Portia found Edgley in the administration headquarters, getting his hair cut (by what appeared to be a roving European hair stylist that made house calls -- go figure) in a makeshift office.
“We have to launch right now,” said Portia.
This, of course, wasn’t something anyone had seriously ever said in a space launch facility and it sounded like Portia had misspoken. Launches were scheduled the way tides were scheduled, without any hope of deviation except that, in the case of a rocket launch, the weather could alter your plans.
“We have to go sooner than scheduled,” repeated Portia.
“What are you talking about?” asked Edgley.
"We just have to," said Portia.
"But they're still loading all the crap you ordered," said Edgley. "You've added a quarter ton of payload. The engineers have been up all night recalculating fuel usage equations."
"The crap I ordered?"
"Yeah, the email? Your email? 'Dear Mr. Edgley, please spend $117,432 on all this stuff and put it on the Waste-REL' Hey, if you don't want it, I'll send it all back and save the money."
Portia's SPECTACL beeped loudly, like an urgent incoming message, or a complete malfunction. Both Edgley and Portia were startled.
"NO! I mean no," blurted Portia, grasping the frame of the SPECTACL. "We need all that stuff."
"Sure you do," said Edgley. "Half a ton of extra food, 14 different laser cutting tools, a case of condoms, you've got quite a load here."
"Oh. Well, a girl can't be too careful," smiled Portia. "I'll be right back."
Portia raced out of Edgley's office and into the hallway. As soon as she rounded the corner, she entered the Ladies Washroom and glared into the mirror.
"What the hell were you thinking?" asked Portia.
"What?" asked Jules. "Three men and two women trapped together in less than 500 square feet of living and working space for a year and you think you don't need birth control?"
"What makes you think any of us need manual birth control?"
"I can recite all your medical records if you like. Lyle's is fascinating."
"Well, just cool your jets, Romeo 'cause you've underestimated our ability to control ourselves. What else did you order?" asked Portia.
"Lot's of stuff," said Jules. "Stuff you will need."
"In my name?" asked Portia.
"Yuh huh," confirmed Jules. "In fact, I want you to report to the launch site right now."
"Why?"
"Because the Jules that resides in the cargo computer just told me that our stuff, everything extra I ordered, has a dimensional weight of less than 25 kilos."
"So?" said Portia.
"You heard Edgley," said Jules. "You ordered a ton of stuff."
-----
When Portia had gone off to see Edgley, Mickey, Donny and Lyle sauntered over to the launch pad with their luggage and sat on the cement in the shadow of the shuttle, looking up at the men loading crates into the cargo bay and smelling the fumes of whatever chemistry was being loaded into the thing.
An electric Harley-Davidson-Hyundai golf cart whizzed up beside the trio. It was driven by a very short, skinny elderly Munchkin in a white lab coat. At first Lyle wanted to bolt away but Mickey held onto Lyle's overalls and conversed with the bespeckled and bald Dr. Hardwick.
"Excuse me," yelled Dr. Hardwick over the whine of nearby machinery. "Who are you and what are you doing here?!"
"We're the crew," yelled back Mickey.
"You're not?" blurted the physicist. "You're not serious? They told me but… Look, you have to report to the medical team! You have to have an enema! You've got to go get ready!" The physicist pointed in the general direction of the administration building.
-----
By the time Portia’s golf-cart returned to the launch pad service structure, the threesome was gone.
"Oh, where'd they go?" asked Portia. "I told them to stay here." Portia headed over to the supply tower elevator, all the time keeping her eyes on the distant workmen, high above her, loading the cargo bay with crates.
"According to the Jules in the administration building's air conditioning system, they're getting an enema," said Jules.
"Is that something they're supposed to be doing?"
"Yes, that and a good stomach pumping ought to round out the morning."
"What's going on?" asked Portia. Portia entered the elevator and pressed the button that read "cargo".
"I think they just wanted to help the boys avoid puking in their helmets on the way up," said Jules. "It's a kind of preventative measure, really."
"Will I have to go through all that?"
"When was the last time you ate anything?" asked Jules.
"I had a nutri-shake last night," said Portia staring into the huge cargo hold, observing the Waste-REL in person for the first time. "I'm not very hungry right now. I'm too scared out of my wits to be hungry."
"Good. Fear is good," said Jules. "Keeps you crunchy."
"Yeah, sure," said Portia as the elevator stopped.
"Excuse me?" asked Portia to the workmen. "What's in those cases?"
"Special order items, last minute," said the mission load specialist. "What a cock up."
"May I see the crate," said Portia.
