The Restoration Project

1.06 - Lovely

It was late morning by the time Lovely turned off Black Horse Pike and onto the unnamed road leading to Olaf's compound. The main building rose five stories in the air, a giant cube with windows and white bands marking each level. His pride and joy, Olaf's Treasury of Antiquities, occupied the bottom floor. Somewhere on the third was a laboratory, where he employed a woman named Barbie Q to conduct research Lovely didn't care to know about. Lovely had only seen her once in all her visits. The rest of the building was underutilized storage space.

As she neared the chain-linked fence that surrounded the main building and an adjoining motel, a man with a pencil thin moustache rose from a folding lawn chair. It was Diego Rodriguez. He was one of three brothers that Olaf hired to guard his compound. He wore a sleeveless shirt to accentuate his massive arms, which he folded in front of his chest.

"What're you doin' here?" He was also a charmer.

"I need to see Olaf," she said.

"You got an appointment?"

"Oh Diego! Don't talk to her like that, you know she don't need no appointment to see Olaf!" A large man, with a plump face sporting a broad smile, emerged from the doorway of the building. He had a receding hairline that nearly met the bald patch on his crown. His body passed the chunky and fat stages and was barrelling toward obesity. It was Olaf. The fence rattled as he opened it to let Lovely through.

"You've returned!" Olaf exclaimed.

He held up two hairy arms and enveloped Lovely in a hug. She couldn't fit her arms around him and he had an earthy smell to him him; she pulled away as soon as enough time passed that it wouldn't offend him. She had to take a further step back because even though his weight softened his features, he still reminded her too much of Kyle. They were, after all, cousins.

"It's kinda part of the job," Lovely responded as she crossed the parking lot behind Olaf.

"Working for Olaf is not a job!" He chuckled as he waddled toward his office and opened the door. He stepped to the side to let her pass, but his girth blocked her. After an awkward beat he shuffled inside ahead of her.

Olaf's Treasury of Antiquities, like Olaf, had a smell to it. Like forgotten mothballs sitting in the back of a cupboard. Or mildewed and rotten wood, left outside for the winter behind the garage.

"Give me one second, I will get you a chair," he said, not that there was any room for it.

He squeezed around a glass display case with various pieces of junk inside—old smart-phones, a handheld gaming device, electric shavers—and disappeared through a doorway he had to turn sideways to fit through. Aside from a narrow path through the large room, there was junk everywhere. Olaf believed that one day people would want to buy objects from their former lives; kitchen appliances, gaudy velvet paintings, or decorative lamps. When that day came, he would cash in big. Lovely collected most of this junk on various runs over the winter.

"You know, this place is starting to grow on me," Kyle said. He stood by the counter, peering at the door as if he could see through it.

"It's not," Lovely replied, trying to avoid eye contact.

"It is! Look at this stuff!" He gestured toward an old video game system that was junk even before the nanobots. "Man's got an eye for cool shit."

"What's your point?" She spit the words out quickly, wanting to be rid of him before Olaf returned.

"Just getting used to the place. I'm sure he has room on one of the other levels," Kyle said.

"We have the airport. That's our place," Lovely replied.