What Went Wrong With Arlow?

Arlow drove down Highway 13 with the windows rolled down.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The radio barely overcame noise of the wind when he noticed a traffic buildup ahead. Dozens of garbage trucks of all colors awaited their turn on the side of the road.

As he passed them up, he realized two things. One, this road had way too many damned garbage trucks on it. Two, Arlow wanted a chicken sandwich.

As he unwrapped the gas station sandwich sometime later, he thought about the garbage trucks. There was a new clearcutting nearby, so maybe they were expanding the dump. But he was sure the two-lane road didn't have the capacity for that much traffic. Was that construction even approved, he wondered? He should've heard about it by now, he decided grimly. He'd have to look into this.

Heck, lately there were just too many new things for him to look into.

...

"Buzz off," Carly snapped at whomever tried to talk to her. She knew him by sight but was by design terrible with names. Carly got to play with very expensive building-sized toys, which is all she ever cared for.

Price for being interrupted today, she thought, might've been fair because it consisted of the young man climbing a very tall ladder to reach her and risk breaking his neck.

"Doctor Kaufmann is waiting for you," the young man repeated himself.

She remembered dismissing a calendar alert earlier and wondering if it had anything to do with the unsteady geek trembling on the ladder.

That particular name she recognized because the name was attached to someone who financed all her toys. She raised her eyebrow a millimeter and got lost in herself.

With practiced efficiency Carly climbed down the ladder and headed toward the conference room. Somewhere in the middle of the corridor she wondered where the heck whoever interrupted her had disappeared to. One moment he was there, the next he wasn't. How long ago was that? Did they leave at the same time? No, she must have waited awhile and lost track of time again. She must refocus now. Something about a meeting. Dr. Kaufmann.

...

"Now, how does a garbage man get to afford something like that?" Arlow mused.

Sheriff Curtis stood by a fence at Arlow's Bingo Lodge, pretending to direct traffic. His presence there was merely ceremonial. Just another hot summer evening filling up with folks of all ages on the grassy lot, noise level inside the open warehouse rising.

Arlow owned the only open establishment in the county after others got "investigated" by the sheriff's office. A restored orange Plymouth had pulled up, freshly waxed and detailed, tires gleaming in the sun. The driver waved at them as he parked.

"Won the lottery?" the sheriff guessed. Arlow answered with a raised eyebrow.

"Some rich old aunt from far away done and croaked, left him money?" Sheriff's second guess was even more unbelievable.

Arlow shook his head, "doubt anyone in his whole family ever even left the county. Heck, don't know, maybe one of them got as far as Sumter for the doctors. And sure as hell no one here had any money to leave him."

Staring at the shiny orange car, he shook his head stubbornly, "one thing's sure, something ain't right here," he thought out loud. Emitt held a small county contract but was always short on steady laborers and long on breakdowns. Arlow was more than happy to provide them with alternate haulers.

"How much you think one of those Barracudas runs for?" the sheriff asked.

"Suppose I should find out," Arlow muttered angrily because Arlow hated not knowing things. Someone was dipping into a gravy bowl that didn't belong to them, and that meant a competitor. The kind you didn't want to have.

...

Carly walked into a dramatic question being asked by a suit, "What does this mean? Are we going to drift off into the sun?" Until that moment, Carly thought that was the most absurd question she'd ever heard in her life.

But then the next one made it the second. The empty-headed man sitting on his left chimed in, "Senator Moss, pardon me but I think that means the opposite, that we'll fly away into space."

"My God, how much time do we have?" the angry man continued, "why haven't you called anyone earlier? Allen said there's a major leak and the Earth is somehow losing matter and fast, this stuff is going, gone, never to return, and how is this not an emergency? Allen doesn't normally panic. He said it was a big amount. What are we doing about it? Why is everyone so calm? He said fast, gone!"

Few scientists exchanged indiscreet looks of disgust. The guy sitting on his right looked down at his papers and pretended not to know him. He wore a uniform with a fruit salad of medals and some kind of a metal eagle above it.

It was a tense moment, a quiet moment. The kind where no one dared call someone important an idiot to their face. Carly looked around and suddenly realized she was the only one standing in a crowded room. Shit, and the suit-to-researcher ratio was ugly, she thought and quickly sat along the wall.

