Lost Bird
When she got the text message, Olivia had just unloaded the last two scooters onto their designated company spot on the curb, at the corner of Third and Corinth.
Hi, Olivia.
Please come into the office as soon as possible.
Thanks — Armen Papasian.
Even though Mr. P. was saved in her Contacts, he always signed his texts, and it was always weird to see him refer to himself as “Armen,” because Olivia had never in her life, and would never, refer to him by his first name. His whole entire name was MISTER Papasian.
“What’s up?” asked Chui, and then he yawned wide enough that she could see every single one of his molars.
Olivia frowned up at her brother. “Mr. P. wants me to come into the office.”
Chui winced. He himself wasn’t employed by the scooter company. Olivia liked to call him her subcontractor, and Chui always laughed at her dumb joke. The white pickup truck was Chui’s, and he helped her out with the scooters when he could. She paid him in gas and Starbucks. She paid her parents for the electricity she used to charge the scooters overnight, and she paid them rent for using the living room to do it. She was very proud to have a job at only seventeen.
She texted Mr. P back: I can be there in 15.
“Hope you’re not getting fired,” Chui said.
As it turned out, she was.
⊹ 💀 ⊹
The scooter company office wasn’t much of an office. It was two rooms above a Five Dollar All You Can Eat Chinese buffet. Even at ten past eight in the morning, it smelled amazing and, no matter how clean Mr. P. and Sosi kept the place, it always looked slightly greasy.
“I don’t understand,” Olivia said.
She did understand, but there was a sick tightness in her chest and throat, and a rushing in her ears. Olivia sat on a squeaky green folding chair, crushing her backpack and her dismay against her chest.
Mr. P. folded his hands on his desk. It was crowded enough in the back room, with her and Mr. P., but there was also another person in there: a lady in a dark blue business suit who Olivia had never seen before.
“Can you at least tell me why?” Olivia said.
Mr. P.’s tired old face rumpled with what looked like genuine sorrow. He drew breath to speak, but the lady in the business suit beat him to it.
“Young lady,” she said icily. “You know precisely why you are being terminated.”
“I don’t,” said Olivia. “I don’t know. Can’t you — ”
“You are extremely lucky that Mr. Papasian has persuaded me not to pursue legal action against you, Miss. Guerrera.”
“What?” Olivia said stupidly. Then for good measure, her mouth said it a second time. “What?”
“This little scam of yours — ”
“It’s a lie!” she burst out. “I never scammed this company! I never scammed anybody! I’m a hard worker. I’m one of the best this company has; Mr. Papasian will tell you!” Olivia turned to Mr. P. “Tell her!”
Mr. P said, “Now, Olivia…”
“I suggest you leave quietly, Miss Guerrera,” said Suit Lady. “Before I — ”
“I’m being framed!”
Olivia heard how melodramatic that sounded as it left her mouth, but it also sounded perfectly correct and justified. She was on her feet, too. Suit Lady’s eyes went wide. Olivia took a deep breath.
“Please, ma’am,” she said. “This job is important to me. Please just tell me what it is I’m supposed to have done.”
Suit Lady frowned, and her face softened. Just a little bit. She glanced down at Mr. Papasian.
“I told you,” he said quietly. “I don’t think Olivia would do this.”
“The evidence…” Suit Lady began, but then she stopped herself. She looked at Olivia once more. “Miss Guerrera. The company has uncovered a troubling trend in your nightly check-in reports for the scooters that you’ve taken home to charge. Every night you have worked for the last month, you have added…” She lifted her phone and consulted it. “A scooter with the code B07734 to your report.”
Olivia blinked at her. “A scooter. One scooter? That’s five dollars. I can fit thirty in the pickup. Why would I scam you for just one scooter?”
“To test the waters,” said Suit Lady. “To see if the company would notice.”
She had a point.
Suit Lady added, “We would have caught you eventually, Olivia, but I am surprised that you didn’t think to move the scooter to a different location at least one time.”
Suddenly, Olivia knew exactly which scooter Suit Lady was talking about: in her mind’s eye, she pictured it parked halfway down the narrow alley that smelled like jacaranda blossoms, like always. But, it couldn’t be the exact same scooter every night. It just couldn’t be.
Her trembling legs folded her into the folding chair, and Mr. P. sprang to his feet.
“Olivia!” he cried.
Mr. P. and Suit Lady stretched into shadows and vanished down a long, dark tunnel. Something in Olivia’s brain clicked her off like a light switch, then clicked her on again. Reboot. She was still sitting in the chair, but now Mr. P. crouched next to her, patting her hand between both of his own.
