Intruder Alert: Part 3

Part #3
The next morning as Blake walked into the office, Fred was already there looking at the computer screen on his desk.
“Got those videos from your friends’ cameras yet?” Blake asked.
“He’s about to send them over to me.” Fred replied.
Blake’s store phone sounded, “Nellie Hardware calling” heralding that Nellie, the supervisor in the Hardware department was calling him.
Blake answered, “Yes, Nellie. What’s up?”
“You won’t believe this,” she said.
“Try me,”Blake replied. After all, he knew he believed in UFOs, aliens, and magic, so nothing could really surprise. “I’ll put you on speaker. Fred’s here.”
“ Yeah, he should hear this too. Prepare yourselves, even you’se guys might have a little trouble with this….dat ta da….drum roll……(the sound of hands rapping on a cardboard box is heard over the speaker, then stops) The hardware restocking robot is gone.” She said.
Fred straight armed and pushed himself and his rolling chair away from his desk, with a expectant frown on his face, as if expecting a punchline, a retraction, a correction, anything to bring him back to the real world.
“The restocking robot is gone,” Blake repeated. “Isn’t that thing attached to a bunch of stuff: electrical cables, cords, hoses, etc. Plus it’s super heavy, and attached to a railing or something above. If you weren’t the one telling me this, I would say you must be crazy. In fact, I’ll say it anyway. You must have lost your mind.”
“Thanks Blake, you say the sweetest things,” Nellie replied.
“Yeah…” Blake began but was interrupted when Fred’s phone announced: “Cashier Cathy calling.”  He and Fred and looked at each other, ” Now what?” Blake said.
“Yes Cathy,” Fred answered.
“The District manager is here. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, perfect timing….. Talk later,” Fred hung up.
“We must…, we must…, we must do something,” Blake stammered.
“I agree. Maybe we should split up. I’ll go meet the manager. He usually likes to walk around the store, before he comes in here to discuss issues. He likes to get something store specific to talk about. And you can go to hardware to checkout the missing robot scene. See what isn’t there. If the manager shows up there, we’ll wing it… I guess,” Fred said.
“Okay, good plan,” Blake sounded relieved, as he walked out of the office, almost running into the automatic door because it didn’t open fast enough. “This door could use an upgrade. How about a thought activated door.”
“One thing at a time,” Fred shouted to Blake’s back as it receded.

To be continued…