Blacklake-Book4-1 Three Cousins

Chapter 50
~

I met Kriz and David at home, where they were droppin’ off Mama’s car. David looked a lot more rattled than I would have expected after a borin’ five-hour drive. I asked him about it.

His eyes widened a bunch. Face maybe turned even pastier.

“Didn’t—care—for—my—drivin’,” Kriz murmurred.

I shank a hard look Kriz’ way. “Ya drove?” Maybe my jaw let my mouth dangle open. I’d taken him to get his license. Know he hates to drive. Got a license only to prove it was something he could do. Good for him—don’t mean I wanta be on the road, in another vehicle, when he’s on that road.

Kriz pulled his phone out of his cargo shorts and his thumbs went at it. Seven seconds later I read his text. “He could barely see over the OM’s dash. Wasn’t gonna let him drive over that windin road. I care for my life too much.”

David let out a gush of air. “I think I drove him a bit nuts driving in the Plain hamlet when we only had a quarter of a mile to get to the next stop.”

I could picture that in my head. Felt my face turn with a grin.

“No new word?” David asked, killin’ my grin. I shook my head. As though we woulda kept them in the dark, if there was.

“I think we’ve got our site, though,” David continued.

I noticed Kriz shakin’ his head hard, dreads flutterin’, so I gave David a good questionin’-look.

“He liked a one-story, broadly laid out business park, that would separate teams into little silos. I’m strongly suggesting the seven story tower where everyone will be seconds away from each other.”

“Silos,” Kriz growled.

“Teamwork,” David huffed back at my cousin, showin’ more bravery than he oughta.

They got into an evil kill-by-demeanor thing. Maybe their relationship hadn’t gelled much over the past six days. Six days, I hadn’t expected. They musta been analyzin’ minutia out the wazoo, to take six days to evaluate a half-dozen options. Not like the Plain hamlet is that big a place.

I caught up with their site reports last night. Seemed easy to strike five of the options. I liked what the tower had to offer too. Especially the central location, only five miles from the airport. But I’d give Kriz an opportunity to sway me. There’s only one ogre I trust more in business sense—Papa. Oh. And Grandpapa Klow. But Kriz comes in a close third, without the grizzly history to back up his beliefs. It’s all innate genius.

Kriz already thumbed his phone. “Five minutes from airport. Abutts the college. Walkin distance to multiple condo complexes. Peace and quiet of private spaces, no large bullpens. No cubicle world.”

David sided up to me to read my phone. He shrugged after every ping. So he didn’t disagree. When Kriz mentioned that a private airport taxiway led to the middle of one of the nearby residential properties, my brows may have risen. That would be convenient.

Kriz and I would have to get at least a couple company townhouses nearby, and had discussed upgradin’ from our dual-prop plane, to something we could cross the ocean with. Not havin’ to rely on commercial travel—hard to beat that, with the back and forth from the Range, Wildes, East and West Coasts. And we definitely hoped for more sales up North—despite the current animosity between North and South. Business is business.

“All good points,” David said. “But dividing our three hundred employees into little nooks—”

Kriz’ next ping: “Studies show teams of greater than five members are much less productive.”

David and I studied each other. I might have been gnashin’ at my right tusk. He had to be noticin’ that. I quit doin’ it fast.

Kriz’ next ping: “We are technology experts. Shiftin work from stage to stage is one of our strengths. Don’t have to be best buds with or even know the pointy head creatin a module of yar system, testin it, sendin ya work, or editin docs.”

David’s face washed with a bit more color. I think he realized Kriz had thought all this through pretty well and had a good vision for the company’s expansion.

“The various pods would encourage distributed server rooms,” I said. I hate server farms that look like machinedom has taken over the world, look like they go on for miles.

~ Ezra ~

After my shift, I strode out to the dining room, caught sight of the three geeky bulls quickly. Well, two bulls and human—man. They sat a bit away from most of the remainin’ tourists sittin’ about mostly sippin’ coffees and discussin’ their next Range experience.

I carried over an ogre-sized chair, which David leapt up to position for me, and carry away the human-sized chair, which he placed against the wall. Em humans have an odd way about em. Treat us hens like we ain’t capable, or something. I could throw the fool fifty feet without stretchin’ first. Can handle a stinkin’ chair. So I refused to say thank you.

Settlin’ I said, “Ya three look—” Wasn’t sure what I read on their faces. Not that anyone can read Kriz. He wears the same scowl pretty much day and night. Unless he’s truly irritated. Yeah. He does get irritated. Most any time anyone questions him. Talks too much. Is in his sight overly long.

“Our attorneys executed leases on the property we chose,” David announced. “Already have a team loaded with equipment in transit.”

The idjit talks like he owns part of the company. Maybe it irritated me more than it should—prolly because I’ve spent a lot of my life around Kriz—attitudes wear off on others. I took in Kriz, lookin’ for a hint of his irritation. But he kept his head down, clackin’ on his laptop.

My phone pinged. I considered ignorin’ it, but by the way Kriz looked up at me, with almost a sense of expectation, dawned on me it was from his clackin’.

His text read, “Understand the last of the guest constables have left. Are ya okay?”

Wow. Kriz isn’t one to be thinkin’ about how others are feelin’, much—if ever. “Couldn’t stay here forever,” I said. “Searched every trail thirty miles out, three-sixty from the Hamlet. A buncha huntin’ tracks farther out.”

The bulls—and man—turned their faces downward. Thankfully one of our servers placed a four-foot ogre platter down in the center of the table, and doled out plates to each of us.

Food can always cheer up an ogre, even though I repeated in my head, that Chief Nazre had categorized the search as a recovery and not a rescue two days ago.

As we all piled food into our plates, Ike said softly, “Daze’s mate called me this morning. Worried about him. Still blamin’ himself.”

“Still hasn’t returned to the warehouse?” I didn’t need to ask. Ike woulda mentioned it, if Daze had relented.

Ike shook his head. I asked if we should give him a visit.

~