Читать книгу Blind.Faith 2.0.50 - Tomasz Tatum - Страница 11

BARNZ AND THE BULLDOZER

“Yo Barnz, man! Yo, Come on now! Where the hell are you now?”

Fulcrum stood impatiently rubbing the stubble on his chin next to a huge mound of moist sand dumped directly adjacent to the site access area. He had a small sheaf of loose papers and a flexible touch.Screen gadget clamped provisionally under his right armpit. His brown faux-alligator leather attaché case stood in the dirt, leaning at an odd angle against his right leg. Aside from the marsh grass that grew abundantly out here, only a few other tattered low shrubs dotted the irregular fringe of the next parcel of coastal land being leveled to facilitate the construction of a yet another set of high-efficiency NextGen PowerCranks. The development plan called for the erection of a cluster of six units at this particular location. Although it was now already fairly late in the afternoon, the air still hung heavy with the day’s heat and humidity with not even the tiniest hint of a breeze to be felt out here today. Far off in the distance, one might well have seen the ocean reflecting the haze of the afternoon, shimmering a peaceful mercurial silver hue.

“Must be that friggin’ global warming they’re always jabbing about all the time,” Fulcrum muttered impatiently to himself as he coughed into his fist and rasped his throat loudly. The salt and the dust hanging in the air were a real source of consternation to him, dehydrating his lips and throat and making him feel as though he were a sun-dried fig. If there was any truth to all the gibberish about the climate continuing to get progressively worse, he thought to himself with a hint of irony, then it would be only a question of time before he was mummified entirely.

He began to move again, albeit in slow motion now. Each step, each movement of his arms or head was as slow and deliberate as though he was some kind of reptile in winter trying resolutely to avoid radiating any body heat. Fulcrum doffed his cap momentarily and awkwardly wiped the sweat off the top of his head with a handkerchief, holding the cap in his right hand with the papers still stuffed beneath his arm. It was what he referred to as his so-called duty cap. It was old and stained by what must by now be many years of dust, grease, smudge and sweat accumulated at the innumerable sites he had toiled on during the course of his professional life. And, even though just about every site’s safety regulations explicitly called for them nowadays, Fulcrum continued to harbor an unbelievably strong contempt for the culture of hard hats deep within his soul and thus religiously avoided wearing one whenever he walked around the site.

He was a huge man, just about two meters tall, but also, at first glance, something of a comical figure. When he was onsite, he was almost invariably clad in blue or green overalls whose pant legs were generally about ten centimeters too short for a man of his height and stature. His rather unorthodox choice of attire also tended to emphasize his very significantly protruding gut which stood in stark contrast to the rest of his physique, which, aside from a fairly bullish neck, was rather lean. The massive neck and a shiny bald head atop his stature did their part as well, lending him the appearance of a large but jovial upright tortoise.

“Hardhats are little more than some supplemental protection for the skull,” Fulcrum reckoned and reassured himself that there was probably little on the face of the entire worldmonde.Planet that rivaled the firmness of his own skull, the logical consequence of this knowledge being that he remained absolutely convinced that he, for one, didn’t require this superfluous protection. So, while everyone else seemed by and large to abide by these rules, at least on this particular point, he could not really recall anyone ever having come up with the nutty idea of actually challenging him because of his own refusal to do so.

So while the cap did nothing whatsoever to protect the structural integrity of Fulcrum’s boney skull, his scalp was an entirely different story. The cap was in fact an indispensible accessoire for him because it alone served to protect his hairless pate from the savage power of the sun. Fulcrum was completely bald and nearly without eyebrows. In fact, there was likely more hair to be found on the skin of an average market apple than on his head.

Fulcrum was always finding himself to be at odds with the climate. Today, it was the heat which he detested. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but to him it felt as though this might very likely be the hottest day of the year so far. He dabbed randomly and erratically at the streams of perspiration that gushed down his face with his customary wrinkled blue-checkered cloth handkerchief. Watched from afar, it was an odd manner in which he battled this inconvenience; instead of wiping the sweat from his brow, one could see his handkerchief appearing to peck at the individual drops of water running down his face in much the same fashion as a barnyard rooster might peck at a bouncing kernel.

