Day 7

Sunday, June 12, 2045

Kaden was trapped.

Voices outside the conference room grew louder. Kaden ducked down under the window, peering through the vertical blinds at the open office area.

He saw two figures approaching. A woman and a man. He felt his face grow cold as he recognized the man striding confidently this way.

Alexander Wolfe! What was he doing here? Kaden thought.

But then the answer came to him immediately. This was the 10th Floor, and Kaden was sneaking around on Sunday afternoon trying to see what he could see while no one was working. Except that there were actually other people working the weekend, including Alexander Wolfe, the VP in charge of this year’s internship program. He should have thought of that!

He dropped down below the conference room window, desperately trying to be quiet. Quickly he activated the invisibility ward, and slowly the outline of his form disappeared. It also left Kaden completely in the dark, but he could still hear the voices approaching. And then he heard a hand on the door knob.

He didn’t dare to breathe. He didn’t want to think of what would happen if he were discovered snooping around in places he wasn’t supposed to be.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Kaden thought.

“You haven’t seen my coffee cup, have you?” a voice came through the open door. “Ah here it is! Right where I left it after Friday’s meeting.”

Alexander strode into the room, took a mug off the table and left. He locked the door on the way out.

Kaden took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Gradually, his heart rate settled back down. He waited a good ten minutes without hearing anything before pushing himself to his feet and looking around.

Despite his slowly receding terror, Kaden was still keen to make the most of his weekend foray to the 10th Floor. He certainly didn’t want to leave empty-handed.

He walked up to the whiteboard at the front of the room. There were names of interns written on the board in the three columns. On the left, there were only five names. Patricia was at the top of the list. On the far right, there was a list of about ten names, with about half of them crossed out. He noticed Braiden was one of the crossed out names.

In the middle were the remainder of the names, including his, Bill and Jill’s. About twenty names in total.

A few of the names were circled, with arrows pointing right and left. He and Bill’s names were circled, with an arrow pointing to the right. Mariko’s name was circled and pointing to the left. He took a quick photo of the board.

They expect Mariko to move up to the top tier and expect me and Bill to fall to the lower tier, Kaden thought.

While not exactly what he was hoping to find, it was good to know where he stood. He and Bill would have to step it up this week. In fact, it would be best if they both made a measurable improvement on the leaderboard by the end of today.

Sneaking quietly back out of the room, he locked the door from the inside and closed it quietly. When he had been snooping around earlier, it had been the only unlocked room on the floor. It seemed strangely unlucky that he had run into Alexander Wolfe in the same room at the same time.

Kaden hurried quietly back through the maze of cubicles in the middle of the open floor plan on his way back to the elevator. With his anti-grav counterward, it was just like walking around normally. The ominous debuff effect was still there, but since he knew it was artificial, it was easier to fight off the abnormally high anxiety.

Thankfully no other surprises waited for him as he made his way down to the cafeteria on the 3rd Floor, where Bill and Jill were waiting for him. He knew they wanted to talk about the meditation sessions they had all completed yesterday.

Each of them had spent time in individual meditation yesterday afternoon, going through introductory tutorials which covered basic breathing and visualization exercises. At first Kaden had found the tiny meditation rooms somewhat claustrophobic, since they were only about a meter wide on each side, just enough room to sit down on the mat provided.

He didn’t feel any different yet, but the training program said that with consistent daily practice, he should see gains within the first two weeks. He felt that was too long to wait, given the urgency of his situation, so he had decided to double up on the meditation sessions and do two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening every day for the foreseeable future. It would make for a long workday, for sure, but it was one of the few things he could do to help improve his chances. He was determined to do whatever needed to be done.

And as made his way through the nearly empty cafeteria, that was why he was surprised not to run into any interns. Only his team had been in the office this weekend, as far as he knew. None of the other interns seemed to feel the same urgency as him.

“Hey guys,” Kaden said. “How was your morning?”

