Jack woke up Monday morning before his alarm rang. That had never happened to him on any of his old jobs—he loved his sleep, but since coming to Celestial he beat the alarm three times out of five. There was just so much to do, and most of it fun. He brushed his teeth quickly, and jumped in and out of the shower. Dressing never took long; it was just jeans, a clean shirt and loafers. He was out the door within fifteen minutes of his head leaving the pillow.
Gotta clean this place up someday, he thought as he stepped over a stack of printouts spread out down the hallway. Could be a fire hazard. He picked out the deadbolt key and opened the front door. His newspaper was on the stoop. He kicked it back through the doorway, where it sat expectantly beside ten other similar rubber-band-secured bundles. Jack only read the comics, and there hadn't even been time for that lately.
He closed the door, gave it a sharp jab with his knee to seat the striker and reached to set the deadbolt. The key went in slowly and painfully, almost as if the lock were regaining its virginity, and he decided that this evening, for sure, he would remember to give it a squirt of oil. "Sure, I still respect you," he told it as he struggled to get the key back, "I'll call. Trust me."
The key came free and he pocketed it triumphantly.
Suddenly, there was a sound from above. Jack would have been hard pressed to describe it. It was something like an elephant's trumpeting, but more liquid. At any rate, he didn't have long to think about it, for an instant after the sound, a warm, runny mass of the foulest substance he had ever come in contact with enveloped him. "Son of a bitch!" He swore and wiped frantically. His eyes were covered and burning, and he could barely breathe—and what little air he was getting had a stench that seemed to leach all the oxygen out of it. He panicked, groping blindly for his keys, and dropped them on the front concrete. No time! He jumped the low porch railing, feeling his way along the outside wall until he came to the spigot. He turned the handle frantically to no result, finally remembering to push down to seat the loose screw. He was starting to feel faint. Another second and he would have to breathe through his mouth . . . and taste it.
The hose stiffened and he traced it down to the nozzle at the end. With the last of his strength, he turned the spray full on himself.
The torrent struck him like an electric shock, but he'd had enough of those over the years, and he kept it up, gasping at the water up his nose until the smell receded and his vision started to clear. The first thing he noticed when he could see again was a pair of joggers standing at the end of his driveway and looking at him curiously. He turned off the nozzle and gave them his best Well, what are you looking at? stare, and they moved on reluctantly. The second thing he saw was the gargoyle sitting on the eaves of his house, just above the front door. It was hard to tell with a face like that, but Jack thought it had the satisfied expression of a senior citizen whose bran muffins had just kicked in exceptionally well.
Jack got up and gave himself a once-over. His clothes were shot, and would probably have to be burned. He might—just—avoid shaving his head if he got into the shower right now. He saw his keys at the edge of the stoop, and darted in, grabbing them quickly. "Hey, you!" he called. "Shoo! Get out of here!"
"Not gonna." The gargoyle's voice was curiously high pitched. Oddly feminine.
Jack swore under his breath. First the imps, now this. Fifty thousand Hellborn in North Carolina and he got them twice running. He was going to have to figure out some better way to get rid of the things. No time now though. He went around to the back door and let himself in, leaving his clothes in a pile on the carport. He ran naked down the hall, grabbed a new bottle of shampoo from the shelf and turned the shower full on.
After twenty minutes, all of his hot water, and half of the shampoo, Jack thought he might be fit for human company again. He toweled off a view port on his mirror and inspected his hair carefully. It looked like he had gotten it before it set. He dried off carefully and smelled the towel. Not too bad; his clothes had taken the brunt. He dressed again and gingerly retrieved his wallet and checkbook from the pockets of the pile of toxic waste that had been his favorite jeans. He got a yardstick and used it to push his old clothes into a plastic garbage bag. What he really needed was a ten-foot pole, but he got the job done somehow, and the bag into the garbage hamper.
It was nine forty-five by the time he poked his head out tentatively from under the carport. The gargoyle was still over the front door but Jack decided not to push the issue. Gargoyles weren't the brightest of the Hellborn, and likely something else would attract her attention before he got home again. He was probably going to have to sandblast that porch though. He got into his car, which started perfectly, and headed off for Research Triangle Park and the office. The gargoyle's head swiveled to follow him, "You come back?" she called plaintively.
Jack rolled down the window. "No," he shouted, "I'm moving! You might as well shove off." His retired next-door neighbor was out watering the lawn, very carefully not noticing anything. Jack waved, but the man suddenly found a very interesting piece of pinestraw which needed his full attention.
The mold for Jack's day had been pretty well set, and nothing he did seemed to break it. He had replaced the blown resistor, and got the drive prototype back to the humming stage (A-flat, he'd finally identified it) only to have the modulator blow again—this time it was a Zerner diode that went. He'd traced all the circuits once more, comparing each of them against his printed schematic, and all of them were perfect. What's more, though he didn't fully understand the design, all the rules of electronics said that there was no way those circuits could generate overloads. It was against the laws of physics. Of course, the whole thing was supposed to violate the laws of physics, but he was looking to commit a felony, and he was getting collared for jaywalking.
He was at his desk whistling tunelessly when Jan came in. "Not going so hot, huh?" she asked.
Jack started and looked up from his schematic. "Oh, hi, Jan. No, not especially. How'd you know?"
Jan came over and scooped an armful of old printouts and trade magazines off his visitor's chair, looking around briefly for a clear space before dropping them on the floor. "You never sit at your desk when things are going good," she told him.
Jack considered. "Yeah, I guess that's true," he said. "I'm having a bad hair day."
"Well, cheer up," Jan said, "I found Rhea's shoes at the front door this morning, and she's been smiling all day, so I think we might be out of our hole. She's even got the rent-a-suit coming in this afternoon and you know how much she loves lawyers."
"Maybe," Jack said glumly, "but if we get the funding, we'll actually have to deliver a product."
Jan smiled and poked him. "Ah," she said, "but that's not my problem."
Jack grinned in spite of himself. "Thanks, Jan. You're just a little ray of sunshine."
"I try not to let it go to my head." She got up to leave. "Oh, here's some faxes that came in for you." She handed him the slick sheets. "Hope that helps."
He rifled through them. They were the manufacturer's component spec sheets he'd asked for. Hmm, maybe it would help. When he looked up again ten minutes later, Jan was gone.
The hours passed slowly after that. Jack read through the details of every component on the modulator board and, except for a brief bit of excitement over what turned out to be a typo, it didn't help. It was starting to get to him a little—he was irritated and edgy and he kept seeing things moving out of the corners of his eyes. He hadn't whistled anything more lively than "Taps" in hours. He was starting to suspect that he should have waited for the alarm that morning, and then pulled the covers up over his head, he would have accomplished just as much—probably more. Monday is not part of the productive work week, the quote came to him from somewhere. But he was not going to let a relatively simple circuit get the better of him. He picked up his schematic and started working through it again.