Chapter 03

Jessica loaded her final purchases into the TrailBlazer and closed the hatch lid. She needed to call her mother. If she waited until she got back home, as she had begun to think of Alex's place as, she might get distracted and forget. The big Walmart, as she called it - there was a somewhat smaller one out on the 63 bypass - was well-stocked as ever. Better now, though even during the near-shutdown of the economy during the the Covid hoax she it hadn't been too bad. Arkansas had a pretty bad government, but it had not yet gone totally off the rails. She had waited until Friday though, and the weekend activity started early. Both on the streets and in the stores.

She called her mother. All seemed well, about as well as could be expected. Her mother was, for the time being, a survivor of breast cancer. But Jessica knew how that could go. All she could do was try to stay on top of the situation, make the necessary doctor visits, hope for the best. Her mother was still in good condition mentally and except for the cancer, physically. Bentonville, with good medical facilities, was just over an hour away from Blue Eye. Although from what Jessica had seen, anyone in the clutches of the medical industry was not safe.

She was going to have to find a way to get back there more though. And the chances for that didn't look good. She fired the engine and navigated out of the parking lot, going out the back way onto Grant Avenue. Traffic on the main drag was crazy even mid-week, and every minute at a traffic light was spent thinking of Alex.

Of course he could call he if he needed help, but while Trumann to Jonesboro was fifteen minutes, downtown Jonesboro to Trumann could be twice that.

She liked driving the Trailblazer. She owned a Ford Escape, an old one. 2012. Back then Alex had shown her the next year's models and told her if she wanted one that wasn't ugly as sin it would be a good time to buy one. So she did, and used it as a daily driver. Her Corvette was only driven in fair weather and for the most part in daylight.

She had left both of her vehicles garaged in Jonesboro, and drove one of Alex's Trailblazers. Samantha told her he had restored the pair, over a period of several years. He hated what was happening to cars, and wanted to always have an old one to drive. She knew that her 2009 Corvette would be her last. It seemed ugly was what people wanted these days. She liked the looks of Trailblazers as well, one was ivory-colored with wide contrasting trim around the wheelwells. Burgundy on this one. Midnight blue on the other one, which was a silvery grey. They were beautiful vehicles, and comfortable to drive. New cars were mostly monochrome, either white or some shade of blue. And they all looked alike.

She was probably thinking like someone older. Was it because of Alex? He was twice her age, yet she had been drawn to him immediately when she arrived at B&H Associates. A small mom and pop outfit, actually two mom-and-pop pairs, that had grown big fast, and needed tech talent. Jonesboro was a fair-sized town, and had ASU with over 12,000 students. But people like Alex were rare. It was one thing to teach a bunch of kids, ostensibly of above-average intelligence, to write code or administer moderately complex networks, but another to find the rare ones who could to it all, effortlessly, and rarely if ever had to call for help.

Alex was something of a legend already in the then small tech community. He could see what was coming and was ahead of the rest when they got there. His employers had made a few millions, quite a few actually, mostly on the strength of his work and that of a small cadre of developers, but their product - software for small community banks - was nearing the end of its run. The small banks were being acquired by the big ones, and the handful of software developers that depended on them were being acquired by the big companies. But only for long enough to convert them to their own systems. So when Mr. Barnett and Mrs. Harris were offered a dozen or so times what the company was worth, or could hope to make in years, they took the money and prepared to run. Off to a sunny retirement.

Alex and Doug, the lead developer, pitched another idea. The Internet was going to be the next big thing. Bigger than anyone imagined, as it turned out. They had already developed some products, showed them how they worked. The investment was minimal, it looked good.

So Alex and Doug ripped out the old minicomputers, replaced them with racks of commodity servers, got the other developers who hadn't learned some C and the LAMP stack to do so, if they wanted to stay, and moved B&H into a comfortable and even more comfortable niche than the one they had previously occupied.

