Day 9 (Disappointment)

RECYCLING
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Municipal Recyling Center

(651)-555-2048

1151 West 18th

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Sandys Hardware Recycling

(651)-555-8192

1024 West 16th

``For all your computer recycling needs''

M-F, 8:00am - 6:30pm

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Vasko Solid Waste, Inc.

309 Como Avenue

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Closed Sundays and holidays.

5 Disappointment

Meeting Rose at 6:30 meant that he'd have to cut his work day
shorter. This didn't mean he had to work less, unfortunately, it
meant he would have to get up earlier. So it was 8:00 am the next
morning when Grant awoke, groggily shambled over to his alarm
clock to shut it off, and tried to remember what he was doing
awake at what to him was an entirely godforsaken early hour. It
took him halfway through his shower to recall: He was meeting
Rosetta later that day.

Completely, entirely worth it.

He'd have to get moving if he wanted to get everything done
today. His first stop was the university to try and locate old
colleagues.

Finding academics used to be easier; once they were awarded
tenure, they tended not to move around much. More recently,
though, industry had become an increasingly attractive choice. As
Grant drove he found himself hoping that there was someone at the
place who remembered Caster. He also found himself thinking of
VonCannon. The latter would, if the hints he'd heard dropped so
far, be more difficult to locate. As far as Wynn could tell, his
GPS was functioning perfectly today, which meant that if he put
in the location of Rosetta's shop, he'd actually end up there
instead of at the old professor's warehouse. This was good news
for later in the day when his date would commence, but bad news
for slightly earlier than that when he'd need to talk to
VonCannon. He was hoping what he'd get at the university would be
enough information.

What he got at the university turned out to be a headache.
Parking was, as he well knew from his time there, poor. When he
considered it, which given the long walk from the only visitor's
parking structure he had plenty of time to do, ``poor'' was
somewhat of an understatement. He never understood why people who
were visiting the college - potential students, parents of
poential students, potential faculty especially - should have to
park so far away. Maybe less traffic encouraged a more
'residential' campus or something, but he thought it encouraged
people to go back home.

Just like when he'd originally attended college here, however, he
had no choice. He had only a vague idea of the engineering hall's
location, which didn't help his search. He'd only been there for
the few mandatory science classes early on in his college career.

Approximately ten minutes later, to help matters, he discovered
that the building he'd originally thought was for engineering
was, in fact, the Chemistry building. Eventually he tried that
last resort of lost people everywhere, asking a student. This
earned him a somewhat strange look, but thankfully clear
directions.

Another ten minutes passed before he found himself at the main
entrance to the Ashley J. Wilson Hall of Engineering. He checked
his appearance in the glass doors and took a moment to briefly
tidy himself up. He tried to appear professional at all times,
meaning he tried to look like a newspaper reporter ought to look.
When interviewing people in a bar as he had the night before, for
instance, he'd not had to change his appareance at all. This was
the reason he usually suggested casual locations for his
interviews. In this case, though, he hadn't had the time to call
ahead. Given this, his time constraints, and the fact that there
were probably research assistants older than him here, he'd made
an effort to appear actually professional today. If Anders - or
anyone else from the office for that matter - saw him dressed up
like this, they'd be pressed not to burst out laughing.

He entered the building and smiled somewhat realizing it was
probably the first time he'd done so. There was a cork bulletin
board hanging up on one of the walls, next to the entrance to a
computer lab and across form an auditorium. He went over to the
board both to look as though he belonged there and also to find
where the dean's office - or at least someone who could direct
him somewhere - was. Fortunately for him there was a rather
tattered-looking floor plan in the upper-left and it only took
him another few minutes to make sense of it.

After all this trouble, he expected to not find the dean in at
all, and was pleasantly surprised when he asked the assistant at
the desk in front of the door reading ``Guy Howard, Dean of
Engineering'' where he might locate Dr. Howard.

``Right behind you.'' she smirked.

The person who'd entered the room after Grant smiled. ``I'm Dean
Howard, can I help you?''

Grant gave his usual speil: ``Grant Wynn, reporter for the
Gazette, do you have some spare time?''

``Not really.'' Howard said honestly. ``But since my office hours
don't begin for another half hour, I'll give you what I can. Come
on in.'' he said, moving to his office.

The dean's office was far more cramped than Grant would have
expected a dean's office to be. Most of that, he imagined, was
the effect of the books: Every available vertical surface had a
bookshelf propped up against it, and every shelf was filled with
books on structural, electrical, civil, computer, metal,
software, mechanical, aerospace, or nuclear engineering. What
wasn't filled with books was stacked with magazines, and what
surfaces didn't have a magazine were hosting a computer or
scattered papers. He considered himself lucky to find a chair.

