The Warehouse

by Rob Hart

  Worse than that, some people have been reporting that Ray got hired away by one of the last few big-box retailers, which seems to spend more time trying to knock me down than doing any actual work (which, if they focused on their own business, maybe they wouldn’t be in so much trouble). That ain’t true either. Ray is still my VP.

  In fact, I just got off the phone with him and he told me how excited he was to work with Claire. I didn’t have any brothers and sisters growing up, but Ray was so close to me that Claire called him “Uncle Ray.” Fact was, she thought he was my brother until she got a little older and could understand that calling him “uncle” was just a sign of respect.

  Here’s what I want to say about Ray: Like I told you, he was there at the beginning, when I was a kid looking to make a buck. And he stuck with me and fought with me and helped make Cloud into the company that it is. I trust Ray more than I trust anyone. And Ray trusts me. Even though I don’t have a brother, he’s the next best thing. And sure, like brothers, sometimes we fight and sometimes we argue, but that’s why this relationship works so well.

  I want to tell you a story. This is a good one. It’s the story Ray told at my wedding, because of course he was my best man.

  Molly was a waitress at this diner near the Cloud offices. I liked going there because they did breakfast all day, and it was pretty good, but also, I liked Molly. I would always sit in her section, and I would try to say something smart or clever to her, which I’m sure never sounded as good as I thought, but still, she always had a smile for us. A lot of the time I was there with Ray and he could see how much I liked her, and one day, we’re sitting there, tucking into our eggs and bacon, and he says, “Why don’t you ask her out?”

  And I just sort of froze up. I figured, woman as pretty as Molly isn’t going to go for a guy like me. This was back in the very early days of Cloud, when I had an idea and two pairs of trousers and not much else. At that point it wasn’t even that I was broke; I was in debt, and I was worried I’d made a huge mistake. But Ray pressed me. Said a girl that pretty and sweet doesn’t come along every day. But, swear to truth, I was scared, so I didn’t. Just tipped my hat to her like I always did and we finished our breakfast and left.

  Two hours later, I get a phone call. It was Molly. And she says, “Sure, Gibson, I’d love for you to take me out to dinner.”

  Now, I am dumbstruck. I snapped out of it long enough to tell her I would get back to her with some concrete plans, and I turned, and Ray is sitting there at his big old metal desk, feet up, hands behind his head, smiling that smile, like it was going to reach all the way around the back of his skull and his head was going to fall off.

  He had written her a note on the bill, pretending to be me.

  So me and Molly make plans for a few nights later, and I figure on picking her up after leaving work. It was a busy day but Ray made sure I got off on time. I’m in my office and I’m getting ready, and I got this bow tie. Now, this is a hell of a bow tie, or so I thought. Red and blue sort of paisley design. I still have it. I put it on and I step into Ray’s office and I ask, “How do I look?”

  Now, me and Ray have been pals a long time, but still, I was his boss. And a lot of men would have looked at their boss and just said, “Oh, yes, sir, you look great.”

  But not Ray. He looked me up and down and said, “Buddy, you do know the point of the first date is to get yourself a second date, right?”

  What are friends for? I ditched the bow tie and borrowed one of his regular ties—a nice little black number. Which Molly told me that night over dinner looked “distinguished.” Couple of years later I told her this story and showed her the bow tie and she cringed in horror.

  I thought it was nice. Anyway, point is, the reason Ray means so much to me isn’t just that he was there from the beginning. It’s because the man is a straight shooter. He’s honest with me. There’ve been a lot of times where I wanted to do this or that and Ray has told me not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed to hear. That’s a special sort of thing.

  But this is the thing about the press, isn’t it? This is why the newspaper model collapsed all those years ago. It’s not that people don’t want news. Of course they want to know what’s going on in the world. But they don’t want to be lied to. And people know when they’re being lied to. Put up a story about how me and Ray are at each other’s throats, maybe they get enough clicks their advertising revenue pays for a few cups of coffee. It’s sad. It’s why I started the Cloud News Network in the first place. I got tired of having to set the record straight.

  Now, the stock price thing, that much is true. Yes, our value took a bit of a tumble after I named Claire. That had nothing to do with her. That’s the way stocks work, folks. It was just the market acknowledging that my time is almost up and things are going to change hands. That aside, everything will continue on as it always has, and the market will right itself. In the meantime I’m down a little less than a billion dollars. Boo-hoo.

  So that’s where we are. This is a good reminder that if you want the straight dirt, tune in to the Cloud News Network. Anything else is just fake news, driven by some kind of agenda, and the whole thing is sad. But that’s what happens on the internet. No regulation, no standards, people can say whatever they want. Let ’em have it. I’ll be over here, doing real work.

  Phew.

  So like I said, it’s been a while since I wrote anything. I’m feeling pretty good, actually. I’m taking six different kinds of new medications because my doctor figures at this point there’s not much else I can do to hurt myself, and one of them might even give me a little more time. I take so many pills during the day I’ve lost count. Molly helps me portion them out.

