Chaos Theory (14 page)

Twenty-six

The vast, single-story, mini-pentagon replica sits on open prairie. According to the company website, the jutting Plexiglas ridgeline is filled with saltwater vats for solar heating. There's also a modern wind tower that produces enough energy to handle nearby Sandove's needs. Elsewhere, banks of thin film collect sun energy.

Daniel picks up my hand and a different energy hums. His thumb strokes along my wrist, blasting my pulse rate. “You'll be fine,” he says.

“They'll know and kick me out.”

“No, they won't. You won the regional science competition two years in a row and the state spelling bee contest in sixth grade. You rocked your first freshman Lincoln/Douglas debate before you gave it up for science. You might suck at playing jazz flute, but you ace everything else. You'll be fine.”

He Googled me. Isn't that beyond the call of duty? Then he pulls me over. My seat belt is fastened and I fall onto him, my shoulder landing on his chest. He holds me tight. “Need me, I'm right here.” He taps his O'Neal Pharmaceutical security card, which matches mine. Getting the IDs in time had been a nightmare, but the chairman had made the arrangements himself, delivering them to the police station. The IDs are lime-green and say “Intern.” With them, either of us can pass unchallenged through front desk security. Gavin had seamlessly attached our photos: mine a school ID photo, Daniel's his school's military uniform. Uniforms really are sexy.

He says, “Two minutes—I'm here. I memorized the floor plan. I can get to you in the dark.”

His voice vibrates from his chest to my ear. “They're watching,” he says. I glance over to the front door. A few people with intern green IDs are looking our way. “Let's convince them.” He kisses me.

At first, I'm stiff, but then a nice slow cinnamon-roll-warmth spreads wherever we touch—not electric fire bolts like Gavin's kisses, but delicious.

Then he says, “Now, get going.”

I step out of EB not knowing if my shaking is because I'm terrified or from Daniel's sweet kiss. The parking lot off to the left has basketball hoops, and people are playing. Not what I expected.

As I walk from the entry into the atrium where the other interns head, someone yells, “On your right!” I and several interns scatter as the tall, athletic man and his female companion run by in sweats. What the heck?

One of the interns grins at me. “I was told this would be crazy! The whole place is one giant pentagon and employees use it like a track—day or night. This is going to be a blast! There's even a climbing wall in here somewhere.”

The concrete walls are broken up with great expanses of glass walls, doors, and windows. Another couple races past us. They wave and I wave back.

Inside the atrium, I join the other interns beneath the overhead water solar collectors. It's like the Omaha Zoo's ocean exhibit. Moss-green light ripples and refracts around us. It smells kind of earthy. The chairman promised that no one would know that I hadn't been there yesterday. Interns had been set up in small groups for the facility tours and interviews from the day before.

“Hey,” says a rugby-shaped man with a broad open face. In fact, he is wearing a rugby shirt. It isn't intern-worthy.

Beside him is a slender black woman with classic strike-you-dead beauty in a snazzy business suit jacket and skirt. Unlike Rugby, she's imminently intern-worthy. I huddle in my church clothes and worry she'll point at me, screaming
fraud!
Instead, she holds out her hand. “Hi. I'm Jurnee from Chicago. I didn't see you yesterday.” Then she introduces Rugby. “This cretin is John. Isn't this exciting?”

I'm saved from talking, as a man in a lab coat steps up to the podium. “Good morning!” The muffled microphone words echo.

There are lots of hardy I'm-so-good-intern
Good mornings
back—standard intern kiss-the-guy's butt. “Before we begin matching interns to advisors, Ms. Emily Martinson, our executive vice president of sales, wants to welcome you. She has personally selected each and every one of you.”

Super VP Emily takes Jurnee's formal business wear to steroid-induced. She's beautiful, graceful, and elegant—everything a business woman could hope to be.

Her voice purrs, but it's got a rock strength that says,
don't mess with me.
“Welcome to O'Neal Pharmaceuticals, especially to those who traveled so far to be here.”

This time everyone cheers. I join in like a good little intern.

She continues, “I wish that we could hire all of you after graduation, but that isn't possible.”

That rock quality in her voice scares the heck out of me, and she handpicked the interns. Right, stay out of her path, because she'll peg me as an imposter.

“If you want a job, set yourself apart and above your fellow interns. Whatever challenge you are given, be a star.”

With that, she turns simple interns into Hunger Game competitors. This time she scans the crowd and connects eye to eye with several interns. I'm pretty sure she knows exactly who she wants to encourage, and she knows them by sight. I ease my guilty butt behind Rugby's muscle-bound body.

