by Nina Post
Raum wasn’t the type of angel who liked to get things done, and he didn’t fret over details. Af couldn’t see any of them sticking to the tasks of the board, but they were more than welcome to try.
“What about him?” Vassago pointed at Af.
“Member-at-large,” Raum said in a booming voice.
Af ran his tongue around his back molars. “Fine.” Then under his breath, “As long as it’s mostly ‘at-large.’“
“Good enough for me.” Raum ran his finger down the sheet and stopped at another point. “Approval of minutes.”
“Approved!” Imamiah said, pumping a fist in the air.
They all stared at him.
“I’m feeling a little emotional right now.”
Raum scribbled a note. “Imamiah, you humiliate and destroy enemies, so I want you to find out if someone is in charge here, then tell them they’re not in charge anymore. If they give you any trouble, humiliate them, and then destroy them.
“The next item on the list is New Business: Pizza delivery. Vassago, why don’t you look into that. We’ll convene again tomorrow to strategize the End of Days.”
“The board meets monthly,” Af said, focusing on his screen.
“We’ll meet daily. We have a lot to accomplish,” Raum said.
“That’s not tenable,” Af said while typing, then added, “You can also hold committee meetings―operations, finance, community, rules and regulations.” Not that he ever did. But theoretically, one could.
Raum rubbed his chin. “What if we wanted a different committee. One for bringing about the End of Days, for example?”
Af sighed. “If you, as the board, want to form a committee, say, End of Days, then you can make it a sub-committee under the purview of an existing committee.”
Raum smiled. “Very impressive, Af. You’ve obviously been bound here for quite a while.”
Af had been bound to Amenity Tower long enough that his quiet, comfortable life felt threatened, and he didn’t like that feeling at all.
Forcas tilted his head. “The End of Days Sub-Committee. We can coordinate our escape and the End of Days at the same time.”
“Let’s stick that under Operations,” Raum said. “Adjourned!” He paused at the door. “Wait, where’s my apartment?”
or her first disguised entry into Amenity Tower, Kelly entered the lobby in a brown wig, brown contact lenses, a dental apparatus, a baseball cap with a logo, a collared denim shirt, and blue khaki pants.
The shirt featured an embroidered logo of an eagle holding elevator parts in its claws over a map of North America. Underneath the logo was the phrase In the Public Interest.
In the lobby, she edged past a group of young Japanese guys wearing ski hats, pants cut off just below the knees, and flip-flops, went around a few medics, and finally passed two SWAT-type men wearing olive green jumpsuits, kevlar vests, and various weapons strapped to their legs.
A stocky man with an insulated pizza carrier whirled through the revolving door and charged a reception desk like he carried a beating heart for transplant, whereas the medics and the SWAT men seemed to be in no hurry.
After the delivery guy was buzzed in to the elevator vestibule, she approached the long curve of the reception desk. The nameplate on the desk said Clementine Jackson.
Kelly gave Clementine a close-lipped smile and flashed her credentials in a logo-embossed holder.
“Marmota Constant, Elevator Inspector and Supervisor with the National Association of Elevator Safety Authorities. This is a standard visit to ensure that all inspectors under my supervision in this jurisdiction are performing their duties in compliance with the requirements of the QEI-I Code of Ethics.” She flashed a purposely reluctant smile that did not reach her eyes.
“I’ll tell the manager you’re here, but―” Clementine checked her watch. “He’s just finishing up his show. And the show”―she winked―“is his priority.”
Kelly waited close to the front desk in a stance that suggested she could stand there forever, and stood close enough to make Clementine uncomfortable.
It worked. “Oh, heck, just go on in. I’ve got enough to worry about. Like, do I do my job and let that delivery guy in, or risk losing my job and warn him that no one else delivering pizza has ever made it out?”
Once Clementine buzzed her in, Kelly went down a hall and into an enclosed reception area for the management office. A moment later, a man emerged from a glass-walled studio at her right. His dark brown hair was styled with claws, his over-ironed black suit would melt in the rain, and a cherry-red tie over a black shirt had her looking for a wand and white rabbit.
A small crowd followed him out of the studio, and one man hovered over the others, glowering. The man in the magician suit halted in front of him.
“What can I do for you, Dragomir?”
The tall man snorted. “Only five years ago, I was military’s best engineer, and now I waste miserable life tending to impossible HVAC problems.”
“I’m well aware of your previous employment history,” the man in the suit said. “That darn air handler again, is it? I’ll be right with you.”
He pointed to her and snapped his fingers. She half-expected him to disappear in a cloud of fog. “Elevator supervisor, right? C’mon back.” He gracefully evaded residents who all wanted a piece of him as he strode down another hallway to an office on the left.
He closed the door behind him and braced himself against it as if keeping out a zombie horde, then held out his hand for her to shake.
“Roger Balbi, property manager of Amenity Tower and host of What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi, the only local access TV show filmed in Amenity Tower and in front of a live studio audience.”
Kelly shook his hand, noting his Casio Databank watch. “Marmota Constant.” The sides of her nose and jawline were padded with theatrical putty, and an applique mole was stuck to her right cheek. Even just changing her eye color usually did the job, but she liked to be careful.