  The bus tour is going pretty good. We’re getting close to the holidays, which is good and bad. Good because it’s Cloud at its best, delivering happiness and convenience to people around the country. Bad because it’s also another year for us to reflect on the Black Friday Massacres, though it’s important we don’t ever forget them either.

  But I gotta tell you, based on what my doctor is saying, my expiration date ought to fall sometime after the New Year. So I might get one more Christmas on this earth. Which means one more opportunity to watch Cloud pumping and thriving. That’ll be nice. I always loved walking around Cloud facilities during Christmastime. So much good work going on.

  Keep your eyes on the road, folks. You never know when I might roll by….

  ZINNIA

  The laptop chimed.

  Zinnia thought it might be a phantom chime. She’d heard it a dozen times in the past week. She would be reading or napping and she’d hear that soft little ding, so she would pull open the drawer below her bed, dig underneath the clothing and the books, and find it was her mind messing with her.

  Teasing: not done yet, asshole.

  But it sounded real enough so she checked, digging the laptop out, and found it was true. The gopher’s work was complete. She removed the plastic nub from the USB drive and held it in her palm. All she had to do was plug it into a computer terminal somewhere, and in about a minute, she’d have what she needed.

  She slipped the gopher into the coin pocket of her jeans. Her pants slipped a little and she tugged at the waistband. It pulled out a half inch. The only upside to running around the warehouse.

  Downside was the twinge in her left knee. The concrete floor was unforgiving—she’d already gone through a pair of sneakers. She stood on her left foot, raised her right knee in the air. Put her hands out. Lowered herself into a single-leg squat. Her leg wobbled. She nearly fell, and she threw out her other foot to keep from toppling over.

  She sighed. Turned on the television, which showed her an ad for a topical menthol rub, which was close to what she needed, but not close enough. She signed in to the Cloud store and ordered herself a fabric knee brace. Just something to keep it stable. It wasn’t goo
d to mess around with knees. Knees were stupid. Like a ball and two sticks held together with rubber bands. It took way less torque than most people thought to screw up a knee. Last thing she wanted was to dump the money from this gig into surgery.

  While she was at it, she ordered another pair of jeans, one size down. That, at least, felt nice. When she was done she left the apartment, sharing nods with her neighbors, people she recognized but mostly avoided.

  Too-Tall Bald Guy.

  Human Bear.

  Nice Hadley.

  She had Cynthia and Paxton and Miguel. That was enough friends. It seemed to be the way of the place anyway. People brushed up against each other but didn’t engage. There were no gatherings, no group activities, other than rushed conversations in break rooms. She had a theory about that, that the more time you spent with people, the more the algorithm responsible for work shifts drove you apart. She and Paxton had started on roughly the same schedule but they’d been creeping apart, so that he was getting off four or five hours earlier than her. Same with Miguel—the few times she’d tried to raise him on the watch, he never seemed to be working. She’d just see him in passing out on the promenade.

  Still, people talked. In the bathrooms, on the line to get in and out of the warehouse. Mostly in hushed tones. Lately it was about the coming regime change. People wondered if things would be different under the daughter. Better or worse. Zinnia didn’t think there was much room for things to be worse, but corporate America was always good at finding “worse.”

  She made her way out of her dorm and onto the promenade, taking a long, looping walk around, like she did every day before shift. Specifically, she was looking for anything resembling a terminal. Not a CloudPoint—those were too risky, and she was worried that after Paxton caught that little bit of plastic she left in the lock, security measures may have been stepped up. She needed someplace where she could sit for a minute or more and not get caught.

  But none of the stores had computers. At least none that seemed accessible. She’d gone on some errands in Admin and thought she might be able to sneak into an office, but if an office door was open, there was a person inside. She had yet to pass one that was obviously vacant.

  Op like this was delicate. Push too hard, and people saw you pushing.

  Sometimes a good op played out when inspiration crashed into opportunity. Lucky for her, the deadline was six months. She still had time. Not a ton, but enough.

  On her way to shift she stopped into the convenience store, the shelves shiny and backlit so the colorful packages on them seemed to glow. She made her way back and to the left, to where she always went, to the box of PowerBuff bars. She was thankful that after years of searching, she’d discovered a protein bar that was low in fat, low in carbs, high in protein, and didn’t taste like a block of Styrofoam smeared with stale peanut butter.

  She found that, during the hardest moments of her shift, she could look forward to when she’d unwrap the salted caramel PowerBuff bar, which could be eaten in four bites but she stretched it out to five so that she could really enjoy it.

  But when she reached the back, the box was empty. They had other PowerBuff flavors, which she had flirted with and found to be wanting. The chocolate peanut butter was too thick and slightly bitter, and the birthday cake bar tasted like the waste pipe at an artificial sugar factory.

  She looked at the empty box for a few moments, wondering how long it had been empty, how long ago someone had taken the last one, or if it had been her, yesterday, and she wasn’t paying any mind.

  Yesterday had been her last salted caramel PowerBuff bar and she hadn’t even known it. It made her sad. And she grew sadder the more she thought about how sad it made her.

