Apparently the call was bad news. He worked on the computer. He got more upset. Millie didn’t read over his shoulder. It felt too much like spying. Martin would hopefully share his news. Wesley came, and they left the building.
Millie withdrew her perspective to the confines of her little workspace, soaked up sunshine, and reviewed the situation. She tired of chewing the same gum. She wanted to digest, or at least bite off, something new. Why the heck not. She hadn’t done it for a while. Maybe a vacation would clear her head. She took her Millie Vision on a little journey out through space. Her view moved much faster than the speed of light as she traversed the network that connected everything. Once around the block, James.
Her superluminal journey took her through nebulas that looked breathtaking when approached but were much less interesting to pass through. She zoomed straight through planets and stars. She found a black hole at the center of a swirling galaxy, humming a version of the familiar refrain, the counterpoint of the stars’ burning Song of Creation. It was not what she envisioned. She expected a huge sphere, into which she would send her Millie-Vision, becoming the first to know what was inside. Instead, in her Millie-verse, the gigantic black hole that was maybe an Astronomical Unit across in real universe, appeared to her as a point. A point much like the wraith, it was an intersection of its own pocket universe and the physical world. Just as she could the see monster’s power supply within the point, she saw this singularity’s vast well of creation energy, waiting to be used.
Martin came into her cubicle. He sat on her chair as she studied a distant elliptical galaxy. Her attention jerked back to Earth on contact. She hadn’t noticed him coming. She had her Spider-Sense turned up full, but Martin couldn’t sense her, so there was no Observer Effect for her to detect. Kind of a lame early warning system, she thought. If you close your eyes, I can’t see you coming.
She enjoyed the contact of his aura as he logged into the computer. She noted the changes since their last contact: the dark tinges of anger, the new layers of experience, and the new potentials. The changes were not for the better. Martin was in a dark place. She wasn’t sure that what she wanted to tell him would improve his mood.
He had a text window up. He typed, “Millie?”
She couldn’t help it, entering, “xxoo,” with tiny pulses of power.
“I have so many questions.”
“Not much power.”
“Is there anything I can do to help that?” She couldn’t think of anything. But before she said so, he entered, “Where can you get power from?”
“Sunlight - takes 4ever. Off of things I created or used in creating - one time only - not an option.”
“Why?”
“Later.”
“Are you sure nothing else?”
She paused. She had seen other means of obtaining energy. The beast had consumed a soul. That was not something she would ever do. She had also seen it draw from a living person. Having seen it, she knew how to do it. “Can pull from people.”
He typed, “Take it from me.”
It touched her that he would offer, but she couldn’t do what the ravenous wraith did to those people at the hospital. She created, “No.”
Disappointed washed his aura. “Why not?”
“It hurts them.”
Without hesitation he typed, “I can take it.”
She didn’t respond. She was moved but not convinced.
He added, “Please Millie, we need to talk. We may not have much longer.”
If he only knew, she thought. Her power supply dwindled. It would be wonderful to talk longer than her current, meager supply would allow. Was she being selfish? Maybe, but he wanted it too. He was willing to make a sacrifice for both their benefits. She might try the smallest draw possible and see how he reacted. There shouldn’t be any harm in that. She made the characters, “OK,” appear.
“What should I do?”
She thought about it. The creature’s draw of energy seemed to amplify the emotions of the people at the hospital. The emotions were all negative, but then they were in the ER. There weren’t any smiling faces before the monster did its thing. Perhaps if he thought happy thoughts it would magnify those. But telling him to think happy thoughts wouldn’t work. People can’t switch their emotions like a thermostat. She had an idea. “Let’s touch first.”
His mood became suddenly more positive, the anger and anxiety being overshadowed by joyful anticipation. He entered, “K,” and closed his eyes. She felt him willing their connection through the red thread.
They connected, and she let him revel in the view of her aura. Great tides of joy and affection swept through the landscape of his spirit. The cleansing tide washed away the ugly emotions. She drew Millie Force energy from him as she had seen the beast. Not a brutal extraction until his body’s defense shut it down, but a polite and ladylike sip. Her reservoir filled to the brim.
She checked Martin. His emotions seemed to be unaffected, his body mildly distressed. She ended the connection. It could be that since the draw was not against his will, it did not affect him like the unfortunate people in the ER. That made sense, the themes of this place being choice and energy. The violation of free will was the act of violence, not the drawing of Millie Force.
She used a drop of her newly full batteries to make the text, “How do you feel?” appear on the screen.
“A little cold and tired. Did it help?”
“Oh, yes. We can talk a long time now.”
She explained at length the details of her existence. Except about the monster. It would distress him, and she had no notion of what he could do about a monster he couldn’t see. She seemed to be safe in her Millie Field bubble. He was as troubled as she was by the insecurity of the things maintaining her life support (death support?) shield. Nothing he could do would guarantee her stuff would stay where it was. That was something he might be able to do something about. Maybe it wouldn’t find her if she moved and that problem would be solved as well.
