American library books » Horror » Revolt of the Rats by Reed Blitzerman (feel good novels .txt) 📕

Read book online «Revolt of the Rats by Reed Blitzerman (feel good novels .txt) 📕».   Author   -   Reed Blitzerman



1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 ... 23
Go to page:
their thumb.”

“Likely.” Boomer stared at the racks surrounding them.

Kahle asked, “Where did all this stuff come from?”

Boomer frowned. "Rumor is, the last engineering manager, Oroszco finagled ownership of Department 765 to stop the ‘healing’ process. Pross took away the people to re-inspect the parts. Then Orozco got canned."

“How did we still make shipments?”

Boomer stood. “We didn’t. The buyers ordered extra and prayed.” He plucked another bottle of water out of the bundle and climbed onto his bicycle. “The point is, if there's some sort of map to this place, Oroszco probably had it. All his old stuff should be in engineering records now. Guess who we’ve got to see?”

“Dieter Machs.”

Dieter’s greeting was rubbing his hands together. A death metal god reached for them from his black t-shirt. “Good day my friends. Did the drawings help you?” His eyes sparkled with interest.

“Yes, thank you,” Boomer said. “But we’re here for something else. We need the files from Manny Orozco.”

“I see.” In a fluid motion, Machs produced a key,  opened the file cabinet against the wall, and extracted a clipboard from the bottom drawer. “You will come with me, yes?”

They spiraled down the back staircase to a narrow room beneath the mezzanine. Dieter pulled the chain for the lights, illuminating a dense semi-organized stash of file cabinets, extra wide file cabinets, cardboard boxes, wall lockers, and shelving.

Kahle asked, “Wie sagt mann ‘hoarder’?”

Dieter said, “That would be ‘hamsterer’. But some of this is still good, yes?”

They bypassed all of it for an alcove stacked with cardboard boxes. Dieter hooked the stack with a trolley and rolled them to a row of wooden tables against the wall. Each of them took a box.

Forty-five minutes later, Boomer held up a pad of typewritten pages along with a sheaf of graph paper. “He's got everything here,” Boomer said. “It’s a detailed grid: serial numbers, descriptions, dates, even suppliers.”

Kahle thought about all the hours it must have taken to create. “Dude was pretty thorough.”

“I have found something as well," Dieter said. Kahle and Boomer looked over his shoulder.

Kahle said, “Old drawings.”

“Yeah,” Boomer said, “but for what?”

Dieter turned the pages, folding them flat as he went. “This is for ansible system...pneumatic transport.”

Kahle asked, “Like the tubes at the bank?”

“Yes. This is like that only more powerful,” Dieter said. “This is vacuum physics. I studied this in Frankfurt.”

“I haven’t seen these anywhere,” Kahle said.

Dieter pointed to the factory ceiling. “That is because they are following the upright beams that support the roof. They are almost invisible. I have seen these here.”

“Well, what would we need one of those for?” Boomer’s face contained a cross between boredom and exasperation.

Dieter pushed away from the desk. “To communicate in secret.”

Boomer asked, “Why would we want to do that?”

“I have the key to this place. The last person to possess it was Oroszco before he was fired. Department 765 is a no man’s land. Anyone who sent you there is sending you a message. They need to make you quiet, without anyone knowing what is happening here.”

“What’s happening here?” Kahle asked.

“We are dying here, yes? Five maybe six months and we are done.” Dieter said. “If you’re trying to make the factory better, I can help. I am a maker.”

Kahle and Boomer looked at him blankly.

“This is joke. Machs in German is Maker. I am a maker.”

“You want in,” Boomer said.

Dieter adjusted his black plastic glasses. “That is right. I want in.”

Kahle and Boomer looked at each other, turned to Dieter, and said at the same time, “ok.”

“Before we tackle the ansible,” Kahle said, “let’s see what we can do with Department 675.”

Boomer looked at him sideways. “765.”

Kahle rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Calling Kresky Systems

––––––––

HELP ARRIVED UNEXPECTEDLY: chirpy and caffeinated. “This place is a goldmine.” Margaret’s was beatific,  as if actual gold nuggets were scattered beneath the dust on the racks.

“More like a crypt,” Kahle preferred some time in bed studying the insides of his eyelids. “What are you doing out here on a Saturday?”

Margaret made blue cursive notes in the margins of Oroszco’s cheat sheet, comparing it to the Department 765 shelves. “I told my manager I needed to finish an inventory report, which is not a total lie. Thought I’d help you out before Queeg shows up again." She stepped closer, well inside his personal space. “Glad to see you too. Keep it up and I’ll put you over my knee.”

A warm, not unpleasant feeling radiated from his chest to the rest of his body.

Boomer rolled up on his bicycle while they were talking. A Texas A&M baseball cap covered most of his skull. “I called her.” A pair of work gloves, stained near to black, poked out of the basket between the handlebars.

Margaret took a step back and headed for the shelves while she read from her clipboard. A blush of crimson began at her collar and crawled up her neck. “Parts for your fifteen missing orders might be in here,” she said. “Let me show you something.” She slid between the racks to the last aisle, covering her shoulders in chalky lines of dust then pointed. “There's the control boxes we need.”

Black Bakelite cubes protruded from a nest of dust bunnies. Steel terminals screwed to the outsides pointed dejectedly into the air. The reject tag read in copperplate print:

Company: Kresky Systems.

