“How many boxes of Nicósn truffles are available on Amazon Prime Same Day?” Poly asked my phone.
“Twelve.”
“Order them and have them delivered here, care of Dr. Kent,” said Poly.
“Done,” said my phone. “And thirty cases of Cthulhu Cola.”
“Smart,” I said.
That was an example of my phone showing initiative and good judgment. I hoped there would be enough chocolate for Queen Sherrhi, Tomáso, Diágo, and the Tōdon executives.
“Terrhi was pleased to hear the good news as well,” said my phone.
“I’m sure she was,” I said.
It would be nice to see Terrhi reunited with her parents, once her parents were in their right minds.
Poly stood next to me and leaned close.
“Can we go back to our hotel and get some shut-eye?” she asked. “I’m close to falling over and the caffeine is wearing off.”
“Sure,” I said. “Bed sounds pretty good to me, too.”
“Can you drive the blimp?” I asked my phone, suddenly feeling exhaustion overwhelm me.
“No problem,” it answered. “Just get to the dock and you’ll be back at your hotel in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter 38
“…what good would it be to discuss such a proposition…?”
— Jules Verne
I felt like an Orishen grub in its pupa stage, nestled tightly in a warm wrapping, waiting to be transformed. The quilt on the king-sized bed in our suite kept me toasty, except where two cold feet were pressed into my calves. I smiled when I realized they were Poly’s. Wait, why were her feet cold if we’d been sleeping like hibernating bears for hours?
“You awake?” asked Poly, rubbing her feet against my calves to warm them up.
“I am now,” I mumbled.
“Good,” she said. “I had to get up to answer a call of nature. Why doesn’t this place have heated floors in the bathroom?”
“There’s a motion detection sensor in the door frame activated by a switch on the wall.”
It was a challenge for my brain to string so many words together.
“Why can’t the suite just read my mind?” asked Poly.
“I’ll connect Roger Joe-Bob with the Hu Zahn Fierst folks in the morning.”
“It’s afternoon, I think.”
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, pulling a pillow over my head.
“If we hurry,” she said, “we can get in four hours at GALTEX.”
“Uh huh.”
I rolled over, but we’d neglected to close the curtains when we’d collapsed earlier and desert sunlight was blasting through my eyelids. Cold feet pushed my legs over the edge of the mattress. My bladder was also clamoring for attention.
“Okay, okay, I’m up,” I said.
I made a reluctant transition from horizontal to vertical and staggered into the bathroom. I turned on the heated floors as I went. When I was seated, I realized that Poly wasn’t up and moving.
“Hey,” I shouted, “why don’t we skip GALTEX today, sleep for another few hours, order room service, and pick up where we were before Terrhi knocked on our door?”
Poly raised her own voice from under the covers.
“Because there’s only a day and a half of GALTEX left and we haven’t seen anything yet.”
“What about…”
“We can do that tonight,” said Poly. “Consider this foreplay.”
I was only now realizing the downside of falling for a woman who loved technology as much—or more—than I did. As downsides went, it wasn’t much of a problem. I surrendered to the inevitable.
“What time is it?” I said.
“Five minutes past noon,” said my phone. “GALTEX is open until five o’clock.”
I transferred from the porcelain throne to the shower and started the water.
“Your shift,” I called.
I didn’t get a reply.
I filled a cup with cold water in one of the bathroom sinks and carried it into the bedroom. Poly was curled up like a snail in its shell and moving about as fast. I stood above her with the glass of water. She opened one eye.
“If a single drop of that lands on me, you’ll regret it.”
I walked back into the bathroom, dumped the water, and stepped into the shower. A few seconds later, Poly was behind me, giving me a hug.
“Scrub your back, mister?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
* * * * *
Chit had decided she wanted to kick back and relax today, so I left her and my backpack tool bag in our suite. That meant Poly and I were on our own when we stopped at a Mexican-Nicósn Fusion food truck on our walk to the Las Vegas Convention Center and had Nicósn tortilla fish burritos. We each had two—they were good and we were hungry. We used lots of napkins so we didn’t get any grease on our white company polo shirts or khakis. I talked Poly into having a Diet Starbuzz with me, because after all the caffeine we’d ingested earlier, I knew we’d get headaches if we tried to go cold turkey.
We’d had a moment of panic trying to locate our GALTEX badges earlier, but found them in plain sight on top of the dresser in our suite where we’d put them on Monday before leaving for dinner.
“Do you want to check out the inexpensive booths in the back again?” I asked. “We didn’t get a quarter of the way around the cheap seats last time. We could pick up where we left off?”
“I guess so,” said Poly, “if you don’t mind snooping around Verne Wells & Company, Chapultepec & Castle, and any other EUA-owned companies we can find, first?”
We were walking through the entry hall where we’d commandeered advertising dirigibles two days earlier.
