Chapter 4
The buzzer rang at the front door of the warehouse. Byers went to answer the door. Langly was deep into some game he had downloaded the previous day and pointedly ignoring what was going on. Byers checked the monitor. Frohike stood at the bottom of the stairs talking to someone who had her back to the camera.
He had called earlier and told them that he might not make it in because he needed to take Emma to the doctor. This set Langly off again. How were they ever going to get the paper out if Frohike was never there? Byers took a closer look at the monitor. Frohike was pointing at the camera and the other person turned and looked right into it.
"See the camera is right there," Frohike pointed it out to Emma as he explained some of the security at the warehouse. Emma looked up at the camera. She was tempted to wave but didn't. Frohike rang the buzzer again and once again Emma cringed. If it sounded that loud out here what must it sound like inside.
"Are you going to get that or what?" Langly glanced up from his computer. The light from the monitor reflected off his glasses. Byers still hadn't opened the door.
"It's Frohike," Byers explained.
"Yeah, so, let him in. That buzzer breaks my concentration."
"He's got Emma with him."
"Great," thought Langly, "just great." He was getting tired of hearing about her. Emma this. Emma that. Emma is so smart. Emma can dance. Emma, Emma, Emma. Time to talk about something else for a while.
"So open the door already!" Might as well get this over with. She didn't appear to be going away. He got up and went behind one of the big sets of metal shelves. Where was that mask: the one that Frohike had worn to trick Morris Fletcher?
The door finally opened. A bearded man in a suit stood on the other side. He smiled broadly at Emma. She smiled back. Emma went in first with Frohike close behind. With the door shut and locked behind them Frohike made the introductions. "John Byers, I would like you to meet my daughter Emma MacKenzie. Emma this is Byers."
Emma held out her hand. Byers shook it, a little amused to be greeted in such a grown up way by an eleven year old. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Byers."
"Oh, please, I've heard so much about you, I feel like we already know each other. Call me John or call me Byers."
"Well, okay, I'll try." Emma had been taught that it was not polite to call an adult by his/her first name and there were very few who encouraged her to do otherwise. Patty and Paul were the two exceptions. Now 'John' was the third. There was also Jimmy but she wasn't sure whether to put him in the adult category or not.
She heard a strange, muffled noise come from behind one of several sets of shelves that took up most of this section of the room. She looked in the direction of the noise and saw something gray with big, black shiny eyes duck from view behind some boxes. This frightened her and she moved closer to her father putting her hand in his for reassurance.
Byers and Frohike were discussing the fact that Jimmy was going to be gone for the day but that Langly was around somewhere. When Emma touched him, he looked at her and then in the direction she was staring. He saw Langly behind the shelves with that old, alien mask on. "Langly, knock it off! You're scaring her." Frohike sounded mad.
Langly took off the mask. Emma watched as a tall man with long, blond hair put on his glasses and came around the shelves. She didn't notice that he still had one hand behind his back. Emma stepped up and offered her hand for the second time. "My name is Emma." Langly stuck out his hidden hand in return. On it was one of the weird fingered gloves that went with the mask. She hesitated and he pulled his hand back.
"Too slow!" Langly exclaimed.
"Just ignore him," Frohike advised Emma. He would've had some choicer words for Langly but he had learned very quickly to censor himself when Emma was around.
"Knock it off, Langly," Byers admonished him when Frohike had taken Emma to show her around the work area. "No one's asking you to be her friend, but you don't have to be an absolute asshole either." These were unusually strong words from Byers.
Langly was surprised at first but then when he thought about it he decided he had taken it a little too far. It wasn't the kid's fault that her mother had died or Frohike's fault that the woman had tricked him into getting her pregnant. He watched father and daughter as they came back toward them. She didn't seem too bad for a little kid. She wasn't all sticky or snotty or anything. He supposed he could put up with her being around some if she didn't talk too much or mess with his stuff.
Byers and Frohike got to work. Frohike had some pictures he needed to develop and Byers was working on an article about the meatpacking industry. Langly had done a great deal of research for Byers and was just waiting for the others to finish up their parts. Frohike still hadn't written his column. Langly didn't think Frohike had a prayer of getting everything done in time.