And it wasn’t only the climate. Inwardly, Fulcrum loathed everything else about this place as well. In fact, deep inside he loathed almost all construction sites, despite the sense of camaraderie he often enjoyed with many of the men, bound together because of the hard work, the challenges, the dirt or even the noise and any one of a number of other inconveniences associated with the downside of construction activities. But, ultimately, there was little he could do to avoid coming out here to work on-site. After all, he was the 4.MΔN, or the Head Managing Project Supervisor, as his job description titled it. To many of the workers who toiled on the projects out here, he was actually known, with a tangible blend of respect and jest, simply as “da HeadHoncho.”

In fact, that was the logo emblazoned on the baseball cap that he wore to shade his shiny scalp from the sun. He had once received it as a gift from Barnz. The logo on it said, in bold silver lettering: DΔ HΞADHΩNCHΩ.

Of course it was all a bit of a tease, but that was just how the guys were in this job. He got on quite well with the entire group. It was rough and tumble out here and he knew fully well that, while they were a team, they were also far from being chivalrous musketeers amongst themselves. But they nonetheless worked hard, they worked fast and they watched out for one another. The work, building PowerCranks out here, or anywhere else for that matter, was always difficult and it could sometimes even be dangerous.

Fulcrum decided that it was both the light and the nearly unbearable heat which he despised today. And, additionally, he found himself to be at loggerheads with the humidity.

This was in addition to his revulsion of the hordes of mosquitoes that were apt to rise when the sun began to sink toward the horizon. It seemed that, aside from the force of the wind itself, there was nothing on the face of this Earth that was capable of keeping these clouds of monstrous little bloodsuckers at bay once evening began to set in.

But more than anything else, at least at this particular moment and on this particular day, he especially loathed this sun-soaked place because there was not the least bit of respite for him from the glare of the sun’s rays. Not even the tiniest sliver of shade was anywhere to be found out here.

Glowing liquid light seemed to saturate the molecules of the air around him even now as evening was just about to set in. While he was a person endowed with a penchant for grumbling about the weather anywhere and anytime, it was bright sunlight that proved particularly excruciating for Fulcrum. Even under otherwise normal circumstances, it could well be considered arduous enough for anyone forced to work out here in the open, day in and day out. For Fulcrum, however, it was in fact torturous, in the literal sense, simply because he possessed the unhappy certainty that he was very near to going blind now, his vision seeming to grow a bit worse with every single passing day. In the intense light of the day, contours dissolved before him under the whitish glare of the afternoon sun. Strong light, he observed lately, was now washing away the last boundaries that were still visible to him, rendering him progressively more helpless and leaving him with the disquieting knowledge that his eyesight was somehow being bleached out in a starkly luminescent osmotic hellfire which, while it was directly detrimental to his well-being, he was nonetheless required to subject himself to in order to continue earning his modest living.

Of course he had immediately attempted to get professional medical help once it dawned upon him what was happening. Not a single doctor he had visited thus far could help him, though, except to ultimately repeat the usual list of precautions and warnings to him–urging him, for instance, to do his utmost to avoid direct light or to wear dark shades whenever possible. His condition was in the meantime so serious that, despite his wearing the blackest of inky black sunglasses, he would often find himself spending a substantial portion of the day walking about with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. These days, if he opened them in the light of the afternoon, and if circumstances were extremely favorable, he now considered himself fortunate if he could see vaguely for even two or three meters at the most.

In recent times, he had gained an enormous appreciation for the abilities of bats, moles and even earthworms, and sometimes even jested with Barnz, the only person to whom he had shared his concern over this affliction, about the vast brotherhood of blindness that–what irony!–reigned invisibly around those who could see. He often referred to himself as being what he termed the third link, maintaining his rightful place in the oddly hierarchic ranks of those sightless species above, below and upon this earth.

The saline air parched his lips and his almost unseeing eyes burned slightly again whenever another miniscule trickle of perspiration streamed into them. He withdrew his handkerchief and began his tapping and pecking ritual again.

