The Lonely Whelk Page 5

  “Hand on his knee, maybe…” John climbed up on a chair and began to gesture as though he was declaiming. “Or glance up from under your eyelashes.”

  “Ask him what he’s reading,” Rock said.

  “He’s not reading anything.” Kaia crossed her arms. “But I guess I can try. What’s the point of this?”

  “We’re testing his mettle.” Quin clasped his hands behind his back.

  “What if I end up working with him? He’ll think I’m a horrible person,” she argued.

  “No. If he’s hired, we’ll explain everything. It will be fine,” Rock answered. “Now get out there.”

  Kaia took a deep breath a stomped out of the office. She plopped down in the seat next to the young man, leaned over, and put her hand on his knee.

  “Look,” she whispered, “I’m supposed to flirt with you to distract you, but I think it’s stupid and manipulative and unfair, so I’m just pretending.”

  “I see.” He looked at her. He had nice eyes. “I anticipated something like this.”

  “If you’re any good, I’m sure you’ll do fine on the interview.” She moved her hand in a circle on his knee and smiled a little. “Also, they’re watching.”

  “I assumed as much. And thank you for the vote of confidence.” He sat up straighter, smiled, and reached out his hand. “I’m Clyde Brothard.”

  She removed her hand from his knee and shook his. “I’m Kaia.”

  “Would you like a business card?”

  “Thanks!” She looked at it closely. It was black and said, “Clyde, Security Services.”

  “I had better get going. Good luck on your interview!”

  “Thanks!” He smiled at her and leaned back in his seat.

  “That’s lame,” John was saying as she strode into the room. He frowned slightly. “He just gave you a business card.”

  “I think it was perfectly professional of him.” Kaia replied, crossing her arms.

  “I have to agree.” Rock crossed his arms as Quin strode from the room. As soon as Quin reached out to take Clyde’s hand, he said, “We’re a go. John, please go hide the keys. Kaia, stand behind the curtain over there.”

  After Kaia left, Clyde tried hard to keep his face from showing any emotions. He thought using a girl was a cheap trick on an interview, but after a moment’s thought he remembered that in one of his history of security classes his professor had included an entire unit on women who were able to sneak into high-level buildings by using their wiles. This was a government facility, so it probably made sense. He hoped he had passed this test, but felt a little bad for Kaia, that they would make her do that.

  He looked up as a tall, muscular man walked towards him.

  “The name’s Quin Black,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  Clyde stood and took Quin’s hand. “Clyde Brothard.” He nodded. “Here’s my business card, and a copy of my resume.”

  “Thank you,” Quin replied. “Follow me, please.”

  Clyde followed Quin into a room filled with screens. A short gentleman stood in front of him, hand extended.

  “My name is Rock,” he said, “and I am head of security here at the Globe. Before we begin, I would like for you to fill out some quick paperwork.” He handed Clyde an envelope.

  “Of course, sir,” Clyde responded politely. He took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart; Ivanna the Bard once said, A calm heart and a calm mind can work together to achieve the goals of the soul, so he took another deep breath and willed his beating heart to slow. He smiled at Rock and glanced at the screens.

  A gentleman in a nice grey suit and rather interesting tie appeared on the screen that looked out on the back lawn. He put his face close, winked, and then the camera went dead.

  “Oh good grief,” Rock said. “Not again.” He sighed and shook his head. “You can sit right here and complete this paperwork. I’ll be back in a few moments — I just need to deal with a small issue. Quin?”

  The two men disappeared.

  Clyde opened the envelope and removed the piece of paper inside. It was blank. He frowned and flipped it over. There was nothing on the back either. Holding the piece of paper up to the light, spitting on it, and scribbling on it with an invisible ink revealer all revealed nothing. So, Clyde glanced at his watch, leaned back in his chair, and began to watch the security screens.

