Free Energy

Copyright © 2022 by Lexa Gibson.

ISBN-978-1-63767-392-8 (Paperback)

ISBN-978-1-63767-391-1 (Ebook)

LCCN: 2021915533

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Prologue

Ryan tried to strike up a conversation with the pretty blonde girl he’d always been attracted to. He never said anything the many times he’d shared the elevator with her. She’d always get off on the ninth floor, three floors below his. Today, he decided to say something. Anything would be better than only exchanging polite smiles with her, though her smile always made his day.

‘I thought the missing thirteenth floor thing was just a myth,’ was all he could think to say, pressured by the scant time he had as they were nearly at her floor. He wasn’t all that happy with what he said.

‘OK, maybe don’t say that, though,’ he thought to himself, regretting having said it until she slowly turned and smiled at him.

‘I’ve always wondered about that myself,’ the pretty blonde replied, glancing at the elevator buttons, and reminding herself of the missing number thirteen.

‘The question is, did they renumber the thirteenth floor, or is there an actual floor between twelve and fourteen?’ she added, giving Ryan something to think about before they arrived at her floor, and the elevator doors opened to let her out.

‘My name’s Ryan, by the way,’ he quickly blurted out with a touch of desperation in his voice as the blonde was walking out of the elevator when he said it. She turned and gave him another pleasant smile.

‘Nice to finally meet you, Ryan. I’m Lucah Goldstein,’ she managed right before the elevator doors closed, replacing her with his own brightly beaming door reflection.

Even though he knew there were security cameras in the elevator, he couldn’t help doing an excited jig. Imagining but not caring, the security personnel were currently laughing at him. When the elevator stopped at the tenth floor, however, he immediately stopped his little victory dance mere seconds before the doors opened. Two gentlemen wearing a black suit and tie and dark glasses flanked him, with the one to his right about to press the twelfth-floor button but appearing to change his mind and pressing the fourteenth-floor button instead, as Ryan had already pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

Ryan looked at the black-suited gentleman to his right and then the identically dressed one to his left.

‘A bit early for Halloween, isn’t it, fellas?’ he mused to the unflinching gentlemen.

‘Let me guess. You’re going as The Men in Black, right?’ They both slowly turned their heads to the corporate employee they didn’t know without uttering a word. Even with their eyes, quite thoroughly covered with the dark glasses that contributed to his comment, Ryan seemed to know they were squinting at him angrily.

‘Hey, take it easy, fellas. Don’t neuralyse me, whatever you do,’ he laughed, trying, but failing, to get a rise out of them. They both just stared at him with angry, stiffened jaws, not flinching in their intimidating glares.

‘Besides, didn’t you get the memo? We don’t typically do Halloween in Australia,’ Ryan added, still trying to get conversation out of them. He gave up trying to get a reaction from them.

‘Stimulating conversation,’ he mumbled to himself when the elevator doors opened on his floor. He quickly scurried out, and when the doors closed, the gentlemen looked at each other via the door reflection. After a pause to make sure they had ascended far enough to be out of earshot, one of them spoke.

‘See what I mean, Carl? We stand out like dog’s balls with these ridiculous glasses on,’ he said, continuing a conversation they were having before the elevator doors had opened to let them in.

‘What do you expect me to do about it? Take it up at the next meeting,’ Carl replied, pressing the button to stop the elevator as he said it.

‘I will.’

‘Do it,’ Carl dared his colleague, looking directly at the elevator security camera to his left and signalling them with a nod.

‘I’m going to,’ his colleague responded with conviction. Carl turned and faced the elevator buttons. His colleague knew Carl wasn’t looking at the buttons but looking at a small head-up-display projection on the inside of his sunglasses, sent by the security personnel he’d signalled, revealing the reason they were wearing the glasses that so vexed Carl’s colleague. It displayed the randomly generated button pressing combination he would have to do to proceed. Carl’s colleague continued his rant.

‘It’s so stupid. I may as well call you Agent C while I’m at it,’ he said; such was the embarrassment at being mocked by the corporate employee that got off on the twelfth floor.

‘Well, if you can think of a better way to do it, tell them. Not me,’ Carl urged his colleague, nudging his head to the same security camera.

‘Besides, if you called me that, they wouldn’t be able to tell us apart,’ Carl reminded he’s colleague. He then followed the instructions he’d received, pressing the number twelve button three times and then the number fourteen button twice. The final procedure was always the same. He pressed and held both buttons at the same time for several seconds. After he released the buttons, they illuminated a bright red instead of the usual yellow, confirming the key pressing combination code was correctly inputted. A small panel at eye level recessed in slightly and then slid to the right. Carl pulled his glasses down to the tip of his nose and looked over them to allow access for the retinal scanner he’d opened. Once his left eye was scanned and his identity confirmed, a hidden light halfway between the number twelve and number fourteen buttons illuminated. It was the number thirteen that, when touched, led to the secret thirteenth floor Lucah and Ryan had only joked about.

The dark glasses had one final security check, one that always made Carl very nervous, but for some inexplicable reason, not his colleague. Both of their sunglasses had a micro-engraved bar code situated at the top left of the glasses frame. When the elevator doors opened at the thirteenth floor, the bar code was scanned by a sentry turret gun. Carl was tensely aware what would happen if their bar codes failed to properly confirm their identity. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the turret gun swap out the red scanning light for a green confirm light. It always crept Carl out when the turret gun camera would follow them as they walked around it to the open windowless floor level.

