Skip laughed an evil laugh. “Well, those special photos are certainly making the rounds!”
Turning back to the desk where they were gathered, Mia interrupted, “Do you know anything about Jan? What’s happened to her?” She set the box down on the receptionist’s counter of the welcome island.
Marsha said, “Jan? Jan who?”
Mia replied, “Jan Ferris.”
Maggie scoffed, “Why ask us? We have no idea!” None of the others standing around the receptionist’s desk in iCon’s front lobby said anything as long as Mia was standing at the desk. They just looked away, but then as soon as she stepped away, they all burst out laughing. Mia wanted to turn around and tear those sneers off their faces, but she knew there was nothing she could do or say that would make them care. Or make them stop being fracking mean jerks.
When Mia got back to her desk with Jan’s box, it was 4:55 — hardly early by normal company standards, especially for a Friday, but this was iCon. “Frack it, I’m leaving anyway.” She wanted to be the very first person leaving the building, and so she immediately left by the forbidden door, Jan’s box under her arm.
Seven minutes later, she was in the driveway next to Jan’s house, a two story white Cape Cod with yellow shutters and a bright green door. There were several days of mail sticking out of the mail box, but there weren’t any newspapers piling up in front of the door. Jan’s terrier Ollie was out in the fenced front yard. Climbing the steps to the front porch, Mia set the box containing Jan’s things from her desk down next to the front door, and knocked loudly on the aluminum frame of the screen door. No answer. She cupped her hands around her face to block the sunlight as she tried to peer in the front window. The TV was on, and Mia thought she could see Jan’s mother in a recliner, watching a game show. Mia returned to the front door to try again. “Jan! It’s Mia! Open up — I brought your things from work. I need to talk to you.” No reply. “Come on, Jan. I know you’re in there.” More pounding on the door. “Jan, if you don’t come to the door, I’ll just sit here on the front steps and wait until you have to bring Ollie in. I’m not leaving.” Still no reply. One more time, Mia pounded on the front door. “Jan! Come to the door! Your neighbors are going to call the cops in a minute. It’s just me, Mia. Come talk to me. I’m not going away.” No one came to the door so Mia sat down on the top step.
After several minutes, Mia heard the inner door open behind her, so she stood up to see who it was. The outer storm door was still shut tight, but she could see the inside door was opened a little. Jan’s face was peeking around the edge of the door, her eyes wet and red with tears, and puffy as if she had been crying for hours. Jan said, “Oh, Mia! Please — go away! I don’t want to see anybody, and I don’t want anybody to see me.”
Mia crossed the porch to stand in front of the door. “Jan, we’re so worried about you! Dina and I want to know if you’re OK. Nobody’s heard from you at all in over a week now. And I found out today that you’ve given notice and quit at iCon. Is that true? What happened?”
Behind the storm door, there was a big sob and gasp combined, followed by more tears and the muffled sound of Jan blowing her nose. “It’s true. I will never ever go back there to that place again ever. Not never! Now go away! Leave the box on the front porch. And go away!”
The inner door clicked shut, and Jan’s teary red face disappeared into the house.
Petting Ollie, Mia lingered on the porch step for a few minutes longer, hoping Jan might change her mind and decide to talk. But Jan didn’t return to the door, and in the end Mia had to leave, mystery still unsolved. She called Dina when she got home to tell her what had happened. They both agreed that it sounded likely that Jan had been conned over an extended period of time into sexting compromising photos to Chase or someone else at iCon posing as him, which were then re-posted everywhere across the internet — after letting Jan know what had been done. Realizing she had been betrayed, Jan had been unable to face the people who had done it to her and so was unable to return to iCon. Before they hung up, Dina and Mia agreed they would continue to check on Jan, see if there was anything they could do to help reassure her somehow.
After the call, Mia thought, “What kind of rats am I working with!? Is Skip responsible for this?” iCon — the Kewl Kidz, the inner circle anyway — obviously they were ruthless, incredibly cruel, and without any trace of human empathy or emotion. Why would anyone want to tear apart a good hearted person like Jan that way?