  The screens, unlike the paper, revealed a very interesting scene. The winking man ran about from location to location, while Rock ran after him just a bit behind. After a while, Rock caught the man and began to bring him back towards the building. Suddenly, the man wrenched himself from Rock’s grasp and bolted off the property. Rock threw his hands up in the air and came back towards the building.

  Clyde reached out for the piece of paper and carefully folded it. He pulled a knife from his pocket, cut a few holes, and then unfolded it, revealing a snowflake. He then wrote in neat letters, “I saw the whole thing,” folded it back up, and slipped it into the envelope. Then Rock entered the room, breathing heavily.

  “Well,” said Rock, “I chased him off. But it turns out he was hiding keys to the building all over the property.” He held up a small silver key which was nearly engulfed by his large hand. “I don’t know how he got them or how many he hid, but I need to go find them. Care to help?”

  “Sure,” Clyde replied. He counted along with the beating of his pulse and stood, leaving the envelope on the table.

  Rock led Clyde out into the gardens behind the Globe. “I don’t think he hid any of the keys off the property. Let’s split up – we’ll spend twenty minutes or so looking and find as many as we can, then we’ll finish up the interview and I’ll review the security tapes to find the rest.”

  “Great.” Clyde nodded firmly. As soon as Rock’s back had turned, he let himself grin just a little bit. This was fun.

  As Rock ran towards the front of the building, Clyde closed his eyes and imagined a grid. He hovered over the garden, and pictured the screens as mapping to each square of the imaginary grid, and began to run the screen footage like a film on the back of his eyelids.

  The man hadn’t hidden any of the keys in the front. The first hiding place was: the small fountain.

  As he moved towards the fountain, Clyde set up a rhythm in his head… one, two and three, four and five… and stepped carefully to the beat. Maintaining a beat, Ivanna the Bard had said, will allow the learner or the learned to stay in tune to his knowledge and understanding by creating a pattern upon which all other things may be learned and remembered.

  The fountain housed three keys: one in the water, one under a loose stone, and one balanced on the statue in the fountain’s centerpiece which was shaped like a water swallow dive-bombing a squirrel. There were two keys by the statue of the man with a hedgehog, one under each big toe. He found four keys under bushes, three under seemingly random stones, and another six in and around the fence that ran across the back of the property; it wasn’t a very big garden, but it was beautifully landscaped. Big, pink, cloud-like flowers floated amid a sea of dark green leaves. A few little white flowers dotted the spaces in between. He found it very appealing.

  Stopping for a moment, Clyde looked around. Rock was nowhere to be found. He must have still been looking in the front.

  Clyde closed his eyes again, and let himself float over the grid map of the garden. He knew there was a pattern. He could feel it blending with his own rhythm. If someone were hiding more than one key, it must be because they knew that most of them would be found. That meant that there would be a pattern – so the keys could easily be found – and then a final key hidden outside the pattern.

  He began to play the security screen footage again. The man ran to the fountain and the statue, to the three bushes and random stones… and then Clyde saw it: a figure eight. That meant there were still a few hidden. He strolled over to a large bush carefully pruned into the shape of a mercenary holding a bag of gold and a large spear. Sure enough, he found a key h
idden in the bag of gold. The other three pruned bushes – a large bottle of medicine labeled “Rx,” a rabbit with a top hat, and a donut-shaped planet, probably a bush version of Sagitta – proved to contain three more keys. That meant that there was probably only one left.

  He pressed his fingers to his temple. Had the man gone anywhere that was not located within the figure eight? The drinking fountain. Clyde strode over to the public drinking fountain. He looked in it, around it, even underneath it. No key. He frowned. It was a standard drinking fountain, shaped like a sphere with a little button about the size of a cassette tape, that when pushed, caused water to shoot out of the spigot. The sphere was about one foot off the ground with the water pipe visible and then disappearing into the ground.

  I’m thirsty, he thought, and pressed the button. It didn’t move. He pressed it again. It still didn’t move. He grinned a little and carefully removed the cover. There was the key, shoved between the cover and the sensor. Brilliant. No one would ever find that. Except him.

