by mike Evans
He gave a thumb up, “I’ll call you at lunch. You go home and stay away from all the sick people, babe. Everyone keeps saying how they’ll get flu shots, but research is saying it isn’t working for shit. Maybe we ought to dine in tonight and stay out of the germ dish of life.”
“Honey, don’t be so excited. The sex is a sure thing, I promise. We go out, we eat good food, we have strong drinks, and then we spend the next two days in bed doing nothing.”
Ian gave a thumb up knowing she would talk all day if he didn’t send her away and turned to walk for the building. She honked as she pulled off and he walked to the building, stopping for a minute to stare up at the giant structure. A seasoned security guard outside said, “Impressive isn’t it? You going in sir, or are you just admiring it?”
Ian looked down to see what he could only assume was a retired man who had to go back to work as a guard sitting by the front door. Ian said, “Are you talking to me, sir?”
“My daddy was sir. You can call me Bud. Yes, I was talking to you.”
“Well, my name is Ian Wood, and I start work here today.”
“Well that narrows it down to a few hundred companies. They got damn near every kind of business you can have in this place. We get some interesting characters walking in and out. I personally love when the tattoo shop inside is rocking their business because it makes the suits a little nervous. You aren’t a suit, are you?”
“No Bud, I'm a science nerd. I’m going to go work in the Tufo. They have their minds set that I can help them with some bugs in their software.”
Bud whistled. “Well, at least you get in on the ground floor, literally. You head in and talk to the guard's desk and they’ll get someone from there to come get you. This place is secured tighter than a politician’s asshole.”
Ian wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but he gave him a thumb up anyways. “I better get into work. Don’t want to be late on day one, Bud. It was nice meeting you.”
“Don’t be a stranger. Good luck today.”
Ian pushed in, walked through the revolving door, and skipped the push open set. The voices in his head told him to leave the germs alone. He checked in at the guard desk and was asked to take a seat while the HR rep for T Corp was buzzed to come and get him. Ian sat for a moment, watching people walking in and almost staggering. They looked sleep deprived, pale, and like they might not have eaten in quite a while. He looked to the guards, seeing that they weren’t going out of their way to make any sort of interaction with those that appeared to be the walking dead.
A voice came out of nowhere when he got lost in his people watching. “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, Mr. Wood?”
Ian jumped. He’d been in his own world for nearly fifteen minutes. When he turned around, a beautiful woman was standing behind him, and made him lose track of what he was attempting to say. His wife was a looker for sure, he thought, but figured this woman had put herself through college doing modeling. He stammered, “No, I mean, yes I'm her. Or him. Mrs. Wood, that is. I mean, oh God, would you forgive me. I swear I'm smart.”
“First day jitters maybe?”
“Yeah, you could say that. I don’t do well with new places so I was a little nervous to put it lightly, about coming in today.”
“They call that first day jitters, Mr. Wood.”
“Ian. Please call me Ian, and you are?”
“I'm Jessie, Jessie Steward. I run the Human Resources Program here at T Corp. We run a tight little ship here and everyone gets along wonderfully. We were very excited when we heard you had accepted the position in research and development. You're supposed to be something special.”
Ian smiled, stood up, and shook her hand. “Don’t tell anyone that I'm not a genius. At least not until I get my first check.”
She started making a note and he said, “I was just kidding. Please don’t put that in my file.”
Jessie leaned in and said, just between them, “Don’t worry, I make notes on everyone.”
Ian, not meaning to say it, but couldn’t help himself said, “You just wrote down new guy is an asshole, didn’t you?”
She snorted, trying unsuccessfully to cover her mouth in time. “No. Funny, but no. I wrote down sense of humor, anxiety, very outgoing. Is that okay for the record?”
Ian shrugged. “Well, sounds close enough to me.” He looked down at her arm, seeing a bandage over a cotton ball and asked, “You guys doing a blood drive around here today?”
