The Consultant

by Little,Bentley

  “I think you’re a good teacher!” Juan Florez piped up.

  Mrs. Higgins smiled. “Thank you, Juan. But remember, next time raise your hand.”

  Behind them, the door opened, and the principal walked in, followed by a tall, thin man wearing black pants, a white shirt and a rainbow-colored bow tie.

  The man from his dad’s work.

  The one who’d thought he was a girl.

  Dylan stared straight ahead, unmoving, but the man placed a hand on his shoulder on his way to the front of the room.

  “Hello, Dylan,” the man said, and he was smiling. “Nice to see you again.”

  TWENTY

  TO: All Employees

  RE: Blood Tests

  As you know, drug testing is mandatory for all of CompWare’s new hires. Beginning this Monday, April 22, quarterly blood tests will be required for all salaried, hourly and temporary employees. Blood will be tested for drug use, alcohol abuse and infectious diseases. A temporary clinic will be set up on the campus for this purpose, and employees may arrange appointment times or line up on a first-come-first-served basis during open testing periods.

  Any questions regarding this change in policy must be submitted in writing to CompWare’s Human Resources department before the end of business hours today. Reading this email constitutes acknowledgement and acceptance of the policy change.

  Thank you.

  Regus Patoff

  Regus Patoff

  BFG Associates

  For Austin Matthews, CompWare CEO

  TWENTY ONE

  “All right, Jenny. We’re up.”

  Jenny Yee shut off her terminal. She’d asked members of the accounting unit she managed to let her know when it was time for the blood test, and now all six of them stood in front of her cubicle. Picking up her purse, she gave the go-ahead and followed them out the door and down the hall. She remembered seeing a Seinfeld episode where Elaine tested positive for opium because she’d eaten a poppy seed muffin, so she’d done some online research and for the past two days had made sure to eat nothing that could mimic the presence of any illegal substance. She’d never taken drugs in her life—she did not even drink—but Jenny was paranoid that the results of this test would be used as an excuse to get rid of her.

  She didn’t trust the consultants.

  No one from BFG had done or said anything that would lead her to believe she was a target, but ever since the retreat, she’d been walking on eggshells around the consultants. Murdering a dog and then serving it to them for dinner? That was seriously sick and had completely freaked her out. She’d had nightmares every night since. Last evening, she’d dreamed that Mr. Patoff, the head consultant, had been slinking through her apartment like a snake, or, more accurately, like the Grinch when he was stealing personal effects from Cindy Lou Who’s house. The consultant had been whispering a series of numbers, and they were Hurley’s numbers from Lost, and somehow she knew that if he repeated those numbers fifty times, she would die in her sleep, and if he repeated them a hundred times, she would never have existed and all traces of her would be wiped from the earth. It had scared the hell out of her, and the emotional response generated by the nightmare had stayed with her, even as she recognized that its specifics were ridiculous.

  The blood tests were being given in a room on the seventh floor, and Jenny and the other accountants went up in the elevator.

  “You know,” she said, watching the floor numbers light up as they rose through the building, “we already had to take a drug test. So what are they testing us for now? Are they looking for genetic markers so they can lay us off before we get sick and they won’t have to pay for insurance?”

  “That’s illegal,” Jim Rodman said.

  “That’s my point. This is an invasion of privacy. Has anybody checked with Legal to see if we really have to do this?”

  “It wouldn’t’ve gotten this far if it wasn’t legal,” offered Francis Pham. “They vet all this stuff before it filters down to us.”

  “But what if they didn’t? What if people are walking in like lemmings to be tested because no one made the effort to question it? You know, about a year ago, my apartment building had a blackout. I did what I always did and waited for the lights to come back on. They didn’t, and I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the power was still out, so I called the electric company. They didn’t even know about the power outage. No one had called it in. Everyone had assumed that someone else would do it, so no one did it.”

  Jim looked at her. “So you want us to—?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No. But I’m going to ask about it before we let anybody take any blood.”

  The elevator had reached the seventh floor, the doors sliding open. The corridor looked dim, though all of the overhead lights appeared to be on, and she wondered if it was due to some sort of power-saving program. They walked down the hall to the left, seven of them, on the seventh floor, looking for room 777. The accountant in her couldn’t help but notice the unlikely probability of such a correlation, and it triggered in her mind nonsensical associations. The seventh son of a seventh son… the seven seas…the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad…the Seventh Seal…

  “That’s where I had my interview with the consultants,” Francis said, pointing to a door marked 713. Her voice was subdued, and Jenny remembered the unpleasant oddness of her own inter-view—the negative things Mr. Patoff had tried to get her to say about her team.

  They all walked quickly past the closed door. Something about the seventh floor seemed different than the other floors in the building. She wasn’t sure whether the corridor was too wide or the doors were in the wrong places or the walls were painted the wrong shade of white. Maybe it was just a trick of the dim lights. But something was off here, and the askew perceptions they shared made each of them walk more quickly and silently down the hall, looking for room 777.