Dr. Kaufmann replied gently, "Senator, the planet loses some fifty thousand tons of mass per year normally through radiation. That's normal. The big number your science advisor took upon himself to characterize as dangerous is over a span of four, maybe five hundred million years."

Carly locked eyes with Dr. Kaufmann curiously. Dangerous? What danger?

The senator replied, "... I don't understand. What do you mean million years?" No one'd told him that and he felt embarrassed that he didn't check. Shit. He had to play it off now, he couldn't lose face.

Dr. Kaufmann pointed at the bank of suits and introduced Carly, "As I briefly touched on earlier, Dr. Kaplan is in charge of our newest and biggest gravimeter modernization project, going on her seventh year now." He turned to her, "Dr. Kaplan, would you please describe orbital effects of removing a million tons of mass off the planet every year for a century."

The senator again inserted himself in the conversation, "Now do you mean that in metric tons or short tons?" As if he could grasp the difference at this scale, Carly thought, these fucking people really liked to hear themselves talk.

Everyone in the room turned to her and stared expectantly, some hoping to see a freakout. She was quiet for a moment and tuned everyone out of the room except for Doctor Kaufmann. Rest of them became a blur, a noise. They were shadowed silhouettes projected on a cave wall. She focused on the mental fire making the shadows dance. She sighed, this didn't need any computation.

"The moon will bounce an inch or so and our aphelion will increase by a kilometer or a thousand kilometers. Maybe a million? Something like that?" she wondered out loud and shrugged lazily.

"Jesus Christ," the senator swore angrily. He turned red and pointed at her, "she's not sure if it's a mile or a million miles?! How in the hell can she be this imprecise and you're all still this calm?"

Carly stood up and walked around the room looking for an object, which ended up being a stapler. She picked it up and brought it over to the senator.

"Please lift that stapler a few inches above the table."

The senator did so, imposing his will over her by overshooting by a foot, looking at it as if it was some kind of a trick stapler.

"What you've demonstrated is the ability to overpower the entire planet's worth of gravitational pull with use of your bare hand."

The stapler got turned around a few times and a look of skepticism overcame him. Then he started feeling ridiculous.

She didn't want to recall his name, that took some effort for her, but she did remember his function, "Senator, on a normal year the Earth's distance to the sun varies throughout that same year by about three million miles. Either a mile or a hundred thousand miles wouldn't make any noticeable difference."

"I see."

The senator seemed disappointed that an asteroid of an interesting size wasn't hurling toward anywhere because he was bored and had hoped he could break some news this year. Taste of the boring explanation was bitter.

"Senator Moss," Dr. Kaufmann cautiously started, "The general points of concern that you have brought up are all important and as I've mentioned earlier, the planet loses some fifty thousand tons per year normally through radiation..."

"We've covered this already," the impatient senator nodded along.

"Or so it was. What we've discovered is that the rate is accelerating. But as my colleague Dr. Kaplan pointed out, the amount in the long run is beyond negligible."

"Why is it negligible?"

"If you'll bear with me, I will come to that point, or perhaps better have Dr. Kaplan finish explaining it afterward." He took a sip of water. "The amount is becoming significant only for long-term scientific purposes. The next generation of measurement projects will need to account for this effect, and that means we need to budget for it. A study and an engineering solution to implement findings of that study."

One of the senator's aides hopped in, "Talking about the NIST kilogram grant provisions, correct?"

"Yes, well that one is also included. Exactly."

The senator grumbled, "so we're going to be spending a lot of money to measure... weights?"

"Yes, precisely," Dr. Kaufmann guffawed at the pun.

The senator grumbled, feeling unfairly cheated by his dipshit advisor's no-story; and now he'd look like an anti-science asshole if he didn't help these fucking people, "...that makes sense, and I'm sure we'll find some money for it."

The noise picked up as they all hit this beancounting stage. In the far corner of the room Elaine leaned over and congratulated Carly, "Can't lie, I'm amazed you haven't even rolled your eyes once." To which Carly did, and invalidated the premise.

"What's all this danger talk about?" Carly asked.

"Just blown out of proportion. But actually there's something funny going on. Robert's calibration failed and his team looked into it more carefully. His wife's been making him sleep on the couch for weeks because of it. You know how he is- he was pacing around their living room for hours throwing his hands up and down, weirding her out like he does."