She looked at him questioningly, then down at her own arm. “No, we don’t do too many blood drives. We have pretty tight security here and try not to let too many outsiders inside of our doors if we don’t have to. With all the work place security that they’ve put in place after all of the attacks in recent years, we don’t see it as beneficial regardless if the world benefits from it. We don’t like sick days around here so we actually did pay for a flu vaccine to come in early this morning. We got everyone that we could except for maybe twenty people vaccinated with it, we do everything we can to keep our employees healthy.”
Ian noticed her brow was perspiring, “You know, you might be having some side effects from the shot.”
She wiped at her face. “I just didn’t eat breakfast before I came to work today. And on top of that, the drugs didn’t do a darn bit of good for me. I assure you, I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to take your word for it. That isn’t my specialty.”
She smiled again, putting back on her HR face and said, “No, no it isn’t. We are running late, and on your first day we can’t have that. Doctor Edwards is waiting for you in the lab He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“So, no orientation or anything?”
She shook her head no. “We have this badge with your clearance level. It will get you in anywhere, but you have to put in a six digit code. I used your date of birth. Clever, I know, but at the end of the day, I’ll try and swing in to get you set up with a personalized number. You have to do a retina and thumb scan as well, so I don’t think there should be any issues.”
“You guys take work seriously here, don’t you?”
“This building was constructed to keep the bad out. We didn’t think skimping on the little things once we got into our personal facility was a great idea. There are other businesses on this level that we want to make sure people don’t get lost just walking in without appointments. Also, we are cutting edge in our field. I'm sure that there are plenty of competing companies that would want to get in and see what we have going on.”
“You guys have a lot of spies trying to get in?”
“Not with our security, Ian. But no reason to assume that everyone else is as honest as we are.”
The air did a whoosh when she swiped the badge on the door, and they walked into the office that looked as normal as any others. She pushed through past the cubicle farm. When she had him swipe the last set of doors she said, “This is where the magic starts.”
When they opened, she looked like Vanna White showing off the letter the contestant picked. Ian stepped through, the normal office went to rows upon rows of white tiled walls, and white tables with four to five group teams all sitting around different computers and research projects. He smiled, watching the robots hands opening and closing, gripping things and following a computer programs orders. Ian asked, “Is this where I'm going to be working, Mrs. Steward?”
“Ian, men who get signing bonuses and recruited don’t work on the common floor. You're in the very back with Dr. Edwards.”
Ian watched as they made their way, taking in the men looking like half of the engineers had all seen the flu shot company as well. These men were a little less kept than Jessie was, and he tried to seem friendly, waving to them as they passed. He got sneers and questioning looks back. “Real friendly around here aren’t they, Jessie?”
“You would probably look like them too if you had found out the research job working alongside Dr. Edwards had been given to someone who had no time at, or ties to
the company. When they figured out who it was they researched you and became even more jealous. I had one or more complaints that they thought that they were the man, or woman, for the job.”
“What did you say?”
“That if they were the right person for the job, that they would be in said job. I’d mentioned Dr. Edwards’ door was always open if they felt like they wanted to let him know they felt he was wrong. It didn’t seem anyone out there thought strongly enough about the topic to take it any further.”
“So…..new guy, gets good job, everyone hates him.”
“Are you going to be able to handle that?”
“I'm a science robotics major with engineering and advanced math degrees. I graduated high school at fourteen and got my first of three bachelors by the time I was eighteen. Yes, I think I’ll be okay. I'm used to people not liking me. Nerds have to have thick skin.”
She patted him on the back as they made their way to the end of the worker’s area. “Well, from what I can tell on your employment contract, you’ll be a very well paid, hated nerd. Better than being poor and loved, right?”
Ian thought of Megan. “I'm married, so I'm already loved. No problem there.”
Jessie winked as she swiped the last set of doors, ushering him in. “Well, I'm sure she is just lovely, Ian.”
