One Ghost Per Serving (29 page)

“Do you want this information in a slide show, a flowchart, or interpretive dance?” Rex asked.

“How about in a missile that collides with you?”

Rex ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “You’re a coward because you don’t believe in yourself or your abilities. You try to win a yogurt contest to make Taffy happy in order to avoid interacting with her directly.”

“That’s not true at all.” Eric turned his head away and stared at some kind of taxonomical chart on the wall. He squinted. Parasitic wasps. He made a mental note to go in for an eye exam.

Rex put up a hand to halt further interruption. “You can’t tell Willa how you really feel about this Mark thing, or the job transfer thing, or the fact that she’s closed off to people like you are, but in her own screwed-up way. And you can’t tell
me
how much you resent me –”

“I did, though, all the time.” Eric extended an arm.

“You think you did, but you just came off as grumpy and sleep-deprived.” Rex piled a plate high with cookies. “See? You can’t just tell me what you’re thinking. You think I’m out to get you.” He waved around the plate and a few of the cookies flew off, one right through He Who Reclines. “You think that I’m just waiting around to re-possess you, when in fact I could re-possess you whenever I want. But I don’t
want
to re-possess you. That first time, it was a fluke. I happened to be in the POUNCE! You happened to take it. It wasn’t intentional on my part.” He put his hands out, palms up.

He Who Cleans House was furiously scribbling notes, maybe a verbatim transcript to use as material for group later on, Eric thought.

“You want people to support you, but you test us and punish us, and you’re
still
not sure we’re on your side, so you test us some more,” Rex said,” putting down the plate and getting some coffee. “You know what that is?”

“Experience?”

“Insecurity,” Rex said. “You don’t need other people, even me, for support. But you think you do, and you resent us for it.”

Eric didn’t respond right away. The group watched from their chairs.

“You’re right. Okay? You are completely right,” Eric finally said.

Rex seemed mollified. Eric smiled, but was afraid it would come off scary, not friendly.

“You’re messing with me,” Rex said.

“I can screw up my life without anyone’s guidance. So maybe I can fix it the same way. Maybe you can … maybe you – ah, hell.”

“You want Rex to
help
you?” He Who Cleans House interjected.

“He doesn’t think he needs my help.” Rex waved him off.

Eric crossed his arms. “I can shut down an organization that wants to take over the world by infecting everyone with commerce spirits, and win back Willa and Taffy at the same time, but I kind of need someone to pick up my suit at the cleaners.”

He Who Cleans House started to raise his hand.

“Not you, sprite, but thanks anyway,” Eric said.

“You can’t afford to get your suit cleaned,” Rex said. “But I’ll help you. After that, I’m off to Cozumel, because to be honest, you kind of exhaust me.”

Eric drove his bus down the interstate while Rex stuck his head out of the passenger side window and Josh Konga – car mechanic, death metal singer, forklift operator, and Willa’s HVAC student – checked the delivery routes for any mention of Nidus Monolithics trucks.

“Are we going to Haleport or Pressville?” Josh asked.

“Haleport. That’s Nidus’s largest distribution center. One million square feet.” Eric checked the mirrors to pass an impossibly slow hatchback laden with precariously-secured camping gear on the roof.

“I thought we were going to the Nidus Monolithics Forklift 10K for the Eric Snackerge Foundation,” Rex piped in, cheerful. “I hear they have a great goody bag.”

Eric maneuvered in front of the hatchback. Whatever Josh had done to – he caught himself. Not the Princess. He needed a new name for her. The Snackerge? Whatever Josh did to the mechanics of the bus was amazing. The shifting was smooth and the pickup went beyond no-longer-dangerous to almost powerful.

“We’re not going to race forklifts.” Eric obsessively checked the mirrors. “I have to look at their dock.”

“Their dock?” Josh never looked out the window or glanced at the mirrors once. Eric envied him. It must be nice to go through life like that: trusting, not worried, not constantly operating from a state of dread.

