In Hot Water Pt. 05

"Remember me?"

He gives me a sideways glance. "Todd." He turns his head back to his screens. "No, wait. Other guy."

"Alex."

"Yeah."

"What can I do for you?"

"Did Todd ever come in?"

"No, but I sent his badge off." He pulls the chopsticks loose, and stirs the contents of the box. "Weirdest damn thing I ever did."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean." He takes a bite of thick yellow noodles, and chews. "I never saw him. But I got a request to send his badge off without a photo, or anything. Along with some others. Most of them went out of town."

"That's not normal?"

The man coughs, and chews carefully. "No. That's completely unheard of. Somebody higher up demanded that my boss get those made. Said it was going to stop payroll, and affect contracts, or business, or something."

"Where did you send them?"

"Mailstops. Did that part proper."

"When did this all happen?"

"Couple weeks ago." He looks at me between the two chopsticks, noodles swaying underneath. "What's your interest in all this?"

"I'm supposed to be working with Todd, but I can't find him."

"Oh," says the technician, turning back to his monitor. "Well good luck with that. I think you're chasing a ghost."

Then I'm back in the hallway, with my phone out, and texting my sister.

"They made Todd's badge and sent it off without him, along with a bunch of others." My message counts down from sixty.

I stop by the entrance to the stairs, and stare at the screen, not wanting to go inside, in case I lose signal. My message disappears and I stare at the empty chat window, wondering if my sister saw the text.

A moment later, she replies, "Wow. I'm going into the police station in a minute. Don't text me anymore after I tell you."

Jessica's message counts down from ten seconds.

I match her timer, and reply, "Okay, tell me when."

Her text vanishes.

My phone has six percent battery when I stow it, and then I'm climbing up the stairwell. I get to the third floor, and find post C11. Todd's dust-encrusted cubicle lurks right where I left it. Old computers, and monitors packed together like sardines under a metal cabinet. A printer rides one office chair. On the other chair sits a broken fax machine.

I never really dug through the cubicle the first time I was here. I wheel the chair with the fax machine out, and crouch in the space it occupied. The cabinet over the monitors is locked, but the filing cabinet behind the chair with the printer slides open easily. In the big lower drawer lays a stack of dusty manuals for a phone system that looks nothing like the one sitting on the desk. I push the drawer shut, and try the smaller drawer above. Inside are a bunch of business cards with Chinese on one side and Arabic on the other.

When I push the second drawer back in, my thumb catches on a slim drawer that sits directly under where a keyboard would go, if this were occupied by an actual human. I pull open the drawer, and inside is a sealed yellow manila envelope with Todd's name and this cubicle's address. I rip open the side of the envelope, and dump the contents onto the tiny bit of available desk space next to one of the dusty computer towers. Several papers fall out, and on top of that, lands a plastic laminated badge hanging from a lanyard.

I flip the badge over, and Todd's name is tattooed across the front. A red stripe blazes up the side, and there's an empty square where the photo should be. But instead of Donna's company logo, in the corner is a black and white picture of a bird with three horizontal lines behind it.

My phone comes out.

"I have Todd's badge. It's not exactly what we thought."

The battery bleeds while I wait.

"Don't text me anymore." Jessica's message counts down from ten, and disappears.

I slink against the side of the cubicle, unsure of what to do. I grip my phone in one hand, and Todd's badge in the other. My phone dims, preparing to lock itself, when a blue bubble squishes itself into the empty chat window.

I tap the screen, and my phone glows bright.

10

Three words from my sister.

9

8

And they march to their deaths.

7

6

She's never said this to me.

5

The words serve two meanings.

4

One from my sister. The other from something else.

3

I want to respond.

2

But I can't.

1

And then her words are gone.

Getting to know my sister.