by Nina Post
Imamiah squinted. “Since when do you two talk?”
Raum scoffed. “We golf at the same hell lodge.”
Crocell threw the remote control in a sudden fit of anger and stalked toward Raum, stabbing a finger at the destroyer of cities. “You golf at a Hell Lodge? What the eff, Raum? Did you discover another loophole you haven’t told us about?”
Raum smoothed and straightened his silk tie. “Everyone, calm down. I should have said, we used to golf at the same hell lodge.”
Crocell shook his head and went to the round table for a sandwich.
Raum put his hands on the back of a chair. “As I was saying, Don has entrusted us with a very special, very important task. The first apocalypse, in which he played a key strategic role―”
“Please,” Forcas said. “The so-called Angel of the Apocalypse may be one of your golf cronies, but he had very little to do with that apocalypse, strategically or tactically. As much as I would have loved to have been involved, we were all stuck in a dumpster thanks to you,” he said, gesturing to Raum. “That is, until we were apprehended by the dumpster force task force, aka, our current interim building manager.”
Raum made a placating gesture. “All of us wanted to be responsible for bringing about the apocalypse―what fallen angel doesn’t want that?―and we didn’t even get to participate.”
“Despite all of our training,” Crocell said, in a petulant tone.
“It’s disappointing.” Raum tightened his lips and looked at the floor for a moment, then looked up with an insouciant grin. “That’s why it will feel that much more satisfying when we bring about”―he clapped his hands―“the second one.”
The board members looked at one another like they had just won an all-expenses-paid vacation to Maui.
A smile played on Raum’s face. “Don wants us to break into the headquarters of Clucking Along Holdings and poison the Cluck Snack assembly line to take out the single-purpose angels for good.”
“I love Cluck Snack!” Crocell said. “I buy Cluck Snack Sweet n’ Savory Breakfast Syrup by the case. Delivery.”
Raum closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
Forcas intervened while picking up a sandwich and a pickle. “Go on, Raum. Crocell, shush.”
“The only reason the monsters were able to destroy as much as they did was because we locked the single-purpose angels in the storage room,” Raum said.
“So we did participate in the apocalypse,” Imamiah said.
Raum nodded. “And we should take pride in that. But our interim manager let them out to restore balance to the city. This time, we poison the entire Cluck Snack production line. And we keep her busy.”
Silence.
“What?” Raum said, impatient.
Silence.
Finally, Forcas cleared his throat. “OK, (A), how are we supposed to get out of the building to do that? And (B), how are we supposed to affect the entire production run?” He bit into his sandwich, chewed, and grimaced. He took off the top slice of bread and spit black olives on the floor.
Raum smirked. “(A), We use the Ferryman. (B), every single Cluck Snack product uses the same dry mix as a base before they add the custom flavoring. We break into the facility overnight, find where they keep the dry mix, and poison it.”
The others exchanged surprised glances.
Raum made a gesture of wiping his hands clean. “The single-purpose angels are totally incapacitated. Or they die. Ta-da.”
Vassago raised a finger. “Pardon me, Raum, but why would the single-purpose angels be incapacitated or killed? What’s the chain of events there?”
Raum paced and gritted his teeth. “They live on Cluck Snack products. They need them to function. We take it away from them, they’re down for the count, and it’s olly-olly-oxen-free for the next apocalypse.”
Crocell looked confused. “Olly-olly what?”
“It means the positions of the sides have changed. I think.” Raum unscrewed a bottle of Cluck Snack P’nut Butt’r Koffee Drink and guzzled it in one swallow.
“Who is this Ferryman?” Imamiah asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Raum said, “but Af used him before the previous apocalypse to get to some stupid dental appointment.” He shook his head. “What a waste. All that power, and he’s doing things like going to medical appointments and writing a book and photographing objects. Preposterous! We, however, are going to hire the Ferryman to escort us to the Clucking Along Holdings headquarters.”
