by Kal Spriggs
“Yeah,” I answered, “I'm Jiden Armstrong, I was told–”
“There's a cubical farm down the hall,” Terry Smith said without looking up. “Desk fifteen is open. There's a tutorial program to show you how to conduct the inventory. You'll be verifying stock pulled for refurbishment.”
I opened my mouth, not sure what I even wanted to say, just that I wanted him to acknowledge my existence. Before I could say anything he added. “You're on the clock here. I'll credit you the first half of the day for inprocessing, but you need to put eight hours of work in for a standard day. Your system will monitor your time and progress, fall behind and it will send an automated reprimand to the Internship Director.”
My mouth snapped closed at his words. That meant I had to stay on top of the work here and from the sound of it, I wouldn't even have the opportunity to protest, I'd just wrack up reprimands. I gritted my teeth at the unfairness, but I spun out of his office and headed down the hall.
I found my desk, logged in, and got started. No one else looked up as I came in. No one got up from their desks to introduce themselves. Even a few months ago, that wouldn't have bothered me. I didn't need acknowledgment to feel important... but I realized that I had made friends, real friends and that engaging in conversation with Ashiri Takenata and even Alexander Karmazin, had opened me up to a different world. Here I was, surrounded by other people... and I had never felt so isolated and alone.
It wasn't a comforting feeling to start off my first day.
***
One of the selling points for the Champion Enterprises Internship Program was that they provided their interns with a fully furnished apartment. Their brochure had pegged it as an exclusive corporate complex: with complete climate control, professional security, and spacious accommodations.
So far, it was the only thing that was the way I had imagined it.
I had a bedroom, a small kitchen, my own bathroom, and a living and dining room. It had all the amenities I could ask for: full network access so that I could study and even do work from my apartment, an autocooker, which could provide me with any of two hundred meals, and even a smart chair which could provide me with a full body massage after a rough day at work.
What it didn't have, I realized, was someone for me to share my feelings and impressions with. I didn't have a roommate who could badger me into doing what needed to be done or who could tell me what I was missing.
I don't need that, I thought, and anyway, Sashi betrayed me, so why should I miss her. She had betrayed me. She had shot me in the face. It wasn't particularly hard to forget.
Yet the smart chair, despite all of its vibration and massaging, did nothing to relieve the tension I felt. Things were not what I had hoped for. Tony, and possibly his father, had reasons to dislike me, the family grudge that I had only just learned about. Instead of the promised engineering program, I had found myself shuffled off to inventory with a logistics track which felt more than a little pointless.
Yet I had no way out. I hadn't applied elsewhere, and even if I did... what would those other institutions think of me if I had walked away from this program?
I felt my stomach twist at that. I had walked away from my friends at the Academy Prep School already. I knew that Alexander Karmazin had wanted me to stay, to go on to the Academy. He had expected it of me... even when no one else had. What had he seen in me that no one else did?
Maybe it was the same thing Tony saw, yet my mind shied away from even considering the two of them in similar context. Alexander Karmazin, contrary to my original thoughts, had nothing given to him. He had worked hard to get what he wanted... and had asked nothing of his father beyond citizenship and a chance to prove himself.
Tony on the other hand... I frowned as I realized just how badly I had misjudged Tony. Or maybe, the quiet voice in the back of my head spoke, you knew him well enough, you just didn't have the perspective to see him clearly.
I didn't want to listen to that voice, possibly because it knew what it was talking about. I had been selfish. I had been focused entirely on a comfortable job... and the perks of being friends, possibly more than friends, with Leo Champion's only grandson. I couldn't argue, in that respect, with what I had found. He had hooked me up with a job that demanded little. The inventory tutorial had proven almost painfully simple and I had finished my quota for the day easily. In fact, the only surprise had come when I recognized some of the parts as I logged them for refurbishing.
I hadn't realized that I absorbed that much from the military classes, but I'd recognized the sensor emitter parts by item code after Senior Petty Officer Kennedy's exhaustive maintenance training for the Firebolts. It had given me a bit of a thrill until I realized how useless that information really was. It wasn't like I needed to know anything about the parts, I didn't even see them, I just logged which ones were selected for refurbishing and had been pulled out of storage. I didn't even log them back in, someone else would do that in an identical cubical somewhere else.
It was all easy, so easy that even a null-brain like Trisha or Carlos couldn't have messed it up. But they aren't stuck doing this, I thought, they're in management. I felt myself flush in irritation as I remembered that. It wasn't fair... I had worked so hard for this and they had done nothing. I knew that neither of them could have handled the Academy Prep School. I couldn't help a slight smile as I thought of just how the two of them would react to that sort of treatment.
My smile faded, though, as I came back to the problem at hand. Was this what I really wanted? An elementary job, albeit, one that paid very well, security, a life of relative luxury. The smart chair soothed me a bit, but it didn't give me purpose. I couldn't struggle through days in a cubical just for the knowledge that I'd have a massaging chair awaiting me at the end.
But Tony said he could get me transferred to Research and Development, I told myself. Truthfully, I wasn't sure that would be better, but at least there I could be challenged a bit.
