Chapter 8: More Dots. And More ‘Work’

It was almost ten when we got to the BTF. Someone had come up with some concrete highway barriers and put them inside the fence on both sides of the opening, then extending into the opening until the opening was only about ten feet or so. The forklift was about four or five feet wide, so parking it in the middle of the gap would only leave a couple of feet of walking room on either side. That would work fine until we came up with a better way to close it off.

The only car inside the parking area was a Birmingham police cruiser. We parked in front of the door, and I walked over to the police car. A guy in uniform stepped out of the cruiser and asked “Can I help you?”

I said “I don’t think so. We’re here to get some work done and we were surprised to see you here. Not that we mind, it’s probably a good thing to have you here, but I was gonna ask you the same thing. Can we help you?”

“No, I’m fine. This is apparently state property now, and it’s a great place to just take a break and wait for the next call.”

“Well, I’m not in charge here, but if anyone important ever asks my opinion I’ll say I think it’s a great idea. I suspect that just having a cop car parked in front of the building will prevent a lot of stupid stuff.”

“Probably so. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, you three don’t look like your average work crew. This is an abandoned factory. What are you supposed to be doing here?”

“Fair question. I and my girlfriend, there, are both ‘Weapons’, and we’re here to make sure we’re ready for the next training class.” I raised my voice some. “Nell, can you get my ID out of my briefcase?”

She had been at the office door, but she nodded and went back to the truck.

I turned back to the policeman. “Can we pull our weapons out without you freaking?”

“What, right here? Maybe.” He looked at me a little odd, there.

So, I backed up a little and pulled my mace and shield out. It’s instantaneous, one second I’m empty-handed and the next I have mace and shield ready for use. He said a bad word that you aren’t supposed to use in public. He also put his hand on his gun. Okay, that’s bad. What if I hadn’t warned him?

I turned and looked at Cindy, who was walking over to us. “Cindy, your staff?” While we watched she reached her hand out in front of her, and suddenly she was holding a six-foot quarterstaff. Yeah, that would be worth a few bad words if you’d never seen it before. I put my weapons back in inventory.

“We had a training session a month ago for us teenagers, and we had about a hundred show up. We painted little white ‘X’s in a grid where we wanted them to stand, far enough apart that they wouldn’t be hitting each other by accident. That worked fine, but next weekend we’re expecting up to two hundred or so, and we need more little white ‘X’s. That’s our job for the day, paint little white ‘X’s in the right spots. If we can get the door open I’ll show you.”

Cindy had reached us by then, and she said “The door is locked. Nell says you have the key.”

“Yeah, but I gotta get the security system turned off, first. Or, Mary will call the cops on us.” I was nodding at the cop while I said that.

Nell walked up right after that and handed me my state ID. I handed it to the cop. “I am a state employee, working part time with the PRA to help get all our teenagers trained up and safe to enter the Portals. Since I’m also a Weapon, they have me listed as authorized to do the armed security thing. I freely admit that I’m nowhere near trained for that, but I’m the best they have so they have to use me. Lemme call Mary.”

I pulled my phone out and called our office manager. She answered immediately. I put it on speaker. “Good morning, Sam. I see you out in the parking lot with the police. What are they doing here?”

“It turns out that this is a great place to just hang out and wait for the next emergency, since this is state-owned. I’m good with that. The problem is that he’s not sure that we belong here.”

“Do you have your key?”

“Yes, Mary. I’m ready to do my job.” I said that in as put-on a voice as I could manage.

She laughed. “Oh, yes, we’ll get along just fine. Okay, if you’re not getting arrested yet, I’ll turn off the security system. I can still watch you, though!”

“Dammit, there HAS to be somewhere I can take my girlfriend!”

“There may well be somewhere, but it isn’t there.”

“Yes, Mary.”

“Okay, the alarm is turned off. Let me know when you leave, and I’ll re-arm it.”

“Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Sam. Nell, we’re depending upon you to keep him out of trouble.”

Nell asked “What’s my budget for hiring assistants?”

Mary laughed and hung up.

I told the policeman “Mary is the office manager here. She can watch the cameras and turn the alarms on and off from home, so she’s not about to come out here on a Saturday if she doesn’t have to. You wanna come see a bunch of dots?”

He said “Sure!” and told his microphone that he was leaving his car to go see what the PRA people were doing. He got an acknowledgment, so he turned his car off and locked it up.

My key unlocked the door, but we’d already used it once before so that was expected. I locked it again after we were inside, then we all went out the back door and over to the ‘training area’. Once we got there I pointed out all the ‘X’s. “All these are where the trainees stand. As long as they stay on their ‘X’ they can’t clock anyone who stays on THEIR ‘X’. The instructor gets this ‘X’ here, and his advanced students stand back here so the trainees can all see them demonstrating what they’re supposed to be doing.”

“I see that. So, you need more ‘X’s?”

“Yeah. I think this was 115 or so, and we’re thinking that we might have 200 next weekend. So, we gotta find the spray paint and the measuring sticks and make another hundred ‘X’s.”

He said he had to get back to his car so he was ready for the next emergency, so I told him that I was pretty sure no one would complain if they kept parking there. We benefit, too. We walked back to the office with him and locked the door behind him, then started looking for the paint and stuff. I had to call Mary back and find out where she hid the key to the storeroom, but everything we needed was in there.