I flicked the switch, and the first three of the monsters screamed, burst into flames, and shriveled into dried husks in a matter of seconds. The third, dressed like Dracula in a hijab, lasted a few moments longer and had time to get his hands on the same branch as his potential meal before the UV light caused his eyeballs to melt out of his head and his brain to boil out of his ears. I’d left the gibbering IT manager in the tree while I performed cleanup, banishing the burned-out bloodsuckers into nothingness by using a rather stylish two-handed tearing motion to open the necessary hole in the dream reality.
“I don’t know,” I replied to Dana’s question. “I think I can finish the Swedish project that I’m working on before we go, but I’m not really getting any cooperation on this conference center thing. I’ll try my hardest…” I trailed off lamely.
“You better more than try, Jules!” she snapped back at me. I just put my hands up and made placating gestures. I knew that I deserved the lash that she’d put into her voice. I’d ruined too many vacations before we’d had Olivia by dragging along my work, and now that we had a kid to look after, I knew it would be even worse if Dana had to put up with me ignoring my family.
“What about you? Did you get the Sky work done?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“We’ve agreed on the terms for Sky’s rental of bandwidth on the Hylas 1 satellite platform with an option for additional capacity increments over the next five years. Of course, I finished on time,” she said condescendingly.
Dana had grown up just north of Cape Canaveral in Florida, developing a keen interest in space before I’d met her in Madison as a second-year engineering student at the University of Wisconsin. Hot girls in engineering courses are basically rarer than four-leaf clovers, so I’d been amazed when the great-looking brunette in my intermediate calculus course had agreed to swing by my house for a party. Enormous amounts of alcohol had led to an initial hookup, but a mutual interest in science and travel, along with great personal chemistry, had kept us together. We’d carried on a long-distance relationship over the summer when she went back home after her sophomore year, but we’d arranged to live together in England on a student visa after her junior year. We’d absolutely fallen in love with London, and I’d looked for a posting there while she finished school.
A few minutes of silent preparation later, I had myself ready for work and gave both of my girls their good-bye kisses. I hurried to the train and made my way through a slightly less sweltering Paddington station, stopping for a bagel on the way to the office. This time, I beat Janice in and grabbed a good corner desk for the day, greeting Anne from Accounting.
At ten, I went into my first meeting, joining Phil and Janice in a room the size of a shoe box, to see one of the two downselected suppliers for the conference center project. To be honest, I couldn’t remember the guy’s name five minutes after the meeting. He’d been amazing—I was amazed his company couldn’t afford to employ someone that knew how to tuck in his shirt, brush his teeth, or open a slide show on his laptop. “I think we need to score that one for the record,” I said after I’d shown whatshisname back to Reception.
Phil and I rattled off a series of ones and twos on a scale of one to five, before Janice interrupted, “I think that we need to consider the overall supplier relationship. We’ve been working with that firm for ten years to help source our offices.” Janice then inexplicably awarded the supplier a series of fours and fives on their presentation. “Julian, I’ll expect you to write up a balanced summary of the bid presentation for senior stakeholder review,” she hissed. I sighed, exchanged a confused glance with Phil, and headed back to my desk to do Janice’s bidding.
I just had time to finish before the representative from OMG arrived. I went to reception, grumbling about missing another lunch but secretly thinking that it was probably good for my waistline. If the first rep had been a forgettable stuffed shirt, then the woman at Reception was his polar opposite. She was a petite redhead with the kind of milky-white skin that promised that her hair color didn’t come from a bottle. Small wrinkles at the corners of her sparkling green eyes told me that she was probably closer to thirty than twenty, but the tiny waist and fantastic calves showing below her light-blue skirt certainly weren’t letting the side down.
“Julian,” I said wittily as I extended my hand.
