Clarence pulled deep on the cigarette clasped between his stained fingers. The wind caught his exhale, blowing the smoke directly into Hudson’s face. Hudson tried desperately not to cough as his boss continued to exhort him.

“And that’s why I’m telling you – don’t be like other young people. Generation Z or whatever they’re up to now. Opportunity is out there, you just have to show up and work hard to take it.”

Clarence had pulled him out of his cubicle when he went for his mid-afternoon smoke-break; he did this almost every day that Hudson was in the office. Hudson hated it. The weather was freezing, windy, and when he got home, he smelled like smoke and his cat, Max, wouldn’t come sit in his lap. He didn’t know how to say “no” to his boss, though, and he supposed Clarence was trying to mentor him, in his own way.

“And that’s why I don’t like to see you on those new AI websites when I walk by your desk. Don’t be lazy. I am disappointed in your lack of work ethic... And I don’t know why IT hasn’t just blocked them yet. Wasting your time when you could be doing real work.”

“Um, the company has an enterprise account and pays for the service… IT sent out an email and a policy document, explaining how and when to use it. It’s actually very helpful when I’m writing macros or scripts in Python,” Hudson weakly interjected.

“Oh, we’ll see about that. I’m playing golf with Brad on Saturday,” Clarence said. He held his cigarette gingerly, shielded against the wind, as he took another puff.

Brad was the COO – Chief Operating Officer. All of the admin and IT functions reported up to him. Clarence was a director in sales operations, and while he didn’t directly report to Brad, they had been friends since they both joined the company some thirty years ago.

When Hudson finally made it back to his cubicle, chilled completely through and smelling like Lucky Strikes, he had a new email from his team lead, Noah, with an angry, red exclamation mark next to it that meant high priority.

From: Noah Anderson

Sent: February 15, 3:35pm

To: Hudson Appleseed

Subject: FW: Deck for Friday

Urgent deliverable for tomorrow’s customer meeting. See attached

Need by EOD

Call me with questions

Sent from my iPhone

From: Clarence Wilson

Sent: February 13, 11:37am

To:

Subject: Deck for Friday

Pls fix. Comments attached

Hudson opened up the presentation. There were about ten slides in the presentation, and every single one had comments like “update numbers to latest quarter,” “too many words,” and “add more insights.” His favorite was a simple “?”.

What was that “?” supposed to mean? And Clarence had sent Noah his comments on Tuesday! It was Thursday afternoon, and he could have been working on this all week.

It was 3:47pm. He usually left a little later than everyone else, at 5:30pm, to avoid the stampede out the door at 5pm, but getting this done by EOD, or end of day? Impossible. He wasn’t even sure where to start! He’d only been working at this company for a few months.

He called Noah, but it went to voicemail. As the afternoon and early evening wore on, he tried again, multiple times, but Noah never picked up. Everyone else had long left the office, but Hudson kept working on the presentation, doing his best to try to figure out what was wrong and to fix it. To do what Clarence had been telling him – to work hard, impress those around him, and seize opportunities to make an impact.

Midnight came and went. His eyes were blurry from the strain, and his eyelids kept trying to close themselves. Around 3am, he decided to lay his head on his desk briefly to rest his eyes, but he was asleep in seconds.

…

“Wake up,” a voice said.

“Hudson, wake up,” the voice said more insistently.

Hudson jolted awake.

“Noah?” he said as he tried to open his crusty eyes and look around.

“No. It’s Vince. Man, you are out of it. You fell asleep doing whatever this exercise was. But the director is telling us to line up. Hurry up.”

It had been a dream. A very realistic dream, but still a dream. One based on his memories as well; in reality, the only difference was that he had not fallen asleep, but had pushed through and finished the edits for Noah. He’d heard that the presentation to the customer had gone very well, and he’d been proud of his work.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

But that was then, and now, his reality was no longer spreadsheets and powerpoint slides. It was participating involuntarily in a secret society’s cultivation trial for its new members. It was standing in a line spooning food onto a tray, cafeteria-style. Like in school – or a jail.

What was real, what was a dream…

Hudson set his tray of boiled rice and vegetables down next to Vince and started shoveling food into his mouth. At that moment, he pushed the lingering disorientation from his vivid dream out of his head; he pushed the constant anxiety of being kidnapped and uncertainty of his situation out of his head. He didn’t care that he was physically exhausted and so mentally drained he could barely see straight.

He didn’t even care that the food tasted like mush and had no spices, salt or pepper. He decided that he only cared about one thing, and that was filling the enormous hole in his belly.

“I’ve seen some things today, but daggonit if the most impressive ain’t your ability to shovel this crap into your pie-hole,” Cor said. He was sitting across the table from Hudson and looking moderately disgusted.

