Force (An Alex Warren Novel) Read online

  “You named him?” I mused.

  “Not me. He’s had that name as long as I’ve worked here… to be honest I’m not sure who named him. Maybe he named himself.” He winked at me, and I caught sight of the sparkle that had been missing from earlier.

  “What’s the deal with him anyway?” I asked.

  “Nic’s a bit fond of him. You know, I caught him talking to it once?”

  “No way!” I giggled. “What did he say?”

  “I couldn’t understand him. It was in a different language. But he definitely was talking to him, and pausing now and then as if waiting for a response. Then he would continue on talking. He didn’t even notice that I was there; he was too focused on Bob.” He paused, and looking at some distant point, probably reliving the memory, before returning to me. “Anyway, I suppose the best way to do a tour is to take you floor by floor, and seeing as we are already on the top, this seems as good a place to start as anywhere.” He gestured to the wide open space that made up most of the area that wasn’t already dedicated to Nic’s office. “This is where all the big decisions get made. Aside from Nic, Peri works up here, as well as Connor Gallagher and Morgan Bradley. Other than that, there’s really a lot of empty space up here.” We had reached the elevator, and he pushed the button.

  “What do they do? Connor and Morgan I mean.”

  “Morgan is an economist. She forecasts…” he searched for the right word, “trends. She also oversees the financial aspects of the company. She has her own team, and they’re on the ninth floor. We won’t be going there on your tour, mind you. They can get a bit cranky down there.” We boarded the elevator, and he waited until the doors were shut before continuing. “What does Connor do?” he repeated. “Well, in my opinion, not much.” There was an air of resentment in his voice. “He is in charge of the Innovations Division, located on the twelfth floor.” He sighed, and pushed the 12 button. I got the impression that he felt he was more suited for Connor’s job. He turned professional again as the doors opened to the twelfth floor. As if reading from an unseen script, he lectured, “The Innovations Division is home to any and all projects that will move the company forward. Our Wellness Department was born out of the Innovations Division.”

  There was a lot of activity on this floor. It was an open space concept, with desks clustered together instead of cubicles. Some people sat on giant balls instead of office chairs. Others lazed with laptops on one of the many couches. A few people walked around, appearing to talk to themselves, until I noticed one woman had a small headset tucked around her ear. Three other people were gathered around a large, flat screen TV. Everyone seemed relaxed. The style of dress here ranged from casual to professional to costume. I recognized the woman who had been wearing animal print the day before, only because she was dressed similarly today. She waved at Casper, and I was struck by how feline her features were. The loud, cheetah print dress only accentuated her features in this regard. Another man caught my eye, and I was sure I hadn’t seen him before. He was wearing a leprechaun outfit, and he could have easily passed for one if he hadn’t been so tall. He had curly, reddish hair, shoved under the distinct, stove pipe hat. His shoes were black, with a giant gold buckle on each. As if he hadn’t looked silly enough, he was probably 7 feet tall, or close to it, and he was very thin – not my idea of a leprechaun in the least.

  Casper caught my staring and nudged me. “That’s Dermot Flannigan. Best not to stare, he hates that.”

  “Does he always dress that way? Or is this another one of those festive events like yesterday?” I whispered.

  “Yes, he always wears that. He’s very Irish. He is proud of his culture. Goes a bit overboard sometimes in my opinion, but who am I to judge? Come on, there’s lots more to see. He toured me around the Innovations Department, which took up the entire circlet for that floor. Once we had made a loop, and all the introductions that were needed had happened (the cat-like woman’s name was Hester, l learned) we headed back to the elevator to continue the orientation.

  We spent the next couple hours on a floor by floor tour of the building, minus the ninth floor, where Casper explained housed “Morgan’s finance harpies” and the eleventh floor, which he was saving for after lunch. I realized as soon as he mentioned lunch that I was famished, which surprised me considering how I had felt this morning.

  “Do you mind if we eat somewhere other than the across the street? I always go there,” he asked.

  “No problem. Where would you like to go?”

  “How about that old fashioned pasta place on the harbour?” I nodded, and we set off.

  Conversation was much easier than I had expected. My first impression of Casper had been that he was quiet and shy, but he seemed to be very open once the veil of work had been removed. I found myself enjoying his company, so much so that I had all but forgotten about my earlier injury until he mentioned it.

  “Did you hurt your wrist?” he asked, with genuine concern in his eyes. “You’ve been rubbing it all day.”

  Had I? “It’s nothing,” I replied, embarrassed slightly at his keen observation.