The high-rise building that hid the secret thirteenth floor had been purposefully engineered so it would be less likely to be noticed when looking at it from the outside. Each floor leading up the thirteenth floor was imperceptibly and incrementally smaller in height than the last. Then every floor after the thirteenth was gradually increased in height from the previous, making room for the secret floor.

As soon as their female colleague saw them enter, she waved them over with a serious frown on her face.

‘What have you found, Agent E?’ Carl said to Ellen.

‘I think I’ve found something. But I—what . . . what did you call me?" Ellen asked, only reacting to what he’d said after it registered in her mind.

‘No. Nothing. Something Chris and I were talking about in the elevator,’ Carl replied, too lazy to explain the joke.

‘The AI found something?’ he assumed, asking the question to get Ellen back on track.

‘Yes. It flagged an Internet user at this IP address,’ she responded, pointing to the Internet Protocol address on the screen.

‘That would make it somewhere in Victoria.’He already knew from having seen a similar IP number combination before.

‘He’d used keywords and phrases like energy, alternative power engineering, and free in his Internet search,’ she responded.

‘Uh-oh. Our client won’t be happy about that,’ Carl said until he noticed an unusual AI flagging.

‘I wonder why that was flagged?’ he said to Ellen as if she would know.

‘Yeah, that seemed strange to me too,’ she agreed, pointing to it to show Chris.

‘VW Beetle?’ Chris read.

1

A girl. Young, petite, so very beautiful. Lightly curled red hair at the length of her middle back. With eyes like sapphire green emeralds and pout red lips. Her cheeks sit high on her face and are lightly sun kissed with a subtle dusting of freckles. She is working feverishly to finish up her last ever project for Vitalic, the furniture design company she works for. It’s her last day of work, and she doesn’t want to finish up halfway through a design. As much as she enjoyed working as a designer for this company, she recently received a job offer she couldn’t refuse. So, she reluctantly gave notice and has only just finished the task of training her replacement. A girl she had become good friends with doing so. Just as she was thinking of her replacement, she had just finished sneaking up behind her, approaching her at the only opening to her boxlike, heavily partitioned office desk. She was more than a bit concerned that her mentor was still working as she frowned at her before speaking.

‘Patricia Adams. Are you working today, of all days?’ she asked, playfully annoyed at her. Patricia was the name she deliberately used as a slight insult, as she much preferred to be called Trish. Her replacement, Jody Bright, was a vehement ponytail wearer. At work, she always wore her hair this way. Though it was a different story away from work. Jody Bright was a blonde-haired, round-faced girl who enjoyed dressing up for work. She always wore immaculately pressed pant suits, and today was no different.

‘I think it might be against the law or perhaps a breach of your employment contract to work on your last day,’ she told her with a mock worried look on her face.

‘Against the law, huh?’ Trish replied, smiling.

‘Well, it should be. Nobody should have to work on their last day.’

‘I just wanted to finish this up. I didn’t want to throw you in the deep end.’

‘Don’t worry, Master Jedi. As your Padawan, you’ve taught me well,’ Jody joked, trying her hardest to convince Trish to stop working.

‘Oh my god. You’re such a nerd.’ Trish laughed.

‘Shut up, bitch! And stop working already,’ Jody jokingly replied, physically picking Trish up out of her seat and attempting to take her away from her desk.

‘Besides, it’s too late,’ she added, looking at the office PA speaker. She knew that the receptionist was about to make an announcement. And right on cue, the speaker vibrated out the very announcement Jody was waiting for.

‘Attention, all staff. Could you please assemble in the canteen?’ the feedback-induced, squeaky female voice abruptly announced, scaring Trish, as the company announcements had always done for the entire seven years that Trish had worked there.

‘Now, that I won’t miss,’ Trish said, pointing to the PA speaker in the corner of the office.

‘All right. Let’s get this over and done with,’ she added, resisting Jody, who was pulling on her, so she could save her work on the computer.

As they made their way to the factory canteen, along with everyone else in the small factory they worked, Trish was still a little concerned about the project she hadn’t quite finished.

‘I saved the file under the name ‘love_seat04’," she was telling the slightly uninterested Jody as they walked.

‘I called it ‘love_seat04’ because it’s the fourth version, and it was named—’

‘Uh-huh,’ Jody interrupted, clearly not listening.

‘And you’re not really listening to me, are you?’

‘Look, I’ll be fine. This is your last day. Just enjoy it. You’re going to work for Audlin Motors, the best car company in Australia. As of now, you officially work for them,’ Jody insisted. Trish looked at her with an awkward, worried smile.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she hesitantly replied.

‘I’m not sure I’m the right person for the job,’ she added, clearly a little nervous about her career promotion.

‘Perhaps I should’ve knocked it back?’

‘Oh, come on now. You’ll be fine,’ Jody reassured her.

‘You’re an excellent designer. You’ll be all right.’

‘Yeah, but a car company? What would I know about designing cars?’ Trish said with doubt in her voice.

‘They wouldn’t have offered you the job if they didn’t think you could do it. You’ll be fine,’ Jody repeated. Trish was only partially reassured as she smiled at Jody, still a little bit worried whether she could do it.

‘Yeah,’ she eventually said to Jody with increasing confidence in her tone.

‘Piece of cake,’ Trish added.

