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1320 (1:20 civilian St. Louis time).

Jay sat dutifully at the security desk. Most of the time, he sat and looked at cameras, waiting for something to go wrong. He wasn’t sure what might require his attention. The laboratory might be attacked by animal-rights activists. To his relief, the laboratory didn’t have any animals (keeping the pests from infecting someone would probably drive him crazy). That probably wouldn’t stop someone with a dangerous combination of idealism, stupidity, and liquor. Or robbers might try the building, which had a lot of computer equipment and looked pretty stylish from the parking lot. Or a janitor hurting for hours might get some crazy ideas about covering his bills.

He spent the most time, and the most boring time, enforcing hundreds of policies on every conceivable workplace behavior. Windows had to be closed at all times (to lower air-conditioning costs). Camera-phones and other forms of data-storage equipment couldn’t be brought in or out (to help workaholics relax).

Of course, the building had to be secured at all times. He wasn’t sure how to ensure that, given that three nights a week he now worked completely alone, but he did the best he could. He figured that if that wasn’t good enough, he’d be given backup or be replaced (not likely, because there was hardly anyone alive who was more capable).

The nights were the worst, he thought…

“Mr. O’Ryan…”

That was unusual. Everyone in the security office called him Jay.

He swivelled around to find the laboratory chief, Dr. Mallow, peering down at him through scratched-up glasses.

“Dr. Mallow! Jay O’Ryan–” he thrust his hand out– “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Mallow’s grip was surprisingly firm for such an old man, Jay thought.

“I’ve seen you at lunch. If I remember right, you always sit with Mr. McMahon.”

Jay nodded. It wasn’t just Mallow’s grip that was impressive.

“I noticed that you spoke for a few minutes with Dr. Fox at lunch.”

Jay nodded gingerly. Had Fox, the damn prima donna, complained about the conversation? Why else would Mallow care?

“More importantly, I guess, you survived the encounter,” continued Mallow. “I’d like you to help us complete an ongoing psychological profile of Dr. Fox.”

“Sure. I’m hardly a psychologist, though.”

Mallow dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.
“It doesn’t take a psychologist to tell that Fox is, frankly speaking, full of himself and a bit insecure. He is also extremely bright and I don’t think that we could replace him readily, if at all.”

“He’s leaving the firm?” asked Jay, barely able to conceal his glee.

Mallow drew closer to Jay and his voice grew softer. “There have been rumors, some hushed whsipers that he’s suicidally depressed.” Mallow drew back. “Of course he’s prickly and hard to work with, but that’s probably a function of him being on a different mental level than many of his peers.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Mallow handed Jay a thin manila envelope.

“Inside is a list of questions we’d like him to answer. You can add whatever you’d like to strengthen your rapport.”

Jay didn’t say anything.

“You look nervous.”

“I don’t think that I am.”

“Maybe uneasy?”, Mallow probed.

“Well, this isn’t the kind of thing I’m particularly well-suited for. It worries me slightly that I might be the best person for this.”

“It is very difficult for anyone to know what they’re really capable of. I think you have strengths that may be hard for you to perceive now. I wouldn’t worry too much… in the worst-case scenario, that he commits suicide, you’ll just come back to this desk. You couldn’t be expected to act perfectly in this case, but I am confident that someone in your position would execute even an imperfect plan better than a trained psychologist.”

Jay nodded. It gave him a cold confidence that his job wasn’t on the line, but it was painful that Fox had maneuvered himself, or somehow been manuevered, into this position where Jay’s imagined strengths were somehow his best chance. He swivelled back to the monitors. There was no telling when Greenpeace would storm the building.

“Cute kid,” said Mallow. “What’s his name?”

Jay turned back to him. “What?”

Mallow pointed at a small framed picture of Jay wrestling his son at the park.

“Oh, that’s Rusty. He’s friendly enough, but he watches way too much TV. He knows he’s been seeing more of me and he thinks that I’ve been fired.”

Mallow waved his hand again and chuckled. “The project’s costs have run a bit higher than projected. We had to temporarily cut back on hours across the board. After we conduct our first tests, we’ll get another infusion of capital. I bet Rusty will miss having an ‘unemployed’ father when the hours are back to normal.”

“Kids. They never know what they want.”

“I’d drink to that, but you’d probably cuff me for bringing alcohol.”

“You know what Pemetex says about that.”

“Indeed. But surely a bit of champagne wouldn’t hurt Pemetex after we have our first test?”

Jay only gave Mallow a thin smile. It was Pemetex, and not Mallow, that had entered into a contract of employment with Jay. Plus, it paid him.

“It was nice talking with you, Mr. O’Ryan. Have a nice day.”

Jay went back to examining the monitors.

_________________________________
I thought that I was fairly subtle in this chapter.  Here are a few things that I hoped astute readers would pick up.

• A sense of weirdness about Mallow.  He sounds much more pleasant and chatty than most bosses would be talking to their underlings.  Also, he’s physically tough  and has an eerily close eye on his employees.
• Mallow MIGHT be really friendly.  He’s chatty and seems to care about the well-being of his employees (his concern about a potential suicide, mentioning Rusty’s picture, etc).  He MIGHT be really creepy.  He seems to care about the suicide only as far as Dr. Fox would be impossible to replace and we don’t really know why he mentions Rusty.
• Jay calls idealism dangerous but is a bit of an idealist himself.  He seems to care about whether Fox survives, even though they hate each other, and even seems to blame himself that there isn’t anyone better positioned to help him.
• Jay is some combination of paranoid and driven.  He acknowledges that the chance of the building being compromised is low but still focuses on the cameras.  I added the tangential discussion about Pemetex towards the end to show that Jay regards his side of any bargain very seriously.
• Mallow is explicitly not pressuring Jay to succeed in his task of helping Fox out of his troubles.  Although Mallow does a pretty good job addressing Jay’s concerns, I hope that readers still think it is unusual to make such a request of a security guard, particularly one that has a noticeably hostile relationship with Dr. Fox.  I don’t want the audience to realize it yet, but I am gradually preparing the audience for the revelation that Mallow has been plotting to murder Fox and make it look like a suicide.   Notice that Mallow doesn’t seem to care too much about whether Jay succeeds or not, even though he says that it would be hard to replace Fox.
• The project is having some troubles.  Hours are being cut back.  Mallow gives a rosy assessment but he gives very few details (like when the tests will take place, what is holding the tests back, why the project is over on costs, etc).
• The security at the lab puts a benevolent face on Big Brother, although there is no indication that Jay senses any impropriety.  The justification that Jay cites for the ban on camera phones is helping workaholics relax, which seems plausible at first glance.  The only reason any organization has ever actually banned such devices is to prevent people from smuggling information out to competitors or the press (or, in this case, the police).  It might actually be the case that keeping windows and vents closed reduces air-conditioning costs, but the laboratory has a somewhat less benign goal in making sure that people near the building aren’t prematurely exposed to its highly illegal chemicals.  I tried to draw parallels between the security at this building and a military organization– definitely not just some cosmetic lab.  This will help keep the reader’s credibility intact for when I discuss what the project is really about.
• Jay is very close to Rusty and doesn’t try to hide that.  When Mallow mentions the “cute kid” completely out of the blue, Jay says “What?”  There’s two interpretations there.  Jay might be actually confused about what Mallow was referring to.  Or Jay might be confused/upset about why Mallow was intruding into his personal life.  Given that the picture is just out on his desk, I think the first interpretation is more plausible.  (Also, if Jay were initially angry about the intrusion, I think that the conversation wouldn’t progress the way it did).

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