Crazy Dave's Carwash
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"Has anyone noticed the bugs getting worse recently? I feel like I've been scraping a lot of windshields today." An employee asks his coworkers
"It comes and it goes. It'll be winter soon and then they'll be dying off by the truckload." Says the most senior man
" 'Sides, all these beamers tip nice. Just take the work before we all have to go back to retail hell in a month or two." A third says in response
"I mean, sure, but it seems like too much all of a sudden." The first man remarks before getting back to work
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The former illegal dumping ground - Mary Burdoc, Tenured professor
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"... and over here we have another dicot, or should I say evolving proto dicot, that has a dual root system and leaf pattern completely unknown not only in this area, but maybe the whole world. If I didn't know better I would say this is an artificial creation. But there are so many!" Mary Burdoc stood pausing her dictation device. She looked over the field that had once been an industrial dumping ground.
According to her student tipster this field had, until recently, been a contaminated wasteland. Some city project had come in and swept out the junk and new plants had moved in. As they tend to do. She had made inquiries, but small towns are terrible record keepers for anything that isn't the next county fair. So she had to estimate the age of the plant life in the area. Based on what she was seeing the plants had been here at least a full season. Maybe two. The tree sprouts were all quite thin, and the ground cover patchy. This lot was likely scraped clean of all life in the clean up before the plants moved back into the hard packed industrial dirt.
Pernicious little buggers, always looking for the next free niche.
The unique combo of contamination and fertilization from the surrounding farms, and I suppose the former dairy farm as well, lead to several rapid and unique mutations. Wild Carrots and parsnip with dicot and monocot root systems. Dwarf zea mays growing in a bush rather than a vascular stalk. Populus tremuloides that retained its shallow lateralis root system, but grew a tap root as large as the tree itself, and also flowered.
Any one of the mutants would be worth publishing. She could probably get all of her graduates term papers with the things in this field. And to think, her student only caught it because of the blue sunflowers. Sunflowers can become purple under normal circumstances, blue was barely anything to write home about.
She shoved another seed pod into her sample bag, its shape was reminiscent of a pomegranate. There was plenty to learn here. You just had to be willing to dig a little
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Penal work detail off I-25
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"There ain't shit here man! This is bullshit." One of the prisoners shouted at the guard
"I don't care. We are contracted with the city to fill those orange bags, you're gonna fill em." The officer said while batting away a mosquito
"I could eat off this damn road man! There. Is. NoThing. Here!" The prisoner said while turning in a circle with his arms out.
"Come on Joe, the young bloods right. City wants a clean road, they got a clean road. We can all go back and say job well done and get away from these damn bugs." An older prisoner tried to reason with the supervisor.
"Fill the bags"
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NOAA Research center -534 miles away
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"Roman, I think someone is messing with the Colorado atmospheric units." One of the interns handed a highlighted page to her supervisor. Anomalis data had popped up yesterday and today. Well outside of expected parameters. And the area was growing.
"What do you have here?" Chelsie's supervisor took the paperwork without looking away from his models. Always so focused on what he's doing, you could run a parade through his office and he wouldn't care. Unless that parade could help him make better atmospheric models.
"Smog and auto contaminates have dropped logarithmically over the past two days with no precipitation or heavy winds to disperse it." Chelsie said with confidence.
"It doesn't take a lot of wind Chelsie, just the right wind, to throw off the numbers" Roman said dismissively. So many young people in this job were quick to say the sky is falling. But after a long enough time the patterns become easy to recognize "Give it a week and I am sure things will be back within model."
"Sir, with all due respect, if this pattern continues whoever is destroying our machines will have infected every station in Colorado by the end of the week at this rate. And it isn't wind. Your model accounts for a 28.8% variance from weather, we are at 60% and rising"
That got Roman's attention. He finished the line he was working on and pushed his keyboard away.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Up or down?"
"Down. A city of 3 million is outputting like a suburb"
"And you suspect sabotage?"
"Yes. The machines read normally and then all of a sudden the numbers fall off a cliff. They read clean air." She paused, confidence returning. "Should we send out some mobile units to verify?" This could be an opportunity for field work.
"No. You aren't going to tell anyone about this until I make some calls" Roman was pouring over the printed pages now. Dates, times and data variation said something very different to him than to Chelsea. Where she was seeing career advancement, he was seeing career ending manipulation. Maybe even worse, cover up by someone inside or outside the country for an environmental disaster. "This stays with us for now. We're partners in this, but we need to play it close."
