But despite my best arguments, I’m unable to convince myself, and after another half-hour I cut off the TV and reluctantly heave myself off of the couch. I burn another ten minutes or so finding the duct tape and wrapping it around the ends of my crutches to serve as makeshift grips at the bottom, but soon I’m out of reasonable ways to waste time around the house. So I get suited up against the rain, and I make my way to the bus stop again.
Although it has only recently entered my life, waiting in bus shelters has rapidly climbed to the top of my Most Hated Activities list, passing “cleaning out the fridge” and even “getting lectured by Edgar.” Part of it is the constant rain, of course, and the inability to find any spot in the shelter that’s totally safe from it. But it’s more than that, too. The benches are uncomfortable and weirdly placed, making them hard to sit on. The plastic walls are always covered in some sort of thin grime, probably from all of the people leaning against them because they can’t sit on a bench. When I’m all alone at the stop, I feel like a weirdo, and that only gets worse when someone else gets there. Ignoring them seems rude, but talking to them seems ruder. I’ve now spent so much time awkwardly staring at bus maps, pretending to be reading the routes, that I’m actually starting to learn them, even the ones I don’t take. I didn’t even know I had these social anxieties before, but apparently discovering these things about yourself is just one of the hidden joys of public transit.
When the bus pulls up, I get on without any clear idea of where I want to go. I’ve got a half-formed idea about returning to the scene of the crime to look for clues, but then I remember that it was really more my crime than hers, and also that she can evidently sense me a lot better than I can her, so I’m unlikely to catch her unawares. So it’s really more of a quarter-formed idea, honestly.
Still, I can’t seem to come up with anything better, so when the bus reaches downtown I hop off and traipse through the rain to the convenience store I saw last night. It’s one of those random no-name ones, not one of the chains like CVS or Walgreen’s, but the kind that always has one of the light bulbs in the aisles flickering and where you can’t see through the windows because of all of the signs for cigarettes and lottery tickets. This one’s called the V & R Mart, which technically means it’s not a no-name store, but you know what I mean.
The bell dings when I walk in, and the guy behind the counter looks up disinterestedly. He doesn’t even bother to say hi before turning back to the TV, so I wander around the aisles for a bit – where, sure enough, one light bulb is flickering – before concluding that there’s no one else in this tiny store. I don’t know what I expected. To find her stocking cans in the back, maybe? Or just sleeping in the cooler? I downgrade the complexity of my idea to one-eighth-formed.
So as not to look like I’ve just wandered in to case the place, I pick up a can of Pringles and head back to the front counter. As the guy’s ringing me up, I suddenly have an idea.
“Hey, who was working here last night? Blonde girl, maybe mid-twenties, about shoulder-high on me?”
“You mean Regina?” he asks.
“Yeah! Yeah, could be.”
“What about her?”
“We had a, kind of a missed connection. I was just looking to take another shot. Do you know if she’s going to be working tonight?”
He half-laughs. “Doubt it. Boss came in this morning, found the store unlocked, lights still on. She ditched last night without closing anything up. Didn’t lock the door, didn’t even turn off the OPEN sign. Lucky no one cleaned the place out. Hadn’t been raining so hard, probably someone would have. Even if she’s back from whatever trip she was on, boss might not let her back.”
“Huh, geez.” So apparently when she took off when Peterson showed up, she really took off. I feel sort of bad for her, until I remember that she was doing her best to kill me and Brian. That tempers my sympathy a bit.
“Guess your missed connection’s gonna stay missed.”
I doubt that, in the long run. It’d be nice, but nothing so far has indicated that I’m anywhere near that lucky. I take my Pringles back to the bus stop and catch a lift home in time to get ready for work.
- - -
Edgar’s clearly in a rare mood. The guard desk has sprouted half a dozen new memos, all neatly typed and taped up with military precision, their corners squared so accurately that I’d swear he used a level. Apparently the museum has had “lax standards” and employees have been “abusing the good nature of management,” both of which will now be rectified in the form of additional micromanagement of my job.
