Read Online Car Pool by Karin Kallmaker - Free Book Online

National, not Knock-You.
    To fill the silence, Anthea said, “I’m having a horrible time with my computer.”
    “What’s it doing?” Shay’s voice alternated between sleepy and alert.
    “Parity check. I’ve replaced my batch files, the command.com and autoexec.bat and I think I’m going to have to reinitialize and lose all my files.”
    “Don’t do that,” Shay said. “Use Norton to recover a file … any file. See if that helps.”
    “Why would that make a difference?”
    “It might reset the root directory.”
    Anthea started to gape, but turned her head away to wave at the guard at Gate 12. What did a field technician know about computers?
    Anthea looked at the car clock as she turned off the engine. “Sixty-five minutes, not bad if I say so myself.”
    “Definitely,” Shay said. Anthea watched as Shay scrambled out of the low seat with a lot less fuss than Anthea did. Shay was … lithe. There was no other word for it. Anthea picked up her satchel and promised herself to lose five pounds as soon as possible. Then she mentally erased the promise — trying to lose weight was the surest way she’d found
    to gain it. She was better off promising to exercise, but then she reminded herself she was concentrating on quitting smoking. She realized she hadn’t wanted a cigarette during the entire drive, which gave her a really good feeling. She waved goodbye to Shay, who headed for the outbound shuttle stop, and then walked toward her inbound shuttle stop. She could see the little bus chugging its way toward her.
    When she got to her computer she remembered Shay’s advice. Well, maybe a field technician had unknown skills. She booted off her Norton recovery disk and recovered a small file. She turned the computer off again and crossed her fingers. “Look, you piece of junk, my life is improving. You load or I’m getting a Macintosh.” She flipped the power toggle.
    After a lengthy amount of grinding disk noise, she was able to get a directory and backup her files, then reinitialize her drive. She would have to tell Shay they were even over the nasty truck incident. It would take the better part of the day to reinstall Windows and her software, but she was well on her way. She shared her morning muffin with Adrian when he joined her for a congratulatory cup of coffee.
    “You’re just lucky,” he said. “Better call RTS and cancel the call or they’ll show up and break the thing again.”
    “Good idea. What do you think of the muffin?”
    “Love,” he said gently, “I know the cooking is therapy, but what possessed you to put pearl onions in a cranberry muffin?”
    Anthea was devastated. “Well, you don’t have to eat it. Buy your own.”
    “Can’t afford it,” he said. “I’ll just pick out the onions. Did you cut the recipe out of the paper or something?”
    Anthea sniffed. “Gourmet Magazine, if you please.” She took another bite, then picked out an onion. “I do think they’re … an acquired taste.”
    “Tell you what,” Adrian said. “When payday finally rolls around I’ll treat you to blueberry muffins from paradise. I get them at a little bakery on Castro.”
    Anthea finished her muffin and threw away her accumulated pile of pearl onions. “I have to get back to the Castro someday.” Maybe it’s time I did.
    “You make it sound like you have to see a travel agent to do it. I’d be thrilled to be your guide,” Adrian said. “You do smell faintly of mothballs.”
    Anthea pursed her lips at him, adding her best glare. He went away.

3 Slow Merge
    Shay carefully stepped to the very edge of the plywood plank. She knelt slowly, maintaining her balance. Today’s field buddy was her cube mate, Harold. He was on the other end, providing stability for the plank. Even though she was in a Level D protective suit with breather, and would not step directly on the soil underneath the plank, Shay was feeling paranoid. She tried to work quickly, but the soil sample had to be perfect.