Suddenly, Mia sat down on her forest green sofa, floored by a thought that came crashing into her mind. As she stared at the statue of the little lamb in the arms of the shepherd, she remembered how Jan had grabbed Cezary’s arm during the new hire ceremony back in January, how it had seemed at that time that the CEO come close to giving the order to have his bodyguards shoot her. Was that the explanation — Jan was too enthusiastic in her thanks? Too touchy for Cezary to tolerate, creating too big a breach in the observance of protocol and hierarchy? And so in payback for this violation, she had to be squashed like a bug on a windshield, never seeing it coming for her? How horrible a person would you have to be to take revenge for a meaningless misstep like that?
At least Mia didn’t have to worry now about Jan’s job being compromised if she quit. WHEN she quit. In a way, it was a relief. She didn’t have to force herself to stay one day longer, didn’t have to try to continue to integrate with or conform to people and ideas that were totally alien to her. She would find a new job later. Finally, she could act on her feelings! She could quit immediately. Come Monday morning, she’d be leaving iCon. Yesterday wasn’t soon enough.
17 | Hide
Early Monday morning, Mia woke up happy and refreshed, even though she had slept all night on the forest green sofa. The statue of the Shepherd Jesus was shining in the morning light of a perfect spring day in May. “The Lord is my shepherd! I shall not want. And I do not want to be at iCon any longer!”
She felt so good she made poached eggs on toast with a big glass of orange juice for breakfast. The air coming in the open window was soft and fragrant, a mild breeze blowing. The sunshine was bright and warm, flowers were blooming, birds singing — an altogether beautiful day. But as she gathered up her purse to leave the house, she started tensing up, and as she got close to iCon, a massive headache developed.
Given what had happened to Jan, there was no way she could keep working at iCon one minute longer. Friday night, she immediately came to the decision to quit without going through her usual process of weighing the pros and cons before making up her mind. The decision to quit was the right thing to do, no question about it. And if she needed further confirmation that her decision was the correct one, her heart provided it, filled with joy and singing, happy to know she was giving notice today, leaving today. The sense of freedom and relief she felt knowing that she was leaving (For good! So good! So good! So good!), the happiness knowing that she was quitting TODAY was greater than anything she could have imagined. This was her very last day working at iCon! It was like being pardoned and released from jail after being in solitary confinement for decades.
Instead of parking in front of the iCon HQ, Mia drove to her old parking spot behind Flanagan Hall. She locked her purse in the trunk, thinking, “I won’t need it today! Won’t be here that long,” dropped her car keys and plastic ID and security card into her jacket pocket, then walked across the beautiful grounds of what used to be Edgestow College, running through all the wonderful memories she had of being a professor there, the faculty and students she had known. Had the college not closed in January last winter, graduation would have been held this week. She thought it was a shame that the happy celebration of achievement would never happen again, not here. Of course, not everyone was a treat to recall, but for the most part the Edgestow College people had been good people. A black-helmeted iCon security guard rolled by on his upright two-wheeled scooter as she entered the atr
ium where the statue of Jesus used to stand. The perennial garden now was a jungle, completely untended and unweeded, the fountain shut off, the brackets for the statue still attached to the wall, unused now except as a perch for a sparrow. In spite of the neglect, she took the memory of what used to be as an opportunity to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the escape from this stifling place. “My cup runneth over!” She also prayed for an escape from the coming transhumanist future that was being forced upon her and the rest of the planet, in spite of all reasonable objections against it.
As she approached the front lobby door of iCon’s HQ, she could barely stand the thought of entering the building again. But she screwed her courage to the sticking place and walked through the lobby, down the hallway on the ground floor, and through the glass door into the Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Department, and arrived at her cubicle, humming a tune. She sat down at her desk, intending to write a letter of immediate resignation first thing, but before she got started, Skip Morrison appeared at the entry to her cubicle. Mia sighed — another assignment. Why hadn’t she written her resignation letter last night? Why had she avoided doing that? It didn’t make sense now so why had delaying to write a letter giving notice make sense last night? Skip usually gave her the worst sort of assignments. Mia had a thought cross her mind — “Refuse to do what he’s asking. Just verbally give notice and walk out.” But a sense of propriety kept her from speaking up. And besides, what he was asking her to do was very minor.
