Type 88

Part 2 - The Reaction, Chapter 4

4

Sixty-Eight Days until the Deadline

Jeff drove to work on a cold, hard morning. It was still dark out, just before dawn. Douglas slept beside him in the passenger seat.

He had been leaving earlier and earlier the past few weeks. He didn't have a good reason why. He got up at four in the morning and turned on NPR. It ran two stories while Jeff showered.

First, a cyber-security expert explained how modern computer hackers could leverage the vast network of cell phones and provider towers to take over broadcast channels for a time before the phone companies could work together to shut them down. The man speculated that a group called Anonymous already had the means to do this and were the kind of people to stage a stunt to get the world's attention.

Next, a Japanese pundit talked about their gutless prime minister. Jeff tuned this one out. His mind drifted toward how his son was handling the deadline.

The sooner the whole thing blew over, the better.

He was thinking about his son when he saw a wolf standing in the middle of the road. He hit the brakes and stopped a few feet short of the creature. Douglas stirred, then drifted back to sleep. The wolf didn't move. It looked into the truck's cabin directly at Jeff. Jeff knew it couldn't see past the headlights, but the two seemed to make eye contact anyway. They sat that way for an eternity, taking each other in.

Jeff hit the horn. The wolf turned toward the woods that lined the country road and looked back at him. Jeff hit the horn again, longer this time. The wolf shot into the woods. Jeff watched the entry where it disappeared. He unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed the door handle. He hit the horn again.

The morning was still.

***

Jeff pulled up to the shop. The rubber on his tires crunched the gravel underneath the truck, echoing off the tin walls. Frost tipped the grass on the front lawn. He got out, his boots stomping on the ground in the quiet morning air, and unlocked the front door. He looked back down the driveway into the woods. Douglas walked past him into the office.

The building was empty; there was still more than an hour before start time.

Three-fourths of the team had outright quit in the weeks following the broadcast. Some told Jeff that they wanted to spend time with their family until everything passed—just in case. Others simply stopped coming in.

There were two weeks left on Royal Implement's bug zapper contract. The team was a month behind, but Jeff was confident he wouldn't hear from Spectrum until the deadline passed.

The faint glow of blue light from the test units illuminated the dark floor. Jeff spent the first hour of each day warming these so the team could start inspection as soon as they got in. He didn't do this to increase productivity but rather to allow the guys to skip small talk and start working. Small talk ventured into dangerous territories lately.

The front door opened, and signs of dawn poured in. Jeff got up and walked to the doorway of his office.

"You're in early. I'm heating the units. Thirty of them today," Jeff said. "I didn't expect you in for another hour or so."

Benny came dragging in, hungover.

"Want any coffee?" Jeff asked.

Benny ignored him and lay down on the sofa in the break room.

"Couldn't sleep?" Jeff said.

Benny turned in his direction. "Mom and Scott were talking about the Hills again yesterday. They're always talking about that shit." Benny looked up at Jeff. He looked older, more jaded than a twenty-two-year-old kid should look.

When did that happen? Jeff stood in the doorway, unable to find a way to bridge the distance between the two of them.

"It's not that I don't think about it," Benny continued. "I just don't think anyone can do much about it. I mean, are you worried?"

"No. You're right to feel that way. If something is in your control, do something about it. If it's not in your control, there's no use worrying about it," Jeff said.

Potentially losing the chance to make things right with Benny did give Jeff concern. Maybe he did know why he was waking up at four o'clock. He thought there would be a better time, between contracts, where he'd work on his relationship with his son. Maybe patch together his marriage with Laura too. After the market collapsed in 2008, though, he had needed to focus on the company. That was supposed to be temporary, until the money was right again.

"What do you think about the Hills?" Jeff asked.

Benny turned over. "I don't know. Wake me up when the units are ready."

Jeff went back into his office and closed the door. The kid knew enough about the business to take over. He grew up around it. He was smart, too—lifetimes smarter than Jeff was at that age. Benny had attended a starter community college for a degree in business, but he didn't have as much interest in classes as he did in getting lit with his buddies, and he eventually dropped out.

Jeff took the blame for that. He could have guided him through that period. It was a luxury he didn't have with his own father, an alcoholic who spent more time downtown than paying attention to Jeff. Jeff thought things would be different with Benny. He'd be the father he never had—once the money was right again.

The deadline was as good a time as ever to pass the torch. Jeff saw it as a blessing in that regard. The panic brought on by the broadcast wasn't kind to Wall Street. Banks were forced to freeze accounts. The global economy dipped into a catastrophic depression. If the deadline came to pass and they were still alive, the tail for this one would last for decades.

Jeff's overdue loans against Spectrum and three other banks were suddenly diluted.

The money was right again.

He could let go and put the business in Benny's hands. He could focus on repairing his family while he worked with the kid to run the shop. Two birds with one stone. The world seemed to be falling apart, but once it passed, the fresh perspective Benny brought living through that could give the business the boost it needed. It could give them the boost they needed.

Benny could be proud of his old man after all.

This all assumed, of course, that they actually made it through the deadline. Maybe some anonymous hacking group was messing with them. Or maybe it was ridiculous to keep pretending like nothing was going on out there.

Jeff put it out of his mind.

Douglas curled up underneath the desk.

"Ready for the day, bud?" Jeff asked.

The dog's tail wagged, free from burden.

Jeff looked out over the shop. The bug zappers now irradiated the floor in an unearthly blue light. The equipment cast shadows over Benny. The units were ready, but he would let his son sleep for a while longer.

"Not going into the light just yet," Jeff said.