by Brian Olsen
The dissolution would be helped along by the host of lawsuits the company was facing. AmSyn’s former employees retained scattered memories of being forced to do horrible things against their wills, and the consensus seemed to be that Walter Ackerman had drugged them all and forced them into some kind of murder cult.
The AmSyn connection to the killings had come to light and the company was facing civil charges from the victims’ families as well. Apparently the murder-suicides hadn’t been limited to New York – similar horrors had occurred to employees of AmSyn branches and subsidiaries all over the world. Pickle suspected all the victims played Work It, though she doubted the police would ever make that connection.
That was about as much as Mark could follow. It seemed AmSyn hadn’t been very good about running its own business, so it probably would have gone down the crapper anyway, eventually. Pickle kept going on about court proceedings and the SEC and bankruptcy and blah blah blah. Alan and Caitlin were smothering yawns, but Dakota was asking questions enthusiastically.
“Excuse me,” he said, and stood. Pickle hadn’t looked at him since he had answered the door, and it seemed she wasn’t going to. He walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. He could hear Pickle and Dakota continuing to talk.
Shouldn’t he feel different, he wondered? Shouldn’t he feel good about himself? He had helped stop a homicidal corporation monster. He had been a part of something huge. Something important. He and the people he loved had come out the other end in one piece. Why did he feel so down?
“Mark?”
Pickle was standing above him. The real Pickle, finally, he thought. No craziness, no mind control, no blank face. A real person. She was beautiful.
“Pickle. Hey.”
“Hey.” She sat next to him. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” he lied. “Everything’s fine. Right? It all worked out.”
“I suppose so. I’ll be out of a job soon, but yours should be secure. Your gym’s being sold back to its original owners, it looks like. You can go back to work. I looked into it myself. I wanted to be sure you were okay.”
“Oh. Thanks. I’m not sure I want to go back there, though. I’m not sure of much of anything right now.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, it’s there if you want it, I guess.”
They sat there for a moment, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m so sorry, Pickle,” he said.
“For what?” She looked at him in surprise. “I was trying to figure out how to thank you!”
“Thank me?” he said. “You don’t have anything to thank me for! I should have...I don’t know...figured it out sooner. Put a stop to...everything.”
“You did. You saved us all, at the end, with that trick with my phone. So thank you for that. And thank you for...being strong.”
She blushed. His heart pounded.
“For not taking advantage,” she finished, standing up.
He rose. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It would have been wrong, really wrong, once I knew you weren’t yourself,” he said. “I know that. But...I don’t know if you remember but I did kiss you, in your office. It was to get information, but if you had kissed me back instead of slugging me, I might have...I’m not such a good guy. Not really.”
“I do remember. But I had done a lot more than kiss you before that, and you managed to control yourself. You would have again. But if you need me to, then I forgive you.” She paused. “I love Dexter. I do. But I’d be lying if I blamed all of my behavior on AmSyn.”
She stood on her tiptoes. He bent over slightly, and she kissed him on the cheek. “You are a good guy, Mark Park, whether you think so or not. Be well.” She walked to the front door and let herself out.
Mark watched her go, then sank back down onto the couch.
“A good guy,” he repeated. “Sure.”
* * *
Dakota looked up as Pickle walked out the door. She got up from the dining table and joined Mark in the living room, plopping down next to him on the sofa. With his bruises still healing from the beating he had taken in Ackerman’s office, he looked as bad as she felt.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m great. No...not great. But I’m good.” He put his arm around her. “How about you?”
“I’m not so great. Not so good. I’m unemployed again. Remember how excited I was when AmSyn hired me?”
“We celebrated by getting very drunk.”
“I was so sure somebody had finally recognized my value, and then that somebody turned out to be a psychopathic...sentient...whatever it was, and my only real value was that I was good at a stupid video game.” She sighed. “I was really depressed before I got that job.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “I remember.”
“I went from high school to college to business school to the unemployment line. I was so eager to get my MBA, I was sure my intelligence and winning personality would make up for my lack of practical experience. Nothing. Almost two years without a job in my field, until AmSyn. Now I’m right back where I was, with nothing but doubt.”
“Pickle said she’d give you a recommendation.”
“I know, and that’s great, but if I’m doubting my own abilities...I don’t know. Maybe it’s time for a new dream. Maybe this isn’t what I want.”
She sat bolt upright.
“Oh my god,” she wailed. “I’m having an existential crisis!”
* * *
Caitlin sat at the dining table, her laptop open, trying to tune out the conversations happening around her. Alan had gotten a phone call as soon as Pickle had left, and Dakota and Mark were murmuring in the living room.
She was scanning Backstage and Playbill for auditions, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She was trying to process what Pickle had told them – that AmSyn was gone for good. That they were safe.
She didn’t feel safe. She was still sleeping with Dakota at night, still waking up to see Marisol standing over her. In the wake of everything they had all been through, acting suddenly seemed frivolous. She found herself wondering if hot Australian Lachlan was right – if she was just killing time until she grew up and got a real job.
She closed her laptop and wandered into the living room. Mark and Dakota were sitting on the sofa, Dakota’s head on Mark’s shoulder. Caitlin sat down on the other end and pulled her legs up beneath her.
“Do you guys feel safe?” she asked them.
“I do with this big lump of muscle around,” Dakota said.
“Do you?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know. The whole time Pickle was talking I kept wondering if she was going to try and strangle me again.”
“How are the nightmares?” Dakota asked.
“The same. There’s an open call on Monday for a tiny part in a Broadway show. Normally I’d get up at the crap of dawn to stand in line for it, even though the odds of getting it are miniscule, but...what if everybody in line tries to kill me?”
“They won’t, honey,” Dakota said. “You know they won’t.”
“I know they won’t. But...” She reached for the words. “That was insane, what just happened to us. If that was possible, if something like that could happen...what else is out there? What else could be waiting for us? How am I just supposed to go back to auditioning after all this, like none of it ever happened? Yes, I know that AmSyn is gone. I know that, odds are, the rest of my life will be completely normal and never again will a random crowd of people try to kill me. But...what if they do?”
* * *
“It’s fine, Mom, it’s all over.”
Alan’s phone had been ringing steadily since the day before. Some news station had tracked him down and it seemed like every journalist in the world wanted an interview. He had answered the first few calls with polite rejections, but had finally just let them all go to voice mail and then deleted them without listening. After Pickle had left, his p
hone had rung again, but luckily he had noticed in time that the call was coming from his mother.
“It was all a hoax. Somebody in their Public Relations department, or something. A practical joke...Because I was just a temp, that was the point – somebody who could never be CEO...Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I don’t think that’s in the cards any time soon...I just want it to blow over. There’s another press release going out today explaining...No, it was nothing to do with all that, just bad timing. I was only there for a day, I didn’t see any of the drugs or the cult stuff...No, if she called I missed it, it’s been crazy here. I’ll call her tonight and let her know what’s going on...Probably not until Christmas, unless you guys want to finally come out for a visit...Okay...Okay...Okay, I should go. Bye, Mom. Love you too. Tell Ted I said hi...Okay, bye.”
He ended the call with a sigh. He didn’t like lying to his mother – not about something this important, at least – but he didn’t think she or his stepfather or his sister would believe the truth. He wouldn’t, if he hadn’t lived through it.
He set his phone to silent. Pickle had promised that the press release explaining his meteoric rise to the top as nothing but a prank gone too far would go out that afternoon, so with any luck the whole cult/drugs/murder/suicide thing would overshadow his little story and the reporters would leave him alone.
He could hear his roommates chatting in the living room. He stood, walked towards them, and then paused in the archway dividing the rooms. They all looked miserable. Caitlin was talking about giving up acting.
“Stop,” he interrupted. “Answer me this. Do you love acting any less than you did before all this happened?”
“No,” she acknowledged.
“Do you still believe what you said at Derek’s party, about it being something you have to do?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
“So...?”
Her eyes snapped open. “So you have to be emotionally vulnerable to be an actor! It’s all about trusting the people around you, and I don’t trust anyone anymore! What’ll I do if I’m at an audition or on stage and a roomful of strangers attacks me again?”
“You’ll kick their asses again, that’s what you’ll do,” he said. “Like you did at Slot Machine.”
“That was a fluke,” she protested. “I was terrified. I was flailing and running.”
“That’s not what it sounded like to me.” Alan collapsed onto the sofa between her and Dakota. “Sounded like you kept your head in a dangerous situation with the odds stacked way against you, and got yourself out of there in one piece.”
“And you got me out too,” Mark said. “You saved my life.”
“I guess...” she said, uncertain. “I’d never even been in a fight before. I was lucky.”
“Then don’t be lucky, next time,” Alan said. “Be prepared. Take a class. Boxing, or martial arts, or something. You clearly have an aptitude for it.”
“Or something with stabbing,” Mark said. “You were really good at all the stabbing.”
“Lord,” Dakota said, “if you were that tough in your first fight, I hate to think of what you could do with a black belt.”
“Huh...” Caitlin said, thinking. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. I kind of like the idea of being able to kick major ass. I could go up for parts in action movies...I could do my own stunts!”
“All right,” he said, turning to Dakota. “You’re next. What’s your problem?”
“Oh, you’re solving all our problems, is that what’s happening?” she said, one eyebrow raised. “I’m feeling adrift. I was out of work for a very long time, the job I finally got was a fraud, and my unemployed roommate became a CEO before I did. I’m wondering if it’s time for a new dream.”
“Bullshit,” Alan said. “Do you still want what you wanted when you got your MBA?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I do. But if nobody else...”
“Fuck everybody else. You are the smartest person I know, and the most driven. You’ll get there. We’re in our twenties. This is not the time to abandon your dreams. That’s what your thirties are for.”
“Damn right,” Caitlin said.
Dakota laughed. “Okay, fine. I guess I can talk to Pickle again, see if she can offer me any advice. She doesn’t seem to hate me anymore, and she’s achieved a lot at a pretty young age. All these companies being sold off...maybe there’s something I can help out with.”
“There you go.”
“Do me next!” Mark said.
“Hit me. I’m on a roll.”
“Pickle called me a good guy,” he said. “But I’m not.”
“Of course you are,” Caitlin said.
“Don’t,” Mark said. “I’m a good guy to you, you’re my friends. But I’m not so good to women.”
“You’re not bad to them,” Dakota countered. “You think I’d be your friend if you treated women badly?”
Mark groaned in frustration. “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “I’m nice to the girls I fuck, I’m not an asshole, but I don’t...they don’t...”
“They don’t matter,” Alan said.
“Right!” Mark said. “That’s it. They don’t matter to me. Shit, that’s awful. See? I’m not a good guy.”
Alan leaned past Dakota and punched him in the shoulder. “Stop saying that. They were all consenting adults. So you’ve been a little sketchy, so what? You don’t want to be that way anymore, so you’re feeling like being that way was wrong. It wasn’t. It’s okay if what you want changes. Doesn’t mean you were wrong to want it.”
Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “Huh. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks, man. Should I stop having sex, you think? Until I figure this out?”
“Don’t talk crazy,” Alan said. “Just start having it with girls who matter to you.”
“Like a girlfriend?” Mark replied, his eyes widening. “Fuck.”
“You’re not going to find a girlfriend at Slot Machine,” Dakota said.
Alan rolled his eyes. “So we’ll stop being selfish pricks and we’ll go to a straight bar for Mark once in a while.”
Mark grabbed his hand. “Yes. Please.”
“How about tonight?” Alan said. “I could use a drink. I could use several.”
“Uh, I appreciate the thought, I do,” Mark said, “but maybe we could hold the straight night out until my face isn’t one giant bruise?”
“Slot Machine it is, then,” Caitlin said.
“You sure?” Alan asked. “You want to go back there?”
“Absolutely. I’m not letting this nightmare ruin my favorite bar. You’re coming to the bathroom with me, though.”
“Done,” Alan said.
“What about you, Alan?” Dakota asked. “You seem pretty happy, all things considered.”
“I am. I’m still sad about Pete. The funeral’s on Sunday, that’ll be rough. But I feel like I have a direction for the first time in my life.”
“Helping the little guy?” she said. “That’s what you said in Ackerman’s office. Tell me you’re not considering...” She shuddered. “...the non-profit sector?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t figured out the specifics yet, but yeah, helping people. Somehow. For sure.”
“That can be rough,” Caitlin said. “Taking on other people’s problems.”
“I know,” Alan said. “But I’m looking forward to it. I have to find a way to help people that’s right for me. I’ve got time. Until then...I’ll just keep smiling.”
He stood up.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go have fun.”
Thank you for reading Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom. The sequel to this book is out now! You can start reading it right here, right now: Caitlin Ross and the Commute from Hell.
If you’re not already on my mailing list, you can sign up at www.brianolsenbooks.com. I send out updates about current projects and special treats at the start of each m
onth, and alert you right away to any new releases. You’ll also get a free novelette, How to Kill a Vampire in Outer Space, a stand-alone story in my Multiverse Mashup series.
Can’t wait to see what’s next for Alan, Caitlin, Mark and Dakota? Turn the page for a preview of Caitlin Ross and the Commute from Hell!
Chapter One
Deshawn changing
Deshawn Alexander shivered from the blistery January wind blowing in off the Hudson River and tried to disappear inside his thin, ragged denim jacket. He had ridden the PATH train in from Newark to Manhattan earlier that morning and had been wandering around the West Village and Hudson River Park for a few hours, searching unsuccessfully for a place where he could get warm. He had managed to guilt trip his mother into letting him sleep at home the night before, but his father had thrown him out again not long after the sun had come up.
He blew on his hands and rubbed them briskly together. He looked up and down the esplanade, but apart from the cars zooming by on West Street behind him and a few brave souls taking in the view of New Jersey from the end of the nearby pier he was alone. He still had a couple of hours before Project Q, the after-school program he sometimes participated in, began. He didn’t actually go to school, at least not very often, but the people who ran the program didn’t make a big deal out of that. With a little luck, charm and maybe flirting they’d help him find a bed that night at one of the city’s shelters. Kevin, the guy who ran Project Q, always seemed to find him a bed at one of the gay-friendly spaces when he really needed it.
And he’d need it tonight. The sun was blindingly bright and there was no snow, but the temperature was close to freezing and the air was bitter and stinging. He stood up and rubbed his butt. He had been sitting on the lip of the large marble fountain at the end of Christopher Street and his jeans did nothing to keep out the cold of the stone.