This, too, was just another part of his daily routine.

He stood still for a moment, dabbing erratically at the beads of perspiration on his face and, at the same time, listening attentively to the sounds of various heavy machinery that filled the air around him.

To be sure, there was at most times plenty of noise to be heard at the site. But, through experience over time, Fulcrum had acquired the ability to reliably differentiate between various pieces of equipment operating in the often tumultuous bustle of a construction site–his site–simply on the basis of the sound or the vibrations. Actually, clamor would likely be a more apt description for the noise which the various pieces and types of machinery produced.

He would listen for a certain rattle or clatter, for example, or a distinct roar.

At this particular moment, though, he was listening for one particular piece of machinery, one certain bulldozer that he was certain had to be operating around here somewhere.

He sighed to himself in quiet frustration amid the heat and din of the construction site. Out here in the open, in this blazing light, he found it impossible to open his eyes wide enough to see anything anymore. And even though he navigated his way around the site as though it were the back of his hand, he had to admit to himself that it was getting tougher to find anything or anyone lately.

Even Barnz, who he knew would, at the precise moment he needed him, very likely be perched high atop his bulldozer, waiting patiently for instructions or consultations whenever he would sense Fulcrum approaching. This, too, was part of their joint daily routine.

Barnz was somehow special in Fulcrum’s estimation. He was a black fellow, not entirely young anymore and perhaps even somewhat unremarkable at first glance despite his stature and height. He was a tall man with just a hint of a potbelly discernible beneath his coveralls. He had a head full of mottled, evenly cropped dense grey hair and a soothing but gruff voice that suggested to Fulcrum that Barnz was likely somewhat older than he himself was. Fulcrum hadn’t the faintest notion where Barnz actually came from. One day, out of the blue, he was just there and it seemed as though he’d–in some hard-to-describe way or another–always been there. It was all a bit uncanny, but Fulcrum possessed the good sense and wisdom to instantly trust Barnz. He was clueless about where Barnz grew up or went to school in his youthful days but wherever it was, Fulcrum reasoned, the place must have been nothing short of fantastic: the man was incredibly smart. Fulcrum had never seen anything like it in his entire life. Barnz knew absolutely everything. Barnz had impeccable manners, he was patient and sometimes, it appeared to Fulcrum, Barnz even seemed to be perhaps a tiny bit clairvoyant.

And, in truth, Fulcrum was not wholly wrong with his suspicion or secret assumptions–although he wasn’t entirely correct, either. The fact is that Barnz was not clairvoyant; he could not actually see into or predict the future.time–at least not any more than any other person endowed with a minimum of common sense could. But Barnz did, unbeknown to anyone around him, possess the remarkable and unique ability to recalibrate time–which he tracked faithfully with a magnificent platinum Breguet Classique Grande Complication that he wore, usually concealed beneath the cuff of his sleeve on his right wrist–just a tiny degree back to the past.time, thereby enabling himself the opportunity to subtly alter the outcome of what was the present.time and thereby tweak that which was subsequently perceived to be the future.time as well.

What he could do, for example, was, for example, to push a book off a shelf, and then reset the time just enough so that everything around him might register the book dropping to the floor but never, ever noticing that anything else was amiss. By recalibrating time in this manner via the past.time, whatever subsequently ensued was by necessity different than it would have otherwise been. It was a simple, but also very practical, capability to possess in a world where outcomes were not always assured to be just.

It was never clear why Barnz, of all people, would be gifted with such an astounding capability or which circumstances or even where he got the extravagant timepiece which was his tool. But it could rightfully be argued that, for one, he was absolutely incorruptible and, secondly, his personality doubtlessly possessed both a keen sense of balance and something at least remotely angelic. Alone these two traits were enough of an assurance that his capability to alter time, or perhaps only everyone’s perception of it, would not be subject to abuse and therefore found itself placed in competent and trustworthy hands.

But, as the bearer of such capabilities, Barnz also needed to exercise extreme caution. The watch, while it gave him the power to reset time and thus alter the outcome of whatever circumstances he might happen to find himself in, did not afford him any protection beyond what might be regarded as the information advantage that such a capability discreetly provided him. Barnz was, in fact, every bit as mortal and just as vulnerable as everyone else around him.