  He slipped the last key into his pocket, took a drink, and walked casually back to the building.

  Rock was waiting in the office. He glanced at his watch. “Perfect timing. I was just coming in for a break!”

  “I found the keys.” Clyde reached into his pocket and dropped the twenty keys on Rock’s desk.

  “Impressive!” Rock’s eyebrows rose considerably. “You have just done me a great favor. How about we get this interview done with, shall we? Follow me.”

  The elevator stopped at the thirty-seventh floor.

  “The next part of your interview is with Quin. Do you remember him?”

  “Yes, sir!” Clyde replied.

  “Good. I am going to meet with a coworker and then I’ll catch up with you there. Just go to the end of this hallway and take a right. It’s pretty straightforward – you can’t get too lost. Tell Quin I will be right there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Clyde nodded once and strode confidently down the hall.

  He turned the corner and froze.

  In front of him lay a shaft. It must have been hundreds of feet deep, straight down into the building. He could see pipes and support beams, and even a few cobwebs. A cool breeze hit his face. But there was something odd about the whole scene.

  Clyde pressed his fingers to his temples and imagined the space around him, felt the breeze, counted his heartbeats. Then he realized something: the part of the building he was standing in was a sphere. A shaft would never just go down forever. If it were real, he would be able to see grass and possibly some nicely pruned bushes. It wouldn’t be dark, because the sun was out. Not only that, but the breeze appeared to be coming from straight ahead, not blowing up or down. So what should he do? What was the problem with this hallway?

  He took three deep breaths and squared his shoulders. It was time to take a literal step of faith. He closed his eyes and stepped forward. His foot – naturally – hit the floor. He opened his eyes and looked down; it was an incredibly disturbing sensation. The graphics of the image on the floor were such a high quality resolution that it really looked as though he was gazing into the depths of a massive shaft — he felt like a cartoon character that was only hovering in the air for a moment before inevitably crashing to his doom. He looked up. The shaft continued into the sky… except that he couldn’t see the sky.

  Shaking his head to ward off the dizzy feeling he turned and strode down the hallway. He knocked on the first door he came to. Kaia answered. She grinned.

  “You made it. Quin’s waiting. Come in.”

  Quin sat at a large wooden desk. In front of it were two chairs. A bookcase leaned against one wall. Other than the furniture and a few books, there was nothing in the office.

  Quin frowned. Clyde stared into Quin’s eyes and then sat in a chair facing him.

  They sat in silence for twenty minutes, with Kaia watching. She tapped a pencil, twisted her hands, and played with her hair. She was clearly uncomfortable. Clyde only mirrored Quin.

  “Your resume is weak,” Quin said suddenly. He held out a piece of paper which had Clyde’s name and contact information. Clyde glanced it over and swallowed.

  “That’s... my old resume.” He closed his eyes briefly and then met Quin’s gaze. “My apologies. I must have printed out the wrong one before I left this morning.”

  “I see,” Quin replied. “Well, it just so happens that as long as your qualifications are correct, it doesn’t matter. Good work on the keys and in the hallway.”

  “Oh my goodness, it was amazing!” The man that hid the keys popped out from behind Quin. Quin didn’t flinch. “I’m John and you were absolutely incredible! You found all the keys I hid – you even figured out the pattern! Excellent work. And the hallway – those are Smith’s LEDs with a MST 45mcs processing computer running the simulation. Realistic, isn’t it? And I loved your snowflake! Seven corners! That is nearly impossible! High quality work, young man.”

  The door opened and Rock walked in.

  “You passed the girl test, the written test, the key test, and the hallway test!” John continued without taking a breath. “So basically, if we don’t hire you now it’s because we have somebody else or we’re being discriminatory.”

  “If you would like the position, then we will talk pay.” Rock reached out his hand.

  “Thank you, sir!” Clyde exclaimed, standing up and taking Rock’s hand. “I accept.”

  *******

  Paperwork is of the devil, Ivanna the Bard had once said, but without it society will fall.