  They found it halfway down a side corridor that dead-ended in a flat wall where there should have been a window overlooking the campus. The door was open, and the room behind it, large and high-ceilinged, had been subdivided into smaller sections separated by white sheets and curtains. Mr. Patoff himself greeted them at the entrance, and before Jenny could say a word, he spoke up: “The blood test you are about to take is mandatory and entirely legal. It is not an invasion of privacy, and any employee who does not consent to be tested will be terminated.”

  She thought of the cameras that had been popping up all over the building. Had there been one in the elevator? There must have, because he knew exactly what she was going to ask. She met his eyes and saw nothing there, only a flat blankness.

  “In order to maintain your privacy, in fact, each of you will be issued a number corresponding to the blood sample taken. If there are any issues or concerns on our part, you will be called in for an individual conference using that number.”

  Jenny was expecting to receive a printed number at the conclusion of the test, one copy given to her, one affixed to her blood sample, but Mr. Patoff motioned her forward, then leaned in, his mouth next to her ear. “Four, eight, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, forty-two,” he whispered to her.

  Hurley’s numbers.

  Gasping, she took a step back. He smiled knowingly, and she was paralyzed by the thought that he knew about her dream.

  How was that possible?

  She didn’t know.

  But it was.

  Shaken, she stepped forward as Jim moved up behind her. Mr. Patoff whispered his number, and, looking back, she saw the accountant’s face blanch.

  What number had he been given, and what did it mean to him?

  A woman in a nurse’s uniform lightly grasped her wrist and pulled her further into the room, down a makeshift passageway formed by two hanging sheets, until she was in a small square space containing a chair and a table, atop which sat a row of syringes, a box of Band-Aids and a pile of large adhesive bandages.

  Behind the table stood a man in a bloody butcher’s
apron, holding a rusty knife.

  The floor and the surrounding sheets were spattered with splashes of deep red, some dried, most wet.

  “What’s—”

  —going on here? Jenny intended to say, but the nurse’s grip tightened on her wrist, her other hand grabbing Jenny’s elbow, straightening the arm and presenting it to the blood-splattered man, who used his rusty knife to slice the skin. The nurse collected some of the welling blood in a vial she withdrew from a pouch in front of her uniform, then capped it, dropping it back into the pouch before picking up a bandage and slapping it on the wound. She grabbed one of the syringes and gave Jenny a shot. “Tetanus,” she explained. “So you don’t get infected.” The nurse let go of her. “You’re through, now. Get out of here.”

  Stunned and in pain, holding the bandage on her arm in place, Jenny walked back between the sheets until she was out of the room. Seconds later, Jim emerged, dazed and holding onto his own bandage. Within five minutes, all of the accountants were finished with their tests.

  “We’ll let you know,” Mr. Patoff said once they were all out of the room and in the corridor. He slammed the door behind them.

  “What the hell?” Jim said.

  On the way here, Jenny had worried only about incorrect test results. Now she was worried about…other things. Diseases, for one. She thought of that rusty knife and the man in the bloody butcher’s apron. The entire scene seemed unreal, and she decided then and there that she was through. She wasn’t going to put up with any more of this. She was quitting. She wouldn’t tell anyone, not even her team; she’d just go back to her desk, clean out what she needed and leave. It might take her awhile to find another job, but even if she ended up at 7-11, it would be better than here. This was wrong. And she was no longer going to be a part of it.

  Her only regret was that she’d participated in the blood test. If she had refused to do it, she would have been fired, and then she could have collected unemployment. She couldn’t get unemployment if she quit.

  No matter. The important thing was to get out of here.

  “Jenny?” Francis was saying. “That man can’t be a nurse or a doctor, can he? He cut me with a dirty knife.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  They reached the elevator, and she was silent as she pressed the bottom button, the one marked Down.

  ****

  Austin Matthews pushed the intercom button on his console. “Get me Morgan Brandt at Bell Computers,” he ordered his secretary.

  “Right away,” Diane replied.

  Matthews leaned back in his chair, looking at the circular adhesive bandage on the back of his hand. A nurse had come into his office this morning to take a blood sample (“No one is above the rules!” she cheerfully informed him), but instead of withdrawing his blood using a needle and syringe, the woman had taken out what looked like a plastic bottle opener and started scraping the skin on the back of his hand. It seemed primitive and barbaric, and it hurt like hell, but the nurse assured him that this method was new and state of the art. Once her scraping had drawn blood, she’d pinched the skin and squeezed a drop onto a glass slide, immediately covering it.

  The procedure still seemed wrong, and, looking at the bandage, he decided that after he called Brandt he was going to find out a little bit more about this new process of collecting blood samples to see if it was legitimate.

  “I have Mr. Brandt’s office on the line,” Diane announced. “Please hold.”

  There was a click on the speakerphone and Matthews said, “Morgan?”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said in a flat voice that indicated she was anything but. “Mr. Brandt is not here.”

  Damn. “Well, can you tell me when he’ll be back?”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Brandt is no longer with the company.”

  Brandt was out? Matthews’ internal warning system went off. He switched off the speakerphone and picked up the handset. “Where is Mr. Brandt?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Well, why is he no longer with the company?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Well, who’s the new CEO?”

