This Perfect Day

Chip slipped his watch from his pocket and checked it against a clock. "It's lane six," he said. "If there's more than one escalator, be on line for the one at the back of the plane; and make sure you're near the end of the line but with at least six members behind you. Dover?" He took Dover's elbow and they went through the door into the depot area. A member in orange standing there said, "You're not supposed to be in here."

"Uni okayed it," Chip said. "We're in airport design."

"Three-thirty-seven A," Dover said.

Chip said, "This wing is being enlarged next year."

"I see what you meant about the ceiling," Dover said, looking up at it.

"Yes," Chip said. "It could easily go up another meter."

"Meter and a half," Dover said.

"Unless we run into trouble with the ducts," Chip said.

The member left them and went out through the door.

"Yes, all the ducts," Dover said. "Big problem."

"Let me show you where they lead," Chip said. "It's interesting."

"It certainly is," Dover said.

They went into the area where members in orange were readying cake and drink containers, working more quickly than members usually did.

"Three-thirty-seven A?" Chip said.

"Why not?" Dover said, and pointed at the ceiling as they separated for a member pushing a cart. "You see the way the ducts run?" he said.

"We're going to have to change the whole setup," Chip said. "In here too."

They false-touched and went into the room where coveralls hung on hooks. No one was in it. Chip closed the door and pointed to the closet where the orange coveralls were kept.

They put orange coveralls on over their yellow ones, and toeguards on their sandals. They tore openings inside the pockets of the orange coveralls so that they could reach into the pockets of the inner ones.

A member in white came in. "Hello," he said. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," they said.

"I was sent up from '765 to help out," he said. He was about thirty. "Good, we can use it," Chip said.

The member, opening his coveralls, looked at Dover, who was closing his. "What have you got the other ones on underneath for?" he asked. "It's warmer that way," Chip said, going to him. He turned to Chip, puzzled. "Warmer?" he said. "What do you want to be warmer for?"

"I'm sorry, brother," Chip said, and hit him in the stomach. He bent forward, grunting, and Chip swung his fist up under his jaw. The member straightened and fell backward; Dover caught him under the arms and lowered him to the floor.

He lay with his eyes closed, as if sleeping. Chip, looking down at him, said, "Christ and Wei, it works." They tore up a set of coveralls and tied the member's wrists and ankles and knotted a sleeve between his teeth; then lifted him and put him into the closet where the floor polisher was. The clock's 9:51 became 9:52.

They wrapped their kits in orange coveralls and went out of the room and past the members working at the cake and drink containers. In the depot area they found a half-empty carton of towels and put the wrapped kits into it. Carrying the carton between them, they went out through the portal onto the field.

A plane was opposite lane six, a large one, with members leaving it on two escalators. Members in orange waited at each escalator with a container cart.

They went away from the plane, toward the left; crossed the field diagonally with the carton between them, skirting a slow-moving maintenance truck and approaching the hangars that lay in a flat-roofed wing extending toward the runways.

They went into a hangar. A smaller plane was there, with members in orange underneath it, lowering a square black housing from it. Chip and Dover carried the carton to the back of the hangar where there was a door in the side wall.

Dover opened it, looked in, and nodded to Chip.

They went in and closed the door. They were in a supply room: racks of tools, rows of wood crates, black metal drums marked Lub Oil SG. "Couldn't be better," Chip said as they put the carton on the floor.

Dover went to the door and stood at its hinge side. He took out his gun and held it by its barrel.

Chip, crouching, unwrapped a kit, opened it, and took out a bomb, one with a yellow four-minute handle.

He separated two of the oil drums and put the bomb on the floor between them, with its taped-down handle facing up.

He took his watch out and looked at it. Dover said, "How long?" and he said, "Three minutes."

He went back to the carton and, still holding the watch, closed the kit and rewrapped it and closed the carton's leaves.

"Is there anything we can use?" Dover asked, nodding at the tool racks.

Chip went to one and the door of the room opened and a member in orange came in. "Hello," Chip said, and took a tool from the rack and put the watch in his pocket. "Hello," the member said, coming to the other side of the rack. She glanced over it at Chip. "Who're you?" she asked.

"Li RP," he said. "I was sent up from '765 to help." He took another tool from the rack, a pair of calipers. "It's not as bad as Wei's Birthday," the member said.