It was late when we finished. She had talked non-stop, phone call after phone call. She outsourced ordering to a dozen on-line retailers specializing in nerd or steam-punk fashion as well as more specialist sites for the disabled. Supply chain and manufacturing were auctioned out and won by a consortium headed up by an engineering company in Indonesia. I bundled up my designs, and e-mailed them to the engineers. I spent the rest of the time in a voice-chat conference with them as they tried to understand me through the medium of an automated translator. We worked together, Lumi and I, side by side at my workbench, always talking to someone else but speaking to each other with sideways glances.
I was fighting through the backlog of e-mails when Lumi hung up her last call with a curt farewell and looked over at me.
"It's a start," she said. "A few days and it will all be running smoothly."
"How did you do all this?"
She laughed, shaking her head. "I took a business administration course once upon a time. My father wanted me to help run the family business, but I'm afraid I was something of a disappointment to him. Still, a little of it must have stuck. The trick is to delegate everything you don't like to somebody else."
"You've saved my life. I don't know what I can do to make this up to you."
Lumi smiled. "You can start by buying me dinner."
YOU ARE READING
Less Of Her
Short StoryClaudia is a shut-in, a nerd. She creates custom cybernetic limbs, unique works of art. Lumi is everything Claudia is not, exotic, exciting, outgoing. Claudia comes to realise they both have their secrets. Secrets that will tear them apart.