“Kelly MacDonnell,” she replied with a barely noticeable Irish accent as she shook my hand and followed me past the security doors leading to the small meeting room. There are two benefits to having meetings on your own premises: time savings on travel, and the psychological benefit of being on home turf. Unfortunately, the meeting room that my towering influence had secured only had three chairs, no conference phone, and was missing a ceiling tile. In fact, if this was a soccer match, the score would probably be 0–2 at the moment, as neither the coffee that had been ordered nor either of my colleagues were in evidence. Screw it, I decided; time for small talk. If that lasted more than two minutes, then I’d have to fall back on my fantastic store of puns and knock-knock jokes.
***Kelly***
Kelly examined the man in front of her as they exchanged idle chitchat. From the lines on his face and the gray hairs at his temple, she’d guess mid-to-late thirties, but his lack of any appreciable gut and the spring in his step told her that he was, maybe, a few years younger than his first impression communicated. Not her type, really, but from the looks that he kept sneaking at her bare legs (sticking out from a very cute Stella McCartney pencil skirt) she guessed that it wouldn’t be too hard to get what she wanted out of this Julian guy. She had a sudden surge of hope that perhaps she could land this deal without resorting to any tactics that would leave her feeling dirty in the morning. Yes, just good old-fashioned sex appeal, she thought, letting a smile touch her lips at the notion that using her body to get what she wanted wasn’t what concerned her sensibilities.
Looking around, she didn’t see any refreshments and congratulated herself on the Starbucks that she had picked up on her way in to Paddington. Considering how nice the building looked from the outside, she was surprised at how poorly maintained it was. She made a mental note to look into whether there was an opportunity somewhere in that information, and filed it away within her nearly eidetic memory for later contemplation with the lads. Upon further reflection, Kelly decided she couldn’t afford to leave anything to chance; she pulled the special silver-tipped pen out of her suit jacket and, mostly, feigned clumsiness in dropping it on the floor at Julian’s feet.
“…so two men walk into a bar, the third one ducks,” Julian said, snapping Kelly back into focus and interrupting her attempt to grab the pen.
“What?” she said, frowning and trying to figure out if the man in front of her had actually intended that to be a joke.
“Let me get that!” he replied, hopping out of his chair and snatching the pen as he continued toward the door. He opened it to reveal a middle-aged woman who looked a bit like a walrus and a stocky man with nicotine-stained teeth and fingers who towered at least a foot over Kelly’s own five-foot-three-inch height. Also not her type. “So are we ready to begin?” Julian asked as he passed Kelly back her pen.
CHAPTER 5 1300, Tuesday, July 28–1000, Wednesday, July 29, 2015
***Julian***
“So—for the record, can I get your score for OMG? Phil?” I asked after I’d shown Kelly back to Reception.
“Well, Nick’ll like to work with her, at least!” Phil replied with a grin. Janice frowned ferociously, and I kept my mouth shut. Phil cleared his throat as he glanced nervously at her. “Ummm…I mean, I thought they had an excellent presentation. They seem to have a clear focus, and their commitment to locating a property in two weeks is just what we need to impress the top team,” Phil corrected himself in a dry monotone.
“I didn’t like their pitch,” Janice said sweetly, after taking a long sip of tea. “I think that sending a company partner to this pitch demonstrates that their firm doesn’t have
the depth of skill within the organization to handle a client of our size.” I dutifully noted down Janice’s comments for the official record. I could see that she wanted to focus on keeping her usual supplier happy. I remembered that she’d received a bottle of wine from them the previous year at Christmas, and I wondered if she’d logged it on the gift register.
“Well…” I started, as I considered the most tactful way of phrasing my disagreement, “the pitch from OMG brings significant innovation and offers real upside to the value proposition in comparison to established metrics.” That was the kind of management speak that made, “They aren’t a bunch of idiots like the usual thieves,” sound too polite to disagree with. Janice simply rose from her chair and humpfed out of the room. I didn’t know how much more there would be to discuss later, but from my point of view, this should be an easy decision, as the bid from OMG was coming in 10 percent cheaper than usual. I looked at my phone and realized that with the free time I had during the rest of the afternoon, I should be able to put together a formal recommendation to go with OMG. It would be easy to base my recommendation on the feedback from Phil as well, along with the cost savings. If Janice stayed out of the way and there were no other surprises, I would be able to close this deal out before I went on vacation; Dana would like that.