“Wow, firm grip.”
“A firm grip for anyone, or for a woman?”
“A lot of men have weak handshakes,” Roger said. “But I wouldn’t shake their hands if I were you, because most don’t bother washing after they use the john. Tell you what: let’s make a pact right now to never shake hands again, with anyone. It’d be a shame if people didn’t know about your firm grip, because that says a lot about you. But it’s just gross, isn’t it. Shaking hands.” Roger scribbled something out on a piece of paper and signed it, then pushed the paper toward her.
The writing on the paper was indecipherable. She once spent three days trying to discern exactly what her doctor had written on the results of her annual physical. This was worse.
“It states that Roger Balbi and―”
“Marmota Constant,” Kelly said.
“And Marmota Constant, on this date blah blah blah, swear to never shake anyone’s hand again, and to always wash up in the john,” Roger said.
Kelly looked younger than her age, she’d been told, but was no one’s fool. Blah blah blah was ambiguous at best. Blah blah blah covered a multitude of sins. Blah blah blah said that the building would receive free elevator service for the next hundred years, with a twenty-minute response time.
“Nah.”
“Fine, fine.” He slapped his hand on the papers and dragged them away like a snake attacking a small rodent. “So what can I help you with?”
“I’m here to ensure that your Certified Elevator Inspectors are adhering to QEI-I compliance. I’ll need to review the elevator inspection reports, complaints, and accidents for this building.”
Roger didn’t answer right away, and she wondered if she had accidentally worn her Department of Buildings shirt (“Where Building a Better Pothole City Begins”). No, she was more careful than that, but glanced at her chest anyway to verify the logo. Yep, eagle grasping elevator parts in its claws. Check.
“You bet,” Roger finally said. “Let me get those for you.” He turned his back t
o her and rummaged through part of his wall of file cabinets. He spun back around, wielding papers.
“You can keep this for your records,” he said. “It’s our elevator complaint log and some other stuff. We keep up with our annual inspections―which is not typical for Pothole City―and are up to code. Is there anything else you need?”
“I’d like to take a look in your elevator control room.” This would take her two seconds, but the act of going to the room would make Roger impatient to get back to work, allowing her to slip away somewhere else. He would presume she could find her own way out.
Roger and Kelly passed an open elevator door on their way to the control room. Dragomir directed a hostile stare at the elevator’s control panel, which was connected to a laptop on his metal tool cart.
“Are you working on that shaking cab?” Roger asked the engineer.
“A shaking cab?” Kelly said. “Could be a faulty drive system wiring or belt. Or it may just need a simple door adjustment. Is there any banging or scratching?”
Both men stared at her like she’d grown a second head. She stared right back. After all, she was Marmota Constant, elevator inspector. A little bit of homework could go a long way, and was usually a lot more than most people bothered to do. Marmota Constant knew her elevators. Marmota Constant graduated from Purdue. She, however, had a limited knowledge of elevators that would soon be exhausted.
“Uh, I don’t―I don’t think so.” Roger flipped through his papers. “Maybe?”
“That’s not good,” she said. “Shaking and banging could indicate a broken hoist rope―”
“Or a relay needs replacing,” Dragomir said, focusing on the control panel. “Or cables need insulating.” He shot a territorial look of warning at her.
“Yeah. Or that.” She shot a look back.
A tense moment passed. Soft jazz played through the speakers.
Roger was called away and said he’d meet them in the machine room.
“QEI?” Dragomir said in a kind of growl, as though challenging her.
“QEI supervisor,” she corrected. “Periodic inspection on passenger and freight elevators.”
Dragomir huffed with skepticism and closed the control panel. He packed up his cart and held the doors with a look that said, ‘You getting in or not?’
They took the cab up to the second floor. Kelly watched Dragomir wheel his cart into an unmarked door down the hall. He had evidently honed his wiry physique with a combination of fuming, seething, and building engineering.
Once he was gone, she took the stairs up to the other floors to look for her fugitive.
elly took the stairs two at a time to the next floor. She practiced whenever she could in the city, often carrying a twenty-pound bag of bird seed. One day, there would be a very hungry, very large bird and a non-functioning elevator. On that day, she would be prepared.
She crept through the hallway. Smelling. Listening.
An apartment door ahead of her cracked open and a face peered around the edge. When she reached the door, she opened it wider and stepped in.
A small figure who reminded her of Tubiel sat cross-legged on a hardwood floor surrounded by pencils that had scattered to the walls. A concentration of furniture and towering stacks of papers and magazines completely dominated the wall near the window.
A big pop art pencil the length of a swordfish took up the space on one of the walls, and old pencil advertisements papered the other walls.
The small figure wiped his nose on his sleeve and emitted a half sob, half hiccup. She approached and crouched in front of him. His purple irises had tiny gold petal shapes in a daisy pattern from the pupil, and his pale skin was slick with tears. He scribbled on a drawing pad and handed it to her.
“‘I dropped the seventy holy pencils,” Kelly read off the paper. “I must find all of them before the Senior Reconciler comes back. If the Senior Reconciler finds out that I lost the holy pencils―”
His eyes widened and glazed over in terror.
