"Finished" by Camilla Cole

“It’s just such a waste” Roberta Hollingsworth, director of special potential projects, said. “I mean, look at the test results, look at the case studies, look at the overwhelming amount of data collected over these last three years. Surely a little more time could be spent on case #3147 before we pack everything away in the archives and throw our hands up in defeat. Surely such potential merits re-application.” Director Bateman was pacing back and forth across the room as she delivered these last lines, brow furrowed in deliberation, his finger and thumb rubbing back and forth along his jaw line. He finally came to a stop right in front of where she was standing.

“Hollingsworth, you know I agree with you on how high the potential of this case has always seemed. How close success has felt. But how can you argue with the number of failures we’re looking at here?” He slammed the back of his hand against the packet of papers he was holding in his other hand. Roberta took a deep breath. Bateman’s proximity was a little unnerving, but she steeled herself and stood her ground.

“Just give me one more chance,” she pleaded, matching his penetrating stare with an equally compelling one of her own. “It’ll be worth it, you’ll see.” Finally Director Bateman shifted his gaze and backed away. Turning and walking to his desk, he spoke softly, the words barely discernable, over his shoulder.

“Alright Hollingsworth, you can have your one last try. But I’m warning you,” he added as she breathed a sigh of relief and turned to go, “if you don’t succeed it really will be your last chance…ever. Doing anything. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir,” she murmured and exited the office.

******

Case #3147 sat in the chair next to the window of his room and stared out at the desolate desert landscape that stretched for miles and miles in every direction. There weren’t even any cactus or desert trees to alleviate the dreariness of it all, only scrub brush and the occasional pile of crumbly rocks. Not that he had ever been allowed to roam around and see this up close for himself. They gave him everything he could possibly want here; everything except the choice to leave, or at least to go outside and walk around. He sighed.

“3147, Jared, come away from the window please. Sit right here.” Hollingsworth was back, bearing a cup of coffee, gesturing for him to sit in the seat opposite her at the table. Jared sighed again and slowly got up. He had been hopeful that she wouldn’t return. With her endless ideas, endless projects. He felt a small sense of surprise that she had gotten them to give her one more chance. She must really believe he could do it.

“Now Jared,” she said, “we’ve got a really exciting one for you this time. I think we may have found the missing link.” Her mouth twisted into what she must have thought passed for a winning smile but Jared didn’t smile in return. He just sat there, waiting.

“Aren’t you curious as to what it is?” Hollingsworth asked, tilting her head in what she probably assumed was a charming, humorous way and Jared wondered if she had ever had work done. There was something so fake about everything she did. So forced.

“J-a-r-e-d...” She drew the word out like a glob of stretchy sticky bubblegum from the mouth of a thirteen year old girl and Jared almost winced visibly. Not that she would notice. She didn’t seem to notice much where he was concerned. Which would explain why she was here. Again.

“Fine, if you’re not going to ask, I’ll just tell you,” she finally said when he had failed to respond once again. Her short, black, Hilary Clinton bob which never seemed to look different from day to day almost quivered as excitement overtook her. “This idea came to me two weeks ago in the middle of the night and I woke up already writing it down on the pad of paper I keep by my bed.” No surprise there, Jared thought humorlessly. This was a standard for Hollingsworth, the middle of the night ‘epiphany.’ “I honestly couldn’t sleep the rest of the night after, as the brilliancy of it all overcame me.” She was getting almost poetic, a sure sign something bizarre or impossible was about to follow. She took her customary deep breath.

“I’m going to have you build a roller coaster.”

******

Roberta watched Jared’s eyes widen with the customary look of exhilaration. He did it every time. Every time. So she didn’t let her hopes rise too high yet. It was hard though, knowing in her heart of hearts that this really was it, that she had finally found the perfect project for him. She felt like shouting it out to the whole world. Instead she just smiled. Her best, most winning, smile. Jared pushed away from the table and stood up and she could tell his brain was already going a mile a minute.

