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Prologue
The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova, although Americans like to think it was Sally Ride.
I didn't care about patriotism, when I was a little girl. I cared about the stars. I wanted to climb up into the sky and touch them.
I studied astrophysics and my parents thought I was nuts. What are you going to do with a degree like that? Touch the stars, I’d said.
It’s funny how life has a way of grounding us. Just when you think you're about to reach the highest height, tragedy strikes. Funnier yet, is that tragedy can turn into the best thing that ever happened to you.
Chapter One
The monolith rose from the shrubbery surrounding it like the Tower of Babylon. It was mankind trying to reach the sky.
Well, it was clearly the ‘man’ part, at least, as my friend Natalie pointed out.
“Corporate headquarters even looks like a cock,” she said, “How obvious.”
“I think it's supposed to look like that big rock the monkeys touched in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then they learn how tools work. It's probably a reference to that.”
I was going to work there, after all. I didn't want to think I was walking into a phallus every morning.
“You and I both know that's Rob Michaels's dick, multiplied by a quintillion-billion-trillion and pointed directly at the sky,” Nat gestured lewdly, “He probably sits in the penthouse office just imagining it and jerking off over Silicon Valley.”
I gave her our usual gesture for ‘tone your shit down’.
“I don't care if you want to make a good first impression on your first day of selling your soul to that creep,” Nat scolded, “I can't believe you took this job.”
“I thought I could do more good inside the monstrous corporation than outside,” I reminded her, “There wasn't any fighting him. He's got millionaire lawyers, and all I've got is a sense of self-righteousness. No contest; he would have won eventually. This way, at least, I can try to convince him to have more ethical practices.”
“Or you can convince him to fuck you, get you pregnant, and nail his ass for child support payments that’ll make you a quadzillionaire,” Natalie said with starry eyes.
“Yuck. He's an utter creep. I wouldn't want to make his babies, and stop making up dollar amounts. You're making ExploreR sound cooler than it is,” I rolled my eyes.
I couldn't be too mean to her though. She had been kind enough to drive me to work and had helped me carry my stuff into my office, which was on the 100th floor, directly next to Rob Michaels's CEO suite.
A door even led directly from my office to his kitchenette. He had told me to use it whenever, for a caffeine fix. It was a strange gesture from a strange, evil man, whom I had only met last week. Now I was carrying boxes of notebooks, knickknacks (I liked looking at memorabilia from family trips while I worked, it kept me sane), and my trusty laptop. Rob Michaels had insisted he would have the best technology for me, but I didn't want to work solely within his system. It would feel like stepping into Dracula's tomb for a nap.
“This has all happened so fast,” Natalie shook her head, as we finally made it up the front walkway. It was adorned with massive, unattractive modern-art sculptures that vaguely reminded one of space, or chemistry, if you squinted and imagined real hard.
“You went from hating this guy and wanting to disembowel his empire, to being his right-hand woman in three seconds flat.”
“First of all, I still want to disembowel his empire. I just want to do it while making some money as well,” I whispered, avoiding eye contact with any of my future coworkers.
They all carried sleek laptop bags and dressed like they were from a futuristic society of perfect models, or they wore ratty backpacks and dressed as if they were stressed-out grad students. It was strangely like the school I'd just left.
My heart clenched. I still wasn't “Dr. Amelia Salle” and I wanted to be. But, Rob Michaels had stolen that from me. I had to get some revenge.
