All Mission saw were young men, and the guy talking to them was with Security, not IT. The security guard handed the note back to Mission and pointed towards the main gate. The woman from earlier was already beeping her way through, a large and familiar bald head swivelling to watch her ass as she headed down the hall.
‘Sir?’ Mission called out as he approached the gate.
Jeffery turned his head, the deep wrinkles and folds of flesh disappearing from his neck.
‘Hmm? Oh—’ he snapped his fingers, trying to place the name.
‘Mission.’
He wagged his finger. ‘That’s right. You need to leave something with me, porter?’ He held out a palm but seemed disinterested.
Mission handed him the note. ‘Actually, I have orders from Mrs Crowe to deliver something in person.’ He pulled the sealed envelope with the crossed-out names from his courier pouch. ‘Just a letter, sir.’
The old guard glanced at the envelope, then continued reading the note addressed to him. ‘Rodny isn’t available.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t give you a timeframe, either. Could be weeks. You wanna leave it with me?’
Again, an outstretched palm, but this time with more interest. Mission pulled the envelope back warily. ‘I can’t. There’s no way I can just hand it to him? This is the Crow, man. If it were the mayor asking me, I’d say no problem.’
Jeffery smiled. ‘You were one of her boys too?’
Mission nodded. The head of Security looked past him at a man approaching the gate with his ID out. Mission stepped aside as the gentleman scanned his way through, nodding good morning to Jeffery.
‘Tell you what. I’m taking Rodny his lunch in a little bit. When I do, you can come with me, hand him the letter with me standing there, and I won’t have to worry about the Crow nipping my hide later. How’s that sound?’
Mission smiled. ‘Sounds good, man. I appreciate it.’
The officer pointed across the noisy entrance hall. ‘Why don’t you go grab yourself some water and hang in the conference room. There’s some boys in there filling out paperwork.’ Jeffery looked Mission up and down. ‘In fact, why don’t you fill out an application? We could use you.’
‘I… uh, don’t know much about computers,’ Mission said.
Jeffery shrugged as if that were irrelevant. ‘Suit yourself. One of the lads will be relieving me in a little bit. I’ll come get you.’
Mission thanked him again. He crossed the large entrance hall where neat columns and rows of young men listened to barked instructions. Another guard waved him inside the conference room while holding out a sheet of paper and a shard of charcoal. Mission saw that the back of the paper was blank and took it with no plan for filling it out. Half a chit right there in usable paper.
There were a few empty chairs around the wide table. He chose one. A number of boys scribbled with their charcoals on the pages, faces scrunched up in concentration. Mission sat with his back to the only window and placed his sack on the table, kept the letter in his hands. He slid the application inside his pack for future use and studied the Crow’s letter for the first time.
The envelope was old but addressed only a handful of times. One edge was worn tissue thin, a small tear revealing a folded piece of paper inside. Peering more closely, Mission saw that it was pulp paper, probably made in the Crow’s Nest by one of her kids — water and handfuls of torn paper blended up, pressed down on screens and left overnight to dry.
‘Mission,’ someone at the table hissed.
He looked up to see Bradley sitting across from him. The fellow porter had his blue ’chief tied around his biceps. Mission had thought he was running a regular route in the down deep.
‘You applying?’ Bradley hissed.
One of the other boys coughed into his fist as if he were asking for quiet. It looked as though Bradley was already done with his application.
Mission shook his head. There was a knock on the window behind him and he nearly dropped the letter as he whirled around. Jeffery stuck his head in the door. ‘Two minutes,’ the security guard said to Mission. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘I’m just waiting on his tray.’
Mission bobbed his head as the door was pulled shut. The other boys looked at him curiously.
‘Delivery,’ Mission explained to Bradley loud enough for the others to hear. He pulled his pack closer and hid the envelope behind it. The boys went back to their scribbling. Bradley frowned and watched the others.
Mission studied the envelope again. Two minutes. How long would he have with Rodny? He tickled the corner of the sealed flap. The milk paste the Crow had used didn’t stick very well to the months-old — maybe years-old — dried glue from before. He worked one corner loose without glancing down at the envelope. Instead, he watched Bradley as he disobeyed the third cardinal rule of porting, telling himself this was different, that this was two old friends talking and he was just in the room with them, overhearing.
Even so, his hands trembled as he pulled the letter out. He glanced down, keeping the note hidden. Purple and red string lay strewn in with the dark grey of cheap paper. The writing was in chalk. It meant the words had to be big. White powder gathered in the folds as it shivered loose from the words like dust falling from old pipes:
Part of an old nursery rhyme. Beat your wings, Mission whispered silently, remembering the rest, a story about a young crow learning to be free.
He started to check the back for a real note, something beyond this fragment of a rhyme, when someone banged on the window again. Several of the other boys dropped their charcoals, visibly startled. One boy cursed under his breath. Mission whirled around to see Jeffery on the other side of the glass, a covered meal tray balanced on one palm, his bald head jerking impatiently.
Mission folded the letter up and stuffed it back in the envelope. He raised his hand over his head to let Jeffery know he’d be right there, licked one finger and ran it across the sticky paste, resealing the envelope as best he could. ‘Good luck,’ he told Bradley, even though he had no clue what the kid thought he was doing. He dragged his pack off the table, was careful to wipe away the chalk dust that had spilled, and hurried out of the conference room.
‘Let’s go,’ Jeffery said, clearly annoyed.
Mission hurried after him. He glanced back once at the window, then over at the noisy crowd jostling against the temporary barriers by the door. An IT tech approached the crowd with a computer, wires coiled neatly on top, and a woman reached out desperately from behind the barrier like a mother yearning for her baby.
‘Since when did people start bringing their own computers up?’ he asked, his profession having made him curious about how things got from there to here and back again. It felt as though this was yet another loop the porters were being cut out of. Roker would have a fit.
‘Yesterday. Wyck decided he wouldn’t be sending his techs out to fix them any more. Says it’s safer this way. People are being robbed out there and there’s not enough security to go around.’
They were waved through the gates and wound in silence through the hallways, every office full of clacking sounds or people arguing. Mission saw electrical parts and paper strewn everywhere. He wondered which office Rodny was in and why nobody else was having their food delivered. Maybe his friend was in trouble. That was it. That would make sense of everything. Maybe he had pulled one of his stunts. Did they have a holding cell on thirty-four? He didn’t think so. He was about to ask Jeffery if Rodny was in the pen when the old security guard stopped at an imposing steel door.