Machine Of Death (38 page)

But she was the superstar. This was the type of problem superstars were supposed to
solve.

“Well, you
know
why he’s on about the drug-testing,”  Julio said, working his chair’s pneumatic lift in spurts, becoming shorter inch by hissing inch. “The thing
does
work, as far as that goes. It’s just—only for him, is the problem.” He twirled in a circle. “Well, and for me too.”

Kelly looked up slowly. He’d lost her completely. “Back up like ten steps.”

Julio spoke seriously, confessingly. “I…I’m addicted to overtime, Kelly.” He buried his head in his hands. “I got my eyes on some new rims. They’re shiny—
so
shiny.”

“No, what did you mean, ‘it worked for Jack’?”

“Oh, man, you know he tested positive, right?” Julio spun back towards his computer, clacking keys like a machine gun. An overflowing email inbox appeared on his screen. “Tested himself the first day.
COCAINE
AND
PAINKILLERS
.”

“Oh my God,” Kelly said, leaning towards the screen. “That makes so much sense. That explains so much.” And then she realized what it was that she was looking at. “You hacked Jack’s email?” 

Julio turned to her with a shrug. “Not so much ‘hacked’ as ‘guessed a ridiculously obvious password,’” he said. “I mean,
jackisgreat?
 Seriously, it was my first try.” 

That night, she spent six hours drinking beer and reading through Jack’s email. 

She discovered all kinds of stuff in that ill-sorted inbox. He was “involved” with half-a-dozen airheaded bimbos from a handful of sleazy dating sites, but that was par for the course. He was continually buying Vicodin from Mexican pharmacies, which was like a puzzle piece fitting firmly into place. And he seemed to have written to everyone he could think of who might shed light on his “hypothetical” ProntoTester result: several people from China, plus a bunch of people at various university email addresses.

Running a search on the addresses popped up a series of file attachments sent from the Chinese client. She couldn’t make much of the actual messages because they largely seemed to refer to phone conversations he’d had with Jack (and were written with a command of English best described as “good try”), but the attachments were English-language research papers, apparently from the American team that had originally developed the C-18 algorithm.

She clicked the first one open, eager for any clue as to what the device was actually meant to
do
. Unfortunately, the papers weren’t much easier to read than the manufacturer’s fractured English; all the scientific charts and technical jargon left her lost. She did, however, read with interest the list of initial results the C-18 had generated for the research scientists themselves:
WATER
,
STROKE
(like her own result), ASLEEP—and, disturbingly,
HOMICIDE
.

For an alcohol-addled second, she forgot that Julio’s “Machine of Death” infomercial had been a joke. She sat very still in the darkness of her living room, letting the implications settle around her like ash from a distant volcano.
STROKE
sounded like it could be a way to die.
HOMICIDE
was
definitely
a way to die.

But then she remembered Jack saying that the lead scientist (who’d drawn
WATER
) had gone on to die in a plane crash, and with that realization came the reassuring reminder that the ProntoTester’s slips were simply, maddeningly, just random words. Nothing in the research seemed to indicate anything different—although she had to admit that she didn’t understand much of what it did say.

Even still, Jack had clearly gotten
really
agitated about
COCAINE
AND
PAINKILLERS
.

And Julio
did
put in a lot of
OVERTIME
.

And she had been on the crew team in college.

Creepy coincidence, right? It
had
to be. Just…just
logically.

To set her third-beer, one-A.M. mind at ease, she scrolled through file after file of lab notes until she found a mention of the plane crash. It was a brief note on the very last page, describing how the Cessna returning the scientist from a meeting in New Mexico had suffered engine failure over the desert. 

Following that, she read some sketchy notes about a sudden loss of investment capital, and the subsequent termination of the research. Nothing at all about
WATER
. 

She closed the files and paced around the room awhile, telling her hands to stop shaking. She popped open another beer before returning to Jack’s inbox, and was just starting to feel better when she read about the lawsuit.

