From: mike@if.com (Mr.H)
Subject: More on Denver...
Date: 17 Jul 1995 21:06:54 GMT

This is a continuation of an earlier piece that began what I hope
will be an ongoing plot line based in Denver.  It was inspired by
an ongoing dialogue I've been having with Pygmy Boy (my hat is off),
and I hop you enjoy it.  I would be most interested in all criticism
and commentary, as always...

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   Morning came hard.  Monday.  Ferrel rolled over and stared at his slate, the
clock showed four-fifteen.  Pulling himself up off his pallet, the room seemed
to slide in a slow, clockwise circle with Ferrel nearly at the center of
rotation.  Too much liquor and too little sleep... but a job is a job, and
Monday means work.  The old church had a few showers down in an old dormitory
section, a couple of them still worked, too.  Ferrel grabbed his clothes and
stumbled his way downstairs.
   As he came to the ground floor, the smell of stale beer and aging pizza
attested to the revelry of the night before.  Keri'd be pissed when she got up,
be Ferrel knew that if he stopped to help clean up he'd miss his bus.  He made
his way across the room and into the wing that held the dorms.  Some of the
rooms were occupied, other uninhabitable.  Somewhere upstairs an insistent
thumping with accompanying moans  meant that somebody was either getting lucky
or about to pass a bowling ball.  Deciding not to satisfy his curiosity, Ferrel
pushed on to the bathroom.
   The water was cold, more startling than refreshing.  After a few brief
moments under the painfully chill water, Ferrel called it even and stepped out
of the shower.  Quickly as possible, he dressed for work - a simple set of
coveralls and a hat - and he headed for the bus stop.

   The bus came dead on time, preceded by a smell of ozone and the distinctive
crackling that accompanies the connection of bus to grid.  The bus was a single
size... not enough people work at five a.m. to justify sending anything bigger.
It was painted the day-glo green of fire engines and the driver was, as always,
isolated behind a dark green bullet-proof shield.  Ferrel slipped his bus pass
under the laser scanner and was rewarded with a discordant beep and the glass
protecting the interior of the bus buzzed to let him in.  Stepping through the
doorway, Ferrel imagined the sensor array scanning for hints of plastic
explosive and the distinctive chemical signature of hundreds of other
potentially deadly cargo.  The re-enforced glass blade slipped in his hip
pocket always made it through... no alarms, no foul.
   Despite the ever-present scans for spray paint traces, graffiti lined the
interior of the bus.  Most of it was scratched or burned into the walls... here
a mark from the NSH, pronouncing the oncoming death of a rival in the Five
Points Cryps, there a counter mark relating the retaliation for the drive-by.
An old story, but lots of new scrawls as the two gangs warred over control of
the streets north of downtown.
   In the back corner of the bus a group of priests, Brothers of the New World
or Worlders, had a two dollar drunk surrounded and were either trying to save
his soul or take his wallet.  One rule you should never forget, don't ride RTD
if you're too fucked up to take care of yourself.  If the cops don't bust you
for vagrancy, you're likely to get rolled by any of half a dozen major gangs,
the Worlders included.  Being as he didn't know the drunk, and to hell with the
general public, Ferrel took a seat near the front of the bus.  Across the aisle
and overhead, a slim-line video screen showed continuous adds for cigarettes
and the newest porn.  Fortunately, the driver had had enough complaints about
the sound to have turned it down to a dull roar and Ferrel was able to settle
in for a cat nap on the way.
   The bus rolled out a few minutes later, having passed three others through
and into it's confines.  A fourth had tried, but he smelled strongly of powder
and the buses simplistic AI had vetoed his entry at the second door of the
lock.  Picking up speed, the bus entered the I-25 corridor and headed south.
In private traffic, the trip to Colorado Springs would take about an hour.
However, commuter busses were fast-tracked and could get you there in about
half that time.  Within a few minutes southern Denver proper swept past the bus
and the sixty mile strip of businesses and burbs leading to the Springs
beckoned.

   The bus drops off about half a mile from work, and Ferrel walks the rest.
Usually it's a blessing... the walk is a time for waking up and getting your
bearings.  Perhaps, Ferrel thinks, a time for a little transcendental
exploration.  Occasionally, when a tanker overturns on the highway above his
walking route or some nut with a head full of crank and a deer rifle decides
it's target time, the walk is a pain in the ass.  Every Monday, by definition,
is a pain in the ass.
   The walk in to work ends at a twelve foot gate set into a steel re-enforced
concrete wall.  Along it's top, the wall is covered in electrified barb... two
hundred twenty volts being pumped with enough amperage to fry most anything.
The top of the fence hums ominously at all hours, day and night.  On one side
of the gate is a live security guard ensconced in steel and armed to the teeth.
It's his job to check ID and make certain that nothing other than you and your
coveralls go past the gate.  He's good at it.
   Disarmed and wearing a certified-employee ID, Ferrel passes through the
inner door into the shipping compound.  One whole end of the compound is open
to airport taxi traffic, supervised by two squat guard towers and a host of
rambling security.  The other end of the compound holds truck bays and a motor
pool.  From there, delivery vehicles travel to points both within and without
the Denver Protection Zone.  Those that leave the DPZ are always bracketed by
well armored escorts, usually converted vans sporting fifty cals and or
batteries of light armor piercing rockets.  The yard was full of escorts, all
gassed and waiting for shipments.
   'Figures,' thought Ferrel, 'Monday and there's got to be some mass shipment
being sent all over hell and back.  Gonna be a bitch of a day.'

   Ferrel works on the sorting line.  What that means is ten hours of
continuous feed boxes coming at you down a conveyor belt.  You hit the box with
a hand scanner.  With any luck, the OCR software in the scanner can make out
the address and it spews out a label.  You attach the label and shove the
package in to one of about fifty chutes behind you.  Problem is, half the
people who send stuff package-wise, cannot write a single word distinguishable
by the reader.  When that happens, you get to try to puzzle it out yourself,
punch it in to a small terminal by your belt and watch the boxes pile up while
you guess whether it says 'Denver' or 'Dover.'

   When the man says go, you go.  The time clock on the wall said five fifty
three, but the foreman said move.  So Ferrel moved.  He got the job because he
showed a higher than average capability to read, well above a fifth grade
level.  As a result, they'd put him on a line which services goods from Free
Mexico and several franchulates run by naturalized Taiwanese businessmen.  In
short, they made him deal with the shit that was near to impossible to read.
   Within the first half hour, it was clear that it was going to be an even
longer day than Monday usually implies.  There was about fifteen tons of sample
speed being shipped to dealers and vendors all across the front range, most of
it seemed to be passing right under Ferrel's nose.  Problem was, all that speed
was going somewhere pre-paid, and the shippers had paid for active tracking on
the entire shipment.  That meant no B and E on the baggage, which meant no free
taste for the staff.
   A sign, handwritten, was pasted to a support column near Ferrel's conveyor.
It read, 'Welcome to hell.  Tickets Please.'  'I got your ticket,' Ferrel
thought, 'fucking free sample hell!  No, calm... be calm... flowing water and
bending reeds.  Bastards.'

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-- Mr.H - mike@mrhappy.if.com                                    --
-- All opinions expressed herein are my own... right?            --
-- "Things are more like they are now than they have ever been." --
--    - Gerald Ford                                              --
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