Gregor's phone rang, and he grunted a few times while taking down some info. Then he bellowed, "Angie!"
"Just a sec, boss," she said, still painting her nails. "I need to finish this hand."
He came out of his seat, his face turning red. "I don't remember the last time we had a personal grooming emergency around here, but we've had plenty of verification emergencies!" he bellowed. He looked a lot like Mimi did before she turned evil.
Angie ignored him, continuing to apply polish to her nails. He grew even redder. And then he turned green.
I blinked like Rowena had, but he was still green, and his eyes were red. It was almost like the Incredible Hulk, but he didn't get bigger, just scalier and greener, and horns sprouted out of the sides of his head. I'd heard about having monster bosses.
I'd had monster bosses. But this was ridiculous.
Angie painted the nail of her pinkie, then screwed the lid shut on her bottle of polish and stood up. "Okay, Gregor, what is it?" she asked.
"They need you down in Sales. You need to see Hertwick. Take the new girl."
"C'mon, Katie." I got up to follow her. "You mind getting the door for me? My nails are wet."
I was eager to get out of there, so I rushed ahead of her to get the door open. Once it shut behind us, she said, "Don't worry about Gregor. He's all bark, no bite. He may roar and turn green, but he's cast a spell on the office that keeps him from being able to hurt any of us when he's in monster mode."
"What is he, exactly?" I hadn't seen anyone like Gregor in the city, and with the rate that people fly off the handle, you'd think I'd have seen at least one person turn green.
"Oh, he's human. Used to work in R and D, and then there was an accident. Rumor has it he was working after hours, trying to find a way to make himself look more fierce, and this is what happened. They moved him where he couldn't do any harm, and that cutie Owen got promoted into his old job." She gave me a sidelong look.
"Did you get to meet Owen on the grand tour?"
I knew it was tacky of me, but I couldn't resist playing this particular card. "Yeah, but I knew him before. He was the one who spotted me in the first place. He was in on my testing, and then he was with Rod when they first told me about the job." I tried to sound casual, like the whole thing was no big deal.
"Whoa, you are so lucky. I just love it when I get called to R and D, which doesn't happen often, or to some big executive meeting. He's a total hottie. Too bad he can't talk, but he's cute when he turns red."
"He is kind of cute," I admitted, but I didn't want to get into a drool session any more than I'd wanted to rag on poor Rod. I felt it was time to change the subject.
"Do you get called in on executive meetings often?"
"I don't. There's this stuck-up bitch Kim they usually request for executive stuff.
Apparently, I don't project the proper image. Whatever." I couldn't argue that point, so I kept my mouth shut. "Anyway, like I was saying, don't worry about Gregor.
Even when he turns green, he can't hurt you, and he can't fire you. Only the big boss can fire you, and they need people like us so bad that you're not gonna get fired unless you do something truly evil—and I do mean evil, not just walking out with some office supplies in your purse."
We reached the sales department, and although I'd tried to keep track of where we were going, I'd let myself get distracted by Angie's monologue. I was going to need a guide to leave the building at the end of the workday. Angie waved a hand at the door, and I opened it for her. The door had opened automatically for Rod that morning, but it looked like that had been a magic thing and nonmagical people like us had to do it the hard way.
Inside the office suite, Angie headed straight for the office where the gnome sat on his desk. "Yo, Hertwick, need something verified?" she asked.
"No, I just called up there because I wanted to see your face again," he snapped in a gruff voice.
"New contract, huh?" she said, flopping down into the chair that sat behind his desk.
"Lemme have a look."
He shoved a piece of parchment at her. "And make it snappy. The customer's waiting." I looked out into the outer office and noticed a tall, slender man wearing a loud bowling shirt sitting on a sofa, drinking a Coke.
Angie frowned at the contract. "Well, looks like you got seven clauses here. That sound right to you?"
Hertwick growled. "There were supposed to be six."
I leaned over her shoulder to look at the document. I wouldn't have been entirely surprised if she had the count wrong, but there were seven clauses in the contract. I skimmed over the headers, avoiding the legal mumbo jumbo buried within. "Looks like number six is the problem one," I said, forgetting myself and thinking out loud.
"They've got a clause in here about being able to return the merchandise for cash if it doesn't sell in thirty days."
Hertwick snatched the contract back. "Let me see that!" He squinted as he studied the page, then climbed down the side of the desk, using pulled-out drawers as a staircase, and ran into the outer office, his arms waving as he shouted at the visitor.
"You're not supposed to interpret, just tell them what's there," Angie said, sounding bored as she inspected her nails. "Then they figure out what shouldn't be there after you read it to them."
"This one was pretty obvious," I said. "I used to run a store, so I'm used to vendor contracts. That clause looked different from the rest, and thirty days is a pretty short period if you're selling on consignment."
She looked up at me, and I could tell I'd already been labeled as the wannabe teacher's pet, the one who was going to ruin things for the rest of them by going above and beyond the call of duty. It wouldn't be too long before I became "that stuck-up bitch Katie, the one who thinks she's hot stuff because Owen found her."
