The Grand Pivot
A.D. Corps Chapter 1
“I seriously can’t find them.” Douglas upended a box, spewing papers and notebooks across the table top. “This is bad. Anton! This is bad.”
Anton had a sandwich in each hand. He looked around as if trying to see who was talking, though Douglas was less than two meters away. He did this because he liked to agitate people who were already pretty agitated. Unfortunately for Anton, his business partner was painfully familiar with this practice.
Fortunately for Douglas, he was painfully familiar with this practice. He threw the empty box at Anton, who didn’t want to risk dropping the food, and so accepted the box with his face, stoically.
“Hey man. This is our lunch,” said Anton, his nose and forehead turning red from the impact. “I’m sure your whatever will turn up.” He held out one of the sandwiches to Douglas. Then he glanced at it, and quickly held out the other one instead. This was just for his own amusement as well, for both sandwiches were indistinguishable from each other; they were both bread-heel sandwiches.
AND NOW FOR SOME BACKSTORY
Anton considered himself to be pretty good at reading people. Whether or not that was actually true, he and Douglas had been working together for eighteen months, and by now he could tell early on when it was time to get some food going before people started flipping out from low blood sugar.
On this day, however, he had been pretty jazzed about reading a news article on his Electroslate (registered trademark), and had missed a bunch of the early signs. For Doug, the early signs were: when he took off his glasses and set them down carefully on his desk, or when he started rummaging through the junk they had laying about while muttering, or when he said, “I’ve lost such-and-such and we are going to be blah-blah without et cetera.” By the time Anton had gotten through enough of the article, such that he was at the part where the author was just padding that shit out with a bunch of redundant nonsense and lame quotes nobody cares about, he realized that Doug was about to go critical.
Snapping into action, Anton strolled over to the kitchenette, being careful to keep the atmosphere calm by totally ignoring whatever Doug was going on about, and furthermore, yawning, stretching, and cleaning between his teeth with his pinky finger. When he got to the cupboards, he could tell from the murderous stillness in the room that his method was totally working. It was that spooky quiet that happens when someone is exasperated beyond measure at your willful indifference, and is trying to strangle you just by staring.
Welp, it looked like nobody had bought any food for a while, and the cupboards contained naught but part of a loaf of bread, and an open bottle of ranch dressing that was clearly meant to be refrigerated. The refrigerator wasn’t working, though, so it made sense that the dressing would be in the cupboard.
There was nothing for it, at any rate, and Anton had to make bread-heel sandwiches for lunch.
RECIPE FOR BREAD-HEEL SANDWICHES
Place each heel in between two regular slices. Serve with dignity.
Total prep time: 30 seconds. Feeds two.
AS WE WERE
“Is that a bread-heel sandwich?” asked Doug.
“Is there any mustard?” Doug pressed him.
“We have some ranch, but I didn’t use it because of health reasons.”
“Is there any coffee left?” Man, it was non-stop questions today.
“In fact, there is! And, AND… It’s fresh as of yesterday.” That was pretty fresh, these days. Even Doug, who liked his coffee extra-fresh (meaning it was brewed within the past ten hours), would have to admit that old coffee is better than no coffee. There are some obvious limits to that statement, but this was not the time to consider them. Anton had to get Doug back on the carbs before things got out of hand.
Finally, Douglas walked over and accepted the offer. The coffee was in a paper cup part way across the room, and Anton made a mental note to try to drink it before Doug saw it over there. Then he remembered that he had already drank it while reading that article, and that made him a liar. One thing he never wanted to be thought of, was a liar.
“Doug, I have some bad news,” he began.
“No, I have some bad news, my friend.” Doug interrupted, “Those particular notes…” He didn’t finish that sentence, due to mastication, so Anton took advantage of the pause, and cut in.
“I think I was mistaken about there being any coff— hold on, are we missing THOSE notes?”
Doug nodded, still chewing. That’s what mastication is. Chewing food.
Anton had to sit down. He sat on the box that Doug had thrown, crushing it. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t even hungry any more. Part of that was because he had just spotted a bit of mold on the bread, but mostly it was due to the fact that they were royally fucked. Especially so, if Doug’s notes ended up stolen or leaked.
“Okay. All right.” Anton tried to gather his bearings, “It was your blue, spiral-bound, pocket-size, with the white lettering on it. The one that makes a good coaster. Yep, I can picture it, on the bar, with my beer… uh, holding it down… so it wouldn’t blow away…”
Doug had a scary blank look on his face.
“And, uh… right now I’m picturing it still being there, and us… yes, okay, so we’re leaving and it’s still on the bar. Right, so there you have it.”
“That was two nights ago.” Doug deflated a bit, went back to his workspace and put his glasses on. He took a deep breath. “We have to go back there and see if the bar has it.”
THE BAR DIDN’T HAVE IT
On the drive back, things were pretty tense.
Anton spoke first, “Doug, I was thinking. There are two sides to this. Wait, let me finish!… All right, so, most likely, someone found that notebook that we left behind. And it’s also likely that it was taken by one of our competitors, due to us getting drunk and boasting at them.”
“Sorry about that,” Doug said, dejected. “I really thought it was a killer plan. We had something on them. And they were acting all smug—”
“Hey. HEY. It wasn’t just you. I was pretty loaded myself. We’re in this together, buddy. Now listen. Those notes were goddamn comprehensive, and probably enough to basically wipe us out, seeing as how we have the least funds, and the fewest resources…”
Doug looked like he was about to start crying. Anton, pulled over and stopped the car.
“But here’s the thing. Doug. Douglas. Here’s the thing. Look. We can still get ‘em.” Anton often found that his own brain seemed to be working in the background, and brilliance would bubble up seemingly from nowhere. He could tell when it was about to happen, because his thoughts would just start to line up until they made sense on their own. He tried not to question it, because without that trait, he knew he wouldn’t have much to bring to the table. Anton considered Doug to be the real genius, and in truth, those notes were one hundred per cent from Doug’s brain, with Anton mostly throwing out ideas that his partner would summarily refute or discount. But Douglas had stuck with him this long, and now had to be the time where he made that loyalty worthwhile.
“We got ‘em.” He smiled. His eyes were wide with maniacal glee.
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