Langly looked around for the kid. She was sitting on the red couch reading what had to be a textbook. The light over there was awful. She would probably get a headache sitting in that dark corner. He got up and found the old floor lamp that had been replaced by something better upstairs. He checked the bulb. It looked good. He brought it over and plugged it in. Emma watched him without saying anything until he turned it on. "Thanks, that's much better." He didn't reply as he walked back to his game on the computer.
Emma tried to go back to reading her homework but she'd never found history all that interesting. It didn't take much to distract her from it. She propped the book up on her knees and pretended to continue studying.
What she was really doing was watching Langly. She knew that most of the problems her father was having at work were with this man. She had heard the two of them arguing on the phone and had heard her dad talking about him with one of his other coworkers. He seemed like a nice enough man. He had brought her a light when he thought she needed it. Emma tried to think of a way that she could make friends with Langly. Her mother had told her that the best way to get to know people was to get them to discuss something they were passionate about.
It was obvious that computers were Langly's passion. Even if her father had not talked about what a whiz Langly was on the computer and how lucky they were to have him working with them, she would have guessed it from watching him for only a few minutes. He had shut down the game, moved to a different computer, one with a flat-screen monitor and was now working on something she couldn't see. She continued to watch him fascinated by the motion of his fingers over the keys.
She was amazed by how fast he could type. He never even looked down at them. It was almost hypnotic. She stood up to get closer so that she could actually see what he was doing. She walked slowly, drawn by the intensity of his concentration but moved silently so as not to disturb him. She stopped behind him, a little off to his left side. Wordlessly she watched as he switched to another computer beside the one with the flat screen, this one a laptop.
Dialog boxes opened on the monitor only to be covered in quick succession by others, most of which she didn't have time to read let alone comprehend. He gleamed the information he needed from each and moved quickly onto another. He moved back and forth between both computers, sometimes typing with one hand on each keyboard. Emma decided it was like a well-choreographed dance: absolutely flawless, perfect in interpretation, performed by someone who was not fully aware of his own genius.
She watched him for sometime, eventually getting caught up in the flow. He seemed to be searching databases for information on two people: Dolph Haag and Anna Haag. She suspected that most of the data was not meant for public perusal but Langly seemed to have no trouble accessing it. One computer was bringing up the information in various languages and the other seemed to be translating them into English. She recognized German and French but was unsure of some of the others.
At that point her asthma gave her away. The slight wheeze in her breathing was much too familiar a sound for Langly not to notice. The only indication he gave that he heard her though was a barely perceptible pause in his typing. He continued working long enough to convince Emma that he must not have heard when he suddenly stopped, turned in the chair and calmly regarded her with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Did you want something?" he asked.
Emma was relieved that he didn't sound mad. She then felt free to ask him what was on her mind. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" Oops, now he sounded a little perturbed so she went on quickly.
"How can you do two things at once?" She didn't give him time to answer. "I mean how can you type on both keyboards and still know what's going on? That was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen! Can you actually read that fast? It was so cool!"
All of this came out in a rush. She clamped her hands over her mouth her eyes getting big in shock at her own behavior. She knew that when she talked like that she sounded like a bothersome little kid and that was something she was trying very hard not to be, especially with him. She wanted so badly for Langly to like her so that he wouldn't give her father a bad time anymore.
Langly couldn't help it. He started laughing at her. His laugh was deep and irresistible. Taking her hands away from her face, Emma smiled at him.
"Here, I'll show you," he told her. Without getting out of his chair, he turned and hooked his foot around another chair behind him. He wheeled it around bringing it up next to his. He patted the seat.
"Sit here." She did as she was told.
Byers who had been watching the exchange with great interest smiled to himself and went back to his work. The crisis had passed. He knew that Langly had now accepted the fact that Emma was a part of their lives. It was about time because it was obvious to everyone else that she was too important to Frohike to ignore.
When Frohike came out of the darkroom, he was shocked to see the two heads, one blond and rather messy, the other brunette and neatly braided, bent over the same monitor. Had hell frozen over in the hour since he had gone to develop his photographs? He walked over to Byers and asked him in a voice that would not be heard by the other two, "Not that I'm complaining, but what happened?" He pointed to Langly and Emma.