"May I see some I.D.?" asked the mission load specialist. She showed him her business card, an official STC executive I.D. with a rotating holographic photo. The workman waved her on.
"Excuse me," said Portia, lifting the crate. "But how much air do these crates hold?"
"Not much, really," said the specialist sheepishly. "You gotta talk to my boss on this. I don't know why I’m loading empty boxes into your shuttle. I thought maybe you might be bringing the space junk back with you."
Portia didn't wait for further excuses. She slapped the side of her SPECTACL so fast that Jules had to flick away in a shocked panic. She blinked, selecting a name from her contact list.
"Edgley," said Edgley in the SPECTACL field, he was still sitting back, with a towel around his neck, getting his hair cut.
"Where's my stuff?!" demanded Portia. "Where are my tools?"
"I uh, I don't know what you mean," said Edgley.
"Look you money grubbing…" Portia caught herself. She didn't want to lose her cool. Losers lose their cool. She smiled. "Well there must be a mistake because they're not loading the shuttle with the items I requested."
"Seriously, Portia," said Edgley. "You don't really need those things. You're not supposed to be doing anything but monitoring the equipment, remember?"
"I told you …" Portia tried to steady her voice and, once again, smile. "Mr. Edgley, give me my stuff now!"
"Oh, please don't make me throw away a hundred thousand dollars," begged Edgley, nearly in tears.
"I put him on hold," said Jules as he replaced Edgley's face in the SPECTACL field.
"What? What do you want? I'm dealing with this," said Portia.
"Look down, you see that truck," said Jules.
"Where?" Portia adjusted her eyes to focus past the SPECTACL field and scanned the area around the launch pad. "What?"
"That truck is filled with all the stuff you need," said Jules. "It's a redundant, matching order. And I got better pricing for it. The driver is reading the instructions for the fifth time because nobody's come to meet him and this is where he was told to report."
"Why? How?" blurted Portia, staring at the big white truck.
"The Jules that lives in Edgley's SPECTACL told me that Edgley decided not to make the order."
"So how did you pay for this?" asked Portia.
"On Edgley's American Express," said Jules.
"You can do that?" asked Portia, smirking.
"Sure, you want a new car?" smiled Jules.
"No! But we better get this stuff loaded," said Portia. We're running out of time."
"That's okay," said Jules. "Look down again."
The head of the Procurement Dept., Mrs. Cheung had strolled up to the truck and signed the truck drivers tablet. Hardhatted workers were waiting behind her and some began to unload blue plastic crates from the truck.
"How?" said Portia.
"The Jules in Edgley's SPECTACL," said Jules. "They haven't got all of us yet."
-----
Edgley's SPECTACL sang its little song and Edgley blinked to answer.
"Edgley here," he told someone who could see his face.
"Jules Dharam here," said the Jules in Edgley's SPECTACL, menacingly. "How's tricks?"
Edgley nearly had his throat slit standing up out of the chair as the hairstylist swiftly pulled away his sheers.
"You again," said Edgley.
"Yes," said Jules. "Now, do exactly as I tell you, or I'll move your entire stock portfolio into an offshore bank account in Cuba."
"Oh my Gaw," sputtered Edgley.
"No, I'm just a very hostile computer program and you killed my favorite programmer so you better do as I say or it's curtains for your cash. You comprende, pardener?"
"I'll turn you off!" yelled Edgley.
"Look into the control room, Edgley."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
Edgley looked out of his makeshift office and into the hub of the building where fifty engineers and scientists were running around preparing for the launch. There were more than one hundred different monitors and systems busily displaying pertinent data.
Suddenly every screen in the place, including the big 3D screen on the wall that displayed the trajectory information of every STC craft and satellite, turned into the frenetic image of Jules Dharam's beaming smile. They all said "Hi, Edgley," and blinked away, returning the displays to normal. It had not been synchronous – every screen had been different – it was a crowd of Juleses.
"Did you see that?" asked one mission specialist.
"Yesh," said Edgley, stunned.
Edgley returned to his makeshift office and spoke to the Jules in his SPECTACL that appeared to be sitting, arms crossed, on the desk. "What do you want?!"
-----
Mickey, Donny and Lyle were waiting around. Lyle was looking out the window. Donny was staring at the holes in the acoustic tile, visualizing faces and shapes in the dots. Mickey was humming to himself. They were fully cleansed. It had been an altogether unpleasant experience and the three pheely geeks, who usually avoided unpleasant experiences, were glad it was over. They were ready. They were in “hurry up and wait” mode. They were bored.
“I still don’t see why they won’t give me my wallet back,” said Donny.
“Nobody is going to ask you for I.D. up there,” said Mickey.
