“We don’t send it piecemeal,” Ahmed said. “We don’t send anything until the commission reaches at least a hundred bucks.”
Fred shrugged. “Whatever.”
Conrad walked into Ahmed’s “office”, which was really more of a workshop, a large room with a white tiled floor and several broad tables completely covered with a wide variety of electrical and mechanical devices in different states of disassembly. Ahmed was seated on a wheeled stool, crouched over a device that was slowly and meticulously unrolling the magnetic tape of one of the Hi8 cassettes. He pressed a button to stop it and looked up at Conrad.
“I think I’ll be able to recover these video tapes with up to ninety-four percent quality,” he said cheerfully.
“Yeah, um, about, you know . . .” Conrad said, fidgeting with his hands in his pocket. “Do you know who Roz is going to have edit the digital versions, you know, for publication?”
“Probably Frenchie or Dole, the usual folks.”
“‘Cause I’ve been working on video editing, you know, affects and sounds and stuff. I think I’ve got a knack for it, my dad says so. If you want to see some samples I can send them to you, and you can send them to Roz if you think they’re good.”
Ahmed smiled good-naturedly. “Sure Conrad, you send them over to me.” He stood. “Let’s go get your pay.”
As Conrad fell in behind him he said, “I’d work for a lot less than Frenchie and Dole, at least until I proved myself.”
“I’ll look over your stuff and talk it over with Roz.”
They left the workshop and navigated through the maze of shelves until they came to a metal door with a window of frosted security glass. Ahmed knocked and the door buzzed. Ahmed opened it and he and Conrad went inside.
Across from them in the small bare room was a wooden counter about a meter and a half high that looked like it had been gnawed on by an anxious shark. Metal bars extended from the counter to the ceiling. Behind the counter was a bald geezer with a long white beard, seated with his feet up as he read an old paper graphic novel. Lying across his lap was a Remington 870 shotgun. Behind him were rows of shelves that contained Roz’s more expensive merchandise; autographed baseballs, classic electric guitars, collectible toys, and even gold bars.
“Payday?” The geezer said without looking up.
“Conrad Hicks,” Ahmed said.
The geezer put down his graphic novel and brought his feet down to the floor, standing and leaning his shotgun against the counter. He walked over to an ATM that Ahmed had modified a few years ago to keep Roz’s petty cash. The geezer leaned in close to the ATM and said loudly, “Conrad Hicks!” The machine spit out some bills. He counted the money and then slid it through the bars along with a small ledger book and pen.
“One hundred and seventy-three dollars. Winner winner chicken dinner.” The geezer always said that.
Conrad stuffed the money into his pocket and signed the ledger. The geezer went back to his chair and continued reading.
As they left the room and walked through the warehouse, Conrad said, “Hey Ahmed, have you seen my dad lately?”
“It’s been a couple weeks, why?”
“He didn’t come home last night. He always comes home.”
Ahmed chuckled. “Maybe he’s finally got a boyfriend.”
Conrad scrunched his eyebrows negatively and said, “Naw, I don’t think so. He was real pissed off about BAV day. I mean really pissed off. And it’s not like I can find him on peeper.”
“That’s for sure. Well, send me a text so I’ll have your contact info, now that you’re part of the real world, and if he comes in or if I hear anything I’ll text you back. You are on a real account now, right?”
“Yeah, that’s one of the things that pissed him off.”
“There’s only so much you can do kid,” Ahmed said. “The world’s going to do its own thing. Your dad’s a rebel—one of the last. He’s not just swimming against the current, he’s swimming against a tsunami. I respect that, but, I hate to say it, it’s more than just a little crazy.”
“Yeah I know,” Conrad said.