“Now go. Get your hands dirty.”

Again cheers fill the atrium, echoing against smooth concrete. A headache starts behind my right eyebrow.

Lab Coat takes the podium and applauds as Super VP works her way through the interns. She stops to shake a few chosen hands. Once she's left the atrium, he continues. “So here is how this is going to work. Behind you are your mentors.” In fact once Super VP leaves, the mentors are talking so loudly that it's hard to hear Lab Coat. “I'll read each mentor's name and they'll come up. Then I'll read the chosen intern's name and you come join us. Your mentor will lead you back to your work station. They, or their staff, will oversee your days here at O'Neal Pharmaceuticals.”

He calls up the quality-control plant floor manager. Then Lab Coat calls Jurnee's name. She and her mentor head off to the shipping department. Slowly the entry atrium empties until only a few of us remain.

I relive third grade last-sport-team-pick discomfort. Uncle Charlie is in the back, looking like his crime board photo. A paunchy man with a streak of silver over each ear. He's called to the front of the room.

When his name is called, I hold my breath. What if I'm not in the system after all? But no, it's my name they call. I step forward and bump into Rugby who also steps forward.

“Excuse me,” I say.

He blocks me. His expression is ice cold and his granite jaw grinds.

I swallow hard and repeat, “Excuse me. They called my name.” Stepping around him, he keeps pace and then grabs my arm.

I shake him off as he says, “That's my assignment.”

Rugby backs down reluctantly. With barely a word of welcome, Uncle Charlie leads me into the pentagon's internal hallway track.

Overhead skylights add that O'Neal nature touch. Spilled light fills the hallway, but also bounces into the glass-fronted labs on either side. Behind the sparkling glass, white-coated people work. Everything smells like bitter antiseptic. As we near the offices, lab coats give way to suits and business casual wear. Germ-free gives way to wood polish. Then we're there. The glass door reads,
Sample Distribution and Sales Office.
It isn't as big as I imagined—six people counting Uncle Charlie.

A middle-height but solid-bodied grandma type joins us at the door. She wears an old-fashioned polyester white blouse stuffed into an equally yuck-polyester flowered skirt and clunky geriatric shoes. She exudes permanence on a level with the cheap laminate desks.

I follow Uncle Charlie into his glass-walled private office beyond the woman's desk in the main room. His office is several comfort levels higher and fancier. I head over to the bookcase with its photograph of a young girl, probably his daughter. I reach up and touch it, slipping the small black metal disk with its sticky putty onto the back. My phone earbuds will carry the wireless signal to me and to GV's laptop.

It turns out that O'Neal employees give up all privacy rights while in the facility. It was part of those papers they had me sign. When he was hired, Uncle Charlie signed them too. With the chairman's permission, no warrant from a local judge was needed to bug his office.

There had been discussion about trying to place a hidden camera, but the police were worried I'd get caught positioning it for the right view. The consensus was to place a listening device. Techie Gavin had grabbed it out of my hands to inspect it, and reluctantly given it up.

Uncle Charlie pulls out a slim leather planner. He sets it on the desk before removing and hanging his jacket on his leather chair's back. Mrs. Foster, his assistant, follows us in. It's like I'm not even in the room. Welcome to Internship 101. The leather planner has gold-embossed lettering that has worn away except for tiny flecks where the year should be.

He says, “Mrs. Foster, this is our new intern. See that she is welcome and settles in.” With the threadbare introduction done, he sits down and opens the planner to today's date.

Mrs. F shepherds me out, firmly closes his office door behind her. Without a doubt, she's his guard. No getting to Uncle Charlie without going through her.

The woman's desk faces the others like a teacher's in front of Sales Distribution Team desks. Compared to the freewheeling right outside the door, this is what I'd expected corporate offices to be. Mrs. F introduces me, but they immediately return to their computer monitors. That invisible intern mask covers my face again. My desk is smaller than everyone else's and literally butts face to face with hers. She'll have eyes on everything that I do.

I'm given a quick tour. In the back are shelves with paper reams, paper clips, etc. There's a giant (and decade old) paper-shredding monster. I'm to keep desktop printers' paper trays full, and nightly collect the used paper from boxes under each desk.

How do you ‘set yourself apart and above' your fellow interns by being the office grunt? I hope Jurnee's doing something more interesting, and as far as Rugby? Maybe he's on the janitor team—that I would like.