Bill and Jill were already at their normal table in a quiet corner of the cafeteria. Both looked up and welcomed Kaden.

“Did you see the message from Carol yet?” Bill asked.

“No, not yet,” Kaden said, pulling up his mobile to check his messages.

His eyes sped through the message, which had been sent just five minutes ago.

“Is this really what it sounds like?” Kaden asked.

“Yeah bro – ‘Plus’ initiatives for the interns. Project-based work outside of your day job,” Bill said.

“This answers the question we had yesterday about the points. The only way for the whole program to get enough points will be if enough people complete the extracurricular Plus programs,” Jill said.

Kaden finished scanning to the bottom of the message and looked up. “So any manager can create one of these ‘side quests,’ and if you complete it to their satisfaction, you and your team will receive the points as a reward.”

“I just checked the link in the message to the Intern Project Board, but there’s only one listed so far,” Jill added.

“What is it?” Kaden asked.

“Document destruction, for Human Resources,” she replied.

“Let’s do it. Today.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“OK, but why today?” Jill frowned.

“No time like the present,” Kaden said and tried to smile. He wanted to get up and run to the 6th Floor, but held himself back. This was a great chance to get ahead.

“I agree with Kaden,” Bill said. “Gotta strike while the iron’s hot! But honestly, if we wait, someone else will get to it first.”

“Alright let’s go. Sixth floor – I know where Carol’s office is,” Kaden said.

“Actually – this says to go to the Basement level,”Jill said, hastily finishing her last french fries before standing up to follow Bill and Kaden.

“Also – guys, sorry but I have to take off later this afternoon,” she said. “Family thing.”

Kaden paused to turn and face Jill. “Oh! Ok sure – no problem. Will you be able to help us get started?”

Jill nodded, and the group made their way to the elevators. Kaden wondered what the family thing might be, but didn’t press for any more information. It was important to remember they all had lives away from work, a fact that Kaden was starting to forget.

“Uh, Bill, do you mind messaging Carol?” Kaden said. “She and I aren’t exactly best friends.”

“Sure man, no problem,” he replied, pulling up his mobile.

Carol responded right away and said she would meet them in the lobby of the basement level.

Despite making deliveries all over the Tower, Kaden had yet to go to the Basement or any other levels lower than the first floor. He had heard there was a medical facility on one of the lower levels, but otherwise he knew nothing of what lay underneath the Tower. Both Bill and Jill were in similar situations.

As they made their way to the elevator, Kaden asked the group, “So do you guys know what the other interns are doing?”

Bill shook his head. “There’s other interns in the marketing department but I don’t see them much. They’re working on other stuff. But I don’t think they’re very busy, because I see them all the time in one of Marketing’s special conference rooms, practicing with wards and gunswords.”

“Special conference rooms?”

“Yeah, same basic idea as the big gym spaces on the 4th Floor, but a lot smaller. Can’t do all the same exercises, but there are options to practice fighting some basic monsters either solo or as a team.”

“Can anyone use those rooms? It’s getting difficult to schedule time on the 4th floor.”

“Nah, afraid not, bro. Only managers can reserve those rooms. When I asked my manager, he said those rooms were pretty much fully booked for the rest of the month. It must mean the other interns’ managers booked the rooms for their own use.”

Bill raised his hand and tapped his head. “But now that you mention it, those rooms might be free late in the evening or really early. Could be a back-up option for us.”

The special treatment the other marketing interns received was definitely unfair. As they entered the elevator cab, Kaden opened his mouth to complain about it, but Bill cut him off.

“I know what you’re thinking, but just remember. We have our own special advantages. I’ve got the special R&D collab I’m working on, you’ve got access to a ton of floors on the tower. And Jill – “

Bill turned to Jill, who had been quiet the whole time.

“Tell us what you’ve been up to, Jill. I’m sure you’ve got something special happening in the Purchasing department.”