  “The interim CEO is Mr. Nelson.”

  “I would like to speak with him, please.” The secretary was getting uppity, and he put enough authority in his voice to make sure he was obeyed.

  There was a click, a pause, a snippet of generic instrumental music, then a man’s voice came on the line. “This is Nelson.”

  “Hello.” Matthews introduced himself. “My name’s Austin Matthews. I’m the CEO of CompWare.”

  “What can I do for you?” The man was all business.

  “CompWare does a lot of business with Bell, and I worked very closely with Morgan Brandt.”

  “Brandt no longer works here.”

  “I was just informed of that.”

  “He was replaced as part of the phase two restructuring.”

  “I just talked to him a couple of weeks ago.”

  “He signed off on it back in January when the plan was first implemented.” Nelson sighed heavily, clearly bored with the conversation. “Listen, I don’t have time for idle chitchat. Is there a reason for your call?”

  Matthews had intended to pump Brandt for some honest information about BFG, but it was pretty clear that he would not be able to do that with this guy, so he said, “Would it be possible to get a home or cell phone number for Morgan? We’re friends, and I’d like to—”

  “If you were friends, you would already have his number. And you would have known that he no longer works here. Good day.”

  The line went dead.

  Matthews slowly hung up the phone. Brandt had signed off on his own ouster? How did that happen? Was he doing the same thing himself by going along with these incremental edicts Patoff was issuing under his name? He looked at the bandage on the back of his hand. Was he paving the way for his own expulsion?

  No. He was not Morgan Brandt.

  Not yet.

  But he’d better start putting his foot down and exerting some authority if he expected to ride this out.

  His office door flew open, hitting the wall with a sound so sharp it made him jump.

  Patoff stormed in, his normally placid face distorted with rage. Behind him, Matthews could see a frantic Diane anxiously attempting to signal him. Then the consultant slammed the door shut. “Jenny Yee in Accounting just quit! Quit! Damn that little bitch!”

  Matthews was not sure how to respond, or if he was even expected to respond. He had no idea what was going on here.

  The consultant paced around the office. “I wanted her gone, but that’s not the way she was supposed to go! She screwed up the plan, that slant-eyed slut!”

  Was he talking to himself? It seemed so, but at the same time he was addressing Matthews, so it was hard to tell at whom the diatribe was directed.

  Patoff slammed a hand down hard on the desk, making Matthews jump. “Meeting! I’m calling a meeting!”

  Matthews had slowly, carefully scooted his chair back from the desk and away from the consultant. “Okay,” he said, placatingly. “Who do you want to meet with?”

  “You! You and me, we’re the meeting!” He paused for a moment, clasping his hands together beneath his chin and lowering his head. “Dear Ralph, Bless this meeting. Amen.” Immediately, he resumed pacing. “These are your people, Austin. You have to get them in line.”

  “People quit all the time…”

  “No one quits!” the consultant shouted. “Not until we want them to!” He stopped pacing, took a deep breath. “A company is like a machine. Everything is delicately balanced, everything has a specific function, and when changes are made, they need to be done so carefully, surgically, so as to leave that machine more finely tuned. We have a plan here. And that plan needs to be followed!” He hit his closed right fist against his open left palm for emphasis. “We can’t let it get derailed by nobodies and nothings like that little yellow twat!”

  Matthews kept his eye
s on the man. He did not understand the consultant’s tantrum, but he was glad to see it. Patoff had always seemed so unflappable, so completely in control, that it was gratifying to see him lose it over a minor deviation in his ultimate plan.

  Ultimate plan.

  The phrase had a James Bond ring, like something hatched in the mind of a supervillain.

  Which seemed apropos.

  “Things are going well,” the consultant said. “Not just here but everywhere. Businesses are becoming more efficient, doing more with less. The economy’s coming back, and they’re not hiring, not wasting money on people. They’re staying lean and mean, boosting profits but not payrolls. It’s part of the overall strategy, and we’ve been working on it for a long time. Why do you think we came up with email? Why do you think we invented smart phones?”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Matthews asked, frowning.

  The consultant didn’t reply, just kept talking. “We’ve got them checking their email at home, on vacation, at night, on weekends. They’re working even when they’re not at work. And all those overtime hours are free! It’s why we can keep cutting staff and raising profits. We keep them off guard by making them think they’re always about to be fired or outsourced, and we’ve got them!” He clenched his fist so hard it was shaking as he held it in front of him. Matthews saw a drop of blood drip down the edge of the scrunched palm from beneath Patoff’s pinky.

  This was getting out of hand. Matthews stood. “So what if Jenny Yee quit? We’ll hire someone else for her position. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “Look, we’re going to reduce staff. That’s the goal.”

  “I thought the goal was—”

  “Shut up!

  Matthews stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  “Shut up!”

  He glared at the man, infuriated. “No one tells me to shut up in my own office. Get out of here right now. You’re fired. Your services are no longer needed.”

  The consultant leaned forward, two hands on the desk. “Who do you think you are? You can’t fire me. I have a contract—”