Chapter 6
Terri opened a jar of strawberry jam and shoveled it out with her knife onto her wheat toast. Zocarro’s had the best strawberry jam, with real chunks of strawberry smothered in sweet jammy goodness. Natalya was in a bright mood, sitting across from her at the outdoor café, shaded by a big green umbrella, humming as she put orange marmalade on her own toast, content with how last night’s graduation party had played out. Despite all of the potentials for disaster, Natalya’s night had been a smashing success and Terri had been instrumental to that success. They could now enjoy an early afternoon breakfast at the most exclusive café on Slat 3 of The Helix. There was a terrific view of The Bergs and a cool breeze that was a comforting contrast to the visible heat radiating from the streets far below. They each had a silk scarf casually tying up their hair, Natalya’s gold and Terri’s a black and white floral, which along with their capris, flip-flops, baggy sweatshirts and oversized movie-star sunglasses told the world they were relaxing without a care at all to their appearances.
Natalya took a sip of her coffee and said, “That Conrad of yours is really starting to build up an online presence. I already know that he likes to play Blood-Raker and he has an interest in video editing. We have to get to him before he starts to look too normal.”
“You said something about dinner.” Terri had hoped that Natalya would go at least a couple of days before making Conrad into her next project. That girl always had to be focused on something.
“Yeah, bring him in with dinner. We need to get him under the discipline of one of my media consultants. I’m thinking SugarBear. SugarBear has the most imagination. But it has to be done soon. We need to bring him someplace that will impress him, but not scare him. I’m thinking the Green Inn, by Lake Wren. He’s a Luddite so he must like rustic environments. Does he like rustic environments?” She paused and cocked her head in puzzlement. “It’s so weird with this guy!” She slapped her palms on the table. “I can’t just look up his interests, I have to try to guess, or ask other people. I have to ask you. Does he like rustic environments?”
“We didn’t have much experience with rustic environments when we were growing up. We went to parks a few times . . . but, I remember, this one time he did talk about running away out beyond the city, out into the woods to live off the land.”
“Did he actually do it?” Natalya grinned mischievously. “Did he actually go out and build a log cabin and hunt wild game with a bow and arrow and dig up tubers and make them into a tuber stew?”
“I really doubt it.”
“It would be so cool though! If he was living out in the woods wearing the buckskin from some buck he killed with his bare hands and he was discovered by a tribe of Luddites who wanted to kill the newcomer to protect their secret lair but he saved the chief’s daughter by killing a grizzly bear and the daughter convinced most of the tribe to allow him to attempt the initiation ritual into the tribe, except for the greatest warrior they had who was in love with the chief’s daughter so he tried to sabotage the initiation ritual which involved poison spikes and a fire pit.”
Terri leaned back and crossed her arms, looking critically at Natalya, which she knew she was only allowed to do when Natalya was intentionally going over the top. The trick was knowing when Natalya was intentionally going over the top. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t do that.”
“No, but we could sell it! No one knows what he’s done, where he’s been. All we need is some memento of his adventures he could show people, like a bear claw on a leather thong he could wear around his neck. I could even do without the tribe of Luddites. We could have him say he just lived out in the wilderness by himself for a year, eating cans of old dog food in the ruins of some grocery store.” She snickered. “He could wear a can opener around his neck.”
Terri continued to look critically at her, although she wasn’t so sure now. “I don’t think it will
work if you want to have Conrad lie about his past. He’s a real big advocate of honesty.”
“That’s when he was a kid,” Natalya said dismissively. “Everyone grows up eventually.”
“Do you want to invite SugarBear to the dinner?”
“Oh no no. I’ve got to get a feel for him first. See where his head’s at. See if he still is this honest incorruptible force you’re making him out to be. From what I remember he was a little whiny baby. But people grow up eventually. Let’s have the right amount of people. Four people. Four people is just the right number. Enough people to avoid awkward silences but not too many where a newcomer can get lost and forgotten.”
“So who are you going to have as the fourth person if not SugarBear?”
“Sergei.”
“Your brother?” Terri said, a little startled at the choice, sitting up straight and putting her hands on her coffee mug to warm them. She hadn’t seen much of Sergei over the past year.
