“Rather be African-American than poor Texas white trash. Only way out of that lifestyle is with the blonde hair and the big titties. Last time I checked, you ain’t got neither.”
“You’re right about that,” Scott said, shaking his head while miming putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. “Did you come over here for a reason, or were you just trying to make me more suicidal than my kid’s orthodontics bills?”
“Chip count. Big Time’s trying to keep us from going down. Might switch to CT3-U’s if we have the part.”
Scott shot a thumb at the cage behind him.
“Knock yourself out.”
• • •
The security looked like something you’d see in a wrestling ring, not a factory floor. A roofless, sixteen-foot-high box of chain link fencing, it contained the high-dollar parts used in the computers, mainly microchips. Though Scott’s full-time job was to keep track of all pieces coming in and out of the cage, blue plastic mesh had been woven through the links to prevent people from reaching in and pulling chips out through the links. Scott had no problem admitting he had the cushiest job in the factory.
All that security had the additional effect of making the inside of the cage fairly private. Alan’s heart raced as he entered the cage, picked up a clipboard off a nearby shelf, and pretended to studiously thumb through the attached pages. The inside of the cage was ringed by shelves, each stocked with heavy plastic boxes that held the various types of microchips used by Deltech. The chips would be signed out of the cage and carried to a single workstation on each line. There, they would be attached to a motherboard, scanned to make them part of that computer’s registry, and then sent down the assembly line. The plastic boxes the chips were held in had clear plastic lids, which gave them the appearance of resting in a jeweler’s case.
Alan had heard about the big money people would pay for the hard-to-find chips but had vetoed it as an option long ago. He’d boosted a couple of cars to joyride around in with friends when he was younger but had never been caught. He’d also stolen a few things here and there but again, it wasn’t to sell. More like a new pair of shoes or running gear.
This was different.
Having cased the cages a week before, Alan moved right past the newer chips that were still in use and found his way to a stack of dusty old cases on a rear shelf. They’d been there so long they were covered with a thin layer of the pulverized metal dust that settled on surfaces all over the factory. He popped the lid open on one of the boxes, palmed six of the chips inside and then did the same with the dusty box next to it.
His palms were sweaty, and he tried to control his breathing. He closed the boxes again, did a fast count of the chips he was actually there to find, and headed for the exit.
“We’ve easily got four hundred CT3-U chips in there,” Alan announced to Scott. “Probably’ll do the changeover.”
“Color me thrilled.”
Alan smirked and walked away.
Keeping his eyes on his newspaper until Alan disappeared from view, Scott turned and glanced into the area of the cage where the young man had been standing. Realizing what had happened, he took off his glasses, dragged his fingers over his eyelids, and pinched his sinuses.
“Shit, man…,” Scott said, a man who knew his day had gone to hell.
• • •
Alan walked along the back of the factory by the loading docks on the way back to Line 10. As he looked down the other lines at his various co-workers, the thing that had always struck him from his first day on the job was the odd shape people’s bodies would take. You’d have the most obese woman in the factory, but after she’d done some repetitive task every day for a few years in a row, she’d have that one upper—or lower-body muscle group in perfect shape standing in contrast to everything else. Huge ass, huge belly, fat face, fat everything else, but hard, muscular arms like a weightlifter. It made people look like cartoon characters.
In his peripheral vision, Alan noticed some security guards moving along the second-floor catwalk over the break area up front. Though the factory workers stayed on the first level, the supervisors had their offices overlooking the floor on the second level. As the skyways connected the Deltech campus buildings on the second floor, day-shifters joked that it was a way for the white-collar execs to never mingle with the blue collar workers.
At first, Alan told himself that the guards were probably just grabbing a coffee together. Then he chanced a look over and saw that the guards were pointing right at him.
“Oh, shit,” Alan hissed.
He tried to walk as normally as possible. He felt around in his pocket for the twelve chips and then began cracking them in half using his thumb and forefinger. Without looking back to the catwalk, he palmed the broken pieces and discreetly tossed them into a trash container beside a parked forklift.
• • •
“Took your time,” Big Time joked when Alan returned.
That’s when he noticed how pale Alan looked, the color drained from his face.
“You look like my kids when I catch ’em pulling shit.”
When Alan didn’t reply, Big Time realized that was exactly what happened.
“Shit, son. What’d you do?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“I’ve been standing right here the whole day,” Alan said, eyeing Big Time. “Right here on the line.”
Big Time hesitated but then nodded.
“Yeah. Right here, man.”
Elmer turned, nodding an oblivious “hello” to Alan, having heard none of this exchange. Alan took his place at the hydraulic life and had just wheeled the next unit off the line when Dennis’s voice rang out.
“Terrell?”
From up the line, Dennis approached