“Can’t we use him to escape the building for good, then?” Crocell said.
“Technically, yes,” Raum said, “but we would have to be with him at all times, and I can barely tolerate all of you, let alone him. I’ll find another way.”
Vassago wandered over to the other side of the table and put a sandwich on a paper plate. He took off the top bun, got a small plastic bottle from his pocket, and squeezed it liberally over the inside of the sandwich.
“What’s that?” Crocell asked.
Vassago glanced up. “Hm? Oh, Cluck Snack Top’n―‘Makes Anything Taste Like Cluck Snack.’”
“Looks like syrup. And what is the general taste of Cluck Snack?”
Vassago squinted in thought. “It’s hard to describe.”
“I recommend that we form a new sub-committee,” Raum said, “and announce it at the upcoming annual meeting. But we should cloak it somehow―disguise its real intent. Just in case.”
“Yeah, considering what happened last time.” Imamiah rolled his eyes.
“So, not the Obliterate All Single-Purpose Angels Sub-Committee,” Forcas said.
“Or the Clucking Along Holdings Dry Mix Poisoning Sub-Committee,” Vassago said.
“Or the Start the Second Apocalypse Sub-Committee,” Crocell said.
They all giggled.
Raum glared them all down. “I was thinking something along the lines of the Reserve Fund Reconciliation Sub-Committee, or the Building Expenses and Assessments Forecast Sub-Committee.”
They all murmured in agreement that both names were the most boring thing they ever heard, settled on the second one, and informally voted on the name to announce at the annual meeting the following night.
Kelly rested her head on her hand as she watched a box on her screen of camera inputs. A line of angry residents queued up outside her office.
Gil knocked on the door. She recognized the judgmental knock, and the petulant way he bumped against the bottom of the door. She reluctantly opened the door and Gil rolled into the office.
“It would be easier if you just came out to the reception area to receive the complaints en masse,” the telepresence robot said.
“You’re the manager now. Why don’t you do it?” She didn’t like taking the tone of ‘This wasn’t in my job description,’ or ‘It’s not my job,’ but she had seen Gil attempt to address the residents a few minutes ago, with immediate and total failure. Plus, she didn’t like him.
“The residents were not amenable.” Gil sounded prickly, for a robot.
Kelly went out to the manager’s office reception area, right outside Roger’s studio. For some reason, Dragomir was there, filling out a form by the fishbowl.
“I understand you all have concerns about the stairwell units,” Kelly said to the monsters who came in through the air handler but chose to stay in the luxury condominium rather than help destroy the city.
A luminescent yellow squid creature pointed. “The caterpillar started it.”
The caterpillar monster raised a foreleg in protest. “OK, first of all, I expected a real apartment. That realtor tricked me into leasing a large stairwell unit with no kitchen or bathroom. So don’t put the blame on me.”
Another resident, a squat white beetle with purple dots, wearing several different pairs of sneakers on each set of legs, quietly reassured the caterpillar that his stairwell unit was quite nice, and that he loved how the caterpillar had decorated it.
“Claw & Crutty is leasing out our stairwel
ls as temporary housing to any freak who wanders into their office wanting space here,” said a moth with a wasp head and maroon hand-knit antennae warmers. “What’s next, they’re allowed to have their own death worms?”
The residents murmured.
“The salient question is, are they allowed to use the amenities?” asked Gaap, obsessively flexing his bat wings.
“And are the stairwells temporary housing?” asked the Jackal, fresh from a swim in the pool.
Dragomir chuckled darkly.
Gil played a calming tropical beach on his screen accompanied by very low-volume reggae music, either for himself or for the residents, or both.
“Claw & Crutty have decided that, as Pothole City’s finest―and only―luxury condominium, they should lease any space that tenants are willing to take,” Kelly said.
“So now we’re a halfway house?” Gaap said. “We’re bound to Amenity Tower. We can’t leave, even if we wanted to.”