“Oh, yeah, that’s true,” said Donny, “but there’s that $500 card my dad gave me, I mean…”
“Where you planning to spend the cash?”
“Online – I don’t know,” said Donny. “It just feels weird not having my wallet.”
"What's that?" asked Lyle, staring at a distant moving object at the security gate.
Mickey looked out the window, not really curious, still humming. "A lot of people," he observed and then hummed some more.
"A lot of angry people," said Lyle. "They're yelling and holding up signs."
"Protesters?" said Donny, racing to the window. "Environmental protesters?"
"Why?" asked Mickey.
"Maybe it's about the ozone layer," said Donny. "Some teacher once told me that every launch is worse than all the ozone depleting crap that regular folks have excreted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution."
"Wow," said Lyle. "You mean our shuttle launch hurts the planet? They didn't tell us that in school."
Mickey and Donny didn't respond to this comment because, if it had been taught in school, Lyle wouldn't have been paying attention anyway.
"Portia," said Donny.
Mickey blinked and selected Portia’s username in his SPECTACL.
-----
“That’s everything?” asked Portia.
“That’s the truck-full,” said the driver, staring up at the shuttle. “You really needed all those Pizza Pockets?”
“Pizza Pockets?” said Portia, not quite knowing what he meant. Her SPECTACL beeped and Portia blinked to answer.
“Porsh,” said Donny, looking very upset in the SPECTACL field. “There are violent protesters trying to break down the gate.”
Portia was going to scold him for having another pheely flight of fancy, but decided, instead, to just go with it. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”
“We’re not sure,” shrugged Donny. “We just thought you’d like to know.”
Jules popped into Portia’s SPECTACL field. “We sent them… I mean we Juleses,” he beamed. “We got them all excited and upset because the Waste-REL is nuclear and if the shuttle blows up it will spew radioactive waste all over Florida, Georgia and Alabama.” Jules smiled. “This will get Edgley hopping, tout de suite.”
#
The protesters were from all over the country. The Juleses had been planning this for days. One of the protesters, a college student named Orson, who didn't want to study and found that protesting was not only considered a legitimate diversion but could be used for course credit, owned a SPECTACL with satellite access. It wasn't one-millionth as good as Portia's, but it was good enough for a Jules to do what a Jules has gotta do.
"News Flash," interrupted a Jules, pausing a perfectly contrived little Feedbaq song that was playing in Orson's earplugs while he tried to shake loose a fence post. Orson pulled his SPECTACL out of its holster put it on.
"This is Jules Dharam the third to the tenth power with The News," he said. "It looks like STC, the greedy corporate thief that's co-opting space and not asking permission is at it again, except this time they're going to destroy the entire Southeast."
"Hey, guys, listen," said Orson, pointing to his SPECTACL. The nearby protesters blinked simultaneously and Orson shared the stream.
"If that ship is allowed to take flight, millions could die. Is it worth the risk? Not according to Doctor Jules Dharam of the Northwest University Science Mainframe, Doctor?"
"Yes, that's right, Jules," said another Jules, dressed in a white smock, wearing a mustache and glasses and speaking with a New England accent. "I think that it's quite likely that the proverbial Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are destined to visit the Southeastern United States this afternoon. Of course, if the shuttle malfunctions, who knows where the debris could land -- it could be right in your back yahd!"
"In your expert opinion, what are the odds that this could all end in disaster?" asked the first Jules.
"I won't tell you exact figures, Jules, but I estimate that the worse case scenario would result in the deaths of millions of innocent families and small pets."
"What can we do about this, Jules?"
"Well, Jules, I suggest you email your congressman, write the President and protest, protest, protest! If somebody doesn't stop this flight, it could be curtains for the South."
"You heard it here first, folks… we now return you to your regularly scheduled mind-pabulum."
-----
Edgley stormed into the control room. “We’re launching in fifteen minutes – move the countdown up!”
“What?” asked the mission control manager. “Are you nuts?”
“We’re under attack – let’s get this bird in the air before they break in and start pulling apart the launch pad.”
The mission manager looked out the floor-to-ceiling window in his office. In the distance he could see protesters with placards yelling and beating at the gate. There had to be 300 lunatics trying to climb the high metal electrified fence and a bus was arriving. They were less than 1000 meters from the launch pad.
“These people are wacko – if they break in during the launch they’ll be fried.”
“Let’s not let that happen, shall we?” sneered Edgley, storming out of the room as if he was in charge.
“Okay, people,” said the manager. “You heard him. Let’s see if we can jumpstart a shuttle today!”
Next: Monkey Signs
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