The door descended partway, then vibrated hard and stalled, finally reversing its motion and moving back to a fully open position.
Hennig tried again. The same thing happened.
“Huh,” he grunted. “It really is our lucky day. The door’s malfunctioning.”
In the VR room, Cally Ames giggled.
“You did that, didn’t you, Lee?” she wondered.
“Yup,” Carter confirmed, grinning. “Every time he hits the button on the control panel, I counter it in VR, then reverse it.”
“Nice effect,” Peterson decided. “It really looks like the damn thing is malfunctioning.”
“Hey, it serves our purpose,” Ashton noted.
“It sure does!” Ames giggled again.
“Hey-hey, lookit what I found,” Brandt said, from the far corner of the garage.
“What is it, Pete?” Hennig wondered, coming to his buddy’s side.
“We got a gas-heated water reservoir,” Brandt said with a grin, pointing, “an’ a ‘lectric car charger not ten feet from it.”
“Ooo, I get it,” Hennig said. “Yeah, that’ll work. I got the packages. Did you bring the kit like I said?”
“Sure did, Joe,” Brandt said, pulling out a tiny tool kit from a pocket.
“Let’s see what we can do, then,” Hennig said. “We can set it up for now, and put some ‘a those tiny remote timers on shit – nobody will ever find the remains of those, after this blows – and we can work out exact times later.”
“All over it.”
“…And so what we’ll need to do for that is to let it run as they plan, except we disable things,” Ashton decreed, as they watched and listened to the ‘enforcers’ planning their demise. “Do it just so, and they’ll be able to set the timers in VR without realizing that those timers aren’t hooked to anything live.”
“What are they planning, Nick?” Ames wondered. “I’m not gettin’ it.”
“It’s an old trick,” Peterson said, “but a smooth one. Create a gas leak in the hot water heater so that the house fills with enough gas to reach an optimum mix with the air, then have the charger for our electric car ‘malfunction’ so that the charger doesn’t shut off once the battery is charged. The battery overcharges, overloads, pops, and...”
“There’s a big bada-boom,” Carter said. “Except we’re gonna ensure there isn’t a big boom, ‘cause even if none of us are there, Maia and I kinda like our new house.”
“It’s a plan,” Ashton said. “I think we have the folks that can do this.”
“We do,” Peterson averred.
“Then let’s get rolling,” Carter said.
Later that day, back at what some of the young cops were calling ‘Temporary New Headquarters,’ Carter came to Ashton’s office, which was within easy earshot of the beat cops’ bullpen. Ashton, seeing him approach, rose from his desk and came to the door to meet him.
“What’s up, Lee?” he wondered.
“Aw, new house woes,” Carter grumbled. “You know we’d talked about maybe you and Cally coming to dinner tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. Need a rain check?”
“Maybe a couple,” Carter said, annoyance palpable. “Not only have we got a glitch with the damn garage door, there’s a plumbing leak in the master bath upstairs, and it’s really screwed up the downstairs ceiling and wall, running down the inside along the studs.” He shook his head. “The drywall is a disaster, warping and peeling and discoloring. It’s going to have to be ripped out and replaced, then repainted.”
“Damn,” Ashton said, his eyebrows shooting up. “That sounds like a mess. You gonna go back on the builders for shoddy work?”
“Probably. It depends what the repair guys find out when they get into it.”
“Well, it won’t be as fancy a setting, but you and Maia are welcome to come over to our place instead.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Nah. You know Cal. She loves to cook, and our new place is big enough that we like to entertain. If you want to – if you’d feel better about it – we can make it a pot-luck and you guys can bring some stuff, and we’ll make some stuff, and we’ll all eat together, then we can spend the whole evening planning more of the new-org stuff. Then, when you get everything that’s been damaged ripped out and replaced, we can try again for an evening at your place.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Carter decided. “That way, we don’t slow down our planning. But I really want you two to see the new house décor, and so does Maia. The repair guys are supposed to show up tomorrow morning. Once I get an estimate from them as to how long it’ll take, we’ll set a date for you two to come over.”
“That’s fine. So you and Maia come on over to our place tomorrow night and we’ll hang out, see what we can get accomplished.”
“It’s a date.”
“So it sounds like there’s gonna be a little delay before we can get ‘em all,” Bradly noted that night at the next ‘oldies’ meeting in the Cool Breeze Pub. “Pity we can’t get something set up at Ashton’s place, but that might be pushing our luck. You don’t think there’s gonna be a problem with the garage door, do you? We don’t need repair guys nosing around the garage and seeing everything you two set up.”
“Nah,” Hennig said, dismissive. “We can sure verify that the garage door is borked, though. It was wide open, and would only close halfway, then open right back up! An’ it shook like it was gonna tear itself apart! But no worries. It’s a big two-car garage with a little woodworking shop at the back left-hand side – I guess Carter likes to tinker with wood – and the garage door controls are on the opposite side o’ the garage from the water heater an’ the charging unit, both. And a