Kelly closed her eyes and nodded. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, next to Dragomir. Gil rolled gently back and forth to her right, a couple of feet away.
She pictured herself separating the room into its own box while she stood outside of it, then folding up the room like a piece of paper into a smaller box that she held in the palm of her hand. She opened the top and looked in. Everyone inside was miniscule.
“Tenants are leasing the space under the same regulations and requirements as a tenant with a full apartment,” she said. “They pay assessments and can use the common area amenities. As always, only owners can have death worms. Moreover, Claw & Crutty are leasing only the bigger stairwells.”
“So far!” a resident yelled. “Soon they’ll be leasing space in my unused closets.”
Kelly heard her phone ringing. “Excuse me for a minute.” The residents grumbled and wandered around the room.
When she returned, Gil was talking to the residents.
“Six-pack underwear, black, size six, $8.95,” Gil read. “Jay Vanner’s Top 100 Coaching Tips, paperback, $8.99. Annual subscription to Bounty Hunters at Home magazine, $21.”
“Gil, those are my Amazon orders!” Kelly said. “You can’t access my accounts like that.” She went back to her office. “Good luck with the residents!” she yelled over her shoulder.
The Jackal caught up to Kelly in the hallway on the way to her office. “Ms. Driscoll! Ms. Driscoll!”
She stopped and turned.
The Jackal, dressed in swim trunks and flip-flops, glanced toward the lobby and leaned closer to her. Given her taller-than-average height and his diminutive size―he walked on two legs but was short―she had to angle down in a kind of frozen robot dance move.
“I have recently come into a large amount of family money,” the Jackal said in a low I-shouldn’t-be-telling-you-this voice. “And I would like you to find something for me.”
Kelly shook her head. “I have too many things going on right now.”
The Jackal grasped her forearm with a tiny but strong hand. He brushed his thick, lustrous blond hair away from the towel around his shoulders and glanced again at the management office reception area.
“You did such a terrific job finding my melancholy cowboy painting―which I hope you’re enjoying, by the way,” he said.
The Jackal had given her the painting after the job, and she hung it on Mr. Black’s south wall, and had grown fond of it. She sighed. “What do you want to find? I’m not promising anything.”
The Jackal’s eyes brightened. “I need you to find a crystal star. It’s a small crystal orb with spines in an even geometric pattern. Mine shattered in a domestic… incident, and I can’t find one anywhere, even on eBay. My therapist, Dr. Günther Schlising, thinks it is crucial to my mental well-being that I procure this crystal star. Apparently, getting this object back will provide closure for my childhood and allow me to move forward as the Jackal I am today, or some such nonsense.”
“How do you think I’m going to find that?”
“I didn’t think you would find my painting, either, but you did.” The Jackal winked and wagged his finger. “And I believe the payment will be well worth your efforts.”
“It may take a while. I have two other jobs right now, including this one.”
“You found my painting the same day,” the Jackal said.
She stared at him. He backed away and put his paws up. “Take your time. It’s just my mental health at stake.”
With that, the Jackal scurried down the hall, calling out “You know where to find me!”
Kelly could always use more money, but had a flash of worry that she could be taking on too much. She went into her office and updated her to-do list.
he Clucking Along Holdings campus was located within Pothole City, but so far west it might as well have had barking seals and the Golden Gate Bridge. Riding her bike all the way out there to look for their missing president would be lunacy.
Kelly locked up the office and found Pedro, one of the cleaning crew, mopping by the elevators. He held the mop still when she approached.
“Pedro, I need some wheels.”
“Air or ground?”
She scrunched up her face. “What?” She made a mental note to grab some coffee, and soon.
“Where do you need to go?” Pedro asked.
“Clucking Along Holdings. It’s―”
“Come with me.” He rested the mop against a wall.
They took the elevator to the lowest underground parking level. Pedro unlocked a door marked Supplies, and came out a minute later with a set of keys.
He locked the supplies door, and went to an empty space marked 9 in between spaces 102 and 103.