But he was also, as Fulcrum had correctly observed, an incredibly smart fellow.

Barnz’s bulldozer was a massive piece of machinery, painted in a gaudy bright screaming blue color with the logo CRΞΔTΩR 2.0.50 stenciled in vivid large white lettering on both sides of the cab. With the exception of the windshield, the windows of the cab were tinted. The comfort and the controls as well as the sound insulation within the cab were state-of-the-art.

It even had a very decent 14-speaker sound system installed. Fulcrum had actually once had an opportunity to try it out and judged it to be divine. The subwoofer was absolutely phenomenal.

As a member of Fulcrum’s crew, it was very often Barnz’s task to flatten the land upon which the huge windmills, the NextGen PowerCranks, would be erected. But even more importantly, it was Barnz who had, over time, become tasked with explaining many of the intricacies of the worldmonde.Planet to Fulcrum and, in a more localized context and thus especially significant given the sad liability of his fading eyesight, what was necessary for them to best get their mutual job done. Because of this, he was more than just a valuable member of the team–he was utterly indispensable.

And, most importantly for their professional relationship, Fulcrum knew and appreciated the fact that Barnz was a friend as well, a man who could be fully and unconditionally trusted. Fulcrum was steadfast in his knowledge that Barnz would never, ever fail him, nor was it conceivable that he would ever disappoint anyone else who would prove wise enough to invest their trust in him.

And after all, Fulcrum did have every reason to be cautious. If word were ever to reach his senior management downtown that he was pretty much blind, his livelihood as 4.MΔN on these prestigious projects might doubtlessly be in great peril. Fulcrum was a bright fellow and he certainly harbored no naïve illusions about this fact; he knew that it was extremely unlikely that his em.Dee1 would react with any degree of sympathy to such news. Luckily for him, however, the em.Dee1 was a fellow who was burdened with what seemed like a gazillion other vitally important commitments and who had therefore never exhibited any great inclination to meet with him, let alone get personally involved in the more mundane activities at the various construction sites. He preferred instead to manage his multitude of business interests as comfortably as possible by MindφSet or SpeakEZ, calling only very occasionally from his office located in a suite at the top of a sleek-looking blue-tinted glass cube situated near the center of town and, even then, only when he deemed it to be absolutely unavoidable.

And, as things stood, he had not a single reason in the entire worldmonde.Planet to be dissatisfied with Fulcrum’s performance or with the progress of any of his work performed for the corporation. As em.Dee1, he obviously had a well-functioning team in place; he knew that he could rely on them to get the job done on cost, on time, every time. For this very simple reason, it was just as well that they did not speak often.

And Barnz, the man at home behind the controls of CRΞΔTΩR 2.0.50, was not only trustworthy beyond any doubt, but also exceptionally gifted in his ability to explain things graphically to Fulcrum. His ability to clearly and concisely elucidate events, to explain people and processes, was so keen that it enabled Fulcrum to easily visualize what was meant and, secondly, keep him reliably informed of what was actually transpiring in the world all around him. As long as this was the case, Fulcrum felt reasonably confident and relaxed, able to simply concentrate on accomplishing the managerial aspects of his job. At the end of the day, that was all he needed to do to keep his boss content.

After all, he rationalized about this in his own mind, Ludwig van Beethoven was hard of hearing. And that was apparently putting it mildly. In all actuality, he recalled learning as a child back in school that old Ludwig was just about as deaf as a doorknob. Nonetheless, the œuvre of music he composed was judged to this day to be nearly divine by many successive generations of music aficionados. Fulcrum wasn’t extremely and deeply savvy about the subject, but he did enjoy listening to a bit of classical music now and then–mostly a bit of Bach or Händel. In a wider sense then, he sometimes mused, Barnz might by extension be viewed as being the conductor at the podium in front of Fulcrum’s own construction site orchestra. As long as he and all of the other workers played their parts well, neither em.Dee1 nor anyone else was ever going to seriously question the competence of the composer.

