Kaiju Preservation Society(5)

“You mean, why is it füdmüd, and not the more logical FoodMood?”

“Yes, that.”

“Because FoodMood was already taken by a food delivery app in Bangladesh, and they wouldn’t sell the name,” I said. “So if you’re ever in the Mymensingh area, be sure to use the app with the name that actually makes sense.”

“I’ve been to Bangladesh,” Tom said. “Well, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“For my job. It’s complicated.”

“Are you a spy?”

“No.”

“A mercenary? That would explain this very nice condo in a brand-new building.”

“I’m pretty sure mercenaries live in double-wides in the woods of North Carolina,” Tom said.

“Of course you would say that,” I said. “That’s what they tell mercenaries to say.”

“I work for an NGO, actually.”

“Definitely a mercenary.”

“I’m not a mercenary.”

“I’m going to remember you said that when I see you on CNN as part of a Bangladeshi coup.”

“This is the last time I’m going to get a delivery from you for a while, I’m afraid,” Tom said to me, when I delivered his shawarma platter to him. “My job is taking me back out into the field and I’ll be there for several months.”

“Actually this is last time you’ll ever get a delivery from me,” I said.

“You’re quitting?”

I laughed. “Not exactly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you haven’t heard, then,” I said. “füdmüd is being bought out by Uber for, like, four billion dollars, and rolled into Uber Eats. Apparently, we were so successful at locking up the best restaurants and the best deliverators that Uber decided it was just easier to buy us and all our exclusivity contracts.”

“So the CEO who stole your ideas—”

“Rob Shitmonkey Sanders, yes.”

“—is now becoming a billionaire.”

“It’s an eighty percent cash deal, so, yup, pretty much.”

“And you don’t want to deliver for Uber.”

“See, that’s the best part,” I said. “Uber already has their delivery people, and they didn’t want to have to roll over all the deliverators. That would make the delivery people they already have unhappy. So they’re only taking the ones that had four-star and above ratings.” I opened my füdmüd app and showed him my stats. “Three point nine seven five stars, baby.”

“I always gave you five stars,” Tom said.

“Well, I appreciate that, Tom, for what little good it does me now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Long term? I have no fucking idea. I was barely scraping by as it is. I’m the only one of my roommates who had anything approaching close to steady work, so I was paying the rent and the utilities and most of the food. We’re in the middle of a plague, so no one’s hiring for anything. I have no savings and nowhere else to go. So, yeah. No idea, long term. But”—I held up a finger—“short term? I’m gonna buy a bottle of shitty vodka and drink the whole damn thing in my shower. That way, when I make a mess of myself, it’ll be easy for my roommates to clean up.”

“I’m sorry, Jamie.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “And anyway, I apologize for unloading on you.”

“It’s all right. I mean, we’re friends.”

I laughed again at this. “It’s more like we have a workable service relationship with a tenuous personal history. But thank you, Tom. I actually did enjoy deliverating to you. Enjoy your shawarma.” I started to go.

“Hold on,” Tom said. He set down his shawarma and disappeared into the recesses of his very nice condo. A minute later, he came back and thrust his hand out at me. “Take this.”

I stared at his hand. There was a business card in it. My face did a thing.

Tom noticed, even through the mask. “What is it?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were going to give me a cash tip.”

“This is better. This is a job.”

I blinked at this. “What?”

Tom sighed. “The NGO I work for. It’s an animal rights organization. Large animals. We spend a lot of time in the field. There’s a team I’m a part of. We’re supposed to ship out in the next week. One of my team members has COVID and is currently in a hospital in Houston, hooked up to a ventilator.” Tom saw my face do another thing and held up a hand. “He’s out of danger and is going to recover, or so they tell me. But he’s not going to recover before my team ships out this week. We need someone to replace him. You could do it. This card is for our recruitment officer. Go see her. I’ll tell her you’re coming.”

I stared at the card some more.

“What is it now?” Tom asked.

“I really did kind of think you were a mercenary.”

It was his turn to laugh. “I’m not a mercenary. What I do is much, much cooler. And much more interesting.”

“I, uh … I don’t have any training. For whatever it is you do. That involves large animals.”