Читать книгу Keep Your Doors Open - Ryan Vuckovich - Страница 3

It was now 11:25 AM and Paris’s boss called for a meeting. This meeting, like all meetings, was held on the sixth floor in one of the saucer centers. The first floor’s center was dedicated to machinery, but the sixth floor’s center was a board room. Paris took his time getting to the meeting area, so as to avoid running into Edwards and Bell, knowing that they would want to talk along the way. Once he arrived at the sixth center, half the circular table was taken up by people talking to their neighbors.

“Frank,” said a female voice. It was Roxy Airsea from the top floor; a botanist who worked in the science department. Her hair was cut to her shoulders but was always in a tail. She was born a toe head but had to let the gold corrode to brown due to hair coloring products being illegal. Her face was dotted randomly with freckles, but they were mostly on her cheeks. Her body was of the time, skinny and lacking muscle. And although she was not born into the wealthy class but promoted into it, she always had a rich smile, and she liked Paris.

“Come sit next to me,” Roxy said, “I have some news to tell you.”

Although Paris did not know how he felt about Roxy, with her being a human like everyone else who annoyed him, he always accepted invitations from her.

“Hello Roxy,” Paris said as he slowly sat down beside her.

“Hi Frank,” she said smiled regally, “So, over this week, I was finally able to move into my new apartment in one of the new north-end hover saucers.”

“That’s great Roxy, you’ve earned it,” he said sincerely.

“Thank you Frank. The place is still a mess though, and I could use a second opinion on where to put a few things. Would you like to come over this weekend and help me finish off my move?”

Paris was not expecting a direct question from her. However, when looking back into the past, he should have seen it coming. Roxy had always planned to find some way to meet him outside of work but never could find the right opportunity. It was very obvious to not only Paris, but to everyone else, that she liked him, but she had no idea of how to ask him out on a date. The other problem was people in the middle class were incapable of normal dating in this day and age. A stroll through the park could turn into a run for your life due to a possible encounter with apes. Movie theaters were abandoned because the smell of buttered popcorn attracted too many noisy goats who would talk through the films. Dinner at home meant cracking open a food sphere and hoping that raccoons would not come in and ruin your evening. It was just not plausible to do the romantic things from the past to woo someone off their feet. Now, things were different.

Roxy was able to experience all the upper class royalties she had worked so hard to achieve, and she would be able to do them with Paris. They could go dancing in the entertainment hall of her new saucer building, or eat at the restaurant next door, or watch a film in the screening room which was two doors down. But first things first, she had to start off slow. And the best way for her to do that was to get Paris to come help her move in; it’s not a date, it’s just a co-worker helping another co-worker.

“Um,” Paris hesitated, “Well—” but before he was able to give Roxy a response, the head of the company walked into the room signaling for the meeting to begin. She was a woman in her late 50s who stood at a height of 5’10”. Her hair was black with some grey streaks. There were no wrinkles on her face, indicating that she rarely smiled or frowned. She then sat at her designated place at the round table. Her eyes, which had red lighting on the sclera, surveyed the room with switchblade readiness prepared to spring at anyone. The name of this weapon was Chloro, Phyllis Chloro.

“Is everyone here?” began Chloro still looking around, “I don’t see Roberts. Was he held up by those boars near his house again?”

“Well,” began someone, “We haven’t… heard from him in a couple of days now Ms. Chloro. We think…we think…”

“Another animal attack? My god how dreadful,” someone exclaimed, “That’s the sixth one this month from our company alone. I wonder what could be causing this rise in attacks?”

Someone else quickly jumped in to answer, “There are, some theories that have developed—”

“As much as I would love to hear theories as to why there is a rise in animal aggression, we have some business to attend to,” Chloro responded; Mother Nature doing her work with no tears for tragedy, so many people have been dying all around that everyone has developed a numbness to it. However, the animal occupation is not the sole reason for this. Part of the blame is the past societies. The ones who knew that there were children being sold into slavery and felt that freeing the animals in zoos were more important. The ones who knew that hunters in Africa were legally obtaining game and giving their kills to starving villagers, yet they felt that an animal’s life outweighed a human’s. The ones who knew that people were dying in hospitals from diseases and finding a cure meant animal testing, yet people would rather see a person die from cancer than see ten apes die in the name of finding a cure. Animals are not to blame for human coldness, its people who valued the lives of animals more than their own kind who helped society become what it is today. So, the meeting continued on without anyone shedding a tear for an employee who may have died a day or two ago.