‘Piece of cake,’ Jody agreed. With that, Trish stopped her friend from walking and gave her an unexpected but firm hug.

‘Thanks for that, Jody. I’m going to miss you,’ she muffled into her shoulder.

‘No, thank you,’ Jody replied, a slight tear welling in her eyes. She forced Trish’s hug apart as she wanted to look into her eyes, which were also tearing up a bit.

‘This isn’t goodbye, you know. I expect you to keep in contact with me,’ she said to her, smiling.

‘Yes, I will,’ Trish replied. Trish looked around to the canteen entrance they were near and then back at Jody, still holding her. Trish smiled at her friend.

‘Here we go,’ she said, referring to the sometimes-awkward speeches she herself had been privy to when others had left the company. She took a deep breath and, other than Jody, was the last to walk into the canteen where all her friends were waiting. As if walking into a pub, her friends simultaneously yelled out to her.

‘Hey!’ they all yelled.

‘Here she is,’ the man at front and centre had added. It was her boss, Colin Simmons. Although he started at Vitalic Furniture after her, he quickly gained everyone’s respect. He was a tall, thin man with curly, black hair and a thin moustache. Trish remembered that she and Jody had referred to his moustache as a porno mo, resembling the moustache of an old 1960s porno star. Trish turned to Jody and smiled at her, reading her mind. She knew Jody was thinking of the boss’s porno mo too. It was a joke between just the two of them, something they had noticed when the boss first started there. But despite their private joke, they respected him deeply.

‘Come on,’ he said, waving her up the front to join him.

‘Up you get,’ he added, pointing to an imaginary spot on the floor next to him. Trish approached the spot amongst a barrage of handshakes, pats on the back, and hugs, finally getting there slightly overwhelmed.

‘Thank you. Thank you,’ she said to everyone like a famous rock star taking an ovation. She was smiling brightly, giving everyone a final look at her clean white teeth.

‘Now, Ms Adams,’ the boss started, rather apologetically obtaining a note from his pocket. Because Trish worked at Vitalic Furniture for longer than him, he had to do his research and ask around about Trish’s work history.

‘First of all, I like to apologise for having to write this stuff down,’ he said, waving his note at them.

‘But seeing as Trish has been here for seven years,’ saying ‘seven years’ a bit louder and receiving some applause from the crowd, who all agreed was a significant achievement.

‘And I’ve only been here for nearly three years, I decided to do a bit of research on Trish,’ he said, smiling to her.

‘For example, did you know that Trish nearly lost her job two days after starting here?’ he started. Trish buried her head in her hands, embarrassed at what she knew he was referring to. Her friends laughed, as they, too, knew what the boss was about to say. Colin raised his voice slightly over the laughter.

‘Yes. As most of you know, Trish managed to crash the entire computer network. On her second day here, no less."

‘Onya, Trish!’ a male voice yelled out, followed by enthusiastic applause.

‘Yes, thank you. Thank you,’ Trish replied with an embarrassed bow, retroactively proud of that particular achievement. She waved her hands at them with embarrassed acknowledgement.

‘Thanks for that, everyone,’ she added sarcastically. The boss continued.

‘Apparently, the former boss took sympathy on her, being a bit of a technophobe himself.’ Trish smiled as Colin had actually reminded Trish about that fact.

‘I also found out another piece of trivia about our Trish Adams here,’ Colin said, looking at her suspiciously while stroking his moustache. When he spoke his next words, he turned and looked at Jody, only to see her face become increasingly shocked as he spoke.

‘This moustache doesn’t look like it belongs to a 1960s porno actor at all,’ he said and then looked over to Trish to witness that her facial expression had mirrored that of Jody’s. Colin had a fair idea what both were thinking as they looked at each other, reflecting their shocked looks. Both were standing with their hands partially covering their wide-open mouths.

How the hell did he know that? Colin felt sure they were both thinking to each other.

Everyone else in the room didn’t really know what was going on. Some of them laughed rather unconvincingly anyway, only pretending to be in on the joke. Trish and Jody were the only ones that had once referred to the boss as having a porno mo, but that was a long time ago, when he first started at Vitalic Furniture. Colin Simmons quickly established himself as an excellent boss, where it didn’t take him long to earn everyone’s respect. Trish and Jody hadn’t called him porno mo for a long time. Colin saw how embarrassed they were and quickly moved on. He only wanted to let them know that he knew about the nickname.

‘Trish took a while to warm to everyone,’ Colin quickly continued, almost sounding like he was changing the subject.

‘I have it on good authority that when Trish started, the girls working here didn’t really like Trish that much.’

Trish smiled and nodded her agreement. Most of the girls were a little intimidated by her looks, and the men thought she was a bit stuck up. Though Trish remembered that it was because she was extremely shy, given that Vitalic Furniture was her first job after completing her university degree. She was overwhelmed by the place when she started, intimidated by working for the first time in her life, by starting her career. But she won them over, by being herself as it turns out. Colin echoed her thought.

‘But Trish soon made a place here at Vitalic Furniture and soon became a very dedicated, hard-working, important person at this fine company I’ve had the privilege to work for.’ The boss softened his tone a little bit when he spoke his next words.

‘But seriously, Trish, I think I speak on behalf of everybody when I say that we are going to miss you.’ Trish fought back a tear.

‘Thank you,’ she softly mimed at Colin.