Jill frowned. “I don’t know, not really. Iqbal and Roger barely do any work and goof off all day. All they do is play some game on their Company mobiles. I end up processing almost all of the requisitions assigned to our group.”

At the mention of a game, Bill perked up. “Game on Company mobile? Is that a legit Company app? Or something sideloaded somehow?”

Jill shrugged. “It’s a Company app. Some sort of strategy slash platform game. I tried it out a little, but I’m not big on video games. Apparently it’s supposed to help you understand standard Company tactics and monster fighting techniques. If you do well in the game, you can earn points to push up your individual ranking on the intern leaderboard.”

“Interesting,” Bill said, appearing lost in thought. “I’ll have to take a look at that.”

Kaden was thinking about what Jill had said about the requisition process. He had a thought, something they might be able to use later. “So you know the whole purchasing process? How stuff gets requisitioned, approved and purchased?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s nothing special though. Sometimes I have to go in and fix orders, but that’s about it.”

“Can you show me how it works later today?”

“Sure. It’s easy!”

At that moment, they arrived at the first basement level and the doors opened into the bustling lobby of the Company’s onsite medical facilities. Service desks lined the far wall to process the people in the waiting area. Signs to corridors off to the side pointed to various departments.

Carol was waiting for them and approached the group, waving her hand and smiling her typical cheery smile.

“Hello and good afternoon on this fine Sunday,” she said, beaming at Bill and Jill. She avoided looking at Kaden. “Glad to see a group of eager beavers ready to take on their first Plus assignment! Follow me this way please!”

Carol led the group down a long hallway, then took a right turn, then a left, then another right. When Kaden was completely confused and certain it would be difficult if not impossible to retrace his steps, they stopped at a storage closet.

Carol explained as she opened the door. “In here you’ll find copies of records that need to be destroyed.”

She opened the door and turned on the light. Rows and rows of shelves stacked high with paper document boxes filled the room.

“All of these need to be destroyed?” Jill asked. It was a huge room. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of boxes.

“Yes, that’s right. What you’ll do is take each box from this room to another room down the hall where you’ll incinerate the documents.”

Carol showed them to a tiny room barely bigger than a broom closet. Inside was a simple steel box with a slanted drawer. Operation was simple; load the drawer, close it, hit the big red button, whoosh. Documents went up in smoke – literally, up the pipe on top of the incinerator and out of the room. The whole process took about one minute.

“So every document in that room goes into this incinerator?” Bill confirmed.

“Yes, and I want to doubleclick on one thing,” Carol said. “Every document must be destroyed. Nothing left out or leftover. Understood?”

They all nodded.

“The reward for this assignment is two hundred points each and six hundred points for your team total. I’ve already updated your security profile to give you access to these spaces for the next week.”

“Why does the Company have all these documents in the first place?” Jill asked.

“Oh you know,” Carol said, waving her hand. “Legal requirements. Enough time has passed, though, so the Risk department told us to go ahead and get rid of everything. No need to keep it around if the government can’t come looking for it, right?” She made an awkward heehaw of a laugh, but no one else got the joke.

“Ok then, I’ll leave you to it – let me know if you have any questions!” And with that, Carol departed.

The group looked at each other, and Jill sighed. “This is going to take a while.”

“No time like the present to get started,” Bill said, trying to sound encouraging.

“What was it you said earlier, Bill?” she asked. “‘Strike while the iron’s hot?’ Something like that?”

Bill laughed sheepishly. “Ha! Yeah I guess I did.”

“Great assignment for our first Plus initiative, guys. I hope it’s worth it,” Jill said sarcastically and walked off toward the storage room. Bill followed close behind.

Kaden remained in the hallway, thoughts racing. It might take a lot of time and effort, but this was the break he had been looking for. Access to old Company records! There had to be something in here that would give him a clue as to what happened to his father and their family business.

He jogged to catch up with the others.

“Time to find some answers!” he said to himself.