David Wallace - Broom of the System

Lenore stayed slumped in the chair, looking at the open cabinets and her pile of books and other items on the counters, and at the handcuff. Candy Mandible looked out at Mr. Beadsman and his group. They all seemed to be gathered around Neil Obstat, Jr., in the comer of the lobby, while Obstat lay on his stomach and did something to that section of the floor Peter had been at. Rick Vigorous watched from nearby, along the back wall. Everything rumbled.

“What’re they trying to do to the floor?” Candy asked, tapping Walinda on the shoulder.

Walinda looked out. “Hey fools!” she called. “Hey!”

“You tell everybody to just hang onto their hats about the tunnel,” Peter Abbott was saying. He emerged with one end of the long test-cable and unhooked it from the side of the Frequent and Vigorous console. He held it up for everyone to admire as light slowly went out of it. “Damned smart, is all I can say,” he said. “Put this particular console technician right back in his place, let me tell you that right now.”

“Lenore!” Mr. Beadsman was calling, looking at his watch again.

“Lenore?” Lang was saying. “You all right?” Lenore was staring into space.

The very top of Dr. Jay’s head reappeared at the counter. “ Really have to advise in the very strongest possible terms that we leave,” he said through his handkerchief, lifting himself up again. “Really strongly advise it, Lenore.”

“What’s up?” Candy said. “What’s the noise?”

“I’m afraid it seems to be poor Norman,” Dr. Jay said. “He is in considerable distress, and is… having at the rear wall of the whole Building with his… his stomach. He looked Candy up and down. ”He is demanding, and here I use his words, ‘admission to Ms. Beadsman’s space.’ “

“Space?” Candy said.

“Having at?” Lang said.

Jay turned his head to look up at Lang. “Battering, you might say.”

Lenore looked up at them.

“Heat problems,” Peter Abbott said. “Let me just say temperature-problems, for starters, and then let me apologize for not doing my job as good as I maybe should have on this one, I guess. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hands on his pants. “Like Mr. Sludgeman said to me he said Peter, if you got line trouble, and it’s affecting targets over more than just one circuit, you start to look around for some kinda temperature problem, is what you do if you’re smart.”

Mr. Beadsman appeared overhead. “Lenore,” he said. “I’ll assume you were unable to hear me calling. Please come. We must talk. This is a family matter.” He threw a bit of a sidelong look at Lang, who stared straight ahead and made as if to tip his hat. “A family matter,” Mr. Beadsman said. “Please come out of there and over here with me immediately.”

“You the chump be makin’ that nasty food my child like to choke on one time?” Walinda Peahen put her hands on her hips and glared at Mr. Beadsman.

“My what a perfectly charming negress,” Mr. Beadsman said.

“Boy, I gonna kill you for that.”

“Lenore, please note that this is professional advice being given here,” Dr. Jay said from under Mr. Beadsman’s arm. “Really think it would be best to come back another time.” He shifted on his elbows and looked at Walinda Peahen, who was giving Mr. Beadsman perhaps the world’s biggest fish-eye. Mr. Beadsman was looking expectantly at Lenore.

. “Just a second, please, Dad,” Lenore said, looking at the shoes in her hand. “I’m in the process of quitting.”

“Family emergency, Lenore.”

“Sir, Miss Lenore and I were hopin’ to be on a plane to Nugget Bluff, Texas, by suppertime,” Lang said.

Candy stared at Lenore. “Nugget Bluff, Texas?”

Mr. Beadsman seemed not to hear. He was looking at Lenore’s wrist. “And what may I ask is on my daughter’s wrist?” he said.

“Chief!” Sigurd Foamwhistle was calling from the rear of the lobby.

“Well sir whyn’t you just ask that little dung beetle right back there?” Lang said, pointing at Rick Vigorous, back in the shadow.

Mr. Beadsman turned. “Mr. Vigorous?” he said. There was a particularly loud rumble, and the marble floor shook a little. Mr. Beadsman looked over at his group. “Foamwhistle!” he yelled. “What’s going on?”

“See,” Peter Abbott was saying to the women in the cubicle, “the thing you got to remember is that the tunnels are incredibly temperature-sensitive. There’s just few things in this world more temperature-sensitive than a phone tunnel.” He bent and took a crowbar out of his toolbox.

“Lenore.”

“ ‘Cause see you got to remember that all the calls in the lines are is just basically lines of heat,” Peter said, hefting the crowbar. “They’re just little lines of a kind of heat going back and forth, is all they really are.” He ran a hand through his bright yellow hair. “So it’s only logical that to get satisfactory service, the tunnels’ve got to be one temperature, and the lines another, and the calls in the lines another.” Peter happened to look over the counter at the Stonecipheco group and Neil Obstat, on his stomach. “Hey buddy!” he yelled. “You wanna just get back from there? What’re you trying to do?” He turned to Walinda. “They’re right over where your tunnel is, ma’am,” he said. “That guy’s trying to get into your tunnel. Who is that guy?”

“Baby food chemist,” Candy Mandible said.

“Hey boy you just get on out of here!” Walinda was yelling.

“Do not yell at my employee,” said Mr. Beadsman.

“Why don’t you just go and sit on somethin’ sharp, chump?”

“Well if he gets in there like it looks like he’s tryin’ to, without some trained personnel on hand, he’s gonna be sorry,” Peter Abbott was saying.

“How come?” Candy asked.

“Lenore, your behavior is now becoming unacceptable,” Mr. Beadsman said.

“I’m afraid I’m forced to agree,” came Dr. Jay’s muffled voice from behind the counter.

Lenore closed her eyes. The lobby thundered.

“Peter for Christ’s sake how come, ” Candy Mandible said.

“ ‘Cause according to our data it’s gonna be bitchin’ hot,” Peter said, turning to Candy and looking briefly down into Lenore’s dress. “ ’Cause what I’ve been trying to explain is that it looks like that’s your whole trouble right there. Hot tunnel.”

“Hot tunnel?”

“Well yeah,” Peter Abbott said. “See there’s supposed to be special temperature levels in each tunnel. Tunnel’s supposed to be sixty, sixty-five degrees, tops.” He looked around. “Otherwise, see, the heat of the tunnel infects the heat of your calls, and you get what we call call-bleeding into the circuit. Which actually it turns out is what you’ve been having, we think. Mr. Sludgeman told me he’s suspected some kind of bleeding all along, really.”

“Infection? Bleeding?”

“Just like a big old cranky nervous system, like I been tellin’ you,” Peter said. He was looking back at Neil Obstat, who along with Alvin Spaniard was trying to pry up a whole section of the lobby floor, which was now revealed not to be real marble at all. “Hey you drips!” Peter yelled. “There’s gonna be trouble!”

Obstat looked up and over at the cubicle in alarm, but Mr. Beadsman motioned to him that it was all right. Mr. Bloemker was cleaning his glasses on his tie.

“So that’s all it was?” Candy Mandible said shrilly. “Hot frigging tunnels? That’s why our job’s been biting the big kielbasa for two weeks? The lines are nerves and the nerves are too frigging hot?” She was really mad. “That’s all it is? Heat? I don’t believe it’s just heat.” She looked at Walinda Peahen.

Peter was still watching the Stonecipheco group. “But see the whole thing’s exactly right for nerves, if they were nerves, is what’s weird,” he said. “Your test cable shows it, too.” He looked critically at the length of dark cable on the counter.