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Monday, November 17, 2003
12:33 
Something borrowed.....
Grumbling, Corbie mentally replots her route and heads downhill towards the river, bent low, down on the drops.
On the way out she manages to drop off three of her current packages, putting a wiggle on to make the schedule. The address takes her up the side of the canal that runs parallel to the river, very close to company headquarters, past honking geese and squabbling seagulls fighting over scraps chucked into the water by the tourists on the balcony of the bar above the shop. But it's a Zone 2 tag, and that means she has another mile or so to go upriver and uphill.
She keeps out in the middle of the lane past the cars parked bumper to bumper outside the houses on her left, the vehicles behind shuttering into a tight queue as she slows in response to an amber pedestrian crossing ahead. Timing her approach so she does not need to stop, she leans around the back of a pedestrian still crossing on the flashing amber that follows red and powers up the hill. Vapour rises where the rain hits her skin.
Pulling into the side of the road she scans the nearby numbers, spots the one she wants some ten yards further uphill and upriver. She hefts the bike up onto her shoulder and jogs to the gate before wheeling the machine up the path and ringing the bell. As she stands there, she unzips her jacket to let some heat escape.
The door is opened by a young man in his late teens, wearing black jeans and an Incubus Succubus t-shirt. Corbie does not remove her Oakleys this time, but regards the boy impassively and states her business. The boy makes a vain attempt to appear other than fixated by the swell of her breasts underneath the Gore-Tex.
She waits on the doorstep, either ignoring or impervious to the rain cascading around her. Thin wisps of vapour are still rising from any patch of skin left bare by her outfit. Thudding noises of feet on stairs drift out from within the house and a man appears. He is bearded, dressed not dissimilarly to his son, although the gig date is several years earlier and the shirt is more faded and baggier. His stomach hangs slightly over the waistband of his distressed black jeans. In one hand he is carrying a jiffy bag.
Corbie takes in the smell of burnt sage. "Did you receive a copy of our packing recommendations?" she asks, deliberately discreet.
The man smiles. "It's done up like a turkey in there, darlin'" he drawls. He smokes Golden Virginia roll-ups; she can smell them.
At her prompting, he gives her the delivery address. It is the address of the posh hippy woman who keeps dragons and feels the need for more ready cash. Any batting of eyelids in which Corbie might indulge is hidden behind the reflective lenses of the M-Frames. Payment is to go on one of the special accounts; not surprising considering the general nature of the package.
"You want this dropped priority, right?" Corbie checks because they don't always tick the right box.
"S'right," the man says. He is less self-conscious about staring than his son.
"Okay." She places the package and her PDA in her bag, readjusts it. She does not wait for the man to close the door. Four on board but the monkey's still riding. Mostly downhill from here, at least.
The rain splatters, road spray coating everything in oily grime. Pancake, they call it sometimes. That speckled, dark grey second skin that the couriers collect over the course of the day, particularly in grotty weather. Sometimes they would come in, the shades would come off, and there would be a mask of the lenses left where they had collected the grime before the face did. There is something unhealthy even in the look of that grime. It isn't like the "good clean dirt" they'd played in as kids, finding worms and making mud pies. This is noxious stuff, worse than the black dust that comes off brake blocks. There is something about it that reminds Corbie of mucous, as if the world were trying to sneeze out all the soot and particulates and pollution.
Headlights from cars made indistinct in the rain scatter bright beads of reflected and refracted light in the dismal grey. No time for doughnuts, not right now. The package just collected is a dead spot in her awareness and she doesn't like that, doesn't like the feel of something that should be there but is doing its best not to be, doesn't like the feel of it nestling against her kidneys through the hypalon liner of the bag. No ready money spell in that, she'd bet. Nor turkey, either.
She speeds between lines of traffic, holding just to the inside of the white line, now treacherous in the rain, elbows tucked in, occasionally ducking to avoid clipping a van's wing mirror with a shoulder. She reaches the traffic lights at the bottom, where there is the big junction over the river, boldly moves out into the traffic as if daring the universe to allow any car to come close to hitting her, and swings up the short, steep climb that she had descended in the opposite direction less than half an hour previously.
The wisps of vapour are trailing a little more thickly when she knocks on the posh hippy woman's door for the second time, although she still seems not at all out of breath. Her track mitts are soggy, however, and water is dripping from the hem of the Gore-Tex. The woman, when she opens the door, wrinkles her nose at the thought of such a soggy creature coming anywhere near her Persian rugs, and moves to block the doorway as if Corbie might try to force her way in out of the rain.
The courier merely hands over the package and the PDA and the woman signs to verify acceptance and time of delivery. With the briefest of smiles, Corbie turns away. Three on board, but those ones are "blue" - as long as they get delivered before noon then it doesn't matter. The monkey has decided to take a break.
It is a short drop down to the riverfront and the shop. Quantum Coyote is emblazoned in foot high letters between the balcony where bar customers are sitting over coffee and the glass doors leading into the shop and workshop on the ground floor. Inside it is open-plan and industrial, all mesh grid stairs and girders. The brass of a fireman's pole gleams dully in the grey light struggling in through the large windows. It was never a fire station, although it might look like it. They had fitted the pole themselves, although the last time it had been used was by a live act whose performance in the bar didn't go down very well. The concrete floor is treated, pragmatically, with an industrial coating that can be steam-cleaned, and Corbie's cleats click rhythmically as she makes her way between the ranks of bicycles waiting for someone to give them a home, her own bike held so that the revolving pedals won't smack her on the shin.
The bike is wheeled through to Dispatch; the hub of the courier side of the business. There is a blackboard on the wall and pieces of chalk litter the floor underneath it. A duster hangs limply from a piece of string tacked into the black-painted wood with a drawing pin. Half a dozen Newton's floor stands are lined up against the wall: Corbie wheels the fixed across and slots it into one of them, then helps herself to coffee from the pot and a sticky jam doughnut from the open box.
"Still got three. East side, out Sowton way. Got anything else that needs to go?" she asks the man at the cluttered desk. He looks a bit like a hobbit, with shoulder-length, scruffy brown hair; slightly rounded shoulders; crinkled, smiley eyes.
"Got space for a bouquet?" Bob replies, and then has to pick up the phone to stop it ringing. Still speaking to the person on the other end of the line, he hands Corbie a pink slip and a massive bunch of flowers, wrapped in gilded paper and a silk ribbon. Corbie pins the slips to the board on the spike underneath her name, replacing the small stuffed toy impaled to the end of the spike for safety once the chit is securely in place. Then she slots her PDA into a socket connected to the company computer and lets it update while she finishes her coffee and idly watches the ducks out front.
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