Chapter 7: Part 7

“Hey, Dana,” I opened, knocking on her doorframe. It was the morning after my imaginary self managed to shatter the illusions of the House. “Do you have a minute?”

Dana was on the phone, but she nodded and waved me in. I came in and she pointed to the swivel chair in front of her desk. I took a seat in it and leaned back, waiting for her to finish.

“Yes. Yes, of course, sir.” She was saying. She met my eyes and rolled hers dramatically, using her hand to make the universal sign of ‘this guy talks too much’. “Sir, you’ll have the reports within an hour. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir, I have to go. The morning shift is clocking in and I have to pass out their routes. Yes sir, I assure you, within an hour. You too, sir.”

She hung up the phone. “Corporate,” she explained. “Those new delivery reports aren’t synching up with the servers correctly, shockingly. Now every regional lead has to manually send in their info. IT is upside down,” Dana shook her head. “Still feeling okay, Daniel? You seemed a bit off, yesterday.”

“I’m doing a lot better, yeah. I actually came in here ‘cause I had a contract question.”

“That’s really more of a question for HR, of course, but if I know it I’ll answer.”

“Well, the no moonlighting clause…how strict is it?” I had decided to be as direct with Dana as I could. As far as managers went she was one of the best. She’d stuck her neck out more than once for drivers on our team. “I mean…say I was offered a one-time private gig. I wouldn’t use any company property. It wouldn’t interfere with my shifts here. Is that still a no-go?”

Dana drummed her fingers on her desk. “Look, officially, yes. That’s a no-go. But unofficially…you wouldn’t be the first one who wanted a little extra cash going into the holidays. I won’t hold it against you. Just you know…be discrete. If HR finds out my hands are going to be tied. A reprimand at least, possibly more.”

That was about what I expected. “Discrete I can handle,” seeing as I’ll effectively be outside of the universe during this particular job. “Thanks.”

Dana nodded and started to reach for a stack of small printouts. The delivery tablets would create these receipts at the end of each driver’s shift, assuming the driver remembered to clock out properly. I hazarded a guess that Dana was about to start entering every single delivery from yesterday by hand, and decided accordingly to take my leave. She bid me a good morning and asked me to pass out everyone’s folders. The warehouse teams should already have each van loaded down with the proper boxes by now, so just knowing which van you got and which route to take was enough.

I took the stack of folders, noting that each one had sticky note attached with a driver’s name. I headed over to the break room and filled my travel mug up with coffee while I waited for the new shift all to arrive. I had gotten in a little early to talk to Dana, and by the time everyone was there, I had drank half of it.

We all knew the drill for folder duty, so everyone trickled out after they grabbed their coffee, maybe scarfed down a bagel they brought with them. Once I was sure every folder had gone with a driver, I took the one with my name on it and refilled my coffee.

I was in van nine that morning. Other than the number and the contents that the warehouse team had already loaded it down with, it was identical to every other van the company had on site. As far as I had seen, it was identical to every other van the company had on any site. I adjusted my seat, fixed my mirrors, and pulled up my first delivery, punching its ID into my tablet and setting out.

________

After my shift, I joined some of the other drivers to catch up on our weekend plans. I was one of the lucky ones who had pulled both Saturday and Sunday this week, but it sounded like my colleagues were making good use of the time. A couple concerts, a party. One of the older drivers was going to take his oldest kid on their first hunting trip together. Hunting had never been my sport, but that seemed like a big milestone, so I congratulated him.

I excused myself early, using my weekend shift assignments as my excuse. I took a bus to a few blocks from my house and walked the rest of the way. My car was still at the work parking lot. I’d have to get up extra early tomorrow just to get in on time, but I wasn’t sure when Archie would be stopping by with the contract.

And it was a good thing. I had barely kicked my shoes off and started putting mayonnaise on one slice of bread and lunchmeat on another when the little knocker on my apartment door went rapraprap.