I snort as I read over the memos. Check-in timestamps will now be verified to ensure that the guard was at the appropriate area within a minute of the approved time. Videotapes are subject to monitoring. Strict adherence to the dress code is required of all employees, even those not traditionally expected to interact with the public. These might as well all say, “Dan, I will find a reason to fire you. Signed, Edgar.” I mean, Edgar’ll happily fire anyone else who gets caught in his new nitpicky net, but it’s pretty clearly designed with me in mind.
I’ve got no intention of giving him the satisfaction, of course. And I’ve got to say, it’s really quite sportsmanlike of him to give me such a detailed breakdown of how he intends to go about it. Now that he’s said, “Here are the areas in which I intend to catch you out,” I know what I have to do to be the perfect employee.
For certain values of perfect, anyway. I check in at every mark that night exactly on time, and I make sure that my uniform is neat and tucked in and that my badge is prominently displayed at all times. But every time I pass a camera, I wink and shoot it the ol’ finger guns, then hold that pose for six seconds. That’s long enough that I figure it should show up even when Edgar’s fast-forwarding through, looking for things I’ve done wrong.
And because I’m doing it for every camera, it’ll show up over and over again. Watching me wink at him from a dozen different cameras ought to be enough to keep Edgar seething, without actually giving him any basis to claim misconduct.
I could be more mature about this, but he started it.
This keeps me entertained throughout the night, and when the time comes to head home in the morning, I’m actually feeling a lot better than I was when I left for work, which is a deeply unusual state of affairs. I know intellectually that baiting Edgar isn’t anywhere close to on par with solving the storm problem, but emotionally, it just feels good to be winning something. Minor, petty and maybe even childish, sure, but a win is a win, and I’m just enjoying the feeling while it lasts.
- Chapter Fifteen -
For the next week, the cold war between me and Edgar intensifies. Every night, I come in to more ridiculous rules about what is acceptable and what is expected, and every night, I am technically a perfect employee. On Tuesday, there’s a new memo stating that employees are not allowed to use their personal phones during work hours, so I dig an MP3 player out of the lost-and-found and do my rounds jamming out to a mix by some unknown patron of the museum, who was apparently very into Japanese pop music.
Wednesday, the new note informs me that headphones are not to be used on the job “to ensure maximum alertness and attention to detail.” That one’s easy enough to skirt, and so I have a second night of J-pop rounds, this time with the tinny speakers of the MP3 player blaring into the echoey stillness of the museum. I make sure to keep my crutch-based dance moves going, to make it clear to anyone watching the tapes that I’m still listening to music.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that on Thursday the MP3 player is gone from its long-time home in the lost-and-found, and the crisp new memo states that portable electronic devices of all sorts are now banned “in order to minimize distractions.” Fortunately, I had anticipated this maneuver, and had brought a paperback book with me, carefully sealed into a Ziploc bag to protect it against the rain. I’m not certain if the cameras can pick up the cover, but it’s George Orwell’s 1984. I had to make a special trip to the
library to get it, so I hope the title shows up on the tapes.
This plan nearly backfires on me. I’ve never read 1984 before, and it turns out to be really engaging. At about two in the morning, I’m so caught up in it that I almost forget to go on my rounds. Luckily, the vibrating alarm of my officially contraband phone reminds me of my duties, and I make it to the first check-in with 30 seconds to spare.
Finding loopholes in Edgar’s rules is undeniably the best time I’ve ever had at this job. Amusingly, it’s also the most efficient I’ve ever been. With as much as I’m needling my boss, I know I can’t afford to slip up anywhere. He may have been looking for a reason to fire me before, but by now, he’s got to be on an absolute mission to find one. So I am early every night, I’m alert and caffeinated, and I’m on time to my check-ins. I even dug out my ironing board at home so I could press my work clothes. The pants may not have razor creases like Edgar’s do, but they look pretty good for a guy who’s never used an iron before.