  She had never been so right, Clyde thought, stretching. He sat in front of a large stack of paper in the office of the esteemed Mr. Drake, the man who apparently both ran this entire department and could crush Clyde with a twitch of his finger. Luckily, much of it had included copies for him to take home or were instructions for sections that didn’t apply to him.

  He was amazed that in a matter of a couple of hours he had interviewed, been offered a job, accepted the job, and filled out his paperwork. At this rate, he would be an expert at working here by the end of the week.

  “Oh good, you’re done.”

  Clyde turned to see Rock standing in the doorway. He stepped forward and picked up half of the large stack of papers from the table.

  “Great. So what does your availability look like?”

  Opening his mouth, Clyde barely made out, “Well, anytime really—” before Rock cut him off.

  “Can you start right now? We’re a bit short-handed.”

  “I have no problem with it,” Clyde responded, surprised. “I just need to make a phone call.”

  “Sure,” Rock said. “I’ll be back to get you in, say, fifteen minutes?”

  Clyde nodded as he turned and strode from the room.

  As soon as the door swung shut, Clyde pulled out his phone. He let a small smile cross his features as he dialed.

  “Mom!” he said, as soon as she answered. “I got the job!”

  “Well, congratulations, sweetie!” she congratulated him. “That is excellent news.”

  “They want me to start today. That means I have to work late. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  “That’s fine, sweetie,” she replied. “I’ll just have Cindy leave dinner for you in the oven.”

  There was a brief moment of silence.

  “Are you still there, Mom?”

  “I’m here, just can’t believe my baby is growing up so fast.”

  Was she crying on the other end?

  “I’m not...” Clyde sighed. A parent will never give up on the innocence of their child, no matter what the truth may actually be. “Okay, Mom. Well, I have to go now.”

  “Bye, sweetheart! Have a great first day at work!”

  Clyde hung up. He knew in his soul that his mother would never recognize the fact that he had long ago grown up, but he could always hope, couldn’t he?

  Hope is like cotton candy to a starving man, Ivanna the Bard whispered in the back of his head. He si
ghed quietly, and sat down to wait for Rock.

  PART 2

  The universe is a strange place. It is full of holes and curtains, and little tourist shops that seem to appear everywhere selling magnets, t-shirts, and chocolate rocks. When a tourist shop moves (a very rare occurrence, mind you), all of its merchandise experiences a spatial-temporal shift, which causes the names on the items to morph into the name of the current location. The first time Hazel’s shop moved, she opened and closed her mouth several times, blinked rapidly, and pinched her arms repeatedly.

  But no matter what she did, it seemed that one moment she was standing in an empty shop surrounded by a bevy of clothing and useless knickknacks blaring the letters “LONDON,” and the next moment everything appeared to say “ANCHORAGE.” This was, for Hazel, a stunning and rather unbelievable occurrence – but, following in the footsteps of her father, she carried on, smile ablaze, and served the next customer that walked in.

  This unusual event happened periodically over the next few years, and by-and-by, she got used to it.

  During those quiet days in the shop, while she drank tea and carefully worked on knitting the world’s longest scarf, she would sometimes think back to the first time it happened, with all the confusion, and the ensuing search to find anything to explain the odd change in the shop: alien technology, magical symbols, a secret old book. Was it the death of her father? Was it the changing weather? Had the shop been built on a ley line, and every time the stars aligned in a particular manner, her shop got thrown from one side of the earth to the other?

  Eventually, she decided that there were gods, the kind the Romans used to believe in, and they were playing with her fortune – or rolling the dice, so to speak. She looked for the bright side: she had the opportunity to visit many different places, and make money while doing it; she had the opportunity to meet many people, and make money while doing it; and she felt an excited giddiness every time she found herself in a new world. Also, she didn’t have to pay taxes. There were downsides, of course. She had few friends and no community. She didn’t date or even have a phone number. And she couldn’t pick where her shop decided to take her. It seemed random. It seemed strange.