“A roller coaster,” he said slowly, “an entire roller coaster all by myself.”

“Every tiny teensy bit all by yourself, from the physics to the physical,” she said, smiling at her own clever little play on words. This time it would be different. It was a sure thing. You’ll see, Director Bateman, she thought triumphantly as Jared ran out of the room, yelling for Marshall Core, the company engineer. And when Jared’s done you can be the first to shake my hand and tell me what a genius I am.”

******

Jared worked and worked and worked. He took small naps and then he worked some more. Drawing up plans. Doing the math, building the scale models, testing them out with miniature electronics he made with the limitless supply of anything and everything he could ever need that they brought him. He worked and worked and finally came up with the perfect prototype. It was flawless; it couldn’t fail. He began to measure the area they had set aside for him in the huge indoor arena. The coaster would be a mind-boggling two hundred feet high and a half a mile long. It had twenty-nine loopdee loops and twenty seven spirals. It went forward and backwards and sideways and then did it all in reverse. It went underground and wrapped around itself so that it was impossible to distinguish where it was going next. It was a dizzying, terrifying, majestically twisted master of mayhem.

He began to build. He knew he had all the time in the world but he set to it with a frenzy he had never felt before. Never before, in the countless number of projects Hollingsworth had set before him, had he ever felt this way. He was exhilarated, illuminated, intoxicated by the roller coaster, and he had never felt more alive. As he nailed each nail in place, welded each joint, operated each wheel loader, bulldozer, and jib crane his life seemed to finally take on new meaning. As the days, the weeks, the years passed, Jared finally felt he had found it. His thing.

******

Roberta took a deep breath and cringed at the pain in her side. That gall bladder surgery had really worked a number on her, and though she was loath to, she had to admit to herself that she was starting to feel old. But it didn’t matter; it was almost over, this endless observation of her masterpiece unfolding before her eyes. Case #3147 was almost done. Jared was almost done. After five and a half years of almost constant work, the roller coaster was nearly complete. He had slowed down a little the past few weeks, but that was understandable considering how hard he had been working, she told herself reassuringly. He had said there were only minimal things to perfect, small almost insignificant details to finish and it would all be over. And it’s all because of me, Roberta crowed inwardly. All because I figured it out. Things were finally coming to a head.

“Uh Ms. Hollingsworth, ma’am?” a nervous voice came from behind her and she whirled around to find one of the material fetchers poking his head around the door, looking terrified.

“What is it?” she snapped. She hated to have her quiet little moment of relish interrupted.

“Uh, it’s just that there’s something you should probably see,” he said and ducked out before she could demand further explanation. She took another deep breath, ignoring another stab of pain this brought on in her lower abdomen, and stomped out of the room. As she briskly walked down the hall she noticed more and more fetchers hanging around, and as she approached the wide doors to the arena where Jared was working she could barely squeeze through, there were so many of them.

“Move it!” she yelled and most of them scrambled to get out of her way. Finally, having entered the huge arena, she pushed her hair back out of her face and tried to locate what everyone was gawking at. Then her eyes locked on something and a well of dread began to froth and bubble in the pit of her stomach.

“No!” she screamed, “This can’t happen!”

Jared was sitting on the floor, the giant monstrosity he was so close to completing looming up behind him in all its almost-perfect splendor. There was a look on his face. A look Roberta had seen before. Too many times to count. It was a look of… absolute boredom. He looked up.

“Oh, hey Hollingsworth,” he said and then looked away as if the look of terror mixed with almost unhinged desperation on her face was something he saw every day. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” she asked, incredulously. “WHAT’S UP? THAT!” she shrieked, pointing up to the endless rails and plastic molding behind him. “THAT IS UP AND IF YOU DON’T GET UP AND FINISH IT RIGHT NOW I’M GOING TO BLOW YOU UP!” Jared just continued to stare at the floor in front of him, making circles in the dust around his feet. He sighed.