I spend Friday trying to anticipate Edgar’s next move, but I can’t come up with anything. I’m certain that he won’t give up, though. At this point, I’m not sure he can. Quitting at this point is admitting that I’ve beaten him within the rules of his own petty game. Even just leaving the existing rules shows a failure of imagination. He has to escalate, but I’m not sure how.
Edgar does not disappoint me, though. Friday night, the new sheet of paper bears a stark heading, centered and bolded: “YOU ARE PAID TO WORK.” Beneath that is a short paragraph outlining a number of additional make-work duties that basically come down to rattling the doors to make sure that they’re still locked and looking out of the windows to see if anyone’s peering in. And beneath that is another, shorter paragraph:
“Time on the clock is not leisure time. No personal activities will be permitted. If you can’t find anything to do, why not tidy up?”
When I read that, the security monitors briefly roll with static and a number of loose paperclips skip their way across the desk towards me before I manage to calm myself down. I’m supposed to fill eight empty hours at this mindless job without the help of a screen or even a book? The rounds take fifteen minutes. The new tasks might take ten, if I drag them out. That leaves thirty-five minutes out of every hour, a total of four hours and forty minutes over the course of the night. That is a lot of time to sit staring blankly at the monitors.
I flash back to the night of my super-intelligence. The memory of that boredom, of the feeling of my brain almost physically atrophying, makes me shudder. I still have 1984 in my coat pocket, and I’m briefly tempted to just ignore the new memo, read my book, and let Edgar fire me in the morning. But then I picture the vindictive little smile he’ll have when he sees the tapes, and I just can’t bring myself to let it happen. I knew he wouldn’t be able to quit this petty game, but I didn’t realize until just now that I wasn’t able to let myself lose to him, either.
The third hour is the worst. For the first hour, there’s the novelty of the new tasks, stupid though they are. They provide variety, at least, and I spend my downtime cataloging a list of names I’d like to call Edgar. The second hour allows me to try the make-work stuff in a different pattern, searching for optimization of the routine. By the third hour, though, I’m bored of rattling doors in case they somehow got unlocked since the first two times I checked, and I’ve run out of innovative rude things to say to my boss. For lack of anything better to do at my desk, I end up reading Edgar’s memos again, hearing them in my head in his snide little voice.
All too soon, I get to the last line of the most recent memo again: “If you can’t find anything to do, why not tidy up?” And suddenly a beautiful idea hits me. I look back at the array of memos, taped across the previously clear desk and backboard of the security station, and I grin widely.
It takes some looking around, and it’s another hour before I’ve found the supplies I need, but eventually I’ve collected the simple elements of my master plan. I painstakingly peel the taped-down corners of each memo off of my desk and carefully cut the extra tape off of the edges. I sort the memos by chronological order, neatly squaring the sheets into one stack. Then, using a hole-punch I found abandoned on a shelf in a janitorial closet, I make three neat holes and secure the whole pile in a three-ring binder. As a final touch, I slide a cover sheet into the plastic front on which I have carefully written, “DOBSON’S DOs AND DON’Ts.”
I make a matching label for the spine of the book and add it, then sit back to admire my handiwork. My desk is clear and neat, all of the oh-so-useful memos are helpfully compiled, and Edgar is going to be absolutely, impotently furious.
- - -
When I wake up Saturday afternoon, I already have a voicemail from Edgar. He’s practically spitting with anger, demanding that I come in today for a meeting. I consider ignoring the call until Monday, but decide instead to be the bigger man and call him back.
“Hello, Edgar? I got your voicemail.”
“When can I expect to see you? We have very important matters to discuss.” He’s hissing his words now, his sibilants gone soft in his rage.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t make it in before Monday. I’m afraid I’ve already got plans.” To watch Netflix, but whatever.
“This concerns your continued employment, Mr. Everton!”
