Saving Jeff pt. 5, or Dawg turns on the charm.

This is part 5 of an awfully long and awful story about the battle for the shipping guy, Jeff. If you haven't read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4  this might not make much sense. I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope either way. But, they are readily available, and free, and it probably wouldn't hurt, too much, to go have a quick read.


Bob went through the offices, trying different chairs. A Goldilocks parade through the executive suite and the offices of privilege. He limped around mahogany desks, reclining in plush leather seats. He stumbled through private labs and sat on stools.

"This one is too cushy, not enough support." He said maliciously, glaring at the soft chair.

"This one is too firm, not at all relaxing." He barked menacingly to the crowd following him.

In the elevator between floors he leaned on the wall, it was lightly padded, with a tufted, mottled gray fabric designed to hide stains. "Hey, this is pretty nice," He growled gently, leaned into the wall, and fell asleep.

His snoring echoed around the little car and I had to wait until we hit the 9th floor before I could call maintenance and have them remove the elevator wall and install it on a table in the laboratory 7. Where Jeff was laid low by a guerilla war for control of his left arm including the Deltoid and most of the Trapezius.

In a feat of maintenance heroics that hasn't been seen since the installation (and subsequent constant repair and parts replacement, of the soft serve ice cream machine in conference room C, and the addition of a concrete walkway to and from the machine*) they managed to get the wall to elevator down, and secured to a table top without waking Bob.

We waited for about an hour. Finally we decided to wake Bob, from a distance. We left a phone by the table went out to hallway and called him.

Bob leaped to his feet, threw the phone against the wall, and stumbled over the couch landing on his head. Cursing, he jumped to his feet, and glared around the room, holding his cane and looking for somebody to pummel.

Dr. Dawg walked in and said, "Oh hello, Bob. Are you ready to begin?" He was the master of cool.

Bob sat down, smiled at the doctor and said, "sure. What do I have to do?" Dawg could charm anyone. It is the source of many of our government contracts. The ol' Dawg magic.

"Just lay back and relax. We are going to place these little adhesive strips to your temples and right above your eyes. Then we are going to place these wires on the strips and hook them up to this computer."

"It will read the waves in your thoughts, and transfer them to a minute robot. Your experiences and personality will be copied on the circuits of our tiny friend, and he will become you, after a fashion. Then we will send him into Jeff to find and terminate the problem."

"Terminate the problem?" Bob asked.

"Terminate with extreme prejudice." Dr. Dawg said. His words sending a chill through the people who had started shuffle back in to the lab. They paused, looked at each other, and wondered what lay on the other side of the syringe.

*We had to hire a full time person just to keep the machine running. It was the most popular move the company ever made. But, when Diana from Records stabbed Brian from the service department over the last waffle cone we had to have it removed. Poor Johnathon still has scars from being dragged behind Diana's motorized wheel chair. Fortunately, for Brian, anyway, security stopped her before she could roll him down the fire escape.

Saving Shipping Guy Jeff, part 4.

This is the 4th installment of a painfully long story about the battle for the shipping guy, Jeff. If you haven't read part 1, part 2 and part 3  this might not make much sense. Although, there is not a lot of hope for sense even if you have read both earlier posts. But, they are readily available, and it probably wouldn't hurt, too much, to go have a quick read.

"I'm not going in there. I have seen the results of your attempts to shrink things. Do you take me for a fool?" Bob's words cut through the air, a machete slicing through our embryonic plans.

"No, of course not. Nobody thinks you're a fool." Dr, Dawg said, and everybody nodded and murmured their agreement, as they inched closer to the door. "But, not all of our attempts to shrink things have been so bad. Remember when we shrunk the tractor trailer load of lumber so we could transport it to the island off of New York? We were going to use it build a nice cabin so we could have summer vacation. Nothing bad happened when we shrank that."

"Of course, we miscalculated on the density, and it had so much mass it split the island in half, It sank the local restaurant and pub. Plus it unleashed a torrent of leeches and stinging flies, and they had to evacuate the island and douse it with napalm. Nobody will be able to live there for ten years. And they revoked our building permit, and asked us not to come back, ever." I said. "But, we found our mistake, a small decimal place. Embarrassing, sure. but it could have happened to anybody. So you wouldn't have to worry about that, probably."

Bob looked at me. His eyes glowed. An unquenchable inferno of animosity. Stoked by years of... well I don't know what, but it was awful. Looking into those eyes was uncomfortable. So I picked up my coffee, and turned to look at Jeff, who moaned softly. Which made me a little uncomfortable. So, I checked facebook on my phone.

I couldn't help but feel it was partly my fault that this hulking, smiling, laughing giant was laying there. Probably because it was partly my fault.

"How would you like to let us copy your personality, such as it is, and imprint it on a small robot. We can take your traits, and skills and transfer them to a Single Insurgency Nanobot and introduce it into Jeff's bloodstream, It could find the source of the coup, and terminate the irritant."

Doctor Dawg might be onto something.

We had been working on a Machine, Human Intelligence Interface, And it had seen some success.

"Yes," I said. "And you might be able to control most of the actions from the comfort of this office chair. Though tests have been inconclusive and we are still missing an autonomous vacuum that we sent to clean the ducts, and a lot of office supplies are disappearing, along with batteries, and construction equipment. And Billy, from accounting, who "volunteered" to implant on the roomba, has been acting a little odd. Bouncing off walls and furniture. Billy was always a little odd, though. This could really work."

"That chair doesn't look very comfortable." Bob growled.