“Go over to R&D in Noonan Hall. You know — the old Edgestow College science building — and pick up some reports and charts that we need to scan to use as graphics for a presentation to be given today. Ask for Marshall Sudbeck. He has the material we need. Chynna has already called Security to have the permissions related to your e-tattoo altered so you can get in the front door. Most iCon people are not permitted in there at all, which makes sense considering all the sensitive research being done there in that building.”
“OK, I know where that’s at.” She didn’t bother correcting him about not having an e-tattoo or tell him that she was still using a plastic key card. The results for updating the security permissions would be the same either way. She felt another nudge in her spirit telling her, “Give him verbal notice now! Just leave!” But instead, she told herself that a detour might not be so bad. This way, she’d get to walk over to the college campus one more time on a beautiful spring morning. And she figured she could swing by Dina’s desk on the way back and let her know she was leaving iCon and say goodbye to her.
Once she exited the HQ, she turned left and headed toward the Edgestow campus. Earlier on her initial trek across campus from Flanagan Hall, Mia had been surprised to see construction had started in the area between iCon’s HQ and Noonan Hall. It looked like iCon was building a walkway, a bridge to connect the buildings together via both of the second floors, and in preparation, they were taking down a large section of the facade on the side of the science building, using jackhammers on the crenellated arches. Once again, Mia was struck by how it looked like iCon had been planning for this junction from the day they had arrived five years ago when they had started construction on their HQ. The north end of their long building was so close and perfectly aligned with Noonan Hall, Edgestow College’s oldest building. But how could they have known they would end up buying the campus from —.
Mia came to a complete halt, struck by a thought out of left field. What if iCon had been behind the circumstances that had led to Edgestow College’s financial failing and subsequent closing, pulling strings to arrange for investments to fail and for bureaucrats to enact federal enforcement mandates to drown the college in its own red ink? Would they destroy a century-and-a-half old college just to buy Noonan Hall? Given what she had learned about the people at iCon lately and knowing how they worked behind the scenes in secret, it wouldn’t surprise her a bit to discover that the corporation had forced the college over the brink, ending the college’s tradition of excellence in higher education just so they could gain ownership to Noonan Hall. But why would iCon do that? Mia didn’t doubt there was a reason that made sense to iCon even if she didn’t know what it was. Probably some insanity of a reason. Well, she wasn’t going to try to figure it out. Once you went down the rabbit hole, there was no telling where you might end up. As of today, she herself was leaving everything related to iCon behind in her rearview mirror. iCon was part of her past even if she hadn’t given notice yet.
The construction/destruction behind her, she approached the east-facing main entrance of Noonan Hall with its arches and columns. Mia saw Dr. Helen Travers in her white lab coat, hurrying down the front steps, and tried to stop her fencing club friend and former colleague from Edgestow College for a brief chat, but Helen just shook her head without speaking and practically ran away. She looked like she was about to throw up. Or cry. Or both.
As Chynna had requested, Security had updated Mia’s key card, and she was able to unlock the front door. Once inside, she looked around the interior of Noonan Hall, which was now iCon’s Research & Development Department. The entire first floor had been gutted and was now one large open area with glassed-in meeting and conference rooms around the perimeter, and a large reception island in the middle of the space. She also noticed a peculiar sour smell inside the building, unpleasant and acrid — like a formulation of something both metallic and organic, the foul combination of turpentine, copper, and rotting garlic. The sounds of the building renovation could still be heard, but were greatly reduced in volume. The receptionist called Marshall Sudbeck’s desk.
“I’m sorry. He’s not at his desk right now, but you can meet him in Archive Storage. I’ll escort you into the hallway — your e-tattoo won’t work on these doors.”
