Finkle, Out of Sorts - Chapter 1
Commander Blake Armstrong of the Imperial Star Navy stared defiantly at the holoprojector. The dread space pirate Jack Spade dictated terms of surrender as the valiant spaceman clenched his square jaw and narrowed his icy blue eyes, his ebon locks billowing gently in the recirculated air of the Jovian class star destroyer. The bridge crew held its collective breath; Spade sneered, “lower your ion shields and prepare to be boarded, Armstrong!”
The Commander - hero of the Arcturan War, slayer of the Sirian space squid, and savior of the Orion nebula - punched the comm panel, silencing the dread pirate. He turned to his loyal helmsman, Lieutenant Alan Finkle, and barked, “ramming speed.”
Finkle’s eyes were locked on Armstrong but he failed to move.
“Finkle. Finkle!”
“Finkle! Jesus, man. Stop daydreaming. The client’s here.”
Alan broke out of his reverie with a deep sigh, “Sorry, Blake. I had a late night.” It had been weeks since he’d been up past even 10pm but knew the lie would deflect Blake’s attention back on himself.
“Me too, brother. Me and Smitty closed down the Tiger’s Den and took a couple dancers back to the Blakecave for a private par-tay. Those chicks were fuckin’ sick - you know what I’m talking about - and I’m running on Red Bull and Five Aitch Eee this morning. As soon as we get through this meeting I’m crashing.”
The meeting went according to script. Alan smiled and nodded at the right moments while Blake spun faerie thread and when the client had technical questions, Alan fielded them quickly and concisely. Two years ago most of their business consisted of building B2B and B2C ecommerce sites but this year everyone had caught the social disease. Each meeting ran the same:
“We’d like to be more Web2.0, you know?”
“It’s important we really interact with our customers and engage in a two-way conversation.”
“We want to leverage social sites like Facebook and MySpace.”
“My daughter and her friends use this Tweeter a lot. Are you familiar with that?”
The clients would sign on, Blake would see to that. They’d pay for Blake Armstrong, Designer (®, ™, all rights reserved) and get one of the kids from the bullpen while Alan would manage the project and code the minimal infrastructure needed to tie the pretty pages together usefully. It took so little of his time and energy but so much of his soul. Each website the same as the last, different only skin deep.
It was Thursday, which meant dinner at Pho Ha where the pretty waitress had his ca phe sua da ready for him before he even sat down. She handed him a menu and made a show of waiting for him to look it over. Alan played along with their little ritual and asked if the catfish was fresh.
“Oh yes, it’s very fresh.”
“And the green curry chicken? Is that good?”
“Very spicy. Do you like spicy?” she asked suggestively. Alan failed to heed her suggestion.
“I do, I do. But you know what, I’ve got a craving for some soup. How’s your house pho?”
She giggled like a schoolgirl, her tiny fist clenched in front of her mouth, and skipped back to the kitchen to get his soup. Like she did every week. Alan watched her go and felt a slight flush burn across his cheeks before he retreated into his thoughts. Like he did every week.
Armstrong’s eyes burned into Alan’s flesh with white hot heat. “You’ve got your orders, mister.”
“But it’s suicide, sir.”
“Are you refusing a direct order, Finkle?”
“No sir.”
“Good. Set course for Spade’s ship. Ensign Truong?” Alan set in the coordinates on the keypad as the Commander turned to his sultry weapons officer. She whipped her head, causing her hair to flow like a mane. “Target our current position with the aft plasma cannons and lasers. Fire everything you’ve got as soon as we close to 10 klicks.”
Alan saw the Commander’s brilliant strategy forming. He was going to execute the Rigel gambit. But it had never been tried at this speed…
“Mister Finkle?”
Alan opened his eyes and nodded to the receptionist. He stood and glanced at his wrist. 6:50 on the button. He could set his watch by Doctor Keller’s appointment book. He gathered up his messenger bag and umbrella and shuffled by the girl - he never could remember her name - already back to tapping out an urgent telegraph to the western front on her keyboard. He hesitated with his hand hovering over the knob for just a second, then pushed through the inner door with a sigh.
After an uncomfortably long time, the metronome tick of an old clock the only sound, the doctor asked, “And how was your week, Alan?” The same rhetorical trick, every week. She always opened the conversation the same way, pouncing on him out of the extended silence with that misplaced conjunction. Alan tried to brace for it each week and each week it left him unnerved. As usual she took note of that.
“Fine. The usual.”
“Still daydreaming about being second fiddle?”
