Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (11 page)

Both being unemployed and seeing that beer by the pitcher is the cheaper, Beau and Sid grab a pitcher of wheat-steamer, a hefeweizen brewed in house.  Beau orders a steak salad while Sidell goes with an Italian sausage calzone with extra ricotta.

              “I forgot how much I like this city,” Beau tells Sid.

              “Yeah, me too,” Sid replies; “it’s been a while since I’ve been here.”

              “So what time does this thing start tomorrow?” Beau asks.

              “Orientation starts at ten,” Sid answers.  “Are you going?”

              “I thought I would,” Beau answers; “I’ve got nothing better to do.  Is Lane or Rod coming?” he asks.

              “Rodney got a job with
Dot-Quad
and a significant raise,” Sidell answers; “and Lane said he might come, but sounded pretty doubtful when I talked to him a few days ago.”

              “I can’t believe Rod got on with Dot-Quad,” Beau says.  “They turned me down you know.”

              “Me too,” Sidell replies.  They both laugh.

The men eat a fine meal, then chase it down with several freshly brewed ales.  They recall story after story of their days working together, laughing harder with each one.  The night is good for both of them, giving them a chance to take their minds off of things for a while. 

              “Do you think we’re wasting our time coming to this?” Sid asks Beau.

              “I don’t think so,” Beau answers optimistically; “it seems like a statistically sound decision at least.”

              “I guess.  I’ve just never had any luck at these things,” Sid says.

The fall of night brings out the ski lights on Grouse Mountain, clearly visible from the restaurant.  The sky turns pink to the West and dark blue to the East as the last light of the day makes its way over the Pacific.  After what boils down to a pitcher and an imperial pint each, the men decide to call it a night and request their bill.

Beau gets a text from Kendra.

              “It’s too quiet here without you,” it reads.

              “I miss u 2,”Beau types back.    

Moonliner
2:11

The next morning, Beau has no trouble finding the hotel where NeoTech is being held.  Seeing he’s early, he stops off for coffee and a breakfast croissant.  Standing on the water’s edge at Canada Place, he looks across Coal Harbour at Stanley Park while having a quick bite of breakfast.  For the first time in a while, the day is bright and sunny, beyond simple sun breaks.  The sky is light blue and spotted with small, puffy pink clouds.  Beau snaps a picture of the clouds with his phone and sends it to Kendra with a text.

              “Nice morning here.  Just about to go into the show,” he texts her; “hope you have a nice day!”

              “Thanks,” she replies within a minute; “busy now - will call you later!”

Beau makes his way back over to the hotel and registers for the event.  He picks up a name tag and a welcome packet and follows everyone into the Cedar Room for orientation.

The room is filling quickly as the ten o’clock starting time approaches.  Beau grabs a chair along a center aisle, not wanting to get stuck sitting between people.  He recognizes a few faces but can’t place them and doesn’t think he’s actually met anyone in the room.  Sidell is nowhere in sight.

              “People, please take your seats.  We’re about to start,” a woman says into a microphone set up at a podium in the front of the room.  Skirted tables line the sides of the room, stocked with coffee and stainless steel pitchers of ice water.  By the looks of the program, the water might really be needed.

Beau opens his welcome packet, a thick-grade manila envelope, to find a stack of pamphlets; coupons for local businesses; a keyring for a Dot-Quad
;
an 8 gig thumb drive from Microbyte, another company that rejected him; and a silver dollar-sized coin of some kind, which upon closer look appears to be a commemorative coin, marking the tenth anniversary of NeoTech. 

              “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Beau thinks aloud, closely examining the coin’s inscription.

The house lights dim as the woman returns to the microphone.

              “Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, then stands silently for a while as people finish finding their seats; “welcome to NeoTech 2014 Vancouver!” she yells out with a lot more exuberance than her jobless audience harbors.  There’s a small round of applause as everyone does their best to keep the wind in her sails.

Sidell sneaks in a side door, spots Beau, and works his way over to him.  He takes a seat one up and three over from Beau, too late to get an aisle.  He smiles at Beau and everyone around him, then opens his packet and starts thumbing through it. 

              “This year’s tradeshow is unique,” the woman announces; “it’s our tenth anniversary!” she overstates.  “If you look in your welcome packet, you’ll find a commemorative coin compliments of NeoTech.” 

