by Bob Blanton
“Yes, they offered to move me here when they opened the office, and hey, a Pacific paradise where it never gets cold, how could I turn that down.”
“I’ll go unpack,” Catie said. “Would you join me for dinner in honor of our first night as roommates?”
“Sure. Seven o’clock?”
◆ ◆ ◆
The next day, Catie got up at five o’clock and was at the gym by five-thirty. Morgan, her bodyguard, had moved into a condo in the same building the week before to make it simpler to guard Catie when she moved around. The two of them just happened to have the same workout schedule which worked well since Morgan had to be with Catie while she was working out anyway. After a thirty-minute run on the treadmill followed by a circuit on the weight machines, Catie showered and headed to her first day at work; a second pair of bodyguards shadowed her from the gym to work. She stopped at the local coffee shop to grab a large coffee along with a breakfast burrito, which she managed to eat in fifteen minutes; it was similar to the routine she used when she had early morning flights to the space station.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Jasmine, this is our new trainee, she’ll be working with you. Angela is moving to second shift.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jasmine said. “Hello,” she said to Catie as she extended her hand in greeting.
“I’m Keala,” Catie said as she shook Jasmine’s hand. “I appreciate anything you can do to help me learn.”
“Don’t worry; it’s not that complicated.”
“Jasmine, I expect you to be up to full productivity by the end of the week,” the shift supervisor said as she left the workspace.
“That woman is so full of herself,” Jasmine said once the shift supervisor was out of earshot.
“She didn’t seem very friendly,” Catie agreed.
“Not with the likes of us,” Jasmine said. “She only hangs out with the other shift supervisors, the manager, and the engineers. She doesn’t like anyone that doesn’t have at least a college degree, and she only has an associate’s degree.”
“Sounds like a snob,” Catie said. “I guess we’d better get to work before she comes back. What do I do?” Catie had purposely not looked at the training material the night before.
“Okay, let’s get started. First, we slide this foam base over. We have to make sure it’s right side up; there’s this stupid logo stamped on the other side, so you have to use this side. Make sure it’s rotated, so the pocket for the inverter is on this side. Then slide the array on top of it. We need to line it up carefully.” Jasmine checked the alignment of the array as she continued to talk.
“You need to make sure the wires are on this side next to the pocket for the inverter; if you screw it up, it means rework, and we get dinged. Now that it’s all aligned, we push this button, and the heater comes down and presses the array and heats it up, so the glue melts and sets.”
“Glue? Won’t it melt when the panels get hot again?” Catie asked.
“No, they say it’s a one-time melt thing, which is why the rework is so bad, they have to grind the foam off and recoat the array with glue. Anyway, if they’d just put the pocket for the inverter on both sides, there would never be a problem.”
“Have you suggested it?”
“Me? No way. They’d think I was trying to show someone up,” Jasmine said.
“I don’t think so; you should suggest it to what’s her name.”
“You mean, Bianca?”
“The shift supervisor, is that her name?”
“Yes, you mean she never told you her name?”
“No, and her name badge is covered up with something,” Catie said.
“That’s her supervisor badge,” Jasmine said. “She can be so clueless. Anyway, I don’t think she will listen to me.”
“You won’t know unless you try,” Catie said.
“Maybe. Anyway, now that the array is glued on, we have to flip the thing over, put this plate on top of it, put the inverter in and plug it in, then bolt on the side panels. We push it out to the conveyer belt, and they test it.”
“Seems straightforward. You could almost do it yourself.”
“You can, but it goes faster with two people. It’s all about speed here.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Lunch,” Jasmine called out.
“Great, I’m hungry,” Catie replied. “What kind of food do they serve?”
“We call it grub,” Jasmine said. “It barely qualifies as food.”
Catie was shocked. The assembly plant was part of MacKenzie Discoveries, so she didn’t expect that they would be stinting on the food. Lunch was part of the employee’s compensation since they only had thirty minutes to eat, so they were a captive customer group. She followed Jasmine to the cafeteria, mulling the issues over.
“Looks like we’re having lasagna today,” Jasmine said. “But I don’t think Italianos would be too happy with it.”
Catie got a plate with lasagna, some overcooked broccoli, and a slice of garlic bread on it. “It doesn’t look too appetizing,” she said as she followed Jasmine toward the tables.
“Doesn’t taste too appetizing either.”
An older woman waved to Jasmine, and Jasmine made a beeline to her table. “This is Esmerelda,” Jasmine said, introducing the older woman. “Everyone calls her Esme.”
“Hello, Esme,” Catie said. “I’m Keala, Jasmine’s co-worker.”
“Buenas tardes,” Esme said. “So, you’re new here.”
“Yes, this is my first day,” Catie said. “How long have you worked here?”
“I have been here over one year; I was one of the first to work in this plant,” Esme said. “It was better back then.”
“How was it better?” Catie asked.
“The food was better. And the bosses were nicer. Back then they tried to be helpful, now they just tell you to work faster,” Esme said.
“Have you gotten faster?”