"Is it solar activity or something?" Carly wondered.

"No, there hasn't really been an increase. In fact, the opposite. But I think our guys are taking the opportunity to milk the cow."

Carly nodded and watched the meeting wrap-up. Right, as if milking a budget never backfired, she thought. If they got money for a new study, that means someone would have to do it. Simple inevitability. The unhinged conversation in the background got even more stupid and Elaine made a face.

"Wonder which sucker is going to end up doing that," Carly wondered.

...

Half an hour after having exited Greene County, Arlow became susceptible to traffic laws again.

He made a few turns and pulled into a messy lot littered with covered cars. As he lit his cigarette he swept his gaze and decided that yep, he was at the right place. The sheriff traced the salvage title and registration papers to this shop.

"What year is that?" a bearded man soon yelled after him.

Arlow started getting out, "This thing? Oh heck, I don't know. 68? 69?"

The man walked around and took a good look at the car Arlow drove in with. He ran his hands under the wheel wells and took a peek at the undercarriage.

"Yep, real familiar. Looks like a '68 to me, but it's had some work done. This yours?"

"Could be," Arlow smiled. The man cackled.

Arlow waved his hand dismissively, "it was my pop-pop's." He took a slow drag and exhaled a sentence, "loved this thing as a kid," he paused again, looking around intently, "came into some money and wanted to see what we can do with the Bull."

The man took notice of Arlow's Wheeler boots and just like that all his skepticism vanished. It was one thing for an owner not to know the year of the untitled car he drove to a custom shop, and a whole other thing when he wore boots that cost more than the car.

"Aw heck, I just finished a similar one not too long ago."

"No kidding?"

"Yep, sweet job too, blood orange with pinstripes. Came out real good."

Arlow didn't notice that detail before, but that just meant a touch more expensive. He leaned into it, "So what are we thinking here?"

"Bob Dalton," the owner offered his hand.

"No kidding, I'm a Bob too," Arlow lied through a practiced smile. "Bob Hayes, and I'll thank you in advance."

"Tell you what, you leave this with me and come by next Tuesday, and I can have my guy check out the bones. After that we can talk some options, seeing what you want done."

The bearded man smiled in that particular way that conveyed jobs like this didn't come with a sticker up front. Arlow expected that. The price was useless information. He actually came to find out how long it would take. Or rather, when did someone start encroaching on his territory.

"That be fine," Arlow exhaled smoke and lifted his phone. He tossed the keys to the real Bob and smiled conspiratorially, as if time was no object. All his actions were confident, measured. He was so sure of himself.

"Darlene, how about that lift now?"

...

"Can't believe you made me drive all the way here to pick you up," Darlene whined.

Arlow said nothing, but once she got on the county road, something possessed him and he unzipped himself.

"Oh, it's like that?" Darlene complained, "wife not doing it for you?"

Arlow said nothing because he was used to getting his way. Minutes later she'd pulled over on the side of the road, put her car in park and pulled a scrunchy off the shifter. As Arlow pondered about what the hell was going on, she was at work sucking his cock just the way Arlow liked. Eyes closed, stroking his shaft up and down and sliding her mouth over it fast in the opposite direction. He was just getting settled into her rhythm when she decided to hit him up for money.

Darlene stopped sucking his cock, "Arlow," she said sweetly, "my momma is going to need a new catheter put in, and insurance won't cover another one."

"For crying out loud," Arlow bellowed, "don't ruin my moment with your mother's stale piss bag."

"She keeps getting infections," Darlene pleaded.

Arlow pushed her head back onto his cock and made her continue sucking. "I'll get you the money," he promised her. How many fucking piss bags does that woman really need, he wondered.

...

"So let's hear it," Dr. Kaufmann put down his notebook. The uniformed fruit salad guy was sitting in the corner quietly. She didn't know his name, but, where had she seen him outside of the institute?

Carly exhaled, "as it turns out, yeah, we're getting some significant issues after all. Robert's team thought they had a computer glitch with floating point. They brought in some geek from Goddard."

"Did you suspect a hack?" the uniformed man asked, "Could the Chinese be involved?"

Carly rolled her eyes at him. These people. Always with the paranoia.

