***** Vol.4 Chap.29 Ready to work *****
After that initial encounter with Johan, JB did not see him much anymore. That was okay with her also since she worked better alone.
So, her life was really confined to her private room, the computer room, and the lunch room. In fact, she did not really see many people, not even at the lunch room. She saw an occasional guard or two, but they all seemed to avoid her. She began to feel that the lunch room was stocked only for her.
Being in an isolated section at the headquarters, she never saw any visitors down that section. In fact, there was no interaction between her and other company personnel. Her green key card did not open very many doors outside her immediate surroundings. Still, Johan looked her up occasionally and made sure she had everything she needed or wanted.
After a few days at the headquarters, she settled on her routine that comprised of spending the entire day in the computer room with meal times at the lunch room. One day, she went back to her room only to find a nice comfy bed with a soft mattress and accompanying box spring in the room fitted with fine linen and two soft goose feather pillows. She was delighted beyond all joys and slept extremely well that night.
The next day, she thanked Johan for the bed.
Her next project was to improve the snack selection at the lunch room. Her first request was a microwave to be installed. That came within two days.
Then further request for chef-prepared meals like what one normally would find in the frozen meal section in a super market. For late night snacks, she requested various kinds of ramen.
The food request seemed to take a bit longer. But soon she saw a small freezer in the lunch room. Checking everyday inside the freezer, nothing.
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Disappointed for a whole week.
But the following week, she began to see frozen meals hand prepared and packaged in the freezer. Not being a gourmet critic, she was just overjoyed to have some variety beyond the chef salad every day.
So far, she thought the living conditions were alright. Whatever she wanted, she just asked. And whatever she asked, that would be provided a few days later. For the miser in her, the best part was she did not have to pay for any of the provisions or things provided.
Most of the time, she got instructions on what needed to be done through internal emails from Johan. She would then access the datasets that needed to be processed and fine tune her algorithms and processed the data. The results were uploaded to Johan, typically within a day. The working relationship seemed to work well with them.
As Johan told her earlier, the datasets came from people before and after taking different doses of the synthesized protein. So, JB came up with a prediction algorithm that would estimate the degree of improvement based on the saliva data.
In her free time, JB still spent time on the computer browsing on what limited access she had on the internet. Google services were not censored so she kept informed with what had been happening in the outside world.
She had not forgotten about being paid either. The topic came up one day when Johan came to check on her.
“JB, you have been here for three weeks now. How are things going for you?” Johan asked while they were having a nice and quiet lunch at the lunch room.
“Livable, now that we have better menus in the lunch room besides chef salad.”
“Glad you approved our chefs’ cooking. I just wanted you to know that we had to hire a special chef just to prepare your meals according to your liking.”
“Well, I am flattered.”
“Say, how do you want to be paid?”
“I am glad you bring this up. I was thinking about my salary. Since everything is paid for here. I have no need of cash. Would it be possible to deposit my consulting fees to my bank accounts directly?”
“Of course. We will be happy to do so.”
“I have four saving accounts. How about a deposit in a different one once a week?”
“No problem there.”
“Er…what is my consulting fee?”
“Let me check with the management. I am going to ask them to deposit ten thousand dollars each week into your accounts. Would that be satisfactory?”
“Splendid.” A big smile on her face.
“By the end of summer, you should be able to purchase a nice house?”
“Well, maybe half a house?”
They both laughed.