‘I think we can all agree that Trish has made some significant achievements in her long career here at Vitalic Furniture.’

‘Here, here,’ another male voice agreed.

‘Not the least of which was this pull-out sofa bed,’ Colin accompanied his words with a photo he pulled from a Manila folder on a canteen table near him. It was a photo of the sofa bed he spoke of. Showing it to everyone received another round of applause. He was forced to raise his voice again.

‘An award-winning sofa bed, no less,’ he added, amplifying the applause. Trish took another bow, waving her appreciation of what she agreed was one of her career highlights.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ she beamed.

‘I, for one, would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your hard work and dedication.’He smiled at Trish, leaving pause for some others to silently agree.

‘And to wish you all the very best at your new job at . . .’ He stopped to look at his notes, momentarily forgetting the name of the car company she was about to go to.

‘Audlin Motors!’ he read, followed by an enthusiastic smile once he realised it was Audlin.

‘Wow! Audlin Motors. That’s great. Good for you,’ he added, slightly jealous.

‘I know you’ll do great works there too.’ Just as he finished saying that, the receptionist approached with a card and a small gift. Almost forgetting about the card and gift, he spoke again.

‘Ah, yes. We took up a collection and we got this small gift for you," he said, presenting the card and gift to her. He offered his hand for her to shake, which she was more than willing to do so.

‘Speech!’ a male voice yelled.

‘Speech!’ a female voice echoed. Trish was hoping to forgo this part, not that good at speeches. Unlike the boss, Trish didn’t write a speech and was caught unprepared. She was secretly hoping she wouldn’t have to do one.

‘Um . . .OK . . .first of all . . .thank you, everyone, for the gift and card,’ was all she could think to say. She paused just long enough for there to be an awkward silence, after which she thought of something appropriate to add.

‘I’d just like to say that I’ve enjoyed very much working here. And that’s because of all of you. It’s the people that make this company great, and I wish you all the very best for your future. I’ve made some good friends here.’She paused again and looked at her best friend, Jody, who acknowledged her comment with a smile. Trish smiled back to her.

‘I’m going to miss it here,’ she finished, hoping people would know that she had finished her impromptu speech. There was another awkward silence, enough for Trish to think that they didn’t know she was finished. Just as Trish felt compelled to add something to break the silence, a male voice yelled out.

‘Onya, Trish!’ he repeated, clearly the same male that had yelled it out before. Everybody applauded after his comment as he saved Trish from having to say anything else. She couldn’t help but look a touch relieved by that. Everyone came over and took turns to wish Trish a fond farewell with affectionate and genuine hugs and kisses. Trish felt she had no reason to feel sad as she hoped to keep in contact and see them all again. But she couldn’t help feeling a certain sense of loss. She knew that despite her good intentions, she would be too busy at her new place to see them again, until it got to a stage where they would all be but a happy memory in her past.

It is now time to look to the future, Trish thought amongst the well-wishing.

2

Trish arrived at her new place of work. She drove up to the front gate with some trepidation. Her old place of work was quite small and certainly didn’t have a guard at the front gate. The guard didn’t seem all that interested in Trish’s arrival. He had his feet up and was watching a football match. He seemed quite annoyed to have to do his only job and check on Trish. He quickly swung around in his seat and abruptly greeted her.

‘Yes? Who are you?’ he asked.

‘My name’s Trish Adams. I’m starting work here today,’ she replied, not being able to contain her excitement. Apparently, that excitement wasn’t contagious as he rolled his eyes to her with not even a hint of discretion in his manner. He looked at his list, got about halfway down it, and then Brentigast kicked a goal for the Bulls.

‘Yes!’ he screamed, turning in his seat, and losing his place.

‘Go, Brenty,’ he added. Then he started at the list again, got about a quarter of the way down, and then realised he’d completely forgotten the name he was looking for.

‘Sorry, what was that name again?’ he asked, leaving Trish to wonder what name he was looking for when he was checking the quarter of the list.

‘Trish Adams,’ she repeated with a rather annoyed tone in her voice.

How long could this list be? she thought as she watched him turn to the next page.

‘No. I don’t have you on my list,’ he said, one eye on the footy match.

‘I have a Patricia Adams?’ he questioned.

‘Yes, that’s me. Trish is short for Patricia,’ she thought she didn’t have to say. She was tempted to add a ‘duh’ in the end but didn’t. He then fumbled through a filing cabinet to his right. He got about halfway through that when the umpire made a rather dubious decision against the Bulls.

‘Oh, come on, ump! That was in the back! What are you, blind?’ But this time, he at least did Trish the courtesy of saving his place in the filing cabinet before looking at the television. When he returned his attention back to the cabinet, he almost immediately found what he was looking for. He pulled out Trish’s pass and handed it to her.

‘Here you go. Don’t lose this,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, but he did not hear her as something else in the football match had caught his attention. He just waved her off as he pressed the button to open the gate and let her in. Trish drove in and went around the corner to catch a glimpse at how big the factory really was. Only a small portion of the factory could be seen from the front gate. But as she drove in, the huge scale of the factory overwhelmed her.

Man, this place is massive, she thought.

She found a parking spot and parked her car. When she got out, she looked around a bit guilty. She knew how territorial people could be about their parking places. She hoped she wasn’t parking in anybody else’s spot. Trish had with her a small box of things, as she wasn’t sure how much she could or was allowed to contribute to her office space. So, she deliberately didn’t come with that many personal items. She figured she would feel them out first and then add some more of her personal items, if allowed, later. The grounds at the front of the factory were very well kept and expertly manicured. In fact, the gardener just happened to be there as she walked past.