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Harry Duval - With his insurance agent
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"You are looking at a lot of personal liability here Harry. Your policy only covers 2 million per incident." The agent said to his Irate client
"I pay you vultures 30 grand a year. I have 10 million in coverage!" Harry shouted back at his agent
"No you have 10 million in aggregate limit coverage. This is a single theft. You are responsible for all losses above the 2 million dollar figure."
"But I did everything right. Shouldn't that count for something?" He asked, entering the bargaining stage.
"Not to us, no. But from what I have been told this case has gone Federal. No one wants another Heemeyer. From what I hear they already have two suspects in custody, and your former guard. One of them will crack and then we subrogate back your losses when you sue them" The agent re directed his clients energy out of the office. Recovery from criminals is nearly impossible. By the time court adjourns they've injected or snorted everything of value, and there's nothing to recover. He'd seen it dozens of times. Not quite as bad as this, but still. Harry Duval was ruined.
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Tyler's Perspective
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The cop car pulled away with Roy and the problems started immediately. Nola got bent out of shape when her buddy pulled out the gate. The ramp stopped moving and nothing came out processed. We should probably close early today. She's not in a working mood.
I grabbed the tablet looking thing that Roy had on his desk. I was shocked when it turned on at all, and disappointed that it had nothing useful. But I could make it look like it did.
"Bad news folks! I have a jamb in the output section. We are gonna need to clear the area so we can do some maintenance."
"Hey conocido I still have stuff in there! You ripping me off?" The Latino scrapper at the front of the line was gonna to make himself a problem. Luckily it looked like the other guy at the front was just dumping.
"I'll write you a receipt and we will get you what you are owed as soon as we can re open"
"Hell no hombre. I am not trusting you. You pay me for the scrap you stole now or I get the cops back here again to arrest your bitch ass too." Not gonna make it easy on me are you
I pulled out my wallet, 200 bucks in the fake 20s Roy had given me to pick up lunch for everyone. This guy will demand more no matter what I offer him, start low.
"You had mostly aluminum and steel in that truck. I'll pay you out. 60 bucks seems fair."
"300."
"If you can find someone who will pay 300 for a Taco full of steel you better tell the rest of us. That guy can retire off his load" I said, pointing to an overflowing tow behind trailer. Most people were on their way out. I just have to get this guy out of here. And the tourists.
"150"
"140 and I'll pay you out now, otherwise I'll need change"
"Deal"
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With the gate closed I walked away towards the center. "Nola, can you hear me? Give me a sign if I can help."
She didn't respond. Or maybe she did. I am not sure where the big bug falls in this hierarchy. But he popped his head out next to me and shimmied over top of the ground towards me. All the grace of a fat man falling down the stairs.
"Yeah, you can stay about 5 feet back there stinky." I patted both hips. If he got aggressive I could always shoot it. "You got any ideas?"
The bug shook his head 'no' at me.
"You in contact with the boss? Nola or Roy?"
Another shake
"Just checking, can you understand me?"
A nod yes
Nice. It thinks on its own. That won't end badly at all. I wish I hadn't fed my 50 to Nola this morning.
"Well you and me are in charge till Roy gets back or Nola gets over it. Deal, partner?" I stuck out my hand. He headbutted it.
Yeah, ok. We can be friends.
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Somewhere on the internet
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-->Guys check out this video. This machine looks like it can process just about anything instantly
->Waow that amzing! I cannt wait to see moar
->Fake
->Free bitcoin from Mr. Beast, Click this link
->Have a little faith man, look at that thing go
->Fake and gay
->really cool fake, but your mom and I just want to let you know that you're gay
->Nobody feed the trolls
->I wonder if you could crush a car with it, that would be cool to see
->это предложение на русском языке
->Where is this thing. I'd like to know more
->هي جملو روسي ۾ آهي
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Nola's Perspective
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Grow. Must Grow He said he would be back He will be back I have to be stronger. I need stronger defenders
10%
10% of what I have now, or what I can earn
What I can earn
The road earns more than the dump ever since I took the big highway
Focus on expansion over all
More highway, more delvers
1 million so far today
2 million by tomorrow
I must grow. Be stronger. Not be separated again
I can feel him inside the station
I can't get closer
Only roads and medians. No driveways. No parking lots. No buildings.
I'll be ready