“A little,” Esme said. “But we have more rework, so I don’t think we make that many more panels per week than before. The bosses spend most of their time adding new lines to handle all the orders. They don’t care about the way we do our job; they just want us to work faster, always faster.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Catie said. “By the way, where are all the bosses?”
“They usually go somewhere to eat,” Jasmine said. “They get a full hour for lunch; sometimes, they take even longer.”
“Do they work longer?” Catie asked.
“Who knows?”
◆ ◆ ◆
By three-thirty, Catie was more than happy to call it a day. After saying goodbye to Jasmine, she made her way back to the gym. Liz had made arraignments with the manager of the gym so that she and Catie would have private use of the back room that was used for martial arts training. It was three forty-five by the time Catie got to the gym and changed.
“How was your first day?” Liz asked.
“Interesting,” Catie said. “There’s something fishy going on there. I’m going to have Fred look into it.”
“What’s fishy?”
“The food is pretty marginal,” Catie said. “I’ve been told that it wasn’t so bad when they first started, but it’s gotten worse, and they’re not being very efficient. It sounds like the bosses don’t like to hear suggestions from the workers.”
“That does sound strange, but if you have Fred go charging in and investigate what’s going on, you’re going to blow your cover. Then, he might not be able to find out everything that’s happening.”
“Oh, so what should I do?”
“Complete your assignment; you’re supposed to report on what it’s like to be a part of the working class, just add investigating what the bosses are doing and why. Be careful that nobody catches you sneaking around.”
After a good workout where Catie managed to only get thrown on her butt four times by Liz, Catie was more than happy to call it a day and head to her new home for the evening.
&n
bsp; ◆ ◆ ◆
Catie had barely had time to change and eat an apple before Wei arrived home.
“Keala, how was your first day?” Wei asked.
“It was good, not too hard,” Catie said.
“Make any new friends?”
“My co-worker is pretty nice,” Catie said. “And she introduced me to another lady who’s been working there for a long time. I’ll have to see how that goes.”
“Sounds like a good first day. What do you want to do for dinner?”
“I was waiting for you to get here to decide,” Catie said.
“Want to help me cook something?”
“Sure, and you need to tell me how we should handle the shopping, and sharing the costs.”
“My last roommate and I would have our Comms record what we ate and used, then we’d run a program to reconcile at the end of the month to split the cost,” Wei said. “I thought it worked pretty well. You could eat whatever you found in the kitchen and not worry about it.”
“I like that idea,” Catie said. “I’ll add the apple I just ate to my list and have my Comm start recording. Do you ever have discrepancies?”
“Big word,” Wei said. “Sometimes, usually when someone has a late-night snack and isn’t wearing her specs. It’s usually pretty obvious when we review the report.”
“Sure, no problem, when do you want to start cooking?”
“Give me an hour to change and decompress; then we’ll start. What do you want to eat?”
“Anything but lasagna,” Catie said.
“You don’t like it?”
“That’s not it, I had something that resembled lasagna for lunch,” Catie said.
“Okay, then what about a Caesar salad with chicken?”
“Sounds good to me. Call me when you’re ready. I’ll be doing some reading in my room ‘til then.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie spent the next hour catching up on her email and checking in on the various projects she was responsible for, especially the design of her new scout ship. It had been impossible for her to do any of it while she was working at the plant. Her breaks were too short to spend catching up on work, so she had spent them chatting with Jasmine.
At six, Wei pinged her Comm to let Catie know she was starting to cook. Catie finished up her last report and joined her in the kitchen.
“If you take care of the rinsing and separating the romaine, I’ll start the chicken,” Wei said. Two chicken breasts were sitting on a paper towel next to the cooktop. Apparently, Wei had cleaned them before she pinged Catie.
Catie grabbed the lettuce from the refrigerator and took it to the sink to rinse.
“Excuse me.” Wei grabbed a short step stool from the cabinet under the kitchen sink. She set it down in front of the cooktop, opened the drawer under the stove, and extracted a saucepan. Then, opening a tall, narrow drawer, she grabbed a bottle of olive oil and stepped up on the stool. She poured some olive oil in the pan, turned the burner on under the pan, and waited for the oil to get hot. She swished the pan around a few times to spread the oil out.
“What do you do for salad dressing?” Catie asked.
“I made it last night,” Wei said. “Why don’t you grate some parmesan cheese.”
“Sure,” Catie said. She went to the refrigerator and found a block of parmesan, then cut off a chunk and looked around for the cheese grater. “Grater?”
“This drawer to the right of the cooktop.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll send you the layout for the kitchen,” Wei said. “It shows where I keep everything.”
“Thanks, that’ll make it easier on me,” Catie said. “I’m not feeling very helpful right now.”
“When you finish the cheese, you can set the table; the silverware is in the drawer on the left here. The plates are in the cabinet just left of it, top shelf of the bottom cabinet. I don’t keep much in the top cabinet since I can’t reach it.”
“Got it.” Catie set the table that was just past the kitchen island.
“Would you like to have some wine with dinner?” Wei asked.
“I’d like half a glass,” Catie said. “I don’t drink much.”
“Then more for me. The wine is in that refrigerator under the counter over there. Why don’t we try the Chardonnay?”
