Kilroy was Here

by Jeff South

“And we need my car back.” Jeff stands and heads toward the door. “You’re no help. I’ll get it myself. Tony, you coming?”

  “You need to tell them the truth about your car, Jeff.” I hate putting him on the spot and I’m not sure why he’s keeping the information to himself.

  “What truth?” Randi walks to Jeff. “What’s up with your car?”

  Jeff looks at me like he wants to rip off my head, shit down my neck, and then tell me to clean the mess up. I give him an apologetic shrug. His hand is forced.

  “Fine. Miss America is the quintonium drive. The car’s core computer thingy is powered by it. Simon Tybalt put it in there. I can open any portal. Even create new ones. Terraform planets in way less time than it ever took before. It’s freaking awesome.”

  “Help me understand.” Max draws a deep breath. He looks as if he is trying to maintain patience against insurmountable odds. “The founder of Corporate installed a high-powered intergalactic superweapon into a 1976 Chevrolet Vega and turned it over to a sophomoric petty thief?”

  “I prefer the term ‘amiable antihero.’”

  “Why would he do that?” Randi asks.

  “Who’s gonna look for a powerful weapon in a used Vega?” Jeff says. “You guys didn’t see it coming.”

  “Who’s gonna look for the entire Corporate training curriculum in the brain of teenager?” I ask. “Rube Goldberg Protocols.”

  “We gotta get that Vega back,” Randi says “We need to find that mole, too.”

  “Indeed.” Max tosses his lollipop in the wastebasket and checks his tablet. “I need to hustle to another meeting. Then, I’m clearing my calendar to deal with this. We simply make this our top priority. This requires a dramatic fabrication of robust, enterprise-wide outside-the-box thinking. Paradigms, people. Do I have your commitment?”

  “Absolutely.” I say.

  “We’re on it,” Randi says.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Jeff says. “Is that a haiku?”

  “I’ll circle back with the three of you once I’ve gathered more data.” Max Gentry leaves the Rings of Saturn room, leaving the three of us to ponder our next move.

  “Tony,” Randi turns to me. “What did you say about training curriculum in a teenager’s brain?”

  “Long story,” I say. “Dickhead here put one of those nanotechs in me at the request of Simon Tybalt. I’m a walking encyclopedia of Corporate shit.”

  An impish grin eases over Randi’s face. “I know how to figure out who the mole is.”

  *

  Randi, Jeff, and I return to the Someone Else’s Books and Kevin Raulston lets us into the basement behind the door marked “Private.”

  “After I wait on these customers,” he tells us. “I’ll be down.”

  We descend the stairs to see my dad sitting at the coffee table playing checkers with Grandor. They are hunched over the board like two generals contemplating their next move toward global domination.

  “How’d the meeting go?” Dad asks.

  “Your son is going to save the day,” Randi says.

  “Where are our moms?” Jeff asks.

  “They went to the River Luau to investigate. Suzanne is there under the guise of seeing how the fair is going. Sandra’s there for backup. Meanwhile, I took a vacation day to babysit.”

  “I am so glad you are back.” Grandor leaps to his feet and rushes to his haiku journal sitting on the chair in the corner. “I had a rush of creative inspiration while you were gone.

  “Do hummingbirds cry?

  Do penguins seek a soulmate?

  No, stupid, they don’t.”

  “I find it obtuse,” I tell him. “What’s your plan, Randi?”

  She sits at the computer bank and types. The flat screen monitor switches away from the screensaver image of a tropical paradise to a popup asking for login credentials.

  “I’m logging into Corporate’s network via VPN,” she tells me. “If the entire training curriculum is in your brain, then you have access to documents concerning the setup of top level security clearances.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Sit down.” She pulls a chair out for me and I oblige her request. “How do you use the nano?”

  I shrug. “I concentrate. Like going to a happy place.”

  “Then go to the happy place that tells you how to set up security profiles.”