Eric signaled and took an exit off the interstate. “Nidus is one of the few manufacturers that distributes their own stuff, including Quantal Foods, from three company-owned distribution centers. They have their own fleet, too – almost a hundred trucks. I want to see where their trucks are going and short of being a skilled hacker, which I’m not … Hey Josh, do you happen to be a skilled hacker?”

“Nope.” Josh grinned. “But you should see me parallel-park a forklift.”

Eric made a left and drove half a mile before making another left and driving down a two-lane road. “Short of that, I have to just go and try to get a handle on where the fleet is heading. If I can get in.”

Just before they reached the distribution center guard house, Eric put on a blue Jamesville Tech HVAC cap. He did a mental check for RFID tags in the bus; he didn’t want the reader at the entrance station picking any up. “Josh, do a quick check of your wallet and make sure that you left all of your credit cards back at your place.”

Josh pulled out his wallet and rummaged through it. “Just my ID.”

“Good.” Eric hitched a thumb to Josh’s backpack. “Your phone? If it’s brand new, it may support NFC.”

“Huh?”

“Basically, if it’s NFC-compatible, it can be used as a mobile wallet. It’s based on the same technology as RFID. I just don’t want to take the risk.”

“It’s definitely not here,” Josh said. “What about yours?”

“I have a Faraday-shielded wallet and passport now. But my phone is so old, it’s like a car phone from the 80s.”

“Oh. But why –”

“The guard stations at these centers have RFID readers,” Eric said, making a turn into the small road leading to the distribution center. “They grab data from the tags in the fleet, but also from anything with RFID, like the chips in credit cards or phones, and I don’t want to give them any data like that.”

“Wow,” Josh said. “When did you get so paranoid? How’d you learn all this stuff?”

Eric chuckled. “I had a foundation of suspicion and paranoia, so it was more like a confirmation of my fears. And then I did a lot of web searches. So here’s our plan for the gate: I’ll be the HVAC guy so you can be the forklift guy.”

“I’m with that,” Josh said.

Eric waited behind a truck, then pulled up to the guard. “ID?” The guard scrutinized Eric’s Jamesville Tech ID – which Eric got just so he could eat with Willa in the cafeteria. He kept Eric’s ID then looked at Josh’s ID.

“What’s your business here?” the guard asked, squinting.

“Jamesville Technical College HVAC repair department. You’ve got a breakdown in the smart thermostats, and I’ve gotta do some work on the centrifugal compressor,” Eric said.

“And you?” the guard asked Josh.

“Forklift repair and tuning,” Josh said.

The guard made them wait an interminable length of time while he copied their IDs, wrote down their information, and talked on the phone. Eric’s heartbeat sped up. Finally the guard returned their IDs and waved them in.

“You sounded like you knew what you were talking about,” Josh said.

Eric shook his head and drove through the entrance to the one hundred acre campus. “I had no idea what I was talking about. I just threw together some stuff I’ve heard from Willa.”

“Hey, it got us in,” Josh said.

“I’m a little offended that he didn’t ask
me
,” Rex said. Eric flashed Rex a look then drove at a crawl as he studied the side of the warehouse.

“Normally these are categorized by type.” Eric pointed down the line of doors. “The Strasserport center is the origination point for all of Nidus’s frozen and refrigerated foods, and this is where 100% of Quantal Foods goods are kept.” Some trucks were docked and several men were busy unloading the pallets.

“Lumpers,” Eric said.

“Who, those guys?”

“They’re freelance laborers,” Eric tilted his chin toward the men. “The drivers have to pay to use them or unload their own trucks, which they usually don’t want to do. Unless they’re not equipped to unload or they want to pick up some extra cash.”

At Josh’s expression, Eric shrugged and said, “Time spent on the Quantal Organic Yogurt Amass-n-Win. How do you think I got as much yogurt as I did? Watch this truck.” He indicated a semi that had just parked.

