Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I hurried to the bank of elevators and pressed the button about fifty times. Once an elevator arrived, I stepped inside and tapped my ID card to the reader. Thank god it worked, because I wouldn’t have survived a return trip to HR.
For the first time, I was able to press the button for the lowest level. When the doors closed behind me, I threw my arms in the air and did a happy dance. Finally, after four months, I was getting to the good stuff!
Moments later, the door opened to an empty foyer. The off-white wall ahead of me was totally blank, aside from a small sign that said “Archives.” It was in the shape of an arrow, pointing to the left.
As I hurried down the corridor, I hooked the ID to my lanyard and hung it around my neck. Moments later, I came to a pair of double doors, which were propped open with stacks of books.
That was extremely anticlimactic, after building it up in my mind for so long. It also made me think the archives might not be stuffed full of juicy secrets after all. If they were, the entrance would probably have an armed guard and a retinal scanner—or at the very least, closed doors.
The lack of impressiveness continued when I stepped inside. A waiting area to my left was littered with newspapers, and the furniture looked like it’d been put there when the building opened in 1962.
I went up to a long counter, which separated the reception area from row after row of crowded wooden shelves. There was a note written in neat, tiny lettering, explaining the obvious. When I tapped the little plunger on top of the bell, it got stuck and barely made a sound. I whacked it a few times before picking it up and shaking it, but all that produced was a dull rattle. Awesome.
Then again, maybe this was a good thing. I now had the perfect excuse to enter the archives without supervision. It wasn’t my fault if their bell didn’t work.
I let myself in through the gate, hurried to the shelves, and grabbed a stack of bound documents. It turned out they each contained reports and studies carried out by SPAM, and there were hundreds of them. I’d struck the mother lode! It was important to play it cool though, so I carefully reshelved the documents and went in search of my supervisor.
After a minute, I discovered an outdated office and stepped inside. Mail was piled up all around the desk, like a snow drift. When a rustling sound caught my attention, I froze in my tracks and whispered, “Please don’t be a rat.”
Suddenly, an Asian guy popped up from behind the desk with an armload of envelopes. A startled yelp slipped from me, followed immediately by a startled yelp from him.
We both stared at each other for a long moment. He was actually very cute, although it looked like he’d gone to a Halloween shop, picked out a costume labeled “Nerd,” and worn it to work. The outfit consisted of a white button-down shirt, khakis, a bowtie, and an argyle sweater vest. He’d completed the look by slicking down his short hair with way too much gel and adding a pair of glasses with clunky black frames. Well, that was all certainly a choice.
“Hey, sorry to startle you.” I flashed him a smile and got a frown in return.
He dumped the mail onto the desk and informed me, “You were supposed to ring the bell.”
“It didn’t work.”
“It didn’t?”
“Nah, you need a new one. That thing’s busted.”
“Oh.”
I waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, I pushed ahead with, “Anyway, my name’s Sam Miller. HR sent me down here. Are you Anderson Chen?”
“Yes. Sorry. I didn’t think they’d send someone so quickly.”
I tried out an even bigger smile. “Well, now that I’m here, what would you like me to do?”
He looked around before saying, “I guess we could use a couple of folding tables. There’s a lot of mail to process.”
“I’m on it. Anything else?”
“An office chair? There’s only one.”
“Tables and a chair. Got it.”
“And maybe some large boxes or bins for sorting? That would be helpful.”
“Okay, I’ll go track that stuff down.” I crossed the room and picked up a pen from the cluttered desktop. “I’m writing down my pager number,” I explained, as I scribbled the digits onto the back of an envelope. “If you think of anything else, send me a message.”
“You have a pager?” I lifted up the hem of my Hawaiian shirt to show him the little device clipped to the pocket of my jeans. “How do I send a message to that?”
“You must be new.”
“It’s my first day.”
“Oh shit, and this is where they stuck you? That sucks.”
That seemed to annoy him. “Why does it suck?”