Through Hoops

I have work to do. Telehoop 17.16 is acting up.

People of a certain level can afford instantaneous interplanetary travel through Telehoops. They’re developed in clusters, a cluster to a galaxy, not more than twenty hoops to a cluster. I don’t know how the science works, and I don’t have to. I just own the company that builds the things.

It's taken me a long time to figure out how to stand back and let the engineers run the show, but I think I've cracked it. I still need to be near the action, so I go.

I always go.

It helps that we make so much from Telehoops that we can invest in next level experimental technology like the shuttle that promises to get me from my home near ’hoop 3.14 through 17.15 to the hastily constructed engineering post we’ve tacked onto the errant ’hoop. We fly smoothly, the engines, whatever they may be, whirring merrily but softly. Travel between ’hoops is nearly instantaneous, but the distance between telehoops is usually a two to three day shuttle journey. We are there in 3 hours.

I’m shown to the apartment which will double as my office while I’m here. It’s a tin foil palace, right at the top of the engineering post, with a massive viewing station from which my foreman and I will oversee the work.

I’m intrigued when, after taking a quick shower, I find a small parcel on the double bed. It looks odd lying there on the white satin sheets, wrapped in brown paper and held together with masking tape. I ignore it for a moment as I choose a tracksuit for dinner in the mess hall. I could have it brought up here, and as the project progresses I definitely will but for tonight, for the first night, I’ll eat with the guys.

Dinner is a reunion of sorts. Most of the guys are people who worked with me when we originally received the reconstruction contract for cluster 17. Ralph, my foreman, has been with me since day one, and we’ve developed into quite the double act. Tahoe, my ex, is now an architect by day and finds time to moonlight as a tattoo artist between jobs. She is ridiculously good at it too. There are a few more of the guys and girls I recognise and we trade tales as the chef tries her hardest to get us fat, drunk and happy. She succeeds too, mostly.

Tahoe hugs me as I take my leave. We used to have a terrible relationship, but as friends and colleagues we’re amazing. We do lapse occasionally, but even then it’s fun and we’re in that comfortable phase where we enjoy the moment and snap between modes as necessary. Is it sustainable? I don’t know. It is dope though. We stumble into the elevator together and make our way up to the… well penthouse, I guess.

We haven’t seen each other in a while so even though we’re in differing stages of undress, we’re just talking when her eyes fall on the package on the bed.

“What’s this?”

“I dunno. Wanna open it?”

She does want to open it. The brown paper falls away in odd bits, revealing an aged brown leather wallet. The wallet Tahoe had given me when we met. The same wallet I had sold to Lumita, the woman who became my next girlfriend, who’d left me in a huff because she only wanted the ‘mystical power’ of the wallet. A power the wallet doesn’t have, as it’s really just a wallet.

Tahoe drops the wallet on the bed and we both spend a moment staring at it incredulously.

“Well this is a revolting development,” I say.

Tahoe just looks at me. I’ve seen that look before, and it’s not a prelude to a good time.

“What is it?” I ask.

“When did you speak to her last?”

I arch an eyebrow. I get them perfected as part of my medical twice a year, and part of that procedure includes artificially toning the muscles beneath my eyebrows so they arch at will. So my eyebrow arch is a serious thing.

“You should know I don’t speak to people who don’t want to speak to me. Lumita hasn’t reached out to me so there’s been zero contact.”

“Well she’s bloody well reaching out to you now.”

“Yes she is, and that’s bothersome, to be honest.”

Needless to say, I get none. We cuddle and sleep, both wrapped up in our own thoughts.

Morning is sweet relief, I must say. Sweet, but ultimately fleeting, relief. I send the wallet to be preserved and framed, a little abstract art to brighten my mood. Tahoe isn’t pleased.

The letter arrives in an aged brown envelope, and is handwritten on equally ancient paper. As I unfold it I wonder how long it’s taken to arrive and why anyone’s gone through the trouble when it would be so much easier to hit me up on social media.

It’s thankfully brief.

