West of Nothing

29. Party on the Roof

HotDamn had not been kidding about the party. Later that night, he made a surprise announcement. "Attention, all you good Fort Nothing ladies and gents! Please join me for a little soiree on the roof. We've been cooped up in this hole like naked mole rats for too long and it's time we breathed some fresh air. Oh, and there will be alcohol. I'm messaging you directions."

After a moment of stunned silence, Corny kicked back from her workstation. "C'mon Gabs. Let's go freshen up. We can't go to a party smelling like we've been shut up in a stinking man cave."

"Let me know if you want to see a real man cave," HotDamn said to her back.

Mason couldn't make out Corny's response, but he was pretty sure it rhymed with duck food.

"Tell me they won't be the only female companionship on offer," Doogie said.

HotDamn flashed a sly grin. "How about we go scope it out."

"I'll grab my telescope."

"We'll see the rest of you up there in a bit," HotDamn said before heading off.

Goat, who already looked like he had stepped out of a Bloomingdale's display window, went back to the bachelor pad to change, while Johnny said he wanted to check in on the lab first. That left Mason alone with Skunkworks.

"You going?" Mason asked.

"Hell no."

Fantastic. Looked like he was going solo. After waiting what he thought was a fashionable length of time, he followed HotDamn's directions to the stairwell and climbed the three flights to the roof.

In Mason's small memory bank of party experiences, which tended to be of the cheap and gimmicky variety, the scene on the rooftop had to qualify as the cheapest and most gimmicky of all.

Mismatched lawn chairs were situated around an inflatable kiddie-pool with peeling SpongeBob decals. The pool was filled several inches deep with ice, and beer bottles were piled up in the center just out of reach. To get a beer, you had to take off your shoes and socks, roll up your pant legs, and step into the ice. For food, a guy in a welding mask was using a blowtorch to cook burgers and hot dogs. Fake tiki torches with wriggling fire-strips were positioned around a live band playing a Polynesian-Caribbean fusion. Had Mason ever wondered what a ukulele would sound like to the beat of steel drums, now he knew. Like palm trees gently swaying in a hailstorm. A couple shapely women in hula skirts swished their hips as they palmed tambourines. OK, maybe the party wasn't so bad.

"I wanted to have a bonfire so we could do this Boy Scout style," HotDamn was telling Doogie, whose eyes were on the hula girls. "But there's a base regulation against open-flame fires."

"They're okay with blowtorches though?"

"That's considered an industrial tool. You might need to weld something."

"And the major agreed to this?"

"It's more of an ask permission later sort of thing. Turns out, military boys like to party just as much as the next crowd. The real trick was keeping it a cozy little affair with just us geeks and the support staff. A six pack was the price of admission."

Support staff? Mason had seen people moving in and out of the Bridge, running cables and replacing glitchy equipment. At any given time, there might be a couple in the Storeroom, which had a back entrance. He hadn't given much thought to them. In their standard issue khakis, they all blended together into a generic composite.