Excerpt: I heard she once had Wooden Wings

The Desire

Sometimes, even though I love my work, I hate my job. Especially on Monday mornings when I really would rather just stay in bed. Like today for instance. Much better to stay in bed, stay sleeping, ignore the dog and the girlfriend, the world, and sleep for a few hours more. Then make my way down to buy a decent cup of coffee, instead of the half assed attempt of my own French press motions. But hell that aint going to happen for me today. Monday AM bright and early, the gd sun is in the sky already, the haze nice and mellow and since Colleen is already out of bed, part of the incentive to remain in bed has left the building.

Think I will stop and get me some coffee, got paid the other day, might run into someone to talk too there as well. Could use a few leads for new ideas down at work as well. Well just feet ready, feed dog, put her little furry self out for a few minutes on the roof as well, simpler that way as well.

Then down to the street and off to work. Love the inner city, no need for a car, for a bike, all in walking distance, best part of being single, only dating and sleeping together is, not having to grocery shop for more than just one and a pet, who eats so little she might as well be a model, stick thin little thing.

Shower time, then sit at my desk to write a bit before heading to get some good coffee and then lastly for now to work.

Got her back in, door locked, true laptop all powered up and got the antenna set on wardriving mode, notes from last week in the bag, head out.

One nice thing about being Pressganged is the totally casual dress code we have there. Sneakers nine days a week and always jeans in season makes for a hell of a lot less spent on clothing, let me tell you. God damn did I save my journal entry from last night and this morning, hell if I remember if I did or didn’t in the lack of care this AM. Well it is autosaved anyways, so I can pull it up that way if I didn’t flash it to the stick. Wish I had a way to sync the desktop and the laptop, but just really no points of compatibility at this stage of the game. Maybe in a few months I will be able too. Until then just have to do the file work the old, manual method and be more cautious instead of wondering. Out the door, elevator is still dead, been a good six months now, to the day if not to the dollar.

Street is pretty crowded for nine in the morning, wonder what brought out these freaks, hell most are not even human any more, wonder what I wandered into by accident, hell that one got horns on her head, is slinky leather appropriate city attire in February or not, hell snow on the ground and her in nothing more than boots, pants, leather halter and goosebumps, some people should have shame, guess not her. Only ten blocks to coffee, then another five to work, should be there about nine thirty, plenty fine time to arrive, besides I always work through lunch break so screw it. The Six One Four might employ me as a Pressganged, but it does not own me yet, that is yet, wonder if the current president going to go that route, last one was hell bent on making people obsolete as individuals, wonder if this one will defect to the other side and go that route, despite promises to the contrary. Never can tell with these politicians.

Yeah something weird happened overnight, I can see other outlines, not normally this much of an intersection between the three, wonder who got their panties in an uproar to bring on this sort of activity.

Time to put some music on, wonder what i got on shuffle right now, slip the wireless earbuds in and cue up the music, ahh excellent, got Ode to Boy to start the day off with,: In time to his despair...saw him search into you and ached a while: such truth to make you cry with the beauty of the lyrics, never mind the voice as well. Almost enough to be glad to be american, she sings it so well.

Damn cold this year, I wonder when global warming will bring on the heat, swamp out the rest down farther south, at least it might help with the carbon sequestering since marshes as such good sinks that way. We could use a hella lot more of them, not running out of oil fast enough to stave off the worst of it, at least something has started being done about the entire situation that is.
Glad I can type and walk as well, so long as I don’t mind the many typos, wireless keyboard to the laptop slinging in my bag with the micro thin pseudo display on the keyboard just enough to know where I am at, along with the little track ball affair as well. But then again most don’t like those of us that walk and type at the same time. Got to finish making that thigh pad idea I read about years ago from some old game or alternate something, still just remember the idea and still think it would be better than walking and texting at the same time.

Coffee, warmth too, not a bad crowd, only like three in front of me, off there is Gabby and Izzy over there, the Effective Sisters of the neighborhood, what a crazy pair they are.