Dr. Kaufmann answered, "No, it's a... how do I explain this, it's a matter of fixed precision. Basically imagine an old fashioned calculator. It only has so many places to display a number. Once you run out of space, you just can't show any more precision. It's like that with computers, although the number of zeros they can fit in is large."

Dr. Kaufmann grumbled. "Anyway, those damned computing fetishists. Why can't they just stick to one version of things. Anyhow, there was a floating point issue?"

Carly denied it, "no, as it turned out, no, the math libraries were fine. CPUs were fine, though to be sure they tried this on a couple of different architectures. Ran it through ARM, 8086, some emulated processors, people's home laptops, pre-patch, post-patch. Linux geeks, Mac geeks, Windows holdouts. All calculations are coming out accurately. Hell, we even had someone's grandmother whip out grid paper and do a long computation by hand. No calculator, just paper and pencil. Took her best part of a month but she was as accurate as any computer."

The military man stirred, "Wait a minute, if this was a software problem, why were you looking at CPUs?"

Dr. Kaufmann interceded, "Modern chips aren't entirely hardware. Manufacturers regularly do microcode patches, like old fashioned firmware upgrades," he shrugged, "they come through security updates all the time and no one audits them."

"I see." But they were losing him. Carly continued.

"After that I got a hold of Marco from the Swiss particle group and checked with him. He'd been working on something vaguely perpendicular and he confirmed getting a drift over the past ten years and then a bump. He assumed it was due to ice melt."

"Ice melt?" The medal man looked perplexed.

"Sorry to go off into so many tangents, but gravitometers are so sensitive that in one famous case it could measure workers removing snow from a roof of the building it was in. Marco assumed that his measurements were attributed to glacier melt."

Dr. Kaufmann gave Carly a sharp stare that warned Carly off from going into the global-warming rabbithole and getting this guy pissed off. Know your audience, she imagined him saying. He continued, "Okay so that gave us a confirmation, and what happened after that?"

"Well, nothing. He put me in touch with someone at ESA about a new satellite instrument but the man was a dead end. GOCE-2 got canceled. Apparently the first one was too big of a success to improve on, but its data run was merely six months' worth before it burned up, a decade ago. And that's where we're at."

The military man suddenly gained a last name, "Taylor" because Carly noticed his nameplate. "Dr. Uh... This is just purely speculative, but how much would it take to launch one of these Guccis of our own?"

Carly looked at Dr. Kaufmann but got no help from him. Gucci, she wondered? "This is outside of my area of expertise, but ESA paid something like three hundred million Euros for the GOCE-1 mission?"

"So that's a dead end for us," Taylor concluded grimly.

"Not necessarily," Dr. Kaufmann looked at Carly. If he wasn't such a nice guy, it would almost be a menacing stare. But he was up to something, she realized. Both of them were up to something, she realized.

He continued, "Alright, so the calibrations are accurate. What does this mean?"

Carly thought about it for a moment and gave it her best. "It means either something really heavy moved on the planet, like a new dam opened without anyone noticing, or a gas pocket opened up ten years ago and slowly evaporated, or maybe a lava tunnel became active somewhere and started filling up Yellowstone for a once in a millennium detonation. That's all we know."

"But my hunch is that two separate things happened," she volunteered what she didn't know, and for that she was rewarded with grave nods. And that's when she realized she told them both nothing new.

"Dr. Kaplan, do you still have your 'special' driver's license?"

"Uh,... Yes?" she answered.

When there was no answer, she asked again, "Why do you ask?"

Kaufmann turned to Taylor, "It won't be as accurate as a four hundred million dollar satellite spiraling around the globe, but a vehicle, some travel money for hotels and fuel and one of our last generation gravimeters on loan and a small team can plot crude variances in a matter of months."

"What team?" Carly asked. Fuck, this was an ambush, she realized.

"Cheer up, it'll be a fun road trip," Kaufmann said and smiled at her. Carly decided that smile just cost him having a name.

...

Brett Reeves got elected on a platform of cleaning up town water and improving healthcare.

But the town water turned discolored only after his investiture. The new water meters that Arlow himself trucked over from Beaumont had something to do with it. When residents of Magnolia Heights who got stiffed with huge water bills complained about being unable to dispute them because the meters stopped working, the mayor blamed his predecessor and shut the water off for the biggest troublemakers.