Mr. Mowen thundered, “Turn off the waste emissions project. Now. And get everyone connected with the project over here immediately.” He hung up the phone and peered out the window. “Okay. They’ve turned it off,” he said, turning back to Ulric. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Ulric said from the floor where he was picking up pencils. “I suppose as soon as the moon starts to lose its blue color, the laws of probability will go back to normal. Or maybe they’ll rebalance themselves, and you’ll have all good luck for a day or two.” He put the pencil holder back on the desk and picked up Sally’s picture.
“I hope it changes before my ex-wife gets back,” Mr. Mowen said. “She’s been here once already, but Janice got rid of her. I knew she was a side effect of some kind.”
Ulric didn’t say anything. He was looking at the picture of Sally.
“That’s my daughter,” Mr. Mowen said. “She’s an English major.”
Ulric stood the picture on the desk. It fell over, knocking the pencil holder onto the floor again. Ulric dived for the pencils.
“Never mind about the pencils,” Mr. Mowen said. “I’ll pick them up after the moon gets back to normal. She’s home for Thanksgiving vacation. You might run into her. Her area of special study is language generation.”
Ulric straightened up and cracked his head on the desk. “Language generation,” he said, and walked out of the office.
Mr. Mowen went out to tell Janice to send the Research people in as soon as they got there. One of Ulric’s gloves was lying on the floor next to Janice’s desk. Mr. Mowen picked it up. “I hope he’s right about putting a stop to these coincidences by turning off the stacks,” he said. “I think this thing is catching.”
Lynn called Brad as soon as Charlotte dropped her off. Maybe he knew why Mr. Mowen’s secretary wanted to see her. The line was busy. She took off her parka, put her suitcase in the bedroom, and then tried again. It was still busy. She put her parka back, pulled on a pair of red mittens, and started across the oriental gardens to Brad’s apartment.
“Are those nincompoops from Research here?” Mr. Mowen asked Janice.
“Yes, sir. All but Brad McAfee. His line is busy.”
“Well, put an override on his terminal. And send them in.”
“Yes, sir,” Janice said. She went back to her desk and called up a directory on her terminal. To her surprise, she got it. She wrote down Brad’s code and punched in an override. The computer printed ERROR. I knew it was too good to last, Janice thought. She punched the code again. This time the computer printed OVERRIDE IN PLACE. Janice thought a minute, then decided that whatever the override was, it couldn’t be more important than Mr. Mowen’s. She punched the code for a priority override and typed, “Mr. Mowen wants to see you immediately.” The computer immediately confirmed it.
Exhilarated by her success, Janice called Brad’s number again. He answered the phone. “Mr. Mowen would like to see you immediately,” she said.
“I’ll be there faster than blue blazes,” Brad said, and hung up.
Janice went in and told Mr. Mowen Brad McAfee was on the way Then she herded the Research people into his office. When Mr. Mowen stood up to greet them, he didn’t knock over anything, but one of the Research people managed to knock over the pencils again. Janice helped him pick them up.
When she got back to her desk she remembered that she had superseded an override on Brad’s terminal. She wondered what it was. Maybe Charlotte had gone to his apartment and poisoned him and then put an override on so he couldn’t call for help. It was a comforting thought somehow, but the override might be something important, and now that she had gotten him on the phone there was really no reason to leave the priority override in place. Janice sighed and typed in a cancellation. The computer immediately confirmed it.
Jill opened the door to Brad’s apartment building and stood there for a minute trying to get her breath. She was supposed to have driven back to Cheyenne tonight, and she had barely made it across Chugwater. Her car had slid sideways in the street and gotten stuck, and she had finally left it there and come over here to see if Brad could help her put her chains. She fished clumsily in her purse for the numbers Brad had written down for her so she could use the elevator. She should have taken her gloves off.
A young woman with no gloves on pushed open the door and headed for one of the two elevators, punched some numbers, and disappeared into the nearer elevator.
The doors shut. She should have gone up with her. Jill fished some more and came up with several folded scraps of paper. She tried to unfold the first one, gave up, and balanced them all on one hand while she tried to pull her other glove off with her teeth.
The outside door opened, and a gust of snowy air blew the papers out of her hand and out the door. She dived for them, but they whirled away in the snow. The man who had opened the door was already in the other elevator. The doors slid shut. Oh, for heaven’s sake.
She looked around for a phone so she could call Brad and tell him she was stranded down here. There was one on the far wall. The first elevator was on its way down, between four and three. The second one was on six. She walked over to the phone, took both her gloves off and jammed them in her coat pocket, and picked up the phone.
A young woman in a parka and red mittens came in the front door, but she didn’t go over to the elevators. She stood in the middle of the lobby brushing snow off her coat. Jill rummaged through her purse for a quarter. There was no change in her wallet, but she thought there might be a couple of dimes in the bottom of her purse. The second elevators doors slid open, and the mittened woman hurried in.
She found a quarter in the bottom of her purse and dialed Brad. The line was busy. The first elevator was on six now. The second one was down in the parking garage. She dialed Brad’s number again.
The second elevators doors slid open. “Wait!” she said, and dropped the phone. The receiver hit her purse and knocked its contents all over the floor. The outside door opened again, and snow whirled in. “Push the hold button,” the middle-aged woman who had just come in from outside. She had a red, “NOW… or else!” button pinned to her coat, and she was clutching a folder to her chest. She knelt down and picked up a comb, two pencils, and Jill’s checkbook.
“Thank you,” Jill said gratefully
“We sisters have to stick together,” the woman said grimly She stood up and handed the things to Jill. They got into the elevator. The woman with the mittens was holding the door. There was another young woman inside, wearing a sweater and blue moon boots.
“Six, please,” Jill said breathlessly trying to jam everything back into her purse. “Thanks for waiting. I’m just not all together today.” The doors started to close.
“Wait!” a voice said, and a young woman in a suit and high heels, with a large manila envelope under her arm, squeezed in just as the door shut. “Six, please,” she said. “The wind chill factor out there has to be twenty below. I don’t know where my head was to try to come over and see Brad in weather like this.”
“Brad?” the young woman in the red mittens said.
“Brad?” Jill said.
“Brad?” the young woman in the blue moon boots said.
“Brad McAfee,” the woman with the “NOW… or else!” button said grimly.
“Yes,” the young woman in high heels said, surprised. “Do you all know him? He’s my fiance.”
Sally punched in her security code, stepped in the elevator, and pushed the button for the sixth floor. “Ulric, I want to explain what happened this morning,” she said as soon as the door closed. She had practiced her speech all the way over to Ulric’s housing unit. It had taken her forever to get here. The windshield wipers were frozen and two cars had slid sideways in the snow and created a traffic jam. She had had to park the car and trudge through the snow across the oriental gardens, but she still hadn’t thought of what to say.
“My name is Sally Mowen, and I don’t generate language.” That was out of the question. She couldn’t tell him who she was. The minute he heard she was the boss’s daughter, he would stop listening.
“I speak English, but I read your note, and it said you wanted someone who could generate language.” No good. He would ask, “What note?” and she would haul it out of her pocket, and he would say, “Where did you find