“They gave him a place to park.” Eric rested his wrist on the wheel and pointed. “And he’s got a door. Wait – he’s taking three door spaces. Now they have to check in his freight so they can get those other doors open. This is known as one of the more inefficient warehouses – they’re late to their appointments, rarely let the drivers stay in their trucks, and take forever to unload. We’re watching for an unhappy driver, and I bet it won’t take long.”

A few minutes later, six trucks showed up at the same time. One of the trucks backed into the dock and checked in with a lumper.

“They’re not opening the dock door.” Eric sat a little higher in his seat. “That’s going to piss off the driver.”

The driver waited in his cab for a while, then hopped out, exchanged some words with two of the lumpers, then stalked off into the warehouse.

“He’s going to have to wait inside,” Eric said. “And these trucks are waiting for the same dock.” One of the drivers gave up and parked off to the side, though he kept the truck running. He parked by another truck that had been there since Eric arrived.

“Josh, you stay in the bus. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Josh gave him a salute.

“I’m coming with you.” Rex flickered. “I should have practiced my CB lingo.” He phased completely out of the bus then stretched like a cat.

“You
are
aware that no one else can see you, right?” Eric said, after he shut the door of the bus.

Eric walked to the truck that had been parked the whole time and stood in front of the driver’s side window. He waved his arm to get the driver’s attention. The driver opened the door. “You another lumper?”

“No. You having trouble unloading?” Eric said.

The driver took off his cap, rubbed his head, then put his cap back on. “Typical PITA. Show up on time for my 4:30 a.m. appointment, I back into the dock, check in with the lumpers, and it’s downhill from there. They haven’t even opened the dock door yet. By the time they load my freight, there’ll be jet cars whizzing around above us. Nidus’ frozen section is an epic-scale disaster. If they were pleasant, that’d be one thing. You guys drive?”

“Nope,” Eric said.

“Well, these grocery warehouses are the worst.” The driver grimaced at the warehouse from his position in his cab. “Buuuut, you can’t avoid it. I just drove to St. Louis with a load of turkey, then to Cincinnati with a load of sugar, and now I’m back here for more punishment. Think I’d learn.”

Eric nodded. “Where’s your next delivery?”

“Aahhh … I’d have to check the map.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“No skin off my back. Hop on up.” He opened the other door.

Rex grabbed Eric’s arm. “Are you nuts?”

“I need this information,” Eric said.

“Have you never seen a movie?” Rex said in a hiss. “You don’t get in the cab of some stranger’s truck. He could sell you into sex slavery!”

Eric shook his arm loose then got into the cab. The driver pulled up the online tracking system. “Here’s a map of the next shipping location.” The driver zoomed in on the route and the end dot.

“Where is that?” Eric circled his finger.

“Looks like the stadium,” the driver said in a booming voice.

“Home of the Mighty Ghost Slugs?” Eric said.

“Yep. I’ll probably be late, but better there than here. Here, they charge you $750 for a missed unloading appointment.”

“What’s your freight?”

“What do I have or what am I picking up to take there?” He gestured at the map.

“What are you picking up,” Eric said.

“Well, you can tell from the noise that I’m driving a reefer.” The driver patted the truck. “Refrigerated freight. Dairy. Yogurt. That is, if they ever get to it.”

“Do you have any idea what some of those other Nidus drivers are carrying?”

“No, but I can find out,” the driver said.

“See where their next stop is, too, if you would. I’ll be in that old bus over there.” Eric jumped out of the truck then got back in the bus. He waited there with Josh and Rex as they watched the dock activity. Several of the trucks got to unload, with one or two of the drivers unloading their own pallets. The driver Eric had just spoken with strolled around and talked to some of the other drivers. Then he came around to the bus and Eric leaned out the window.

“They’re all picking up Quantal Organic Yogurt,” the driver said. “And they’re all going to the same location on the map as I am.”

“The stadium.”

“You got it.”