Byers chuckled. "She did the one thing guaranteed to put anyone in Langly's good graces. She complimented his skills on the computer."
"Thank God," Frohike let go of some of the tension he had been holding. Byers looked at his friend. Frohike was starting to show some wear from the added responsibilities and concerns that he now had in his life. Byers had been trying to get him to let them help since Frohike had moved in with Emma but Fro was determined to prove that he could do it all: hold up his end at the paper and take care of his daughter. Letting Jimmy pick her up at school the other day was the first step. Bringing Emma here today was the next. Once they all got to know each other, then maybe the other three men could really be of assistance.
"Emma, did you finish your homework?"
Emma and Langly both looked up at Frohike. The light from the monitor now reflected off two sets of glasses. "No." Emma admitted frowning. She was having fun and homework was the last thing she wanted to do right then.
"Don't you think you'd better get it done?"
Byers wanted to kick Frohike. "Leave them alone," he thought. "Let them get to know each other."
"She can do it later. We're in the middle of something," Langly insisted. He looked back down at the monitor.
"Emma, how much do you have left to do?" Frohike didn't give up.
"I need to finish reading the history assignment and do the math but everything else is done," she said hopefully. "I still have all day tomorrow. Can I please do it later?"
"You'd be better off getting it done now."
"She's also got all weekend," Langly suggested. "Cut her some slack, 'Dad'. The kid deserves some down time."
Frohike had no intention of making her do the homework now. He just wanted to give Langly an out. He wanted to be absolutely sure that Emma wasn't bothering him. From Langly's reaction, he'd have to say that they were getting along quite well.
"I guess you can do it tomorrow but you'll have do it first thing when we get here."
"I can come back tomorrow?" Emma asked a little surprised.
"If it's all right with you two." Frohike looked from Langly to Byers. He knew Jimmy wouldn't mind.
"That's fine with me," Byers replied.
"You've never asked my permission before. Why start now?" Langly turned and winked at Emma to show that he was teasing.
"If you're going to be difficult, I could work from home." Frohike had missed the wink, maybe he had misjudged.
"Oh, go back to work, Frohike. I'm just giving you a hard time. We have bad guys to track down and destroy."
Emma watched her dad for a moment longer to make sure that it was all right. He just nodded at her and began going through photos with Byers to use with the meatpacking article.
After the pictures were selected and the layout agreed upon, Frohike worked on his column. Every half hour or so, he would check on Emma and Langly. He didn't usually disturb them; he'd just wander past and see what they were doing.
At one point they were discussing music. Emma almost ran over Frohike in her hurry to find her backpack. "Sorry, Dad." She carried a portable CD player to listen to music on Metro on the way home. She found it, took the CD out of the player, and handed it to Langly who put it in the CD drive of the computer they were working at. "It should connect to a secret website," Emma told him.
A window popped up that showed a picture of a plate of sushi. "Don't you have internet access at home?'
"Yeah, but I wasn't allowed to play on it. I only used it for research and stuff."
Langly sat back in his chair. "I don't know if we should then." Emma looked disappointed. Langly felt bad for her. He knew the internet was safe if you didn't do anything stupid. "Why don't you go ask your dad?" She went over to where Frohike was working.
"Dad, Langly said I had to ask you if I could go on the internet."
Frohike looked across the room at Langly who shrugged, "She said her mom only let her use the internet for school work"
"Please, there's something I've been dying to try."
"What's that?"
"There's a secret website that you can only get to if you have the new Alanis Morissette CD. Please can I? Please?"
"Okay, okay, but until I can go through some stuff with you on using the internet, you don't go online without one of us with you. Got it?"
"Sure. Thanks, Dad."
She went back to where Langly was sitting. He clicked on the sushi picture and another window opened up, this one connected to the internet. It asked the user to register. Langly typed in the information of one his online personalities instead of Emma's. A new window opened which offered three choices: 'letter from Alanis', 'exclusive audio tracks', and 'making of Hands Clean'. Emma pointed to the last one then to 'see the video'.