‘Morning, ma’am,’ he said, tipping his hat to her.

That’s more like it, she thought, hoping that the man at the gate was in the minority.

‘Morning,’ she replied with a friendly nod. And before she knew it, she was at the front door. She paused before she entered, finding some calm with a deep breath, more than a little nervous. She entered the offices of the factory, and when she did so, it was like stepping into another universe. The peaceful, quiet, and calming front gardens were in stark contrast to what was going on inside the office area. There were people everywhere. They were organising something. There seemed to be more people than this tiny office space could accommodate.

Trish didn’t know what to do. She walked to what looked like the visitor’s reception area, but there was nobody there to greet her. It was then that she realised that she hadn’t entered the offices at all. She was in the foyer of the factory, and it quickly became clear to her that there were so many people in the foyer because they were organising a group photograph. People were beginning to line themselves up in no specific order, much to the annoyance of the controlling hired photographer. His somewhat feminine-sounding voice was yelling orders to people who weren’t particularly interested in listening. He clearly wanted people to arrange themselves in order of height, but people were just standing next to their friends, height be damned.

As Trish watched the photographer lose his cool, the phone rang. Not only was there nobody there to answer it, but also nobody seemed to be rushing over to do so. It occurred to her to answer it herself, but she wasn’t sure she should. Though she did. She quickly placed her small box of meagre personal items down and grabbed the phone.

‘Yes, hello,’ she said and then thought to add the name of the company in the end.

‘Um . . . Audlin Motors. Can I help you?’

‘Yes, hello. I’d like to speak to Scott Reeves.’

‘I think Scott’s pretty busy at the moment. Can I take a message?’

‘Can you tell him that his magazine subscription to Model Makers just ran out, and we were wondering if he would like it renewed.’ Trish threw herself over the rather high reception desk and grabbed a pen and paper and quickly wrote the message, repeating what he said to confirm what she was writing.

‘Scott Reeves. Model Makers magazine. New subscription. Got it.’ She put the phone down and finished writing what she had confirmed.

‘Sub-scrip-tion,’ she said as she wrote it down in a stunted manner that made it obvious, she didn’t quite know how to spell it. She then underlined and overdid a full stop and then, as a courtesy, wrote down the time she received the message. ‘8:20 a.m.’, she wrote.

Just as she finished writing, a feminine voice startled her. It sounded like the photographer, and Trish turned, expecting to see him. It wasn’t the photographer but a short-haired, dark-eyed brunette girl. She had a warm friendly smile as she immediately looked at Trish’s name tag.

‘Hi. Trish? Is it?’ she said, extending a hand.

‘You must be our new designer?’ Trish shook her hand and then immediately looked at her own name tag, relieved that it read‘Trish’ and not ‘Patricia’.

‘Yes, that’s me. Hi,’ she replied.

‘I’m Bonnie Young. I’m one of the designers. Nice to meet you, Trish.’

‘Nice to meet you, Bonnie. What exactly is going on around here? Is this a class photo or something?’

‘Yes, something like that. We’re doing a photo of all the Audlin Motors team to put in some advertising media.’

‘I see,’ Trish replied.

‘Now that you’re here, you may as well join us and be in the photo.’

‘Oh, OK. Great.’ With that, Bonnie took Trish’s hand and dragged her over to everyone, who had finally started to listen to the photographer and had nearly finished organising themselves in order of height.

‘Everybody, this is Trish,’ Bonnie announced, to which everyone yelled their excitement, not that dissimilar to how Trish’s former work colleagues had yelled to her when seeing her off only two days prior.

‘Hi, Trish!’ most of them yelled.

Being short in stature, Trish ended up in the front row and took pride of place in the middle. Bonnie, who was not much taller, stood next to her. The feminine-sounding photographer was rather annoyed at Trish’s late inclusion as her entry into the front row had forced a few people out of frame. He daintily gestured for them to bunch up a bit. Just as he was about to take the photo, somebody asked a question that hadn’t occurred to the photographer.

‘Is everybody here? Where’s Solomon?’ Ellen had asked. The stoutish blonde girl had a bit of a thing for Solomon, which, apparently, Bonnie knew about.

‘She would notice Solomon missing,’ she whispered to Trish.

‘I think she has a crush on him,’ she added, sounding like a teenage schoolgirl.

‘Don’t worry about Solomon. He’s probably taking his latest invention out for a test run. Let’s do this thing,’ said a frustrated male voice, clearly not happy about being photographed.

‘All right, everybody, say cheese,’ the rather feminine-sounding photographer had said, not too fussed about Solomon’s absence. The flash went off, and the photo had been taken. Trish was confident that she was smiling nicely but was a bit concerned that she had blinked right as he took the shot.

‘Welcome to Audlin Motors,’ Bonnie leant towards Trish and announced.

‘Thank you.’ Trish Adams smiled back at her.

3

Once the company photograph had been taken, Trish was surprised by how quickly the crowd of people had dispersed. It didn’t take very long at all for her to be standing alone wondering what she should do and where she should go. She was hoping Bonnie, the only person she had officially met, would have stayed, and escorted her to her new workstation, but Bonnie was nowhere to be seen. Trish wasn’t sure what to do until a group of people had walked out a door to reveal Bonnie patiently waiting for Trish to follow her. Trish was a little startled by her sudden wave and immediately walked fast towards her with a touch of relief in her step. Trish got several short, quick steps towards Bonnie and was nearly beside her when she suddenly remembered her box of things.

