The Flinkwater Factor Read Online Free

so the cord came out of the bottom of the handset, I heard a buzzing sound. It was working! I next tried to figure out how to place a call.
    Instead of buttons Addy’s phone had a clear plastic disk with holes cut in it. I tried poking my fingers into the holes. That didn’t work. I swiped my hand across the dial. It moved a little. I grabbed it around the edge and twisted it, like opening a jar. It wouldn’t go to the left, only to the right. I turned it all the way, then let go. After a few clicks, I heard a ring. A second later, a woman’s voice said, “Operator.”
    â€œOperator?” I said.
    â€œOperator,” the voice repeated.
    This is one of the reasons I do not like making voice calls. I prefer a menu that gives me specific choices, not a disembodied voice that offers a single, cryptic word to which there is no logical response. I was about to disconnect in frustration when the voice said, “Can I help you?”
    â€œYes!” I said, then waited for the next prompt. It took a few seconds. I could hear the cats yowling as Addy distributed the mackerel.
    â€œHow can I help you?” the voice inquired.
    â€œCan you connect me?”
    â€œWhat number, please?”
    I gave her the number of the smartest person I know outside of Flinkwater.

    Uncle Ashton lives in Florida, way back in the Everglades. Ashton used to work for the CIA. He claims he was just a “pencil-pushing bureaucrat.” But I think he was a spy. These days he never leaves the swamp—just hangs out with the alligators and cottonmouths and his collection of guns and his computers. “Keeping an eye on things,” he likes to say. Mom says he’s paranoid, but he knows everything about everything . That’s why I called him.
    He answered on the first ring with a booming “Hello!”
    â€œUncle Ashton? It’s Ginger.”
    â€œGinger!” His voice made the handset vibrate. “Y’all got out!”
    â€œOut?” I said, holding the phone away from my ear. “Out of where?”
    â€œFlinkwater! Y’all know they bubbled y’all, right?”
    â€œHuh?” I said. “They? Who? They did what ?”
    â€œThe gummint, baby! Department of Homeland Security. Ain’t nobody or nothin’ allowed in or out of Flinkwater, not even a text. They got the place tied up tighter ’n a possum stuck in a squirrel hole.”
    Uncle Ashton talks like a backwoods redneck,but Mom says it’s just his shtick. Ashton grew up in Chicago.
    â€œDid your folks get out too?” he asked.
    â€œActually, we’re all still here. I’m calling from Addy Gumm’s landline.”
    I thought the handset would shatter from his laughter.
    â€œLandline! Bunch a morons! Shut down all the high-tech communication and forgot about axing the landlines!”
    â€œWhy did they bubble us, Uncle Ashton?”
    â€œThey’re saying it’s some sort of security issue. No details. Y’all okay?”
    I told him about all the bonking. He asked me a few questions, then said, “This is bad, baby. ACPOD is one of the government’s most important contractors. They provide all the AI interfaces and most of the smart chips for everything from IRS auditors to peacekeeper drones. Not to mention the hundred thousand SpyBots the DHS goes through every year. If somebody’s attacking ACPOD, ain’t no wonder Homeland Security’s barkin’ like a blue­tick hound up a tree full of wildcats. Maybe this’ll scare Gilbert Bates out from whatever badger hole he’s been hiding in for the past ten years.”
    â€œUnless he got bonked too.”
    â€œFar as I can tell, it’s happening only in Flinkwater, baby. The rest of the world is bonkfree. Even so, I bet Josh Stevens is having a big fat Holstein cow right about now.”
    â€œJosh Stevens? Why?”
    â€œBecause D-Monix makes three quarters of the tabs and desktops