I could do this, I told myself. Six weeks, even six months, in a cubical would not be too high a price to pay for that. For that matter, I'd have a better appreciation of how the logistical system worked, which might even help me with understanding some of the engineering issues, right?
The quiet voice in the back of my head tried to speak up, but I drowned it out by turning on some of the music that Tony had sent me. It was loud and wretched, but I cranked it up to the point that it vibrated me almost as much as the smart chair and I couldn't hear myself think.
I would make this work.
***
Chapter Twenty-Two: Dreams Are Funny Things
“Hey, Jiden, how's it going?”
I looked up from my screen to find Ted, the intern from accounting. I'd spent the past two hours powering through inventory and I was already ahead of my 'quota' which unfortunately meant that I'd have little to do but sit at my desk.
“Not bad,” I said with the fake smile I'd practiced. I focused on the screen to avoid meeting his eyes. Ted had that desperate look, the type that I had avoided in school, the smart kid who realized that he wasn't funny or sociable enough to make friends that way.
I read through this inventory change, a refurbishment request for a warp drive emitter for a Firebolt, if I remembered the code right from Senior Petty Officer Kennedy's instruction.
That's odd.
I hadn't realized I'd spoken out loud until Ted asked, “What's odd?”
I spoke absently as I clicked to review the details. “It's some parts being pulled from storage for refurbishing. The thing is, it's a solid state part, no moving bits, and when it burns out, you pretty much have to recycle it for scrap.”
Ted looked confused, “Well, why would they refurbish it, then?”
“I don't think they can,” I said as I read through the generic statement. It simply said pulled for refurbishing, which didn't make any sense. I checked the quantity and I choked. “Holy...” I shook my head, “They're pulling a hundred thousand of the
se things, that's enough to fill a warehouse.”
“Or a ship's hold,” Ted said. I looked up sharply and I saw that Ted's face had gone pasty. “You don't think...”
I shook my head, “No way.” These were parts for the Planetary Militia, stealing them, or selling them, would not just be against the law, it would put the entire planet at risk. This was from our strategic reserve, the parts the militia stored away in case of a serious war.
“Maybe someone made a mistake?” Ted asked.
I looked down at the bottom of the form, it had been approved by Terry Smith and signed off by Chuck Effren, the inventory manager and the inventory department head. The two of them shouldn't make a mistake like that.
I frowned, though, as I saw the origin of the request. It was Tony Champion. Did this have to do with his “special” project?
I had a hard time thinking of any legitimate reason to remove a hundred thousand warp drive emitters for a light fighter like the Firebolt. It wasn't like they could be used for anything else. For that matter, who would have the money to afford this kind of purchase?
I looked at the disposition instructions, but they just listed a contact number, nothing else.
Should I ask someone about this? Right now, if I just logged it, it would be on me. But if I didn't log it and it was legitimate, then that would come back on me too. I wasn't sure what to do. I brought up a messenger to Tony.
“Well,” Ted said, “I could look up that accounting code, if you'd like.”
I froze, fingers about to type in a question to Tony. If this was something bad, then that might be the better way to do it. Gather together evidence, right? “Sure,” I said, “If you don't mind.”
“Yeah, I can look it up, we can look at it at lunch, right?”
“Sure,” I said with more enthusiasm than I might have mustered otherwise. The idea of spending lunch with Ted didn't exactly excite me, but finding out what this was about was important. Besides, at least Ted treated me like I was a person.
“Great,” Ted said, “I'll see you later!”
I looked back at my screen as he walked away. I stared at the messenger to Tony. Why had I hesitated to ask him? He was my friend, wasn't he? Yet this was odd. This whole thing, the history between our families that he'd never mentioned, the change of me to logistics instead of engineering, and now this mystery.
What if he wasn't my friend... what if he was like Sashi?
***
“So,” Ted said as he slurped at his slushy at lunch, “that code was really odd.”
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that it was an accounting error or a misfiled code or even something mundane like selling off excess. Ted told me just about the last thing that I wanted to hear. So of course, my response was, “Tell me about it.”
Ted seemed to like food, he had loaded his tray down with everything from the lunch buffet, some of it stacked on top of each other in layers. I watched with a weird sense of fascination as he crammed a mix of beans, rice, corn, and meat into his mouth. I could see now why he weighed as much as he did. “Well,” Ted said around a mouthful of food, “it's a blanket code, for a general subcontractor. But there's no name, just a contact number. And the accounting I saw showed money coming in. I'm not even sure how that would work, I mean, shouldn't fixing the parts cost money?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice suddenly grim. “It should cost a lot of money. How much coming in?” I wasn't sure what the going rate would be for fighter parts.
He slid a data chip over to me. “It's all on here,” he said. “You know, this is kind of exciting, like a spy movie.”
Ted could have just forwarded me the data on the system, but I suppose he thought this was more exciting. I tucked the chip away and focused on my own food.
“So,” Ted said, his tone changing a bit. “I hear you are friends with Tony Champion?”
I looked up, “How'd you hear that?”
