Four
days passed, in which we were busy, but each event was fairly small
stuff. The police had been and gone at the hospital several times,
Gina had paid the lease on her new shop. Ray had been reporting
brief flashes of lucidity over the last few days, from his hospital
bed, and I wanted readings on that; handily, he was also ready to be
released. Our poppies were starting to bud, and we had been reading
up on getting seeds out from them; I addition, it felt like we had
bought up every South African poppy in three states and processed
them down for starting stock.
On
the fifth day after getting the blackmail letter, Gina picked Ray up
in the morning, and brought him down to the shop, where she was doing
interviews for "opening, seasonal, and temporary" staff,
all positions that wouldn't be opening for a few weeks.
She'd
named the shop itself Ianathos, and bought up bulk supplies of cheap
incense, along with a fair number of things meant to spice it up a
little, and present it nicely enough to raise the price. Nothing
like hiding in plain sight, she said. She was tempting fate, I said.
Still, it was an easy cover; it had a full basement, and she'd
marked the placement for a light wall which would give it a fairly
basic showing area, and large back space.
Everyone
interviewed got a little tiny sampler pack of three things to test
out, to familiarize themselves with the products... and one of those
things was always a half-dose of Ianathos, a bedside incense to aid
in dreaming.
Gina's
starting distribution scheme was pretty simple – give out most of
our Ianathos to people with at least a slight motivation to use it.
Tiny quantities, all clearly marked as "lucid dreaming"
herbal incense. It would come with instructions for use, but never
put up for open sale. The idea was fairly simple – someone who
wanted more would have to ask about it, and Gina could open a
conversation about how it had worked for them. From there, we could
screen customers, employees, and so on; whatever we needed, depending
on how many there were.
The
main flaw I noted in her plan was that people who are looking for
work aren't generally people with a lot of money to throw around.
True, she noted – but most of them would at least have friends.
She'd
posted a long list of ads around. She promised very little, but
enough advertising had filled up her inbox with resumes; Ray joined
us in a long shift of quick interviews with little sampler "try
out these incences, see how they work for you" pitch.
The
temptation to make a little smoke of our own was there between the
three of us. I interrupted, though; I wanted to read Ray's
brainwaves, catch a look at his lucidity. If he could hold it
together long enough to find Gina and I, all the better.
He
couldn't, as it turned out. Though he certainly was jumping in and
out of low-level lucidity on an off through his dream cycle.
A
number of other people around town, from the thirty-two interviews
we'd done, were likely having the same experience. Six of them
called us back to ask when we'd be opening for sales, and if that
Ianathos stuff was available anywhere else; we told them that we made
it ourselves, but we could meet them by appointment that afternoon.
I
left Gina with her morning of interviews, and went to work at the
hospital - I had to maintain my internship, at least for a little
while. From what Gina said later, four of our call-backs showed up;
she'd sold a bit more Ianathos to two of them; a third hadn't really
been able to afford the 'boutique, handmade' price Gina was asking,
but was very much willing to help hang grow-lights, garden, press,
and so on, for a fairly minimal wage and a share of what we made.
That's
how Clara joined us. My first impression of her was auditory – She
was working in the basement, and one of the lights she was hanging
had slipped, when I arrived. So, I went downstairs to find out who
the swearing woman was, and compliment her on her mastery of Spanish
and her lung capacity. My second impression was that I would
probably look like an idiot if I mentioned her Spanish; Clara is
Latino. She already had one job, as a furniture mover; she was
looking for a second when she tripped over us.
She
took a look at me on the steps, decided that I looked unsure about
what was going to happen next, and conscripted me into finishing with
the lights. It was good, simple work; lift, hammer, sweat, and see
things get done in very real and permanent way. I enjoyed it. Even
if Clara was better at it by a large enough margin to make me feel
kind of unmanly.
As
we wrapped up, from the other end of the room, Gina called "She's
in for product quality testing, sleep lab, all that good stuff, too."
"Starting
tonight, or tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow.
There's already plans for tonight."
