There are practicalities he has to consider as Dr. Banner for when he’s Hulk. There’s a flip side to being seven feet tall and weighing half a ton, able to propel himself several miles from a deep knee bend, capable of benching a hundred tons or holding his breath for twelve hours. His motor skills are elephantine, his fingers half as wide as a normal fist, his touch roughshod on anything the least bit frangible. Touch screens are out.
Dr. Banner designs a voice-activated device for Hulk he won’t ever touch to use, where sending a text or responding to notification that a text message has arrived, or calling anyone or answering a call, is accomplished with a simple, monosyllabic voice command. A speaker dependent system is what he needs for Hulk, and he needs the local system identification (SID) number from American Cellular to patch into their frequencies with Hulk’s customized device.
Calling technical support, and no one on the front lines knows the SID number, or what a SID number is. Brad (third transfer) is upbeat and helpful or confident of being able to assist. Brad acts like this is a routine request, but then he puts Dr. Banner on hold ‘for a minute.’ Brad could ignore him, strand him in hold purgatory until he hung up. Brad’s in complete control. If Dr. Banner hangs up he might never get back to Brad. The third transfer next time might be back to the technical support help desk front lines, where they’ll tell him to try powering off his device.
A woman picks up the call, no-nonsense, aggressively questioning him about why he needs the SID number. He can sense her sorting the information he gives her into predetermined categories of corporate dictum. His explanation isn’t expected, and she doesn’t have a counter argument. She’s been confronted with the unanticipated, something off-script. She becomes less aggressive but steadfastly she’s sorry, they can’t give out that information.
Anyone at the mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) knows the SID number. The MTSO outposts are operated by machines and wires and electricity, with a skeleton crew making sure everything functions within optimal parameters. Dr. Banner downloads a grid map (he has level 3 security clearances), narrowing down where the MTSO might be based on concentrations of power annotated in red on the grid map. After some twilight reconnaissance by Hulk, he locates the MTSO within a high degree of certainty, an unmarked, newer brick office building with swamp-water tinted windows, in ideal range of a cell tower.
He arrives at the MTSO and circles the building. There isn’t a public entrance. No one in sight behind the tinted windows, some tinted glass doorways on either side of the building off the parking lots, but no way in without a coded card. Or if you’re Hulk, splashing through the outer glass doors, mangling the inner door. Surveying his surroundings he sees no one, only tight passageways banked by rows of servers and wires and ports and cables and blinking blue lights.
He turns sideways to move laterally down the nearest passage. He comes to the end of one and hears soft voices, following them, maneuvering to his left and down the next passageway and the talking has ceased, in a room walled by more servers and no windows, three people turned to him in muted astonishment. Hulk sidles into the room and squares up.
“Hulk needs SID number. Or Hulk will smash.”
Not much they can do but give him what he’s after. The MTSO is the wire-and-circuitry heart and soul of the cell phone delivery system of this particular hexagonal cell in the honeycomb.
The voice user interface of Hulk’s new device recognizes only Hulk’s voice if Hulk is in a crowd of people, or otherwise surrounded by ancillary noises, the voice user interface ignoring everything except Hulk’s voice. Dr. Banner tweaks the auditory capability of the device so it has the hearing of an owl.
When his next bill comes a $65 custom equipment surcharge has been added. He calls the 800 number on his bill to complain and he’s greeted with “message MD22, welcome to American Cellular. The number you have called is no longer in service. If you feel this message is in error please contact American Cellular, message MD22.” Um. And sur, doesn’t that mean “on” in French? Is the use of surcharge meant to imply that a custom equipment surcharge is something less consequential than a custom equipment charge?
He doesn’t want an explanation as much as justification, or to hear what the official explanation might be. Presumably he wouldn’t be the first person to ask, and there’s a scripted response. He could always call technical support. Maybe Brad can help.
