Introducing Delton Manly

Delton Manly affixed another telescopic enhancement device. He was up to seven, more than anyone had ever tried. It was hot in the chamber and sweat ran down his forehead, over his protective goggles. He tried to wipe it off with his muscular arm, but Delton had always been a prodigious sweater, as good men are, so he could do little to hold back his manly tide.

It was nearly 6:00 AM. Time was running out. Dawn would see the pharmaceutical giant awaken with the bustle of arriving workers; associates, they were called. Delton had noticed this when he read the bulletin boards on his way to the bathroom. Delton had excellent vision, better than most everyone he knew, so he could see the bulletin boards even in dim light.

More important than discerning company documents, though, Delton saw the path to the target in the darkness of the really hot enclosure even without his T14 illuminator that he kept on his equipment belt.

The dispersal pattern had the standard blow and push grit markings. This wouldn’t be easy. There were streaks along the metal interior of the chamber, tracer lines. They always led to the source. And he had to get to the source, or all of this would be for nothing.

Placing earplugs in his ears, he followed the tracer lines to ground zero. He had found the target. He knelt, took a few deep breaths, extended his left arm which held the telescopic mechanism, and approached, cautiously. He remembered the saying he and his compatriots repeated before every job; they called it the "Ls and Cs", or "two Ls and two Cs", or "Elsee Elsee", and some dyslexics called it the "Cs and Ls". Lack of caution leads to calamity.

Using his right hand, he felt around in the gloom of the very hot enclosure for the ignition-sequencing switch. He braced himself. This was going to be loud. He hit the switch and the chamber filled with a roar like a jet engine, nearly knocking Delton to his knees, but Delton was strong and muscular, and had maintained his chiseled frame long after high school, back when he used to excel in too many things to name here and never started fights but finished them all.

He reached for the target, but came up short. He reached again, straining his muscular frame, breathing properly, the way he had learned his first day of weight training, shortly after his circumcision healed. But it was still out of reach. He glanced down at his watch. It was 6:30 AM.

With panic beginning to rear its head if, indeed, panic had a head, he looked around the chamber for something to hold, so he could extend his muscular arm farther. He toyed with the idea of putting on an eighth telescopic attachment, but knew that would be too unstable. He couldn’t risk that now. In minutes, innocent civilians would be entering the building.

Two years ago he might have taken that risk, but after the Johnson & Johnson incident, he no longer had the stomach for such dangerous acts.

The chamber started to rumble, a pulsing boom. At first, Delton thought it was his heart, but soon realized it was Ferdie, the crew chief. Time was up.

He glanced back at the target, took a deep breath and cleared his head. He lunged, arm extended, holding the telescopic retraction device squarely at the target. He landed on his stomach, not bothering to brace himself with his arms. The telescopic retraction device of the Y930 hit the target. The cone shaped debris was instantly sucked through the hose and deposited in the vacuum bag.

Delton rolled over and smiled. Another air duct cleaned. Turning off the hand held vacuum cleaner, Delton sat up, in the dark of the large air-duct. He had cleaned it, he thought, using more hose attachments than anyone had ever tried. He had succeeded. But there was an empty feeling about it. He wasn’t warmed by the same sense of accomplishment he felt when he was the top district attorney of New York, when he put away bad men with big condos. But that was another lifetime, before the Johnson & Johnson incident.


Next Post: Delton Crosses a Road