  “Can I see it?” he reached across the table for my wrist before I could object. When he touched me, I felt a small spark, similar to when you rub your feet along a wool carpet and then touch something, but much smoother. He gently clasped his hand over my growing bruise, and the heat radiating from his palm eased my pain. He said nothing more on the subject, but left his hand there. I didn’t complain. It felt nice. We continued to talk casually, and both ate one handed as he kept his hand over my wrist for the duration of the meal. He finally lifted it as we were getting up to leave, but was so graceful I almost didn’t notice. When I did, I was aware of how little pain there was left. It looked as though the bruising had gone down a bit too, but I was sure that was just a trick of the shadows. It wasn’t like he had some special powers or anything.

  We walked back to Mobius in a comfortable silence. For a split second, I thought I saw the strange blue rope floating effortlessly alongside us as we walked along the causeway, but I put it out of my mind, not wanting to give my head any more pain trying to imagine invisible things into being. I hadn’t been paying enough attention to walking, and stumbled, but Casper caught me before I hit the ground. Though he had instinctively reached for my injured arm, his gentle touch didn’t hurt as I expected. I turned to thank him, and he nodded in understanding before I could say anything. It was a good thing too, because the twinkle had returned to his eyes and I had forgotten what I planned to say the second our eyes locked.

  We returned to Mobius, and we both waved comically at Bob as we passed through the lobby. As the entrance’s glass doors slid shut, the light in the lobby refracted, and it almost looked like Bob nodded back. I chuckled silently to myself, wondering how old I would be before my imagination stopped trying to trick me all the time.

  “Where to now, kind gentleman?” I asked, feigning a similar southern accent that he had used earlier, adding a curtsey at the end. It was getting surprisingly comfortable spending time with Casper.

  “I want to show you something. I want to show you where I work.” He spoke softly, but with an edge of excitement. He took my hand, pulling me into the elevator, and did not let go. There was nothing romantic about his action, more like eagerness. I felt like a parent being towed by an excited toddler ready to show them their latest new discovery. He pushed 11, and we rose for only a moment before stopping again. The elevator opened on the second floor, and I recognized a few people from the breakfast, and nodded in recognition. They nodded back.

  The ride took forever. We stopped at every floor, letting people on and off, and twice the doors were forced back open by someone thrusting their arm through the small space left by the shutting doors. Everyone seemed to be buzzing about some crisis, and I could only imagine it was the same crisis Nic had referred to that morning. Casper seemed unaware of the chattering, or of the quick glances our clasped hands were getting whenever someone e
ntered the lift.

  Finally, the doors opened on the eleventh floor. I’m not sure what I had been expecting, but when Casper pushed our way out of cramped elevator, I felt let down. He had been so excited to show me… an empty corridor? I looked left and right, expecting something to jump out at me to give me a clue at what the fuss was about, and at first, saw nothing unusual. The walls curved slightly, as they did on every floor, due to the shape of the building. To my left, a solid, multi-hued wood wall stretched across the entire corridor. There were a few paintings on the wall, and two club chairs set conversationally facing toward me. To my right was a large double door.

  It wasn’t until seeing the door that I realized what was different about this floor. It was easily twice as high as the previous floors; the door itself being easily eight feet high. I knew we had visited the twelfth story earlier, so this must have been part of the original building plan and not some afterthought. The dark, wood doors looked ancient in contrast to the modern surroundings of the building. I cautiously touched the massive, ornately carved gates in awe, and I heard Casper chuckle.

  “Intrigued?” He raised an eyebrow at me, and grinned. He still held my other hand, and he squeezed it lightly. “Let’s go inside.” He raised his hand to push the door, and I could have sworn that it opened before he touched it, but I was used to my mind playing tricks so I ignored it.

  If the door had been any giveaway, I should have expected the room to be so grand. But I hadn’t expected it to be this grand.

  The room was stocked floor to ceiling with books, and I could immediately feel the temperature drop as I entered. I was reminded of the many hours I spent bundled up in the basement of the library at the university; the basement held Special Collections, and the room was kept cold to protect the valuable manuscripts. I could only guess that was the case here. The shelves were made of a dark wood, probably cherry, and their reddish colour gave the room warmth. It was easy to see that the shelves were custom made to fit the curve of the wall; my eyes followed their unending path until they curved out of view. I guessed that the library must take up the entire floor. Several wheeled ladders were attached to the shelves at sporadic intervals, and there were overstuffed armchairs placed here and there, giving the library a comfortable feel. The room wasn’t overly bright, but lit well enough that you wouldn’t strain your eyes trying to read. There was a large table hugging the inside wall of the room, and it was covered in books and piles of paper stacked haphazardly. A large, silver laptop lay closed atop the pile, and I recognized the standard, black, company-issued telephone perched on the corner of the table.