“I did want a closer look at those submarine and tripod models, you’ll remember,” I said, “but aren’t we a little obvious if we’re going snooping?”
I pointed to our shirts’ embroidered Xenotech Support logos.
“I know how to handle that,” said Poly.
She asked me to stay put and wait while she went to a booth selling trinkets and novelties not far from the entrance. I proved to be a menace to navigation and was nearly run over by a pair of SSTs—small species’ transports. Musans, J’Vel, and other similarly-sized aliens used them to move around the show floor safely. They were built like half-scale Segways with transparent acrylic soccer ball-sized spheres mounted on top, which put their occupants at the right height to interact face-to-face with humans. I apologized and was sure I was being thoroughly cursed out in a language that was mostly ultrasonic.
When Poly came back, she was smiling and holding a small pouch with familiar red and black stick-on paper name tags. She put one on my shirt, covering our company logo. I couldn’t read it easily until she put another one on her shirt.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
“Brilliant,” I said.
Then I realized something.
“Our GALTEX badges have our names and Xenotech Support Corporation on them, too.”
“I thought of that,” said Poly.
She extracted her GalCon Systems gold pen from somewhere on her person—I could never figure out where she kept stuff like her phone, much less a pen—and checked the color of its ink by scribbling on the back of another Hello-My-Name-Is name tag. The ink was black.
“I’m going to need a flat surface,” said Poly, taking my hand and leading me over to a high narrow table piled with vendor literature.
I obediently followed.
She took off her convention badge and put it on the table, shoving some Carcharodon Systems brochures out of the way to make room. Then she flipped over the extra name tag she was holding and placed it next to her badge.
“There’s enough white space,” she noted. “I won’t have to go back and buy blank labels.”
I saw what she intended. There were two small rectangles of white space on the name tag, above and below the bold “Inigo Montoya” signature.
“Now if I can only duplicate the printing on our badges,” she said.
Poly’s mouth was slightly open and her tongue was behind her upper front teeth as she focused. Then my phone interrupted.
“Calligraphy and precision printing functions are programmed into this unit,” it said, hopping on the table and gently taking the pen from Poly’s fingers.
Its pseudopods swiftly matched the laser printed Helvetica on her badge and there were now two small rectangles of name tag with “Alice Liddell, Vice President, Snark Systems,” neatly lettered on them.
I handed over my convention badge and Poly pulled out another name tag. Soon, my phone had written two copies of “Charles L. Dodgson, Technical Writer, Snark Systems.”
A few seconds of work with my Swiss Army knife—also handled by my phone—resulted in both sides of our convention badges having new names and companies, with only fans of classic children’s literature likely to spot the subterfuge. We’d just have to remember not to let anyone scan our badges, since my phone couldn’t rewrite the data on their embedded chips.
“Verne Wells & Company first?” I asked.
“That makes sense,” said Poly. “They’re closer than C&C.”
We stopped holding hands as we walked—it wouldn’t do to have a mere technical writer seen fraternizing with a vice president—and approached the Verne Wells’ booth. Its banners and signage were in a steampunk-inspired style. A sales rep dressed in late nineteenth century finery approached us, saw the title on my badge, and turned to Poly.
“Could I interest you in a full-scale version of the Nautilus?” he said, hoping that a VP title meant major budget authority. “We have eight available for immediate purchase.”
I guessed that nobody had told him all eight of those subs were now in the hands of the Nevada National Guard. Poly didn’t make eye contact and continued to browse.
“We also have leasing options.”
She still ignored him.
“And short term rentals for corporate events.”
Poly picked up a model Martian tripod. The sales rep stepped close to her and pushed a small button in the base of the hemispherical control unit. The legs retracted. He pushed it again, and the legs extended again. Poly put the tripod back on the kiosk where it had been originally. I was hanging back, pretending to examine a model of the bullet-ship that traveled From the Earth to the Moon.
“How much,” she said.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand galcreds each,” said the sales rep, looking excited about the prospect of a big sale.
“No,” said Poly, “not for a full sized unit. I want a robotic version of this model.”
“Those are designed to be toys,” said the rep. “Something to put on a shelf in your office to remind people you can afford a full-sized one.”
“That’s a pity,” said Poly. “I hate changing light bulbs in my cathedral ceilings and one of these would be ideal to take care of those hard to reach places.”
“But congruency-powered bulbs never need to be changed,” said the rep.
“I don’t use congruency-powered bulbs,” said Poly. “They’re so déclassé. Everyone who’s anyone uses incandescent bulbs, for a classic look. It’s the light quality, don’t you know?”
I wasn’t sure how she managed it, but her tone conveyed that her nose was high in the air, even though she hadn’t lifted her chin a quarter of an inch. The sales rep was completely befuddled. To add to his aggravation, I picked up the bullet-ship and was flying it over to make attack runs on a pair of models of H. G. Wells’ land ironclads—turtle-like armored vehicles with large guns.
