Posts Tagged ‘novel’

Back to funny fantasy. Since I had just gotten into collecting autographs myself, it seemed like a natural thing to give my protagonist my obsession. He was also a sniveling, selfish jerk, but obviously that part was all made up. Ahem. Attempting to liven up his life a little, he clicked on a joke eBay auction only to find it wasn't a joke.

It wasn't a novel, either, but it may be someday. Didn't hit 50k this year, either. I'm slipping. Note the Hiatus references…

The Highest Bidder
by C. A. Bridges

Chapter One – Cons and Pros and Cons

Bought: Kevin Sutton (2); Mark Goddard (1); Erin Gray (2); Playboy Playmate Miss November 2008 Grace Kim (1); George Lowe, voice of Space Ghost (1)

Morton would never have bought the souls in the first place if it hadn't been for the girl with the Captain Crunch box.

As far as Morton Sezlick was concerned, science fiction conventions existed for one reason and one reason only: commerce. You went, you sold, you bought, you moved on. There was a great deal of money to be made if you knew what you were doing, which he did, which was why every minute stuck in this half-mile autograph line that was not moving was driving him crazy with the lingering scent of lost revenue. Almost as maddening as the way the thousands of people currently crowding his space just went around mindlessly having fun all the time in their elaborate costumes of Jedis and Klingons and Browncoats and whatever the hell those big square brown things were with all the teeth. How could anyone enjoy this if they weren't paid to do so?

Despite the best efforts of dedicated fans, convention halls simply were not conducive to the creation of magical science-fantasy worlds. From where Morton stood he could see sad-looking paper-mache emulations of planets and rocket ships, a Mark I Viper made of slightly sagging cardboard, lots of poly-vinyl banners strung from the ceiling, and rows and rows of PVC-and-blue-cloth dividers divvying up the dealers' tables and artist alley booths. It might have helped if the con people could have controlled the environment and only let you you see what they wanted you to see, like a JayCees' haunted house or something, but none of the decorations rose higher than about 10 feet and above that the bland, institutional yellow of the walls stretched for another 20 more before the ductwork and pipes of the ceiling added the capping, fantasy-killing touch. Guests of the con, actors from popular science fiction shows and movies both past and present – the only reason to show up, as far as Morton was concerned – sat against a wall behind a long row of folding tables that were covered in butcher paper so the fans couldn't see the stars' impatient foot-tapping, stashed alcohol, missing underwear, or hidden Blackberrying. Behind each star was a piece of posterboard with their name and credits, in case you weren't sure why you wanted to meet them or couldxn't quite remember where'd you'd seen their face before, especially if it had been covered in makeup and latex tentacles at the time. And you needed to be sure; autograph lines of hundreds of people stretched and curved across the floor, doubling back on themselves to create some sort of intricate, organically changing knot that was broken and reformed repeatedly every time someone dressed as General Grievous or an eight-foot Pac-Man needed to come through. Read the rest of this entry »

This year I cheated a bit, and worked on adapting a story I had tried doing in screenplay form for ScriptFrenzy, the annual screenwriting equivalent of NaNoWriMo. Didn't help – I still rewrote it to death without actually completing it. This is another I'm definitely coming back to, because some of the stuff I didn't get to write still makes me giggle.

"The Stolen Fairy Tale"
by C. A. Bridges

All imaginary figures, living or dead, are purely coincidental. So are the real people. So, very probably, are you.

Prologue

Heather was as prepared as it was possible to be.

In her room full of brightly colored toys and mobiles, gently used furniture and big fluffy comforters, she was huddled on her bed like an arctic explorer getting up the nerve to leave the tent. She was bundled in her warmest clothing and sturdiest boots. Her knit cap was pulled tight over her ears, and her gloves were tied to her coat sleeves. In the dim light from the window only little bits of her were actually visible through the various folds of cloth; she looked like a stuffed turkey designed by L.L. Bean.

By her feet was her school backpack, emptied and carefully repacked with spare clothes, a flashlight, pebbles for leaving trails, her jump rope in case she needed to climb a mountain or tie up a bad guy, and all the beef jerky in the house. Tucked away in various pockets were band aids, ointment, string, a key made of cold iron, and a whistle that she knew for a fact was very loud indeed. Also batteries, her Instamatic camera, and extra film, for later proof. If she could have gotten her dad's car keys she'd have had flares, but she made do with a box of fireplace matches.

And she had bus fare, because you never knew. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2005 I came up with a list of suggested new science fiction TV shows, and one of them was called "Hiatus." No description of the show itself, mind you, just the fact that it was brilliant and well-received and canceled by episode 7. Some friends started contributing details about the nonexistent show, even writing fan fiction about until a general consensus of what it was about began to emerge. I've brought Hiatus about in several different ways; by starting a website to save the show, by creating a webcomic with Adam Levermore about a group of fans who were trying to save the show, by writing the novelization of the nonexistent pilot episode, and by writing a NaNo novel about the show's cancellation. Next: live action!

This was the 2006 entry. This was also the first time I didn't hit the 50k mark, mostly because I started writing a Serenity fan fiction book and switched to this partway through.

Save Hiatus
By C. A. Bridges

chapter one –

Lagging Lukas latches onto Lykewater
Variety, November 1: The newest network has a new face already. In a surprising move MyTV, Geoffrey Lukas' latest offering in a cable box full of stations, has replaced recently retired executive vice president Ed Handleman, the guiding hand behind the network’s breakout hits “Lineman,” “Drama Queen,” “Someone’s Watching Maria,” and “Hiatus,” with new golden boy Brendon Lykewater, a producer from the MyTV regional affiliate My65 in Orlando, Fl. Lykewater, 27, nearly doubled the affiliate’s ratings through bold, innovative programming and viewer outreach programs and clearly Lukas is hoping he can do the same at the main office. We're watching, Brendon! Here's hoping America is, too.

Brendon Lykewater looked out over his new domain, and saw that it was good.

The only visible light in the room was a dimly glowing fixture directly over the door, which had the effect of slightly blinding the unprepared visitor and making the rest of the office seem even darker. This was aided by dark furnishings, indirect lighting, an air conditioner set to 68 degrees, and a polished black oak desk at the far end of the room that reflected the dim light in an altogether unsettling manner. The mind filled in drifting mists and pits to snag the unwary. Brandon stepped inside and relished the feel of the thick carpet as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The room fairly stank of power, coiled and ready to strike. Also, Windex, but that would fade.

His new administrative assistant Christine, a tall, cool blonde number that he was carefully not staring at, held the heavy oak door open for him. She also radiated power but it was a very different sort, the kind that makes men and some women walk into lampposts. "I think you'll find it meets your needs," she said. Her voice was low and smoky and had not a hint of sexual innuendo in it whatsoever, which was, oddly,  incredibly sexy. "The light control and thermostat are controlled at your desk, sir."