I pause for a moment before replying, collecting my thoughts. Surprisingly, I’m not angry right now. I’d expected to respond to Edgar’s ire with my own, but I’m just not feeling it.
“Yeah, I appreciate that. But I just can’t come in on such short notice. I’m happy to come talk to you right before my shift on Monday.”
“You may not have a shift on Monday, Mr. Everton!”
I figure that if Edgar had cause to fire me, he would have done it already, so that means that this is all a bluff. For some reason, that realization finally raises my hackles, but I keep my tone steady as I drawl, “Well, I certainly hope that’s not the case, but we can discuss it on Monday. Unless you’d like to come to me? I can find some time in my schedule for you if that works.”
I can actually hear a grinding of plastic as, on the other end of the line, Edgar clenches the handset tightly enough to threaten its structural stability. When he speaks, though, his voice has gone calm. “I will see you on Monday an hour before your shift, Dan. Please do not be late.”
“Monday, then,” I say, and hang up.
Weirdly, I don’t feel apprehensive or jittery about the meeting, even though it’s clear that Edgar’s out for blood. My actions were obnoxious, sure, but they were responses in kind to petty tortures being handed down from above. And if he thought he could just dish it out and I would just take it quietly – well, I suppose he just learned differently.
I settle in to watch Netflix, letting my sense of indignation slowly build. I figure that if I gently cultivate it all weekend, it should serve me well come Monday.
- Chapter Sixteen -
The weekend turns out to be cold and, unsurprisingly, rainy, so my important Netflix plans are the perfect choice after all. I don’t spend all weekend just watching movies, of course. I also work on fine-tuning my powers, so there are several hours on Saturday where I’m magnetizing my pots and pans and not watching movies at all.
In fairness, ordinarily I would have the TV on during this sort of practice session, playing movies in the background, but earlier, I’d had a brilliant idea. Here’s how it went down: so I’m sitting there watching movies, and I think, “Hey! It’s all electronics in there; I bet I could use my powers instead of the remote.”
Okay, so you can probably figure out how this worked out now, but don’t get ahead of me. You can’t go, “Obviously that’s a terrible idea.” Looking back at it, I also agree that it’s obviously a terrible idea. You weren’t there, so I don’t want to hear about what you would have said. I’ve got hindsight, too.
Anyway, so I reach out and try to change the volume, or turn the TV off, or do anything at all,
really. And at first, I think it’s worked beautifully. The television shuts off, and I’m patting myself on the back for being the first human to directly communicate with a machine. And then I try to turn the TV back on, and nothing happens.
After a couple of tries, I pick up the remote, and still nothing. It’s not responding at all. And now I’ve caught up to the part where obviously applying magnetic forces randomly to the electronic components inside of your television is a bad idea. And yes, fine, now that I say it like that I suppose probably that was a little bit predictable.
After that, I slink off to the kitchen and spend a few hours magnetically imbuing pans and other hunks of iron, instead of things with delicate electronics. And when I try my TV again a few hours later, it turns on just fine. So I learned something without causing any damage, which is not really such a bad result. Especially when you consider how most of my month has gone.
So, whether by design or not, I do other things than just watch Netflix all weekend. And Brian comes over on Sunday and we play Mario Kart, which is totally different from movies even if it does involve sitting on the couch. I’m still working my way toward getting started on that cardio plan, and as long as I’ve got the cast on my leg, I’ve got a good excuse to keep putting off exercising.
Monday I spend doing something that’s still fairly new for me: preparing. I’ve become a big fan of that since my brief brush with super-intelligence, when carefully formulating that plan in the parking lot saved my life. This is just a meeting with Edgar, so the stakes aren’t nearly as high, but I’d still like to come out on top.
When I walk into Edgar’s office that evening, I’ve still got some butterflies in my stomach, but they’re not the butterflies of apprehension of the unknown. These are the butterflies of expectation. I know I’m walking into a fight, and it’s got me keyed up. But I’m ready to fight back.
The Experiment (Book 1): The Reluctant Superhero Page 9