“Wine opener?”
“It’s a screw top,” Wei said.
Catie opened the wine, grabbed a couple of wine glasses and a trivet from the cabinet, and set them on the table. “Do you want a glass of water as well?”
“Please.”
Catie quickly added two glasses and filled them with water. Wei had finished cooking the chicken and had moved her step to the other side of the kitchen next to the sink. She was chopping the chicken into strips.
“Get the dressing for me, and I’ll make these up. The bread is in the oven; if you grab it, we’ll be ready to eat.”
After placing their two plates on the table, Wei poured each of them half a glass of wine. “To roommates,” she toasted.
“They don’t offer a unit with lower counters?” Catie asked.
“No, too expensive,” Wei said. “I just have my friend, Steppie, to give me a boost. I only wish he’d learn to move where I need him. I also have a small step ladder to get to the upper shelves, but with you here, I might not need it too often.”
“I don’t mind grabbing things for you,” Catie said. “I’ll try to put my stuff up high if I have anything you won’t use.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I was wondering what kind of lunch service you guys have at Vancouver Integrated?”
“Oh, it used to be good, but it’s not that good anymore. Since I can take a longer lunch, I go out now. I kind of feel sorry for the workers who are stuck eating in-house. A lot of them bring their lunches.”
“When did the food quality start going down?”
“About three months after we opened.”
“Hmmm.”
◆ ◆ ◆
By the end of the week, Catie had figured out which restaurant the bosses at the plant went to for lunch. She put a few surveillance pucks in the restaurant to record the activity.
“TGIF!” Jasmine hollered when their shift was over on Friday. “Do you want to go out with me for some drinks?”
“I’m not old enough to drink,” Catie said.
“Not a problem, just stick with me. Are you in?”
“Sure.”
They left the plant and walked down toward the restaurant district. Jasmine turned down an alley that started about halfway down the block. She walked up to a door with no markings on it and knocked. A tiny peek window through the door opened. Jasmine inserted her hand through it, and almost immediately the door opened, and Jasmine pulled Catie through and into a dark corridor; music could be heard coming from the other end. They walked to the end of the corridor and ducked through some curtains. Suddenly they were inside a lively bar. A band was playing on the stage, a few couples were on the dance floor, and the rest of the patrons were seated at small tables around the room. Catie immediately noticed that everyone in the place looked like a teenager. Some seemed younger than she was.
“Wow, this is some place,” Catie said.
“It’s barely going now,” Jasmine said. “It’s not even four o’clock. Wait ‘til midnight.”
Catie’s first thought was, “I’m not going to be able to stand being here until midnight.” “You’re not serious about staying ‘til after midnight, are you?” she asked.
“Sure, you can leave whenever you want. They serve decent food, and the party starts to ramp up around eight; by midnight, this place is really rocking,” Jasmine said.
“Let’s grab that table, then we can order some snacks and something to drink,” Jasmine added as she pulled Catie farther into the room.
“How do they keep this place a secret?” Catie asked. “And what is it called?”
“We call it Hooligans,” Jasmine said. “You have to k
now the password to get in, and anybody that causes problems gets their ass kicked by the bouncers. Nobody wants to mess up a good thing, so we’re all cool.”
“What password?”
Jasmine placed her hand on the table with her fingers curled up so that the tips rested on the table. Then she extended her index finger, pulled it back, did the same with her ring finger, and then did it with her pinky and index finger.
“Nobody can hear it or see it, so it keeps the narcs from getting in. The place is soundproof, so nobody knows what it is.” Jasmine gave Catie a big smile and then waved at a waitress. “What do you want to drink?”
“I’ll have a Guinness and an order of fries,” Catie said.
“I’ll have a Modelo and nachos,” Jasmine said. The waitress nodded at them and turned to get their order. “What did you think about your first week?”
“It was okay,” Catie said. “It seems a little inefficient; I think you should submit your ideas about improving the process.”
“Me, no way. You have to write them out, and I don’t read and write English.”
“You speak it well enough. Is your native language Spanish?”
“Yep, and I barely can read it.”
“Your Comm can teach you how to read English, just like it taught you to speak English. It just takes a little practice.”
“What for?” Jasmine asked. “I’m never going to be anything but an assembler.”
“Why do you think that? You’re pretty smart.”
“Not really, those ideas I told you about were obvious. I can’t do math and stuff like that. Besides, why should I work that hard? I make enough money.”
“But don’t you get bored?”
“Not really, you’re too busy at work to be bored. When I’m not at work, I have fun going to places like this, watching TV, or hanging out with my friends.”
“But if you made more money, you could travel, go to Europe, buy nice clothes.”
“Who cares about travel? We have great weather here, a nice beach, and they’re putting up that fancy hotel, so we can even see famous people here. And who needs nicer clothes,” Jasmine said as she pulled her shirt off, revealing a tight-fitting white tank top. She hung the shirt over the back of her chair. She undid the ponytail holding her hair and shook it out so that it draped over her shoulders. With her tight jeans, she now fit right in with the other teenagers in the crowd.