He explained what was happening with his job. It bothered him that he might not be able to protect things that maintained her bubble. He resolved to find a place for her stuff and figure out a way to get it there. She imagined her chair and her box of stuff in the back seat of his car, the sun streaming through the windows and energizing her, as they cruised down the highway to a sunny spot in Arizona.
Her energy supply grew low, and the conversation had to end. Martin offered to give her another draft, but she refused. She told him maybe tomorrow. She didn’t want to overdo it. Besides, she needed time to process, and she figured he did too.
He saved all the text to a thumb drive and deleted it from the computer. She wondered why he did that. Was he saving it like a love-letter received from a distant sweetheart, or as evidence? He left her cubicle and headed out of the building rather than back to his own desk.
The sun had long ago wheeled through the sky to the other side of the building, the steel and stone blocking the nourishing rays. The joy and optimism that grew from communicating with Martin and the prospect of moving her bubble to a new location was overshadowed by the Specter. She no longer felt like flying among the stars. She imagined hungry eyes on the back of the neck she no longer had.
20
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness
—Joseph Conrad
Martin left navigating to his feet as he made his way out to the car. The rat knows the maze. Time to change it. The conversation with Millie replayed in his mind. He was exhausted from last night’s lack of sleep and weak from hunger—probably the result of Millie’s withdrawal from his energy bank. But his overclocked brain kept the adrenaline flowing, and it kept him going.
He stopped at the Chinese place on the corner and picked up some shrimp fried rice and egg rolls. He ate it out of the paper box while he sat at a series of red lights navigating his way back to his cave.
Lying on his
thrift-store couch, he formulated a plan to spirit away the list of things that Millie told him were imbued with her creative energy. The fact that what he planned was larceny didn’t bother him at all. Normally it would have, but normal was not only out the window, but half way to Kuala Lumpur.
He would wait, once again, until everyone in the vicinity had gone home for the day. The box of her things would be simple. He had a large moving box with his name already on it. He and the rest of his coworkers had moved into the current building from the adjacent building seven years, three months and twelve days ago. The date was burned in his memory because that was when the World’s Worst Cubicle became his own. The company sold the other building because relentless downsizing had made it unnecessary. Folded flat and squirreled away between the filing cabinet and the desk, he kept the box for the next consolidation.
The box was big enough. He would put Millie’s PC and keyboard in the bottom. His had fit, and the machines were smaller now. He would acquire a broken PC from the pile the IT guys always leave in Bruce’s old cubicle near column K2. Then the items from her box would be arranged around and on top of her computer, and then he would cover it all with a layer of his stuff, just in case. But no one would check. He also thought he might put a few old books, cups and other assorted office junk in Millie’s box.
The chair would be more complicated but doable. He considered taking it apart and smuggling it out bit-by-bit like that old Johnny Cash song, One Piece at a Time. But he decided instead to put the box on the chair, using it as an impromptu dolly, and wheel it out of the building, smiling and waving. If they stopped him, he had a small tool kit in the bottom of his filing cabinet. They wouldn’t. The only thing the guards seemed to care about was that everyone wore their badge. People came and went all the time pulling giant briefcases on wheels behind them. There was no telling what came in and out in those things.
Next he would need to find an apartment with south facing windows. His apartment windows faced a retaining wall holding up the side of a hill at one end and a parking lot to the North at the other. The sun never shone directly into any of his windows. He finally had a reason to leave the cave other than Wesley laughing at him. As he thought about where in town he might want to live, the fatigue and a belly full of Chinese food caught up with him and he fell asleep.
☼
He went in the next day shortly before the appointed transition meeting. At this point, keeping current on everything didn’t concern him. As he came through the fire doors into the enormous beige room that contained his desk, the flashing of the giant programmable banner board on the wall by the door drew his attention. The board normally displayed scrolling messages in corporate colors that he paid little attention to like, “137 days since last on-the-job accident,” “Congratulations, Marketing Monsters, on achieving 113% of sales objectives,” or “Happy Birthday, Barbara!!!” But today it flashed, and it said, “M&M FOREVER” in red letters. That made him smile. He was certain M&M stood for Martin and Millie and not the candy. Clever. Apparently, Millie had seen someone log into the banner board manager web page.
The grin was short lived. Back at his desk, urgent messages from Project Manager Herb were stacked up like firewood before a Wisconsin winter. Let him stew. He ignored them. He didn’t want to be there when Herb made his next personal appearance. Martin was sure he had been to his cube at least once already. He was in no mood.
So he headed up the stairs to the top floor to use the bathroom and to wait the few minutes until the meeting. Herb wouldn’t find him there. Climbing the steps, he fantasized about bringing a wreaking bar and prying open the executive washroom to satisfy his curiosity about what needed to be locked up. The stairwell door at the top of the stairs had been locked. What the hell? The elevator was probably locked out as well. He sat on the steps until it was about time, and then went down.