"Good," Brendon said. "Humans have an atavistic fear of the dark, Christine. They know, with ancient senses they've forgotten they possess, that predators lurk within. It's only fair to warn them that their senses are correct." He liked that line. It had taken him a week of practice with his PDA, recording it and playing it back until he got the ominous timbre in his voice just right. He didn't look to see if his new right hand was properly nervous; looking would have ruined the effect. Besides, he was busy taking it all in. Read the rest of this entry »

Fourth year. Still maintaining my record of completed NaNos without completed novels. It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, without further ado…

This year I went horror comedy. This proved to be a more accurate description than I'd have liked.

Habeas Corpse
By C. A. Bridges

chapter one: the surprise witness

"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing to do with it."
–Somerset Maugham

Grave-robbing ain’t nearly as much fun as they make it out to be.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

Also not quite as creepy-cool, at least not when there’s a small crowd around with half of ‘em in law enforcement. Just takes the coolness factor right out of it.

Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!” Chuk. Chuff. “Whouf!”

“How deep did you guys bury him, anyway? Do we need to get the backhoe out here?”

“Same as everyone else, deputy. Six feet under, just like the TV show. Don’t worry, Earl and Jimmy are almost there,” said the voice in the reassuring tones of someone who wasn’t standing in a five-and-a-half-foot hole.

Earl – which is me — was almost dead himself if my aching back was any judge. The spotlights shining down at us brilliantly lit up everything in front of me, which at the moment was a pile of dirt and Jimmy’s butt crack. I don’t know about Jimmy but the reason I was working so fast was because whatever was left in that coffin had to be a damn sight prettier than Jimmy’s south end. There was a car battery and some jumper cables I had thought were there to run the lights but they seemed to be doing just fine without.

Read the rest of this entry »

Third year. Hit the 50k mark both times previous, still no finished novel to show for it. I am broken but unbowed.

This time I tried a mystery. Partly because I read a lot of them that year and the idea appealed to me, partly because I might as well have an unfinished novel in every genre, just to be complete, and partly because mysteries like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series proved your protagonist didn't really have to know what they were doing. Works for me.

So, This Murderer Walks Into a Bar…
By C. A. Bridges

Chapter One

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
– Samuel Johnson

When you’re a bartender and there’s a hurricane beating on your door, you really start to notice just how much glass is surrounding you at eye level.

Angry winds howled outside the windows like frustrated gods but I was ignoring them by contemplating the impressive shelves of bottles behind me. When 120-mile per hour gusts blew the plywood through the windows and started a whirlwind inside the bar, cutting us all open with shards of pre-sterilized glass, which of these flying refreshments would have my name on it? Maybe I should put the Crown Royal back in its bag, to soften the blow.

Then again, if alcohol was ever going to do me damage it would have to be blunt trauma. I’m a nondrinker, which isn’t as much of a handicap to being a bartender as you might think. It’s no tougher than a vegetarian becoming a master chef at a Kobe steak house.

OK, maybe it is a handicap. But it does keep our profit margin healthy.

“There you go,” I said finally, pointing at a squat amber bottle. “That’s the one that’ll get me, officer. Take my nose clean off and bash out half my teeth, I’m sure of it. You can tell by the evil gleam on its label. It’s a killer.” Read the rest of this entry »

My second year of noveling, I reasoned, had to be easier. I knew I could do it. I knew where I had gone wrong before. Plus, I had a fantastic idea. What would happen if someone developed a perfect cure? Something that would rebuild a human from the DNA out, in a matter of minutes? What would happen if it were released to the world, without asking the world first?

In my book, someone would get sued.

I loved the idea, had reams of notes. Piece of cake. I even considered waiting a week to start, to make it fair.

By the end of the month I was seriously thinking about giving one of my characters an uncontrollable impulse to recite 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" whenever he entered a room, because I needed the words. Made a strong start, got quite a ways into it, and then made the cardinal mistake of speed-writing and horror movie chases: I looked back. Spent the rest of the month endlessly editing and re-editing what I'd already written, barely managed to stumble over the 50,000 word finish line with a half hour to spare.

This one I'll probably come back to, because I still love the idea. Here's the last version of the opening:

THE CURE
By Chris Bridges

Prologue

The cool thing about working at Starbucks, Mannie thought, was the awesome potential for spying.

You had to be discreet, of course. People often got touchy when they were distracted from their private affairs by a nosey guy who took a half hour to wipe their table, but Manny was a pro. So far this morning he had carefully not noticed the three gorgeous, giggling co-eds bragging about the sex they had the night before (he especially liked not hearing the story about the blindfold and the jar of grape jelly). The fact that he was pretty sure all three were lying to each other made it even better, almost as good as the two weepy guys he overheard the other day trading lost love stories. Great stuff.

People who are unable to function without caffeinated beverages are at their most vulnerable during the first cup, noted Mannie, amateur sociologist. Before they get it they're surly, sarcastic, and often incomprehensible, more like Dawn of the Dead extras than real people. After their fix, when the murky hot bean juice seeps into every pore of their bodies and kicks them awake, they gradually evolve into productive, sharp-eyed and unnaturally alert members of society with brief cases and SUVs the size of a mid-town apartment. But oh, in those magic moments between the first scent slapping them in the face and the last drop swirling around the bottom of the cup, when their whole body chemistry is changing and their brains are still wiping the sleep from their lobes, that's when they're as wide-open as a white-collar prison. Working unobtrusively around the shop Mannie spent his days hearing about passionate love affairs, unsavory business deals, divorces, flights of fancy, moments of despair, heights of selfless nobility, and the deepest, darkest secrets of the human soul. It was better than TiVo.

Mannie called it "breakfast theater."

Some day he hoped to overhear some spies, or become a hero by single-handedly thwarting the nefarious plans of some bomb-throwing, latte-guzzling terrorists. But until then he'd settle for the usual, which was smut and soap opera.

Right now he was refilling the straw and napkin dispensers, which happened to be located in a prime spot with great acoustics. A couple of stockbrokers were talking in low and excited tones about something that would surely have gotten them arrested if Mannie had been an undercover agent for the SEC, but he was too busy carefully not paying attention to the two men hunched over the table in the back. They were some kind of science guys and were always good for some bizarre entertainment. He placed straws in the bin one by one and listened.

"Jackson's results are in, Vince," the big one said. He always reminded Mannie of an old Grizzly Adams, or maybe Santa Claus the morning after a bad eggnog drunk, and he looked like he had gotten dressed in a burning house. Wrinkled, mismatched clothes, wild hair, no socks. From the excited way he was gesturing about and trying not to yell, part of him might still be on fire. "They're better than anything we even dreamed of!"