“My brother has been saying he needs to take me out to dinner to congratulate me for graduating. I’m sure he didn’t mean dinner at the Green Inn with four people, but he owes me. He’s always boasting how he can get a table in any restaurant in town. Let’s see if he can get us one of those little alcoves on the side. With a fireplace. Call up your friend and invite him now.”
“Don’t you have to wait for Sergei to make the reservations first?”
“Tell your friend we’ll be eating tomorrow night at nine o’clock. The car will be at his place at eight-thirty.”
Terri felt nervous calling Conrad with Natalya watching. She decided to make it purely a voice call. She selected Conrad’s name from her contact list, it immediately flashed red and told her she could leave a voice mail or text.
“Right to voice mail,” Terri said, deciding to add a little frustration to her voice to hide her relief.
“Well . . . leave one. And be sweet.”
Terri pressed the virtual microphone button in the air in front of her and smiled, saying, “Hi Conrad! Send me a text the next time you’re available to talk. I’m sorry we were cut off so short the last time. See you soon!”
Natalya made her sour face. “I wouldn’t call you back with that lame message. Have you banged this guy?”
“Oh no, we were just kids! I mean I left the Rocks when I was fourteen—”
“You don’t want to know what I had done by the time I was fourteen.” Natalya pulled the crust off her bread and dipped it in the marmalade. “Really you don’t.” She pulled it out and slowly sucked the marmalade off of it. “I’m just trying to establish boundaries with this guy. I want him to be comfortable.” She took a bite out of the crust. “Will you fucking him make him comfortable? Will me fucking him make him comfortable? Will Sergei fucking him make him comfortable? Oh yeah, is he gay? That’s another thing people should really put on their dox.”
“His dad’s gay, but I don’t think he is.” Terri crossed her arms and looked down.
“Don’t think? Don’t think? So how well do you really know this guy?”
“We were close but we didn’t talk much about sex . . . but we did, you know, kiss once.”
“Really?” Natalya brightened. “Was it hot and heavy?”
“Well . . . I don’t know,” Terri said quietly, still looking down. “It was both of our first kiss.”
Natalya made a check in the air. “Possibly gay. I’ll have to make a positive determination tomorrow night, probably with cleavage and eye tracking software.”
Terri looked up. “Our relationship—” she stopped when a popup from the app ViewTuTu came up in her field of vision. It was Marja, and she was stepping out of an elevator onto Slat 3. Terri leaned forward and whispered, “Marja is on our slat.”
“Yeah, I’ve been tracking her since she left her apartment,” Natalya said nonchalantly. “I figured she might want a confrontation.”
“How do you want to play it?”
“We’ll play it cool. I’m cool, you’re cool, she’s cool. We’re all cool.”
They nibbled on their toast and sipped their coffee as they waited. It wasn’t long before Marja and her sidekick, little blond Casey, came through the gate of the short wrought iron fence of the restaurant, weaving through the café tables with the singular and undisguised design of confronting Natalya. The two were similarly dressed in post-party casual, Marja favoring greens and Casey favoring reds. Natalya ignored them until they were standing over their table.
“Oh hi Marja!” Natalya turned to them and gushed, smiling sweetly. “I don’t think I got a chance to thank you for coming to my party last night. The Fine Fools where just amazing, weren’t they?”
Both Marja and Casey remained stone-faced. Marja said, “Stuff it.” Her voice, with the barest Finnish accent, remained flat. “Just stuff it. I know you’re behind the hack. That kind of shit can get you in trouble. There will be legal repercussions. I’m going to make sure this gets traced back to you and I’m going to make sure peeper knows about it. Uncle Ragnar practically owns the internet. There will be fines and there will be lawsuits.”
Natalya retained her sweet smile. She slid her sunglasses up to her head, to look Marja directly in the eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sit down and have some tea. I know you like tea; they have a bewildering variety of tea here. My cousin Ruby Chu from Singapore came here to Zocarro’s last month and she was impressed by the variety of tea, and that takes—”
“Fuck you!” Marja shouted. Heads from around the café turned towards them. “You’ve gone too far this time! I was going to invite you up to the stage with the Fine Fools! Uncle Ragnar wants us to get along! Now you pull this shit! Fuck you!”