When I opened the door, I was not surprised to see a young woman behind it. However, I was surprised that she was taller than I was. I’m not exceptionally tall, as a person, but both Driver and Sterns had been short and strong-looking in their human guise. Archivist, or Archie as everyone called her, was somewhere north of six feet. Instead of stout limbs and a broad stance, she seemed to be all spindles and string.

“Master Corners?” she asked. She was holding a plain folder under one arm, the standard office supply somehow odd after the old-school parchment of the last notes.

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“Just Daniel. I guess you must be Archie?”

“Yes. May I…?” she gestured towards the apartment.

“Of course,” I answered, opening the door a little wider. “I’m afraid I don’t have a proper sitting room, but I’ve cleared off the kitchen table. Just around to the left there.”

She paused briefly on the entry mat to take off her shoes; again in contrast to the businesslike dress shoes favored by the other hobs I had met, she had opted for simple slip-on sneakers. If it weren’t for her button-down and bow tie, she would have passed easily for a college student. Or at least a college TA. I realized I had no idea of her relative age. To spare my grandma from having to roll over in my grave, I didn’t ask.

Archie went where I directed and selected a seat that faced away from the kitchen. I grabbed a couple glasses of water and set one in front of her, then went around the table to sit across from her. I took a sip from my glass.

“So. Are these the terms and details of the job Mister Carver wants me to do?”

“They are.” Archie said. Odd, that she didn’t remind me of anyone. The other hobs had sounded like family members. I didn’t have any sisters, but I did have some cousins whose voices I had braced myself to hear from another face. Instead, her voice seemed…calm. Like she was meditating twenty-four seven. But definitely her own. Her accent was impossible to place, but it seemed to have elements of west coast USA and ye olde English.

Of course she doesn’t sound familiar. My imaginary me said. I broke the illusion. Porter won’t sound like your brother, nor Sterns like grandpa any more either. Pay attention, Daniel.

Wait. Was imaginary me talking back to me now? That seemed…not ideal. I had originally assumed that the imaginary version of me was merely my mind’s way of handling the ridiculousness of the effects of the House. The thought that it might be a separate mind living within my own…well that wouldn’t be a good sign even if it weren’t for the fact that I had a potential job delivering something for a man who only entered reality when it had something for him.

I looked down and saw that Archie had continued talking during my lapse. I interrupted her. “May I read it myself first?”

In answer, she turned her folder around and passed it toward me. I skimmed it. It wasn’t large. Three pages. That still seemed like a lot for the job that had been described, but as I skimmed it I realized that two of them were dedicated solely to the description of the item to be delivered and the destination. Of course Houses on the Lane couldn’t just have street numbers. Otherwise how could it be infinite and confusing?

The last page listed the duration and compensation. Three days. I’d have to take a long weekend. Dana would know what was going on, but I trusted her not to tell. Or at least…if she let me have the time she wouldn’t pry so much as to get me caught out. She might just say “No” to the extra off. That was the worse option. Compensation…

I nearly shot water out of my nose, and I hadn’t even taken a drink recently. “I’m sorry, is this value accurate?”

Archie leaned over the table, craning her neck to tilt her head. I obligingly turned the page ninety degrees so it was sideways for both of us. She nodded. “Yes, The House, or more specifically Lord Carver himself from his personal accounts, will pay that amount upon your return from a successful delivery.” She tapped another line, near the bottom of the page. “In the event of a failed but good faith attempt, you will instead receive this lesser amount.”

I felt my heart start to thump. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement.

The second number was seven digits long. The first was even longer. Shit, I might as well just quit my regular job. The timeline here gave me leeway. I could give my notice.

“Is that a lot?” Archie asked. I looked up at her. She had her head tilted to one side and turned slightly, as if she wanted to point her ear at me as much as watch me. Both eyes were focused on my face, though. “I’m afraid I haven’t had much time here in realis, as yet.”

“Yeah…” I answered. “Yeah, I’d say that forty million is a lot for a simple delivery.”

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