“No wonder you look freaked out. I’d hate to work for someone with that title.” But then she remembered that she was working for the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse.
She reached out and patted the side of his arm, even though she always felt awkward trying to reassure anyone, and often thought that a robot would do a better job. “When is he coming back?”
He sketched a clock.
“An hour?”
He swallowed hard and nodded.
Kelly scratched her neck and stood. He must be a single-purpose angel like Tubiel. She would help him out, but needed a more exact time. “How about forty-five minutes to round up the pencils?”
The angel studied the large clock on the wall like it didn’t make any sense to him. After a moment, he held up some fingers.
“Twenty-seven minutes,” she said.
He nodded.
“How did this happen?”
The angel scribbled something down and she read it out loud again: “‘I got nervous and I threw the box in the air and pencils went everywhere.’“ He rocked back and forth, hugging his knees.
“Okay, I got it. You just hold tight.” She noticed a small refrigerator under the wooden pencil. It contained small cans of coffee drinks in one brand: Cluck Snack. She took out a Cluck Snack P’nut Butt’r Koffee Drink and handed it to the angel against her better judgment.
He scrawled ‘70’ across the entire surface of the pad and circled it several times.
“Yeah, I got it, don’t worry.” Kelly started to gather the pencils. “And you’re welcome,” she muttered under her breath.
Twenty-four minutes later, after searching around stacks of Carbon Fancy magazine, Faberhardt-Castel catalogs, Eberhard Faber Mongol boxes, colored ‘Hard Blue’ pencil boxes, guides to the Dewey Decimal System, taped-up cardboard boxes, and other crap, Kelly held a full box of seventy pencils.
She presented the box of holy pencils to the angel in the manner of a Chinese businessman handing someone his business card, but he curled up on his side in some kind of fugue state, his purple and gold eyes staring blankly at nothing in particular.
She waved her hand in front of his face. “Hello? You’ve got about a minute before the Senior Reconciler shows up, and I don’t even want to be here for that.” She slapped him, gently. He drooled. She slapped him again. Finally, he blinked.
Forty-one seconds. “I have the pencils.”
He took the cigar box and opened the lid, then tentatively rolled the pencils with his fingertips. He seemed to like the sound the pencils made when they rolled against one another, so he kept doing it until she put her hand over his.
“I’m gonna go now. OK?”
Twelve seconds. The purple-eyed angel could count the pencils if he wanted.
She had no desire to run into the Senior Reconciler, so she jogged down the hallway to the stairwell, but the elevator arrived with a “ding“ before she reached the door. She ducked behind the wall and peeked out at the elevator.
The elevator doors opened and swamp-gas green flames flickered out. A yellowish, bioluminescent blob with horn-rimmed glasses crept out of the cab. It made a guttural, phlegmy, harrumphing sound as it oozed across the carpet. Somehow, it wore a tie with a Windsor knot.
Moments after the Senior Reconciler egressed the elevator cab, a hand reached out and held one side of the doors as they started to close. An orange moth-like creature―distracted by the glow of his mobile phone―left the cab and stumbled down the hallway, seemingly unaware of the hulking blob in front of him.
The moth creature was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Reconciler sprayed a corrosive toxin from two acid glands, advanced on his immobilized prey, and oozed right over him. He emitted a dainty belch, and continued down the hallway to his home office.
Kelly waited until the door down the hallway had opened and closed before she took the stairs.
This was one weird building.
f headed toward the elevat
ors and joined Roger in the vestibule.
“What’s up, Af?” Roger flexed his neck until it cracked, smoothed his hair back, then hunched his shoulders up and down like he was struggling under a yoke.
Af wanted to know what Roger knew about the situation, and if Roger had something to do with all of the fallen and cast-down angels getting bound to the building he managed. If Raum and the rest of the board escaped, there would be a precipitous rise in assessments for those who stayed.
“Going down?” Roger gestured to one of the elevators. The other high-rise elevator was out of order and barricaded with yellow tape.
Af nodded and got in with Roger. They went to the first floor. Roger started to go toward his office, then paused mid-stride. “Sorry, Af, did you have something to tell me?”
“What do you make of this escaping business?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you heard about it?”
Roger gave him a sly grin. “I’m the manager. I know everything.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Well, I can’t stop them from planning the End of Days or from leaving, if that’s what they want to do.”
“And the assessments for the rest of us?”
“Painful.” Roger winked. “Sorry, Af, but I’ve got some things to finish up in the office.” He started toward the office and added, “Stop by later and pick up a copy of my new CD, Morning Energy with Roger Balbi!”
Arlene, who resembled a slender armadillo, but in a shade of lemon yellow, stepped out of the elevator, purse and sunglasses in hand.
“Oh, hello, Af. Long meeting, wasn’t it?”
“Long? It’s like a memory of an entire summer spent somewhere.”
Arlene tittered and headed to the door.
Imamiah walked at a competitive-level speed into the elevator vestibule.
“Imamiah,” Af called out, and the angel spun around, his heel squeaking on the polished granite floor. “Have you or the other board members reviewed the historic board minutes from before you and the others took over?”
“Well, no, why?”