***Kelly***
Kelly smiled as she hopped on the Hammersmith and City line train out of Paddington. The meeting hadn’t started well, with her attempt to mark Julian getting derailed by possibly the worst joke she’d ever heard. However, she had eventually found the opportunity to make a miniscule mark on the back of Janice’s hand while reaching across the table to scribble a fairly meaningless diagram on some scrap paper.
She’d also delivered a flawless pitch on the merits of the property that they needed to offload in Vauxhall, rattling off facts, figures, and budget projections in quick succession. During the presentation, she’d even managed to get a tiny scribble of silver-laced ink onto Phil’s hairy neck as she used a deliberate motion of her pen to emphasize a key point. Considering the quality of the pitch, it hardly seemed necessary to take the special precautions, but she dug out her phone as she came out of Moorgate heading toward the office. “Ena—I think I nailed it on my own, but can you get started on the prep work? I need to stop by accounting on the way back to my desk.” She smiled at the thought of meeting up with some of the cute guys there.
***Julian***
The clock had passed six, but I’d managed to finish the formal recommendation to proceed to contract with Kelly MacDonnell’s organization when my phone rang.
“Julian, Nick from Exec Support here. I understand from Phil that you were intending to put forward a recommendation for the business to go to that outfit based at Old Street. I’ve spoken to Janice, and after a further review with Phil, I’ll be recommending that we go with the usual firm. I just don’t think we can take the risk in moving to an untested supplier for a project with this kind of profile. Thanks for your support, though.”
I held my tongue as my temper boiled. I knew that at this point, I should stick to my principles and flag this to senior management, but given Nick’s position, I just couldn’t justify going to battle on this one.
“Nick, thanks for providing your feedback. If you can ping that over to me in writing, I’ll release the formal recommendation in the morning. Thanks again!” I said with false cheer and smiled inwardly at the thought that I’d at least managed to inconvenience Nick. I got up from my desk, started the shutdown sequence on my laptop, and wandered across the office to chat with Anne from Accounting. We exchanged a bit of small talk and both gossiped about her constantly absent boss Richard, whom she jokingly referred to as a bit of a dick. After Anne told me that she was off on vacation in a few days, I collected my equipment and caught the train home.
Olivia was already in bed again by the time I arrived, but Dana had kept a few slices of macaroni pie warm in the oven for me. Although nearly five years had passed since we’d first discovered macaroni pie, on a twenty-fifth birthday trip to Barbados, it still had a place in our regular supper rotation. The taste was worth the extra gym time. After a couple of hours of TV watching, I slumped off to bed.
***
I opened my eyes. I looked around, trying to get oriented as I usually did. Unusually for a night spent in London, I didn’t find myself in an urban setting. Instead, I seemed to be at the edge of a field where clover bloomed purple and white at my feet. Behind me, the nearly leafless trees of late fall rattled, although no breeze was blowing. To the west, I saw a faint red glow, but before I could concentrate on the glow, I heard a distant screeching noise. Swiveling my head to try to locate the source of the steadily increasing wail, I caught a glimpse of something silhouetted on the crest of a far hill. The sound spiked in intensity; its rasping trill drove into my brain, and I fell to my knees in the long, wet grass. Each instant that the sound continued felt like the worst headache I’d ever had, had mated with an ice pick and sent its children cavorting between my ears…if this kept building…
With a gasp, my eyes flew open, and I realized that I was sitting up in bed next to Dana. I sobbed quietly with relief at the instant cessation of pain.
