Doctor Ralph didn’t worry.
He had a PhD, so he knew he was well educated
and a rather smart man.
He had a lucrative contract with one of the
largest fast-food chains in the world, which afforded him the kind of lifestyle
where he simply didn’t have to worry about (or, really, think about) money
anymore, along with a “golden parachute” clause that would maintain his
lifestyle even if he should get fired someday.
He was highly ranked and highly regarded
within said fast-food company, which gave him the ability to go most anywhere
in the world walk into any branch of the restaurant chain, and get anything and
everything he wanted without question.
In short, he had money, power, and loyalty.
And where he didn’t have loyalty, he at least had respect.
And where he didn’t have respect, he had
fear, which was good enough for him.
But this night, Doctor Ralph was worried.
He had left his car behind at the hotel when
he fled the desk clerk after Bethany’s death, and while he still had his
research (which was the most important thing to him), he had been careful
enough to never leave any trace of his presence whenever he’d traveled.
He set his considerable thoughts to the task
of protecting his identity and came to some conclusions:
He couldn’t destroy the car – it was most
certainly in the possession of the police by now, who were doubtless pouring
over it with a fine-toothed comb in search of forensic evidence.
They would find it.
He hadn’t worn gloves or a hairnet, so there
were most definitely fingerprints and hair and fiber samples, but this wasn’t
what worried him. When he had begun his experiments he spent a sizeable amount
of time and money creating a number of aliases, such as Mr. Robert Afett, and
made sure that they all had the same fingerprints and DNA on file with assorted
law enforcement agencies around the country. The great benefit of traveling and
conducting his experiments, he found, was that he could continue to spread himself
all over the world and add more and more links in the chain, so to speak. If
any one agency processed the evidence of his existence, it would show one
person. If they cross-referenced it against another agency, it would show two
people, and so on and so forth for as many agencies as they checked. Every one
a unique individual with different names, faces, credit records, government
identification, addresses, and work history. All fake, of course, but real
enough to grind any investigation to a halt while the officers untangled the
mess.
He had been very careful.
Tonight he was not.
The rental car deliveryman had seen his face.
Normally this wasn’t a problem – many other
people throughout the world had seen Doctor Ralph’s face, after all, but thus
far he hadn’t been so careless as to leave behind a car that could be directly
tied to him. He thought through the investigation in his mind:
They would trace the car to the rental
company and compare the fake name to the fingerprints, hair, and DNA evidence
and get two names, two faces. Then they would run both of them through the
national database along with the evidence and get six more names and faces.
Then they would print out all eight individual identities and show them to the
deliveryman who had dropped off the rental car and he would point to the one
with Doctor Ralph’s true face and say “Yeah, that’s the guy I dropped the car
off with over at that big fancy hotel on Second Street.”
Then they would know what he looked like.
That was too dangerous.
So Doctor Ralph changed clothes into a crisp
suit he had brought with him and looked up the closest branch of the fast food
chain, which was six blocks away.
They were all six blocks away. The fast-food
chain’s marketing saturation strategy was to do everything in their power so
that nobody in the United States was ever more than six blocks away from a
branch at any given moment. They had 70% coverage by now, meaning 70% of the
country was within six blocks of a restaurant.
It did not take him long to walk there.
They were still open, of course, and he
walked directly to the counter where a sullen thirty-something woman was
hunched so far over the register she may as well have used her tits to punch in
orders on the touchscreen.
“Hello, what can I get for you?” she asked.
“May I speak with the manager, please?” said
Doctor Ralph.
“The manager’s gone home for the day, sir.
Only the late-night shift manager is on duty at present. Will that suffice?”
Her monotone was annoying him, and if he didn’t have a very specific plan in
mind already he would have taken the time to fire the woman and write up the
entire damn restaurant for having her on staff in the first place. Instead he
glared at her and said, “Yes. Please tell them that Ralph Quinlan is here to
inspect the facilities in anticipation of a new release.”
The woman was unmoved. She had been yelled
at, sworn at, swung at, and spit at, so some sharp-dressed douchebag wasn’t
about to intimidate her. She said nothing and turned to disappear back into the
depths of the restaurant.
A moment later a younger woman with traces of
white powder came bounding up to the counter and said “Oh good gods Mister
Quinlan this is a tremendous honor to meet you sir I never thought we’d ever
get a visit way out here in our small little town from anybody over in
corporate and we just think it’s the greatest thing that you chose to come
visit us and give us the chance to show off our happy little store here now
Doris was just saying that you have a new program or something you want to test
out here and you want to see the kitchen is that right?”
Doctor Ralph was momentarily taken aback at
the verbal onslaught he’d just suffered, and while she had delivered her speech
in roughly two seconds, it took his brain an additional eight seconds to find
the pauses between words and sort it all out in his head. Then he said “Yes,
that’s right, miss…?”
The night manager’s hand shot out at him
“SaraBecca sir – it’s all one word even though it sounds like two but my
parents just thought that since they couldn’t decide on one name and they both
loved each one and each other so darn much that they’d just give me the whole
thing and let the rest of the world sort it out.” She finished by giggling – a
high pitched and wheezy sound that went on and on. Finally, Doctor Ralph held
up a hand to silence her, and when he spoke he intentionally went at half-speed
to try to counter her own radical cadence.
“SaraBecca, we at corporate are preparing to
roll out a number of new menu items, and I was wondering if I could trouble you
for the use of your kitchen for just a little while. We’d like to see how fast
the burgers can be made and if any logistical changes would need to be made to
the layout and kitchen design in order to ensure maximum efficiency. It will
only take a few minutes, I assure you.”
SaraBecca jumped on the end of his sentence,
saying “Oh my god yes please go right ahead and use anything you like anywhere
you like we have everything fully stocked and cleaned and ready for the
after-bar rush which usually hits around these parts at about two or two-thirty
after the clubs all clear out and people rush through on their way home or to
after parties so they can have some snacks before bedtime…” Doctor Ralph held
up his hands again to cut her off and then gestured towards the kitchen.
“May I?”
She giggled again and finally said “Oh! Yes
please go right ahead.”
He came around the counter and showed himself
to the kitchen area where a younger woman was standing over the grill. When she
heard people approaching she quickly shoved her cell phone in her pocket and
shuffled around, looking for something to do so it didn’t look like she was
just standing around playing with her phone. Everything was laid out perfectly,
and Doctor Ralph was glad to see that much, at least, was right. The prep
station was spotless, the condiments and dressings were fully stocked and
loaded, all strategically placed so that any menu item could be constructed in
as little time as ergonomically possible. “I’m afraid I will have to ask for
some privacy,” he said. “I hope you understand, but we do have our trade
secrets. Could I ask for your prep cook to move to the secondary station, in
case any orders come in?”
SaraBecca said “Of course! Anything you want
Mister Quinlan she doesn’t mind moving over at all do you Beth?” The cook
rolled her eyes and stomped off to another identical aisle in the kitchen. “Is
there anything else you need sir?” asked SaraBecca.
“Just some privacy, if you don’t mind,” said
Doctor Ralph, smiling, shooing her away with a wave of his hand. She turned to
leave and ran into the droopy woman who had abandoned her post at the register
to follow SaraBecca and Doctor Ralph around the kitchen. SaraBecca shoved her
out of the way and hissed through gritted teeth at her and while he couldn’t
make out what the words were, Doctor Ralph was sure that she was getting a
good, stern talking-to from the manager, and he smiled.
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