Knightly News

Folks, if any of you know how to use this, copy it, store it somewhere, and bless you.

I phoned NBS. They weren't interested. I phoned the Examiner and the Trib. That started to feel a little spooky, like ECorp had gotten there. But I don't mean to live inside my delusions; I decided to make a personal appearance, to show someone the documents. I decided to peddle across to The Daily Planet.

I took an old bookbag, laid the manuscript into with and lashed it across the top of my bikeframe to keep the straps from creasing my jacket, then ferreted up Alameda, across Slauson and Olympic through the weekday traffic until I came out on Second and Fairfax. I locked the bike to a cable that slanted from a phone pole, went into a john at the Farmer's Market, straightened my tie and waited for my sweat to dry and the color from my ride to leave my face before I marched across into the front office.

Maybe I need a mask or something. The mild-mannered guy behind the counter waved me off immediately.

"These are documents related to the operation of a nuclear plant."

"What happened?"

"What?"

"Which plant? Is anything happening?"

Where? Why wouldn't something be happening? I stammer.

"OK." Over his shoulder: "Do we have any reports?" A coworker's palms go up, out.

"I doubt you would have received any," I start. "That's why I came." He looks tired; I continue: "The structure of the plant--"

"No. Hang on. No, we don't need that. I appreciate your thinking of the Planet, but -"

"Wait, in the steamgens of these --"

"Is this recent?"

"Well, it's continuous, yes."

"No one has received any kind of a warning. Did anybody die? Do you know names or places? Is anybody hurt?"

"People --"

"No, nothing about nuclear plants -- look it splits open, it goes boom, the President says it will eat my grandchildren, sure. You got that, spit it. Go. Fight with me. But-- "

"Given the size of the nuclear power industry across --"

"No. Truly, no. Now look, I'm not unsympathetic. There's no use for this. You're wasting your -- I don't know, whatever you do with your time."

Why do I think that you meant you-all? I don't move. He gambles that a couple paragraphs will get rid of me, screws himself up to it.

"I printed stories about the plant -- ECorp's plant; that's who you're talking about, right? A leak here, and infraction there -- bam, there it is: big headlines, front page. Nobody reads it. Next one goes page eight, then sixteen.

"No: I pay for copy, pay for paper, pay someone to carry that paper around. Hey, I pay to advertise the paper -- so I actually pay people to read it, though they wouldn't know. Still nobody reads about leaks. Understand?

"You want me to put something in the paper that no one wants to read, that's called an ad. I got nothing against ads; I don't think anyone will read it. You want to pay me, open up an ad, say you stole that from ECorp? I don't think so.

And if that's really what that is, that wad of papers, you might want to put it somewhere and not go walking around with it."

------------->

Did it!

Foom! Fired!

Released, anyway. It's all the same thing.

Bill and Terry's supervisor, a little Hispanic woman, slipped over very quietly and told me I need not return. I tried to catch my breath and torture my smile to make it polite.

Fired!

Terry Lynn looked pleased. Were it not for keeping my head down to look despondent, I'd have blown her a kiss.

My deskmates passed around email addresses - Earl's idea, and it surprised me - the first time we'd done so, at least that I've noticed. I considered forgery, but why would LISA need my email to follow me? I wrote it out well and firmly a half-dozen times.

johnhenryhancock@shootme.org

My batch was done by three-thirty. With no chance of photocopying anything, the work felt light. I took a special luxury in having it before me and dawdled til 4:45.

As I walked out to the bike, Earl asked for the phone number as well. "We may all need connection soon," he said, though I think he appreciated that job hunting was furthest from my mind.

Free.

And I didn't get caught -- which I suppose amounts to one and the same thing. I go. I call a news service. I let them hash this stuff together. Au revoir et adieu.

Streams

Who are we?

I pedalled home through Little Shanghai today and stopped at the market that steams of fish and leeks. I always peddle out into traffic on the wet street because they hose the sidewalk down outside the store. Today I got down and walked with everyone over the wet concrete past the news stands and between the aisles to smell the aging vegetables, the pickles, and the spice.

If I lived on the field I worked and flooded it, if I ate the produce of that field and drank the irrigation, what difference would remain between the swamps out and inside?

Pressure Release

I've held onto a document batch too long, but it's about the pressure release system. The pieces come together over weeks. Sadly.

1. ZzTech hires workers on the beach north of Castillo Republica as jumpers.

2. Jumpers have radiation badges, the last of which go off after an average of 45 minutes of work.

3. When the badges go off, that means the workers have been exposed to the maximum amount of radiation considered safe in one lifetime.

4. The fulltime workers complain loud and long that Zappo-Tech workers so much equipment that catwalks and passages become unpassable.

5. ZzTech workers wash the Pressure Chamber.

6. The Pressure Chamber is a safety device that relieves the pressure from primary and secondary parts -- from the core and the steam generator.

7. Robotic devices clean the pressure chamber as well as possible before the jumpers enter.

8. When the pressure chamber the pressure is blown out into the atmosphere.

I could take this and leave. Would there were a way to leave without tendering a resignation, just disappear. I could say I'm sick, having recently passed out. But no, people know more than they say -- they leer because they assume there's some emotional basis, because deathrattles itch of the familiar. The number of people over the years who have told me they wished they could seize, that it looks like a wonderful release or discharge.

Release. Release from?

Discharge. I'll leave that.

Passage II

Still can't figure just what in the conversation made me pass out last week. If the abuse stories got to me, I may be better off. But the last thing said could as easily have had to do with the plant.

"Oh, they'll fire him," Terry Lynn tells William as I walk by, "It takes a while when they do that, but they always get them." She could mean anyone. She dislikes me, but I doubt that makes me unique.

Moneypenney called at work today, and I told her everything was fine, of course. She started off in French, and I felt flattered even though she initially threw me and wound up apologising profusely for her supposed accent. I had to go to Bettina's desk to take the call, but what can I do? I think about her when I visit the ducks.

"Cheers, Bettina; have another ficus."

Once upon a time, Bettina, the Sátanas must have been a real creek, though it must have dried sometimes without the treated water coming out of the pipe -- meandering flat on the flattish sand, a line of trees between the sparser bush.

The story will wait.

If I leave, will they keep Edna on? Maybe I should just give Edna some money and know she's moved out.