Ask nicely

“Hi there.” Samantha says as she steps through the battered gray doors and approaches the sour-faced matron. “The head nurse upstairs sent me down here to pick up some Jane Doe’s possessions. They’re moving her off of the 145th.”

The woman nods noncommittally and clicks her keypad with practiced ease.

“Don’t see the authorization yet, but I know the Jane Doe you mean. Came in about last night, I was working that shift too.” The woman looks away from the monitor screen back at Samantha. “Thought it was odd at the time that they put her on the upper floors.”

The two women wait in silence for several long seconds. Samantha isn’t exactly sure how to continue, and the woman seems happy to wait for a computer authorization that was not coming any time soon.

“It’s nice to see a regular old keypad and monitor.” She says just to fill the silence. The woman snorts, but seems to soften just a little.

“I thought all you young ones wanted to throw these away.” The woman responds bitterly. “The tech folks sure aren’t happy to come down here when this girl starts acting up.”

“Not me.” Samantha tries to sound sincere, “I didn’t even want a link, I’d much rather have a keypad like that to work on.”

“No kidding, I thought I was the only citizen on the planet that still knew how to type.” The woman’s eyes soften just a little and the grim tightness of her mouth relaxes slightly as she runs her fingers over the keys. To Samantha’s surprise the keypad looks like a pretty standard QWERTY keyboard.

“I type.” Samantha tells the woman with a shy smile, “My father is a writer, and he taught me.” She explains while mimicking typing in air. “I’m a little rusty though, I haven’t had a chance to use one since I moved here.” Moving to the side of the desk she looks over the information on the screen. “Can you show me how it works?”

The matron pushes the keyboard closer to her and touches the screen moving the cursor to the center datafield. “Go ahead then pretty thing, let your fingers do the talking.”

Samantha quickly types in ‘Jane Doe’ and hits the return key.

“You really can type.” The woman smiles sheepishly “Didn’t mean to doubt you, but it’s a bit unusual that’s all.” Samantha was barely listening to the clerk; instead her eyes scan the list of Jane Doe’s that fill the screen, as they stream by. “Let’s add the admission date, that’ll make this easier.” The woman takes the keyboard back and types in a few more numbers, suddenly there are only three names on the screen and only one has a locker number next to it: 35A-4734. “There it is. As soon as I get the authorization, I can run and get it.”

Once again Samantha and the grim-faced woman find themselves sitting in silence.

How long could she wait? Should she leave and try to get into the locker-room later by herself? Or just knock out the clerk and get out of here as quickly as possible?