“No, two. We don’t know what’s in two different sizes.”
Armada dunked a cracker into a bowl of peanut butter as his wife strolled back to their ping-pong table, pointing as she called out.
“All of these boxes here are board games. Monopoly, traditional and Chinese checkers, Scrabble, chess, something called Risk, Yahtzee, dominoes … and beside those are card games. Skip-Bo, Uno … and I don’t know how many decks of playing cards. I’d guess there’s at least a thousand.”
Chloe turned away from Armada and leaned back against him, standing between his legs. She reached beside her and plucked a large pickle from a glass jar.
“You know…,” she said before chomping on the big dill, “with everything Wyczthack has stored here and at Strataca … Engenechem has invested billions and billions of dollars.”
Armada wrapped his arms around Chloe’s waist and gently swayed from side to side.
“I mean, just look at all this!” she growled, taking another bite of her pickle. “All this junk … for a few thousand people … and the remaining six-and-a-half billion … they just get erased!”
“That’s something we still have to figure out. How’s Wyczthack gonna do it?”
Armada took Chloe’s wrist, pulled her arm up and back, and bit off a large chunk of her pickle.
“Chemical? Biological? Nuclear? Depletion of natural resources? We gotta get on that. His method of extermination.”
Armada nudged Chloe forward, lowered himself off the table, and walked around her.
“He’ll have to do it in an expedient manner,” she commented as she, too, dipped a cracker in the bowl of peanut butter. “It wouldn’t make sense to drag out a mass extinction. It’ll be catastrophic, fast, and on a scale nobody has ever seen or imagined.”
“Nobody except Wyczthack and White.”
Armada approached the leaning stack of long, wide cardboard boxes and attempted to lift one up off the ground. He spread his stance, squatted slightly, and sandwiched the container between his hands. With the greatest of ease he lifted the box.
“This doesn’t weigh much at all,” he declared as he lowered it down.
“Well, it felt heavy to me,” Chloe responded.
The end flaps on this box weren’t stapled like the other, and the adhesive used to seal the flaps wasn’t especially strong. Armada peeled back the cardboard with very little effort.
“Well, that was easy,” he stated while pulling back the interior flap.
Chloe placed the rest of the cracker in her mouth and began walking toward her beaux.
“This is actually pretty light,” he informed her while slowly removing the mystery object from its shell,
“Ugh! More plastic wrap,” she said as the end of the parcel became visible.
Chloe began tugging on the opposite end of the box, allowing Armada to remove the wide object.
“Looks like a soccer field,” she commented.
“Soccer?”
Chloe knelt and stuck her hand in the box and retrieved a booklet.
“Official Competition Air Hockey,” she read aloud.
“Yes! Air hockey! I wanna play!”
“Hold on there, Turbo. Let’s open up one of those others first.”
“Pool, air hockey, ping-pong, cards…,” Armada recited. “We’re gonna be pretty busy.”
Chloe led him to a section of the ‘playground’ with a couple hundred of heavy corrugated boxes measuring roughly six feet long, three feet wide, and three feet deep.
“Now, these are the ones that weigh a ton,” she said, patting the side.
“We’ll see ‘bout that,” Armada commented as he placed his hands on top.
He tried pushing the box out and away from the rest, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Huh. Whadyaknow?” she mumbled to her husband. “See? Told you it was heavy.”
“All right, all right. Help me get my hands behind it.”
The couple managed to pull one end of the box out a bit, allowing Armada to step into the gap. As Chloe tugged on the corner, Armada pushed with his legs. They eventually succeeded in creating a two-foot wide perimeter around the box.
“Baby, go and get the pry bar, please.”
“Aaawww,” she moaned in approval.
“Yeah, yeah,” he drably replied as she skipped to the section of crates containing the pool tables.
“Here you go,” Chloe cheerfully chirped, placing the tool in his palm, “baby.”
“Thanks, baby,” he said.
Armada forced the angled and forked tip of the bar under the seam where the two flaps met and pushed it deep. He pulled up on the curved end, forcing the metal through the thick layers of sturdy cardboard.
“This thing better be extremely fragile and breakable with the way they pack it up.”
Chloe watched her husband work up a sweat as he wrestled with the container. Finally, at long last, he reached the opposite end of the sarcophagus.
“Yay for you, baby,” Chloe cheered, leaning out to pull back one side of the torn cardboard.
“Bonzini,” she abruptly stated.
“Bon what?”
Armada bent the remainder of the box top backwards out of his way.
“Bonzini,” he repeated, reading the manufacturer’s name printed boldly on a legal-sized manila envelope.
Chloe picked up the envelope, ripped away one end, and turned it upside down. Armada tore at strips of packing tape holding a flat piece of cardboard in place.
“Ah … White and Wyczthack are the proud owners of more than one hundred Bonzini official regulation, competition-size foosball tables.”
“Foosball? What’s that?”
“Well … from what I gather … it’s soccer with little men.”
Armada stepped up behind her, peered over her shoulder, and shrugged with disconcert.
“Pool sounds more interesting to me.”