After introductions, it's orientation time, loaded with unveiled threats about confidentiality. No paper leaves the mini-pentagon—NONE. I take this to mean getting a job even in Uganda ain't happening. OMG, just what am I doing? Get caught? Bye bye, MIT. Oh, and no phone calls on company time except in the cafeteria. Texting? No mention, rules not updated. If Mrs. F doesn't mention it, then I figure I'm safe.

The morning threat lecture over, Mrs. F sends me to the cafeteria for lunch. Under the solar collection units are knee-high planters filled with lettuce and vegetable beds—even bean sprouts—to supplement the cafeteria food, according to little signs, but no pigs or chickens wandering the hallways. Mainly, I check that Rugby isn't lurking to attack me—he's not.

I grab a chicken salad wrap and sit down, texting Daniel at Sandove's Sip N Go's only eating booth where he's snarfing down nuked plastic-wrapped yuck with GV.

I text,
Lunch. Everything fine, except for Bizarro intern.

The reply comes fast and furious.
What?
Are you safe?

Yes
, then Jurnee sits down next to me. Rugby lurks. I pocket the smartphone mid-text. With Sandy's bubblocity, Jurnee talks as she picks at an oriental salad. She loves her work assignment, her coworkers. I want to barf in fear as Rugby yanks out a chair. He slams it against mine and sits. Jurnee doesn't notice. In this healthy zone, the guy's got four pizza slices on his tray. The pepperoni circles are like evil eyes. I excuse myself. Rugby leaps up after me, cursing as I dive into the woman's bathroom.

Twenty-seven

As people come and go, I sit in a stall and wonder what's up with Bizarro intern. The bathroom talk sounds like middle school. In fact, this whole corporate thing feels a lot like middle school and Bizarro intern is the class bully. Worried, I twice pick up my cell to call this off. Each time, I cram it back into my pocket. I'm not backing off. When the bathroom clears, I call Daniel.

My voice gives a squeaky, “Daniel?”

He replies sharp and worried, “Are you okay?”

I whisper, “Yeah. I got interrupted and couldn't text you back.”

“What the heck is going on?”

I fill him in.

He asks, “You're okay, though?”

Am I with Bizarro Intern around? But to get answers? “Sure. I have to go back to work now.” What can Rugby do? There are people everywhere.

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

GV's voice comes over the phone. “We're getting feed from the bug. Good job.”

All they can have is the opening and closing of Uncle Charlie's desk drawer, where I suspect he keeps his alcohol. I wait for Daniel to say good-bye, but GV must have disconnected. I screw the makeup job and splash water on my face, dry it, and leave the bathroom at the last possible minute before I'm late. Mrs. F will be watching for me.

The concrete and glass cafeteria is empty—so much for people being around. I step out, and from behind a thick concrete pillar Rugby grabs my shoulders and shoves me into a small space behind lettuce beds, pushing me against the wall. My elbow hits it with instant crazy-bone-pain.

It ticks me off and my MA instincts kick in. I thrust my arms up between his, breaking his grasp and slide out of his reach. It's basic women's self-defense but delivered with MA speed and power. I should ram my knee into his crotch.

He doesn't fight back, but he doesn't leave either. He says, “You took my assignment. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Get away or I'll scream.” And then I fall into universal Mom-warning-protocol and mean it. “One. Two…”

The guy backs off and I race down the hallway. Looking back, he's staring after me. I flip him a very un-intern-like finger.

***

In comparison to Jurnee's I-love-it reports, Sample Distribution and Sales Office is boredom city. All afternoon, I input data into pre-set Excel spreadsheets. Mrs. F checks each when I'm done and then forwards them to Uncle Charlie for final authorization. From there, I'm told they post back into O'Neal's worldwide branch offices.

Beginning tomorrow, my workday begins at six a.m. and ends at three p.m. The other interns work nine to five, but our unit straddles some time zones.

I have a great view of Uncle Charlie and his desk through his private glass walls. Often, he reaches down to his bottom right drawer for a flask and adds a liquid to his coffee. He never refills the coffee cup with real coffee and his movements seem jollier with every passing hour.

Out in the atrium, Rugby appears—twice—separated from my office by the glass panel walls. He pauses until he gets my attention. Each time, he shapes his hand into a gun and fires it at me. Each time, I touch my smartphone; each time I'm afraid; each time I resist the urge to call this off. I buckle down, discreetly giving him the finger.

***

At two p.m., the outside office door opens and powerhouse Ms. Emily Martinson plows in. She storms past a flustered Mrs. F and slams open Uncle Charlie's door. I duck my fake intern head so far into my monitor screen that my nose hits it, and discretely plug in my earbuds to listen in.