  Randi’s reasons for asking me to do this are lost on me, but I comply. I close my eyes and picture myself walking through a virtual library of three-ring binders and bound documents. The shelves seem to stretch into infinity and everything is alphabetized. I jog along the ends of aisles until I reach the one marked Se-Sh. I scan the binders there until I find one titled “Security Clearances, Levels, and Protocols.” I open my eyes and look at the flat screen monitor.

  “I know what to do,” I say.

  “This is remarkable,” Dad says. “What has happened to you?”

  “He’s Mr. Roboto,” Jeff says, continuing his seemingly infinite quest to misinterpret his favorite song. I pull up the Corporate intranet and open the hyperlink for security. A login page pops up warning me I must have proper credentials.

  “Excellent.” Randi leans over my shoulder. “There has to be a listing somewhere of every login ID and password. See if you can find it.”

  I close my eyes again and to return to the library in my brain. I run a few aisles over to Pa-Pe to find personnel records. I figure if anyone would have ultimate security clearance it would be the man who built Corporate in the first place. A virtual spreadsheet opens in my mind’s eye and within seconds I find what I’m looking for:

  Simon Tybalt

  Personnel Number: 07301967

  Employee ID: simtyb42

  Password: InfinityJone$1

  I open my eyes, enter the info, and hit enter. The Corporate logo appears and then dissolves with a chiming sound. The screen is black for a few seconds and an eerie, frightful silence falls over the private room.

  “What happened?” Randi asks.

  “I dunno,” I say. “I’ve never done this before. This should be Simon Tybalts’s security portal.”

  The stillness of the moment is disrupted by the opening chords of “Legs,” by ZZ Top.

  A window opens with a message at the top: Hello, Simon Tybalt. What would you like to do?

  I survey the list of options and click the one marked Create New/Edit Current Security Profiles.

  “Nice work,” Randi says. “Can you find my profile and hook me up?”

  My mind’s eye finds a job aid in the training materials and I’m able to search for Randi Williams’ security profile. She currently lists a clearance level of 5, but I don’t quite know what that means.

  “What’s the highest level?” I ask her.

  “10.”

  I edit her profile to reflect her significant upgrade. “What’s the point of this?”

  “Employees with a level 10 clearance can see all kinds of records about who has accessed what and when. Every time you and I have been to the portal using the Rube Goldberg Protocol, a log entry is created. I can see who has been there and when. It might tell us who has been there without authorization.”

  “I do not understand how all of this is going to help me exact my revenge on Jackie,” Grandor states.

  “You wanna get revenge?” Randi turns to him. “You can deprogram her.”

  Grandor gasps audibly and recoils in disgust. “That would be murder! I will not murder my beloved no matter how much I hurt.”

  “What were you going to do then?” I ask.

  “You could read her those suck-ass haikus,” Jeff mutters. “God knows they’re torturing me.”

  The door at the top of the basement stairs bursts open and Kevin Raulston walks down holding Marlene close to him as she clutches her stomach and groans.

  “She stumbled in the front door,” Kevin says. “Says she has a message from Jackie. Looks like they hurt her bad.”

>   I rush to them and eye the one I love. “What was it this time? Roasted corn on the cob?”

  “Foot long corn dogs. Three of them.” She blows out a belch and struggles for breath. “And deep fried spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “What’s the message?” Dad asks.

  “She has Jeff and Tony’s moms. She wants to meet.” She belches again and her breath slaps me in the face like a soured washcloth dipped in marinara.

  “She has Mom?” Jeff pulls a gun and aims it at nothing in particular. “We gotta move.”

  “Easy, easy,” Dad says. “What’s this meeting with Jackie about?”

  “Says you still haven’t given her the drive and time is running out.”

  “Alright,” Randi says. “I’ll go to Corporate and research who has been to the portal. You guys all go meet with Jackie and find out what she wants.”

  “Not everyone,” Marlene says. “Just Tony and Jeff.”

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “The Waffle Palace out on the highway.”

  “Of course,” Jeff says.

