The idea of hanging out with this meekly street urchin riled Veruca up so much that her eyes could have popped out of their sockets from how hard she wanted to roll them, but it just so happened that she needed something at that moment, leading her to reply, "I'm going furniture shopping tomorrow, my sofa is broken and I need a new one."
Charlie remembered seeing the broken couch the night before and thought such an excursion would make a simple but ample bonding experience, and enthusiastically responding, "That sounds swell, I could accompany you. I'll even bring a van with me; I'll have it up here by the end of the day."
"What time were you thinking of going? My schedule is open after three," Charlie added.
"We'll go at five, at this rate I'll still be utterly pissed today, and I'll need all day tomorrow to recover from the hangover," Veruca amended as she took another sip of coconut water. It was important for Veruca to have barked back in such a fashion, if she suggested what they were going to do then she would have to be in control of every single detail, including what time they would meet up.
"Well then, here, take my business card, just ring me on my mobile whenever you are ready," Charlie replied as he handed Veruca a business card from his breast pocket, only for her to do what Wonka did when her father handed his mentor his own business card during the factory tour, throw it to the side without even looking at it.
A bit unnerved by Veruca's actions, Charlie grabbed his tie and began walking out of her bedroom, but not before turning back to say, "Take care, and please, rest today. Oh, and lay off the bottle, we do not want a repeat of last night, now do we."
That last comment utterly angered Veruca, the vicious stare she gave Charlie when the two locked eyes a few minutes before returned, no one could ever tell her how to live her life and Charlie picked up on that, simply adding as he stared down and wrung his hands, "Alright then, I'll see my way out."
While the previous night had been one Charlie would never forget, it eventually came to an end and another day began, a day full of responsibilities. Even though he was running late, Alice barraged him and begged to stay for a bit, at least for a small breakfast, but Charlie declined. In order to emphasize social stations in life, Veruca had Alice wear a modern version of a servant's traditional uniform, a thin black dress with a white collar and apron, while on duty at her penthouse. The incredibly young woman had a faint bulge protruding out of her abdomen, she was three months pregnant and this job was the only way she could bring money into her parent's household where she still lived. Not to mention the fact that once her child was born, she would need all the money she could get to begin covering the expenses, but sometimes the stress of working for Veruca while pregnant seemed more detrimental than giving birth without a safety net to fall back on.
Charlie entered the elevator and rode it all the way down to the lobby, all the while he pulled out his phone and signaled his ride back to the factory. Charlie's phone was like no other, only two of them existed in the entire world. Instead of purchasing some other company's product and risk them somehow hacking into the factory's system and have them steal even more trade secrets, Wonka's paranoia led him to order a crew of Oompa Loompas to create a pair of smartphones so that both could always be in contact. At first, Wonka was hesitant to even commissioning them as he felt it would only connect him more with the outside world, but a teenage Charlie eventually wore him down as he tried to follow the trends of the outside world, in this case the telecommunications revolution of the late 2000s and early 2010s. With the elevator reaching the lobby, Charlie rushed out and made his way to the curb where a few seconds later his ride back to the factory arrived.
Wonka's Great Glass Elevator descended from the heavens and landed right next to Charlie, much to the doorman's amazement who could not believe what he was transpiring before his eyes. Charlie stepped into the crystal contraption and pressed the button labeled "Chocolate Room" on one of the walls, leading the doors to close and the four propulsion rockets to ignite and send the elevator up into the air. London was a beautiful city for Charlie to fly over, especially the well-developed areas such as the City of London or Westminster, which Charlie could see from this high up. But even though he was now wealthier than his child-self could ever imagine, his mode of transportation maneuvered him from this most exuberant of views to an egregious display of income inequality. It took only a few minutes for the Great Glass Elevator to reach Wonka's factory on the edge of economically deprived East London. While surrounded by modest homes and businesses, the grim and gargantuan production center for all of Wonka's candies stood out like a sore thumb, its dark gray stone walls combined an industrial revolution aesthetic with fascist architecture, letting everyone around know that there was one supreme being in this corner of the world, only now there were two.
The Great Glass Elevator entered the factory though a hatch that opened whenever the device got close, a hatch, constructed over the spot where Charlie, the rest of his family and Willy Wonka crashed through the roof of the factory following a literal out-of-this-world adventure, that was designed to let the device leave and enter the facility whenever the user pleased. The Elevator descended its way into the building until it could attach itself to the rails, the component that allowed it to maneuver about the structure, in a large, hollow room where goods were being transported throughout the factory complex and after zig-zagging through the various jaw-dropping rooms the contraption stopped in the most beautiful room of them all, the Chocolate Room. The room had not changed much since the day Charlie, the other winners and their guardians first saw it, other than the rundown Bucket family shack residing in the middle of the room, everything else was still as edible as before. Unfortunately, Charlie had no time to idle by and take in this breathtaking view; he was so late for work so he would have to show up in the clothes he had been wearing since the day before. As he struggled to put on his tie and straighten it he rushed over to the same candy apple tree where over a decade ago fellow contest winner Violet Beauregarde beat him to the punch, or fruit to be more specific, and plucked a candy apple without much competition from the Good Boy. With no time for breakfast, Charlie picked the most nutritious item in the room and ate it to keep him fueled until lunch, which itself was sort of a difficult task since most of the room was candy.
As he took bites from the apple, Charlie rushed over to his own personal transportation device, an Areoscoot, a hovering red dish brandished with an ornate golden "W" in the front with a yoke control wheel nestled in front atop a metal bar. The device looked and worked similar to a self-balancing scooter with the driver leaning forwards or backwards to indicate whether they wanted to speed up or slow down and gyroscopic yoke controlled the direction the device went, left or right, up or down, you name it. Originally designed for Charlie to move around the factory in a more compact device than the Glass Elevator, the Areoscoot caught on so much that miniature and simpler versions were mass produced so that Oompa Loompas could better navigate the facility. After finishing the apple, Charlie placed the core in one of Areoscoot's slots for disposal later, pressed the autopilot button so that the device would take him to the office and placed both hands on the yoke to begin his daily commute. His journey took him through the dark tunnels of the chocolate river with only his Areoscoot's headlight and those mounted on the tunnel walls illuminating his passage and the breeze blowing his half-combed hair up from his head. The Areoscoot took him where he needed to go and within a few minutes he reached the center of the factory, another hollow room with a tinted window ceiling. Charlie parked his Areoscoot in a room adjacent to the Administration Offices where a tower nearly as tall as the room with a large glass dome nestled on top stood, and rushed over to the tower where he boarded the elevator to get up to the dome.
The ride up was quick and when the doors opened into the domed room he was greeted by the soothing voice of his benefactor, "Oh, my dear boy, there you are. Your parents told me you did not come home last night and when you did not show up to work on time, I got worried. Didn't you receive any of my calls?"