He turned a key in the pitted wall. The ground divided into two parts, each dropping down.
A platform raised to reveal a mint-condition teal-blue Pacer.
“A 1975 Pacer, Levi’s Edition,” Pedro said. “Roger’s emergency car.”
“Wow. Thanks, Pedro.”
After taking a moment to marvel at the blue denim upholstery and door panel trim, Kelly drove Roger’s Pacer out of the Amenity Tower parking garage like assassin robots chased her.
She parked the car across the street from SSI and stopped by the apartment for something to eat.
After a bowl of oatmeal with banana, Kelly made sure that any SPs not out on jobs were safely occupied.
“Playing orienteer again?” she said.
Six single-purpose angels stalked around the general office area with compasses, maps in clear plastic cases, and paper control cards.
Mefathiel, angel in charge of opening doors; Zack, the angel in charge of memory; Dave, the angel in charge of the protection of water insects; Ilaniel, angel with dominion over fruit-bearing trees; Achiel, the angel in charge of home appliances; and Tubiel, all wore matching white and green nylon full-body suits, green polyester gaiters, cleated orienteering shoes, clear plastic sleeves, and eye protectors.
They had insisted she buy ten suits a week ago, but what else would she spend her salary on? Also, how weird that she had a salary. Salaries were for other people, who also had things like friends and family and someone who would buy embarrassing personal items for them at the store or go with them to a dentist appointment. Someone who maybe didn’t occasionally turn into an angel of destruction and threaten to stay in that form. For example. Not that she had someone like that on her mind.
But there she was, with a giant apartment full of mostly silent angels (currently in their orienteering phase) who kept everything in the world running and in balance, though you wouldn’t necessarily guess it when they hummed along to the Cluck Snack jingle or played orienteers. She hadn’t wanted the weighty responsibility in the first place, but now she would do anything for them.
“Mr. Black must have inspired you,” she said.
Tubiel peered at her through his eye protectors, smiled, nodded. Mr. Black’s whereabouts were unknown along with everyone else who had worked at SSI, but he used to be a
n elite competitor in foot-O, judging by the many photos and awards in his former office.
Kelly started to head out, but made a mistake and said, “I’m driving out to the Clucking Along Headquarters in Roger’s Levi’s Pacer.”
What did she expect, that the SPs would just go on about their business?
The Pacer could fit four full-size people. She noticed the passenger door was a little wider than the driver’s side door when all eight of the SPs tried to get in at the same time.
She unlatched then folded down the foam-cushioned back seat. The two new additions were Kermit, one of the angels in charge of the three o’clock a.m. hour; and Qeriel, in charge of the protection of spitz dogs, according to his bracelet, which also told her that his favorite food was Cluck Snack Ravioleee (“Not for Ferrets or Cats”).
Roger had gone all out with the options on his Pacer, outfitted with air conditioning, power steering, AM/FM radio with a cassette player instead of an eight-track, rear defroster, and roof rack. He also had a motivational cassette in the player (Self-Ascension) and a rubber iguana affixed to the top of the dashboard. In the glove compartment she found a half-full bottle of Ascend, a men’s cologne. Already planning.
She put the car in gear and started down the road. As she turned into a curve, she marveled at how deceptively heavy the Pacer felt―almost as heavy as the sidecar motorcycle she piloted while helping Tubiel return small birds to their owners.
She cursed quietly as she navigated around a derrick and then around some scaffolding that extended into the street. The Cluck Snack mobile street van drove ahead of them. It was only a matter of seconds before―
And sure enough, all of the SPs pointed, jabbing her in the head, then tried to crawl in front.
As they scrambled to look out the Pacer’s goldfish bowl windows at the Cluck Snack van, their nylon jumpsuits brushed together in a medley of shwsh-shwsh sounds. After some silent communication, they handed her a drawing that indicated they chose Kermit as the runner, possibly because of his hard hat in the form of an old racing helmet.