Jeffries smiled at the young lady across the reception desk. She briefly returned his smile before pretending to find something on her computer monitor that required her attention. He could tell she was pretending because of the hesitant yet random noises her long fingernails made against the keyboard as she pecked at it.
He broadened his smile, letting his eyes wander away from her. Her current indifference wouldn’t matter for long. Soon he’d be installed into his new position and he’d rise up the corporate ladder and women like her would take notice then. They always noticed men with potential. It was just human nature.
And his career path was full of potential. He’d made sure of that. His father had given him wise advice, to abscond from the “basket-weaving” majors of arts and humanities and to find a trade: Lawyer, doctor, accountant. A skill people needed and companies were willing to pay for and Jeffries was sure he had found the best one – finance. A combination of lawyer and accountant, telling others how best to keep, secure, and grow their money, was an occupation that people were willing to pay top dollar for, if you were good at it. And Jeffries was very good. He’d seen to that. Years of hard work, starting young, through university, internships, and now here. In the halls of one of most powerful corporations on Earth, he’d work even harder, learn more, and rise through the ranks.
Jeffries continued to smile, even when Mr. Childs hustled into the lobby. Not that Jeffiries wouldn’t be happy to see Childs – the older man had been the one to hire him, had been his advocate, and would surely be his mentor. Until Jeffries replaced him, of course. But seeing him hustle into the room did take Jeffries aback. Instead of his usual calm, Childs’ energy bordered on manic, elbows and knees bustling as he came in. The suit that was usually buttoned down over his thin frame was disheveled, the jacket opened, the shirt underneath wrinkled, and his tie askew. A patina of sweat covered his balding head.
Jeffries felt his smile falter, but held it. He stood while buttoning his own suit, making sure the picture of him was exactly what he wished to project before going into the words he’d prepared. He would tell Childs he was glad to see him, that he was grateful for the opportunity, and was looking forward to getting to work.
He was opening his mouth to say all of that when Childs said, “You have to leave.”
Jeffries felt the confusion that statement caused fracture his carefully maintained smile and his entire speech. He channeled all of that into a forced chuckle and a hesitant, “What?”
Childs continued as if his next statement were explanation. “You can keep the signing bonus the company provided you, but you have to leave.”
Jeffries felt the lawyer in him begin to rise – there was a contract in place, agreements had been made. His future was at stake. Jeffries felt his internal diplomat calm that attorney even as the latter was laying hands on and arraying the weapons he would use to destroy this impertinence. Surely all of this was a misunderstanding. He began his foray into whatever weird negotiating technique Childs was trying to initiate with, “I don’t understand.”
With a frantic energy moving to panic, Childs grabbed his newest junior hire by the elbow and turned him towards the glass and chrome entrance (now exit) of the lobby. “You have to go.” Jeffries thought he might have heard the older man’s voice crack.
Jeffries pulled his elbow from the other man’s grasp and planted his feet firmly. “Sir!” Jeffries put steel into his frame, telegraphing his unwillingness to move. “What is going on?”
Childs opened his mouth as if to repeat his demand, but stopped to wipe sweat and the phantom hair of younger years off his brow. His mouth wagged, making guttural noises, until he repeated, “You have to leave.”
Employing the stern voice his father had used with wayward servants, Jeffries responded with what he thought to be a reasonable claim. “Not without an explanation.”
Childs’ hand reached out again, but then stopped, sense the younger man sink his feet into the marble floor of the lobby. His eyes darted to the receptionist as if she might be able to help him, but the young woman only stared at him with wide eyes. Finding no harbor there, he returned to Jeffries.
“You,” he faltered again, but continued after a moment’s hard stare from Jeffries. “You’re familiar with the new accounting system?”
“Lycurgus? Of course.” The new accounting system was all the rage in corporate America. Jeffries had made becoming familiar with a priority – competency with the latest technologies was one of the reasons he was hired.
“It wants you to go.”
“It,” Jeffries placed emphasis on the pronoun, “wants me to go?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t –”
Childs launched into further explanation. “The network team was having issues getting the latest updates to install. So one of them suggested removing some of the system inhibitors. We’ve been losing money and time trying to get everything up and running, so I gave the go-ahead.” Childs paused to stare Jeffries in the eyes. “And that’s when it came online. It’s locked down every system in the building. Maybe the entire corporation. We can’t access anything. It’s been communicating a series of demands through a terminal on the third floor. One of those demands is that you leave.”
Finding out a newly artificially intelligent system has a grudge against you was perplexing. “Why me?”
“It’s an accounting system. You’re an accountant. It doesn’t feel that your necessary.”
Jeffries bridled. “I’m more than an accountant, sir. I can read the health of a company from balance sheet, see industry trends developing, find the best way to merge newly acquired companies –”
Childs stopped him cold with a simple, “Lycurgus can do all that. It’s already printed out a 5-year plan.”
Jeffries stopped, marveling at what should be impossible. With the regulatory environment changing as rapidly as it was, a 5-year plan should be unrealizable.
He blinked that away and replied, “Sir, we have a contract in place –“
“Lycurgus told us you’d say that,” Childs interrupted. “If you did, it told me to ask you, what happened to Stephanie Hearst?”
A flash of old memory stopped Jeffries’ further speaking: a bedroom, upstairs from a high school party, a girl, prone and unconscious. A secret Jeffries thought no one else knew.
Childs took him by the elbow, more gently this time, moving him towards the exit. “I can’t explain it myself, but with Lycurgus ransoming all of our systems, you have to leave. When we figure something out, we’ll be in touch. But for now,” he pushed open one of the doors, “you have to go.”
Outside, Jeffries stood under a graying sky, alone and uncertain of where to go.
See the author’s published work here.
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