Seven
Most of the day Leonora had nothing to do. Junior and Rolando were like their own little twin nation, communicating with each other in a series of complicated gestures and sounds that would take a ‘warehouse whisperer’ to decipher. They didn't know much about her. She was just the latest 'new guy' in a series of new guys that never lasted very long and never made much of a difference to them. They continued to go about their business in a haphazard and careless manner, knowing that the new guy would always take the hit for whatever mistakes they might make. The boss, after all, was their cousin, Matthew Pilates, and he knew everything there was to know about them. On the very first day he had instructed Leonora to "ride their ass" or else hers would be "grass.” Leonora had laughed at that, and had pretty much been laughing ever since.
Ledman Storage and Pickup was vast and cold and drafty. Even on the hottest summer day it was a bog in there, a rundown building with its own microclimate. It didn't matter that the windows were all broken out - the heat never seemed to want to come in. The roof was corrugated tin of the variety that usual bakes whatever it covers, but this roof reflected it all into space, probably boiling some moon in a galaxy light years away. The floor, made of chipped and rotting concrete, was perpetually damp and the shelves of rusting metal were creaky but never gave way. Most of the building was empty, and Leonora wandered about to fill up her time, poking and peering into storage containers storing nothing, empty wicker baskets that might have held foliage of some sort at some time. She guessed that there had once been a pottery business in part of the building, from the shards of colored ceramic she found here and there.
She really liked to be there. She didn't have to go sneaking a joint. She could light up any old place. The fridge had a kegerator inside that Pilates always made sure was kept full. He paid his two cousins practically nothing, and it was true that they pretty much did whatever needed doing. Boxes came in, boxes went out. If there was any lag, they moved them around, but usually the drivers did most of the work. Rolando and Junior kept to their ways and hardly anything out of the ordinary ever occurred. Leonora would have been bored, but she played little games to keep up her interest. She'd chuck rocks at the bits of glass that remained in the corners of windows. "Never let a day go by without breaking something" was another one of her personal mottoes. She threw paint at the walls to see how it splattered. She played peanut golf with a board and the Styrofoam packing material, flailing away at the things as they floated throughout the big empty spaces. She played dust-bowl with the push-broom and tried to make heaps in the corners. Throughout these activities she laughed like a nut job, with an occasional loud snorting that the cousins had come to despise. They called her ‘the donkey’ but she didn't notice that whenever they said the word 'burrito' they were secretly laughing at her.
'Whatever' was the sum of her attitude. She'd had other jobs, plenty in fact, and this one was simply too easy. She wasn't going to let anyone spoil it, and besides, she genuinely liked them sometimes. She liked the way that they talked, the way they goofed off and didn't really care about anything. She had never seen them fret about anything, or even show any interest at all. Whenever she'd ask them a question, they'd just shrug. When she showed them the package, however, Rolando's response was quite different from normal.
"Where'd you get that?" he wanted to know. It was practically the most words he had ever directed her way.
"Just found it,” she told him. "It was under those shelves in aisle seven. It looks pretty new."
"I don't like it,” Rolando replied, and he turned away and walked off. Junior looked closer.
"I think that's the football,” he said and he nodded. "Yeah, I just threw it this morning. I was wondering where it got to. I told Rolie go long but he didn't."
"I guess we ought to put it somewhere,” Leonora suggested, hoping that Junior would tell her where it should go.
"Look it up,” he suggested, pointing at the bar code on the label. "I know we scanned it."
They checked the computer and sure enough it had come in that morning at eight, but that was the weird part about it. It was never supposed to even be there. The thing was definitely registered as Next Day Air from Austin to Frisco. Nobody was scheduled to pick it up. The thing was clearly out of its way.
"What are we supposed to do with it?" Lenora asked, and Junior responded with his usual shrug.
"If it was me I'd just throw it away,” he told her and laughed. "But maybe I'd open it first, and if it was something good then I'd take it,” and he laughed again, harder. This brought Rolando back in a hurry, because he never wanted to miss out on a joke, but as he drew closer he frowned once again.
"That thing is buzzing,” he declared, and sure enough, as soon as he mentioned it, Leonora and Junior noticed it. The sound was low but audible, and the package even seemed to be vibrating a bit.
"It's no good,” Roland repeated. "You ought to smash it. I'll get the hammer,” and he wandered away one more time. Leonora looked puzzled and Junior caught her expression.
"He's got a sixth sense,” Junior told her, "He's got the ESP, like the Extra Normally Perceptive. One time he felt there was a voodoo doll going through so we burned it. It made a weird smell like rubber when it burned. Turned out it was Amazon Barbie. Some little dyke wasn't too happy with us," he burst out laughing again.
"We're not supposed to be opening them,” Leonora said thoughtfully.
"Or burning them,” Junior added, nearly doubling over with laughter this time. He had to find a bench and sit down before he keeled over.
"I could get the next driver to take it,” she said.
"Take it where?" Junior asked. "Drivers don't just take it. You gonna pay for the shipment? 'Cause this thing hasn't been paid for. Not now. I mean it was, but that was for air. Nothing for Wetford to Cali."
"I ain't paying nothing,” she told him with a little anger in her voice. The thought she should part with some money for nothing was too much to deal with.
"Fuck it,” she said, but she noticed Rolando returning with tools and something about the little box changed her mind and she snatched it away before he could harm it.