‘Oh, wait. My stuff,’ was all Trish said, rag-dolling her body in the direction of her small box. Bonnie was apparently keen to see Trish’s box of stuff and so followed her to the reception desk where Trish had left it.

The reception bench was quite high, and Bonnie wasn’t that much taller than Trish, herself quite petite. Bonnie had to stand on her tippy toes to see the contents of Trish’s rather small box of things. When she did so, she was visibly underwhelmed by what she had seen, not fully believing that these meagre possessions were all Trish had to contribute to her new workplace.

‘Do you have some more boxes to bring in? From your car, perhaps?’ she asked Trish, fully expecting her to go out to her car and grab some larger, more impressive boxes of office paraphernalia. But Trish just shrugged her shoulders instead.

‘No. That’s all I’ve got,’ Trish replied, half apologetically.

‘I was told I’d be provided with all the equipment I would need to do my job?’ Trish added, slightly concerned she had been duped.

‘Yes, of course, you will. I just expected you to have . . . you know . . . more personal items,’ Bonnie said, thumbing her pot plant and picture frame.

‘But you’ve got just a plant and a frame,’ she didn’t have to say.

‘It’s a digital picture frame. It has about two dozen photos in it,’ Trish replied a little defensively.

‘OK,’ Bonnie said with a sarcastic tone. Trish nearly caught her roll her eyes.

‘Walk this way,’ she added. Trish felt compelled to pretend her box was heavier than it actually was, making an audible straining noise when she lifted it. On the way to the design office, Bonnie was pointing out to Trish all the rooms in the hallway that were clearly marked.

‘That was the male toilets,’ Trish was told by Bonnie, even though a sign read ‘Male Toilets’. The sign even included the silhouetted figure that made it even more obvious it was a male toilet.

‘That room was the first aid room’ was what Bonnie had just said, a room that was clearly marked ‘First Aid’. And, apparently, that room was the female toilets. It, too, was clearly marked, this time including a female silhouetted figure. Not that far from the design office entry door, and to the left, was the only empty workspace. Bonnie turned and faced Trish, presenting the workspace with a waving gesture.

‘OK, this will be your new workstation’" she said. She started tidying up, embarrassed at how messy she thought it was.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ she said, confusing Trish as to what mess she was referring to.

‘That’s OK,’ Trish replied, not quite sure whether she should put her small box of things on the completely empty, not-messy-at-all office desk. She decided to put it on the chair, a little concerned how Bonnie would react if she pointed out that the desk wasn’t untidy in the slightest. Bonnie continued.

‘As you can see, there are no partitions. Everybody can see everybody else’s workstation. And all the computers are networked to each other.’

‘I see,’ Trish said, remembering her old place of work where every workstation had ugly partitions that she had never liked. She liked this office space. It was right then that she noticed a workstation in the corner that stood out from the others. She didn’t even hear Bonnie’s next words.

‘Whose is that workstation?’ she interrupted. Bonnie didn’t need to look around at the workstation she was referring to.

‘Ah, yeah, that belongs to Solomon Voss. He’s one of our other designers,’ she answered rather apologetically. Trish remembered Bonnie telling her of the girl whose name she’d already forgotten had a crush on Solomon Voss. She looked closer at his desk.

‘Is that a sandwich?’ she asked, squinting at a food substance that resembled a sandwich. Bonnie looked around this time and saw the alleged sandwich for herself. She groaned her disapproval.

‘I think it used to be an egg and lettuce sandwich? Solomon is a real pig sometimes.’ It was then that the penny dropped in Trish’s mind.

‘Wait! You’re not talking about the Solomon Voss?’

‘You know him?’

‘Wasn’t he the one that designed the Coupe SS Deville, series 3?’

‘Ah, the Coupe SS Deville, series 3,’ she said with a hint of nostalgia in her voice.

‘Solomon’s one and only claim to fame. Now, that was a nice car.’

‘I loved that car!’ Trish enthusiastically replied, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, receiving an odd look from Bonnie, who looked like she was going to comment on Trish’s over excitement. But she didn’t.

‘OK,’ she replied instead.

‘If you wait here, I’ll go and get Dot,’ she added, abruptly leaving Trish to wonder who Dot was, as she watched Bonnie exit the door, they came in. When Trish turned around, everyone else in the design office was staring at her silently. Trish became very uncomfortable with all the eyes on her, only managing a nervous smile while raising her eyebrows.

‘Hi,’ she mumbled with a small wave.

‘I’m Trish.’

‘I’m new here,’ she shyly said, hoping to provoke some sort of reaction out of at least one of them.

‘Hi, Trish,’ a voice to her right had said, breaking the awkward silence.

‘Where’s our manners?’ he continued, approaching Trish with an open hand to shake."It’s nice to meet you, Trish. I’m David,’ he said, immediately afterwards shaking her hand. Trish had recalled her father telling her that when you get introduced to someone, a sure-fire way to remember their name is to repeat it back to them while shaking their hand. Trish used this technique on this occasion.