He flushed, “Uh, he and Carlos were talking this morning on the ride in.” I hadn't taken the company bus from the apartments this morning. I had just walked the five blocks, since it wasn't too far.
“Oh?” I asked. I felt a fluttery feeling in my stomach. “What did they say?”
Ted flushed and looked away. “They, uh, were talking about a lot of things.”
I felt myself flush even more. Tony and I had never... my flush deepened as I thought about what kinds of things I had overheard guys bragging about before. What had Tony said about me?
“Anyway, it's neat that you're close with him,” Ted said, “that must have helped with you getting appointed here, right?”
I shrugged, “I worked pretty hard, graduated a year early, top of my class.”
“Really?” Ted asked, “That's pretty awesome. I'm a year ahead too, even so, with how they changed the internship program over the past couple years, I barely made it in.”
“They changed it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ted nodded a little glumly. He looked down at his plate and played with his food. “Used to be based entirely on merit, but a... friend of mine, he said they've added a new metric to their system, based off of family and friends. That's how Trisha and Carlos got in. I only got accepted because Trisha asked me... well, I helped her out on some of her coursework and her father gave me a letter of recommendation.”
“Really?” I asked. I felt my stomach sink at that. It was like a slap in the face... and it suggested that Tony's father had probably influenced my appointment here too.
Ted shrugged, “Yeah. I've heard some other things, like the CEO, Leo Champion, he hasn't been seen in months, not since the paternity suit went live against him... combined with this weird thing you found, well, I'm just not sure that this is what I hoped, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I know.” I looked down at my own food. I wasn't sure I wanted to eat anymore, my throat felt like it was almost swollen shut.
Ted sighed, “Well, I need to get back to my cubicle. Let me know if you turn up anything with that info, okay?”
I nodded, “Sure.” I watched Ted head away. Some part of me wondered how he would do at the Academy and I barely held my tongue instead of telling him to apply there. He was a decent guy, he deserved more than this place.
Don't start thinking like that, I thought. Yet it was too late. Ted's words had shattered the illusion. I wasn't the only one who wasn't happy with this place. Maybe if it had been like it once was, maybe then it would fit right. Maybe, even, if I hadn't gone to the Academy Prep School and been around such good people.
Instead, all I could see was the things that didn't fit for me.
It was time to call my friends.
***
“That's pretty weird,” Ashiri Takenata said. She was on her family's line. I could see a crowded kitchen in the background and several of her siblings ran past the camera, chasing each other. Apparently she had a very crowded home life. I felt a little jealous, actually. There had only ever been Will and I, and we hadn't played together in years. “You copied the info?”
Alexander Karmazin's feed, on the other hand, looked to be a private one to his own bedroom. At least, I couldn't imagine anyone else with the extensive collection of military books that covered the shelf behind him. I halfway wondered if he had his bed made up in military fashion with perfectly precise corners.
I glanced over at my own bed, which I'd meticulously made last night. Yeah, I thought, I'm one to talk.
“Yeah, I've got a copy,” I said. I had added the invoice and two others that had the same account numbers to Ted's datachip. I had tucked the chip away in my wallet, behind my ID card, to sneak it out of the building. It wasn't that they searched everyone, but they did have scanners on the doors. In theory, what I had done had violated the confidentiality agreement, but right now I was worried there was something more at stake.
“Take it to the authorities,” Alexander Karmazin said. “Straight to the Enforcers. Maybe to your grandmother.”
“The Admiral?” I asked. “I don't know what she could do about it.”
“She'd know who to contact,” Ashiri said. “That's the important part. I mean, if they're selling off spares to someone, it's got to be pirates, or maybe Drakkus.”
“Could be some mercenaries, maybe one of the mercenary companies on Hanet that's looking for cheap parts,” Karmazin said. “Maybe even Dalite, but I don't think they would be in the market, they don't use Firebolts.”
“Well,” I said, “I'm not going to the Admiral.” I didn't know if I could face her and admit that this whole thing was a mistake, especially not with evidence that showed I'd signed on with a company that had put our world in danger. What would she think of me after that?
I pulled up a list of Enforcer departments. Petty crime? This seemed a little outside that. The money transfer tied to the one invoice alone was close to a million dollars. Not homicide, no one was killed. Fraud? It certainly seemed fraudulent.
“Okay,” I said. I pulled up the number. “I'm going to do this. I'll call you guys after. Thanks for the help.”
“Be careful,” Alexander said, his voice stern. “If this is really what we think it is, there's a lot of money involved, people will get crazy over that kind of thing.”
“I will,” I said. “Thanks guys.”
I cut the call and took a deep breath. I can do this, I thought, this is the right thing.
I dialed the number to the Enforcer’s fraud line. I dialed it and listened to their hold message. “Welcome to the Duncan City Enforcement Fraud line, if this is an emergency, please hang up and dial the emergency number. Otherwise, please stay on the line and an operator will be with you shortly.”
I took a deep breath as I heard the line click, “Hi, this is Mindy with Duncan City Enforcement Fraud Department, how can I direct your call?”
I opened my mouth to answer.
That was when the stunner hit me from behind.
