“Yes.”
“What I already told you: forty-five minutes, probably cut to around ten minutes’ air time.” Meechum looked pleased with himself, as if he were waiting for congratulations. He was saying that he was on Corrigan’s side, and they both understood how everything stacked up.
Corrigan sighed inwardly. There was serious work to do and a major project with all kinds of unknowns confronting them. Getting the job done was going to need all the talent they could muster. Suddenly, the whole business with Tyron that had been dragging on and interfering with everything forever seemed so unimportant and idiotic. Why exacerbate it any further?
“Hell, there’s time enough in that for both of us. Why don’t we simply get Frank in on it too?” Corrigan said.
Meechum stared out of the screen incredulously. “Tyron? You mean you want to let him on the show? You don’t mind? You’re saying you’ll hand him half the action?”
“Why not? He’s done a good job on the COSMOS interface. It’ll give you some good stuff.”
“Well, sure . . . if you say so.” Meechum shook his head as if this was all too much for him. “You want me to just go ahead and fix it with him, then?”
“Yes, do that.”
Meechum nodded, shook his head again, then decided to drop it. “I was thinking, Joe, afterward, we could get a cocktail someplace and have dinner. Maybe that place in the mall along by the river, the Gaucho, was it?”
That was where they had gone in the dream, Corrigan remembered. Had it been somehow prophetic, in the paranormal kind of way that he’d heard tell about but never had any time for? Could there be something to it after all? He wondered if he was tied in some inexplicable way to acting out those things that he remembered, or was he free to alter them if he chose? Try it, he told himself.
“I’ve had enough of the Gaucho, Ed,” he replied. “Let’s make it somewhere different this time. How about the Sheraton? It’s practically next door.”
“Suits me.”
Which seemed to answer that question.
“I’ll get Judy to fix it,” Corrigan said. “So we’ll see you here later.”
“Four o’clock.”
The screen cleared, and Corrigan looked up to see that Judy was waiting just inside the doorway, holding a folder and some papers. He motioned her in. She approached and placed the wad on the desk. “Gary called through while you were on the line. He’s on his way.”
“Gary?”
“Gary Quinn.”
Oh, yes. He had been one of Tom Hatcher’s software engineers, Corrigan recalled. “What for?” he asked.
“What for? To talk about the spec you wanted to change. There’s the file, with a fax that came through from Cindi in Blawnox.” Judy watched uneasily as Corrigan sat down and turned the sheets. From his actions it was clear that he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for. “Joe, you’d been here talking about it for an hour when I left last night. It’s the spec for the second-level attribute cross-linkages. It has to be approved and sent through to Keith before lunch today.”
“Oh, yes. . . . Right. I just need a minute to recap. It’s okay, Judy. You can carry on.”
But Judy stayed where she was, looking worried. “I have to ask, are you feeling all right today, Joe? You’ve been burning it at both ends for months. . . . And now this thing with Evelyn on top of it all. Let me slot you in sometime today for a check.”
“No, it’s all right. I guess I hit the bars a bit last night. Probably a reaction, eh? Everything’s still hazy.”
Judy shook her head. “What’s happening to everybody this morning? Tom Hatcher was supposed to be here too, but his secretary says he hasn’t showed up—not even a word. And the full simulation is scheduled to go live in three days’ time. It’s crazy.” .
“Maybe Tom’s been feeling the strain and doing some unwinding too,” Corrigan said, forcing a grin. “Be an angel for me, would you? Fetch me a strong, hot coffee, black with nothing, and I’ll be fine.”