Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
God, my thoughts are all over the place today. I really need to get myself sorted. I want this job. I need this job. And even though Cain fires everybody who works for him, I don’t intend to be fired. I intend to be the best assistant he’s ever had.
I sit at the desk for hours.
From time to time, I hear Cain rumble inside the room. He really does sound like an animal sometimes. He likes to move, too. Some people would call it pacing. I would call it prowling. His shadow falls across frosted panes of glass from time to time. Every time it does, I feel a tightening low in my belly.
I should be doing something. I should be making myself useful. But that’s not what he asked for. He dismissed me.
So, I wait.
The door comes flying open suddenly.
Cain looks around, annoyed. Then he sees me and the annoyance fades.
“You’re here,” he says.
“I am,” I say.
“What’s your name?”
“Kira.”
“That’s an interesting name for a woman,” he says.
I’m surprised he thinks about it long enough to make that observation. I’m surprised he’s observing me at all. His eyes rake over me, and for a moment I think he’s going to say something else. But he doesn’t say anything. He tosses an envelope down on the desk in front of me.
“Give this to Branson and get yourself a computer. You will need one.”
“Do I ask Branson for…”
The door is already shutting.
If he wasn’t so incredibly magnetic and, well, rich, I’d say he was an asshole. Everybody at this company seems to suffer from a deficiency of basic common courtesy and politeness. Am I supposed to requisite a computer from Branson? Or hijack one from a commuter vehicle? The instructions are very unclear, and I feel my old self rising in response. I’m not going to make the mistake of being that girl again, though. I promised myself when I moved to the city, I was going to be different. I was going to be a good person.
I am a good person.
And a good assistant.
So, I go back to Branson.
“How do I get a computer?”
“You don’t,” he laughs. “Technically, you get it from Floyd, but he’s been on a go slow for a while now.”
“Where is Floyd?”
“He’s in the basement. You’re not allowed to go down there without clearance, though, which is why it is so hard to get a computer.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Lupin.”
“Yes. Tell Mr. Lupin,” Branson laughs. “Then you won’t have to worry about getting a computer, because you will have already been fired. Mr. Lupin doesn’t like having to do his underlings’ jobs for them. If he tells you he wants you to get a computer, he wants you to get a computer.”
So this is a test.
Alright.
I am equal to the task.
The basement is not what I expected. The building above is slick and sophisticated. Every envelope edge is perfectly crisp, not a speck of dust, that sort of thing. Stepping into the basement is like stepping into another world. It is dark, lit by one of those old incandescent light bulbs that throws an orangey glow over the little space it illuminates.
The elevator has opened up into a tight corridor that leads directly ahead. There are doors lining either side of it. Everything down here is shag carpet and veneer walls. Something straight out of the seventies. Not just vintage. Historic, maybe.
From where I’m standing, I can see that some of them are closed and a few are open. In the distance, I hear an odd mechanical sound. Sort of like a cross between a printer and a typewriter.
“Hello? Mr. Floyd?”
I call out relatively softly. I don’t want to interrupt whatever is happening down here, though it feels very still and very empty. Like something used to happen here a long time ago but no longer does.
I follow the sound, entering and exiting those coronas of light shed by bulbs that look as though the only thing stopping them from burning out is nostalgia. I tap lightly on doors as I pass, then attempt to open them when there is no response. Most of them are locked. The ones that do open swing ajar into an inky darkness that I feel no compulsion to explore. If Mr. Floyd is sitting in a dark room with the door closed, I am sure I do not want to disturb him.
I am starting to get nervous, and not the kind of nervous I get around Cain. This is an actually scared kind of nervous. There’s something very unsettling about this place. It doesn’t feel properly connected to the outside world. It feels as though I have entered another, well, ‘realm’ doesn’t feel like the right phrase, but ‘den’ does. There’s a scent in the air. Not musky or moldy, but masculine. Like this is a place men used to come, wearing aftershave of a kind that isn’t produced anymore.