Howard himself had to pick a book or two up off of his, placing
them on top of his computer tower. ``So,'' he said when he'd made
a spot for himself and sat in it, ``what kind of story is this?''

``I'd just like to ask about James Caster.'' Grant began.

Guy's face darkened. ``My predecessor, yes. I'm not sure how I
can be of any help, really, all that was sorted out years ago.''

Oh hell, Grant thought. Not again. ``I'm sorry to be the one to
have to tell you, but he died in an accident during the outage
this weekend.''

``Oh.'' Howard looked almost relieved. ``I'm sorry to hear it.''

``I'm just asking about him, trying to put some things together
for a story.''

``You do know,'' the dean asked cautiously, ``about the rather...
suspicious circumstances under which he left, yes?''

``I spoke to Vervicom yesterday.'' Grant said. In a story like
this, the odd parts like Caster's defection and dual-payment were
usually the ones that got him interested, but he felt himself
wanting, uncharacteristically, to get past that part. It was as
though his will alone could make this a normal story, after which
he could get on with his career. The more he heard of it, the
more he doubted.

Howard looked relieved again, nearly sagging back into his chair.
``Good good, hate to relive that. Bad times, bad times, almost as
bad as that whole time machine thing.''

Grant blinked. ``Excuse me?''

The dean seemed to realize the preposterousness of what he'd just
said. ``Not a literal time machine, of course. Well, the
respectable bunch of us didn't think so, at least.''

This wasn't on the topic of Dr. Caster, but he wasn't about to
let it go. ``When was this?'' Grant inquired in his best 'just
asking out of curiosity' voice.

Guy considered. ``Maybe a year or two before I got this job. We
had a professor who'd made a name for himself for some really
bizarre idea. I don't recall it exactly, it was a while back and
had a fad following for a while, something like a machine that
couldn't be moved - it was crazy but the math ended up working
out. He built one - one, I might add, that nobody ever saw - and
then went on to build the thing he called the time machine.''

``I assume he didn't take pictures of dinosaurs with it.'' Wynn
guessed.

``Not as such, no.'' The dean smiled at the idea. ``There weren't
any of us here who could figure out what it did do, granted, but
what it didn't do was travel through time. At least not any more
so than you or I. That wasn't the worst of it, though, the damn
thing kept pulling absurd amounts of power at irregular
intervals, it flooded the network, it killed fire-suppression
systems, made a general nuisance of itself. It was Doctor Caster
who ended up having to fire the guy. VonCannon didn't even seem
to take it very hard, he'd have to had expected it.''

``Sorry, what was that name again?'' Grant said. He shouldn't
have even been surprised at that point. For a recluse, the man
was suddenly sprouting up everywhere.

Dean Howard took a moment to consider. ``Yes, Malachai VonCannon.
I don't even know what department he was in, there probably
wasn't one willing to have him, but that was definiely the guy.''
He seemed to think a moment before realizing what he'd been
saying. ``I'm sorry, I've gotten us off on a tangent, and you
with so little time. My office hours are going to begin soon, and
I've got quite a bit to get caught up on as you can see. Tell
Tina at the desk to grab Dr. Caster's old file, use whatever you
want, it's all public.'' The man paused for a moment. ``I am
sorry to hear about James' death, please understand. It was a
hard time the university went though, his having to leave, but he
was a good man.''

Grant nodded his understanding, and left.

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Day 8 (Payroll)

The conversation wandered after that point, as did Wynn's
attention. Eventually the co-workers began to leave, one by one.
He handed them all his business card as they went, even if he
didn't imagine they'd call him. He'd learned a long time ago that
this was never a bad idea; more than one lead - even if on a
different story - had come to him from casual handouts of his
card.

Finally, after hours of mostly listening with a question or two
added every now and then, he was alone at his table with only his
notes for company. There were parts he liked about his job -
talking to people who were willing to help him with a story was
one. Getting a story out of the unwilling was perhaps even more
enjoyable, on those few occasions when he managed to pull it off.
Seeing his work in print was always satisfying. The part coming
next, however, wasn't on the list. That part was, of course, the
painstaking creation of a rough draft and near-constant revision
it would require to become presentable.