Jessica was recruited when she visited a college friend in Jonesboro. They were building a customer service department, as the couple of hundred banks that called perhaps once a week were rapidly becoming thousands of less sophisticated customers.

Something about Alex grabbed her right away. Even before she found out that he and Doug were not only the smartest guys in the room, but in the entire building. Buildings. They were buying the one next door to accommodate their growth.

No, it was his unique personality. Easy-going and likable right out of the box, but with a charm that she couldn't quite explain. And could not recall seeing in anyone else. And being attracted to intelligent and interesting people, she was drawn to him immediately.

Later she would learn about his autism, Asperger's, noticing the way he had learned, conditioned himself to suppress or conceal the autistic traits that 'normal' people found annoying. And, consciously or not, exploiting his talents so that the annoying behavior was, if noticed, overlooked.

And as customer service depended heavily on the tech staff, they worked together a lot. And however it happened, became close friends.

Then it all, as they say, came crashing down.

Ten days before Christmas. Both arrived early, as always. Chatted over a cup of coffee. Jessica went to her office. Always busy early. Alex walking in, unexpectedly.

They had lunch together a lot, and he might drop by mid-afternoon, but...

Something was wrong.

"I think I need to see a doctor."

He'd said that once before. What was it? Three years ago? That time he almost didn't make it. Had the flu. Thought he was over it. Friday afternoon, passed out in her office. Doctor said another hour or two, would have been too late.

He was about in the same shape now. No, worse.

Jessica punched the HR speed dial button on her desk phone.

"What's up?" Alysin, the HR boss.

"Help. Fast."

HR was just down the hall around the corner. No more than a minute, Alysin was there.

"We need an ambulance."

Jessica had already dialed the emergency number.

Alex had slumped in a chair, about to slide to the floor. Jessica caught him. Alysin stepped out into the hall.

"Watch for an ambulance!" she shouted to anyone in range. "Jessica's office!"

Within seconds people were emerging from doorways, looking their way.

"Help me get him on the floor," Jessica said.

"Who can do CPR?" Alysin.

"Got it," Jessica said

She had actually worked for as a nurse a couple of years after getting her RN license.

One of the reasons she quit. Didn't like seeing people dying. Selfish? Maybe, but I just couldn't take it after...

"He's got a pulse," she said. "Breathing OK, smaybe a little weak. He may be having a heart attack."

The ambulance would be coming from Arkansas Methodist over on 412.

We're out here almost to Missouri. Damn city council. Methodist ambulance has to be called first. They'll fool around for a while if they don't have a unit. Don't want to call one of the other companies if they can avoid it. Council just voted again couple of months ago to leave it that way. All about the money. Everyone knew it, they knew people knew. Didn't care. Every year, someone, several someones usually, tries go get them to put the hospital on rotation with the other ambulance operators. There were at least two locals with several ambulances. Same results. Someone's gonna die one day, because of your greed. Please don't let it be Alex. Please.

And if the ambulance was sitting there on ready. She did the math. Drove to work part of that route. Ambulance a good twenty minutes away, if we're lucky.

"Alex. Can you hear me?"

She placed her fingertips on his carotid again. Seems normal. Breathing. Shallow? Hard to say. She knew he worked out, not a fanatic, but in good shape. She knew he did a hundred pushups every morning, first thing, on the floor beside the bed. Again later in the day if time allowed. Walking a couple of miles most days. Working around his hobby farm out north of town all weekend. Sixty four or not, he was in better shape than people ten, twenty years older.

Just passed out. Hadn't been time to ask about pain. Might be flu again. Where's that damned ambulance?

Then the EMTs were in the hall, Alex going onto the gurney and out the door. They work fast once they get here. Problem is getting them here.

She grabbed her purse. Phone. It was too late to catch them and ride in the ambulance. Better anyway, he's in as good hands as he's going to be in. She hoped.

"Thanks," she said to Alysin. "Seeya."

Ran to the parking lot.