“No.” Roberta said, quiet now. “No. This will not happen this time. I will not fail.” She slowly looked around at the gaping faces of the thirty or so fetchers who had quietly congregated in the arena during the exchange between her and Jared.

“Look at me,” she commanded, slowly revolving in a circle, catching each and every one of their eyes. “He finished, do you hear me? Jared finished the coaster before he sunk back into this pathetic state of lethargy.” At the look in her fiery eyes each and every fetcher began to nod slowly. A small smile crept over her face.

“Now clean this place up,” she ordered and everyone started moving at once. “Take this sorry excuse of a piece of human waste and lock him in his room,” she added quietly to the two fetchers nearest her and they hurried to grab Jared’s arms and drag him out of the arena.

“This victory is mine,” she said softly, under her breath, “and no one is going to take it from me.”

******

“I must say I’m astonished Director Hollingsworth,” Director Bateman said, a look of grudging admiration on his face, “I didn’t think it could be done. But you did it.” Hollingsworth basked in the praise. Not that praise from a colleague, and mere equal, mattered much to her. She had been given much greater compensation, verbally and monetarily, from much higher up than Bateman, which was something he would never attain. But she just smiled benevolently at him and took her dues.

“Where’s case #3147- what’s his name, Jared?- by the way? I thought he’d want to be here for the big day.” Bateman’s question seemed perfectly innocuous but Roberta’s eyes darted to the few fetchers in the arena anyway, trying to gauge if anyone had let anything leak about Jared’s current state of interest in the whole project. No one looked guilty though so she just plastered a winning smile on her face and responded.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” she asked. “Jared came down with a really bad flu right after he completed the coaster. He’s recovering in his room.” Bateman shrugged and walked away after a few seconds and Roberta heaved a sigh of relief. No one would care that Jared wasn’t here, she reminded herself soothingly. He was just a case number, a machine of sorts. She needed to calm down so she could enjoy this.

“Director Hollingsworth,” President Pupin said, smiling as he approached. “If you wouldn’t mind coming this way, we’ll get this thing started.” Crowds gathered and cheered and cameras flashed as President Pupin took his place at a microphone placed in front of the start of the roller coaster, Roberta at his side.

“Hello all,” he said, “welcome to this momentous occasion. As you know, case #3147 being cracked is a historic event. After two thousand, five hundred and twenty-eight different projects, he has finally completed one!”

“Two thousand, five hundred and twenty-nine,” Roberta corrected, leaning into the mic with a self-effacing smile, and the crowd chuckled appreciatively.

“Excuse me,” President Pupin laughed.

“Now, we all know why this case was finally able to be solved,” he continued and Roberta felt her cheeks grow warm. This was it. “And that’s why we’re here. To celebrate the amazing, unprecedented success of Director Roberta Hollingsworth. Without her, case #3147 would just be another bunch of boxes for the archive room.” Cheers went up and President Pupin had to hold up his hand for a full thirty seconds before silence reigned again.

“One last thing,” he said, and a growing excitement seemed to overtake him. “There’s just one more thing and then we can watch this amazing roller coaster make its first trip.” Roberta turned her head questioningly to look at him. What was this?

“As a special celebration of her success… we would like to let Director Hollingsworth be the first to ride!” The crowd went wild at this but Roberta felt her face freeze. What? Her blood felt like ice in her veins.

Before she knew it, Roberta was being ushered by President Pupin over to the roller coaster cart. He buckled her into her seat and pulled the padded restraint bars over her shoulders. Her body was as limp as a rag doll; she watched it all in a daze. The crowd continued to roar as he shook her hand and gave a fetcher the thumbs up to start the ride. Cameras flashed and giddy faces flew before her eyes as the seat jerked forward.

The last thing she saw was an image in her mind of Jared. Sitting by the window. He sighed.

******

“Help, help!” Director Bateman hollered into his cell phone. “There’s been an accident!”