CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS something about ficus trees Arthur found disconcerting. It was how he could never tell if they were real or plastic. It would irritate him to the point where he would break a leaf trying to work it out, usually just at the moment when someone important walked into the room. He restrained himself this time. He would have thought that The Agency would have better quality office plants, but since everyone who walked through the door had to go through ten levels of security checks for each floor, it was probably easier to go with plastic ficus. Maybe there were better quality plants on higher floors. Hopefully, he would find out.
The office door opened and his supervisor looked out. "Agent Drams?"
Arthur leapt to his feet. "Yes, sir."
"Come on in."
He followed the other, slightly more senior, agent into the tidy office. It had a thin window that looked over the parking garage, but that was more of a view than Arthur got from his cubicle.
"Sit down."
When Arthur first got his job with the Agency, he'd spent hours practicing undoing the single button of his jacket one handed while sitting smoothly. It was something he'd used only three times, as the dress code among the analysts was a good deal more relaxed than he had expected.
Agent Brown flipped open a file. "I received your promotion request."
"Yes, sir." It had been four years and Arthur felt he was due.
"It has been decided that your request will be granted. Tomorrow you will be moving up to the fifth floor as a level two analyst."
Arthur's excited 'thank you' died in his throat. "I'm already a level two analyst?"
His supervisor looked in his file again. "So, you are. But you'll be a level two analyst on the fifth floor."
"That's..." Arthur didn't want to rock the boat, complain or seem ungrateful, but it had been four years. "A bit more of a lateral move than I was expecting."
His supervisor sighed. "Agent Drams, no one knows who you are."
"We're a black budget government agency. No one is supposed to know who we are."
"To the general public yes, however, when your supervising agent and the promotion board have to ask 'who' at seeing your name and don't even recognize your picture, you need to show your admittedly somewhat generic face a bit more. This is your entire file." Agent Brown lifted three pieces of paper. "No notes against, no notes for, no citations, accolades or recommendations, no warnings, no nothing."
Arthur didn't know what to say. He'd kept his head down, worked hard.
"Tomorrow, report to Agent Collins on the fifth floor and... I don't know, volunteer to run the Super Bowl pool."
"I don't know anything about football."
"You don't need to."
"Okay. Thank you, sir." It was all Arthur could think to say. He didn't bother trying to button his coat as he left the office.
ARTHUR SUPPOSED if there was an upside to working for a secret government agency it was that he didn't have to call his parents and have them ask if he'd gotten a promotion. They thought he worked in industrial shipping insurance.
"Hey, Jude." He tapped the head of the small saint statue that sat next to his permanently unfinished five-a-side Rubik's Cube. Both graduation gifts from Hanh and his sisters. Personalization of work spaces wasn't encouraged, but most people had at least one thing on their desk. Stress balls and red staplers were popular.
He checked the time on his computer. Not even ten in the morning yet. Way too early to be able to justify leaving or even heading to lunch. Instead, he typed in his twenty-character password, brought up a selection of strangely worded, half-mad reports from field agents, and began to read.
THE HUMAN resources department, in conjunction with security, did whatever it was they did and Arthur's key card sent the elevator directly to the 5th floor. He stepped out and looked around. There were two ficus trees flanking the elevator doors. Taking a guess that the fifth floor was laid out the same as the fourth, he quickly found the office of Agent Collins. He knocked on the door. The call to enter was instantaneous.
"Hello, I'm Agent Drams, I've been assigned to you." He'd put on his best suit for the second day running.
"Sit-down."
Arthur sat, carefully undoing the button.
"I received your file yesterday. It's..." The senior agent trailed off.
"Brief?"
"That works." He looked over Arthur. Arthur returned the scrutiny. He wondered if agents at a certain level were clones. White, late 40's, slightly graying hair, small hunch in the posture from too many years sitting in front of a computer. "You were a level two analyst and now you're my level two analyst. There's an empty cubicle at the end of the row to your left as you head out. Your assignments will be in your inbox when you log in."
"Thank you, sir." A silence hung in the air as Arthur waited to be dismissed. "Do you have anyone running a Super Bowl pool up here?" Arthur hated football but he couldn't handle another sideways promotion, even if that meant sticking his head up.
"Agent Sims used to do it, but he bashed a fax machine to death with a three-hole punch, then quit. So, that's an open position, as it were."
"That's good to know."
Agent Collins turned to his computer and Arthur took it as his cue to leave.
There was the hum of the air conditioning, little computer fans, and the click of keyboards providing a background soundtrack as he walked down the row of cubicles. Classified government agencies were thankfully immune to the open plan office trend.
He found the empty cubicle and sat in the generic gray swivel chair. He never expected to be James Bond when he took the job, but he'd never expected it to feel so '90's corporate. He pulled his Rubik's cube and St. Jude out of his box. "Home sweet home." He started to log in.
"Why are you in my cubicle?"
Arthur swiveled around. At the entrance to the cubicle was a pale, slim man in a dark gray, almost-black suit with a dark gray, almost-black tie holding a dark gray, almost-black coffee cup.
"Um... I was told to take the empty cubicle?"
"This cubicle is not empty." The man's voice was emotionless, like a computer stating a fact.
Arthur looked around. Aside from the standard computer terminal the space was completely barren.
"The empty cubicle is there." The man pointed to a cubicle across the narrow hallway.
"Oh, sorry. I thought..." He trailed off. The man's face was still but his eyes made it very clear he did not want to talk and didn't like people in his space. Arthur grabbed Jude and his Rubik's cube and scurried across the hall.
'So much for making friends.'