  *

  The buxom physical form of Leigh Ann Cantwell I now refer to as Jackleigh sits in a corner booth of the Waffle Palace devouring a plate of waffles soaked in blueberry syrup. She still wears the spandex jumpsuit and thin black duster. Her hair looks as if she came from the salon. Next to her sits Simon Tybalt, an untouched omelet in front of him. Jeff and I sit across from her. A couple of the carnies I remember from the Taco Haus parking lot sit in a booth across from us. They stare at us in way that either means they wish to do us harm if we make a wrong move or they wish to buy us drink. It’s hard to distinguish.

  “Where are our moms?” I ask.

  “They are fine,” she tells us. “Secure location and all.”

  “Where’s my car?” Jeff asks.

  “Where’s my drive?” she asks.

  “Grandor says there is no drive.” I say under the assumption Jackleigh is in the dark about Jeff’s car being the drive.

  “Oh, there is a drive, alright.” Jackleigh motions for the waitress to come over as she dabs the corner of her pouty mouth with a napkin. The waitress visits our table and Jackleigh asks her to bring another plate of waffles. “This all-you-can-eat concept is genius. I can see why Leigh Ann loves waffles so much.”

  “Do not give her the drive, gentlemen,” Simon Tybalt says. “You mustn’t.”

  “Here’s the deal.” Jeff takes a sip from his thermos. “We can get you the plans. Corporate has them. We have someone on the inside.”

  “You really mustn’t, gentlemen.”

  “Very well.” Jackleigh pours syrup on the fresh round of waffles the waitress delivered. I glance up at waitress as she asks if we need anything else in a deeply unaffected voice. I recognize her dark hair and soft facial features. I’ve seen her somewhere before and for a moment I can’t place it, but a flash of memory tells me exactly who she is.

  My caliente lederhosen-wearing drive-thru babe from Taco Haus. The sight of her in a Waffle Palace t-shirt and jeans throws me. She offers a slight smile and walks away.

  “Where is my car?” Jeff asks again. “Have you messed with her? Have you scratched her up? Hung something stupid from the rearview mirror? Put in some nasty air freshener?”

  “Your precious Miss America is safe and secure,” Jackleigh swirls a fork full of waffles in the pond of blueberry syrup on her plate. “You deliver those quintonium drive plans to me at the portal site by five o’clock this afternoon and you can have her back. Your car. Your mothers. I’ll even spare Simon Tybalt’s life.”

  “What if I’m late or don’t show?”

  Jackleigh reaches into a clutch purse next to her and produces one of the Araneae and lets the tiny mechanical spider crawl around her hand like a pet.

  “Then, I shall download this beautiful one into every person at that insipid River Luau and fry their brains. Starting with him.” She puts the bug on Simon’s shoulder and the bot instinctively crawls toward his neck. He squirms and reaches up to swat it away.

  “No, no,” Jackleigh scolds.

  “Stop!” I shout.

  “Do not cause a scene,” she tells us. “No need to draw too much attention to us.”

  The spider reaches the back of Simon’s neck and based on his grimacing and grunting, it must be burrowing into him. He swallows hard and normalizes his breathing. His hands shake as he grabs a napkin to wipe blood from the point of entry.

  “Why do you wanna do this?” I ask. “Why all this world conquering nonsense?”

  “Your planet is pitiful,” Jackleigh says. “I want no part of it, really. I only want the drive so I can have it for myself and do what I please elsewhere. Grandor wanted it for his stupid GrandEarth plan, but I have loftier ideas.”

  “If we do this,” Jeff says, “will you leave Leigh Ann alone, too?”

  She stands and poses and preens. “I am not certain. I mean, look at this. I rather enjoy being in this human form. It garners attention. Granted some of it is unwelcome, but for the most part this is an enjoyable host. Leigh Ann is quite lovely. I do not know why her parents were so awful to her or her classmates so mean. Her memories suggest that, other than you, people mistreated her. I believe the Earth term is bullying.”

  “Yeah,” Jeff says. “She’s not had an easy life.”

  “So, I think my presence in her life makes her stronger, no?” She hops a bit and twists from side to side. “It is fun how everything jiggles.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Jeff stands and faces her. “Let her go. Let our moms go. Get that thing out of him. Please.”