The other man, presumably Vince, wasn't impressed. Or else he was trying really hard not to be, Mannie guessed. He made a small bet with himself over that and reached for another straw.

"We still haven't tried it on a large enough sampling," Vince muttered. "A group of scientists and their families over a couple of years is hardly a statistical city block, much less a universe."

"Brinker is cured, Vincent," said the other man. "Completely, totally cured! Projections were for partial remission, maybe just slowing things down, but his PCR was clean as a whistle. The lab tested his viral loads and it went away while they watched. While they watched! And do you know how long it took?"

The wild guy leaned back in his chair to make more room for the grin that was yanking his face around and getting larger by the minute. "Ten minutes. He's the fiftieth one, and he had the farthest progression, and he was all better before he could finish watching a Friends rerun."

"And now you want to go public, I assume? That's what this is about?"

"Of course! We all do! This is the greatest breakthrough in the history of… of breakthroughs! We've just cured-"

"Quiet! Keep it down, you idiot! You know my opinion on this, we've been over this a million times. We're not ready yet, there are too many complications. We still haven't figured out how to deliver it or keep it stable, and we haven't decided how to keep from being killed doing it. A few more years and-"

The wild guy smiled like Heaven's own lottery winner. "You can't keep stalling forever, Vincent." He stood up and dropped a couple of bills on the table. "It's time to kiss the world and make it all better. There's been a meeting called for tomorrow, the full staff. Take your precautions, I'll catch up with you later."

Vincent (and Mannie) watched him leave.

Mannie watched the remaining man out of the corner of his eye. He was almost to the point of no return as far as napkin-stuffing went. Come on, come on…

Finally Vincent slammed his fist down on the table, making the coffee cups jump.

"Damn," he muttered. Then he got up and stalked out.

Point for me, Mannie thought cheerfully, and headed over to clean windows behind the crying lady who was writing the Dear John letter to her fiancé in Boise while her hazelnut frappé turned into warm mud. He loved his job.

So intriquing was her tearful prose that he completely failed to notice the man in the far corner who folded the newspaper that had coincidentally obscured his face, and left in the same direction Vincent had gone.

Chapter One – Dysfunctional Family Planning

The United States spends a larger share of the GDP on health than does any other major industrialized country. In 2000 the United States devoted 13.3 percent of the GDP to health compared with 10.6–10.7 percent each in Germany and Switzerland and 9.1–9.5 percent in Canada and France, countries with the next highest shares.
– "Health, United States, 2003"; U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

If by chance I talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.
– William Shakespeare; Henry VIII I, 4

I wonder if any other companies start their meetings this way, Carl Browry thought to himself. He sank farther into his chair and watched his sister and fellow company vice-president walk quickly around the long oak table behind the woman who was simultaneously their mother, their president, and their CEO. At the moment she was also naked. And singing.

"It's a ga-as! Just a dash of silicone! Shake your new maracas and you're fine!" The song had certainly been sung better through the years but even the most avid theater-goer would be hard-pressed to remember anyone who had ever sang it more enthusiastically, or with more visible maracas.

"Mother, please!" his sister Elizabeth pleaded. She was carrying the Donna Karan ensemble that their mother had shucked and was chasing after her like she was trying to douse a fire. Which wasn't, after all, too far off the mark.

Fortunately the elegantly appointed boardroom had no windows or, for that matter, sharp corners, and had been soundproofed months ago once impromptu naked performances became commonplace. Other than those minor modifications it was a pretty standard executive hidey-hole with a small side bar in the back, computer monitors around the table, and leather and oak fighting it out everywhere else for interior supremacy. A large whiteboard covered the far wall next to the painfully distinguished picture of the company's founder, Nathanial Lancaster, whose stern expression suggested he had just taken a moment to sit stiffly and pose before popping off and single-handedly ending WWI, beating Joe Lewis in two rounds and inventing value-added tax.

Camille Lancaster, Nathanial's great-granddaughter, was just as imposing. By the time she turned twenty-five she was already running the family's shampoo company almost single-handedly, her father (Horace Lancaster, previous CEO and renowned inventor of hair conditioner as a separate and vitally necessary product) having died the same year in an inexplicable accounting accident. Unfortunately, by the time she conquered the business world she found to her dismay one of the few things that doesn't sexually discriminate: Alzheimer's didn't sexually discriminate. In the last few years her failing faculties forced her to begin delegating some of the responsibility to trusted subordinates who could be relied upon to guard against exaggerated rumors — or selected truths — reaching the stockholders. That meant family. Her daughter Elizabeth was already showing remarkable financial acuity and unsuspected depths of anal retentiveness, so VP of Finance and Marketing was a natural position for her. And Carl…

Officially Carl was Vice President of Research and Development. What Carl was in real life was a semi-talented chemist in a suit who found that nepotism wasn't really all that bad once you got used to it. What he was in practical terms was the guy who did everything that Camille and Elizabeth didn't, which included designing new product labels, researching and purchasing new equipment, and picking up the pizzas for the weekly Employee Appreciation Lunch.

What he was most of the time was mortified and frustrated. Summerville Shampoo Company, Inc, his chosen future, was going under, and its once-powerful leader was singing it down with a bang.

Camille was apparently heading into a big finish, expertly dodging Elizabeth like a star quarterback and hauling a chair between them for defense. On her next line she paused, and posed like she'd just turned over a vowel. "What they want is… whatcha see!"

If Carl was embarrassed or uncomfortable at seeing his middle-aged mother in the altogether he'd gotten over it quickly during the last year. Instead he focused on her face with an intensity that even the most advanced meditation couldn't create and tried to think about whether pumping up the pH balance on the latest product line would be worth the hassle. Some of his most innovative ideas had come while trying not to look below his mother's neck.

With a heroic lunge Elizabeth grabbed her and began dragging the silk blouse over her head. "Are you going to help me or what?" she snapped in Carl's direction. Camille sang on, undeterred. Carl tried to discretely clear his perpetually-clogged sinuses (an annoyance for most, a boon for a person who mucks around with chemicals all day) and grudgingly leaned forward to get up with the speed of a sleeping jungle cat, stopping instantly when his phone rang.

"Sorry, gotta take this," he said, smiling insincerely and thanking the gods for whomever the caller was. She glared at him and went back to wrapping a skirt around Camille's chubby hips. Camille, meanwhile, was singing to a hidden audience somewhere by the overhead projector about debutantes, chorus girls, and wives, and how they might be suitably enhanced. Why do I put up with this, Carl wondered. "Hello?"

The voice at the other end suggested intelligence and guile, genius and self-purpose. A Grand Vizier's voice. This voice, you could tell, was issued from under a very thin mustache. "Let me guess," it said. "A Chorus Line?"

Oh yeah, that's why. "She was just telling us about the fantastic performance she saw last night, Dad."

His sister's head snapped up, wide-eyed and slightly revolted, at the word "Dad."

"I'm certain of it. Did this performance, technically speaking, exist?"

"Of course," Carl said, hating to be little-kid defensive right off and knowing no other way to react. Vincent Browry, scientist, bioengineer, genius, was a man who took life by the horns, presumably to kill it and hang it on his wall. If there was ever a time when he had treated his son (or anyone else) as anything other than a slightly embarrassing problem to be solved and dismissed, like dandruff, Carl couldn't remember it.

"Ah, good. Normally she tends to see very limited debuts, often in the strangest places. Remind me to tell you about the time I found her singing a soulful duet with the washing machine. Very moving. But for now I'll be quick, I know how important you think your time is."

Elizabeth, using arcane combat dressing maneuvers no doubt learned in the Orient, had managed to get Camille more or less completely covered. She hustled the still-warbling woman through the side door to her office, suddenly relieved she only had a whacked-out mother to deal with while Carl got the terrifyingly sane father. The door closed with a heavy clunk, leaving him alone in a room with no really satisfying methods of suicide, which meant he had to keep talking.

He held his phone away from his head in case snide condescension was catching. "No problem," he lied. "What can I do for you?"

"Please. I'm merely informing you I'll be away for the foreseeable future. I'm at a crucial juncture in my work and I'll be in an undisclosed location finalizing it, for an indeterminate amount of time. Distasteful though it is you are my next of kin and as such I thought you should know. Also, something of mine may be arriving shortly and I would appreciate it if you would keep it safe."

"Glad you can be so precise. Are you sure you called the right number?"

"Unquestionably. Anyone else I might have called, anywhere in the world, would surely have understood me better."

"So what are you sending me? Is it something you need help with?"

Now there came an audible sneer. It was almost like a mime act, in reverse. "No, none of my experiments currently involve keeping one's hair springtime fresh. The only reason I'm calling you at all is because you were convenient and helper monkeys are prohibitively expensive to rent. But obviously this is a waste of my time and possibly even yours, difficult as that is to imagine. I leave you to your cleaning products."

"Dad," Carl said. Silence on the other end. "I'd like to help. Please."

A sigh this time, as if agreement hadn't been expected and wasn't entirely welcome. And then, in a single rushed breath, "Thank you, that's all I required, instructions should arrive soon, please do not tell anyone about it or tamper with it in any way, I trust your holidays will be well," his father said, and hung up.

Carl stared at his phone for a long, silent moment, as if waiting for his father to call him back and say "Ha ha, just kidding" before he folded it up and slowly placed it back in his pocket. What in the world could that have been about? Vincent Browry's phone calls to his son in the last six years could be counted on the fingers of one thumb. And the odds of him ever asking for help of anybody at all was as likely as Carl being elected Pope on the Liberal ticket.

The empty board room suddenly seemed even more depressing. Apparently the meeting was over, unless there was an encore planned. He opened over to the side door and peered in. Camille, mostly dressed, was sleeping peacefully on the leather couch in her office with her legs propped up on the back. A visibly worn Elizabeth was sprawled in the desk chair. "Oh, you made it," she said wearily. "Good, we have a quorum."

"I need to talk to you-"

"This meeting of the executive board of the Summerville Shampoo Company, Inc, is now called to order!" she said loudly. Looking around, she selected a pen and rapped the desk with it. "All accounted for and present?"

"You've got to be kid-"

She stared him down. "All accounted for and present?"

"Aye, aye, sir," he said. He grabbed the last soda out of the little refrigerator by the bookshelf and sat on the other end of the couch. Almost immediately his mom's feet slid down and landed with a plop in his lap. He clasped his hands together over her ankles and tried to look executive.

"I've been going over our books, Mr. Browry," Elizabeth said.

"Liz, you don't have to-"

"…And it appears obvious that this next quarter could very well be our last quarter." She pushed off from the desk and let the chair spin around. "I'm serious, Carl, I don't know what we're going to do about it. This is it, we're tapped out."

"Completely? How much do we have left?"

"That Coke you're holding represents the last of our capital expenditures budget. Sip it slowly. And save the can."

Carl abruptly forgot about his father, which for once was a mixed blessing. "But all we have to do is just hold on until the new line starts selling, right? "Enchanted" just rolled out, that's gotta be bringing in some cash, right. Do we have any numbers on that yet?"

She laughed once, without the slightest sign of amusement, as if somewhere in front of her someone had held up a cue card that said "Chortle" and she was gamefully playing along. "Numbers? Yes, we have a number on that. That number would be three."

"Three? Three thousand?"

"Three cases. Jimmy Joe's Discount Warehouse bought them after I promised free shipping and one of those promotional hand towels."

"Three!"

"I counted them. Twice. Used my executive calculator and everything."

"After all that work? Three? That's insane, "Enchanted" is the best product this company has ever made!"

"You're right, it is. There were two problems with it." She ticked them off on her fingers. "One, we barely had enough money left to manufacture it and get it in the little bottles. There was nothing left for distribution or advertising. And when I say nothing, I mean exactly that. I had to drive the three boxes over myself." She sighed. "I was hoping to get by on advance sales from our regular customers, but they didn't bite."

"Great. What's two?"

"Jennifer said we couldn't use the name "Enchanted." It's already being used for a Revlon line of nail polish, a Neutrogena blush, and at least twelve different bath soaps and herbal shampoos. For other companies."

Carl sat perfectly still, ignoring his own sudden frustration and Camille's gentle snores. Jennifer Gaskidy was the company's lawyer. She triple-checked everything she encountered, which gave rise to some interesting speculation about her love life. If she said they couldn't, they couldn't. If she said Carl was a moo cow he would begin grazing without a moment's thought because he knew she would have more statistics and worker-impact studies to prove he was than he could produce to prove he wasn't. "So what did we go with, then?"

Elizabeth nodded mournfully towards the couch. "We didn't. She did."

"Oh, no…"

"Yep." She spun around again and faced out the office window that looked over the retention pond and the company parking lot. Both were more than half-empty. "The ad agency called while I was in the bathroom and Mom answered. Apparently she told them to call it "Whizzipoo." Got a certain ring to it, don't you think?" she asked, smiling crookedly for a moment until her face collapsed into despair. She laid her head down on the desk blotter and began pounding it there in a slow, easy rhythm that suggested she was prepared to keep going until the nice ambulance people arrived.

""Whizzipoo." Our new line, crafted for elegance and decadence, designed specifically to be an expensive-looking product that was reasonably priced so Wal-Mart shoppers could pretend they bought it at Tiffany's, went out marked as "Whizzipoo." Our last and greatest shampoo, the one we pinned all our hopes on."

She stopped pounding to look at him. "You know, that's exactly what our buyers said, the ones that weren't laughing. Maybe you can get a job with one of them after we lock the doors here." Pound, pound, pound.

Carl leaned back and thought frantic thoughts. Then he drew a mental line under them and examined the result. It wasn't fair. It wasn't. There simply wasn't a shampoo on the market that could match "Enchanted," er, "Whizzipoo" for strength, gentleness, conditioning, silky feel, or honeysuckle-scentability.

But if no one knew that, no one would buy it. Except, presumably, for discount warehouses who get free towels. "So when can we remarket it and try again? What's our next move?"

Elizabeth lifted her head again. Her dark brown hair hung in frazzled strands over her face. "We've got about a week, I think," she said.

"Before?"

"Before the creditors start prying the copper pipes out of the employee bathrooms."

###

"Hi, everybody," Carl said to the small group of people in front of him that represented the remains of Summerville's once-reasonably-mighty work force. They consisted of a head chemist, who was given the title instead of any actual subordinates, four women who worked the line and made sure the shampoo went in the bottles instead of the other way around, and a sole security guard who took the expensive security system home with him at night so no one would steal it. They shuffled nervously.

"I'm glad you could all make it to our Friday Employee Appreciation meeting–"

"We're getting canned, aren't we," said Flora, one of the line women. She had the perpetually downtrodden look of someone who expected to get fired every day of her life and was rarely disappointed. The fact that she was often fired because she kept depressing other employees with her dire predictions about imminent layoffs never seemed to register with her.

"Um," Carl said.

"I don't see any pizza. That leaves termination," Flora said, unwittingly encapsulating everything anyone needs to know about operant conditioning in human psychology.

"Um," Carl said again. Personnel management wasn't his strong suit, or even his casual one. He had enough problem managing his own life, much less anyone else's, and he strongly suspected that whatever Human Resources he personally possessed didn't include knowing how to fire anyone. He always had the secret worry that anyone he laid off would come back with a shotgun, or a scheme to tamper with the products in a vengeful and creative fury. Then again, within a matter of days there'd be no more products to affect or people to shoot, so he relaxed.

When all was said and done he preferred chemicals. You knew what worked with chemicals, and if something didn't work you just made a note to never do it again, at least not until your other eyebrow grew back. But the head of the company was currently circling Venus in a geosynchronous orbit and the other VP was crying in the executive washroom, so that left him. "We've, um. We've had a bit of a let-down with the projected sales of "Enchanted," our great new shampoo–"

June, another line woman who differed from Flora only in her choice of head scarves, jerked a scarred thumb over her shoulder at the pallets of boxes piled up in the dark warehouse behind them. "You mean "Whizzipoo"?" she asked.

"Yeah. And, due to our rising, um, fluctuations in the market, we, uh…"

June walked over and touched his arm in what he had to assume was a motherly way. "Do we have jobs or not? I don't mean to rush you but if we hurry we can still make the bus." The other women, similarly drained of life, interest, or color, waited.

"No, I'm afraid you don't," Carl said miserably. All four women heaved a single, chorusing sigh at the culmination of their private patriarchal conspiracy theories and dispersed to the break room to get their things. The two men, obviously out of touch on the whole patriarchal thing, started to follow. "Pete? Marty? Could you guys hang around for a few minutes? I was hoping you could both stay on for a few more days. Marty, we need you to keep watching the place until we figure out what's going to happen to it. Insurance. And Pete?"

Head chemist Pete Santago looked at him like a puppy waiting for a treat, or at least hoping not to get kicked. Before Carl got his foregone promotion to VP Pete had been his assistant, which in Pete's experience was slightly worse for picking up chicks than working for a funeral home (which at least had the benefit of attracting goth chicks). He had seen Carl's rise in the company as a good move all around; he got the head chemist position and the key to the restricted chemicals closet, and he now had a friend in management who understood what it was really like in the labs and who could cover for him the morning after "Rum and Pop Rocks Night" at O'Malley's Beeratorium. Pete had always been a "job half-full" kind of guy, which is why Carl was stalling. Pete was the closest thing to a friend Carl had that didn't need to get watered every day.

"I'd like you to… to… to help with the disposal of the remaining materials!" he announced. "Yes, some of that stuff needs to be handled carefully, OSHA and all, and I'll need your help. If that's okay."

Pete grinned widely and shook his hand. "Sure! I can use the extra bucks. Look," he said, while Marty went back to the guard shack, "if you get a line on a new place, you let me know, okay? I got your back, you got mine, right?"

Carl smiled, despite everything. "You got it. Temporary setback, we'll be back in no time!" He even almost believed it as long as he didn't look in the warehouse.

###

Florida is a great place to live unless you have allergies. Carl had been known to experience allergic reactions to paintings of haystacks. He stumbled out into the soft light of a typically magnificent Florida sunset which cast brilliantly lit tendrils of color across the sky, blues and pinks and purples all suffused in the thick golden light of the setting sun. Glorious, he thought bitterly. Just freaking glorious. Beautiful or not, more colors in the sky meant more particles in the sky, which meant more particles in the air, which meant more sneezing for him. The benefits of a near-total lack of smell in the lab was offset by the hard-to-describe-and-who-would-want-to experience of sneezing into a face mask.

For a brief moment he was torn between going back in to clean out his desk or saving it so he'd have something to do Monday.

Across the lot he saw Elizabeth helping Camille into their Ford Explorer. See, things could be worse. I could have been the one that ended up as Mom's live-in nurse, chauffeur and babysitter. Almost immediately he felt guilty for the thought. His half-sister had basically put her entire life on a shelf to keep their mother going. It was an incredible act of love and self-sacrifice that he was deeply, sincerely glad someone else was making.

As he was buckling his seat belt he remembered the promise to his dad. Probably not the best timed request he'd ever heard. I'd suspect him of doing it on purpose, if I were the suspicious type, he thought suspiciously. So should he keep his word and honor a promise to a person he despised, or break it and stand by the family and the spectacularly failing company to whom he had pledged his loyalty?

It was an interesting question. Carl couldn't wait to find out what the answer was.

He might have been cheered up had he known that in a little more than forty-eight hours he would change the world forever. But probably not.

National Novel Writing Month 2002: my first try at a novel, ever, and it showed. I decided to write about a couple strikingly similar to myself and my wife. Deeply in love and more than slightly out of shape. What would happen, I thought, if I took those two people and made them even more out of shape, and then stuck them into a reality show where viewers watched fatties try to lose weight for points?

It was the very last thing I could ever imagine myself doing, so it was perfect for a novel. I still think it was a good idea. Apparantly so did a Hungarian network, because while I was working on this I read that an actual version of this show was being filmed. Since the novelty was lost, and I was bogged down in ever-deepening plot, I let this drop where it lay. I did cannabilize portions of it for a column on weight loss, though.