Ms. Chloro pulled out her electronic pad, placed it on the table, and began the meeting, “So, let’s start off with the bad news. The bad news is that the deal we have been trying to hash out with CT has fallen through; apparently, they feel that their hover saucers should be for people only and not for some sort of food producing bio domes. Which is understandable in the grand scale of things, since it takes a very long time to build just one hover saucer. Plus, I knew we would be pushing our luck since they did allow us to use this hover saucer to conduct our business. But, I am glad to say that we were able to secure a very large area of the Southwest side of Los Angeles, am I correct?”

“Yes, Ms. Chloro,” said Bell, “There have been no mass animal activities in the area we were looking at, so the state officials gave us the go ahead to start breaking up the concrete to make way for farmland. The only stipulation is that we need people from—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Ms. Chloro, “I am fully aware of the rules and regulations when it comes to paving the way for farmland. Let’s just hope no animals decide to make any homes there in the next few weeks, or we will have to try and find a new area.”

“It should not be a problem Ms. Chloro,” said an employee sitting two seats down from her, “We have already placed aroma barrels around the area and coated the building top to bottom with slip gel.”

“But I wish not to take any chances,” Chloro said, “So let’s begin on acquiring the rest of the surrounding L.A. area while still working on the part of New York we have been trying to acquire.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Now, how is the science department coming along with the new GMO project Ms. Airsea?”

“Well Ms. Chloro,” Roxy began, “Our division is not having any problems developing the new protein bars we wish to introduce to the public next year. What we are worried about are the 'Insect/Arachnid Debates' that are going on—”

“Just keep moving the project along Ms. Airsea. That debate is going to last longer than a year, perhaps just as long as the Great Animal Liberation Debates. I just thank God some politicians were able to argue that plankton are more of an insect than a shrimp. Anyway, let’s move on. Paris, were the forms for the tree tags completed and sent out yesterday?”

There was no answer; Frank was lost in another hallucination.

“Paris?” Chloro repeated looking up from her electronic pad, still no answer.

Frank was too busy escaping the world to explore the moon. The giant hole in the center of the room where the round table had been was now a crater on the moon. But Frank was not alone, he had Martian by his side to explore their new home and say “Goodbye Earth.” Martian floated toward Frank and placed his paw on Frank’s leg, just like he had done this morning. Then, the paw started to lose all of its fur, grow a thumb, and become a human hand; it was actually Roxy who placed her hand on Paris’s lap out of worry.

“Paris!” Chloro said a third and final time; the hallucination was over.

“I’m…” Paris answered, “I’m sorry Ms. Chloro…I…”

“Thinking about Roberts?” she said sternly.

“Uh…yes…I mean…”

“We have lost a lot of people this month but that can’t be helped. When an animal kills a human for food or protection, it is a part of nature. They were not murdered. We just have to accept it and move on as best we can,” Her answer was rehearsed. Like an old doll who would only repeat “mama” when someone pushed the right button.

“Humans killing humans or animals is murder,” thought Paris, “Animals killing humans is natural.”

“Now,” Chloro continued, “What about those tree tags I asked you about?”

“Oh, I…they are…I mean… I filled all of them out and had them sent yesterday like you asked. So, they are being processed right now, and we just have to wait for their response,” Paris said quickly getting his thoughts together.

“Alright then, I want you to get with Marshall and Graham after the meeting, so you three can go over our proposal to obtain farmland in the Houston area.”

The meeting went on like this for an hour. The only reason it stopped was because an alarm went off on Chloro’s electronic pad indicating that it was time for lunch. Everyone waited for Ms. Chloro to leave the room first. Once she was gone, all the employees started to move out of the office. Paris turned to Roxy and gave her his answer.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m sorry?” she replied.

“Yes I would lo…like…like to help you move in.”

“Wonderful!” she said smiling gleefully, “Does Saturday work?”

“That will work just fine,” Paris said smiling nervously.

“Great, see you Saturday then. I can arrange for a hover vehicle to pick you up at your place.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite alright. Your hover building is not too far from where I live. I can walk.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I will see you later then Frank,” She could have asked him to eat lunch, with her but she did not push her luck. It was a big accomplishment to get Paris to come over to her place and that was good enough for her. Even if she did ask him to lunch, Paris would have not been in the right state of mind to go. It was hard enough for him to say yes to her, what with saying no to Bell’s offer to meet outside of work and feeling awful about it. Paris could not say no twice in one day. So, he said yes to the second offer and felt less lonely than he did when he declined the first.