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“We will have to rely upon those we know we can trust.” Merlin leaned over his desk, staring at the folders. “But we don’t know that any of these people mean us harm. It might merely be a case of networking. I know there are a number of employees here who came from the various magical secret societies at universities. Their fellow members recommended them.”
“Yeah, well, there’s secret, and then there’s secret,” Rod said. “All the magical people know about the societies at school because that’s where you get your training. It’s only a secret to the nonmagical world. This stuff takes ‘secret’ to a whole new level.”
“And there’s that threat that they want to take over,” I said. I checked my watch. “Speaking of Kim, I’m supposed to casually run into her today and see if anything has happened.”
I went back to my office to grab my coat and purse before heading out to a bar near the office where MSI people tended to go after work. When I entered, I tried to act surprised to see Kim. “Hey! How’s it going?” I asked. “I was so sorry to hear what happened.”
She gave a dramatic sigh. “It’s okay, I guess. I just didn’t expect it.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” I said. I climbed onto the stool across the table from her and flagged down a passing waitress to order drinks for both of us. “Now, tell me how you’re doing,” I said to Kim. “Any leads on a new job?”
“Nothing yet. Not even a nibble, but I’ve put in some applications.”
“Something’s bound to come along. It’s only been a few days.”
I had what I needed, but for appearance’s sake, I had to sit and make small talk with Kim until we finished our drinks. That was as challenging as any assignment I’d ever taken on. We’d never been all that friendly.
She didn’t have any better news at the meeting after that, or the one after that. Then it was Thanksgiving, which I spent with Owen’s foster parents. The Monday after the holiday weekend, I was thinking about possible alternative plans when my assistant, a young elf woman named Perdita, stood in my office doorway and rapped lightly on the doorframe.
“Mr. Hartwell has called a meeting,” she said, hopping anxiously back and forth from one foot to the other, probably because she knew what I thought about meetings. “You need to get to the conference room right away.”
I couldn’t help but groan out loud. “Really? Did he say what it’s about?”
“Nope. Sorry. Should I have asked?”
“No, it’s okay.” It wasn’t so much the idea of a meeting I hated. Sometimes those were necessary to work with a group. But my marketing role fell under the Sales department, and it was like working in a fraternity house. Everything was an excuse for a party. Owen had joked about the great “We Opened a New Box of Pencils!” festival, complete with commemorative T-shirts, but they had once thrown a party to celebrate new computers in the department. When someone called a meeting, I never knew if we were going to talk business or get our groove on while sipping corrosive drinks out of pineapples. If I showed up with notes and documents, I felt like a square as the conga line went past. If I showed up ready for a drink, I felt unprepared when asked to give a status report.
What I found in the conference room was the unholy spawn of a meeting and a party. There was a bowl of punch and a tray of store-bought cookies on the table in the back of the room, but a slide with a graph on it was projected on the screen at the front of the room. I slid into a seat in the back row and got out my notebook and pen.
It appeared to be the “just because we’re in the holiday season, that doesn’t mean you can slack off, and here are some numbers to motivate you” meeting. Since I wasn’t out making sales, it mostly didn’t apply to me, so I let myself focus instead on the other people in the room.
The sales department had the highest concentration of Collegium-linked employees that we’d found, and I supposed that made sense, since selling was all about networking and connections. I wondered if they cut special deals with Collegium people at other companies. Still, I had a hard time picturing any of these people as sinister. Their organization may have done some awful stuff, but these individuals seemed to be just doing their jobs. Well, when they weren’t partying.
I was so lost in thought that I blinked, startled, when I thought I heard my name. I came out of my daze to find every eye in the room fixed on me. “Oh, sorry, I was thinking about something you said earlier,” I lied to cover up my daydreaming. “What did you ask me?”
“What do you have in the works for a holiday-related campaign?” Mr. Hartwell, the director of Sales, asked.
“The one I came up with three months ago, when we did our planning for the holidays,” I
snapped without thinking. Only after I’d spoken did I realize that maybe I could have worded that more diplomatically. “Everything was planned and approved then, and most of it has been implemented. You don’t start working on your holiday campaign after Thanksgiving.”
“Can you remind us what you have going on?”
I forced myself to count to ten and consider my words before responding. “The details are in reports and kits that were sent to each of you, and I don’t have that in front of me, since I wasn’t planning on this meeting. But we do have advertising to our target markets, new packaging that was automatically implemented the day after Thanksgiving, and holiday pricing for consumer spells. We released a new range of decorating spells last month.”
Sam’s standing offer to join the security team was sounding better. It was hard to prioritize selling magical Christmas-tree lights when I had to worry about tracking down a potentially dangerous secret society.
“I assume you’re already planning your spring promotions,” Mr. Hartwell said.
“Yes, that’s in the works. I’m still getting details from R and D about what they’ll have ready for release.”
Fortunately, that seemed to do it for my part of the meeting, but it left me seething. I supposed he was only expecting me to do my job, but considering that my position didn’t even exist a year ago and the company had done without it for centuries prior to that, I found it both amusing and annoying that every so often, when he remembered I existed, Mr. Hartwell suddenly felt the need to publicly make sure I was carrying out my duties.
I was still simmering at the end of the day when I headed to Owen’s lab in R&D. I found him in his office, in his usual position, bent over an old book. “Want to get some dinner?” I asked.
He looked up as though just then noticing me. “Oh, hi, no, sorry, I want to get through this tonight. Tomorrow, maybe?”
I tried not to let my disappointment show. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