‘David,’ was all she replied. Others approached her, each saying their names, and each time, Trish repeated their name back to them. With everyone approaching her at once, Trish was quickly overwhelmed with names. She barely learnt the last one when the next one was politely said to her. There was no way Trish was going to remember all these names being thrown at her at once. Before she knew it, the introductions were over, and the only name she’d remembered was David’s. Everybody had sat back down, leaving Trish standing with a bunch of names swimming around in her head. She tried desperately to connect the name to the person, looking at each designer, trying to match the name in her head to the face. But it was no use. Trish wondered why they all didn’t have name tags like her.

Perhaps the name tags are only for new people? she guessed.

Trish decided to turn her attention to her new workspace. She ran her hand along the edge of her high-backed office chair still smelling of new leather. She wasn’t sure she should, but she removed her box from the chair and sat down with a touch of guilt in her manner.

Bonnie can’t accuse me of not waiting here, she thought, still not sure she should have sat down. The first thing she noticed was how comfortable her chair was, a little too comfortable, perhaps, as she imagined she could fall asleep in it. And it felt so good on her back. Like a bear scratching herself on a huge tree trunk, Trish closed her eyes and moved her back from side to side.

Everything on her desk was brand new, recently purchased especially for her. Her chair, her desk, her pen holder, everything. Not to mention the state-of-the-art computer she wanted to turn on. And that monitor. It was the biggest wide-screen LCD monitor she’d ever seen, short of a computer expo. She stroked around the barely-there frame of the monitor until suddenly becoming consciously aware that others may have been looking at her.

No partitions, remember? she thought to herself, looking around to her right and then her left to see if anyone had seen her inappropriately stroking her monitor. When she looked to her left, somebody had snuck up to Trish’s right and stood staring at her for little while.

Trish turned to be greeted by an overly tanned cracked face under a shortly cropped head of silver hair, with a pixie-style haircut. Her pleasant smile threw out some more character lines. She appeared before Trish sporting a high vision vest and safety glasses. She quickly placed the clipboard she held in her right hand into her left hand and offered her right for Trish to shake.

‘Hello there. Trish? Is it?’ she said, reading Trish’s name tag.

‘My name is Dorothy Cummings,’ she added, flicking her own name tag towards Trish.

‘I’m Audlin Motors human resources officer. How do you do?’ Trish shook her hand and smiled as she stood from her seat.

‘Hello, Mrs Cummings. It’s nice to meet you,’ Trish politely responded.

‘Please, my friends call me Dot. And I would like you to consider me as your friend.’

‘OK, Dot,’ Trish said.

‘I’m here for your induction,’ Dot smiled.

‘Induction?’ Trish asked, having never done one before.

‘That’s something we are required to do for all new employees. We give a tour of the factory and tell you of the factory safety protocols,’ she said, pointing to her clipboard with the safety protocols neatly typed on it.

‘It’s a way of telling you about the rules if you want to go into the factory area. What safety items to wear and the places you’re not allowed to go. You know, the no-go zones and all that,’ she continued, almost explaining what Trish imagined was the whole induction.

‘It’s also a good opportunity to meet everyone,’ she added. That was apparently the only thing that Trish was interested in, as she was keen to meet her new work colleagues.

‘Oh, OK. Great,’ she enthusiastically responded.

‘OK. Shall we?’ Dot insisted, gesturing towards the design office door that led to the factory floor. When they got to other side of the door, Trish was immediately presented with a line of hanging hooks holding high vision vests, like the one Dot was already wearing. To the right of the vests were pigeonholes, most of which holding safety glasses. Like a spokes model at a motor show, Dot invited Trish to wear one of each by waving her arms at them. Dot didn’t need to read from her clipboard, as she had done a lot of factory inductions before today, but she read her notes anyway.

‘All employees are required to wear safety glasses and high vision vests on the factory floor,’ she read.

‘And they must have them on before crossing this red line,’ Dot continued while pointing to the red line in question.

‘As you can see from here, the factory floor has red angled lines and yellow lines that designate the edges of the aisle ways the office staff can walk. Under no circumstances should office staff go into the red-lined areas unless accompanied by the area supervisors,’ Dot continued. Trish noticed she had stopped reading from her clipboard as of the previous sentence and was well and truly ad-libbing, though she felt sure her ad lib would have been pretty close to what was written on her clipboard. She assumed from her ad-libbing that Dot had done many, many inductions before today.

Trish had never been very good at remembering people’s names, a fact that was only confirmed by meeting the design staff earlier. She even struggled to remember her best friend at Vitalic Furniture. Jody had started at Vitalic a few years after her, so Trish only had to remember one name. But Trish still had trouble. Every time she went to say ‘Jody’, she got paranoid that her name was actually—Judy, and from that point onwards, she really had to think hard as to whether it was Jody or Judy. One time, Trish greeted her as Joudy, which Jody had noticed and commented.

‘Did you just call me Joudy?’ she had asked, with Trish immediately correcting herself. Even on that occasion, she still wasn’t sure she’d said her name right. This time, Trish had to remember a whole factory worth of names. She didn’t like her chances.