Chloe lackadaisically tossed the instruction manual on top of the semiexposed game table and walked away.
“What are these?” Armada asked, pointing at a sequestered stack of boxes.
“Don’t know. Haven’t gotten to ‘em yet.”
The duo pushed and shoved themselves a path to the collection of two-foot square boxes.
“I wonder what’s inside,” Chloe commented as she examined the exterior decals.
“Only one way to know for sure.”
Armada peeled back the center strip of packing tape on top of one box and ripped away half of the folded flaps. Chloe read aloud the wording on the labels and stickers.
“Fragile. This side up. Warning … electrical components.”
Armada reached into the box and retrieved a handful of Styrofoam packing peanuts and a layer of bubble wrap.
“No way!” he shouted after glancing in the carton. “No stinking way!”
He jumped up and down while hollering, “Woo-hoo!” from the top of his lungs.
“What?” Chloe excitedly asked. “What is it?”
“Woo-hoo!” Armada continued to squeal, bouncing about.
He rushed towards her, crouched low, and flung her wildly over his shoulder.
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes! This is exactly what we needed!”
“Tell me, you idiot!” Chloe laughingly demanded as her husband hopped, twirled, and spun around.
“Oh, baby!” Armada joyfully remarked, flinging her off his shoulder into his arms.
“This is so unbelievably incredible!”
He lowered Chloe to her feet, placed his hands on her cheeks, and kissed her passionately.
“Oh, my gosh, Chloe. This changes everything!” he breathlessly declared.
Armada took his wife by the hand and led her back to the partially opened box.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he shouted, glancing up at the ceiling.
They both knelt down and Armada began vigorously tearing away at the box top.
“Wow, oh wow, oh wow!” he stated.
After having torn the remai
nder of the cardboard flaps, he extracted a thin but long and wide carton.
“Tablets. We got tablets!”
“Oh, Armada!” she exclaimed, grasping the small container.
“We can communicate,” he stated, removing the computers one by one. “We can look at WATCHER and EGGS any time we want. I can access any record, file, or camera. I can contact Euclid. We can….”
“Eden?” Chloe interrupted. “Can you create a manifest request to Eden?”
“I can create a thousand.”
With tears in her eyes, she suddenly lunged at Armada and snuggly wrapped her arms around his neck. After a lengthy embrace, she released him and sat back on her haunches.
“Thank you, wherever you are. Thanks for this,” Chloe called out, wiping her eyes. “This’ll really help us.”
“Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three … twenty-five. Twenty-five tablets per case. And we have how many cases?”
“Plenty.”
“Exactly. Let’s take these and one more box back to our room. I’ll go get the cart.”
CHAPTER 32
I SPY
“All right, let me tell you what I’m thinking.”
The couple stood in front of their bedroom dresser with all fifty tablets stacked neatly on top.
“I wanna get two more tablets, one for each of us, and use them as our primary keyboards and points of entry.”
“What about all of these?”
“These … will be our monitors,” he said, stepping towards the dresser. “I’ll create a program that will broadcast certain video surveillance cameras to specific tablets and run on a timer … just like closed circuit systems.”
“How many cameras do you think we’ll need to access?” she asked as she began unpacking the first carton.
“I figure five cameras per tablet on broadcast loops consisting of twelve seconds each.”
Armada joined his wife in removing the contents of the boxes.
“Problem is…,” he started saying, then paused, “how do we keep fifty-two of these fully charged, twenty-four seven? We don’t have extension cords or power strips. And there’s only three outlets in here, plus one in our bathroom.”
“Leave the power supply to me. I’m the engineer, remember?”
Chloe then bonked Armada on the back of his head with an empty carton.
“And just how, pray tell, do you intend to monitor the monitors?” she snarkily inquired, bonking his head once more.
“Oh … I’m way ahead of you,” he replied, smacking her on the forehead with his empty, lightweight box.
“First, we’re gonna take the box the pool table came in, bring it in here, and lean it horizontally against the far wall. Second, we’ll slice small openings that will fold out so the tablets have something to rest on to support their weight.”
“It’ll take at least two crates, using both front and backsides, to house all fifty tablets. That gives us four panels to set them up,” Chloe commented.
After removing the tablet computers and accessories from their cartons, Armada piled the empty boxes on the cart and swiftly wheeled it to the trash receptacle at the back of the kitchen.
A few moments later, as he was leaving the warehouse, Chloe was passing him on her way in.
“Hey there, pretty lady,” he taunted playfully, “where are you off to?”
“Forklift charging station. I need wire strippers and electrical tape.”
“Good luck,” he stated as she approached him and offered up a quick kiss.
Armada returned to their room, plugged in one of the new, pristine tablet computers, and immediately set to work on creating his monitor program. A few minutes later, Chloe entered the room laden with wire strippers, voltage meters, electrical tape, soldering gun and wire, and several other devices. While Armada diligently wrote out his coding and selected the video cameras he wished to view, Chloe focused on the daisy chain assembly of the fifty tablet power cords and modifying the condensers. Within a couple of hours, she successfully spliced and grafted a single, unique power cord capable of charging thirteen tablets simultaneously, while occupying only one outlet. For Armada’s plans to work, she’d have to fabricate three additional power cords to power up the remaining thirty-seven tablets.