“My tanks!” exclaimed the sales rep.
“No need for gratitude,” I said, zooming the bullet-ship back to its original resting place and bringing it in for a smooth landing.
“Is there someone in authority I can speak with to see about purchasing a robotic model tripod?” Poly sniffed, reclaiming the sales rep’s attention. “I suppose, worst case, I could hire a Musan or J’Vel to operate one if you don’t have any with built-in automation.”
“I’ll see if someone more senior is available,” said the rep, escaping to the far side of the booth where several others in nineteenth century period costume were clustered.
“Nicely done,” I said, whispering to Poly.
“I was just channeling my mother,” she replied.
Having met Poly’s mother, I understood completely.
“I want to see if Verne Wells & Company is actively part of EUA’s scheming, or just being used,” Poly continued. “I’m not picking up any actively evil vibes from them so far. Let’s see what someone in management sounds like.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Just a typically pushy sales approach. You can’t fault them for that.”
“Shhh…” said Poly. “Here he comes.”
I went back to examining various scale models, figuring out which ones to mess with to raise the sales rep’s blood pressure the most. He was returning with a short, stout, gray-haired woman dressed in a turn of the previous century suffragette’s outfit. She bore a slight resemblance to Queen Victoria and seemed every bit as formidable.
“Good afternoon,” said the woman, offering Poly her hand. “I’m Letitia Bright, president of Verne Wells & Company. How may I help you?”
Poly didn’t have to feign looking shocked.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I had no idea I’d be speaking with the president of the company. I’m honored!”
“No,” Letitia replied. “The honor is mine to meet a prospective member of the Verne Wells family. We take a very active interest in our clients’ happiness. And you are…?”
“Where are my manners,” said Poly. “I’m Alice Liddell, vice president of Snark Systems.”
I had a feeling my phone may have outsmarted itself.
Poly motioned me over.
“My associate is Charlie Dodgson, one of our technical writers.”
Letitia looked us both up and down, critically. She shook her head back and forth, making a soft clucking sound, then addressed me.
“Tell me, Charlie—can you give me one reason why I shouldn’t feed you and Miss Wonderland to the frumious Bandersnatch? Or dispatch you with my vorpal sword?”
I was ready to “baaa,” I felt so sheepish. I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Poly recovered more quickly and saved us from the jaws that bite and the claws that catch.
“My apologies for the subterfuge, Ms. Bright,” she said. “My friend and I run a small tech support firm and we’ve been approached by EUA recently with a very tempting takeover offer. We wanted to see what a company EUA acquired recently felt like. We’re concerned about our team’s morale and have heard some sketchy stories about EUA’s business practices.”
Ms. Bright didn’t react to Poly’s words initially. Gears seemed to be turning in her head.
“This isn’t the best place to talk about such things,” she said after a few moments. “Follow me.”
We accompanied her into one of those in-booth deal rooms, where vendors can meet privately with their clients and prospects. Letitia didn’t say anything until she’d activated a Cone of Silence field. We all sat down. Letitia set her shoulders, as if she’d made a difficult decision.
“If you haven’t already accepted their offer,” she said, “I have one word—don’t.”
Poly and I looked at each other. As before, Poly did the talking.
“That’s why we stopped by,” said Poly. “Something about EUA didn’t feel right.”
> “I wish I’d been as wise as you were when EUA made me an offer,” said Letitia.
“But you’re already Bright,” I said, regretting my words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Poly and Letitia ignored me and let it pass.
“What happened after you were acquired?” ask Poly.
“It wasn’t bad at first,” said Letitia, “but then the special requests started coming in.”
“Like what?” I said, trying to redeem myself.
“Do you know anything about our business model?” asked Letitia.
“A little,” said Poly, “but pretend we don’t.”
“Right,” said Letitia. “We make cool retro toys for wealthy clients.”
“Full-sized submarines don’t seem like toys,” remarked Poly.
“They are the way we build them,” said Verne Wells’ president. “For the cost of a home in Beverly Hills or a condo on the Upper West Side, you could own your own copy of the Nautilus. For less than the cost of an entry-level Rolls Royce, you could have your own Martian tripod. We’re in the childhood dreams business.”
I nodded. Poly tilted her head into a quizzical position.
“Tell us about the special requests,” she said.
“Owning one of our submarines is supposed to be fun,” said Letitia. “They come with pipe organs, for goodness sake. The only weapons on our subs are steampunk-style metal water guns—so owners can say they’ve bought their own brass cannons.”
Poly and I both laughed at that. We were both fans of Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and loved the story of the government cannon polisher who bought his own brass cannon and went into business for himself.
Letitia laughed as well. She looked a lot less intimidating when she was laughing. I was beginning to like her.
Xenotech What Happens: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 3) Page 31