This should have come with that accursed wallet. I’m done chasing dreams.

Tahoe doesn’t wait to see what I would do. She leaves immediately. I don’t try to stop her. I head down to the engineers to begin the work.

Try as we might, we can’t figure out what the issue with the ’loop is. One day follows another, and as we discover and fix one fault, another thing fails. After a week I know more about Telehoops than I have ever learned previously. After two weeks I’m in a murderous mood.

Then she shows up.

One of the old crew recognises her and walks her up to my office. His knock disrupts the row I’m having with Ralph. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but strolls in after the second knock. The red dress looks like it was constructed around her, and she is exactly as I saw her last - a little browner from the sun, but absolutely gorgeous.

She smiles.

“So,” I say after taking a moment, “what can I do for you?”

She pauses for a second, nonplussed.

“Is that all?” She asks.

“Do you really think I want to see you?”

She smiles.

“Well you really won’t when you read this.”

She taps her wrist and a hologram floats up between us. I skim through it. It’s a hostile takeover offer.

“Some of your shareholders are getting jittery over the little setbacks in this cluster, myself included.” She pauses to let her words sink in. “We’ve decided to put a little money together and force through a takeover.”

“A little money?” I ask with a chuckle. “Has our share price tanked so much already?”

I stop chuckling when Tahoe calls. I turn around to connect, so she can see Lumita over my shoulder and I watch the sly smile slide right off her face.

“I know what the problem is,” she says urgently. “You’re being sabotaged. I’m sending over the…”

“Shit,” Lumita says, thumbing a button on a dark little rounded cube. “Fuck. I always hated that… Tahoe.”

I’m watching her, slightly nonplussed.

“I’ve taken the liberty of placing these little EMP emitters around this tin can. They’ve been taking things offline every few days, frustrating you, pissing you off delightfully. They’ve taken everything in this room offline too.”

“Why?”

“Because I can, really. But more because he wanted to.”

“I would have preferred to takeover without resorting to this, boss,” Ralph says, pointing a very, very small gun at me, “but now you’ll have to have a very unfortunate accident.”

“Again, why?”

“Greed. Isn’t it obvious? You’ve been getting richer and richer and I’ve only ever been a foreman.”

“You own 3 percent of the company. You’re a billionaire.”

“Ehn. Details, details. I want control.”

I sigh deeply. There’s a knock on the door. A small woman walks in with a thin package wrapped in brown paper. She puts it in my hands, looks up at me, winks, and walks away. I unwrap it and admire the way the wallet has been placed in the 8 by 10 inch frame, little bits of the brown paper it was sent in placed all around it.

Lumita scoffs.

“I told you that thing was a dud. No luck, no prospects, and you’re about to die because your good-for-nothing girlfriend had to go and be way too clever.”

I chuckle again. I know it infuriates her when I appear unruffled so I force it.

“What’s so funny?” She asks.

“It’s just you spent so long chasing this mystical lucky charm you forgot how talented and resourceful you are without all that nonsense. It’s funny, but also kinda sad.”

Ralph steps up close and holds the tiny gun to my head. It’s a bit ridiculous really.

“Bye boss,” he says almost ruefully. “It’s not been all bad.”

I lay the frame face up on a table and sit in a chair.

“On the ground, now!”

Ralph freezes with his finger on the trigger. Good old law enforcement. They’ve been testing out all the new shuttles - must be how they’re here so quickly. That and the fact I’ve had them orbiting within a twenty minute jump for the past week.

Tahoe walks in with them, slaps me, then kisses me, then turns around and blows Lumita one for good measure. She glares at me as the officers slap handcuffs round both their wrists.

“Why does it ALWAYS work for you?”

It comes out as a kind of strangled scream, and I chuckle again.

“I’ve told you before babe,”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just a wallet,” she says, finishing my thought. “So why are you so damn lucky?”

“I’m not. I just have a girlfriend who actually loves me.”

Tahoe jumps into my arms and stays there.

“Hmmmph,” goes Lumita.