Archie Teegardin put the Clear....

Thousand+ Words for Dec 21, 2025

Archie Teegardin put the clear plastic disk he had carefully removed from a red envelope into a narrow slot and pushed it a little; the machine grasped it and drew it inside, and then he heard it spin up. “Sort of like an old DVD drive,” the young woman assisting him said, smiling brightly.

She meant to be helpful; Archie heard it as a criticism of his age, a criticism of his choice to let his hair go gray, and his jaw tensed.

The data on the disk had already flowed through the system. As she was speaking, the screen flickered with a series of photographs and sound-file graphics that Ronny and his technical man would pore over. Having delivered the disk, Archie’s job was done, but he was interested in seeing some of the photographs. “Could I have a look at that?” he asked.

The girl’s smile evaporated. ”Ah, I don’t think I’m allowed to do that, Mr. Teegardin,” she said.

There was an awkward pause, and then Teegardin relaxed. ”Okay,” he said. He moved away from the counter, turned and pushed the door open, and stepped out into the bright sunlight.

“Wait!” the woman was calling. ”You have to sign—”

Teegardin didn’t turn around, and when the door closed, he didn’t hear her anymore. He was a couple or three steps down the sidewalk, his pack of cigarettes out and one coming out of the pack when he heard her voice again. ”Mr. Teegardin!”

He turned and saw that she was standing at the door. He jammed the cigarette into his mouth. ”Yes?” His hand was in his pocket, searching for a light.

“I have to have you sign, sir,” she said.

He found the pack of matches and deftly brought one up, lighting it on the way. He held it to his cigarette and inhaled to get it going. Then he blew out the match with the stream of first smoke that the cigarette had generated—and coughed loudly.

He was stepping back toward the young woman when her nose wrinkled. “Ugh,” she said. ”There’s no smoking in here, Mr. Teegardin,” she frowned.

“Right,” he responded as he took another hit. He balanced the lit smoke on the edge of a cinder brick that was standing on its small end just off the sidewalk. ”You don’t suppose anybody will bother that, do you?” he said, exhaling the smoke.

“I wouldn’t think so,” she responded. She was cute when she was disgusted.

Teegardin followed her inside as she went around the counter and turned some sheets of paper around there. ”I’ll need you to sign here and here and here,” she said, pointing to the little red sign here flags she had placed at the locations.

“Yeah,” he said. ”What is this, exactly?”

“It’s a release,” she said. ”You release Simatron from any liability stemming from the data and Simatron releases you from any further fulfillment of the contract you signed,” she said. She apparently had said that many times before; the words all blurred into one another as she spoke it.

“Release, huh?” he said as he signed in the indicated places. ”Okay then.”

The young woman had a view of the glass door, and through it she could see Dan Trask pulling it open and stepping through. ”Oh, Mr. Trask, hello,” she said, evidently surprised at his appearance.

Trask ignored her. ”You Teegardin?” he asked, his hand extended. Archie shook it.

”Yeah, I’m Teegardin.”

“Well, I’m Dan Trask, call me Dan,” he said smoothly. ”Would you join me in back, Mr. Teegardin?”

“Archie’s fine,” he said, following Trask as he lifted a section of countertop and walked into the back area. He fished out another cigarette and gestured with it to Trask. ”You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Trask responded. ”This way, please.” He was holding his hand out, indicating that Archie should go through an open portal into a hallway. As he did so, Trask followed him smoothly. ”It’s that next door on the left, sir, just open it and go right in.”

Archie opened it and went right in—it was a well appointed office: mahogany table, two comfortable-looking sitting chairs before it, and a larger, black leather chair behind. As Trask went around to the leather chair, he gestured for Archie to sit down. ”Sit wherever you like, Mr. Teegardin—”

“Archie,” Archie said as he sat down.

“Archie, right. Archie.” Trask was settled in his seat now, and he opened a drawer to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray. He lit one of the and pushed the ashtray between them. ”The kids these days don’t approve of smoking. Especially that kid out front. But she’s nice to look at, so I don’t mind too much.” Trask said, leaning back and getting his smoke going good.

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Teegardin said. ”Always had a taste for the girls, you know.”

“I gathered as much. We may have some more work for you after all.”

Teegardin perked up at this; he needed money, and he was getting a little too old to keep stealing it.