Barnz was a capable enough fellow, then. He was without question Fulton’s right hand man and he, too, somehow appeared to relish the responsibility that went with this role. Their friendship and their mutual professional life was a combination of unbelievably fortunate circumstances which Fulcrum appreciated fully.

Fulcrum simply believed in Barnz.

And although Fulcrum couldn’t see him at this moment yet, Barnz had already dismounted from the ladder leading to the cab of his bulldozer and stood carefully cleaning the lenses of his sunglasses with a small micro-fleece cloth.

“Barnz! Where are you? Barnz, man! Have you got a moment? I need to talk to you about something!”

“Yo. I’m over here!” came the calm reply from somewhere to Fulcrum’s left.

Little did Fulcrum suspect that Barnz, too, was completely sightless behind the black shades which he wore night and day.

Not long afterward, the two men were standing together, side by side, intently studying and discussing a few of the details of the plans which Fulcrum had unfolded after producing them from the old and worn attaché case that he habitually carried about with him. As Fulcrum stood beside Barnz, inwardly thankful for the chance to stand in the ample shadow of the big blue bulldozer, he pressed the oversize sheet of paper hard against the hot and somewhat grimy side of the machine with both hands. As the two men stood discussing the plans, and despite the overall commotion that still reigned elsewhere on the construction site, Fulcrum thought that he heard the unmistakable sound of someone approaching them.

In truth, it would probably be more accurate to state that he seemed to sense it first.

Without even having to turn his head, and despite the ongoing hustle and bustle of construction activity that raged around them, he quickly and correctly surmised that the footsteps he had heard belonged to someone completely unknown to him–in fact, he knew that they belonged to someone entirely foreign to this site. Judging by the ever so slight irregularities he could detect in the rhythm of the steps as they neared, it was either someone wearing entirely inappropriate footwear or else it was someone perhaps struggling with the unevenness of the ground as he or she pressed forward in their direction.

Or both.

As the steps neared and as he listened a bit closer, he decided that the person approaching them was probably fairly heavy and therefore very likely a man.

Barnz took a step back from the bulldozer and furrowed his brow somewhat, slightly annoyed that they were about to be disturbed while still engrossed in the scrutiny of their plans. He was thinking his way through a few quick calculations when Fulcrum turned his head to face in the general direction that the sound of the footsteps appeared to be coming from.

The very instant Fulcrum turned his head, though, the footsteps ceased. There was, of course, no real cause for this unknown visitor to know or to even suspect that Fulcrum was actually unable to see him on account of his horribly faltering eyesight.

After Fulcrum turned his head and the footsteps had stopped, Barnz, too, halted his calculations and examination of the papers and turned somewhat, with a sigh that revealed only the slightest hint of impatience, to cast a cursory but equally sightless glance over his right shoulder in the direction of the stranger who had approached them, thereby interrupting their consultations.

It would be insufficient to describe it as sightless, however, or even as a cursory glance. Despite the subjective shortcomings of his eyesight, Barnz in reality did not require paltry vision to see something that interested him. Put somewhat differently, Barnz’s full comprehension of circumstances around him was more than adequate to compensate for his lack of mere eyesight.

A short, stocky and very muscular policeman was standing there among the dirt and the weeds, mustering the two of them with a steely gaze as they stood wondering about the reason behind the interruption of their conference alongside the bulldozer. He was dressed in a clean, freshly pressed dark blue uniform that Barnz diplomatically judged would have to had been at least a size too small for his fairly athletic stature. His feet were clad in black low quarter shoes so shiny that even someone as blind as Fulcrum could likely register their gleam. The officer said nothing at first. Instead, he was chewing loudly and obnoxiously on a huge wad of gum as he stood only a few meters distant from the bulldozer and the two men before it. He simply stood there, as mutely as a tree, observing Fulcrum and Barnz without offering any word of introduction, greeting or explanation. After a few more long seconds of awkwardly pointed silence, he began checking and adjusting the fit of a pair of cheap metal-rimmed, mirrored sunglasses that lent him a somewhat deranged look instead of the air of nonchalance he was quite obviously hoping to project.

