“So, what do we got?” asked Stan, as he jabbed at a Surface tablet.
He was sitting at the head of a glass conference table, on the fifth floor of a freshly constructed Mission Bay building. Stephanie sat at his left, facing her own tablet. To his right, Jordan was chewing gum and lightly bouncing on an adjustable fitness ball chair, his head craned to look at the distant view of the Oakland hills visible from a wall-to-wall window.
“No issues with any of our clients. All of the Chinese princelings are accounted for,” said Stephanie, “none of them disconnected this time.” She punched at her tablet, “though a few of them ingested considerable amounts of recreational chemicals over the weekend.”
“Anything over the stipulated limits?” asked Stan, glancing at Stephanie.
“Looks within limits,” she responded, tapping at the keyboard, “though one of them may have picked-up a venereal disease.”
Stan rolled his eyes. “Geez, what a royal pain…Put it in the weekly report, but see if you can soften it. And get whoever it is in to see the on-ground med team.”
“Soften it?’ Stephanie looked up. “How?”
“Maybe say it’s a “communicable disease,”” said Jordan, who popped a large bubble. “Hey pretty good,” he grinned, crossing his eyes towards his mouth.
Stan ignored him. “Anything else?” he asked Stephanie.
“We found the missing med-dot,” she said, “the one last used at the mayor’s office.”
“We found it alright,” said Jordan, bouncing more fiercely on his ball chair, “we think it might be pregnant.”
“What are you talking about,” snapped Stan. “And stop bouncing. If you weren’t such a fracking good programmer I’d get rid of you.”
“If I wasn’t such a “fracking” good programmer you’d be out of business,” responded Jordan, followed by a medium-sized bubble.
“We located the med-dot in a Potrero Hill apartment,” said Stephanie. “It had detected THC and Spermatozoa…”
“Somebody partied with our med-dot,” grinned Jordan. “I’m jealous.”
Stan shook his head, as if to clear the dust collecting inside. “Okay, who has the med-dot?”
“We traced it to an apartment owned by Nash Oakley,” said Stephanie. She punched at her tablet, a screen silently retracted from a side wall. An image appeared. “This is Nash Oakley, taken from a Snapchat feed. If you ignore the rainbow coming from his mouth and his crazy eyes you may recognize him from our meeting with the mayor.”
“I thought Snapchats disappeared…never mind,” said Stan.
“He lives with this gentleman,” continued Stephanie, as an image of Justin, taken from a Facebook page, came on the screen. “He writes porno-graphic novels.”
Stan signed deeply. “Well, we need to get it back from them. That’s one expensive piece of technology and we don’t want our competitors getting their hands on it.”
“You want me to go make ‘em an offer?” asked Jordan, attempting a Marlon Brando Godfather hoarse-whisper.
Stan starred at his tablet, his forehead wrinkled. “Wait a minute,” he announced. “A mayor’s aid has the med-dot, and we want help with our property deal from the mayor…” He looked at Stephanie. “Maybe there’s a way we can use this…”
“The board has told us not to activate the listening function,” responded Stephanie. “And even if we did, the med-dot is located in a private apartment, not at City Hall.
“And what up with getting that property anyways,” interrupted Jordan. “What’s so important about it?”
“Location, location, location,” Stan said, glancing at Jordan. “We need to get Mr. Oakley to return the med-dot to where he found it, which was no doubt in the mayor’s office.” He stood up abruptly, his eyes cast down on the conference table. “Stephanie, I’ll leave execution up to you.”
“I don’t know about this,” responded Stephanie, thin-lipped.
“I think you do,” said Stan. “I think you know exactly how important this is.” He picked up his tablet, and walked out of the room.
“So,” said Jordan, bouncing on his chair, “what’s the plan.”
Stephanie was silently, looking at her tablet.
“I have an idea,” grinned Jordan. “We activate the two-way feature, and have the med-dot tell the dude what to do. “Hello, I’m Mr. Med-dot,” Jordan continued, mimicking Jerry Seinfeld’s belly button voice. “Take me to your leader.”
“We won’t be doing that,” said Stephanie. “Find out where he hangs out. We’ll intercept him at one of those places.”
“Yavol, mein uber-meister!” shouted Jordan, increasing the velocity of his bounces.
Each month the View publishes a chapter from Gold, a serialized tale of politics, capitalism, and corruption in San Francisco. Previous chapters can be found on the paper’s website, www.potreroview.net.