"Hi there," Gabby has about the softest tongue ever, always get a flick of it when she gives me a kiss on the cheek, then again she kisses everyone. Annoys Colleen till I point out that Gabby kisses her the exact same way, male or female, if she knows you, she will kiss you. Where as Izzy will just sort of nod your direction and get back to doing her own thing, quiet female there, too damn skinny as well, most models would kill for her figure, more guy than girl, reminds me of my dog back home, neither of the eat enough to sustain them you would think, just drinks tons of water. What a weird mental comparison, my dog and Izzy.

"How are you ladies this fine Monday Morning, here on my way to work?"

"Ohh just fine, couldn’t be better you know, just getting some chai and a water for my sister, then off to check out some new music."

Gabby stands a whopping almost four foot tall, deep chest shall we say for her frame and athletic overall. Always want to ask if she used to be a gymnast, or if she just likes to run, and talk hell she can talk, and keep in shape that way.

"What new music is that?"

"Let me have a large iced coffee, black, with an espresso shot in it as well."

"Hella caffeine there, some local group Izzy heard about a few days ago, going to play in the used music shop couple of blocks over, will get you a cd if they got any, 'kay."

"Sure sounds sweet, thanks keep the change too,” hands over those three ones I had, "so anything else new in town, anything come to visit you heard about?"

The effective sisters, as I call them, are in on the reality of reality, that there are three worlds, and we live mostly in one of them.

“Not that I have heard about, last visitor you knew about anyways, might be someone else wandering, or just the messed up weather we all have been having lately.”

“Hey Izzy, time to split. Great seeing you Coll, “another kiss this time a little more tongue what gives, “Give our love to Colleen for us will you, off to jam out.”

With out a glance back the two of them fairly dash out the door drinks in hand and disappear to the north, destination tunes. All good, still think the two of them are an odd couple, but no biggie. Neither of them seems interested in anything outside of their own world; one talks your head off, the other one rarely says a single word at all. Weird people in a weird world are all I have left to say to that.

Out and south a few more blocks till I read the Six One Four and down the stairs to the sub basement where our offices are located. Pressgang, or Pressganged, is a boutique research office, with a gentile clientele and bill rates that make the inner city look like a cheap place to live. Still it is a living, spending all day poring though microfilms or fiches of ancient scanned books, digging into illicit databases maintained in offline systems hacked by wardriving satellites, as well as dredging into the internal storage, a couple of zettabytes worth of accumulated history and research, basically copies of everything we find anywhere, we copy it over. All not totally on the up and up, but someone has to prove it first is our motto. Of course we don’t tell our spouses or loved ones, and the data covers more than just our space, so it takes up a ton of server space, and hell the searches can take a while to run. But it is fun anyways, and we get to travel as well.

Wish someone would sweep the stairs, sure we try to keep a low profile, but we could sweep the stairs once in a while; hate feeling like I might fall down them. Now down the outside stairs, key in lock, across the room, down the interior stairs, and to the office lobby area.

“Morning Mr Giggleswitch, welcome back, we didn’t think we would see you this workday, it is past 8:06 you realize?” Mildred, the love of our lives, as well as office manager receptionist greets me with her sterling personality.

“Happy Monday to you as well Mildred, did the cat scratch you in your sleep or are you always so chipper?” I love her like the mother I cannot remember.

“Your new assignment is already posted to the internal whitespace, pretty rush job.”

“Thanks, guess that means time to earn my pay.”

Takes a few more twists and turns to get to my office, pretty junior and down in the back, some day I might get closer to the break room, instead of closer to the bathrooms.

Time to slave away for a few hours, see what someone wants us to find for them, format it up, make it look all pretty and sanitized for client consumption, and ship it out the door. Depending on all things might take the whole day to accomplish.

Straight up research, find references to some philosopher architect from the dark ages, likely will not be able to find very much, best hopes will be in the archives of illuminated manuscripts that have been OCR’ed. Always a good spot to start looking for anything post greek city states. Take a little time to write the query to get the search underway, then read company email for a little while, respond to them, see how the search is coming along. Stop for coffee a few times as soon as I chug the first batch down. Also need to get a second search running on my side interests as well, and check to find out what might be upsetting to reality. Not that I have much hope of finding out more than what Gabby hinted at, her perception is much greater than mine, I just have contacts. Even if I did notice the weird outlines and bleed over from one of the other places. Still not my strong suit, but I can start asking around as well. Might be one of the intricacies in fact, will take some digging.