SPRINGFIELD, NORTH TACOMA
Waylon Smithers carried the wooden box containing two antique flintlock pistols into a room he and Montgomery Burns referred to as the office. Located on the western side of the manor, it was a large space that took up a substantial section of that wing. In many ways, it mirrored the construction of Burns' lavish office at the nuclear plant: high, arched ceilings, deep carpeting, windows that opened onto a terraced private balcony. The late afternoon sun shown in through the gap in the curtains.
The office was a room that saw little use despite its splendor.
Burns was much more apt to use his private study for business he conducted at home, and Waylon preferred the airy space of his own room upstairs: a room that had once been his father's old bedroom.
Waylon set the box on the massive desk, and glanced about. Several paintings and a handful of medieval weapons hung on the walls. The cutlass pistols would look appropriate on display in here; and if ever Preston wanted them back, it wasn't as if their absence would be strongly felt. He opened the box and regarded the weapons carefully.
They resembled regular flintlock pistols of the era, but with a razor sharp bowie blade attached along the underside of the barrel, and extending several inches past the muzzle. They were in remarkable condition considering their age. Not a speck of rust on the metal, and the wooden stocks looked like they had been freshly oiled.
Figuring out a display was something he'd tackle later, Waylon decided, turning to leave. He didn't bother to close the box. The pistols weren't going anywhere. He'd almost made it to the door when his cell phone rang.
Waylon paused as he looked at the number. It wasn't just out of state, it was out of country. India. He recognized the number from their sister nuclear plant in India, the one Why would anyone be calling at this hour? It was barely six o'clock in the morning near Bangalore.
With a sense of foreboding, he accepted the call.
"Mister Smithers, sir, I'm so glad I reached you," came a breathless and heavily accented voice. "I was worried I wouldn't get you!"
"Abhin, easy. What's the big deal?"
"It's Rhonda," the man panted. "She's off her chain!"
Waylon pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please, please tell me you're speaking metaphorically right now."
"No metaphor or any other 'fore'. She's gone! Her handler went to take her for her morning walk, and found her chain had been hacksawed through. We locked down the plant, searched the entire facility and the surrounding area, but she's gone!"
Waylon leaned against the doorframe. "How hard can it be to find one short, white American woman?"
"You'd be surprised," Abhin replied, defensively.
Waylon groaned. "Great, fine, whatever. Just keep me posted, and for the love of your jobs, don't you dare let productivity slip."
"Understood, sir. Should I alert the authorities?"
"No," Waylon replied. "No. That'll only open a new can of worms. Keep your eyes open, ears to the ground. Let me know if anything comes up, but otherwise, we're just going to carry on with business until whenever she decides to surface."
"I understand," answered Abhin. The line went dead. Waylon pocketed his phone.
Rhonda LeBlanc. There was a name Waylon hadn't heard in a while. Not since he and Burns had trussed her up and shipped her to the India facility for trespassing on their grounds. Rhonda had been an employee at Preston's plant once upon a time, Waylon knew. There'd been some issues between them.
Waylon hadn't even known the full gamut of the battle between those two when he and Burns had found her skulking about the grounds. It wasn't till her unexpected apprehension that Rhonda let slip she was the Senior Vice President at the Plateau City Nuclear Generating Station. That had changed everything. Instead of merely doing apprehending her, he'd had her shipped off with a load of refurbished parts to the India facility. It made sense. He'd started renovating the springfield plant, replacing some parts, repurposing others. Rhonda became just another retrofitted asset. A good use for old parts, he reasoned.
Waylon had to confess he hadn't thought much about Rhonda since. He did let Preston know he'd taken her, something both Preston and Antoine seemed remarkably relieved over.
The rest of the story between Preston and Rhonda was something Waylon had learned over online chats with Antoine. Rhonda had apparently decided to put a target on Preston's back and hound him relentlessly. It made Waylon feel all the better for taking her. He wasn't actively trying to help Preston, but he didn't want the young man's life to be any harder than it already was. Waylon considered himself fondly disposed towards the younger man. Preston had saved his life once.
They might not have been friends, but Waylon had seen Preston's character revealed at the worst time. There was something about Preston he found he could relate to: unassuming, insecure, but with a spark behind his eyes just waiting for the right conditions to ignite. That was pretty much me twenty years ago, Waylon mused.
Either way, he'd tell Antoine about Rhonda, and let Antoine be the bearer of bad news. Or Antoine could keep that information private. Whichever he chose. He knew Preston best.
Waylon decided he'd mull over the best approach, and deal with it later. Like the pistols, it didn't seem something that required immediate action.