NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Paula Pocock is looking in the window of the Elegant Ostrich. She pulls on the glass door, which doesn’t budge. Chuck Newsom has come around from the back.
“The service door is locked, back there.”
Paula gives the door another pull.
“There is nobody there yet.”
“I think they have gone out of business.”
“Hi Fred, yeah, I know.”
Paula adjusts her mask while Chuck walks out into the parking lot.
“The sign is still up.”
“Right, I saw it yesterday when I was filling up at the gas station.”
“Fred, we plan to rent this space.”
An X model Tessla SUV pulls up with no more than a crack as the left front tire crushes some brittle plastic against the asphalt. The large rectangular display in the center of the dashboard blinks through the driver-side window in multiple bright hi-res colors. Nadia Brasov is smiling from the driver’s window.
“Hi, Chuck, what are you two doing out in the ice and sleet?”
Chuck walks over to the high riding window.
“It is melting. Hear the drips?”
“Yeah, the road is clear.”
“Hi Fred.”
“Nadia! How’s Max?”
“Just fine. I am on my way to pick him up from our lawyer’s office.”
“Can’t he drive himself?”
“No, he got in trouble driving this giant ghost too fast and mouthed off to the cop!”
“Isn’t he a little old for that?”
“He’s had it. You know, with all the frustrating legal problems he’s been having.”
“Okay, so now you’re seeing Sherman?”
“Well, how did you guess?”
“We all try to hide behind the Shrowd when it comes to the law.”
Paula waves to Nadia and beckons to me for a confidential chat.
“Yeah, ah Fred, you know, Chuck has been, like talking to this guy, Gloriani.”
“You mean, Guiseppe Gloriani?”
“Yeah, I told you about Nadia’s experience. He’s like, a real creep and a letch too.”
“He is also Boris Tarantula’s agent.”
“Right, that’s it, see. Chuck wants to, like get into the art scene.”
“Good philanthropist!”
“Yeah, right. He bought that sculpture in front of the house. He’s talking to Gloriani about, like a gallery or something.”
“A gallery, in this little shopping center?”
“Yup, right here.”
“I doubt if Boris would agree to this. Wealthy collectors don’t come around here.”
“That all happens in the District, or maybe Old Town.”
“No, it is not just a gallery. It’s, like, a… Well, Gloriani calls it a “New Concept”.
“What kind of concept?”
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s all jargon, you know, CAI.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know!”
“What else have you learned?”
Paula bends her elbow around mine, pressing against me, and talks into my ear.
“I think Chuck is getting screwed!”
“Why?”
“CAI! Come on! You know.”
“Well, neither of us knows but…”
“Oh! you know what?”
“What?”
“Osiris is in on this thing too. I mean like, I think she has got Chuck all into this stuff.”
“So, it is not Boris at all?”
“Well, I don’t know, you know. Like, he’s around.”
“Maybe Osiris wants to open one of her boutiques?”
“I think it is a big con. to get Chuck’s money!”
Chuck walks over as Nadia swishes away across the slushy parking lot
on the silent electrons exciting her SUV.
“Fred, you know we are interested in this place.”
“Paula was telling me.”
“Yeah, I’ve got Shrowd’s people checking it out.”
“You have a contract?”
“Kind of, I mean I got a packet from Boris Tarantula’s agent
and some other stuff.”
“Paula said something about CAI.”
“Isn’t it exciting? Cyber Anthropic Interface, that’s a whole new kind of art and it is going to happen here in the sleepy Fauxmont shopping Center.”
“What is it exactly?”
“It is going to put this place on the map! The arts map, I mean.”
“Okay, but what is it?”
“It can happen anywhere, but this is a good place to start.”
“Okay, Chuck. You still haven’t told me what it is!”
Paula shakes Chuck’s arm.
“Nobody knows what it is.”
“Sure, we do Paula. Cyber Anthropic Interface, is where thought and reality converge through electronic media.”
“Chuck, what are you talking about, honey?”
“I am saying that a world-wide thing can happen right here with relatively low overheads and grow big, in New York, Tokyo, London, I mean, you name it!”
“That’s what Gloriani keeps saying.”
“Yeah, he does. Anyway, Nadia is going to talk to Max about it. Turns out we have hired the same lawyer.”
An Asian man in a blue Snaz tracksuit opens the door with one hand, holding an iPad in the other.
“Are you Mr. Newsome?”
“Yup, how are you doing?”
“I am Fong. Saw you walking around as I came in the back.”
We all step inside.
“Hi Fong, this is my wife Paula, and this is our friend Fred.”
Chuck offers an elbow, but Fong doesn’t reciprocate. He pulls a blue paper mask out of his pocket and hooks it around his ears with one hand and heads towards the back.
“Did I meet you at Dr. Finderelli’s office?”
He stops to look at me.
“Hard to say who anyone is with these things on.”
I pull my mask down for a moment.
“Ah, maybe, like ten years ago.”
Fong leads us through dusty winter light past the rows of empty shelves, past the counter where the pay station used to be, and into a back room with the lights on, full of racks and electronics.
“This will be the server room.”
Fong gestures with his iPad.
“Wow, we got enough power coming in?”
Fong sits down in front of a bank of blank screens and looks at his iPad.
“Not yet. Let’s see, VEPCO is going to pay us a visit next, ah.”
He scrolls through his emails.
“Yeah! Next Tuesday.”
Paula has wandered behind the racks. There are three rows only partially loaded with equipment and none of it looks wired to anything else.
“What’s down there?”
“Where are you, honey?”
Chuck walks around the racks to find her, while Fong turns to his screens. Only two light up. After a while, Chuck shouts from behind the racks.
“Hey, Fong! Why is this locked up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey Fong, where do these stairs lead?”
“Paula, I haven’t been down there.”
Chuck shakes the bared door hard enough to loosen some dust around the frame.
“Who has the key to this damn thing?”
Fong doesn’t respond.
“Honey, you aren’t going to get down there right now, okay?”
“Looks like a prison with all these bars on it.”
Fong comes back with his fur-trimmed winter parker on.
“That is the Middlesex Project. I am not working on that underground stuff!”
“What is the Middlesex Project?”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“Have you seen people going down there?”
“Sure, they are down there all the time.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know. Way before I got here.”
“So, this was here behind the Elegant Ostrich?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, what is going on?”
“You didn’t hear this from me, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“They had a cave-in, a while back.”
“Someone told me, that all these wet leaves and stuff fell into the project from this one lady’s yard.”
“Where?”
“Right across the street.”
He points toward the front of the building.
“He means Fauxmont, Fred.”
“Sounds like Diddley Drates back yard!”
“You know about this too, Fred?”
“I know she had a problem with her compost heap and her friend came over and nearly got electrocuted trying to fix it.”
Fong starts turning away.
“Aha, they had a major short out!”
Paula steps toward Fong and grabs his coat sleeve.
“You mean there’s, like underground stuff under Faumont?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Yeah, like okay Fong, but I heard about that woman’s yard problem before.”
“Okay, I don’t want to know.”
Fong leads us back towards his work station. He shrugs and turns off the screens he had been using.
“Are you scared of something Fong?”
“I am well paid to mind my own business.”
“I get it.”
Fong hurries toward the back door.
“Say, I have got to go check on my kid. I’ll be back in about half an hour, okay?”
“Show me how to lock up.”
Chuck follows Fong to a back door.
