Neanderthal Seeks Human

I shivered a little, feeling the weight of my recklessness and truly understanding how dangerous of a situation I’d been in. Likewise my stomach flipped at the thought of Quinn finding me, carrying me out the second story room, and taking me to his sister’s place all the while I was blacked out.

Maybe I wouldn’t need to be rescued, escorted, or coddled so much if I focused on actually important details rather than dreaming up an appropriate collective noun for every plural eventuality.

In the end I promised the ladies I would attempt to corner Quinn when I saw him at work, question him about the Canopy room co-op, as well as actions taken to ensure the safety of unsuspecting female guests in the future. The waiter reappeared and, thankfully, most eyes moved to their menus giving me a reprieve from the hour long investigation into my weekend.

“Have you seen him yet? In the office I mean?” Marie, who was immediately to my left, leaned toward me and fixed me with her bright blue eyes.

“Quinn? No, today was only my second day. Mostly, I just filled out paperwork, met with lawyers, and settled into my office-”

“You met with lawyers?” Fiona’s steady voice sounded from my right.

“I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and a non-compete agreement.”

“A non-disclosure agreement?” Fiona frowned, her eyes met Marie’s for an instant then moved back to me, “Why did you need to sign that?”

“Well, basically, I’m not to disclose the nature of my work or who I work with.”

Fiona’s frown deepened, “You mean, their names? You’re not allowed to talk about your co-workers?”

I shook my head, finishing a thirsty sip of my wine, “No, no- I mean, I’m not allowed to discuss any of the clients I work with- their names, how much they pay us, that kind of thing- or what we do for them, what services we offer.”

I recalled my conversation with two lawyers from earlier in the day. They were both egg shaped men in their early thirties, reminding me of Tweedledee and Tweedledum in appearance. But, when they spoke, their French accents clouded my earlier impression.

Le Dee and Le Dum both made it extremely clear that I was not to disclose any details about the clients with which I was soon to interact. No names, no characteristics, no impressions, no nothing. I was also not allowed to discuss what I did at work, job description or duties, or what services Cypher Systems offered. I could, however, communicate my job title if asked.

It was Marie’s turn to order; I took the opportunity to glance at the menu but Fiona pressed me on the subject, “I guess it makes sense…?” her voice trailed off as though she expected me to fill in a blank.

I turned my attention to her and found her elfin eyes softened with concern; I gave her a comforting smile, “Oh- it does, it does make sense. It’s not really a top-secret-I’d-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you thing, it’s more of a proprietary thing. Trade secrets and such.”

That answer seemed to pacify her because she returned my smile and let me go back to studying the menu.

CHAPTER 8

To my dueling chagrin and girlish-glee, I didn’t have to wait very long to talk to Quinn. It happened during my second week on the job.

Cypher Systems was an extremely efficient, well-oiled machine of a company and also very secretive. Almost immediately I learned the necessity of the non-disclosure agreement I signed on my second day and, at the end of the first week, I was beginning to feel confident in the general maintenance of my accounts, systems, and the structure of the business office.

I loved my new job.

I managed, what Steven called, all the “public accounts.” The public accounts were mostly moderately large businesses which used a subsidiary of Cypher Systems: Guard Security.

Guard Security provided security for various corporate properties, buildings, and personal details for CEO-types; I quickly discovered why Steven didn’t use column headings on his spreadsheets. Steven told me that Cypher’s firewall was under near constant attack; all data files and identities were coded so, for the first half of the coming month, during the bulk of my training, I wouldn’t know whose account I was working on except for by the code. After the first two weeks Steven said he would provide me with a code key on a flash drive and give me only one day to memorize which code belonged to which customer for each account.

Steven managed the “private accounts” which, from what I could infer based on his vague descriptions, were contracts with individuals, private citizens, or “families”; in addition to security, the contracts also often included investigative work. This subsection of the Cypher Systems was also a subsidiary and was referred to as Infinite Systems.

In addition to Guard Security and Infinite Systems, Cypher Systems had other holdings and was the parent company to a number of other businesses, but Steven and I were the only two accountants in the security division. In fact, Cypher Systems, if you didn’t count all the sub-companies, was actually quite small with only nineteen staff members in the office.

Even so, my company exclusively occupied the entire top floor and every office was a window office along the North perimeter of the building. According to Steven the offices and location were new; the company had moved into them just weeks prior.

There was no view of the lake from my window but, I noted, the north-eastern corner office likely had a respectable panorama. Regardless, part of me wanted to move into my office and live there; I found myself distracted by my amazing view of downtown and frequently pinched my arm to remind myself it was real. The rest of the space was mostly blocked off with only one heavy door as an entrance. In order to gain entry you needed to pass a five-finger and retina identity scan.

When I asked Steven what was inside the room he shrugged non-committedly and said, “Data storage.”

Because of the intimate office environment, with only eighteen co-workers, I met almost everyone by my second day. I counted Quinn in the total even though I didn’t know what his role was as of yet and even though I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since the Saturday before I was hired. Eight of the eighteen were accountants and either had my title of Senior Fiscal Project Coordinator or were titled just plain Fiscal Project Coordinator.

In addition to Carlos there was only one other director in the office, Director of Human Resources, and she didn’t seem to have any staff other than her administrative assistant. The rest of the group comprised of Keira- the receptionist and something of a telephone operator- one desktop support guy named Joe, two computer programmers, and another administrative assistant named Betty who I never spoke to but did see every so often when she walked by my office.

Betty worked for the company CEO, who also happened to be the CIO, CFO, and COO but everyone just called him ‘the Boss’.

It became clear to me that Betty and the Boss- or, as Steven called them, B&B- didn’t interact much with the rest of the staff. The Boss, it seemed, didn’t come into the office much. No one appeared to be surprised by his absence the entire first week or the second week of my employment so I didn’t actually meet him.

Betty was very stylish; maybe in her mid-sixties. She had steel grey hair, black eyes, and wore Barbara Bush pearls every day with a tailored skirt-suit. She didn’t come across as unfriendly; she just seemed really, really busy.

My Quinn-happenstance occurred on the Wednesday of my second week at Cypher Systems.

I noticed that I’d never seen Betty leave the office. She was there when I arrived, no matter how early, and she was still there when I left, no matter how late. Betty’s perpetual busyness prompted me to offer to pick her up lunch. I think I confused her at first because she repeated the word ‘lunch’ several times, as though it were a mythical thing she’d heard of in a bedtime story long ago.

Finally, with a plainly grateful smile she accepted the offer, requesting a vegetable soup, side salad, and giant oatmeal cookie from a deli called ‘Smith’s Take-Away and Grocery.’ It was a well-known deli, minimal grocery, and sandwich shop just one street over from our building.

I left early so I could eat out and still return before noon. The deli had a few tables, all along a far wall. I was sitting at the corner table re-reading one of my favorite comics, an anthology of a series, a bound paperback of an entire story.

When most people think of comic books they recall the small pamphlet style where there are only a few pages and, at the beginning of each pamphlet, the story picks up where it left off and ends with a to be continued. The larger, paperback bound anthologies are like watching an entire season of a TV show via Netflix or Amazon watch instantly. You get the entire series and can gorge yourself on the graphic novel in one epic sitting.

I loaned the anthology to one of the kids I tutored and he’d just returned it to me last week. Over the past two years tutoring I’d become something of a comic book lending library for the kids. I didn’t mind; they took excellent care of them and loved to discuss the story after they were done.

My thumb moved back and forth over the place where I’d torn the cover several years ago, my legs were curled under me, and I was just getting to the part where the really bad guy is just about to kidnap the good guy’s best girl when I heard a voice immediately to my left.