It wasn't a position I liked being in, but I also felt it was important to do a good job.
I reminded myself that I didn't have to find friends at work. I already had a lot of friends, good friends. Besides, if Angie had time to sit around the office painting her nails, chances were good that she wasn't necessarily the cream of the crop in Verification. Maybe the rest of my new coworkers were different.
We helped Hertwick double-check his contract, once he finished yelling at his customer, then we went back to our office. There were more people in there now, including a prim-looking thirtysomething woman in a business suit. That had to be Kim. Sure enough, she stood to greet me when we came through the door. "Hi, you must be Katie. I'm Kim. Sorry I wasn't here when you arrived, but I had executive business to contend with."
I heard a snort from Angie, and as much as I hated to agree with her, I did get the impression that Kim was stuck-up, at the very least. I'd have to wait to determine the
"bitch" part. I forced a smile. "Hi, Kim, nice to meet you. Have you worked here long?"
"Two years. I'm the senior member of this department. I'm your best bet if you have any questions." She said this with a disdainful glance at Angie, who snorted again.
"I'll keep that in mind," I said as I sat at my desk. Angie pulled a bottle of clear top coat out of her desk drawer and went to work on her manicure.
Now I wished I'd thought to bring a book with me, if my job was going to involve sitting around and waiting until I was needed. There had been plenty of books in Owen's lab area, and I wondered if any of them were worth reading. There was a company roster in the top desk drawer. I found Owen's name, then picked up the phone. This felt awkward to do surrounded by my coworkers, but none of them seemed to be paying attention to me, so I dialed.
Owen answered his phone himself, and fairly quickly. "Katie!" he said, before I had a chance to identify myself. For a second I wondered if he was a precog of some sort, then I noticed that the phone had caller ID on it.
"Hi," I said, deliberately not saying his name. "I was wondering if y'all had any books there that might be a good intro to magic. I didn't bring anything with me, and it looks like I might have t
ime to kill, so I thought maybe I should just start studying up."
"That's a good idea. I'm sure I have something around here. When I find it, I'll have it sent over."
"Thanks so much," I said. I hung up the phone to find most of the office staring at me. Was it so odd
to take initiative around here? Kim narrowed her eyes at me, as if she saw me as a threat. Angie just rolled her eyes and went back to blowing on her fingernails. Gary looked up from his book, shook his head, and went back to reading. Rowena glared at me for a second, then went back to spinning around
in her chair.
I reminded myself that even though these weren't ideal working conditions, it wasn't Mimi. Boredom was better than frustration. Then there was a flash of light and a popping sound and a stack of books appeared on my desk. That was handy. I wondered what else could be teleported like that.
The books were all old, with rich leather covers embossed in gold. The top one's title was A History ofMagic. I opened it and found a note stuck to the inside cover.
"Let me know if you have any questions." It was signed "O.E" I was glad he'd put the note where it wasn't immediately visible, then realized he had to be aware of the interest shown in him. Knowing him, I suspected he hated it.
History had always been one of my favorite subjects, so I dove right in. It went all the way back to prehistoric times, covering ancient sects and discussing the difference between religious magic and the kind of magic that was an inherited skill.
Some of this stuff would have made a great novel, and it was hard to believe that people around here considered it real history.
I'd just reached the part about the role of magic in the rise of King Arthur when another call came through. This one rang straight to Kim's desk. She answered with an overkill of brisk professionalism and took a page full of notes before she hung up the phone and turned to me. "I need to sit in on an important meeting. Katie, you should come with me."
Although I'd reached a really interesting spot in my book, I eagerly followed her out of the office. She carried a notepad and pen with her, and I wondered if I should have brought something. As we walked she gave me her own version of life in the verification department. "I would discourage you from emulating Angie," she said, her lips curling in disapproval. "The fact that our kind is too rare for them to fire us is no excuse for slacking off. A person can rise within this company from our department. All the executives want a verifier as a personal assistant. Play your cards right and impress the right people, and you may just make your way out of the pool."
"You've been here two years, right?" I asked, and then realized that was the wrong thing to say. As professional as she tried to act, Kim was still in the pool. "You must really know your way around," I added, hurrying to cover up my foot-in-mouth episode.
"I pay attention, and I keep my eyes and ears open. If you do the same, you could move into my position when I leave."
"You're planning to leave?"
"There's a new chief executive. He's going to need an assistant, and the best assistants for executives are immunes. Who else from Verification is he going to choose?"
I had to admit she had a point. I couldn't imagine flighty Rowena, lazy Angie, or whatever Gary was when he wasn't reading working with Mr. Mervyn. Then again, I wasn't sure I could see Kim at his side, either.
We reached the conference room where I'd been spending a lot of time lately. Kim took a seat not at the table, but in a chair set against the back wall. I sat next to her.
She got out her pen and notepad and whispered to me, "I outline the gist of the meeting—who's sitting where, what they look like, then each major point of action and what everybody's agreed upon. Before the meeting ends, I hand my notes over to the meeting leaders, then they check for any discrepancies before adjourning the meeting. The other side has their own verifier. If there's a discrepancy on either side, they hash things out before they leave."
