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I had the table set before she returned in sweats, her face freshly scrubbed. “Actually, there’s something we need to talk about,” I said as I dished spaghetti out onto plates. I let her eat a few bites and drink some wine before I said, “I’m kind of involved in an undercover operation. Well, actually, I’m very involved.” I gave her a quick briefing on all that had happened lately.
“Seriously? You’re joining the magical mafia?” she asked.
“That’s not quite what it seems to be. I mean, no Tommy guns and numbers running. It’s just sort of secretive.”
“So, more Illuminati than mafia?”
“Maybe. That’s why I have to do this, to figure out exactly what they’re doing and if we need to worry about it. They did turn Philip into a frog so they could steal his business, so they’re definitely not benign.”
“And you had to be the one to go undercover?”
“We tried with someone else, but they approached me.”
“Are you sure it’s not a trap?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’ve been assured that there’s nothing I could tell them about MSI that they don’t already know, so I don’t know why they’d go out of their way to recruit me for that reason. I could see them trapping me if I’d approached them and they were suspicious of me.” I took a long swallow of my own wine, steeling myself for this next part.
“But I’m going to need your help. When I said they were secretive, I was understating the case.” I explained the car service to work, having to change clothes before work every day, and eventually having to live in one of their apartments. “It sounds like great perks until you realize that it’s all about keeping you from knowing too much about the company, being able to smuggle anything in or out, and keeping you isolated from your old life. But I’m going to need some way to pass info to MSI, and you may be my best bet, since you’re already known to be dating Rod. It won’t look too fishy if I get together with my friend from college who’s also my former roommate, and then if you get together with your boyfriend. I don’t know how aware anyone is of whether you’re in on the secret.”
“Oh, so I’d be your contact! Cool! Yeah, I could do that.”
“It’ll be easier while I’m still living here, but then I doubt they’ll let me see anything even remotely useful at first. Once I move out, we’ll have to play it kind of casual—get together occasionally as friends.”
“Surely they won’t totally isolate you. They won’t keep you from knowing where your apartment really is. Or will you have an apartment in the office building?”
I felt queasy as I considered the possibility. “I hope not. It probably is a safe bet that any apartment they give me will be bugged and watched.”
“So no fun times with Owen, unless you want an audience, huh?”
I winced. “That’s another thing. I have to pretend that I’ve broken up with him in order to make it look like I have no ties to MSI.” When her eyes widened, I hurried to add, “He knows about it. We may come up with ways to meet. I hope.”
“How long do you plan to stay there?”
“I don’t know. Just long enough to find out what they have planned against MSI.”
The problem was, I had no idea how long that was going to take.
*
I didn’t dress up the way I normally would have for a first day of work, but I didn’t go downstairs in my pajamas, either. I was a few minutes early, but it was still only about thirty seconds before a dark car pulled up to the curb. I wasn’t sure if that meant the car was early or that they were monitoring my movements.
This car was an ordinary sedan rather than a limo—well, ordinary in the sense that it was the normal length. Once I was inside, I saw that it was anything but ordinary. Like the limo, the windows were blacked out. There was a partition between the backseat and the driver’s seat, but there didn’t seem to be any sliding window in that partition. If there was a way for me to communicate with the driver, I couldn’t see it.
Unlike most sedans, there wasn’t a bench all the way across for the back seat. There was a single seat and a kind of console. Actually, it looked like a coffee machine. There were even buttons that said “regular,” “decaf,” and “mocha.” I pushed the “mocha” one, and a cup slid into position. Soon, brown liquid poured in from above it, making the car smell like coffee and chocolate. A squirt of whipped cream followed, then a dusting of cocoa powder, and then a light went off, indicating that it was done.
They might be evil, I thought as I took the cup, but I could get used to this.
Buttons on the door’s armrest turned out to activate the entertainment system. I could select several local radio channels for news, or there were channels of different kinds of music, like on an airplane. I picked the “current pop hits” channel and settled back to drink my mocha.
The driver opened the door for me when we arrived, and I got the impression that I wouldn’t have been able to open it from the inside. That was a little unsettling. A woman in what I now recognized as the Collegium’s chic black uniform met me in the lobby. “Katie? Please come with me, and I’ll get you settled.”
She took me to a different elevator than the one I’d taken previously and inserted a card into a slot. “You’ll get your own key card at orientation, and this will be the elevator you’ll use,” she said. I couldn’t tell how high we went in the building—or how low we’d started—but my ears were popping by the time we stopped.
The elevator doors opened to reveal a bank of plain doors with small brass plaques on them. She led me to one, and when I got close, I saw that it had my name engraved on it. “Your palm print will open it,” she said. I hadn’t remembered giving them my palm print the day before, but I supposed they could have lifted it from any number of things. I wondered why they would have bothered instead of just asking for a print. I pressed my hand against the brass plate the woman indicated, and the door opened with a click.
Inside was a small dressing room. There was a closet on one side and a mirrored door on the other. In the middle was an armchair with a small table. The woman went over to the closet and opened it. “Your work wardrobe is in here. You should have everything you’ll need.”
She crossed to the mirrored door and opened it. “Here’s your bathroom. There’s also a shower, with toiletries provided.” She shut the door. “You’ll come here first thing in the morning and do whatever you need to get ready. Many employees just roll out of bed and into their cars, then get ready here. Adjust your pickup time if you plan to do that. You’ll need to remove all your clothing and change before going to work. You can hang up or put away your own clothing here. When you’re ready, you’ll exit through this door.” She pointed to one on the opposite side of the room. “At the end of the day, you’ll go through the same procedure in reverse. Remove everything and put it through that slot into a hamper for cleaning. You’re welcome to shower or do whatever else you want to do to get ready to go home. You may also bring clothing to store here, if you want to wear something different from what you wore to work. When you’re ready to leave, hit this button by the door to signal your driver. It will light up when your c