He waited in line like the rest of the cattle at the bathroom outside the large conference room. Was there a guy at the end with a sledgehammer? A quick blow to the head might be just what he needed. After he finally made it through the queue, he went into the conference room to take a seat. The seats filled from back to front. No one wanted to sit in the front row. The body language of the room was decidedly closed off, crossed arm and legs everywhere. Absent were the normal pre-meeting greetings and frivolity. There were no donuts and coffee to nibble, only an oppressive gloom, thick enough to eat, but not at all appetizing.
He glanced around for Wesley. He didn’t see him. They wouldn’t be sharing any mumbled quips this time, but he should be sitting there beside him. He put the stack of papers they handed him when he came in the door on the chair next to him to save it. He studied his fellow victims as they came through the door, looking for Wesley.
Watching each one he knew the emotions they felt: suppressed rage, resignation, uncertainty and even excitement. After a few minutes he realized that this was unusual. Was he experiencing a moment of extreme empathy or projecting his own feelings? Perhaps the psychosis that had him texting with dearly departed Millie had reached new levels. Or maybe he did “see” and understand their auras as he had Millie’s?
There was nothing visible, but she had told him she believed that these energies were unknown and invisible to corporeal eyes. Millie said she understood her senses to be based on a connection and awareness of everything, not photons striking a specialized bodily cell. Something told him more about these people’s mental state than he believed he could tell from their body language. Maybe Millie had shown him the way to look at these things with the mind’s eye, and now he could do it anytime.
Wesley never came. The meeting started. The HR Separation Coordinator, Marjorie Hill, kicked things off with introductions. Her voice, appearance, and body language indicated calm, even cheerful competence, but Martin could tell that underneath the slick act she was on edge. I see through you, he thought. It was not a job Martin wanted, being Separation Coordinator.
She delivered the usual platitudes. Her speech was littered with euphemisms that strove to detach the subject from the human reality. She spoke of doors closing and new ones opening, half-full glasses and each day being the rest of your life. Then she went through the documents they were given as they entered, reading through them as though they were children who could not read.
Martin’s attention wandered. He could read it all later and get more from it. Her obscenely cheerful delivery was impossibly distracting. He watched the backs of those sitting in front of him and sensed the tides of their emotions. Something caused a wave of changes. His attention snapped back to the Separation Coordinator. She stopped her recitation and delivered a condescending smile as she waited for the din to cease. The previously quiet audience murmured and flipped through pages, looking for what she had just read. Glancing to see where the woman beside him had stopped rifling through the document, he found the text that was causing the ruckus.
The employees deemed to be surplus had the option to seek open positions in any of the corporate divisions while the outsourced workers could only choose to take the Ameritsource position or leave the company. Someone asked why that was.
Perhaps without thinking, she responded, “It’s in the contract.”
Naturally, the next query was where one could find the contract.
The train was coming off the tracks. Marjorie was not about to let that happen. “It’s confidential,” she said firmly and then returned to loudly and cheerfully regurgitating the contents of the papers. Finally, she closed with a quotation from a poem by the Japanese poet Masahide, “My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.”
With a smile whose façade of sincerity was long gone, she declined to answer any of the questions that sprang from the audience. She directed them to look over the self-explanatory information they had been given, and to address any questions to the HR specialist assigned to their work group. Lastly, the Separation Coordinator directed the “resources” which had been offered “p
ositions” (Martin featured bending over and grabbing your ankles to be the position) with Ameritsource to attend a meeting in the former executive offices in the top floor. That was why the door had been locked.
The small group of lucky resources packed into the elevator and went to the top of the building. A frazzled looking gentleman waiting outside the elevator directed them into what had been the clerical area. The room was still littered with the corpses of obsolete office equipment, but it had been pushed out to the walls. Network and telephone wires protruded from receptacles in the floor like tufts of dead grass in an arid wasteland. A row of tables ran down the center of the valley of dry bones, positioned to avoid the prairie dog holes, with folding chairs placed along each side. There were no seats at the head or foot. A single high back leather executive chair sat near one end, guarded by a young lady with a red bindi on her forehead.
The frazzled man told them to have a seat. He did not invite them or ask them; he told them. Martin sat in the first chair he came to.
Once everyone had picked a seat, the frazzled man added a folding chair to each side of the table near the leather throne that the young lady then pushed over to the end of the table. They sat in the newly placed folding chairs flanking the royal seat. The frazzled man introduced the young lady and himself but said nothing more. One of the resources asked when the meeting would start and was told it would begin whenever the director wanted it to.
They sat there silent, looking around and at each other. There was no doubt in Martin’s mind that all of this had been intentionally orchestrated. The austere setting was meant to convey how lean and mean (in more than one sense of the word mean) this organization was. All of them sitting there waiting, with nothing to do, was to show how unimportant they were and who was in charge. Or maybe this was the only private room in the building they could get on short notice. He had to grant that circumstances might be coloring his opinions with cynicism.
Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle Page 12