The walls were all white, I noted belatedly as I looked around, looking up at the plain ceiling with those square tiles that covered the mess of wires between floors. The golden lights weren’t what I expected in this place. It must have been old, not to have LEDs installed. Or maybe it was a stylistic choice?
I went to the elevator, only to hesitate at the memory of the crowd of people. I glanced at the papers, then at the stairs.
Did I have enough energy to use them? It wasn’t like I had a reliable source of food…
An odd tingle ran through me, and a tension built up, but my discomfort broke through the logic, and I walked toward the stairs.
I had a reliable source of food, and it was this gold mine of a building. Even just pilfering pens and office supplies to pawn off would get me enough to eat.
If not, I always had the bins around the food places or the soup kitchens.
Opening the door, I stared at the well-maintained stairs. Walking up the nice stairs, the thirteen floors passed quickly, and while the door was locked my ID made the small gray box next to the door with a red light flash green.
Walking out, I hesitated, awed. The walls were still white and covered in random landscape pictures, but it looked a lot more grandiose than I’d expected it to, compared to the rest of the building.
Each individual black tile had a swirl of gold within it, and the golden lights made the black-framed paintings and pictures seem all the more fancy. While the hall was empty of decoration outside of the pictures, there were doorways all along the long hall, and at the end was a room leading to heavy-looking double doors.
I walked quietly, glancing behind me. The elevator was directly across from the double doors, and as I walked closer, I heard a man’s voice.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” The man spoke. Was he the CEO’s secretary? Assistant? Both? Either? The voice was light and young, and when I walked into the room the young man was the second thing I noticed.
The first was the vending machine hidden in the left corner of the room, out of sight of the elevator. It had drinks, mainly water, and other healthy options, and chips. Glancing around I saw some tables and chairs to the right, presumably for those who had to wait.
Looking at the secretary, he was thin and looked only a little taller than me, his eyes a peridot green that stood out and his hair a very messy light brown.
He had stood up when he saw me, and we stared silently at each other for a very long moment.
Didn’t we have an interview at the same time? He was just as new as I was.
“Uhhhhhh,” The man said awkwardly, looking down, at my ID, “Oh!” Relief flowed through the man and he slumped back down, gesturing at the door, “He said you can go right in no matter what unless it’s locked, so just go in. I think he’ll want you to leave them on his desk.”
My lips twisted into a sheepish grin at the awkward staring contest we’d gotten into, “Okay, thank you. Sorry.”
I walked into the office, the door heavy as hell.
“Sorry…?” The secretary murmured to himself, sounding confused. The door closed with a heavy thud as I observed the room.
Directly in front of me was a black leather couch, its back to the wall of the giant floor-to-ceiling window. Adjacent to the couch, both facing the glass table before them was a leather armchair. I glanced to the right, the same direction the armchair was facing, and saw two vibrant ferns acting as sentries to the midpoint of the rectangular room. At the rightmost end of the room, facing the leftmost, was the desk of the CEO.
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It held a monitor and keyboard, papers stacking up around the man. Behind the desk and to the left was an industrial printer against the wall.
I walked toward the desk, eyes scanning the dark wooden desk that looked like dark chocolate from afar. As I walked, I noticed the CEO. His hair was neat and black, and his eyes were covered by elliptical glasses. He was either Asian or Latino, though based on his facial structure I would say Asian. His nose was what was making me hesitant, but rich people have had nose jobs before, I mused as I looked around. Almost directly behind the man to the right against the wall was a metal basket with yellow plastic on the corners, though it didn’t have any papers in it.
He didn’t look like he was doing much, drinking a coffee and idly leaning back in his office chair as he scrolled through something on his monitor. Through his glasses, I would say it was probably his email.
I set the papers down on the corner.
“How often do you want these delivered? I wasn’t told,” I said, ignoring the butterflies brutally tearing into my stomach and heart, twisting my blood vessels and nerves around.
While the man was attractive, I held no hope that the butterflies were because of that.
“Regularly throughout the day,” The man responded.
I couldn’t help the way my basic, thoughtless smile blanked, my eyes going dead. Yes, I got that, “Of course, I meant do you want them hourly at any specific time? Zero mark, fifteen, thirty, forty-five…” I listed, voice as kind as I could make it.
The hand harboring the coffee mug set it down, “Hourly would be fine. The forty-five minute mark.”
“Thank you,” I said, gesturing at the yellow-marked basket, “I presume that’s the basket that will hold what I need to return?”
“Correct.”
“Of course. Have a good one,” I said, turning and leaving the papers on his desk. I pulled out my phone the moment I was out of his sight.
“Yass girl!” The secretary said excitedly, his tone and accent wildly different from what I’d heard before. I glanced up, looking back to my phone as I saw the man was on his own personal phone.
Huh. Was he gay?
Either way, I needed to set an alarm for… How long did it take me to walk up thirteen floors? I’d set the alarm to go off every hour at XX:40, that should work.
Nodding to myself, I did so, now having eight more alarms. 05:40 rolled around, and I got up from the chair I’d found and dragged next to the baskets. Glancing over, there was nothing in the red-cornered basket and a small stack in the black.
Did they really need a full-time intern for law paperwork? What, were they getting sued 24/7? Picking up the papers, I read through the one on top as I walked.
It was a contract between two companies. It was kind of weird, and I was pretty sure there was a spelling error. It was Kageson, not Kagesin, right? Wait, wasn’t kage a Japanese term? That meant the owner was Asian. Nice, my detective skills were amazing!
My lips twisted up at my own thoughts as I scaled the stairs.
No way was it Kagesin. Shadow-sin was a bit of a weird name for a company. Wait, did I work for a shadow company? Or, like, a company that owned a lot of other companies?
Reading through another document, I saw it was another contract between two companies, but it was different.
Was the CEO constantly trying to acquire other companies? No wonder his legal team needed a paper gofer.
I nodded to the secretary as I walked in, setting the papers down and walking to the basket.
“You are three minutes late, it is five forty-eight,” The man said, his deep naturally warm voice sounding cold.
“I didn’t know how long it would take me to get here,” I replied as I picked up the many papers that were being sent back, reading through them, “I’ll improve as time goes on.”
A beat of silence goes by as I struggle with the last paper which was emotionally attached to the bottom of the metal bin, struggling to stay and evading my grasp. What, did it want to get married to the bottom? Come here, you bastard.
“You did not inform me there was an urgent paper.”
“Was I supposed to?” I asked begrudgingly, setting the other papers down on the ground and upending the bin. The paper gently floated out, crying for its beloved with outstretched corners.
I spitefully grabbed it, throwing the bin back down and crouching to grab the other papers. My glare frightened one that hadn’t come with the others, my next attempt to pick it up was easy.
“How long have you been with this company?”
“Unless unpaid interns are supposed to clock in, about an hour. If they are, technically I haven’t been with this company at all,” I replied, standing up with a sigh of relief and striding toward the door, “Have a good one, I’ll tell the lawyers to add a sticky note or something to the urgent pages.”