  A heavyset Latino man in a green polo appeared at her side. He had a fresh box. Zinnia smiled. The man smiled back, took the empty box, replaced it, pushed in the perforated cardboard to open it up. “I noticed we were running low. I was surprised at first ’cause they’re the least popular. No one likes ’em. But then I noticed you taking ’em and figured you might be disappointed if I didn’t keep them in stock.”

  He took out a bar and offered it to her. She stood there, held it in her hands, the cellophane crinkling. He waited, like maybe he expected a parade or a high five or a blow job or something. Zinnia muttered, “Thank you.”

  He nodded, turned around, and walked back toward the front of the store.

  As sad as she had been before, she was sadder now. She’d set a routine. Become a regular. Been here long enough that a complete stranger recognized her eating habits. This wasn’t about the mission. It wasn’t about being compromised or staying out of sight. It was just a shitty feeling because it reminded her she’d been in this place for months, and nothing had changed. She’d just gotten more comfortable with it.

  She made her way to the warehouse, where she stepped onto the hard concrete floor, her knee grumbling in protest.

  Tablet. Leather passport cover. Bow tie. Wool cap. Tampons. Markers. Headphones. Phone charger. Lightbulbs. Belt. Humidifier. Makeup mirror. Socks. Marshmallow-roasting sticks…

  PAXTON

  The conference room was packed. It made Paxton think of a tram car at rush hour. Bodies pressed together, so you could smell who hadn’t brushed their teeth, who’d gone too heavy on the cologne, who’d had eggs for breakfast.

  Most of the people he recognized. A few he didn’t. Dakota was up near the front, next to Dobbs. Vikram had pushed himself that way, too. Paxton was glad to be in the room. In the past two months he’d felt like he’d fallen out of favor.

  It used to be Dobbs would ask for oblivion updates, but those requests happened less and less often, because every time they came, all Paxton could do was say he was working on it. Which was true. He thought about it all the time. But he couldn’t crack it either. The folks in tech had been no help with the signals, surveilling Warren hadn’t been useful, and Paxton was still in the process of learning the facility and the people.

  All he knew was that stuff wasn’t getting in through the delivery bay. He’d been up and down the place with nothing to show.

  This light-touch approach that Dakota kept reminding him about didn’t seem very effective, but he didn’t want to question Dobbs either. Those three stars taunted him. He’d hoped to be useful, to do something that would set him apart. But between the lack of movement there and the first page of his notebook, which was still blank, he’d gone from feeling sort of hopeful to just treading water, which was beginning to tickle at his nose.

  At least he had Zinnia. It was the sole bright spot that allowed him to convince himself it wasn’t as bad as the prison.

  “Okay, everyone, listen up,” Dobbs said, snapping the room to attention. “Tomorrow is software update day. You all know what that means….”

  Paxton didn’t know, but he knew better than to raise his hand and say that. Dakota nudged Dobbs. “Got some new recruits here, boss.”

  “Do we, now? Well.” He looked around. “Software update is getting sent out on the CloudBand. Which means the facility goes into lockdown. Everyone reports to his or her room for the duration of the update.”

  A hand. A young black guy with a tattoo on his neck of a lotus blossom.

  “Why not do it at night when everyone is sleeping?”

  Dobbs shook his head. “There are shifts running here twenty-four/seven; at no point is everyone sleeping. At eight a.m. the day of, everyone is to report to their rooms. Except us, hospital workers, and a few tech people.”

  Murmuring around the room. Paxton couldn’t suss out what kind of murmuring it was. Excited or frustrated or just vaguely curious. But it seemed like an interesting opportunity. See this place when it wasn’t completely packed with people. It was almost unbelievable to think about, like seeing Times Square suddenly evacuated.

  “Now I�
�ll turn it over to Dakota,” Dobbs said, tossing her a little grin. “She’ll be running point this year. Her number two will be Vikram. So you all listen up, because I have something to attend to.”

  Paxton breathed in sharp enough that a few people turned to look at him. Not Dobbs, thankfully. Dakota looked over, not because she’d heard him but because it was the natural thing to do. She had a funny look in her eye. Paxton let his face fall flat, like This is no big deal, except it was, because Vikram was an asshole, and this pretty much confirmed his star had faded and he was, once again, another warm body in blue.

  “Okay, listen up,” Dakota said. “If you’re in this room, means you’re a section leader. Which is exactly how it sounds. Each one of you gets a section and the blues in that section report to you. This is pretty easy. No one’s supposed to be out. Tram is shut down. Ambulance trams still run. There’ll be emergency medical staff at Care and some tech folks out and that is it. So we stay sharp. Our watches will be updating, too, so we’ll be out of communication with each other. That means we’ll be creating a text message chain using our personal cell phones. But there’ll be so many of us out it won’t matter. Safer that way.”

  The black guy again. “Safer?”

  “Mostly people like to fuck around when we do software updates. Run around the facility. See how far they can get. We have to unlock all the doors when we do an update. Otherwise, it’s a fire hazard because people can’t swipe. We don’t advertise that, but some people figured it out. Fucking around during software update means you lose a full star on your ranking, but people do it anyway. You’ll get your section assignment to your CloudBand pretty soon. Come to me or Vikram with questions.” Dakota turned, seemed to speak through gritted teeth. “Vik, anything to add?”