n2020  Check-in [3a78e36fc6]

"Neither have I," I said, "but my predecessor and I watched the movie together a couple times."

"I forgot that was a movie," she said.

"You make me sad," Smuggler said.

Alley failed to produce an answer.







































---

Alley terminated the call.  "I have to go home, but they're still working on my car," she said.  She looked over her shoulder, at the mechanics' garage.  "I'll call up a ride."

"Wait," the prioritizer said.

"Neither have I," I said, "but my predecessor and I watched the movie together a couple times."

"I forgot that was a movie," she said.

"You make me sad," Smuggler said.

Alley failed to produce an answer, and remained silent until they reached the other end.

Smuggler climbed another steel ladder, and a grinding noise echoed down the tunnel.  He disappeared from view above, though now there was soft light filtering down through the exit at the top of the ladder.  She followed a moment later, rising into what looked like an old vault with indirect track lighting suspended from the ceiling.

"What is this?" she asked, looking around at shelves barren except for a few small form factor computers sitting silently, plus yards of network cabling.  "Is it an old bank?"

Smuggler said "No, it's the abandoned home of a guy who made a fortune off of early internet corporations around the turn of the millennium, and had just decided to move his money around before a market crash.  He died just before riots started tearing up this part of LA, before it all got shut down."

"What about his heirs?"  Alley stepped past a cot and a small folding table with folding chairs near it.  She noted the presence of a bar fridge against one wall, and wondered how they got power for this place.

He shrugged.  "I guess, if he had any, they never tried coming back.  Most of the house is gone, anyway, so they probably thought there wasn't anything else to come back and get.  If I was them, I would have just filed for an insurance pay out."

"Yeah, I guess," she said.

"Insurance investigators stopped coming into the hot zone a long time ago," Smuggler said.

He flipped open a steel plate set into the wall, like a miniature metal door with a handle just big enough to firmly grasp with a gloved finger and thumb.  He did something with his fingers, but the angle of the little door obscured her view.  A moment later, a loud thunk from the door echoed against the concrete walls of the room.

The vault door slowly started opening outward on its own.

Smuggler flipped the small metal door closed again and waited for the vault door to finish opening.

/* Alley makes a delivery and/or a pick up for delivery outside the hot zone. */

/* Alley meets up with Smuggler again and gets escorted back out of the hot zone. */

/* Alley drops off something that she delivered for direct payment in Stater. */

/*

    Alley's car starts having trouble, and she pulls off the highway and into
    an auto shop to get someone to look at it.  The mechanic should say
    something about how "These old second gen hybrids can't just run forever on
    electricity, so I doubt you would even make it home all the way in Perris.
    You're just gonna have to wait.  We should be able to get it going in a few
    hours, though."  Thus, she ends up sitting around waiting.  Maybe she gets
    some fast food while she's at it.

*/

---

Alley terminated the call.  "I have to go home, but they're still working on my car," she said.  She looked over her shoulder, at the mechanics' garage.  "I'll call up a ride."

"Wait," the prioritizer said.