He drove home in the dark easily - one advantage to keeping the
insane hours that he tended to was that there was nowhere near
rush hour's volume on the roads. He didn't really have to pay
much attention to the road, which worked out well for him given
he was already constructing a the story in his mind. It didn't
have to be a long story, it had that much going for it. Tomorrow
he'd have to stop by the hospital, find out why Caster had
refused treatment. That was a detail that kept nagging at him
and, even though the place was entirely out of his way, one he
wouldn't let go. He'd also have to go back down and talk to
VonCannon. Most of him just wanted to steer clear of the old
coot, but he owed it to himself to find out what the connection
was. It simply seemed odd to him that Caster and VonCannon hadn't
spoken in years, and the day that the former was apparently
driving close to the latter, the former died under strange
circumstances.

It was probably just a coincidence, he rationalized. He'd seen
stranger things happen that also had turned out to be
meaningless.

Ten thirty. That was the time his car informed him of as he
pulled into his familiar driveway. A bit long a day, granted, but
a productive one. He wandered inside and started preparing for
bed. Not because he planned to get up all that early, simply
because he knew he'd put it off for another few hours.

He was lying down and shutting his eyes when he remembered the
one thing he'd forgotten to accomplish.

``Call Rosetta!'' he exclaimed, almost literally jumping out of
his bed.

His alarm clock beamed the numbers '11:45' at him redly, and he
cursed under his breath. He knew that in some schools of thought
it was better to wait a while - days, even - before calling
someone who'd given you their number. The problem with this
approach in Grant's experience was that the woman in question was
likely to have forgotten who he was and why he was calling by
that point. This was moot in this case, he considered while
rifling through his dirty laundry pile in a likely futile attempt
to locate his pants. Rose already knew who he was. No, she'd do
worse than forget why he was calling. She'd hold his tardiness
against him.

He located his discarded jeans and rummaged through the pockets,
finally locating the card she'd given him. He raised it
triumphantly and got as far as picking up his bedside phone to
dial the number before he considered.

Eleven fifty one. That wasn't really all that late for him, in
fact he was going to bed somewhat early tonight, but he realized
that the vast majority of people tended to have sane bedtimes.
When would Rose have gone to bed? Which would she be more angry
about, his waking her or his forgetting, then remembering but not
calling?

To hell with it, he decided, and dialed the number.

A ring.

Two.

Three. Most answering machines and voicemail services picked up
after the fourth ring, a fact which annoyed him because it
usually took him two rings of his own phone for him to even
realize it was ringing. He mentally began preparing a message. It
was the best of both worlds, really, he wouldn't have woken her
up but he'd have called -

``You're late.'' Rose's voice seemed somewhat detached, but it
wasn't sleepy.

``At least I didn't wake you up?'' He ventured.

``Ha! I wish you had. That'd at least mean I'd gotten some sleep.
I've been catching up on work, the outage really put us behind.
How about you, how's the paperboy business?'' Her voice had
picked up steam now.

He had to stifle a laugh at how she'd described his career. ``I
was thinking of that exact term last week when I was doing a
story about the city's largest teacup collection.''

``You know, if you can't tell me the story you're working on
because it's confidential, you can just say so. You don't have to
make up these ridiculous stories. Who'd read about a teacup
collection?''

``That's exactly what I said to my boss when he gave me the
story.'' Grant pointed out. ``He said I needed to do more human
interest stories.''

``I thought they had to be interesting to be human interest
stories.''

``That's the next thing I said.''

There was a pause for a moment, and Grant found himself wondering
if the line had cut out. Then Rose's voice returned.

``I guess the question I need to ask you at this point,'' she
began, ``is: Are we going to just talk on the phone about your
boss, or are you going to ask me out?''

Grant feigned ignorance, never a difficult task. ``You want to go
out and talk about my boss?''

``I guess if you're not int-''

He didn't give her the chance to continue with that line of
thought. ``Want to go out?''

``Hmmmm.... ``He'd played dumb, and now he was paying for it. ``I
guess I could. It'd have to be at a restaurant, though, no movie
or anything. You're going to have to talk.'' She spoke up again
right as Grant was about to say something: ``And no, you can't
gripe about your boss there, either. In the spirit of fairness, I
won't complain about mine either.''

``You're self-employed.''

``And yet I'm still making myself do things like stay up and
finish work, lucky for you. The point is, you now have my terms.
Take them or leave them.''

She could get away with these things, he reflected, because she
knew he wasn't about to turn her down. It'd always been that way.
Still, it wasn't every day he had people demanding to go on
dates. ``It's a deal.''

``Good. You want to pick me up after work? Assuming, that is, you
can find your way to the recycling plant this time.'' there was a
teasing note in her voice, even though he hadn't mentioned his
earlier failed attempt. He'd have to ask about that later.

``Sounds good, when's after work for you?''

She laughed. ``You want me to give you another card?''

``Right. I'll see you at closing time.''

``Bye.''

``Bye.'' he replied reflexively, as they both hung up.

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