Beau’s cell phone vibrates.  He takes it out of his jacket pocket to check it; it’s a new text from Sidell that simply reads “WTF?”  Beau looks over at him and he’s holding up the commemorative coin in one hand and his cell in the other, laughing and shrugging his shoulders.

After a monotonous power-point presentation and a lengthy motivational speech from NeoTech’s founder, the tradeshow opens.  Beau and Sid hit the floor running, visiting dozens of booths and striking up conversations with several potential employers from all over the globe.

Hours later, they both sit in Sidell’s hotel room, drinking Coronas and looking through stacks of company brochures, notes, and business cards.

              “Coming here has been an ego boost,” Sidell tells Beau; “I spoke with a few people today who would hire me tomorrow.”

              “I know,” Beau adds; “it makes you wonder why we waited so long to get out of that dead-end job.”  He takes a swig of beer.

Beau hits the power button on a miniature Grundig radio he uses for travel.  He quickly tunes in a little smooth jazz. 

              “You brought your own radio with you?” Sidell asks him.

              “Yeah, I’ve had this one for years and years,” Beau answers.  “I’m into radios.”

              “That’s cool!  I never knew that,” Sid tells him.

              “Yeah, I’m always playing around with a shortwave at home.  Last week I picked up Cape Town South Africa,” Beau brags.

              “On a radio?” Sidell asks.

              “On a radio,” Beau answers. 

              “How do radio signals get here all the way from South Africa?” Sidell asks.

              “They propagate, or bounce off the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, allowing the signal to skip around the earth’s curve,” Beau answers.

              “That’s completely mind boggling,” Sidell says; “all the way from South Africa.”

              “I can one-up that,” Beau adds; “the same night, minutes later, I picked up a message from the year 2069,” he says with a solemn look on his face.

Sidell looks confused.  The room is silent for a few seconds, then they both chuckle, now feeling the beer.

              “That’s movie material,” Sidell says rubbing his eyes.  “Did you think that up or did someone really send you a message from 2069?”

              “Neither, I’m guessing,” Beau answers; “but I did pick up the signal of a guy claiming to be in 2069.  I didn’t make that part up.”

              “Who knows?” Sidell says with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders, tipping his beer bottle back to wet his whistle.

Beau is tired and starts to yawn, ready to call it a night.

              “I better get back to my room and review a few notes.  I wanna follow up on some of these leads tomorrow,” he tells Sidell.

              “Yeah, I’m beat,” Sidell says; “I could use some shuteye.”

Beau grabs his things and returns to his room, where he spends the next two hours reviewing notes and researching the companies he met earlier in the day.  He’s excited about his prospects.

Moonliner
2:12

An early morning siren wakes Beau well before his alarm, so he turns the alarm off and his TV on, looking for little news.

“There are 239 people aboard flight 370.  All are missing after the plane lost contact with radar shortly after takeoff over the South China Sea.  A multi-national search force is under way.  Back to you Ron.

“Thanks Cindy.  Well it looks like rain is on its way.  Stick with us and we’ll let you know which places can expect to get hit with the hardest right after this word from our local sponsors.”

Beau turns the TV off, jumps out of bed and into the shower.  It’s the second and last day of the tradeshow and he’s anxious to make the most of it.  He brews a cup of dark roast with the one cup coffee maker in his room and spends an hour or so reading.

Feeling prepped, he takes a walk down Robson Street.  The sky has really darkened overnight.  Rain looks very possible.  Beau peers in shops though several have yet to open this early on a Saturday morning.  He finds a crepe shop on Granville Street and sits down to have one, lightly sweetened with chocolate syrup and a dusting of powdered sugar.  He has another cup of coffee with his crepe, killing time before the tradeshow. Bored, he sends a text to Kendra.

              “Good morning!” it reads; “I’ll call before I get on the train.  See you tonight!”

              “Morning B.  Good luck at the fair!” Kendra texts back after a few minutes.

Beau returns to the tradeshow and checks in at the front desk.  He’s one of the first people there but soon notices one of the company reps with whom he really wanted a word.  This is his chance.  He approaches the man, Tom Meyers, and strikes up another conversation with him.  Tom runs his own educational software company out of California and is looking for someone to handle his IT needs.  Beau surprises him with his follow up questions from their previous conversation; it’s apparent he’s done his homework.  The two have a great chat.