Working hours and hours on end was nothing new to Armada and Chloe. Be it EVA assignments on the Arenas or Clouds, maintaining and caring for the animals in the Arks, or paying meticulously close attention to the crops on Eden, the couple could push through twenty-four-hour work details unfettered.
After having completed the assembly of her four adapted power cords, Chloe left Armada to his coding and programming while she wheeled the kitchen cart to the recreation area. She took with her a utility knife and scissors she found earlier in the forklift service bay. With one end of the box containing the first pool table already opened, Chloe cut along the edges of the cardboard panel, leaving a sheet of rigid corrugate measuring roughly four feet by eight feet. She leaned the panel against another box, then scooted two of the crates containing the tablets in front of the pool table. She gingerly pulled the ornately decorated billiard table toward her and slowly lowered it down to rest on the two smaller boxes. It took no time at all to cut out another panel from the backside of the mammoth carton. After repeating the process on the second pool table, Chloe had the four sheets of cardboard ready to go.
***
“Knock, knock!” Chloe stated as she dragged the sheets of corrugate into the room. “Special delivery.”
“Wow!” Armada exclaimed, rising from his chair. “My, but aren’t you the expedient one!”
“Hey, when you got a job to do….”
“What else you got?”
Chloe leaned the four sheets of cardboard against the wall on the far side of their bedroom, turned to face him, and held up her index finger. She silently brushed by her husband, entered the hallway, and before he could see her, began speaking.
“Breakfast is served,” she said, rolling the cart into the room.
“Uh, miss, I don’t recall ordering room service.”
“No? Well, shut up and eat.”
Chloe stood toe to toe with her beaux and entered his personal space.
“You shut up and eat,” he sarcastically demanded.
“No … you shut up first, then eat.”
The couple kissed and brought the cart up next to their table.
***
“All right, here we go,” Chloe stated, but not with any confidence or enthusiasm.
She grasped the plug dangling at the end of the first power cord, leaned over, and pushed it into the top outlet. Chloe stood beside the first cardboard panel and waited.
“Well?” Armada said, facing the wall of powerless computers.
“Hold on….”
Chloe checked the ports on each tablet, pressing the adapters snuggly into place.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped, holding her hands in the air.
She reached behind the wall of tablets and jiggled the plug, just to make sure it was inserted completely.
Suddenly, a muted, high-pitched bell began chiming.
“Oooh!” Chloe squealed, jumping in place while clapping her hands.
“There’s one,” she proudly stated as the tablet’s tiny green LED power bulb flickered to life.
“That’s two,” she proclaimed as the bell for the second computer started dinging.
Armada leapt at his bride, enveloped her in his arms, and spun them around and around.
“Woo-hoo! You did it, baby!” he joyously praised her.
He stopped spinning and held her up high, pulling her firmly into his chest.
While still suspended and pressed against him, Chloe laid her head on his shoulder. Her eyes suddenly felt heavy. Armada gently twisted from side to side, relishing the simple, tender moment, the blissful sensation of feeling her heart beating against his and the warmth of her breath on his skin.
They counted the chiming computers all the way to number thirteen.
“Job well done, Professor,” Armada whispered.
Chloe giggled and nuzzled her face against his neck, as if preparing to go to sleep.
“All righty then, down you go.”
“Mmmm,” she hummed miserably and squeezed her arms tightly.
“Let’s get you to bed. You’ve been a busy girl.”
“Oh, baby, no,” she moaned as her muscular husband bent over and tenderly laid her on their bed. “Armada?”
“Sorry,” he commented as he dashed to the bathroom.
“I’ve got a ton to do,” she heard him say just before he turned off the lights.
With her eyes already closed, Chloe rolled to her right side, away from the glare of the corner lampstand. She heard the clicking of the lighter and, through her eyelids, saw the bright orange flame of the candle on the nightstand.
“You had a long day,” Armada commented as he squatted down beside her.
He unfolded and draped a wet, warm washcloth across Chloe’s face and gently cleaned her skin.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?”
“Soon.”
“Okay … just don’t stay up too late,” she groggily mumbled.
After wiping her face, Armada turned his attention to his wife’s arms, hands, and fingers. He hadn’t yet finished cleansing her bicep before she fell asleep.
The dedicated husband went to the foot of the bed, removed her boots and socks, and drew the comforter up over her.
***
Chloe’s eyelids fluttered open to a display of lights and shadows dancing on the wall next to the vacant bed.
‘What’s that smell?’ she asked herself.
She rolled to her back, stretched, and wiped away the matter in the corners of her eyes. Chloe then turned to face the cardboard panels and tablets, half of which were illuminated with live video streams. Armada was at the table, hunched over his computer.
“Have you been awake this entire time?” she asked, propping up her head in her left palm.
“Hey, you,” Armada gleefully stated, turning to face her.
“What’s that smell?” Chloe asked while her husband stood and extended his arms above his head.
“Coffee pods.”
“Coffee pods? Where?”
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