That’s when Trish noticed a board that had all the factory supervisors on it, each name accompanied by a rather amateur-looking photograph, with each supervisor showing varying and random degrees of smile. Trish wanted to stay and study the board a while but was verbally pulled away from it by Dot, who stood insisting she follow her to complete her induction. Trish pointed to the photos on the board, hoping that Dot would get the hint and let her study the names in more detail, but she waved for Trish to follow her, as if Dot was training a guide dog. Trish half expected her to produce a doggy treat out of her pocket from the way she spoke to her. Though Trish noticed that she didn’t seem to be talking to her like that on purpose. It was at that moment that Trish had convinced herself that Dot was a grandmother with her daughter or son having young children. She, no doubt, spoke to everyone that way. Trish even asked the question.

‘Do you have young grandchildren?’ Trish politely asked in the guise of making conversation.

‘Why, yes, actually. My daughter has a four-year-old son. His name is Thomas. And she recently gave birth to my second grandchild. Ella her name is. She’s the cutest thing. Of course, I’m biased . . .’

‘Congratulations,’ Trish replied, attempting to interrupt Dot, as Trish sensed she was about to ramble on.

‘Thank you,’ Dot said, immediately afterwards shooting Trish a confused, slightly paranoid expression.

‘Wait. How did you know I had young grandchildren?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t. It was just a guess,’ Trish calmly answered. Trish was then escorted up some stairs to a platform that overlooked the entire factory. From there, they could see just about everything. Dot pointed to the different areas as she spoke.

‘That area over there is the tool room, and just behind it, slightly, is the machine shop,’ she explained, correcting her aim slightly to accommodate Trish’s angle.

‘See over there,’ she added, making sure Trish knew where she was pointing.

‘Yes, I see,’ Trish felt compelled to reply.

‘Here at Audlin Motors, we pride ourselves in custom building our cars. If you look over there, you can see an assembly line of sorts. But it is where the interior is custom fitted. No robots there,’ Dot proudly said.

‘What are those?’ Trish asked, looking closer to where they were standing and noticing some very active robots.

‘We do have some automation here. That’s our robot welders. Their job is to spot weld the cars together,’ she answered.

‘And we also have robots in those huge enclosures over there,’ Dot added, again trying to aim for Trish properly.

‘They’re used to spray-paint our cars after they take a bath in rust proofing. You can just see the rust proofing bath over there. See? Just before the spray booths. Can you see it?’ Dot asked.

‘Sure,’ Trish replied.

‘The first half of the factory is quite automated, as you can see. The rest is where we slow things down a bit and custom fit the interiors and what have you.’

‘You can really see just about everything from up here,’ Trish commented, looking over the entire factory floor with a sense of awe.

‘Yes. That’s why I like to start everyone’s induction up here,’ Dot agreed.

‘OK, let’s go down and meet some people,’ she added. When they got to the bottom, she felt compelled to remind Trish of a particularly important safety protocol.

‘Remember to stay between the yellow lines,’ she said, sounding like the grandmother she did before. As Dot approached each area, the workers in them would be asked to come to the aisle so they didn’t have to walk into the red-lined areas that were clearly marked ‘No-Go Zones.’ Dot explained to Trish that they had become used to coming over to the aisle when approached by her.

Just like what happened in the design office, Trish was almost immediately overwhelmed with names. Every time Dot introduced her to someone, and even though Trish repeated the name back to them while shaking their hand, it didn’t take her long to forget with the introduction of the next person. The only names that seem to stick were those that she’d briefly seen on the board just outside the design office door. So, she remembered Brett, the tool-room supervisor, but not the three other toolmakers that worked under Brett. And this was true of all the areas they visited. Trish just couldn’t keep up with the constant onslaught of names. In the end, she just gave up and decided to learn their names as she needed to. It wasn’t long after she had made that decision that Trish noticed the factory tour was nearly over. She and Dot approached an area with signs above that read ‘Quality Control’. Dot explained that the area posed no danger to office staff and so wasn’t designated a no-go zone. They were free to just walk right into it, she had said. Dot promptly introduced Trish to everyone there, and Trish promptly forgot each of their names when the next one was introduced. Dot then asked if anyone had seen Solomon, expecting them to point to a pair of legs hanging out from underneath a nearby car. One of them replied that they hadn’t seen him and that the gentlemen under the car was Scott Reeves, the factory supervisor. Dot introduced them.

‘Trish Adams, this is Scott Reeves,’ Dot said to Trish, pointing to the man waist deep under the car beside her legs. Scott Reeves leant out slightly so he could present a hand for Trish to shake, startling her a little bit.

‘Hi, Trish Adams. It’s nice to meet you,’ he politely said.

‘Hello, Scott Reeves. It’s nice to . . . um . . . nearly meet you,’ Trish replied, leaning down to shake his somewhat dirty hand. When Scott noticed that he had dirtied her hand, he felt a bit guilty about it.

‘Ooh, sorry about that. Just wipe it on my leg,’ he offered.

‘Oh, no. I couldn’t,’ Trish said, still grimacing slightly as she didn’t really know what else to do with her dirty hand.

‘No, don’t worry about it. Go ahead, it’s dirty anyway.’

‘OK,’ she replied and hesitantly wiped her hand on his right pant leg.

‘Thank you,’ she added.

‘No worries. And it was nice meeting you,’ he said. When Trish stood up, she smiled to herself as she realised, she, at least, had a good excuse to not remember this man’s name. She didn’t even see his face. Dot thought she was smiling because of Scott’s offer to wipe her dirty hand on his leg.

‘What a nice young man,’ she said to Trish. Even though Trish wasn’t thinking that, she had to agree.

‘Yes. He did seem nice.’

‘You’ll find Scott is one of the better ones around