“Olivia, my God, you gave me such a scare,” Mr. P. said. “Your face turned all gray.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said.
“Olivia,” said Suit Lady.
Her gentle tone made Oliva turn her head. Everything went all wobbly and grainy for a second.
“Did you…” Suit Lady seemed to struggle with something inside her mind for a moment. “Can you think of anyone who would want to jeopardize your job this badly?”
Olivia shook her head. Big mistake. The office swirled like her head was stuck in a snowglobe. Even Suit Lady didn’t look like she believed what she was asking. Who would be so dedicated to a revenge so stupid?
“How can it be the exact same scooter every night?” Olivia said.
Suit Lady had no answer.
In the end, Olivia kept her job, although she wasn’t sure she wanted it anymore. Suit Lady — whose name turned out to be Melinda Athcourt — gave Olivia her business card.
“I apologize, Olivia,” Ms. Athcourt said, which Olivia thought was pretty cool and non-corporate of her. “I’ve come to agree with Mr. Papasian. None of this appears to be your doing. You’re absolutely correct that it makes no sense to use the exact same scooter and check it in from the exact same location every single night.”
“Yes, far too obvious,” Mr. P. agreed.
Ms. Athcourt nodded. “It might be part of some larger hacking scheme, using our employees as scapegoats. You may not be the only victim, Olivia. I’ll have our Security team look into it. Again, I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
Olivia still felt green and queasy on the inside. “It’s okay, Ms. Athcourt.”
⊹ 💀 ⊹
B07734 was the only scooter left at the drop-off, because of course it was. B07734 was a cursed scooter. Olivia resisted the urge to give it a kick and send it rattling to the pavement.
“You think it’s hackers, like that company lady said?” Chui asked.
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “Chui, will you come with me tonight, to do pickups?”
Her brother looked like he was about to say no, but he must’ve seen something on her face. He nodded. “Yeah. Sure thing, Livvy.”
Olivia had picked up a scooter in the same place every night, because she’d found a scooter there the first night. She’d gone back the next night thinking she might find more scooters, but she’d only ever found one. She’d kept going back because, even though it was only one scooter, none of the other scooter catchers had bothered to come get it. Probably because it was a crazy place to abandon a scooter.
The scooter — B07734 — somehow always B07734— sat in an alley that sprouted off from Greenwood Avenue. On one side of the alley were the windowless backs of buildings and on the other side was a narrow strip of trees and scrubby bushes. The alley’s pale concrete sidewalk shone in the moonlight like a tongue lolling from a monster’s mouth. The jacarandas were so pungent that Olivia could taste the smell in the back of her throat.
“You’re telling me,” Chui said, “you’ve been walking down there every night this month?”
Olivia shrugged. “It’s all warehouses.”
“You fucking dumbass.”
“There’s nobody here after dark.”
Chui made a scornful tch noise, and turned on his phone’s flashlight. Olivia did the same. They walked down the alley. Wind combed past them, hoo-ing like somebody blowing across the mouth of a bottle. Leaves rustled and whispered in the darkness. Jacaranda blossoms carpeted the stained concrete; even more drifted down around them like snowflakes.
The scooter was exactly where it was every other night: parked close to the dingy brick wall. Olivia even scanned the scooter’s QR code to be sure. It was B07734.
“C’mon,” Chui whispered. “Let’s just get it and go.”
Instead, Olivia peered down the alley. She couldn’t see a damned thing. Some car passed the far side of the alley, its headlights briefly illuminating a dumpster. Maybe it was behind the dumpster. Whatever it was. But if that were true, then shouldn’t B07734 be parked closer to the dumpster?
“What are you doing?” Chui said.
“Gimme a sec. Just a sec.”
Following this cursed B07734 logic, Olivia walked across the alley to the edge of the trees. She panned her phone back and forth along the undergrowth.
It didn’t take her long. The light cast by her phone revealed a pale, upturned hand with a drift of dead leaves and blossoms gathered in its palm. The same heavy tightness filled Olivia’s chest, followed by the same awful nausea. The smell of the jacaranda trees was overpowering. In all those nights she had never once smelled… well… anything else.
She turned off the phone flashlight. “We need to call the cops.”
“Livvy, what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you in the truck.”
She walked back to B07734 and grabbed it by the stem, one hand under
its handlebars; she hefted it up. The scooter felt the same as always: cold, solid metal and rubber.
“Here. Let me,” Chui offered.
Olivia shook her head. “I’m good.”
It seemed only right that she should carry the scooter out of the alley, for the last time.
⊹ 💀 ⊹
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