Langly had seen the video a number of times but Emma was getting a kick out of watching it play just for her. She sang along with it during the chorus. He wondered if she understood exactly what the song was about. He wanted to warn her that some guys were really like that but he figured there would be plenty of time for such discussions later. Let her enjoy the song for the time being.
They explored the website for a while longer. Then Langly suggested a few of his favorite game sites. When Frohike next came to check on them they were playing cards together online but on separate computers. It looked like Gin Rummy. "You could just get a deck of cards." Frohike suggested.
"This is better," Langly told him.
Emma agreed. She pointed at her monitor. "See, you don't have to shuffle and deal. It's a lot faster. And look, we can type messages to each other."
"But you're sitting right next to each other. You could just talk."
"This is more fun," Emma insisted.
Frohike walked away shaking his head. Go figure.
After a while Frohike stopped checking up on Emma. Langly was doing an excellent job keeping her entertained. Or was it the other way around? Either way, by late afternoon he had gotten quite a bit of work done. He had just asked Byers to proofread for him when Langly began shouting. "Frohike! FROHIKE!" He looked over at them. Oh, God, not again! He and Byers rushed over. Emma was in a bad way: the same quick, labored breathing as the night before only this time she was shaking, too.
"Emma, where are your inhalers?"
"I don't know!"
"Did you check your backpack?"
"They're not there."
"I'll get mine," Langly offered. He knew how it felt. He didn't like watching anyone else go through it.
"No, we don't know if the dosage is the same." Frohike headed out to the car. They had to be in the car. "Keep an eye on her. I'll be right back."
Byers knelt down in front of Emma to be at her eye level. Frohike had told him what the doctor had said about the possibility of the asthma triggering a panic attack. "Emma, I want you to try something. Take a deep breath and hold it for 3 seconds." She just stared at him. "Try it. It might help until your dad brings your inhaler." She gave it a shot but barely made it for 2 seconds. "Try again." She did a little better the second time. "Keep trying."
"I can't."
"Sure you can."
"I can't." She was getting frustrated.
"Saying you can't is just giving yourself permission not to try."
Now she was mad and going to prove him wrong. She held her breath.
"Good," Byers said, "now exhale for 3 seconds."
"What?"
"Try it."
She held her breath for 3 seconds and exhaled for 3.
"Now breath in for 3 seconds, hold it for 3, exhale for 3, and wait 3 seconds until you take another breath."
"That's too hard," she snapped at him.
"No it's not. You've already proved you can do most of it."
He was right about that. So, she tried to do it with him counting this time. The buzzer went off. Langly ran to let Frohike back in.
Frohike had found the inhalers in the backseat. She had forgotten to put them in her backpack. When he got back inside he noticed that she was better off then when he left her. Byers was counting as Emma was breathing in a more reasonable way.
Frohike handed her the inhalers. She used the first one and was able to hold the medication in her lungs for a full ten seconds and didn't cough much when she exhaled. Frohike was standing right next to her chair. She leaned into him, her head resting against his side. He put his arm around her and hugged her close. She was still shaking a bit but even that was subsiding. "I'm sorry, honey, I should have kept track of the time. You were supposed to use that over an hour ago."
"I wasn't watching the clock either," Emma sounded more normal now.
"Maybe we should get you a watch with an alarm on it."
"That might be a good idea." Emma agreed.
Byers stood up. Emma looked up at him feeling guilty for getting angry with him when he was just trying to help. "John," she tried the name, "I'm sorry I got mad at you."
"Don't worry about it."
Frohike stayed with her until she completed the whole inhaler regimen. When he walked off, Langly and Emma were discussing the finer points of inhaler use and which ones had the nastiest side effects. He sat back down at his workstation. Byers came over. "I think the doctor was right about the panic attacks."
Frohike agreed. "What did you have her do?" He wanted to know in case she had another episode"It's called Square Breathing. It wouldn't have worked if it was just asthma. It's a method of slowing down your breathing if you're hyperventilating or having a panic attack," Byers explained. "You said that last night she couldn't find her inhalers. It was the same just now. She's panicking when she thinks she won't be able to stop the asthma attack."
"I'm afraid there's more to it than that," Frohike wasn't going to kid himself.
"I know, but it's probably what's pushing her over the edge."