By Friday things were going very well. I could hold my field for over an hour and 15 minutes and I was finally ready to do some scouting. Carrying the backpack field had really helped and I walked around everywhere with it now. It was kind of neat having everything that I needed, but not have to lug it around.

After class, where Tyler wasn’t friendly but also not acting surly or ignoring my suggestion anymore, I got on the bus and headed downtown. I rarely traveled to the financial district, choosing to spend my time shopping instead. This time, I used the Waze app on my phone to find my way to my first objective, Sun Energy Systems. I was initially drawn to this solar technology company because of some articles written about them in the local paper. In general, I liked energy companies, as it was something that everyone needed, and I liked their environmentally conscious approach. Energy from the sun was free and it was only the ‘small’ matter of storing that energy that was the problem. Sun Energy Systems had some patents on new solar panels that were supposed to be a 10% improvement on their competitors, at a 20% discount. There were also hints in the article about how their R&D department had just had a breakthrough. I hoped that they could live up to the hype. I’d read about a lot of solar companies going bust lately.

I ducked into an alley one block over from the office tower where Sun Energy Systems head offices were located. They also had a research division, but that was out in the suburbs. Once I made sure that no one was looking my way, I turned on my field and shifted to R1. I felt the weight of the backpack return and I set a vibrating alarm on my phone to remind me when an hour had passed.

Making my way to the building, I walked through the front doors and past security. Sun Energy had their offices on the 5th floor and I climbed there using the stairs. I didn’t want to chance the elevators. As they were mobile, I was pretty sure that I’d fall through the floor if I was in R1. The stairs were safer, and I was in good enough shape that wasn’t even winded when I reached their offices.

Finding the presidents’ office wasn’t hard. It had to be in one of the corners and it had to have the best view. His secretary was busy on the phone and I walked behind her to peer at her computer. It looked like the call had interrupted her while writing an email. I waited for awhile, but she was very chatty, and I got bored. I wandered around the offices looking for anything interesting. There were no cameras anywhere that I could see, and I peeked into every office and closet just to be sure that there wasn’t a security system that I missed. As I reconnoitered the place, I listened to some of the employees talk about their plans for the weekend and I heard some salespeople trying to land new clients for their solar panels. It all seemed so ordinary. I eventually made my way back to the president’s office and checked out his computer. His schedule was open, and it only took a little while to see that their quarterly review meeting was happening next Tuesday. The finance and marketing departments were scheduled to give presentations, followed by the R&D department. Damn. The meeting was scheduled last four hours. There was no way that I could stay in the field for the whole thing.

With over 30 minutes left in my self-allotted hour of field time, I decided to check out the marketing department. If the meeting was next week, they had to have at least a sample quarterly report ready.

Marketing was a beehive of activity. You could tell at a glance that this was crunch time for them. I counted ten employees plus the division head. The name plate on his office read Peter Sweitz. Peter looked calm, but he was speaking very quickly to his assistant and with a lot of urgency in his voice. Apparently, their printing company had a machine breakdown, and everyone was scrambling to find an alternative supplier, just in case that company couldn’t print out their company report in time to mail it out to their shareholders.

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The confusion worked in my favor, as I was able to find the draft report and bring it into R1 with me. After verifying the date of the draft and seeing that it was printed out yesterday, I took out my digital camera and started taking pictures. I didn’t bother wasting time reading anything. Reading was for later.

Leaving the marking offices, I walked past the IT department and had a thought. If I was going to track this company going forward, it would be much easier if I didn’t have to come in every three months to see what was going on. Maybe there was a way to hack into their system and read their emails. I’m not talented when it comes to computers and hacking, but I could watch some people put in their passwords. If the company stored their files on the cloud, then it was possible that I could access their files from anywhere. All I would need was a username and password.

I spent my remaining time watching the IT people working on their computers. I had no idea what they were doing, but they certainly weren’t putting in any passwords. I was just about to leave, as my hour was up and I was into the ‘last 15-minutes’ buffer to get out of the building, when someone new came in and sat down at an empty desk. He must have been on a break or in the bathroom and now he was logging back into they system. I had my camera ready and set to video. I managed to record his finger flying across the keyboard, as well as the results on the screen. I just hoped that the recording would be useful, considering the slight distortion created by the field and the normal distortion you get when recording computer screens. Without checking to see if everything recorded properly, I quickly left the offices and the building. I had eaten quite a bit into my safety margin and there wasn't enough time to double-check my work.

Back outside, I made my way to the alley that I had disappeared from. Again making sure that no one was around, I shifted back to reality and took the bus back to the university. I was in possession of confidential corporate information that I had obtained in a manner that would most likely be considered illegal. I didn’t want to be caught with that information or leave any evidence on my computer at home and I also had to erase and then over-write the pictures and video that were on my camera’s hard disk. The university library and its computers seemed like the best solution. I could review the material on the camera and make notes, then delete everything. Best of all, the library had very few cameras and the ones they did have were mostly at the entrance of the library and at the all the emergency exits. I bypassed those by slipping into R1 and reappearing in an empty nook near the sociology books.

I spent the next hour taking notes on the quarterly report and figuring out what was important in the material. There was a lot of corporate jargon and spin to make the company look good. I’d have to find out what the financial analysts were projecting for the Sun Energy Systems in order to see which way to bet. Then I painstakingly went over my video of the IT guy putting in his password. I had to advance the video frame by frame because he typed so fast. By the time I was done, I was pretty sure of his password, but I had to put down two or three options for a few characters, as the field distortion messed up several frames.

I finished erasing the pictures and video, as well as formatting the camera’s hard disk and clearing the cache of the library computer and headed out to Uncle Magnum’s for evening classes. I had just enough time to grab a sandwich upstairs and do some stretching without being late.

Next week would be a killer week. I had to go through the whole thing with four more companies.