Manufacture Date: 1-14-1990

Reject: 3-24-1996

Issue: broken solder joint

Inspector: Phan

Kahle said, “Good night! These things are already nine years old!” Why hadn’t Oroszco already thrown them away?

Boomer said, “If the design hasn't changed we could still use them.”

Margaret plucked one of the boxes and held it up to the light. “What about repairs?” She asked. In her oversized hand, it looked like a toy, left on the playground by an absent-minded child.

Boomer said, “Let’s call the manufacturer.” He climbed back on his bicycle, the issue decided.

“I can get the number,” Margaret said.

“Since we’re not supposed to be here, let’s be a little stealthy. I’m not interested in losing my job.” Boomer sketched on his spiral notebook then tore off two pages. “I know a place. Each of you take a different route. We can call him from there.”

Kahle locked the cage and followed the map to a steel safety ladder that disappeared into the rafters. He climbed up to a catwalk and followed it to a second ladder, the heat increasing as he approached the top. It opened into a wide room with desks, couches, several weight benches, and an aged rotary dial phone.

“Maintenance group crash pad,” Boomer responded to their amused glances. “The guys found this room a few years ago and neglected to tell management. They come up here on their lunch break to lift weights, play cards—“ He plugged the phone into a speaker and microphone system. “—or make phone calls.” Margaret passed him the number and Boomer dialed, listening to the rotor click through its stations.

They jumped when the ancient ringer brayed over the speakers and Boomer adjusted the volume down.

A flat voice picked up on the twenty-third ring. “Kresky.”

“Boomer Lorenz at Motomax, how are you?”

“Good.” Kresky asked, “Tell me who you are again?” There was a scrabbling noise in the background like the shuffling of paper.

Boomer leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on the tabletop. “Boomer Lorenz at Motomax.”

Kresky asked, “What's got you calling?” The delivery was brusque, making Kahle think he had bitten off the end as if he were going to add “on a Saturday” at the last minute.

“We've got your control boxes here on reject,” Boomer said. A small smile was on his face, as if Kresky’s question had been the punch line to a good joke.

“Haven't had issues in years.” Kresky said.

“I suppose these are from then.”

There was a decrease in sound at the other end, as if Kresky had just closed his office door. “Your engineering manager called a few years ago. I called back several times without luck. Even sent a letter. Then Motomax cut my contract.” The silence that followed seemed forced, as if he had more to say.

In what sounded like a speech she’d given many times, Margaret said, “I don't know about that, but if you can help us maybe we can help you.”

There was a soft wheeze like a large man sitting in a leather chair. Kahle visualized his burning eyes, reminded on a Saturday about a cancelled contract and the money still owed him.

Margaret said, “Maybe you can help us with an engineering question.”

Kresky spoke slowly. “I should be able to. I designed this product myself. You got something saying why it’s not working? A tag or something.”

“We have a red tag,”  Kahle said.

“Read it to me.”

They did.

“Ok. A broken solder joint you say?” Kresky sighed in his throat, like a swimmer taking a quick breath of air. “A solder joint is like a blood vessel. Only instead of carrying blood, it carries electricity. But we can fix it.”

The low hum of a computer powering up was followed by the flap of Kresky turning pages. “Here's what you need to do. You’re going to need to write this down....” After fifteen minutes they got off the phone and darted to the local pizza place in Kahle's hatchback and returned when work ended at two thirty. They transferred the control boxes to a pizza tray before the restaurant owner fed them into the oven.

Boomer said, “Consistent heat over an exact period of time. I would never have thought of using a pizza oven to reflow solder.”

“Furnaces in the plant were too hot,” Kahle said. He imagined the solder inside the boxes melting and reforming, brought back to life by a little bit of heat.

“And monitored,” Margaret said.

Kahle said, “We won’t know this worked until we test them.”

The control boxes rolled out of the oven, their cycle complete. The owner accepted the hundred dollar bill but didn't charge for the breadsticks. He waved goodbye as they pulled away.

The secon shift cars occupied the Motomax parking lot as Boomer took a key from his wallet and unlocked the door to Bodge's private entrance. “Never expected I'd be breaking into this place.”

“Tell me again why we’re going this way?” Kahle asked.

“No badge swipe record,” Boomer said. “Means we were never here. Do you want to explain why we came back into work on a Saturday after everyone else left? Queeg would just love a chance to say it was theft.”

They locked the control boxes in the cage of Department 765 racks to cool. They retraced their steps, locked Bodge’s entrance, and stepped out of the plant.

Early Monday morning, Kahle wheeled the control boxes to Mei Phan in inspection. She was amazed to see her rejected product resurrected from the cage. She powered up the test stand, verified current through the electrical contacts, and cycled through the boxes. The lights on the front glowed green for “Go.”

Mei said, “All okay boss.”

Kahle tapped a text to Boomer and Margaret, still in a state of shock. A surge of power disoriented him as if a circuit inside him had closed. It had worked.

He considered the other parts lost on those shelves. If it was good for one, how many other orders could they clear with those parts?

First shift left the plant in a hustle of heavy boots. He was packing to go home, when his pager buzzed with a text from Margaret.

Factory Rat: an artisan who creates in the cathedral known as the manufactory. They are clever, committed, and resourceful problem solvers. They gain satisfaction from fashioning products that give joy to others. They are the salt of the Earth.

Author Unknown, “Production Methods in Small Lots for the Manager of Managers”

1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 ... 23
Go to page:

Free e-book: «Revolt of the Rats by Reed Blitzerman (feel good novels .txt) 📕»   -   read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment