Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1) (13 page)

I
had to be at the office by 8 a.m. and my pad indicated an average travel time of twelve minutes to get there, so I thought to leave for 7:30. I had to be there early to impress the boss and set the standard for what I was going to do.

There was nothing to read up on or to do, so I went to bed early and kept picturing Clara’s smile and the way she moved down the hall.

I don’t think I slept that night, but morning hit and I was moving fast.

I was in my suit and walking out the front door at 7:15. I walked to the building, grabbing a bagel and coffee on the way, and enjoyed walking in a city that I had never seen before.

At the office tower, the security was tight but they were expecting me and processed me through fast. I had my security card and was upstairs waiting at the office by 7:45. The boss—Mr. Michael Harley Smythe, according to the plaque on the door of his office—didn’t show up until 9:15.

All the secretaries and staff were at work for 8:30. I was able to walk around a little bit and I figured out how big his office was, on the eighteenth story of a twenty-storey building. His office took up almost a quarter of the floor.

When the secretaries talked to me and found out who I was working for, they all just smiled and it looked a bit forced.

I gave up walking around as the place was just making me nervous, and I sat down to wait.

When the boss finally showed up, he walked in like he owned the place. He stopped and sniffed when he saw me waiting. “So you must be Tommy, the new intern they saddled me with, then?”

I stood up and stuck my hand out. “Timothy Labaron, sir. I’m pleased to meet you and to have the chance to work for you.”

He just sniffed again and then walked past me toward his doors, which opened on their own.

“You should be glad for the opportunity to work for the Corporation in any capacity. That you get to work with me? Well, an opportunity like that doesn’t come up, ever. Come on then, stop lounging there and let’s get you to work.”

I dropped my hand and followed him. The secretary, who was a nice guy when I talked to him earlier, pretended nothing was going on. I was pretty sure that I was glowing red. I was going to spend how long working with this jerk?

I reminded myself about what Dad had said and tried to relax.

The boss wandered over to his desk and sat down, starting the procedure to activate whatever system he was running. It looked like it took up most of the desk, and I was pretty sure that those were two separate three-dimensional projectors on opposite sides of the desktop. He could have real-time VR-level meetings with that sort of tech!

He looked at me standing there and seemed to be evaluating me. Then he started talking like I wasn’t even there. “So, first intern to senior management in the Corporation. There have been other assistants, but not only finished third-year university. You shouldn’t be here, not at this level, but working for some stupid drone in the entry-level management or delivering mail. However, your father is in the Corporation and is one of the top-producing managers with excellent efficiency. Yet he passed up promotion?”

That last bit sounded like a rhetorical question, but my dad had never passed up a promotion that I was aware of. He had told us that he was too old and did okay in the Corporation and he was content for us to stay where we were. Maybe the boss was wrong?

He continued with his monologue. “So the father doesn’t want to move so he can be top dog and then get his family into a higher start position. I wonder who he called the favours in from? Probably made his bosses look good, so they are throwing him this bone. Good on him for building a support base. But too obvious to anyone looking. Hmmmm…”

The boss came back to himself and then looked at me like I was really there, finally. “Well, lucky for you, my last assistant has been moved on and I can use the extra pair of hands. Be aware that I expect anyone working for me to
work
and not just go off to parties. That is not what the Corporation is about. We take the long view and work toward that. Don’t let me down.”

He looked at me like he was expecting something. That was my cue. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work for you, sir. I will do everything I can to learn from you.”

He nodded and then started typing on the keyboard. “Talk to the administrator outside; he can brief you on expectations.”

I nodded and left the room. The doors closed behind me. I wondered if I should have backed out of the presence of royalty.

I looked at the ‘administrator’ and smiled. “Mr. Smythe told me to come out here and get briefed by you about what I am supposed to do.”

He looked up from his keyboard and smiled sadly at me. “Well, young one, let me brief you with this. The correct phrasing should be, ‘Mr. Smythe has given me direction to read up on the job description which you have on your system. Would you be so good as to forward it to my pad?’”

Then he grinned at me. “Every administrator’s job is to train the new entrants to the Corporation in the proper use of lingo so they look good for their bosses. So you know, there is no job description. You just do what you are told. You are a sophisticated gofer. The coffee shop downstairs has his coffee order set for morning pickup at 9 a.m. After that, you do whatever he has for you and if there is nothing, come out here and I will get you on the other computer system so you can track what projects this office is in charge of. You need to be conversant with everything. Lucky for you, the next round of meetings is in two weeks and that should be enough time to get up to speed. Mr. Smythe is a hard-working man who expects the best from all of us and will put in more effort than others in the Corporation. Please keep that in mind.”

The last sentences were said while his eyes were glazed over and I wondered if he was trying not to choke on them.

I nodded and smiled and made polite small talk, and then started reviewing the corporate projects.

Mr. Smythe ate out for lunch every day and was on meetings with different managers that he worked for or with. He never ate with his minions.

When Mr. Smythe came out, he asked what I was going to be doing for lunch and I told him I’d be using the corporate cafeteria. He started to look down his nose at me until I finished off by telling him I wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. He accepted that and left.

His lunches were always over an hour.

When the day was over, I stayed until after he had departed and then, after another hour, wrapped up and walked back to the dorms. It was different already, as it seemed like everyone had changed out. The old groups had been shipped off wherever and there were lots of new people.

I saw Clara again in the common room. Today she was wearing a coverall and her hair had a different look. I waved when I saw her and she waved back.

We sat down and started talking while the newcomers watched the screen and then almost all of them headed out for a night on the town.

“Hey Clara, do you have a minute?”

“Well, I sure do, shy guy. How you doing today? I didn’t want to say too much in front of the pretenders ‘cause they think they’re tough. It’s funny.”

“Ah, what’s funny, Clara?”

“Oh, they were all talking big and the guys were saying how they could take you down ‘cause you gotta be a spy.” She laughed. “Like they would have a chance, but it worked for them; their dimbulb girls are gonna show them a good time when they get back from partying… They are such losers.”

I couldn’t track on what she meant so I carried on. “How did your testing go?”

She smiled again, a real smile that showed off that gap between her front teeth. “It went real good today. They are talking about me shipping out tomorrow to start at the apprentice school in the South for welding. I am heading for some place in New Mexico. I did well enough that I am going in as a Level 2 apprentice with better pay and some seniority. I leave tomorrow morning, though.”

“Hey, that’s awesome! Good for you!”

“If I do real well and ace my other tests, I may end up going off-world. Pay for that starts at triple the going rate here on Earth, and there are a lot of bonuses! Of course, it is a five-year contract, but I don’t care. If I do well at that then I could be in with the Corporation. I could even end up teaching one day, which is nice and stable. Well, at least when I get older and want to slow down and enjoy life here on Earth. How about you?”

“Mmmmm, I am an assistant to a senior manager. He’s a bit of a … character.”

I guess my face gave it away.

Clara got up, grabbed me by the arm, and almost dragged me over toward the window where the blinds were drawn. She sat me down on a two-seater couch and snuggled right up to me.

“You city boys are sooooo slow. Any talk like that is going to be over here so the sensors can’t see your face and there is no reflection so they can’t lip-read. If you work for senior management, then you need to take precautions when you say things. The AIs are scanning everywhere.”

She wasn’t looking at me while she spoke, but kept her face away from where she had identified the scanner.

I spoke quietly, going along with her paranoia. “Uh, Clara, if they are going that far, then they could have sensors that just pick up our speech and they could have other sensors that pick up the vibrations caused by our voices against the glass here so they could make out what we are saying even through a white noise generator.” I had watched some of those action shows where that was always done.

She patted my arm. “I knew there was a brain in that big, fit body of yours!”

I felt really good when she said that. There’s nothing like being told you’re fit by a hot woman to make you feel better about the day.

She stroked my arm and leaned in. “I have a voodoo box on the wall, so any words that are coming out are distorted and inaudible. Even if they clean it up they wouldn’t get much. Before you ask, we make those for fun when we’re kids to spoof the systems that they have on us. Second big point. The systems in here are old; they rely more on movement and the pictures to identify the young and stupid who need to be rounded up before it’s too late. Or as proof if someone gets stoned and damages the place. So don’t worry your pretty little head, Timmy. Heck, we could probably have sex here. The sensors may not even work anymore. Wanna try?”

“Thanks for the offer, Clara, but I would rather not do anything than find out that the sensor does work and my boss
is
watching. Not to mention if some of the others came back.”

“Hmmm, you’re right, but we could at least show those new kids how it’s done.”

I almost choked on my tongue and had a coughing fit.

“Come on, shy guy. Let’s go to your room and have some great, hot, wild sex and get rid of all our stress.”

She was still stroking my arm. I stood up and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Clara, that’s the best offer that I have had in forever.”

We walked down the hallway with our arms around each other.

“How bad is your new summer boss?”

I sighed. “If he keeps up like today and that’s what he is really like? Then he’s a lazy guy better than everyone else.”

“That’s a nice way of saying he’s a user. Clean too. Well, you can forget about him tonight. Say, shy guy… I forgot to ask. What’s your favourite position?” Clara giggled, “Oh my! You do turn red. You are so going to have to learn to hide that. But don’t worry about it.”

I opened my door and stepped in before remembering ‘ladies first.’ As I turned to apologize she pressed up against me and kicked the door closed with a foot while she put both arms around me and pulled my head down to kiss her.

She broke away after a second. “How about we just try them all?”

I
woke up to an alarm screaming at 5 a.m. and I felt like killing it if it didn’t kill me first. Then a grunting form next to me hit the snooze button. I woke up fully then.

Clara was lying next to me watching me. When she saw I was awake, she threw a leg over me and put a hand on my chest. “Well, shy guy, you were more fun than a girl should be allowed to have. I enjoyed watching you sleep.” She sighed as she slid on top of me, pinning me down to the bed with her body. “I could get into being a trophy wife for you. It would be a lot of fun—at least until I got fat having kids.”

The dragon tattoo that ran from below her right armpit down to her knee was an amazing piece of work, but I hadn’t asked about that, or the scars on the left side of her ribcage. We hadn’t done any real talking the previous night.

“Stop checking me out, shy guy. You gotta leave in about two hours. Work me out until you’re almost late.”

I ended up showing up for work just on time, but had to skip breakfast and ran most of the way to make it. I had the coffee and was at my desk before Mr. Smythe even showed up.

The administrator, Ken, had raised an eyebrow when I walked in late. Then, after I sat down, he coughed politely and asked me to go to the washroom, “to check the mirrors for serviceability, especially when viewing oneself in the region of the neck.”

I knew I was beet red and there were makeup stains on my neck that I had missed. Probably from Clara’s eyeliner or something.

I finished getting cleaned up and went back to my desk just in time to hand Mr. Smythe his coffee as he arrived at 9:30.
After Mr. Smythe had gone into his office, I looked over at Ken. “Thank you, sir, the mirrors and bathroom were in fine working order.”

He didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing. “Mr. Timothy Labaron, my name is Ken. I am an administrator for Mr. Smythe; just Ken if you need an icebreaker to start the conversation. After all, it is just you and me in the office, correct?”

“Ummm, okay, Ken.”

He sighed and stopped assessing the data he was working on and looked at me seriously. “Timothy, when you are talking to someone in the Corporation, they may have just met you and most will form a snap judgement on who you are and how effective you are. ‘Ummm’ is a word whisker that just fills empty space and indicates you are not thinking. If you have nothing to say or are at a loss, say nothing. It makes it appear that you are actually considering what you are going to say. Whether you are or are not actually doing so does not matter. It appears that you are. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

He smiled at me again and went back to work.

We kept working till lunch, when Mr. Smythe went out. Shortly after, Ken put the system to forward messages to him and we went to the cafeteria for lunch. Ken sat down and gestured for me to sit with him. Several other administrators were sitting with him, or at least I guessed that they were administrators. It was an equal split between males and females.

Everyone introduced themselves quickly and I nodded while stuffing food in my face as fast as I could. Then they tuned me out and looked at Ken. The dark-skinned woman sitting next to me paused in eating. “So Ken, is this your new guy? Are you training him already?”

Ken nodded while carefully chewing his tuna sandwich. He swallowed. “Yes, I started yesterday and I thought we were making good progress until he met someone last night for some companionship.”

The woman next to me—her name was Lesha or something like that—stopped and looked at me. “So, young intern, was it a friendly roll? Some young party girl you met at one of the clubs, or is this serious?”

Everyone was sort of watching me while eating and I could feel myself turning red again.

Ken nodded. “I thought so. Not a party girl but perhaps something a bit more serious?”

I started stuttering. “No, no. I met her when I got here and, ummm…”

Lesha smiled and patted my arm. “No worries, young man. These things happen. So you met someone worthwhile. It happens. Are you going to pursue that relationship or was it just for fun?”

I looked at my soup and sandwich on my tray. “I guess it was just one night of fun, really. She was in from the Projects for testing and did well. She is heading for someplace in New Mexico to a school today, now.”

I just sat there staring at my food. I had met someone amazing, fun and smart. We had sex and then she left. Everyone that became important to me ended up leaving.

I heard Ken clearing his throat and looked up. Everyone was watching me with smiles and I felt even worse. We all got back to eating and then I left with Ken. We skipped the office and went straight to the rooftop patio so he could have a smoke and I could get some fresh air. The view was amazing.

Ken was just finishing up his cigarette when he had the talk with me. “Timothy, you are in a strange city, met an amazing young woman, and had a very good time judging by how you walked in this morning. Everyone needs, hmmm, let’s say human contact, shall we? It may be better for you at this young age to have loved and lost.”

I didn’t get it. Who was he to tell me I was young and that it was good to lose important people? He couldn’t have been more than a few years older then me.

I realized that I was in a bad mood because I had ignored Ken and he had stopped talking and was watching me.

He started again. “Do you see what I mean? You can’t focus. You are not interning for the summer for some entry-level manager that will spend half the time partying with you and the other half expecting you to cover for him. The Glentol Corporation is not like that at all. You are interning for a senior manager that is expecting to climb the corporate ladder much higher. For whatever reason you are here, well, someone, somewhere thought you could make it here. Now you need to get your game face on. The position you have now could push you higher than you would believe. It is pretty clearly a test of some sort. But if you are going to go chasing after any pretty girl that smiles at you… well, you may not make it in this position.”

He was smiling at me and I could tell he was trying to be sympathetic.

“I understand what you’re saying, Ken. But this was different, sort of. Or at least it felt different to me.”

Ken smiled and I could see more understanding there. “Absolutely, it was different to you, Timothy. When I went through it a while ago, it was different and special to me. But I had to make a choice and my boss at the time let me know the options. I know lots of people out there and when I have established myself in my career, I will start looking for someone different and special for me then. Now I have to train young managers and work as a cog in the corporate machine to make sure things go smoothly. You will find someone later, Timothy, and I do not doubt that she will be special.”

I sort of got it, but I still felt like I was losing everyone I got close to. “I got it, Ken.”

He sighed. “I understand what you are saying, Ken. Or, I fully comprehend the words of wisdom that you have bestowed upon my ears and will struggle to emulate your perfection, Ken. Either of those would work.” He grinned at me. “Got it?”

I laughed; Ken had a twisted sense of humour. “I understand what you are promoting as the best course of action, Ken.”

He laughed with me. “Good to know. Now let’s get back to work.”

We went back to work and the afternoon flew by.

That night, I went down the hall to where Clara had been staying. Her room was cleared out and there was someone else staying there already, some young guy. I didn’t knock or go in. I had checked when I returned and she had cleared out before lunch.

I didn’t stop in the common room as all the new kids were in and being loud and proud, but stupid.

I walked down the hall to my room. I had my pad loaded with some of the data files and I was thinking about reading up more on Mr. Smythe’s paper, ‘The effectiveness of the gaming centres as a tool of the Glentol Corporation.’ He had submitted that work a few years ago and it was the start of his rise in the Corporation. I had reviewed his public file. He was part of the new generation of managers that was coming up. Younger, aggressive and pushing for change.

I pushed my door and the main light came on. There was an envelope on the floor. I picked it up and pushed the door closed and headed for my chair. I put my pad on the desktop and sat down. There was no name on the outside, but it had to be for me. I opened it and pulled out a crumpled and folded piece of paper. I could see scrawled writing on it.

I unfolded it and sat back. It was from Clara, and it was short and to the point, like she was.

“Hey shy guy, I was just going to leave but then I had to leave you a note. You’re a good man. Work hard at that position, do well, become a senior manager and then come looking for me. I’ll try to stay in shape so I make a good trophy wife!”

I could picture her laughing and poking me in the side while saying that line. It kept going, but got more serious.

“I think you’re a good guy, shy guy. I thought maybe the one night was just a night of fun, but I think you would make a good friend. I’m sorry I don’t have a few more days to get to know you better. Maybe it’s better this way. I can focus on my classes and get into space instead of thinking about you and me in different positions half the night. You can focus on working for your knob boss.

You better remember that your work is always watching you. Anything you say or do, they can see and record. Read some of their waivers one day.

I am done my training in three months. Look me up after that and we can get together and have some fun times, unless you don’t want to.

Take care of yourself, shy guy.

P.S. I am making myself late doing this for you. You better appreciate it! Clara Brennan.”

I read it through again a few more times and then put it on a corner of the desk where I could see it. When I went to bed, I left it there, and in the morning, put it away safely in my suitcase.

The next few days flew by and then it was Friday and I had the weekend off to explore the city.

Before I left work, Ken asked if I wanted to go catch a few drinks and watch a local game on the screen at a local bar. The practice was that everyone went right over and ate and had a few drinks there while watching a game. When I first started trying to skip out, he was good enough to let me know that “this is how things are done.”

So I went. I ended up in this dingy little bar that had me worried that I was going to get stabbed or something. But a little after we both got there, the place filled up with corporate people. Most left after a quick meal, but a bunch of us stayed in the back quarter and kept drinking.

I recognized some of the people that were there, and Lesha was there sitting next to me; her name was actually spelled L-E-S-I-A. I was also pronouncing it a bit wrong, but she didn’t worry about that. Most people did. I met a bunch of other administrators and some low-level managers that they liked. The food was excellent and I could see why everyone came here.

I also noticed that the security sensors were older and in bad shape. Clara had told me things to look out for and she would have said this place was safe.

By the time I had left at the end of the night, I was staggeringly drunk and had a lot of good pointers from the people there.

I woke up Saturday morning, hung over and with a huge list of things to do in town.

I spent my weekend recovering and swore to never drink like that again. I had lots of good stuff to do visiting the sites and tourist traps all over the city, so my weekends were covered for the summer. Every Friday was a game, so I would be at the bar Friday nights, even though I promised myself I’d never overdo it like that again.

Between this and work I would be able to keep myself busy all summer, and leave here having had some fun. I was only able to scan the data on the Sunday as I was still in rough shape.

The following week was long and boring. There was so much data to go through and so many projects to bring myself up to speed on. A lot of the data was barely processed. But I worked myself through it and sometimes Ken would point something out over lunch or during a smoke break.

I saw some ways that the data could be skewed in reporting so that differing results would come out.

The Glentol Corporation was heavily involved with recruiting and training its personnel. There was a senior vice president that controlled this department. I thought that the Corporation had just got top-heavy with management until I looked at the different programs in place.

Just to train Clara on her course for those three months was costing the Corporation two hundred thousand dollars. If she completed the course and went on to specialized training for underwater or space, it would cost another five hundred thousand dollars to train her to work on one of the habitats or on the Mars project.

That didn’t even begin to include the cost of her equipment or normal pay. If she went to deep space and they gave her a full set of the new implants, then she was costing millions. That was millions for one person, and that did not even factor in her pay. Actually, her pay would not cost that much in the big picture.

This was why the contracts for the Corporation were always for a minimum of five years and some as long as ten.

There was no information on the deep space personnel. When I reviewed the data, I didn’t think any of them had ever come back to Earth; they just stayed in deep space forever. But they had to come back one day, right?

I asked Ken about this.

He just nodded and continued working. “You’re not seeing all the data, Timothy. After you have gone to deep space, you are always deep space until you die or are too old.”

That made no sense.

Ken stopped and looked up at me. “No, no. I can already see the circles your brain is turning in. That is completely wrong. Anyone who goes to deep space will run their contract for that until they are done. Most of those contracts are longer. But when they come back to Earth, and not all of them do, then they end up in another job earthside. But if they are ever needed, they can be called up again for active duty out there.”