,” and she suddenly turned and bounded down the staircase. Zoey rushed to catch up with her but had to walk much faster than she liked in order to keep up as Kandhi strode back toward the warehouse. She could see that Kandhi had put the device up next to her ear and was shouting into it, something like "You’re called U-Pick-It, so you can pick it up! I'm not bringing it back. Here's the address," before she lowered the device again, still keeping it in her hand.

  "We're taking your car,” she snapped at Zoey when the latter finally caught up to her in the parking lot. "Get in. Let's go."

  "Where are we going?" Zoey asked, but Kandhi did not reply. She was climbing into the passenger seat and fastening her seat belt. Zoey got in too and began to back out of the lot, slowly and carefully, making sure not to bump over the train tracks too hard. She came to a complete stop at the station and looked both ways to make sure no cars were coming in any direction before she turned onto the main street and set the cruise control to thirty. She looked over at Kandhi and asked,

  "Mind if I ask which way I should go?"

  "Did you really set the cruise control there?" Kandhi snorted. "Is this how you normally drive?"

  "Of course,” Zoey replied.

  "Then pull over,” Kandhi ordered. "I'm driving."

  "But ...,” Zoey started to say but Kandhi repeated her command and Zoey realized it was probably for the best. She never liked confrontations anyway, and Kandhi was certainly in a mood. Moments later she wished she had put up something of a fight, because Kandhi, once behind the wheel, stepped on the gas and blasted back onto the road at twice the speed at which Zoey felt comfortable. She started to suggest that her car might not be able to handle the velocity, besides the fact it was making her nervous in general, but she decided to sit back and wait. Kandhi might cool down and relax in time. Zoey tried to focus on the road ahead, as if by keeping an eye on it she might pacify her disgruntled automobile. Kandhi was paying no attention.

  "Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed. "If only I'd known about your fear of flying, at least I could have made sure that it went Next Day Air. But who the hell knows? It might have got itself flown to frickin' Green Bay instead of coming home. God knows what got into it. I warned them. Oh yeah. I told them, but would they listen to me? No. Of course not. So goddamn sure of themselves. You know I chose you for a reason,” she said, glancing over at Zoey. "I figured that for something like this, I needed the most predictable results I could get. Garbage in garbage out, if you know what I mean. No offense, but you have to admit you are predictable. I always know what I'm going to get out of you. Afraid of flying, huh. Never thought of that, but never mind. It's the playback that's the bitch. That's what I was worried about all along."

  "I don't know what you're talking about,” Zoey said, trying to register the fact that she was being insulted, but unable to feel appropriately offended yet.

  "Of course you don't,” Kandhi explained. "You're not supposed to. But now that we're in this fix. By the way, I hope you don't have any plans. We're going on a little trip, or so it seems. And since we're going to be stuck together, I might as well tell you. That gadget? It's you now, or at least a part of it is. Capture and Playback. Know what I mean? It was recording your personality, and then we were going to play it back into another container. Oh shit! I just realized! Oh mother of God!" Kandhi burst out laughing.

  "Those goddamn asshole programmers. Containers! That's how they put it. The thing must have generalized the term. It played you back into that box! Of course it did. Wait until I tell those guys how they screwed up this time. One little bug, that's all it was. One little teensy weensy overloaded term. No wonder."

  Zoey was still in the dark. 'Recorded my personality?' she was thinking, 'just by carrying it around in my pockets? Playing it back? Playing ME back into someone else? How is that even possible? It sounds crazy', and then,

  "That sounds crazy,” she said out loud and Kandhi laughed again.

  "Of course it is!" she chortled. "It's what we do! It's who we are! If it wasn't frickin' insane we wouldn't even bother! The world's got plenty of normal shit. Who needs it? What's the point? But we've got to get that thing back. Can't let it go running around the world like this. God only knows what it might get up to. I'm sure we don't."