Barnz said not a word as he stood and waited. The policeman exercised his shoulders two or three times, flexing them back and forth, and then cocked his head a bit rearward. He peered down the length of his substantial tanned nose, peeking beneath the lower chrome rim of the sunglasses to get a good look at the two men opposite him.

Two tiny but distinct bushels of black hair protruded from his nostrils. He had a headful of amply-greased black hair strategically combed to help conceal a spot at the top and rear of his skull where it was perhaps a bit thinner than this fellow likely deemed appropriate. His arms were liberally covered with the same dense black hair, giving him, superficially at least, the appearance of a uniformed gorilla.

The officer wore no hat despite the scorching sun still blazing overhead. After much wordless ado and finally concluding that his glasses were no longer in need of any further adjustment, he planted his hands firmly on his waist. The fingertips of his left hand nearly touched his SlapStick as he loudly cleared his throat and introduced himself.

“Ahrumm!” he half-growled and spit onto the ground next to him. “Good afternoon there, gentlemen. Sergeant PLΔcebo’s my name. L@EPD.”

Fulcrum raised his barren brows until his forehead was covered with wrinkles and flashed a brief, annoyed look toward Barnz.

“What now?” he mumbled under his breath. “What the hell’s this chump want from us?”

Fulcrum frowned slightly and then began carefully and purposefully folding the sheet of paper together again as he then slowly turned to face this visitor. Barnz nodded once curtly to return the policeman’s greeting and began climbing back up the steps of the ladder, still wearing the same slightly annoyed expression on his face. He didn’t know what this distraction was about either, but he already instinctively suspected that, at the very least, it was going to be a thorough waste of everyone’s time. Upon reaching the top of the ladder, he turned and settled into the seat in the cab of his bulldozer.

“I hope my presence here is not keeping you gentlemen from doing your job? Going about your work?” said PLΔcebo in a tone of voice, bordering on sarcasm, which made it perfectly clear that this remark was not to be misinterpreted as a question. It was clearly inconsequential to him whether his appearance here and now was a welcome distraction or not.

“Nah. It’s alright, I guess” replied Fulcrum, trying his best now to extend some fleeting form of courtesy toward this visitor. After taking a few steps forward, he was able to see for himself that the visitor before him was indeed a policeman. He extended his huge hand in greeting.

“Fulcrum’s my name. What can I do for you?”

PLΔcebo in turn took a step toward Fulcrum, shook his hand briefly and resumed his pseudo-field marshall stance, hands on his hips, as he continued to survey the surroundings. Fulcrum was nearly two heads taller as the men stood opposite one another.

“I’m just doing my job, you know. Like, I just need to check every once in a while if everything’s okay down here. At the construction site, I mean. I figure none of my colleagues have been around here in a long while, you know,” said PLΔcebo, looking upward toward Fulcrum. This gave him the appearance of peering down his nose again.

“I mean, you never know. Right?” he continued. “Why, there might be some kinda illegal non-integrated aliens hanging around here or some other trash like that.”

He glanced upward at Barnz as he said this.

Neither Barnz nor Fulcrum could recall having ever seen this screwball here or at any other construction site they had ever worked at. Nor had they, however, ever consciously noted the presence of any aliens–neither illegal, integrated, intergalactic nor otherwise–for which he seemed to harbor a keen interest.

The officer continued to survey his surroundings wordlessly for a while, still standing as though his hands were welded to his belt.

“Unbelievable. Aliens that he’s looking for!” an amused Barnz half chuckled under his breath and began laughing softly to himself. “I sure don’t recall seeing any flying saucers full of day-laborers landing out here, that’s a fact!”

Then, with a grin, he hit the switch to restart the bulldozer.

PLΔcebo went rigid instantly. Even though Barnz had not channeled his amusement over the officer’s presence toward anyone in particular, the policeman had nonetheless overheard his remark and immediately perceived Barnz’s remarks to be a brazen attempt to usurp the authority invested in him by the state. His head veered quickly around in the direction of the Bulldozer.

He fumed as he pointed his left index finger directly at Barnz.