The receptionist waved her wrist in front of the scanner and opened the door to the inner hallway. “Go to the elevator at the end of the hall, then go down to Basement Level 1. The archives will be on the left once you exit the elevator.” Mia thanked her and set off. All the doors on this hallway were closed, no other people around. The elevator ride down was silent except for a barely audible creaking. When the doors opened, Mia immediately noticed that the unpleasant smell was much stronger on this level.
The elevator opened onto the junction of two long hallways, one hallway running straight ahead with closed doors on either side, ending in a blank wall at its end, and an even longer and wider hallway running to the left and right, large enough that a semi truck could be driven the length of it with room to spare. Mia was surprised to see how extensive this level was (larger than the building above ground), and wondered what was in the basement level below this. Obviously, this was part of the original college, but Mia had never heard about this large underground complex during her time at Edgestow. The size and extent of it implied that there was something important, very important hidden here under Noonan Hall. But what was it? Without a sign labeled, “This way to the secret,” the reason was likely to remain a mystery to Mia.
She looked down the hallway to the left and started toward Archive Storage, but she had noticed a ladies’ room in the hallway across from the elevator, so after a couple of steps, she turned around and walked back. There wasn’t a defined time arranged for the pickup, so she decided she didn’t need to be in a hurry. The bathroom was a small concrete block room meant for one person, a single incandescent bulb above the mirror over the sink, with a small white vase containing an artificial red poppy sitting on the sink. Take one step in and you were in front of the sink. She let the door close behind her.
Mia was still standing between the sink and the door when she heard a walkie-talkie just outside the door in the hallway. “I don’t have eyes on her. She’s not wearing an e-tattoo, so I’m not able to track her. What? A key card, she’s still using a key card. Are you sure she made it to this level?” The reply was garbled. “You’ll get her as soon as I have her. Should I expect resistance?”
Another garbled reply, and Mia could tell the security guard had started walking again because she heard him reply farther down the hall, “Copy that.”
In an unconscious attempt to not be discovered and to hear better, Mia had been holding her breath. Slowly, she let out the air in her lungs and considered what she had heard. Was the security guard talking about her? Had to be. She hadn’t seen anyone else since leaving the lobby upstairs. And who else at iCon didn’t have an e-tattoo? He was talking about her, searching for her.
“One (or more) of iCon’s very serious security guards is looking for me,” she thought. “Ex-military, ex-cop specialists in terrorist take downs, professionals in search and destroy missions are looking for me. And it sounds like he is planning on — what — diverting me somewhere, doing something that I might resist. Arrest me? Kidnap me? That’s what it sounded like, but how could that be? What do they think I have done? So what should I do now?”
She leaned back against the sink and put her hand on her forehead. She couldn’t think. Why were they looking for her? What was her best strategy? What should she do? Giving herself up to the iCon guard didn’t really seem like a good option, now that she’d learn MINDSET #2 was the most accurate perspective to take. (MINDSET #2 = You don’t know why, but people at iCon have invaded your privacy and your life.) No one at iCon could be trusted.
Was she being framed for a crime and set up for an arrest? She’d been sent to Noonan Hall on a work assignment, to pick up some printouts and wasn’t invading the research area illegally, wasn’t trying to conduct industrial espionage. Except she now realized that there was no evidence to show the reason behind her visit, no email or voice mail — only Skip Morrison’s word that she had been asked to come here. And Mia was certain that he wouldn’t mind lying and say he’d made no such assignment. Oh, and then he’d say it wasn’t Chynna who made the call to security to change the permissions entered for her key card. He’d say she did it herself. She could see Skip saying, “No, I most certainly did not send Mia Marwitz over to Noonan Hall for printouts to use in a presentation. Why would I? Materials like that would be sent to us at our request through interoffice mail. Furthermore, Ms. Marwitz’s job description does not require her to have access to the sensitive materials in our R&D Department, and I know of no reason for her security clearance to be changed to grant her access. Pretending to be Chynna, she must have called to request the change herself.”
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