25) Friday, February
Fourteenth, Valentines’ Day: 4:54 PM – “Dirty Chinese Hands”
At the Research Division
of the FCC, David Lee had become de facto bearer of bad tidings as the sources he’d
cultivated all across the Upper Midwest called in. As quitting time neared and changeover
loomed less than a week away, followed by Super Weekend (with the Monday
holiday), he was still on the phone, jotting down numbers and anecdotes
flooding in from Lake Superior to shining Ontario.
He
hung up, stabbed at one of his hastily Xeroxed forms – and his pencil
snapped. To make matters worse, Chet McConnaghy loomed up over the wall of his cubicle…
“Dallas
was being picketed… someone called in a bomb threat and they had to
evacuate. Guys on the street started
throwing punches and bottles… Jim Sparks wants to know if he should call the
Governor to send in the Guard…”
“What
Guard,” David scoffed, “…they’re all still back on the Mexican border or one of
those places with Zika.”
McConnaghy hesitated.
“He uh… mentioned private security…”
“Tell
him I’ll pass it up the foodchain that he mentioned
it… I know we’re already paying the Screaming Eagles a fortune; whether this
would be covered… you’ll get back to him…”
Chet
stumbled off, but Mick approached from the other side, an eggroll from the
Chinese New Years’ spread in the cafeteria dangling in his fingers. His eyes were red… it seemed as if nobody had
gotten much sleep overnight.
“What’ve you got?” David snapped.
“Florida. Torched a Happy Dollar in Clearwater…”
“They have
ninety-nine cent hi-def worth looting?
“Converters,”
Mick said. “So-called… actually, they
were goin’ for eight bucks. Most so-called dollar stores ain’t that anymore…”
David nodded. “And what were the odds those didn’t work?”
“Fire departments still
rounding up their numbers,” Mick said, popping the remainder of the roll into
his mouth and licking his lip. “Amazing,
but there isn’t any sort of database that doesn’t have to do with arson…”
“Who says this wasn’t arson?” Mick pointed towards Kristi’s office, where
the manager of Research had been on the phone all morning, except for a few
minutes when a delegation from Homeland Security had checked in and, just as
quickly, out again, rehearsing scenarios for the coming week. Quentin Sills had collected requests for a
meeting from David, Mick and just about every other member of the team. “Really bad fire south of Jacksonville. Whole apartment complex, twenty some dead, children…
what you’re going to do is take all the calls between eleven-thirty Thursday
night and about one-thirty, maybe ninety percent of them converter
related. A smaller spike between
seven-thirty and about nine on Friday when the early birds who sacked out
before midnight turn theirs on in the morning…”
“Don’t
worry,” David smiled. “The media will do
that for us soon enough.”
“The
good news, if you can call it that,”
Mick explained, “…way most of those bad boxes were set up, they’re just going
to blow. Except around a few places
where some really bad shit came over from Canada… around Buffalo, Detroit, even
Seattle; didn’t work but started generating heat and it took a while to flame
up, go Samsung on us… what’s gonna explode has done so already or will, by the
end of next week…”
“Of
course the locals have posted plenty of warnings, on the tube,” David replied,
“not that anybody who needs them sees them.
They’re all over HBO, as if that’ll
do any good. Dragon Lady wants me in the
dark, that’s why she cut Detroit out of my territory. What’s up, Q-tip?” he added as Quentin Sills
slithered past Mick towards the open space in David’s cubicle, crooking his
finger…
“Dragon Lady wants you… pronto.” He looked back, disdainfully, at Mick. “Doesn’t want you…”
David’s
telephone rang again as he was pushing up out of his chair. He slapped down a couple of files, let it ring
and followed Chaine’s assistant to the executive
offices, knocking. No answer… and it was
locked… so he said his name, as if seeking entry to a speakeasy. After a few seconds, Kristi unlocked the door. The office was a mess… there was a crude map
of America on the wall, riddled with pushpins, thumbtacked over the fake
Vermeer Jack Gobelman had hung, and hadn’t returned
to claim....
“Something
about this place, makes people wanna
lock their doors, my lovely Valentine…” David ventured.
Kristi
lifted a finger. “Don’t!” and she
pointed to the rickety French chair in front of the desk, which had only a few
dozen files atop it. “Sit!” When he picked up the files, dropped them on
the floor and sat, she went back behind the desk. “I called you in to tell you what Vern wants
done, and I expect you to tell every soul in this office… individually or as a
group…”
“Yeah?”
Kristi closed her eyes,
opened them again… blue as frozen airline ice, David gauged. “The changeover has been moved.”
“Praise
Jesus!”
David raised his eyes heavenward.
“It’s being moved back… back to six o’clock Thursday
evening. The tech people convinced Vern
that there was too much danger of… well… malfunctions
to have them do the deed at midnight.”
“By malfunctions,” David
inquired, “do you mean explosions? Fires?”
Kristi
steepled her fingers.
“The official line is that we are blaming the terrorists. Or cybercriminals. Or the terroristic
cybercriminals. Don’t,” she
pointed at him, again, “don’t laugh!”
“Do I look like I’m
laughing?” David appealed. “We’ve been
anticipating explosions, fire, riots ever since the announcement… Homeland Security estimates a coupla hundred dead so far, property damage in the billions,
people madder ‘n hornets, and this is only the beginning. Wait until those vengeful cheeseheads
in Green Bay wake up to no football on Sunday, no watching all those felony
cases in Oaktown dismantling the ‘Skins…”
“You mean Vegas?” Kristi
needled. “You don’t have to believe it,
just say it. Terrorists
caused their sets to blow up…”
David
shrugged, then nodded.
“Hey, I’m old school. Football,
politics… I know President Rivers wants to start a war with Iran. Maybe they should, take people’s minds off
Iraq and Lebanon, Gaza and Ukraine. But
“That’s
for the politicians to determine. Were
going to have a new, sane administration – some day – let them stop debating
and fighting each other, take charge earn their keep! All you
do is come up with evidence that the terrorists are to blame…”
“Even
if the Chinese did have dirty hands, they’ll say that they were just going by
specs that were drawn up by us truly…” and David trailed off, seeing that this
particular crazy train had, long since, left the station.
“And don’t make any
plans for tonight. Or
the weekend. Or especially next weekend,” Kristi added.
“Really?”
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
@ VISIT THESE OTHER
GENERISIS SERIAL ABOMINATIONS…
THE GOLDEN DAWN BLACK
HELICOPTERS