Dana, who needed to be up early for a training seminar, hadn’t been disturbed at all by my sudden movement, which was good in a whole multitude of ways that only a married man understands. What I couldn’t understand was what had happened, and I spent the next hour staring at the ceiling. I was especially disturbed by a thin trickle of blood from my nose that had stained the front of my nightshirt red. Sometime between two and first light, I managed to drift back to sleep.
I woke up a couple minutes before seven, the strange dream pushed to the back of my mind by a subsequent job in which I’d saved a young woman from her abusive girlfriend. I was happy that at least I’d helped her escape her unhappy relationship for a night, but as I had done many times before, I ran my hands through my hair, thinking that even now she was probably waking up to the reality of her situation. Usually, I could convince myself that I’d done as much as I could to help, but some days—and today looked like it was going to be one of them—I felt like screaming in impotence. I knew from what I’d seen last night that this woman was being abused physically and emotionally on a daily basis. I thought back to the experience and tried to remember if there were any clues to her actual whereabouts that I could use, but I shook my head as I involuntarily rubbed at the two-inch-long scar that I’d received the last time I’d tried to “help” someone in the real world.
When I was younger, I’d thought that I could save the world and had tried to track down the people that I saw in my dreams. Unfortunately, while I could pick out surface information and emotions from people just by emptying my mind and letting them flow in, it was much more difficult to identify specific information like addresses, and you’d be amazed at how many people have the same name (a Google search for Julian Adler brings up nearly three million results). Another rule that seemed to hold true was that no one could actually dream up legible print beyond one or two words at a time. I guess that makes sense, because let’s face it, who can remember more than one or two phone numbers, let alone a whole passage in a book? Over the years, I had been in the heads of people that I knew, but I’d just once managed to identify someone I’d only met in a nightmare well enough to track them down in the real world.
“Can you take Olivia to the toilet?” Dana yelled from bed. I tried to tamp down my frustration as I went to get my little girl out of bed. I didn’t want any of the smoldering anger that I was feeling to spill over to her.
“I did a wee-wee, Daddy!” Olivia squealed proudly a couple of minutes later as I held her up to the sink to wash her hands. My bad mood was already eroding in the face of my daughter’s inexhaustible joy at simply being alive. On top of that, I had years of acclimation to my own inefficacy; I’d get over it. After I finished taking care of Olivia’s bathroom chores and brushing out her long blond hai
r, I slipped on my shoes, kissed Dana good-bye, and headed to work.
***
“Why didn’t you send me the recommendation to put forward that redhead’s company? I’m disappointed that you didn’t follow through on your commitment, Julian,” Janice preached at me.
I was utterly flummoxed. I hadn’t even had time yet to unpack my laptop before she had ambushed me, and I felt my cheeks reddening and blood pressure rising in almost automatic reaction to hearing my boss’s voice.
I replied: “I had a call from Nick last night saying that you’d agreed together to recommend we stick with our usual company. I don’t understand this.” While I knew what Nick had said, he hadn’t provided anything in writing. I didn’t have any proof that the conversation had happened, but I certainly had promised to get the document out by morning.
“I need that recommendation before noon. I’m really disappointed by this, Julian. I have a lunch meeting, so I may not be able to review until this afternoon, but I’d like you to have Nick look it over before you submit to the rest of the team,” Janice replied.
I mentally groaned because I knew that I couldn’t refuse. I’d have to shuffle around the meeting that I had scheduled with the Swedish stationery company and risk breaking my promise to Dana not to bring any work on vacation. I had been thoroughly outmaneuvered, but was still surprised that Janice had taken such a tack as it forced her to abandon her long-term supplier, imperiling one of her sources of free Christmas wine.
“I’ll get right on it,” I replied.
Janice walked away, saying, much to my surprise, and in the voice that she usually reserved for her favorites in the office, “That’s nice, dear.”
CHAPTER 6 1000–1400, Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Dream Job (The Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1) Page 3