Ledman Pickup

Eighteen

As they were walking back to Zoey's car, Kandhi suddenly announced,

"She's going to Nebraska."

"Why?" Zoey asked.

"She thinks she's going to find some Argentine soccer players there, at its 'next drop-off point'," Kandhi shrugged. "Seriously."

Kandhi pulled out the keys and was about to get into the driver's side when she changed her mind. She opened the door, put the keys down on the seat and said,

"I changed my mind. You go on home now. Before we get too far. It's for the best," and started to walk way.

"Wait!" Zoey called out after her. "I don't understand. I thought you needed my help."

"I changed my mind," Kandhi shouted back without turning around. "Just don't mess with your socialnet page, okay? And we'll pay you for an extra week. I'll be in touch," and with that she was gone back into the restaurant. Zoey stood by the passenger door for several moments without moving. She was still dazed from the lack of sleep, confused from the turn of events, and now even more stunned by Kandhi's sudden departure.

"Breathe," she told herself. "Just breathe," and as she breathed, she began to feel a little more in control once again. She was more than six hundred miles from home. "I'll never make it tonight," she thought, and then it occurred to her that she didn't have to. She could find a place to spend the night and hit the road again in the morning. Walking around to the other side of the car, she looked up and noticed there was a motel right across the other side of the parking lot.

"I don't care," she said to herself, "I don't care if it's the crappiest place in the world. I've had it." She went straight over to the motel, checked herself in, went right to her room, took a long hot shower and fell asleep the moment she hit the bed.

Kandhi, in the meantime, was on the sidewalk on the phone with Chris.

"This is totally fucked up," she was saying a bit too loudly, but looking around she saw that no one was anywhere nearby. She started walking up the street toward a Soft-E-Freeze.

"There's something you're not telling me," she accused him before he had a chance to answer.

"You'd better fill me in," he gently prodded. Back in the San Francisco office, Chris was relaxing with his feet on his desk and a Thai iced tea that one of the Ops people brought him. Being point-man for one of the most secretive companies in the universe was a relatively easy job. Chris spent most of his time on the phone, denying speculations. The social-rags were always trying to guess at W.W.A.'s latest gizmos. He had nothing to tell them. He could only deny, deny and deny.

"I"m guessing it went into playback mode while in transit," she informed him. "Your stupid geniuses programmed it to bond with its container. It took the fucking idea literally. Why shouldn't it? It's a machine. What does it know about ambivalent English terminology? You meant 'person' but wrote 'container'. Now it's captured that as well. It's not thinking outside the box! It's thinking it IS a box!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Chris calmly replied. "Where is the device now? Do you have it?"

"No I don't fucking have it," she shouted. "Some idiot OPENED the stupid box. Now she's the container! It's using her to get around. Probably capturing her too, AND playing back Zoey Bridges, and being the stupid package as well. This young woman has no idea what has hit her. But there's something else. I know it. It's not just playing back. It's doing stuff. It's posting on Zoey's socialnet and if it can do 'PUT' then it can do 'GET'. What the fuck did your people put in it?"

"I'll have to check on that," Chris told her. "Tom was working on it but I know he passed some on to Mike as well."

"Mike Griggs?" Zoey gasped. "He brought Griggsy in on it?"

"Yep," said Chris, "something about 'bonus features' if I remember rightly."

"BONUS FEATURES?" Kandhi was incensed. "You're not allowed to do that! Not until Testing says OK! Nothing that's not in the spec! This is fucking experimental shit. You know that! Oh for fuck's sake."

"Take it easy, K," Chris advised, "It's not really your headache you know."

"It's my case," she replied.

"You want off? You got off," he told her. "I can bring Ginger in if we need to."

"Oh no, you don't," she shouted, "You keep her out of my way."

"Breathe," Chris recommended. "Come on, Kandhi, let's work it out. What's our goal here?"

"Get the fucking thing back," she snapped. "Now I wish that warehouse geek HAD really gone and smashed it like he wanted."

"Once again, you're not making sense," said Chris after another sip. It was rather amazing how good the stuff tasted, like a dessert.

"It's on the road," Kandhi explained. "Don't know exactly where of course. Directional fuzzing and no GPS, right? Like our little motto? 'We do tracking. We don't do tracked'. All I know is that it thinks it needs to go to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Don't ask me why but I'm thinking it must have got some kind of overdose of sports talk somewhere along the line."

"Sports talk," Chris repeated. "Are you all right? You don't sound well."

"I haven't slept," she admitted, "but I'm okay. I know what I'm doing. I'm on the trail and I'm going to get it back. Just find out what Griggsy stuck in there. I really need to know," and with that she hung up.

"I'm going to need another rental," she realized, and while she had a chocolate raspberry softee swirl she made some calls and got a hold of the sedan she wanted in the first place. The car company even came and picked her up right there on the side of the road. Getting behind the wheel she calculated she could make it to Colorado Springs by nightfall, then dinner and a place to sleep a few hours. She was fired up now. Just the idea of them calling in Ginger! No way!