"The poor little thing has got itself lost,” she murmured as she handled it gently. She got up and set off for a corner of the warehouse where she could be alone with her decision, and finish up the rest of her smoke without Junior or Rolando cadging a hit. She sat on the floor behind a desk overflowing with crumpled up paper, and cradled the box in her lap.
"I probably shouldn't do this,” she told it, but she had already made up her mind. Tearing at the tape with her fingernails, she opened it up, and carefully unwrapped the tightly wound bubble wrap protecting the item inside. Soon she had the little black box in her hand, with its modest little sentence still glowing upon the LED screen.
"I'd like to go home now, please.”
Eight
It was pretty clear right off that her plans were not going to go smoothly. First there was the annoying cab ride to the airport with the driver who would not shut up about her new hairpiece, the IntelliWig ("Hair for Life!"). Apparently this new kind of self-styling toupee adjusted to both mood and meteorological conditions. The driver kept complaining that she didn't feel frizzy even if her hair thought she did. Then there was the problem of the carry-on, which was just a tad too tight for the recently shrunken overhead compartments. She'd been carrying on the same carry-on for years. Suddenly it was too large? The seats had also undergone the same downsizing. She was squeezed in between two old ladies who were apparently competing for the most-overly-perfumed-biddy-of-the-year award. Kandhi held her breath and reminded herself it was only an hour or so on the first leg of the trip, and the second leg was bound to be better. She hadn't counted on the ninety minute tarmac stop. The San Francisco fog had decided to shroud the airport in its thickness and refused to let up until nearly two in the morning. During that endless interval, Kandhi was trapped with nothing but her universal persona
l device.
The UPD, as they liked to call it, was a special edition of several W.W.A. prototypes coalesced into one. Like the gadget she'd given to Zoey, it was self-powered, no battery or external power source needed. It was solid state, and its rubberized external packaging guaranteed it could not be harmed from anything less than a thousand foot drop. It had no keyboard but recognized anything that Kandhi might swipe on it or say aloud to it. It was capable of conveying its output directly into her mind, thus saving on expensive screens and diodes. For short, she called it "U", and when she talked to it, she liked to begin by saying "hey, you".
She used it for everything: all communications, news, reading, conversations, games, all anything. While stuck on the runway she flicked through her virtual list of contacts professional and otherwise, checking up on their current status and latest doings. Tom was still locked in the basement at HQ. He'd been down there seven days now, likely cooking up something too good to be true. Chris was being offered an America's Cup boat ride by some world champion in New Zealand. Cary Willis was frying catfish in lemon butter. Nancy Petrie was wishing Sylvia Peters a happy birthday. Jenna Maloney was getting divorced again. It was complicated. Zoey Bridges was nothing. Nothing from Zoey Bridges in ages, it seemed. That was okay. She was not supposed to be posting anything about her confidential work and she had no personal life, besides which she was no doubt fast asleep like most sane people in that time zone were. Kandhi’s flight was excruciating. They had made her turn off the device at take-off, and after that she tried and failed to catch a little sleep. The old ladies had brought out their knitting, and the click-click-click of the needles nearly drove her insane. She spent a good half hour walking up and down the aisles, wondering why the flight was full, wondering who the hell the rest of these people were, and why it was so damn important for them to fly to L.A. in the middle of the night on a Thursday. Then she remembered how cheap it was. Cheaper than a damn bus, even, which explained it. Fortunately, once it got underway, the plane trip didn't last long.
Of course she missed the connecting flight to Phoenix, thanks to the fog delay. She had to wait until five to get the next plane. She ordered a triple shot of espresso in her double mocha shake. The UPD was in quiescence. Normally during the day it would go about suggesting things to her. Since it knew her pretty well, it would scan the skyverse for items it knew she’d be interested in. It must have decided to take a rest, seeing as she was usually non-sentient at this Greenwich hour minus eight. She felt a little rejected. It was embarrassing to realize that. In all her dealings with the new technologies, and especially the invasive sort that W.W.A. seemed to revel in, she had kept her emotional distance, had not become attached, had refused to let herself get sucked into the virtual world. But now, she laughed at herself, she was thinking, hey, if you can't count on your universal personal device to keep you company, who can you trust? Then, while sitting around at the gate, staring at the limitless gray carpet, the gadget popped a message into her head. It was from Zoey Bridge's socialnet. It said simply, "today is the day.” That was certainly puzzling. She was tempted to contact Zoey, inquiring further, but couldn't think of exactly what to say without seeming inappropriately nosy, or giving away her own game. She didn't want Zoey to know she was investigating in person. It still nagged at the back of her mind - what was the tester trying to hide? Why hadn't she simply told Chris the truth about what had happened with the device
The five o'clock flight to Phoenix was uneventful, at least, and thankfully non-oderous as well. Kandhi was beginning to count her blessings when she discovered on arrival that her carry-on, which she'd not been allowed to carry on the initial flight, had not even made the second leg of the trip. It could be anywhere, anywhere in fact except at the airport in Phoenix where it belonged, where she now was. She took a deep breath after yelling at the helpless clerk at baggage claim. She had nothing now that wasn't in her purse. She would need clothes, some accessories. Nothing major. Nothing she couldn't deal with later. The next thing was to get the rental car and get to Wetford.
"Today is the day" she told herself, "whatever the heck that means.”