Hudson ignored him. He hadn’t really understood him either; his accent could get a little thick sometimes.

After his third plate, he finally came up for air. Vince and Cor were chatting about their favorite tv shows back home.

“So, Vince, what does this word ‘maseki’ mean?” Hudson asked, interrupting their flow of conversation.

“Oh! Where’d you hear that from?” Vince asked innocently.

“From you.” Hudson stabbed a potato with his fork, stuck it in his mouth, and stared Vince in the eye. “You let it slip in the hangar while telling everyone else about our adventure in the rift. You know more than you’ve been telling me?”

“Ah yes, well…” Vince squirmed under Hudson’s stare. “Here’s the deal. I heard my parents talking about a special kind of mineral. Same way I found out what I know about S.E.C.T. I hadn’t ever seen any before, but after mining it, I just kind of put two and two together.”

“So what is it?” Cor asked.

“It’s very valuable. Probably the most valuable resource on the planet.”

“So like… more valuable than gold? Or platinum?”

Vince nodded. “Much more valuable. It’s very rare. The word itself means ‘magic stone,’ and most of what exists in the world today has been mined in Austria, Brazil, China and Japan.”

“Why is it so valuable?”

“I’m not too sure, but I suspect it’s used in cultivation. It’s valuable because S.E.C.T. wants it. My parents traded in it a little bit. If you find any on Earth, the people within S.E.C.T. will pay basically anything for it.”

Hudson looked down at his three clean plates and frowned. “So is that why you tried to keep some in your pockets? And not turn it in?”

Vince chuckled sheepishly. “So you saw that too. Yeah, was hoping to keep a bit, you know, maybe smuggle it out?”

“Are you going to eat that?” Hudson asked Cor, who had put his fork down and had about half a plate left.

“Go for it,” Cor replied, handing the plate over.

“Is that it?” Vince asked. His eyes were darting between Cor and Hudson, and he had a slightly worried expression on his face.

“Is that what?” Hudson replied with a question of his own, in between hurried bites. “Look, clearly you know stuff, and are keeping some secrets. Although, keeping them a bit poorly since they keep popping out here and there.”

Hudson’s thoughts went back to his former colleagues. The ones he’d trusted to look out for him. The ones who had tricked him, laughed at him, and pinned their problems on.

He put his fork down and shoved his tray back.

“I get it. We don’t know each other and just met each other less than a day ago. But I guess secrets make it even harder to trust people, right?”

“But Hudson, if we’re talking about secrets, you got some big ones yourself,” Vince said defensively. “Where’s that cultivation technique of yours come from? And how are you not from S.E.C.T.?”

“The kid’s got a point,” Cor said. “The only ones who were able to do anything except sit in their chairs and twiddle their thumbs for the past four hours were those with cultivation techniques. And that’s you and that group who have clearly said they are from S.E.C.T.”

“You fell asleep half-way through, but you still got 3 trial merits,” Vince said. “The only people getting points are from S.E.C.T…”

Hudson couldn’t recall precisely when he fell asleep, but he did remember when he completed the thirtieth pattern – the difficulty had ramped up considerably after that.

“Oh, nice. Was that a lot of points?” Hudson asked.

Vince snorted. “The number one guy from S.E.C.T., somebody named George, got around thirty trial merits.”

“Twenty-seven, to be precise,” Cor interjected. “But that’s besides the point. Tell us about this cultivation technique, kid.”

“I told you about my technique already. I just kind of stumbled onto it. But I also think I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t, so someone was watching me or found out about it.” Hudson paused as another thought struck him.

“Remember I said that I had destroyed my boss’s office? I wasn’t joking. Somehow I broke his wooden desk. With my bare hands. Like it was cardboard… Maybe that made it into the police report? and someone at S.E.C.T. monitors police reports for things like that?”

“I can see that,” Cor said. “Maybe it’s not so hard to do one of these cultivation techniques; it’s just that people don’t know how, and if they do figure out how, then they get picked up off the street by these S.E.C.T. goons.

“It’s a way to keep their power. If everyone had their special techniques, then they wouldn’t be special anymore, and two or three of them wouldn’t be able to just rip apart a whole company with their bare hands…” Cor drifted off into silence, frowning off into the distance.

“So if it’s not THAT difficult… does that mean…” Vince started to say before Hudson interrupted him.

“I know. You want me to teach you. Fine.”

“Really?” Vince said, excitement pitching his voice higher.

“Yeah. Cor – you’re welcome to join as well.”

Cor nodded.

“I’m not much of a teacher. No one taught me, and I’m not sure how it’s going to go.”