Chapter 11

It was a weary and beat-up crowd that slowly made its way back to the campground after locking up the wire gates of the Blue portal. I dragged a lot less than the rest of the team, having worked for only half of the run.

Dinner was made when Janet and I woke from our nap. We’d fallen asleep after showering as Ruth patched up our injured frontmen. She’d been an ER nurse for a few dozen years and scoffed at the idea that they had “real” injuries. To Ruth, if it wasn’t dripping, or hanging off weirdly then you could wait. Only when it was your turn, she’d treat you (with distain).

Janet and I slept through it all; Jamie apparently cursed the entire time she sewed up the wound in his head, no doubt teaching Seneca a thing or two. Why he didn’t drive himself to the ER was beyond me ... it wasn’t like you had to pay for it.

One thing was for certain, in a week those stitches would be hard to remove, in two weeks a faint scar is all that would remain on our Team Leader: we Weapons healed fast.

Later that evening, after a sunset walk on the beach and a chilly campfire with marshmallows and hot chocolate for the kids (and a Spanish Coffee for the adults) it was just Janet and I after Ruth went off to a Yurt nearby that she’d rented for the weekend.

“Hell of a trip...” Janet whispered.

“Yep ... two hard runs in a row. DeMarcus was right though, we worked well as a team.” I sighed. “I didn’t help by falling apart right off the bat...” I still felt bad about that, I’d let the team down.

“You came back though, and in the end, I think you saved everyone. You certainly saved me...” she shuddered. “How’d you make that shot anyways? You’re good, but that was a frickin’ miracle shot ... tenth of a second earlier or later ... couple of millimeters up or down ... I’d be a goner.” She glanced back at the trailer where her son slept with my kids.

I wasn’t sure about revealing what I’d done, but eventually bit the bullet and handed her the Skeleton Key ring. I could see her attention focus inward for quite a while, then an amazed expression on her face. She handed me back the key ring, hesitantly.

“ ... You really robbed Jude didn’t you?” and then she exploded in giggles...”My god... 115 silver for a level 12 skill...” she had to pause at this point, she was giggling too hard. “ ... and you! ... I never want to play poker with you ... ever! You absolutely hosed that poor bastard!”

I tried to defend myself, but by this time I was laughing way too hard also.

We stayed that way for the rest of our coffees, mostly silent but each of us breaking out into giggles from time to time.

Eventually she asked, “Wanna make another video?”

“About the keys? No thanks ... I’d have CSIS knocking on my door within the hour, not to mention all the other Weapons with locked tools and Quacks with conspiracy theories ... these things could probably unlock Fort Knox...”

Janet’s eyes got wide...”Woah, I’d never thought in that direction before ... pretend I know nothing about those things...”

Smiling, I made another pair of Spanish coffees, a bit heavier on the rum ... I wanted a good sleep tonight. Looking up, I saw Janet set up the camera, and sit down at the table after changing into another UCLA tank top. I squeezed into a band shirt I’d picked up a few years back from Dizzy. It was thin from being washed so much, and tight on my recently more muscular frame.

She hit record and we drank and giggled our way through our last adventure, putting our own spin on what we’d saw and felt. Janet’s focus was on the Hounds, mine was on me freaking out and going basically catatonic for three quarters of the jump.

We got around to the big Boss and my ‘miracle’ shot. I stressed how much crap we’d been in before, and how close it had been to disaster. Janet then identified the buckler, and the two skeletons’ swords we’d found. We’d save the other stuff for another show when we weren’t quite so drunk.

I woke up with Ashley crawling into bed with me. She’d had a nightmare that I’d gone and never came back. I rubbed her back as she fell back asleep, I’d also had that same dream recently.

Morning came early, and although the rum helped me sleep, it didn’t do anything for me waking up. It was cold and damp outside and the kids had no appetite to go and run about. Breakfast was a hurried affair, and this time it was Ruth who showed up at just the right time to eat a meal.

Quid-pro-quo I guess.

The drive was quiet from Ruth’s perspective. She’d seen the injured yesterday and knew that we faced greater risks than we had hoped to. When she went to get out of the car, she first grasped my hand tightly. “Thank you, they’re all I have left here.” she said into the growing silence.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. My own mind flashed back to last night with Ashley and her nightmares, then an image of the Skeleton Swordsman with his arms up ready to strike Janet.

We’d gotten lucky.

One of my older brothers used to say that “I’m a great believer in Luck. The harder I work at it, the more Luck I seem to have.”

I vowed to work a little harder. I might need all that I could get.

We arrived home around lunch and settled back in at home, Seneca conveniently forgetting he had a homework assignment due. I spent the rest of my Sunday afternoon making a scrapbook of our summer at the trailer. Fortunately, we had lots of digital photos on my cell phone, and a lot of printer ink.

The workweek progressed oddly. I was summoned to the managers cubicle farm Monday morning and asked if I had heard of my shift-change. Since I hadn’t, I replied that nothing had come to me. She turned around her monitor and I was shown that an e-mail was sent at 4:49 on Friday, notifying me that next week I had been changed to nightshift, and I’d missed my shift (Last night).

This was getting ugly.

Time to call in the reinforcements.

Luckily the same Steward that had represented me during my meeting with “Regional Vice-President of Operations of ChertWell Medical Residences” (or Robert) was available and we waltzed into the next level managers office (a real one, with a real door he could slam) where he proceeded to throw about terms like ‘Poisoned work environment’ and ‘Vexatious actions” and ‘Vendetta’ until even I was getting nervous.

My Steward excused us and sent me back to my role for the day, reminding me not to talk about this with either management or fellow employees. It seems that the witch-hunt was still on.

The next day I was asked by some nameless upper-level manager if I would enter the portal in the basement and “Deal with the problem once and for all.” Trying to explain that it didn’t work that way, and that I’d also entered two portals recently enough that I couldn’t enter a third for at least a week, was awkward.

I finally pointed him towards a booklet printed by the team from out East (again) that had the portal rules as far as we knew them.

Like a chain of fools, some other idiot ‘middle-level-moron’ called me up to her office to ask if I had any contacts that might be able to ‘clear out’ the portal downstairs. Through gritted teeth, I once again pointed someone through the very simple to find webpages that had the best info on it, and the pamphlet with the rules as we knew them. I then gave her the name of the PortalDiver app, as well as Uncle Normans number so she could confirm how some companies will even rent them out for you.

“Can’t you just do it?” said the pathetic excuse for a manger. I swear, they seem to intentionally hire the stupidest, laziest, scared-y-cats that apply.

After catching up with my work (once again) I drafted a form e-mail that had all the relevant information on it and sent it to the union Steward with the comment: ‘Can we just send this to Management? I’ve been asked this stuff by three different managers, wasting hours of my time with patients that I had to catch-up on.’ His reply was “MRTRTMTP” which is apparently union code for ‘Management Reserves The Right To Mis-Manage The Process...” Great.

By Thursday things had settled down some, and all I had to do was care for too many patients with not enough time. Welcome to healthcare.

I was in contact with Janet, she told me that Vivideo was happy with what we’d supplied so far, and that she needed me there to make a ‘few’ more videos. Apparently there was a vault at head office that had over 50 items that had been sent already. Janet was still ‘Standing Watch’ until our portal run Saturday and then would like to shoot a whole days worth of video at the studio they’d set up for her in her mother’s basement. She’d drive there (the office) and sign the stuff out, throw it in her inventory and then take it home to make the show with.