Connie Willis - Fire Watch

Jill opened the door to Brad’s apartment building and stood there for a minute trying to get her breath. She was supposed to have driven back to Cheyenne tonight, and she had barely made it across Chugwater. Her car had slid sideways in the street and gotten stuck, and she had finally left it there and come over here to see if Brad could help her put her chains. She fished clumsily in her purse for the numbers Brad had written down for her so she could use the elevator. She should have taken her gloves off.

A young woman with no gloves on pushed open the door and headed for one of the two elevators, punched some numbers, and disappeared into the nearer elevator.

The doors shut. She should have gone up with her. Jill fished some more and came up with several folded scraps of paper. She tried to unfold the first one, gave up, and balanced them all on one hand while she tried to pull her other glove off with her teeth.

The outside door opened, and a gust of snowy air blew the papers out of her hand and out the door. She dived for them, but they whirled away in the snow. The man who had opened the door was already in the other elevator. The doors slid shut. Oh, for heaven’s sake.

She looked around for a phone so she could call Brad and tell him she was stranded down here. There was one on the far wall. The first elevator was on its way down, between four and three. The second one was on six. She walked over to the phone, took both her gloves off and jammed them in her coat pocket, and picked up the phone.

A young woman in a parka and red mittens came in the front door, but she didn’t go over to the elevators. She stood in the middle of the lobby brushing snow off her coat. Jill rummaged through her purse for a quarter. There was no change in her wallet, but she thought there might be a couple of dimes in the bottom of her purse. The second elevators doors slid open, and the mittened woman hurried in.

She found a quarter in the bottom of her purse and dialed Brad. The line was busy. The first elevator was on six now. The second one was down in the parking garage. She dialed Brad’s number again.

The second elevators doors slid open. “Wait!” she said, and dropped the phone. The receiver hit her purse and knocked its contents all over the floor. The outside door opened again, and snow whirled in. “Push the hold button,” the middle-aged woman who had just come in from outside. She had a red, “NOW… or else!” button pinned to her coat, and she was clutching a folder to her chest. She knelt down and picked up a comb, two pencils, and Jill’s checkbook.

“Thank you,” Jill said gratefully

“We sisters have to stick together,” the woman said grimly She stood up and handed the things to Jill. They got into the elevator. The woman with the mittens was holding the door. There was another young woman inside, wearing a sweater and blue moon boots.

“Six, please,” Jill said breathlessly trying to jam everything back into her purse. “Thanks for waiting. I’m just not all together today.” The doors started to close.

“Wait!” a voice said, and a young woman in a suit and high heels, with a large manila envelope under her arm, squeezed in just as the door shut. “Six, please,” she said. “The wind chill factor out there has to be twenty below. I don’t know where my head was to try to come over and see Brad in weather like this.”

“Brad?” the young woman in the red mittens said.

“Brad?” Jill said.

“Brad?” the young woman in the blue moon boots said.

“Brad McAfee,” the woman with the “NOW… or else!” button said grimly.

“Yes,” the young woman in high heels said, surprised. “Do you all know him? He’s my fiancé.”

Sally punched in her security code, stepped in the elevator, and pushed the button for the sixth floor. “Ulric, I want to explain what happened this morning,” she said as soon as the door closed. She had practiced her speech all the way over to Ulric’s housing unit. It had taken her forever to get here. The windshield wipers were frozen and two cars had slid sideways in the snow and created a traffic jam. She had had to park the car and trudge through the snow across the oriental gardens, but she still hadn’t thought of what to say.

“My name is Sally Mowen, and I don’t generate language.” That was out of the question. She couldn’t tell him who she was. The minute he heard she was the boss’s daughter, he would stop listening.

“I speak English, but I read your note, and it said you wanted someone who could generate language.” No good. He would ask, “What note?” and she would haul it out of her pocket, and he would say, “Where did you find this?” and she would have to explain what she was doing up in the tree. She might also have to explain how she knew he was Ulric Henry and what she was doing with his file and his picture, and he would never believe it was all a coincidence.

Number six blinked on, and the door of the elevator opened. “I can’t,” Sally thought, and pushed the lobby button. Halfway down she decided to say what she should have said in the first place. She pushed six again.

“Ulric, I love you,” she recited. “Ulric, I love you.” Six blinked. The door opened. “Ulric,” she said. He was standing in front of the elevator, glaring at her.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” he said. “Like ‘I withspeak myself?’ That’s a nice example of Germanic compounding. But of course you know that. Language generation is your area of special study isn’t that right, Sally?”

“Ulric,” Sally said. She took a step forward and put her hand on the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.

“You were home for Thanksgiving vacation and you were afraid you’d get out of practice, is that it? So you thought you’d jump out of a tree on the company linguist just to keep your hand in.”

“If you’d shut up a minute, I’d explain,” Sally said.

“No, that’s not right,” Ulric said. “It should be ‘quiet up’ or maybe ‘mouth-close you.’ More compounding.”

“Why did I ever think I could talk to you?” Sally said. “Why did I ever waste my time trying to generate language for you?”

“For me?” Ulric said. “Why in the hell did you think I wanted you to generate language?”

“Because… oh, forget it,” Sally said. She punched the lobby button. The door started to shut. Ulric stuck his hand in the closing doors and then snatched them free and pressed the hold button. Nothing happened. He jammed in four numbers and pressed the hold button again. It gave an odd click and began beeping, but the doors opened again.

“Damn it,” Ulric said. “Now you’ve made me punch in Brad’s security code, and I’ve set off his stupid override.”

“That’s right,” Sally said, jamming her hands in her pockets. “Blame everything on me. I suppose I’m the one who left that note in the tree saying you wanted somebody who could generate language?”

The beeping stopped. “What note?” Ulric said, and let go of the hold button.

Sally pulled her hand out of her pocket to press the lobby button again. A piece of paper fell out of her pocket. Ulric stepped inside as the doors started to close and picked up the piece of paper. After a minute, he said, “Look, I think I can explain how all this happened.”

“You’d better make it snappy,” Sally said. “I’m getting out when we get to the lobby.”

As soon as Janice hung up the phone Brad grabbed his coat. He had a good idea of what Old Man Mowen wanted him for. After Ulric had left, Brad had gotten a call from Time. They’d talkified for over half an hour about a photographer and a four-page layout on the waste emissions project. He figured they’d call Old Man Mowen and tell him about the article, too, and sure enough, his terminal had started beeping an override before he even hung up. it stopped as he turned toward the terminal, and the screen went blank, and then it started beeping again, double-quick, and sure enough, it was his pappy-in-law to be. Before he could even begin reading the message, Janice called. He told her he’d be there faster than blue blazes, grabbed his coat, and started out the door.