“Yo, chump! That’s not what I meant by ...”

But PLΔcebo’s voice was instantly drowned out by the sound of Barnz cranking up the massive engine of the machine. The bulldozer immediately began spewing a dark cloud of sinister blue-black smoke as it restarted. Fulcrum and PLΔcebo were very briefly enveloped in the blur and stench of diesel fumes.

“Everything’s alright out here, officer,” Fulcrum did his best to reassure him over the growing din of the bulldozer’s engine and began attempting to coax him into leaving. PLΔcebo’s presence here was an annoyance and a huge distraction for Fulcrum. “Everything’s just fine around here. Folks here are all just doing what they have to, just doing their jobs. And I’m happy to report that there are no aliens, either.”

Barnz engaged the gears and gradually began to edge the bulldozer forward, moving slowly away from the spot where Fulcrum and PLΔcebo still stood opposite each other in what suddenly looked like some sort of makeshift face-off.

The roar of the bulldozer’s engine was deafening at such close quarters. As he stood, still pointing at the cab of the bulldozer with his left hand, the fingers of his right hand twitched nervously even though the hand itself still appeared to be sewn to his hips. Fulcrum saw PLΔcebo’s face spontaneously turn a disturbing shade of purple, lending him the resemblance of a severely infuriated concord grape. He was absolutely livid as he bounded up to Fulcrum, standing somewhat askance of the bulldozer as it slowly edged away. The tips of their noses were nearly touching.

“At least I can see him clearly this way,” Fulcrum thought.

“Hey!” roared PLΔcebo, saliva spraying wildly as he barked at Fulcrum, pointing upwards over Fulcrum’s shoulder and toward Barnz, who was seated high above them in the cab of the earthmover and slowly beginning to move away.

“That there brother up there sounds pretty damn snide if you ask me. You ain’t gonna tell me that you folks always put up with that kinda blatant disrespect around here?”

“Look, officer. Don’t worry about us. We’re all just doing our ...” Fulcrum’s words were rudely interrupted as the policeman suddenly shoved him aside and began racing toward the bulldozer. With one very athletic bound, PLΔcebo leaped onto the bottom step of the ladder leading up to its cab, seized the handrail and started to haul himself up with both hands.

Barnz immediately slammed on the brake and stopped the bulldozer upon seeing the policeman come up across the top of the access ladder.

“Shut this sucker down immediately!” PLΔcebo roared at Barnz, banging the palm of his open hand furiously against the side window of the cab to dramatically emphasize his demand.

Although he was now plainly irked by the unwelcome interruption, and even more so by the person to whom it was attributable, Barnz dutifully complied without saying another word. Instead, he continued to sit attentively in the driver’s seat, not removing his hands from the control levers nor taking his eyes off of PLΔcebo as the engine sputtered to a halt and the noise quickly died down.

Fulcrum moved quickly to defuse what he correctly sensed was about to escalate into a very troublesome situation. He quickly stepped up to the base of the ladder and addressed PLΔcebo in a booming voice.

“Listen, Officer! I’m your point of contact for any questions or issues that you may have. As it stands right now, you’re keeping this man from his work,” he declared in a firm voice as he stood at the bottom of the ladder. “This is a construction site and, like you, we have our work to do.”

“Screw you!” PLΔcebo barked back in response as he attempted to redirect his attention toward Barnz.

Fulcrum was adamant, however.

“Sir, is there anything specifically wrong? If you haven’t got a satisfactory explanation for me regarding what you might be doing up there, then I demand that you get off of that piece of equipment immediately! You’re endangering yourself and others.”

PLΔcebo glared hatefully downward at Fulcrum but said nothing.

“It’s in the interest of your own safety. And another thing: as a visitor to this site, you should certainly be aware that you’re required to sign in at the front entrance. That’s the regulations. And, having done that, you would then be aware that the rules of access clearly state that you’re obliged to wear a hard hat for the duration of your visit and at all locations. Those are the rules, sir, and they apply to you as well!”