When they walked in, Ian heard music being muted instantly. The final doors made way to a robotics lab almost as big as the one they had walked through, except this one had no individuals in it. Just one long-haired man. He turned around, red-faced and looking like he was going to seek vengeance for being disturbed. Ian lifted a hand halfway, almost looking like a Nazi salute, unsure how to approach the infamous Dr. Edwards. Jessie could see the fear in the young man’s face and handled the introductions.
“Dr. Edwards, I’d like you to meet Dr. Wood, he is going to be-“
“Oh for god sakes, Steward. I was the one that sent the headhunters after him. Do you really think that I need to have you tell me who he is? He’s being paid enough that he should be introducing himself to me. Dr. Wood, let’s cut the shit. You call me Frank, I’ll call you Ian. If you don’t screw up then we’re going to do some very amazing things together. Do you think you can handle that?”
He nodded his head slowly and Frank snapped at Jessie. “Now see, Mrs. Steward, we don’t need you any longer. You have a pleasant day. I'm sure there are some very important matters for you to deal with in the Human Resources Department.”
When she didn’t move, he pressed a button on the wall and the door opened behind her. He waved for her and she got the hint that it was time to leave. She whispered closely, “My extension is 379 if you need anything at all. Don’t be afraid to call. Please tell him no if you think he is going to get himself killed. It’s better than trying to explain things later.”
Ian looked at her, ready to laugh until he took in her expression and knew she was dead serious. He gave a less than enthusiastic thumb up and watched her leave, feeling like he was being left inside of the octagon at a cage match unsure why the dog hadn’t been fed in a week. Dr. Edwards turned back around, tinkering with something and, when the suction of the door closed again, he said, “Is she gone?”
“Yes sir, she is.”
“You sure, now?”
“Uh yeah, pretty sure, sir.”
“Fantastic. First, don’t call me sir. I hate when they have to come in here. Makes me feel so damn dirty. Remember, I'm Frank, you’re Ian.” He turned around, swiveling on his seat in a circle two times around, throwing Ian off guard and smiling with his arms out wide before coming to a stop. “And this place is a fucking nerd's heaven! Did I hire a tight ass, someone who isn’t going to be any fun, or did I get someone that is going to do great things while enjoying his work and has a passionate feeling for the things that he does?”
Ian looked back through the window, watching as Jessie disappeared. He took a long, deep breath, thinking to himself that greatness doesn’t always look like perfection. “I'm most certainly am the man for the fucking job, Frank.”
Frank clapped his hands, running toward Ian and picking him up in an embrace. He set him down and turned him around, checking and said, “Yep, no stick in this one’s ass. I have maybe found the perfect assistant. You're going to help change the lives of people like you’ve never known.”
“That’s why I left California.”
“Yes I know, that is insane. Christ, I’ve asked them to move this out there for the last five years. The owners who I’m confident both live, drink, and eat twenty four seven somewhere tropical said that they’d rather keep things where they are.”
Ian shrugged, trying not to look around to eagerly, but he felt like a child in a candy store. He felt his stomach settling and thanked God for it as he hadn’t the first clue where or if there would be a bathroom this deep into nerd land. Frank clapped his hands together and said, “Do you want to just look at the toys or do you want to touch them?”
“Oh, I definitely want to touch them. What am I going to be working on?”
Frank hopped out of his seat, walked to a metal locker, and opened it up. Ian jumped back when he saw the white sheet covering a cadaver. He tried to catch the words, but couldn’t. “What the fuck is that?”
Frank smiled proudly. “This, my boy, is what happens when you have a kick-ass budget.” He walked around looking at his toe tag. “This is Steven. Steven ate poorly and had a heart attack at fifty seven years old.”
“And why is he here?”
“If he is here then I would assume he also has a family member quite hard up for money that sold his body to us. They say that they cremate him and then we get him.”
“And why do we need him, Mr…..I mean Frank.”
Frank pulled off the sheet and smiled smugly. He said, “What do you see, Ian?”