Forget “building”—the class-action suit was
built,
over a hundred people claiming that the non-stick coating on the Fat-It-Out pans had flaked apart above 150°F. Which wouldn’t have been so bad by itself, except that the coating was also, apparently, highly toxic.

She felt her gut constrict as she read a message from Jack to his attorney, idly suggesting that
she,
as producer on the campaign, should have conducted “scientific trials or something” on the pans to determine their safety. The logic being, if it were Kelly’s fault that
JBE
sold shoddy pans, then—conveniently—it couldn’t have been Jack’s fault. 

Luckily for Kelly, the attorney seemed to think that the excuse would stick about as well as the coating on the pans. Jack was pissed.

She sat frozen for several minutes, unable to stop her mind from reeling. He was even more of an ass than she’d thought. Who knew what else she’d still find, lurking in that digital Pandora’s box of malice and despair? More plots to undermine her that she should know about?

She kept digging, and found a message from two weeks ago in which
[email protected]
had written: “Dear Mr. Bogg, I would love to speak to you about the creative team involved in the Fat-It-Out campaign, which I understand has been very successful for your company.”

Jack had responded, in his typical idiom, “thanks! home-grown here at
JBE
. that’s why they pay me the big bux!! just kidding.”

Rockefeller+King had come
looking
for her. Jack hadn’t told her, and true to his word, hadn’t even mentioned her name to them. 

She ran out of beer.

When she woke up, her first thought was about her pounding headache. The second was about Rockefeller+King, a potential lifeline out of
JBE
. And she had to get word to them before the news broke about the Fat-It-Out lawsuit.

She tried to remember if Marty was one of the tousle-haired hipsters who’d scoffed at her in her interview—but that was so long ago she couldn’t remember any of their names.

She called R+K. A receptionist answered. Marty was out. Would she like to leave a message? Yes, that would be great. Her heartbeat drowned out the ringing.

A youthful recorded voice informed her that he was on vacation for the next two weeks.

Damn.
Damn.
The beep caught her off guard. She licked her lips and launched in. When she hung up she walked in a circle and repeated everything she’d said. Then she revised it. Mentally backspaced over it and made it better. For herself.

She almost called back, but what would she say? Who would she talk to? She couldn’t think. Too much to consider. Too much to manage. The ProntoTester. Damn it!

She drove to
JBE
with so many things rattling in her mind that by the time she arrived, she’d already forgotten the trip itself. She parked by the planter without noticing that the lot was mostly empty. The college kids had been laid off, one by one, as Fat-It-Out sales had slowed.

No blast of cold air greeted her at the front door. A far-off buzz betrayed a fan oscillating in Jack’s office. The folding tables where the college kids had worked were empty; the rows of computers were dark.

She found a cardboard box in the breakroom, and methodically emptied her cubicle. It took her awhile. She was surprised to find that it was difficult to do.

She gently pulled a thumbtack from the carpeted wall and took down her calendar. This Thursday had been circled in red for weeks now. “Ship to network affiliates,” it said.

Her conscience screamed at itself to get to work, then screamed back to burn this place to the ground. She closed her eyes, and tipped the scales with a mental slide-show of Jack’s constant
awfulness,
trying to recall every leering touch, every shady business deal, every pointless hour of weekend overtime selling junk to idiots. The lawsuit. Trying to sell her out. Her hatred frothed and roiled. Every muscle in her body wanted to strike something.

“Hey!” Julio’s voice almost threw her into the cubicle wall. She snapped her head up and nearly knocked over a standing lamp. Julio ducked back around the corner, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s…it’s all right.” Kelly plucked a soft black rubber band from her desk, the last refugee of her belongings. She pulled her hair back, tugging it tight, unable to do it any other way.

“Moving to a new office?” Julio asked slowly, looking around, reluctant to voice the other, more awful possibility. 

“Something like that,” she said. She struggled for something to say but couldn’t think of anything appropriate, so she turned to the desk behind her, weighing the advantages of taking the stapler home with her.

