Crosstalk Read Online Free PDF Page A

Quincy,
Briddey thought.
And Phillip.
    “I call it the Sanctuary phone,” C.B. said. “Me being the Hunchback of Notre Dame and all.”
    Briddey blushed. “How did you know about—?”
    “See what I mean? There’s such a thing as too much communication.” He tapped the computer screen. “So what do you think? Of the phone, I mean, not whether I’m the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
    I think it’s a wonderful idea,
she thought, imagining how much easier it would make her relations with her family. But it wasn’t what Commspan needed. “Trent wants a phone that will enhance communication, not inhibit it.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he muttered, and bent over the circuit board again.
    “So you don’t have anything like that?”
    “No, I’ve got just the thing. An app that translates what you say into what people want to hear. I text you, ‘You’re an idiot to be having brain surgery for any reason, let alone for some infantile notion that it’ll bring you true love,’ and the phone sends it as, ‘Wow! Trent asked you to get an EED! How romantic!’ I call it the Hook, Line, and Sinker app.”
    “That’s
it.
This conversation is over,” Briddey said, and headed for the door. “If you have any other proposals—any
serious
proposals—they need to be in to Trent before the meeting. If you don’t, you need to tell him before that. The meeting’s at eleven. You’ve got an hour.”
    “No, I don’t,” he called after her as she slammed the door. “It’s already ten twenty.”
    Oh, no, it was only forty minutes till the meeting, and she wouldn’t get another chance all day to work out what to tell her family. And when she got home, they’d be camped outside her apartment building waiting for her. Or inside her apartment.
    I need to get my locks changed,
she thought.
And decide once and for all how to break it to them.
And in spite of C.B.’s being down here, this was still the best place to do that. She went back down the hallway, past the elevator to the next hallway over, and began trying doors to find a storage room she could use.
    After half a dozen tries she found one that wasn’t locked, but it was crammed so full of boxes, she could hardly get the door open. But she didn’t need room. She needed privacy, and—
    “
There
you are!” Kathleen said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
    “Kathleen!” Briddey said, backing guiltily against the door. “What are you doing here?”
    “We got worried. You weren’t answering any of our messages, and Aunt Oona called me and said she’d had a premonition that something bad had happened, so I came over to find out what was going on.”
    “I didn’t know you’d called,” Briddey lied. “I’ve been down here all morning, and there’s no reception on this level. How did you know where I was?”
    “Charla told me. She said you’d come down here to talk to the Hunchback of Notre Dame, who I assume is the disheveled guy over that way,” Kathleen said, pointing back toward C.B.’s lab, “though I’d call him the Abominable Snowman, it’s so cold down here. He gave me these to give you to give to Trent, by the way.” She handed Briddey a memory stick and a folded note. “Do you know if he’s dating anyone?”
    “C.B.?”
Briddey said, unfolding the note. “You’re kidding, right?”
    The note said:
Sorry about the whole calling you an idiot thing. Here’s a different proposal for the meeting. Don’t worry, your boyfriend will love it. It’s a communication addict’s dream. Signed, C.B. P.S. I’m
not
sorry about what I said about the EED. It’s a
terrible
idea. Promise me you won’t do it without thinking about it first. P.P.S. Ask yourself, WWHLD?
    WWHLD?
She didn’t have time to worry about what that might stand for. She needed to get Kathleen out of here before she talked to anyone.
If I take her up to first and straight out to the parking garage,
she thought,
we might get lucky and not see