It sounded complicated, and more than a little paranoid. I'd have to ask someone how often people tried to use illusion in a business deal. It must happen often enough, considering that I'd already caught someone trying to fudge a contract and I hadn't even been on the job a whole day.
Some of the MSI people were already at the table, and then the doors opened to admit a new group of people, all wearing dark business suits. "This is a corporate client," Kim whispered. "We're doing some custom spell work for them."
I recognized a few of the MSI people from lunch. One of them flashed me a quick smile, and I felt a lot less out of place. I noticed that none of them acknowledged Kim.
The meeting began, and it was pretty much like every other business meeting I'd ever sat through. There was the usual amount of hot air being blown around, only sometimes literally in this case. It seemed that they felt the need to show off by adjusting the room's temperature to their personal preferences, summoning food and beverages, and generally doing a lot of arm waving. Kim's pen moved constantly.
I didn't have to compare notes with a magical person to tell who was trying to pull something. Their body language was a good enough clue. It was just like being able to tell when someone was lying to you and thought they were getting away with it—shifty eyes, ill-concealed smirks, body twitches. Both sides seemed to be playing the game, but the visitors were more flamboyant about it. I didn't get the impression that they really were trying to cheat, just trying to test the waters. The MSI guys were doing just enough for gamesmanship. It was almost like watching a congressional debate on C-SPAN, only a lot more interesting.
Finally, all the blather came to a stop and both sides called their verifiers over. Kim handed her notebook to the head of the MSI faction, and I watched his reactions carefully. "The guy in the red tie was trying to pull something," I said, more musing out loud to myself than actually saying anything, but the MSI executive, someone who'd been introduced to me as "Ryker, Corporate Accounts," looked up sharply.
"That is what it looks like," he said. "But how did you know if you didn't see the illusion that masked it?"
I shrugged. "He looked shifty. And he was saying things I was pretty sure you wouldn't agree to."
Ryker nodded and continued reading Kim's notes, cross-referencing with his own notes from time to time. At last both sides reconvened and hashed out the details.
They checked notes one last time to make sure everyone was still being honest, and then the deal was sealed. By the time we got out of the conference room, the workday was almost over. I dreaded going back to the verification pool, even for just a few minutes. As long as I was out of the office, the job didn't seem so bad, but there was something soul-sucking about the verification room.
It didn't help matters that I'd managed to seriously piss off Kim, who seemed to think I'd deliberately stolen her thunder in the meeting. Great, now I was seen as a threat by the ambitious person whothought I was out to steal her promotion, while the lazy people saw me as a threat to their cushy jobs. I'd get to be universally hated in the office, and I'd only just started. Maybe I should have learned to keep my mouth shut, at least for a while. My old job had taught me plenty about how unwelcome a simple, common-sense observation could be. Too many people liked things complicated and difficult. I guess it made them feel more important.
"That doesn't seem like a very efficient way to handle things," I commented to Kim as we walked. Maybe if I gave her an idea for an improvement she could suggest to the boss, she'd see that I wasn't so bad. Or was that naive of me? Back home, I'd found that if I could figure out what someone else wanted and find a way of helping them get it, they'd be easier to deal with. So far, that hadn't been very effective in the New York business world.
"What do you mean?" she snapped, proving the point I'd just made to myself.
"Well, if you wait until the end of the meeting to make sure nobody pulled a fast one, you almost have to start all over again because you don't know how much was affected by the trick."
"This is the way it's been d
one for years. I think we'd know if there were a better idea." She punctuated her sentence by shoving the door to our office open. Okay, then, maybe she wasn't open to filling the suggestion box as a way of getting executive attention.
I wanted to continue reading the books Owen had sent me, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to take books that treated magic as reality home, so I put them in a desk drawer for the night and wearily gathered my purse and briefcase to head home. The others— except for Kim, of course—were out the door the instant it hit five, a moment punctuated by a bell. Kim stayed around looking busy, but I couldn't imagine what she could be doing. I didn't worry about it. I just wanted to get home and process this day. I also wasn't sure I could get to the front door without following someone, so I hurried to keep the others in sight.
My way out of the building became easier when I ran into Rod. This time I forced myself to pay attention to each turn along the way so I wouldn't feel so lost.
"How'd the first day go?" he asked.
I hesitated, then decided there was no benefit to anyone in telling a white lie. "We need to talk. You've got a serious issue in that department. "
He blinked in surprise. "Gregor never said anything."
"You think he would?"
"Well, no, I guess not." We reached the front door. "Come by my office tomorrow, and we'll talk."
These people might have had the powers of the universe at their disposal, but they didn't seem to know a lot about business. Now that I thought about it, it made sense.
After all, it wasn't like they could just call in a corporate consulting firm to help them establish more effective practices. Magic and MBAs don't seem to go together. I had a vivid mental image of a group of consultants checking themselves into rehab because they thought their latest client had told them their business was magic. Not to mention the fact that when you can work your will with a flip of the wrist, efficiency becomes meaningless. These people were way too used to taking the easy way. They could stand to listen to someone who was stuck with the hard way.
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