(no subject)

[walk_ins]

Janet Creeque is 35. She was one of the original five researchers to call themselves the Calvins, and has worked for Tet since she was a college undergrad at Barnard, having come to their attention by writing her senior thesis on intertextuality in the works of Stephen King. She's a vegetarian, more out of personal preference than philosophical conviction. She lives alone but for two cats, and is more or less okay with that.

She's cleaning out her desk at Tet for the last time, and is not okay with that at all.

"I just, I kept hoping they'd change their minds, you know?" Janet dumps a handful of small items from her drawer onto the desktop: a tube of chapstick, a travel-size bottle of Advil, two packets of tissues, a plastic comb, a half-empty pack of chewing gum, a little heap of safety pins like a catch of silver fish. "About cutting the department."

Comments

[walk_ins]

Michael Copeland is trying to write his last report. It's hard to know what to say.

"So long, you're on your own, hope there's nothing important in the next book or the next comic or the Dark Tower movie"?

(In the bottom corner of the screen: download 36% complete.)

"I'm sorry, Janet."

[walk_ins]

"It's not your fault, Michael," she says with sudden vehemence. "God knows."

More detritus: a takeout menu from a Chinese place that closed two years ago, a carefully wound ball of rubber bands, a keychain bearing a picture of the Twin Towers.

[walk_ins]

Well, it's not Marian's fault, Michael knows. He worked with her on the transition. And it's not really even the board of directors. Beyond that you're getting into economics and politics.

Ka, some would say.

Michael Copeland wonders if it means it hasn't been written yet--if current events are involved. The lead time for publication is at least a year. Or is it something with a shorter deadline? Some kind of new media?

Or, is it, most depressingly of all, real life?

[walk_ins]

The office closes early on New Year's Eve; those parts of it that don't stay open all night, that is, of course. It's ten to four, nearly an hour past early closing, and most of the floor is deserted. Outside the sky is smeary bruise-gray and dark enough to put Janet in mind of a line from a poem: it was evening all afternoon. It looks the way she feels.

Her mind takes that connection and hopscotches one further, to simply made for the pathetic fallacy, you know -- Lord Malshun, Black House, talking of the Dins of End-World.

Cut it out, she tells herself harshly. No one's paying you for this shit anymore, remember?

[walk_ins]

(Download 41% complete. The full indexed scan copies of the original magazine printings of several dozen short stories--framed around pornography that verges on gynecology and often brutally chopped for space or mangled by typos, they've found valuable information in the differences between the original pubs and the official paperbacks. Now it's going to an offsite serve. He can't leave until it's done and he's wiped all traces from this terminal, which isn't his, anyway.

It means he can't go hide in his own office. He sighs, inwardly.)

"Have you found anything yet?"

[walk_ins]

Janet shakes her head. "Not yet. Sent my resume out a couple places. I haven't heard back yet."

She doesn't expect to. It isn't much of a resume -- her only jobs prior to Tet were summer internships and temp work, including one ghastly stint doing telemarketing.

"You?"

[walk_ins]

"Oh, I've got some savings," he says mildly. His Tet Corporation stock has declined, but not nearly as much as some, and it's rebounding faster--probably for that reason.

Buy more stock in roses, a man once said (he's got a cross-index of lyric references to roses; it's pretty big) and it's advice he's followed. For many and many-a.

"And in the fall I suspect I have some academic connections I can call on. City College or John Jay, most likely."

[walk_ins]

She nods. "My sister-in-law's recommending this placement agency. If none of the leads I've got pan out, I might try them."

Her hands have been moving slowly this whole time, separating the office supplies from the personal items from the junk. Now she starts putting each in its proper place: the shelf, her purse, the trash can.

The drawer's not totally empty yet. She reaches in again.

[walk_ins]

"Not a bad idea," he says. "Especially for the short-term."

It all happened very quickly.

[walk_ins]

Whatever it is, rattling around back there, it's small. And, she realizes as her fingers close around it, familiar --

Janet brings out her hand and looks blankly down at the object: a novelty eraser, about the size of a large walnut. Dark green. Shaped like a turtle.




"I," she starts to say, and the rest of that sentence is going to be forgot I had this but she's too busy struggling not to cry.

[walk_ins]

Michael looks up from the keyboard, and again, sighs inwardly.

They didn't give him this job because he was a people person.

(Well--they did. Because none of them are people people, but he's maybe the best they've got.)

"Jan," he begins.

[walk_ins]

"The turtle couldn't help us," she manages, and there's laughter as well as tears under the words. Not very far under. "Right, Mike? The, the turtle -- oh, god. Damn. It."

Janet presses the knuckles of her free hand against her mouth.

Muffled: "Sorry. I'm sorry."

[walk_ins]

"It's going to be okay," he says quietly.

The turtle can't help anybody. It never manages to. What's that all about? (Quiet.)

[walk_ins]

No it isn't, she wants to say. Nothing is going to be okay again, ever.

She nods, instead, and swallows hard. Takes a tissue out of the open packet, and blows her nose. Pushes the turtle eraser into a side pocket of her purse.



Down the corridor: footsteps.

[walk_ins]

She's wrong, though. Because they're not okay.

But it's going to be okay. Everything that matters most. And if that means they have to go find real jobs, to keep things rolling, to keep it okay--

Well, okay.

Michael doesn't say that. He turns his head towards the noise, instead.

[walk_ins]

Tara Wilson puts her head around the corner of the cubicles, shrugging into her coat. "Hey, guys, I'm heading out. Just so you know, you're about to be the absolute last people left on the floor."

[walk_ins]

"All right," he says. "I've still got some things to wrap up here."

"Happy New Year, Tara," he adds, after a moment.

(They're not people people.)

[walk_ins]

Tara snorts, good-naturedly. "Yeah, Happy New Year, god bless us every one. Greg's making noises about finding a bar to watch the ball come down; either of you want to come?"

Janet manages a smile, but shakes her head. "No, I'm ... I'm gonna go home and catch up on sleep. Thanks, but."

[walk_ins]

"I'll be here," he says wearily.

Lots to do. Always lots to do.

They never really had to pay him to do it, either. Too bad they figured it out.