“A really out of shape and naked white guy, Frank.”
“Ahh, you're seeing this wrong. Let us start over. I thought I got a smart one. Try again, Ian. We’ll get there together.”
Ian walked toward the body slowly, still very much trying to keep his distance from the naked, dead dude. He walked in a circle around him, knowing that if he just didn’t over-think the situation that the answer surely would come to him. He looked at the millions of dollars’ worth of gadgetry and projects and said, “He has limbs. That’s it isn’t it?”
Frank clapped his hands together, the light and excitement in his face contagious. “Oh, thank God we finally got someone who isn’t a twit. Do you know how many people I had to go through to get someone who could answer that question? Christ, it will try a person’s patience; I can assure you of that, my new friend.”
“I would assume a lot?”
“Exactly. Now, you might want to grab one of those lab coats on the wall. They should fit. We had them tailored based on your size at the interview you went through. We don’t do anything half-ass here, son.”
The two men both slid one on. Ian wasn’t sure, but was confident something great or insane was going to come out of these walls. He noticed as the doctor was sliding on his coat that he didn’t have a bandage and cotton ball on his arm. “You didn’t get the flu shot today?”
“Hate needles, Kid. If I can avoid them, then I do. Besides, I live most my life inside of this place so, as of now, you're pretty much the only one who can get me sick. So do me a favor.”
“Don’t get you sick?”
“Bingo. Don’t get me sick. Because even if it isn’t you, I’m going to blame you for it. Don’t make me do that.”
He ran his hand across a line of tools. He said, “Do you know what we are going to be working on together?”
“Robotic prosthetics for wounded vets and civilians, I thought. At least, I hope so or you might have paid a lot of money for the wrong guy.”
“Yes, but the dummies outside are the ones working on those types of things. I get to, or maybe if you can handle it, say we get to work on the cool shit.”
He op
ened up a large case that looked like a toolbox, but had custom foam cut outs lining the inside as well as what looked like the hand straight out of The Terminator movie. Ian went to touch it, but pulled back. Frank clapped him on the shoulder and said, “This is the part where you get to touch the cool shit, kid.”
Ian gripped it delicately, moving the fingers on a hand. He looked at the material, unsure what it was at first until he saw that it had been forged in titanium alloy. “This is functional already?”
“Wouldn’t do much good if it wasn’t, now would it. I’m not so worried about our boys once they come home. We have some great shit coming out this year. What worries me is someone losing a limb, being on their own, and stuck in the shit. My dream is that someone can carry one of each of these in a backpack and, for lack of a better term, they could self-medicate. Now, if someone loses a head, or gets a hole the size of a bowling ball through their chest, there is very little that we can do for them. The damage a body can handle is only so much. Medicine is tricky, so I worked with doctors to see what dosages and amounts were required. Cuts can be made to make things even when they get home. This is not the case in war.”
He gripped a cleaver in one hand and a meat-tenderizing hammer in the other. “Imagine Steven here is walking along minding his own business when an IED goes off, sending a piece of metal through his right arm, which also happens to be his shooting hand.”
He brought the cleaver high above his head and down just above his elbow, making it half way down through the skin. He said, “Now that isn’t totally cut off, so let’s chop once more. The field isn’t pretty.”
He brought it down a second, then a third time, until Steven’s bloody arm fell to the ground. It bounced off Frank’s feet and he didn’t even flinch at it. Ian walked up in awe, checking that he still wasn’t going to puke. He watched as Frank brought the meat-tenderizing hammer into the stump five times until the somewhat clean cut looked like a mangled piece of meat. Frank turned around and smiled from ear to ear.
“Did they teach you any of this shit at UCLA? Sure as hell didn’t let me do anything like this, kid. War wounds are dangerous, and they aren’t perfect. This is the type of research the public sectors aren’t able to do. Some people probably call us sell-outs, but I say we are the leaders.”