And, more importantly, I hit the 50,000 word mark on time. Here's the first two chapters. Warning: adult content.

Getting Pumped
By Chris Bridges

Chapter One – Size Matters

It must have been good sex, I thought. I’m fibrillating.

I let myself fall to the mattress next to my wife, panting and wheezing like a marathon runner crossing the state line. Cassie rolled over, beautiful breasts and belly rolling just ahead of her, and tenderly touched my face with loving affection and a bit of thinly-veiled medical concern. I imagined the burly paramedics hauling me, stuffed and zippered into a black body bag, down the stairs, chuckling to themselves and hitting on her.

“You okay?” she asked, dangerously breathless herself. For a moment I fought to keep my own incipient heart attack under control so I could listen to her panting. Yep, the paramedics would have to make two trips, poor bastards.

I managed to kiss her on the nose and reassure her I was fine, if only so she could die unconcerned. She rolled back onto her back and we lay next to each other, starfished across the bed, fighting for air. And to think we used to do this in a Chevette.

According to ancient custom, as the one who had finished on top it was my sacred duty to fetch the towel. Somehow it never occurred to us to get one beforehand, as if it would somehow ruin the reckless spontaneity of our regularly scheduled weekend encounters, and so I got up, creaking, and stumbled on trembling legs to the bathroom. There was a wild man in the mirror, and it looked as though he had swallowed a small child after a fierce struggle. I spared a second to glance at my post-sex appearance, always a crowd-pleaser: slightly receding hairline with wild, sweaty hair, same face I’ve had all my life, thin shoulders, skinny arms, thin chest, small potbelly, slight love handles. I need to get in shape, I told myself, willfully ignoring the fact that I said that every time I passed in front of a mirror. Or climbed stairs. Or walked more than a few blocks.

I got a clean towel, dampened it in the sink, and shambled back into the bedroom where Cassie still lay, spread-eagled.

As she abluted, I sank back down next to her and surreptitiously monitored my heart rate. “This is getting, huff, really annoying,” I said around deep asthmatic breaths. “How can I be out of shape in bed? This is the only exercise, huff, I've ever enjoyed! It’s aerobic, right?” How did you tell the difference between a heart attack and something milder, like a collapsed lung? Were there definite symptoms for each, or was it something you just knew? I mentally reminded myself to look it up tomorrow if I survived the night. Cassie just nodded, dropped the now-damper towel on top of me, and snuggled up to my side.

“It was one thing when, whouf, when I couldn’t run around the block without stopping,” I panted. “No big deal, I’m getting older, right? I’m supposed to slow down, it says so in all the sitcoms. And I’m working at a desk all day. It’s only natural that I spread a little. I’m almost 40, I can’t expect to do a million jumping jacks anymore.” I glared at the ceiling, my resolve hardening into an unstoppable force, boiling out of me so fast now that I managed to forget I had never done more than 15 jumping jacks in a row in my life. “But now this! Sagging pants and high blood pressure is all well and good, but now it’s cutting into our sex life! I’ve had alls I can stand and I can’t stands no more! We have to get into shape! Do you hear me? Are you with me?”

I waited for her response. Some reassurance would bolster me nicely, or agreement, or even hushed admiration for my sterling conviction. Instead she snorted softly and settled into her low, even, marathon snoring.
I chuckled to myself and lay back where I could relax and still see her. She was beautiful. Dark curly hair, cascading over white shoulders and framing her little girl face that looked even more angelic when she was asleep. I tugged the covers up over her hips and drew them to her chin but not before I took a long eyeful of the lush curves rising and falling with her breathing.

We had met in high school, many years and many pounds ago, but despite the changes of the years I still felt that same hot teenage rush of hormones every time I saw her. She was lovely in my eyes, something she always had trouble believing even in her youth. After decades of patient persistence and subtle hints, often involving hand gestures and hooting noises, I had finally convinced her that I was being utterly truthful in my lustful appreciation. She still didn’t believe it herself, mind you, as she wasn’t fond of her own looks and absolutely hated the weight she had put on, but she accepted my worship as a useful delusion on my part and let it go.

It took almost twenty minutes for her breathing to stretch out into long, slow cycles. By then my own body had calmed down somewhat. I need to start jogging or something, I thought. I didn’t use to get this worn out. I briefly considered getting up and doing a few sit ups, just to prove I could, but Cassie’s rhythmic noises were lulling me to join her and I’ve always been a sucker for a good lull. Well, I guess I’ve already had my exercise for the night. I set my iron-clad resolutions aside and went to sleep, vowing to start my new health program the very next day.

Chapter Two – Working at the Code Mine

The alarm did a rude thing so I hit it. Then I calmly considered all the reasons I had to stay home versus the subsequent reasons my boss would have to fire me, matched it against our current bank account, arrived at an unhappy conclusion, and got up. Behind me Cassie slumbered on like a trouper. I really couldn’t complain, although I did allow myself a moment of blind envy. Artists set their own hours. Besides, she had spent far more than her share of mornings getting up much earlier than this to get our daughter to the bus stop every day during the last decade or so. It wasn’t her fault that Darlene was in college now and presumably on her own as far as getting up was concerned. I hoped.

I fired up my computer and let it gulp down my e-mail while I was showering. It was somehow comforting to know that should some turn of events cause me to desperately need home-delivered Viagra, a mortgage, immediate access to indiscriminate teen Asian lesbian cheerleaders, copier toner, and a lengthier penis, I had options. I checked it over while I pulled my shoes on. No useful e-mail, no recent news events I cared about, no unusual traffic problems lurking, couple of good movies starting tonight, nice weather today; I love the Internet. On the wall over my desk was a painting Cassie had made for me for our 4th anniversary; it depicted someone who looked remarkably like me, locked in mortal combat with a snarling PC, all in a nightmarish neo-cubist style that would have made Picasso throw up into his paint bucket. She loves me.

McDonald’s provided my coffee, hash browns, and Egg McMuffin, which supplied my recommended daily requirement of cholesterol and gave me something to do while stuck in traffic. While I was sitting, sipping, and waiting for the light to change, I glanced around at my dining companions. A sea of import cars and SUVs surrounded me, all crammed with car pools and parents and kids and harried businesspeople, and almost every one of those frantic people was eating or drinking something behind the wheel. I noted a number of people singing and dancing and playing air dashboard in the mistaken belief that no one else could see them (or else they didn’t care, and good for them), and a couple of them were apparently listening to the same radio station because their gyrations, lanes of traffic apart, were in sync, which cheered me up for some reason. There was the usual number of nose-pickers. Several fellow commuters were using cell phones while eating with the other hand, presumably steering with a lower appendage. One or two were reading. The lady next to me was doing a crossword puzzle and chugging from a water bottle.

