White Matter

First Day

James greeted me with news of my morning's schedule: a grand tour of the basement, the place where all the science was done. This never eventuated. While I was killing time, checking out my new workstation and waiting for James to complete his morning routine, an alarm went off.

All around the room people stopped what they were doing and looked at each other in bafflement. If this was a drill, they clearly had not been forewarned. Somewhere behind me I heard the words, "bomb threat", but there was no sense of urgency. Taking my cue from the unhurried movement of bodies toward the stairwell, I joined the exodus alongside Karen as we filed down the corridor. Ahead, James had slowed for us to catch him up, so I spoke quickly to start the conversation before he joined us, pitching my voice over the wail of the siren.

"One of these three is not like the others." I gave a quizzical look, challenging her to catch my meaning.

"I have no idea what you're trying to say, Kurt. None of us is remotely like the others."

"So what is someone like you doing in a job like this?"

She stopped momentarily to appraise me, bringing her to a halt a few paces short of James. The biker chick hardness was firmly in place.

"Is this some sort of divide and conquer tactic?" As soon as she had spoken she started walking again.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't change the subject. The subject is: what do you mean?"

James fell into step beside us. "What does he mean about what?" he asked.

"I'm just trying to make sense of my new job."

"Plenty of time for that. Seems the boss likes you."

"Does he? How could he tell? He spent the whole time yesterday lecturing me. Something about wanting to privatise our emotions. I barely said a word."

"Ah, the company pitch," said James. "I know it well. Wrote most of it myself. It's odd that he should have tried it on you, though. Its main job is to extract money from investors, not to provide a pep talk for our publicist."

"You wrote it?"

"Well, me and Graeme mostly. All that stuff about trust and economics, that's not what our Dear Leader is really interested in, you know."

"Dear Leader? Is that his official title?"

"Well, he has also been called the C-question mark-O, on account of his being very important but no one quite sure what he actually does."

I laughed. "That I can understand. He had a lot to say, but I couldn't quite work out what angle he was coming from."

"Understandable," said James. "The reverse won't have been true though. He will have had no trouble assessing you. Doesn't matter that you didn't say anything; it's the body language he watches."

"I thought he spent most of the time staring at his own knees, or the wall behind me."

I glanced around at Karen. She appeared content to follow us down the stairs, let James do all the talking.

"Don't be fooled," he said. "Lance Coriolis is not the boss because of any special expertise in the science of what we're doing, nor in presenting business plans to investors. He's the boss because he is the one with the relentless single-minded determination to achieve his goal, and because he is very good at choosing the right people he needs to do that. Now he's chosen you. So, welcome aboard."

"His goal? And why me? An ex-artist who has never written a paid word in my life."

James shrugged. "Mysterious ways."