Natalya brought her hand up to her face, and, with the middle finger prominently extended, used it to wipe under her left eye. “I think some of your frothy spittle went into my eye. You don’t have herpes, do you? Or rabies?”
Marja made a gurgling sound deep in her throat that finally escaped her lips as a shriek. She went into a crouch and pushed Natalya and her chair. Both Natalya and the chair went sprawling onto the ground. Terri immediately stood up.
Lying on her side, Natalya looked about wide-eyed until she saw that blood was seeping into her sweatshirt from a scrape on her elbow. “Assault!” she yelled in panic. “Police! Assault! Police!”
Casey pulled Marja away and they hurriedly left the café. Terri went over to Natalya with the intention to help her up but Natalya pushed her hand away.
“Where are the police?” Natalya cried. “I want them to see what happened to me. I could have hit my head! I could have been killed! And where were you?” Natalya looked at Terri accusingly. “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“It happened so fast—”
“You’re from the Rocks, weren’t you in street brawls or something? You could have jumped between us, knocked her away from me. What good are you if you can’t stop me from being assaulted?”
“I’ve never been in a street brawl.”
“Where are the fucking police? Why are they staying away? I’m going to have Marja arrested! Why does everything bad happen to me!”
“Here they come,” Terri said as two police officers came riding into the café on Segways.
Chapter 7
Conrad sat on the bottom step in front of his apartment door, his smart glasses on. It was night, the white street light glow creating a slash of light and dark in his stairwell. His father had still not returned home. Conrad was sitting outside because he was playing Blood-Raker. In the game, he was walking down an alley in a city that was grand and gothic, a mixture of modern and medieval architecture that reflected a world where magic and technology were on equal footing and you needed to use both to survive. Under a blood-red moon Conrad heard something growl from behind a dumpster. He had only been playing the game for a day but knew that growl well—werewolf. He pulled out his .357 revolver and checked the bullets—he was out of silver. Oh well, there was always the shotgun. No matt
er how magical you are, it’s never fun to be shot by a 12 gauge. Conrad had been raised to be a pacifist and hated guns in real life—it was one of the few things he agreed with his father about—but unlike his father he had no problems with virtual guns. He holstered the revolver and pulled the shotgun from his long coat. He was about to chamber a shell when a popup appeared declaring “Danny’s Delivery! 13 minutes, 54 seconds. Hot and fresh from the oven!”
Conrad lowered his shotgun and slowly backed away from the dumpster. He hoped he hadn’t gotten into the werewolf’s agro range. You couldn’t log out if you were in combat mode and Conrad was starving. The werewolf remained hidden and Conrad walked into the shadow of a doorway, clicked on the menu floating in the corner, and logged out.
His glasses, no longer opaque, showed him his real city at night, no moon in view. Above him, blocking the street light so that it was haloed by its glow, was the Deliverator 3000. A Deliverator looked like a motorcycle with absurdly small tires that had a giant black beach ball for a rider. Electrically powered, it was silent, so Conrad hadn’t heard it approach. This one had apparently anticipated coming down the stairs to the door, because it was in “stand-up” mode, balanced on its rear tire, its front tire at head height, making it look like a portly life-sized Neolithic Venus statuette come to life.
The “beach ball” was in fact the storage compartment where the food or whatever else the Deliverator was delivering was kept. It was held between a semi-circular bar that had pins at the ends going into the left and right side—allowing the storage compartment to rotate so that it was always right side up—a crucial ability, especially when delivering pizza.
“Conrad, your pizza is ready,” the Deliverator said in a gentle male voice. “Would you like me to come down the stairs?”
“No that’s fine,” Conrad said, walking up to street level. As he did a horizontal slot opened in the side of the sphere and a round pizza box slid halfway out, like an old-fashioned CD. Conrad pulled sixty dollars from his pocket and slid them into the money slot.
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 4