James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“About. .?”

Preston dropped his voice. “About you tell me if you see anything. You know, out of the ordinary.”

“That’s funny,” said Ray, out of sight behind Preston.

“You remember that?” Preston said, narrowing his eyes.

“This ain’t her computer,” Ray said. “Number don’t match.”

With some reluctance, Preston turned slowly away from Paul. “What?” he said.

Paul glimpsed Ray around Preston’s belly. Ray had set the box down and was cataloguing the contents of Olivia’s cube against a checklist on a clipboard.

“This ain’t her computer,” Ray said. “Serial number don’t match up with the number she was assigned.”

“Then whose computer is it?” said Preston.

Ray licked his fat thumb and paged through the papers on the clipboard. The mild exertion of cleaning out the cube was making him sweat, and his broad forehead glistened in the fluorescent light.

“Huh,” said Ray. Paul could hear him breathing all the way across the aisle.

“What?” said Preston and Paul, simultaneously.

“That’s funny,” said Ray.

“What?” chorused Preston and Paul.

“Used to belong to what’s his name.” Ray rotated slowly on his own axis, and with his blunt chin indicated the empty cube next to Paul’s. “Fella who sat over there.”

“Dennis?” gulped Paul.

“You mean the fella who—?” Preston began.

“Whatever,” said Ray. “It’s his computer. Or was his, before he—”

“Don’t say it,” Paul groaned.

“What’s it doing in her cube?” Preston moved across the aisle.

“Good question,” said Ray. “I thought it was down in storage.”

“Then where’s her computer?” Preston stooped past Ray, peering past the computer at the cabinet over the desk. He felt under the cabinet and stood again, rubbing his fingers together. His fingertips were smudged with black. He looked across the aisle. “Paul?” he said. “You know anything about this?”

Paul pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. “No,” he whispered.

Preston sniffed his fingers and wrinkled his nose, then he stepped across the aisle and snatched Olivia’s ID off Paul’s desk. “Excuse me,” he said, marching up the aisle with the heel of his hand on his sidearm.

“Twitchy son of a bitch, ain’t he?” said Ray.

“I guess,” Paul said, watching Preston’s head and shoulders glide away through the labyrinth of cubes.

“Say listen,” Ray said, “I don’t suppose you’d give me a hand getting this computer out of here. She’s got to go all the way back down to storage. . ”

“Excuse me,” Paul muttered, and he glided up the aisle, in the opposite direction from Preston. A minute or two later, he was in Building Services, where he found Callie bent over the sign-up book in the outer room.

“Hey,” she said, giving him an equivocal look, but he caught her by the elbow and tugged her into the inner office. She brightened a little, misunderstanding his intent, and as soon as they were out of sight of the hallway, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Apology accepted,” she said.

“Apology?” Paul said. They stood with their foreheads touching.

She widened her eyes at him. “No?” she said. “Where the hell were you all weekend? I figured you’d be out of it all day Saturday — God knows I felt like shit — but when I come over Sunday morning, I hammered on your door for prit’ near fifteen minutes.”

“Was my car there?” Paul searched her face.

Callie stared at him. She loosened her grip, but kept her hands draped over his shoulders. “Don’t you know?” she said.

“Callie.” Paul curled his hands around her long wrists. “Where was I Saturday morning?”

Callie blew out a sigh. “Um, well, Saturday.” She let go of him and stepped past him into the doorway where she could watch both him and the outer office. “Last I remember is driving your car back to my apartment — you got short legs, by the way.” She glanced into the outer office and lowered her voice. “Then I remember dragging your sorry ass up the stairs to bed.”

“Was I there when you woke up?”

“No. You wasn. .” She winced. “You weren’t. But then I didn’t wake up till noon. I figured you went to meet Olivia at work.”

Paul sighed and turned away, pacing a nervous little circle in the inner office. “Olivia’s gone,” he said.

Callie looked puzzled. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

Paul’s mouth was very dry. With Callie looking at him so intently, it was hard to think straight. He heard a voice that sounded just like his in his head, saying, don’t tell her anything, just take her by the hand and lead her out into the parking lot, and get in her pickup truck and drive away and don’t look back.

Don’t be stupid, he heard another voice say, sounding much like the first one, you can’t run forever. You lost your career and your wife and everything you ever worked for. You have to hit bottom sometime. Colonel’s right, the voice went on, you’ve got it good, finally, after much too long. You’ve got a permanent job, a sweet deal, a safe harbor. Okay, so it’s not exactly what you planned on, not tenure at a research university — no book-lined office overlooking the leafy quad, no slim, influential volumes from major university presses, no fetching graduate students hanging on your every word. It’s just a job in state government, life in a cube, but it’s also a steady income and benefits and job security like nobody else has except maybe the pope and federal judges.

“Olivia quit,” Paul heard himself say.

“Quit?” Callie looked even more puzzled. “How come?”

He couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze. The voices in his head were still contending with each other. Think what you’re doing, said the first voice, while the second one said, for chrissakes, what you’re being offered here is better than tenure. Yes, Colonel’s magnum opus is probably unreadable, but at least he’s writing a book. Think what you could do with access to a computer and all that time in a cube with nothing else to do . .

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “She just did.”

“When?” Callie put her hand to her throat. “We just saw her on Friday night.”

“She came in on Saturday morning and left a letter for Rick.” Paul drew a breath and continued. “Then she left her badge at the security desk and took off.”

“Did you see her?” Callie glanced once more towards the hallway, then stepped towards Paul. “I mean, was she here when you got here?”

Tell her what happened! said the first voice. This girl’s the best thing you’ve got going right now. Be a man for once in your life and tell her the truth!

Don’t be an idiot, said the second voice, you saw nothing on Saturday, you heard nothing. Olivia’s gone, and everybody’s better off. Hell, maybe even Olivia is better off wherever she is. Callie doesn’t need to know.

Callie’s the one untainted thing in your life! said the first voice.

Why not keep it that way? said the second. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

“I don’t remember what happened.” Paul’s throat clenched, and he could barely get the words out. “I don’t remember anything until I woke up this morning.”

Callie peered at him. “Really?”

He looked away from her. “Really,” he said hoarsely. The voices in his head had gone silent.

“Jesus,” breathed Callie, and she brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. “Aw, honey, you really can’t hold your liquor, can you?”

Paul was on the verge of tears, and he didn’t know why. “That’s not all.” He drew a deep breath. “They’re giving me her job.”