Martinson's rock hard voice demands answers. “I authorized three times the drug sample amounts and the number of sales reps. You promised at least a three percent sales increase.”

Sales numbers were in a report I'd forwarded to Mrs. F. Obviously it had made the rounds to the VP's office. Uncle Charlie's only managed a measly 1.3 percent.

He says, “Yeah, and I was blindsided by that ‘investment' that you suggested. It got me canned.” His initial snark fades to a congenial plea. “I'm doing my best here, honey.” Then he says, “We both know that there are other considerations besides sales numbers.”

“The board doesn't know that, Charlie. This has to look legit.”

Considerations like a side income from rerouting drug samples?

Ms. Emily Martinson deflates like a balloon and sags into a chair in front of Uncle Charlie's desk. The strength hasn't left her voice, but she sounds a bit frightened. “Charlie, a lot rests on this. I recommended you…”

“I know.”

“If we don't increase sales numbers, the board will fire us.”

Uncle Charlie leans forward now. “It's not the board I'm worried about.”

Mrs. F humphs. I turn toward her icy glare. Hey, they didn't ban earbuds! Still, I bury myself in data sets and blow at the hair that long ago fell out of my intern-worthy bun. Mrs. F gets busy too: on her own smartphone, texting or e-mailing. My earbuds fill with Uncle Charlie and VP Martinson lovetalk. I get a headache.

When Ms. Emily Martinson leaves, Mrs. F follows in the woman's exploding authority gust for a break in the hall. I text Daniel and my crew:
Check out who Emily Martinson is.

The ever speedy texter, Sandy replies first.
Will do.

Daniel's text comes in, confirming what I suspected:
She's the other woman. She's why he's divorced.

***

Around three p.m., most of the workers file out. The official office workday ends, but I'm on the clock until five today. Only Mrs. F and I are left at our computers. Towering stacks of data needing entry surround her, while my work stack drops to my bare ugly desk. The e-mail queue is gone too.

It's time to shine at my intern job—paper shredding. Do they give gold intern stars for that? Since no paper leaves the building, I'm to go around each night and shred whatever is in the cardboard boxes under desks. During my introduction to the big machine earlier, Mrs. F had warned, “Mr. Jamison's tie got caught his first night here. If I wasn't here to unplug the beast, he would have strangled to death. He hasn't touched it since. He puts his paper in a small shredder under his credenza.”

I'd asked, “Seriously?”

She'd nodded. “New units have a panic stop, but that monster hasn't been replaced.” She touches a finger to her lips. “I shouldn't have told you that. Everyone knows about Mr. Jamison and the shredder. It was very embarrassing for him.” Underneath her sympathetic words, she's not displeased at all. Grandma-looking Mrs. F has a dark side.

I eye the massive shredder at the back of the room. Everything that goes through it falls into a basement bin. From there, an industrial truck retrieves the bits for destruction to a sub-atomic level. O'Neal is serious about corporate secrets.

Shredding stuff isn't going to pinpoint Uncle Charlie's drug crimes, if any. I ask Mrs. F, “Need help?”

She looks up, surprise flashing across her face. She's forgotten I'm here. No one notices the intern. The whole office staff treats me like I have the IQ of a light bulb. I just provide utility light: don't talk, don't bother, and leave us alone. The atmosphere here is the complete opposite of everything outside our glass walls. Mrs. F hands me a thin folder of handwritten reports and says, “Here, I'll e-mail you the link. Enter the drug-sample numbers sent to the distributed numbers by sales-rep name. It will zero out. When you're done, you can start shredding.”

I sit back down at my desk and tell myself to breathe. The title sounds ripe for ferreting out crime data. When the e-mail comes in, I give Mrs. F a thumbs-up.

I click on the link and a security password field pops up. Crap! “Uhm, Mrs. Foster? The link doesn't work?”

Distracted, she looks up. “Let me send it again.”

“No, I got it, but it's password protected.”

She blinks, remembers, and sighs. “Mr. Jamison's new security system. He and I are the only ones with access.”

I mimic intern-eager mixed with no-thought-light-bulb.

She checks the close-to-toppling work stack. She looks at me again.

Light bulb. Light bulb. Light bulb. Eager but dumb.

She comes over and scribbles a user name and password code on a Post-it. “Here.”

Holding my breath, I enter them and bingo. I'm looking at password-protected private folders. She points to one. “That's the right folder.”

It's labeled Supplier Distribution. I nod, but I'm looking at the other folder titles: Shipping Manifests, Sales Reps Names and Contact Information, etc. How can Mrs. F not hear my heart pound?