  “Then you know what you have to do.” Jackleigh cups Jeff’s face and kisses him. He stands motionless for a second before placing a tentative hand on her waist. She pulls away and taps his nose. “I can see why she likes that so much, too. See ya, baby.”

  The caliente lederhosen-wearing Waffle Hut babe returns and slides the check onto the edge of the table.

  “Pay whenever you’re ready.”

  “Would you be a doll and take care of that?” Jackleigh sashays away, carnie entourage and Simon Tybalt in tow.

  “I don’t think I’m ever getting Leigh Ann back,” Jeff says.

  “You’ll get her back.”

  “Maybe,” he replies. “But Leigh Ann never kissed me like that. That was a lot of sloppy tongue.”

  My phone buzzes with a text message from Randi Williams.

  We have a situation. Meet me at book club.

  *

  We stand in the basement of Someone Else’s Books looking at a short stack of paper on the coffee table. Dad picks up a few sheets from the stack and thumbs through them. I look at them and see they are spreadsheets.

  “What are these?” I ask. “Looks like a schedule log or something.”

  “These are security access reports. They tell us who has been where and when at all Corporate properties. HQ. Fleet Operations. The call center. The portal. What you’re looking at is a standard log of schedule adherence at the portal. If you look, you can see when you and Jeff worked your shift and then left when your replacement showed up.”

  “I’m bored already,” Jeff says.

  “Will you listen?” Randi pulls the tops sheet off the stack and holds it out to us. “Only certain personnel are scheduled to be at the portal at certain times. Any deviation of that schedule requires a Portal Schedule Variation Report and it must be approved by Max.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “There are several instances on this report of one person accessing the portal when other Corporate personnel were scheduled, yet there’s not a Variation Report.”

  “Who?”

  “Max.”

  I take the report from her and read the following:

  “So, Max accessed the portal every Saturday night after our shifts?” I grab the stack of papers from Randi’s desk. “He’s been going every Saturday for several months, taking over the graveyard shift on Saturdays.”
/>   “Did he need the overtime or something?” Jeff asks.

  “So on prom night…”

  “He was already there,” Randi says. “I think Max was there to meet Grandor. I think Max is our mole.”

  The brevity of her accusation hangs heavy over the room. We all turn to face Grandor who only shrugs innocently.

  “We gotta take him out” Jeff points his gun at Grandor. “Him and Max both.”

  “Easy,” Dad says. “Can you be sure?”

  “Look at this.” She sighs and inserts a thumb drive into the computer console. We look up at the monitor and a window containing several file folder icons is open. They have names like Araneae, Mirror Ball Entertainments, GrandEarth, My Herpezoid Friends and How to Make Them Human, and Vacation Pics.

  “This is crazy.” I open the GrandEarth folder and it lists document names like Mississippi Lazy River, Antarctica Ski Lodge, and LeMans Go-Carts. A click on the Herpezoid Friends folder shows information on how to obtain DNA Morphers.

  “Did you know about this?” I ask Grandor.

  “Those could be photographs gathered through his intelligence,” Grandor says. “That proves nothing.”

  Randi opens the Vacation Pics folder and a collection of dozens of thumbnail photos fill the screen. A double-click on the first one brings up Max Gentry and Grandor the Malevolent arm-in-arm holding up tropical cocktails. The next picture is the two of them throwing money at a four-armed stripper.

  “That’s on Mongalisonia,” Jeff says. “Or, you know, so I’ve heard.” We turn and pull weapons on Grandor as he backs up toward the basement.

  “Is this awkward?” he asks. “This feels awkward. But, then, I spend most of my time feeling awkward.”

  “Is Max working with you?” Randi asks.

  “Max is a business associate, yes. He invested heavily in the GrandEarth concept. He offered a trade. Unobstructed entry through the portal in exchange for the Araneae nanotech.”

  “The one I stole for you?” Jeff asks. “You gave it to Max and then stole it back? What a dick move.”

  “I needed it for leverage, but then you two came along.”

  “Are you going to call us meddling kids?” I ask. “Please say, ‘I’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.’”