Part 6 (2/2)
”Oh,” Mouse said. ”It. . . it's broken.”
”I see,” said Julie. ”I guess that would explain why you're fixing it, huh? But how is it broken?”
”I. . . don't really know yet. I just started on it.”
”Uh-huh,” Julie said. She glanced inside the PC's open case. ”So tell me something, Mouse: do you always pull the power supply out of a computer before you know what's wrong with it?”
”Tell me something, you nosy c.u.n.t,” Maledicta snapped. ”Do you always f.u.c.king interrogate people when they've got work to do?”
”The power supply,” Mouse stammered. ”The power supply is. . . it's part of the problem, but I had to take it out to, to see what else is wrong. So it's still, I'm not really sure yet. . .” She paused, noticing how the color had drained from Julie's face. ”Is something the matter?”
Rudy came back up the stairs, lugging a cardboard box with U.S. ARMY SURPLUS stenciled on its side. ”Here,” he said, thrusting the box at Julie. She moved quickly to take it from him.
”Thanks, Rudy. I really appreciate this. . .”
”Yeah, yeah. . . you two introduce yourselves?” Rudy asked, with a nod to Mouse.
”Uh, yeah,” Julie said. ”We were just getting acquainted. . . Mouse says you keep her pretty busy.”
Rudy chuckled. ”She keeps herself pretty busy. Hardest worker I ever hired.”
”Really. . . Does she just do hardware, or can she debug code, too?”
”Why?”
”No reason. Just curious. . .”
”Don't get any ideas,” Rudy warned. ”I have a hard enough time replacing mediocre a.s.sistants.”
”Ideas?” Julie beamed an innocent smile at him; but Rudy, past flirting now, answered her with a scowl. ”All right,” he said, ”I think it's time you and your not-stolen property hit the road.”
”On my way,” said Julie. ”See you around, Mouse. . .” She walked out, and Rudy followed her, pulling the door shut behind him. Mouse turned up the radio and got back to work.
The rest of the afternoon pa.s.sed in no time.
Mouse didn't go home after work that day; instead, as instructed by her list, she went over to the Elliott Bay Book Company. She found an empty table in the bookstore's bas.e.m.e.nt cafe and got a cup of Earl Grey tea. While the teabag steeped, she set up a laptop computer on the table. The laptop had been in Mouse's possession for some time, though she couldn't have said exactly how long, or where it had come from in the first place. But she didn't worry about that now -- just switched it on and started up Microsoft Word.
As the program was loading, Mouse glanced at the clock on the cafe wall; it was 6:25. The next time she looked up, the clock read 7:13, and Julie Sivik was standing beside her again.
”-- anybody home?” Julie pa.s.sed a hand in front of Mouse's eyes. ”Mouse?”
Mouse reached out hurriedly to fold down the laptop's screen. She got a brief glimpse of the file she'd been working on -- the t.i.tle bar said ”Thread.doc” -- before it dropped out of view. Only after the laptop's latch clicked did she look directly at Julie.
”h.e.l.lo,” Mouse said.
”h.e.l.lo,” said Julie, eyeing the laptop. ”I'm interrupting again, aren't I?”
Mouse didn't answer, just stared, waiting for Julie to state her business. After a moment, Julie said: ”Well listen, first off, I wanted to apologize for being so nosy today at the shop. . .”
”Nosy?”
”Yeah. . . you seemed kind of upset by my questions.”
Mouse shook her head. She remembered being uncomfortable, but not upset.
”Well,” said Julie. ”Well anyway, I did want to apologize, and also --”
”How did you find me here?”
”My car broke down,” Julie explained. ”Triple A's got it at a garage right now, a few blocks from here. Supposed to be ready by eight o'clock. I came in here to kill some time; finding you was just good luck.” She smiled.
”Anyway,” Julie continued, ”I really don't want to be a pest, but seeing as I have run into you, I'm still wondering about that last question I asked at Rudy's.”
”About the power supply?” Mouse chewed her lip nervously; though she knew she'd finished repairing the broken PC sometime after Julie's visit -- the machine's owner had picked it up just before closing -- she still had no idea what had been wrong with it.
”Power supply. . . ?” Julie said, then shook her head. ”No. No, not that. The question I asked Rudy, about whether you did any work debugging code.” To Mouse's blank stare: ”You know, code?
Software code?”
”Oh,” said Mouse. ”I --”
”See, here's the thing,” Julie said. She reached for Mouse's laptop; Mouse started to protest, but Julie was only moving it aside, making room on the table for a laptop of her own. She grabbed a chair and sat down, sliding in so close that her knee and Mouse's were touching. ”The thing is,” Julie continued, ”I've got this software company, and we've been working on this virtual-reality project for a couple years now. And my lead programmer, Dennis, he's a really sharp guy, but lately he's just not getting things done fast enough. So the past few months I've been thinking about bringing in somebody new, to sort of light a fire under Dennis's a.s.s.”
Julie tapped on her laptop's keyboard, opening a window on the screen that filled with a scroll of letters, numbers, and symbols. Software code, Mouse guessed, though it might as well have been Chinese. ”This is part of the source code for one of our program modules,” Julie explained. ”Or rather, it was part of the source code -- this version of the software turned out to have a bug in it. Nothing complicated; it only took Dennis a few minutes to track down and fix, once he got around to it. But I kept this copy of the original code to use as a sort of test for potential employees. . .” She looked expectantly at Mouse.
Mouse shook her head. She opened her mouth, intending to say that she was sorry if she had somehow given Julie the wrong impression, but she wasn't looking for a second job, and besides -- Her chair slid back abruptly from the table. Julie didn't seem to notice: she was leaning forward now, studying the laptop's screen.
”Huh,” Julie said, rubbing her chin. ”I don't think this is the same fix Dennis came up with. . .” She dug through a sheaf of papers that lay on the table, pulling out one page and comparing it with what was on the screen. ”No, it isn't the same.” She extracted a second page from the pile. ”s.h.i.+t. . . I think your solution might be better. . . It's simpler, anyway. . .” Julie put the pages back down, and turned to Mouse with a look of new respect. ”So how happy are you, working for Rudy?”
Mouse shrugged, not sure how to answer that question. She worked for Rudy so she could pay her bills, and because it was on the list; what did being happy have to do with it?
”It can't be a very interesting job,” Julie suggested. ”Sitting in that back room all day, replacing bad circuit cards. . .”
”I don't mind it.”
”You should let me tell you more about my company,” Julie said. She waved a hand at Mouse's empty cup. ”Why don't I get you some more tea, and we'll chat?”
”I don't really like tea,” said Mouse.
”Oh- kay. . . something else to drink, then? A beer, maybe, or a gla.s.s of wine?”
”Wine,” said Mouse. ”Some red wine would be OK.”
-- and she was home, in her apartment kitchen, the clock above the stove reading 11:55. She had a bad headache and she was starving. After a quick stop at the refrigerator -- she found a slab of turkey roast and a brick of cheddar cheese and devoured them both standing up, chasing them with half a carton of milk -- Mouse staggered into bed, too tired even to check her list to make sure she'd completed all her ch.o.r.es.
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