PLΔcebo acted outwardly as though he were trying to ignore Fulcrum, glaring irately at Barnz through the open side door of the bulldozer’s cab. It was clear to Barnz that the officer continued to hover on the verge of some devastating eruption but that he obviously hadn’t expected to be suddenly commanded around, unsure how to react to Fulcrum’s very concise demands and the authoritative tone in which he continued to rattle them off at him. PLΔcebo was still hanging on the ladder that led up the side of the bulldozer, his knuckles gleaming white because he was gripping the handrails so tightly. He was banging his right heel on one of the lower rungs of it in a slow beat, ominously as though he were contemplating racing a horde of raging bulls through the narrow streets and alleyways of Pamplona in his high-gloss shoes. Hanging as though he were levitating halfway between heaven and hell, he suddenly regarded the huge CRΞΔTΩR 2.0.50 lettering on the cab for a moment.

His face then took on a contorted expression of visible contempt.

It was quite clear to Barnz that the officer apparently still had a substantial bone to pick with him. But it was also obvious that PLΔcebo seemed to be relenting, perhaps unwilling to risk any kind of extended confrontation with Fulcrum at this time.

PLΔcebo finally backed off and slowly began his descent, easing his iron grip on the side rails of the ladder as he took the first step downward.

“Creator, my ass!” he hissed between his teeth at Barnz.

Barnz remained completely unfazed by the policeman’s outburst and responded with an exaggerated air of politeness: “But that’s exactly what we do with it, Sir! It clears the way for something new. We go forth and we create with this tool.”

“Listen: you’re a goddamn screwball,” PLΔcebo snarled at Barnz in response. “Only one who does the creating around here is our beloved Lord. God is the Creator. Not some goddamn bulldozer. Remember that!”

Barnz shrugged his shoulders in response. He folded his arms before his chest and began stroking his chin thoughtfully for a second or two.

He then leaned out the cab of the bulldozer and looked down the ladder toward PLΔcebo to respond.

“You know, sir,” he said with a charming expression spreading across his face, “I have in the past.time been taught to accept that the Lord often works in some very mysterious ways. And I’d been told that we might even sometimes expect to find Him in the most unlikely places.”

“Bullshit!” sneered PLΔcebo as he paused mid-way down the ladder, looking up and pointing his finger accusingly at Barnz. “You sure as hell ain’t gonna find God on a goddamn construction site out here in the middle of all this dirt and weeds! Ya gotta go to church and all!”

“I would be very disappointed if that were true. I mean, how can you be so dead certain of that?” inquired Barnz in the most benign voice he could muster. “I thought that God was always with us, regardless of where we are or what we happen to be doing.”

“It’s easy, chump! I know because He’s just like me,” answered PLΔcebo, who appeared to be regaining some of his air of bravour with every step as he resumed his slow retreat down the ladder again. “Because, well, like it’s said, I’m made in His image, you know.”

“Wait a minute, what about everybody else? What about me, then?” Barnz wanted to know, leaning precariously out the side of the cab and now looking nearly vertically down the ladder at PLΔcebo as the latter resumed his descent to the ground.

“Hell, no! You must be goddamn nuts!” PLΔcebo responded as he hopped off the bottom rung of the bulldozer’s access ladder and onto the ground. Tiny clouds of dirt puffed up around, and settled onto, his mirror-gloss shoes as he landed. He looked up at Barnz with a scowling look.

“I mean, just look at yourself critically one time. No way. Geez, not you! Just ain’t logical, you know? I mean, I’m sorry that you’re making me have to say it so clearly, but listen: you’re black, dammit.”

“So what’s that got to do with it?” Barnz asked coyly.

PLΔcebo turned and made a beeline for the main gate, leaving the site without trading another word with either Fulcrum or Barnz.

Once he was outside the front entrance to the construction site, PLΔcebo was still seething inside as he began furiously tapping data into a MindφSet that he had pulled from his pocket.

“Barnz,” he mumbled to himself. His fingers flew across the keypad as he typed. “Thelonious. Damn, just look at that crap.scheiss–rhymes with felonious! Whoa …”

He paused a brief instant before continuing with his data entry.

“Naw. It’s gotta be Bulldozer. Bulldozer Barnz ...”