Breakfast in America.

I pulled into the PaRaNex parking lot five minutes late, which was my usual time. It was an astounding miracle of nature. No matter how early or late I left the house, I was always exactly five minutes late for work. If I left early, I got stuck in traffic or at the gas station, or I suffered a one-in-a-million chance meteor strike to the radiator. If I left late, the waves of traffic would part before my hood and I would sail to work unimpeded to arrive… five minutes late. My various employers through the years had dealt with this remarkable phenomenon with varying degrees of acceptance, hostility, and resignation, but I made up for it by being really good at my job. It helped that I was equally slack in leaving on time or taking breaks, so on the whole it balanced out in their favor. Probably.

The front entrance was for visitors, executives, and pizza delivery. I pried myself out of the car and headed towards the back, by the mailroom, where the Pepsi machine was waiting for me to grab my morning Mountain Dew. A healthy slug got my heart going for my morning cardio workout: the two flights of stairs up to my floor. I was slightly winded by the time I got to my office and I rewarded myself with one of the donuts from the ever-present box on Jackie’s desk. Jackie was the office manager for the programming department at PaRaCo and was our gatekeeper, babysitter, and Keeper of the Snack Jar. I leaned on the counter above her desk to see what the theme was for today, and to casually get my breath back. She was wearing black stockings, a black pleather skirt, black and white striped blouse, and a jaunty black beret.

“Are we French today?”

She raised a haughty eyebrow. “Oui. Today ze cafeteeria eez ‘aving veal parmeezhan, and I weeshed to be dressed, ‘ow you say, appropree-ately, no?”

“No,” I said. “Veal parmigiana is Italian.” I didn’t laugh, although it cost me. Instead I smiled, in a hopefully non-provoking manner. You never want to piss off the person who coordinates your vacation days.

“Really? Shit.”

“Sorry. Old Italian recipe. You look great, though.”

She preened. “Thank you! I swiped the beret from my daughter. You like?”

I kissed my fingers. “Eez magnifique! Mua! Don’t sweat it, maybe they’ll have French fries and vindicate you.”

he threw her pen at me and I retreated, chuckling and munching, back to my hole.

PaRaNex was one of the few dotcoms to thrive during the Rough Years, when all the daytraders simultaneously woke up from their happy dreams of mountains of wealth and stopped buying up anything with "online" in the name. PaRaNex specialized in computer security, virus protection, and cracker shields. We weren't as famous as Symantic or MacAfee, but some of our hackers had found and fixed several of the big name viruses before either of them, and we made a nice piece of change subcontracting code for both of them every now and then. There were some nasty rumors regarding how our hackers cracked viruses so fast (the "he who smelt it, dealt it" theory) but nothing litigious.

Besides, we had a better slogan then they did. “Paranoid? Get PaRaNex!”

My job was officially "Interface Designer," which just means that I got to figure out how all the different components of our software fit together and how to make a user-friendly-looking program that any idiot can use. I didn’t have to actually understand any of the virus hacking stuff, which was good because I hadn’t a clue. All I had to do was think of all the ways an idiot could screw up our program, and try to come up with ways to keep them from doing any of them. As luck would have it, thinking like an idiot was one of the few job skills I remembered from college, and I faked the rest. In a building full of frighteningly talented hackers, I was hired for my good looks, sparkling personality and my interface wizardry, and my coworkers worshipped me in a frankly embarrassing manner.

“Good morning, worshippers!”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

See? They could barely restrain their orgiastic glee at my presence. I set my stuff on my desk, turned my computer on, and glanced around to see what everyone was working on (or avoiding working on). An unkind soul would have said we used cubicles, but they weren't the traditional Dilbert-ready cubes, the type that looked as though they may at one time have shipped refrigerators. We had a fairly sizeable office, separated by desks and low dividers, with the bulk of the room taken up by a large square pit. There was a workstation inside each corner and shelves and drawers and filing cabinets in between, so that we were always facing away from each other. It also meant we could easily see what everyone else was doing. This was probably intended to be a savvy psychological design to keep us working. Instead, we all alternated our goofing off so that at least two of us were working at any given time, in case of unexpected upper management visit or looming project deadline.

I had the desk by the door, the one surrounded by and covered in Simpsons figures. To my right was Slash Bowles, production designer. He designed and wrote the extras that came with your brand new virus program – the registration card, the instructions, the cardboard insert, the promotional material, all the things that reassure you that you’ve bought a quality product. His main job was writing the documentation (he spent very little time designing the cardboard inserts, although we accused him of working on them over the weekends), but of late more and more of our sales were made online and downloaded, which was a constant worry to him. For that matter, so were USDA inspection standards, his blatant and conspiratorial disenfranchisement in the Gore-Bush election, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He strongly resembled a Cro-Magnon skateboarder gone to seed – big, hairy, wiry, but with a spare tire approaching mine in magnificence. His slackness of choice was flash games at sites like orisinal.com, and downloading movie trailers on company bandwidth.

Next to him (behind me) was Jay Hubart, amateurgrammer and my best friend. He’d be a programmer, his fondest wish, if his stuff ever actually worked, which it didn’t, which is why he did our graphics. Weird thing was that he really was a hell of an artist. If I had half his skills I’d be stalking Pixar executives and throwing my drawings through their bedroom windows, but his burning desire was to write code. Grass is greener, and all that. Last year he secretly rewrote our DriveVacTM program so that it cleaned users’ hard drives even better than before. So much so that our beta testers discovered they were now missing whole directories and essential programs. To his credit, machines cleaned with his nitrous-charged DriveVac did in fact run much faster afterwards, mostly because they weren’t dragged down by memory-hogging, behind-the-scenes programs like, say, Windows. We had no problem restoring the original, fortunately, or Jay would now be working somewhere that required a happy face nametag and a little paper hat. We were his closest friends, so we didn’t throw it in his face more than once or twice a day. He favored webcams (clean ones, at least during work hours) and usually had one or two open on his desktop at all times. When they did that reality TV show Big Brother and had webcams in it running 24/7, we couldn’t get him away from the computer, no matter how much we made fun of him. I suspect him of setting up a fan site for the girls on the show but he won’t admit it. Reality show junkie all the way. Never understood the appeal myself, but then I have a life.

I finished my donut and chugged some more Mountain Dew while I waited for PaRaNex’s NetNurseTM to finish checking my system. Pain in the ass, but since it was my employer’s product I didn’t feel right disabling it. It still had plenty of time left, and it occurred to me, as it did nearly every morning, that eating another donut would fill that time nicely. Besides, I had soda left, which meant there was imbalance in the universe. I stood up and immediately, involuntarily, emitted a low “ooooyyyy” noise.