He shrugged. “Look, I’ve been reading his email for years,” he said. “I know it hits you hard at first. Getting the rock-hard truth of how crappy this business really is.” He glanced down the hall, not meeting her eyes. “Then I look at my time card, you know?”

“I’m happy for you,” she choked, and rushed past him, down the hall and into the office’s one small bathroom, hearing his half-apology echo out behind her before she closed the door and lost it.

It came out all at once: the long hours, the awful products, the constant harassment, the lies and manipulations and good-ole-boy attitude that she thought she’d been too smart to fall for. Jack had played her, she knew—giving her rope to hang herself, then reaping the benefits when she hadn’t, taking the praise and the profits for himself. She wanted to storm into his office and…and…and what? Staple him to death?

She knew she couldn’t face him. He’d launch into some buttery, enthusiastic monologue and she’d walk out of there an hour later having signed a five-year contract or something. If nothing else, he was good at what he did. He was a salesman, through and through.

If she could just crawl out to her car and leave this place behind, she decided, that would be victory enough for her. Leave his Pronto-Tester campaign high and dry. Leave him wondering. It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t cathartic. But it would get her out of here.

She reached for the knob, but before she touched it, the door crashed open and Jack almost bowled her over.

“Oh! Door wasn’t locked! Didn’t know you were in here!” he squeaked through a faceful of red tissues. His bloodshot eyes widened around the clumped mass, a crimson ribbon suddenly tracing a line down his chin and spotting onto his rumpled shirt.

“Eep,” she gulped, ducking out into the hallway as he slammed the door. She heard the water turn on; then he hacked, blew his nose, coughed, then blew his nose again. 

She realized she was staring at the closed door. Then she realized that this was her chance to escape.

Julio was waiting by the front door with her box of stuff in hand. Without a word, he held the door open for her and they walked across the parking lot side by side.

“You sure everything’s in here?” he said. “Sorry, I just grabbed it.”

“Thanks,” she said. 

Once the box was in her car’s back seat, they stood still for a few seconds, knowing this was goodbye.

“I know you need to do this,” Julio said. She nodded, but realized there was more he wanted to say. 

He seemed to chew on the words for a while, eventually coming up with “ProntoTester is still due on Thursday.”

“So run your spot,” she said. “The Machine of Death. Cut it down to twenty-eight thirty, put the blue-card on the back. Heck, record a narrator. Make it look good. Make it look serious.”

He looked up at her. “You really want to put me out of a job?”

“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “Not with you, anyway. You’d find another gig.”

Julio shook his head. “Look, I understand you’re mad. I read those emails. I know how he screwed you over.”

“You knew? Great,” she spat. “Thanks for telling me about it.”   She opened the car door and slung herself into the driver’s seat. The faster she could leave this place behind, the better.

“Wait,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s not—I mean, look, a
lot
of vile stuff goes on. After awhile you just stop noticing. It was nothing personal.”

She started the car. “So do it,” she said. “Run the spot. Say it was my idea. I don’t care, I’ll take the blame if it means…” There it was. There was the thought she’d been dancing around. “If it means it brings him down. Brings the whole company down.” 

It was said. It was out loud. It was real.

Suddenly it even seemed
possible.

“I got a good thing going here,” Julio said lamely.

She felt something weird. She glanced up at the rearview mirror and realized that she was smiling. It would be malicious to air the joke spot. It would be
fun
.

“You know you want to,” she said. “Just make sure you cash your check first.”

It had been so long since she’d had this kind of time to herself that she felt paralyzed. 

She paced her living room, waiting for anything. A text message from Julio. A call from Rockefeller+King. Any indication that she’d done the right thing, that her decision had made
any
sort of difference at all to anyone.

Jack called. She didn’t answer. He called again. She sent him to voicemail.

She had trouble sleeping, so she bought more beer and spent the night sending press releases to every news outlet she could think of, promoting the Machine of Death—”new, from the makers of Fat-It-Out.”