Blind Stitch

Chapter 5

"It only took five hours. New record." A blond-haired man smiled up at Henry who was coming back from the plane restroom. Henry sat down beside him, confused as to what he was referring to. Green eyes glanced down at the phone on the arm of the seat. "Your wife called and left a text message for you. I didn't answer, obviously."

The United Airlines flight departed around five hours ago from Atlanta, Georgia. Surely the factory couldn't already be crumbling from his absence. He even double-checked everything before officially taking leave. His executive assistant, Peter, had been appointed to come with him. Which left few competent people, aside from his wife, monitoring the factory. But he trusted Louis to keep everything running smoothly on that end.

"Let's see what's going on." Henry had looked at the text she sent. It was a short 'call me.' Simple enough. It rang only twice before being picked up. "Hey, I missed your call earlier, Darlin', what's wrong?"

"Did you send a letter to Louis? I got a call from Ox earlier that a letter was sent in. He just emailed me a picture of it. It looks as if the Model 12 Dolls are being discontinued and Louis is being put on the market—"

"What in the world?" Henry's voice rose on accident. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders once noticing the looks from other passengers. He spoke quieter into the phone. "When did that letter get sent out? I never sent anything like that."

"Ox said it was sent in yesterday. Louis doesn't know anything about it. He's been sick, apparently, so I told Ox to get him set up for another maintenance. He hasn't had one done in a while."

"No, that's true." Henry leaned his head back, thinking. "Gosh, I think the last time he had his chip checked was back in...2021, I think. It's supposed to be checked twice a year."

"Has Louis been avoiding it?"

"Maybe. He knows how important it is to get checked. But Greyson was also in charge of it. I think 2021 was the last year I did Lou's inspection before I handed that responsibility over to Greyson. Between the two of them, I'm not surprised it didn't get done. Those chips are also meant to only last about ten years. Let's see...2009...We're comin' up on it being almost 11 years old. He might need a new one before something bad happens."

"I'll set up an appointment for him. Did you want to be here for it? Since Greyson isn't qualified anymore."

"Yeah, please. Let's make it for next Saturday. I won't be back from Hamburg until around 9:30 at night next Friday. The flight makes two stops: one in Newark and another in London, on the way there. Then on the way back, it stops at...," he looked at Peter's phone, which had the flight details, "Munich and then Chicago before coming back to Atlanta."

"Will there not be any earlier times you can arrive? I'm just worried about Louis treading on thin ice right now with how old the chip is at this point."

"I understand, but the earliest flight is at 7:15 in the morning, just like today. I don't think I can do any earlier unless I left a day earlier. The meeting lasts until next Friday."

"Okay...," she trailed off in thought. He knew she had to be looking over the letter Ox had emailed her. "Okay, I'll keep him monitored than with the robots. What should I do if something goes south?"

"Don't panic, would be my first recommendation. The next thing I'd do is send a report to the manufacturing team. I can email them if you haven't already, but they need advanced notice to make a new chip for him."

"I've got that part covered now. You just relax and focus on your meeting. I just wanted to touch base with you about what was going on. Putting Louis on the market didn't sound like something you would do."