Jay spun around, concerned. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning on the desktop. Just a little winded.”

“From what? You jog in today?”

“Ha.”

“No, really. I don’t know why you don’t. If I lived as close as you, I would.” Jay was a health freak, by which I mean that he often ate non-fried foodstuffs. I’d even heard it said that he’s played racquetball without having to, but I tried not to believe such outlandish rumors.

Slash spoke up without turning around, a blessing to all of us. “Ken can’t jog in, his coffee would get all foamy.”

“But he should! You’re, what, ten miles away? Why do you even own a car?”

“Because I feel silly sitting in traffic without one. You guys want a donut?”

Slash spun around now and exchanged glances with Jay, who didn’t seem to know what to do with his. “Um, no, we’re cool,” Slash said. “Why don’t you wait, and we’ll grab some lunch soon.”

Little donutty sprinkles were already flashing before my eyes. “I’ll just grab one. What’s lunch today? Chinese?”

Jay sat bolt upright and pointed at my screen the way good guys in trouble point past the bad guy’s shoulder to fake him out. “Look! You’ve got mail!”

I dropped down into my chair to check it out, muttering under my breath about stolen pastry opportunities and people who make AOL jokes long after they’re funny, which was, I believed, never. He was wrong anyway, I didn’t have mail. I had an Instant Message from my boss telling me to come meet with him and his boss, which was worse. Dammit, I thought he’d wait until Tuesday.

I struggled back up. “So much for clean living and helping old ladies across the sewer. Dennis and Ben want to see me anyway. I knew that karma stuff was all crap.”

Both Jay and Slash seemed cheerful that I was going to get roasted, stuffed, and served. Maybe because they weren’t the ones that got called? I didn’t know, and didn’t care. All I knew was that, judging from past experience, I was about to get royally hosed without warning and without lube. Dennis was my immediate supervisor, which just meant that he was the guy in charge of pulling this particular project together. He generously left this hallowed and sacred duty to his underlings while he spent his high-pressure, backbreaking days of work playing UnReal TournamentTM online. Dennis was handy for one important reason, however – he was the hastily erected barrier between us and the suits. As long as he looked presentable (always), seemed calm and confident (usually, depending on his UnReal rankings) and could express the corporate desires to us lowly factory workers, we never had to see them and they never had to see us, except for company picnics and indictments, and this seemed to satisfy everybody.

His boss, Ben Parker, was one of the bigwigs of the company (he was the “Pa” part or PaRaNex) and was once a wizard programmer his ownself, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and everybody thought amber screens were way cooler than green ones. Unfortunately for us, he had long ago been seduced by the dark side: the gypsy curse of corporate perks. Every review in C-Net always mentioned him by name, the beginning profit margins had been enormous since in the old days all of his co-workers slaved ridiculous hours for Skittles and Star Wars action figures, and a ridiculous pile of cash was amassed, almost accidentally. One day it dawned on him that he was a fairly wealthy poor guy (or else his accountants finally got it through his head), and there’s something about heaping stacks of money that changes a man. A year after he started the business he started wearing ties to the office, a clear danger sign.

Then shoes.

A belt.

He was even seen toting a golf bag, with real gold clubs in it. By the end of the third year the unholy transformation was complete, and “Bendwidth” Parker was lost to us forever, trapped in eternal damnation in polo shirts and stock options. Even that would be no big deal, but now that he was paying more attention to his P&L statements then the latest code languages, he tended to be easily swayed by our sales staff, often (always) to the detriment of his other, human, employees.

I winked at Jackie and grabbed a donut to eat on the way to my buggering.

###

It was almost noon by the time I came back, sweating and weary, from On High. I hadn’t been wrestling with an angel but I definitely felt like I had gone three rounds with some sort of supernatural figure. For some reason, on the rare times I returned from being in the Presence I always felt like I should be carrying his edicts chiseled on two massive stone sticky notes, probably because I always left feeling like I had been cast into the wilderness at the whim of an all-powerful force far beyond my ken, which was more or less true.

1. Thou shalt have no other projects before mine.
2. Thou shalt not be efficient.
3. Thou shalt not make it easy, useful, or fun for the user.
4. Thou shalt observe all deadlines, which will change without notice, logic or pattern, but with lots of exquisitely timed ironic malice.
5. Thou shalt feed the insatiable desires of Sales, for I have given you unto their hands.

Dennis had been there as well, of course, but only in the same sort of advisory capacity as the cat the evil villain strokes in old spy movies.

Slash and Jay were in the same positions as they were when I left, typing and mousing to the exclusion of all else, up to and including small arms fire. This was not unusual, and may have been a job requirement. They did deign to look up when I entered, since after all I was coming from a meeting with Ben and might therefore be disgruntled and armed. It looked like Slash shut down a chat window. I understand people talk to each other in some offices. We usually just type to each other, rather than go to all the trouble of turning around.

Well, no reason to sugarcoat it. “PaRaNex Pro has to be ready to ship by August,” I said. Ooh, bad choice of words, I was still thinking about my planned pastry. I glanced back to see the donut-box-shaped emptiness on Jackie’s desk. Drat.

Slash exploded. “You gotta be freaking kidding me,” he screamed. “There’s no way!”

Jay stood up and wrung his hands, a nervous habit that in less deserving times we mocked mercilessly. “That’s three months early! We can’t do that!”

“We’ve already agreed to,” I said sadly. “Sales promised the Best Buys rep that we’d have copies shipping by November 15th so they’d have plenty for the day after Thanksgiving. We have to be done and ready by the end of October.”

“Damn it,” Slash said, and he smote his desk mightily. “Every damn time some jackass in Sales gets a wild hair from a retailer suddenly we have to jump through hoops! Just once I wish they’d check to see if we can do something before they pre-sell it.”

“On that magical day, my friends, truly we will be free. Right now I’m going to lunch. Want me to bring back Chinese, or you guys want to get out of the office?”

They did an impromptu and unintentional comedy skit, looking at each other and then me with strange expressions while simultaneously trying to appear nonchalant. I expected spinning plates and some sort of slapstick routine involving hats to erupt. Finally Jay said, hesitantly, “We were thinking maybe the salad bar downstairs?” Slash, an unapologetic and enthusiastic carnivore, nodded like a bobble head toy.

“You go right ahead, and may God have mercy on your souls. Salads are what food eats. I’m heading to the Donkey.”

Halfway out the door they caught up to me. “That does sound better,” Slash said. “We’ll go with you.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jay, in full sidekick mode. “That sounds great! And healthy, too!” Any second now I expected him to punch his palm and say something like “Holy General Tso, Batman!” Slash glared at him.

“It is healthy,” I said. “A billion Asians can’t be wrong. It’s the perfect food. With eggroll.”

Tossing a cheerful hand at Jackie, we made our way out.