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Eddie comes back after only a few seconds, even more upset than before.
There'snowater! he says.
I ignore him. What can you say to that? But ignoring him is not enough. He starts running in place. I look at him and raise my eyebrows. He sees me do that, and says, Usefultorelax.
I think about what Jordan told me as I was trying to restart the elevators. Is this psycho somehow setting the course for the company? Then I look at myself, knees on the floor, crumpled shirt, and think, am I?
I can see myself again, typing away, navigating through help screens, when I look at Jordan and ask, In the meantime, will you tell me what's with this Plan B thing?
What, now? She says.
Now, I say. If either of us is going to go up there with that psycho, I want to know why.
She thinks about it for a moment, then says, Okay, let's try to make this simple. Remember the SPC?
The Loch Ness Monster, yes, I say as I jump from the main help screen to a subscreen. The font is almost unreadable. Suddenly I'm longing for the good old days of character displays.
Well, Jordan says, The SPC is real. I created it. And you're in it. And me, and Pete, and Al. Eddie, too.
I stop typing for a moment and look at her.
You? Me? Pete, Al? Eddie? I say.
Just let me finish, will you? She says.
Okay, I say, then go on wading through the maze of junk that is the help system.
After our, em, nightly talks, she says, and I frown at the adjective but she ignores me and goes on, I wanted to do something. So I wrote an executive memo and sent it to the board. Remember I spent a few weeks in February going to board meetings as a, quote, invited member, unquote, with that stupid Share The Fun program? I used the access I had to send the memo around. The memo defined the SPC, how the members would be selected, and so on. It was strongly worded, but vague. Your typical corporate document. It was a joke. I just wanted to rattle the cage a bit. Maybe get them confused, watch them spend an entire meeting trying to figure out what it was, who had sent it, whatever.
But? I say without taking my eyes off the screen, and between keypresses I think, This is getting interesting.
But they accepted it. Everyone assumed someone else in the board had come up with it. No one wanted to really question it.
Jordan goes on, So suddenly the SPC had been approved, but the memo stated that the SPC itself would be in charge of creating the SPC. No one seemed to think this was a problem. So I thought, what the hell. I put all of us in the SPC and then appropriated the resources. Creation by Quantum Uncertainty if you will. And then I realized what we could do with it... are you listening to me?
There is is. I type the command and press ENTER.
I look at her and I say, There it is. So who will go?
Coin toss? Jordan says.
Okay. Tails, I say.
She flipps a coin. I lose.
This is why I never play the lottery.
Just distract him for a while, Jordan says. I'll keep looking for Pete. He knows what to do with Eddie.
Then I say, Quantum Uncertainty?
Nevermind, she says, and...
I say, And just maybe, I'm to blame for all I've heard, but I'm not sure...
What? Jordan says.
You are the one that brought up Nevermind, I say.
She says, Free association eh? Well, you're going then?
At that moment I looked at the monitor where Eddie was taping up Ted, and I saw him pressing the gun against Ted's head, cocking the trigger, and I said, Oh, shit.
What? Jordan said, and seeing my eyes looking behind her she turned around and says, Oh, shit.
Exactly, I said.
I'll go. We'll finish this later.
Okay, she said, You know what I'd say.
Yeah, Good Luck. But...
A grin. Oh, her lips.
Yeah, she said. Luck is not a factor.
Luck is not a factor. Normally, I'd agree. But now, with Eddie in running in place in front of me, gun in hand, I'm beginning to wonder.
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