  “This is my office,” he grinned.

  “What do you do?” I squeaked out, still in awe of the room. I couldn’t help it. I’m an English major. I live for this kind of room. I couldn’t go to bookstores without allotting a whole afternoon to browse. Maria would pull me off to one side whenever we passed them on the street, joking that she could feel the store sucking me in. I would laugh, but she was right. This room had every bookstore and library I had even seen beat. It felt like something out of an old mystery novel, where the protagonist would sit calmly with his pipe and smoking jacket, deducing the whodunit.

  “Research,” he replied. “You request the information, and I’ll dig it up for you, find the pertinent parts, and send you what you need. Most of the books in here are pretty ancient, so you have to have authorization to view them.” He must have read the look on my face because he quickly added, “Consider yourself authorized. For today at least.” He winked, and I smiled in response. I liked the way he winked. It made me feel included.

  “What sorts of things do you research?” I wandered over to the shelves, resisting my urge to reach up and touch the tomes.

  “History mostly. Our legal department utilizes me the most. They handle a lot of big clients whose interests are often rooted beyond recent memory. Many of the precedents needed to win each case can be found somewhere in this room.” I remembered our tour, and that the legal department took up six floors of the building.

  “You must get really busy,” I said, glancing at the stack on the desk.

  “I’m a quick reader,” he replied. “I’ll finish that stack by tomorrow, even with having you slow me down all day.” He added a note of sarcasm to the end.

  “Yes, you’re so hard done by, having to babysit the new girl,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

  “It’s not so bad.” He said, almost in a whisper, then smiled and looked away. I felt my face flush at the implication, and for once I didn’t try to hide it. Before I could reply, his intercom buzzed.

  “Cas?” a familiar voice spoke. “Do you have Alex with you?”

  “Yeah, Paul, she’s here. What’s up?”

  “I need her… consulting expertise. Can you send her up?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Purple!” I called into the phone. I didn’t want to leave this room. It felt magical in here, like there was some ancient energy coming from the books. Plus, and I hated to admit it, but I was worried about seeing Paul after spending so much time with Casper. Casper was so different from Paul, and though my first impression was mostly negative, I now saw him differently. Much differently. I hoped that Paul wouldn’t notice, and that I would be able to keep the two separate in my mind.

  “It’s not for a tie this time, Alex,” the voice chuckled, and then hung up.

  I turned to Casper. “I guess that’s my cue. Thanks again, I had a great time today. I guess I’ll see you when I need some researching then?”

  “I guess so,” he answered, disappointed, and I could see the twinkle had disappeared from his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  The conversation with Paul went better than I expected. He gave me an outline for the project I was to start working on the next day, and I was surprised when I couldn’t tell if I was happier that I would be spending most of my time in the library, or that I would be spending most of my time in the same room as Casper. I had to sign a couple forms regarding the privacy of the information I would be purvey to, and that I would hold myself accountable for any damages which occurred to the books I would be handling. Nic had already signed them in his elegant handwriting, and my signature looked childish next to his. We chatted a little bit about how my orientation was going, and I tried kept my responses fairly simple. Then he asked me if I had found my costume yet.

  “Costume?”

  “Yeah, for tomorrow night? The New Year’s Eve Snow Ball? Hasn’t anyone mentioned it to you yet?”

  “Not at all.” I started to feel worried, and even more so as a smile broke across his face in excitement.

  “Aw, Alex! You picked the right time to come work for us! The Snow Ball is the single, most important event we have every year! You don’t have plans, do you?

  “No,” I choked out, and immediately regretted it. Damn. I had been looking forward to having a quiet New Year’s Eve, as Maria and Justin were headed off to some hip new club, and I would have the apartment to myself.

  “Well, you’re coming then!” He must have seen my face, because he added reassuringly, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.”

  He continued to tell me all about the Snow Ball, but most of it fell on deaf ears. A party? Please no. I hate parties. But now I felt obligated, and I still felt like I need to make a good impression, especially after being so late today.

  I finished the day in my office, responding to a few more “Welcome to Mobius emails” and writing a lengthy reply to Peri, who had insisted on hearing about my day. I left out the part about my wrist, the bright purple from earlier had already faded to a barely noticeable yellow, as though the bruise were days old, and kept the rest to a fairly straightforward play-by-play, with a lot of “then we did this” and “then we went here” and “then I met so-and-so”. I hoped it would be enough.

  Paul had given me some reading about the company background, and about the Snow Ball. I decided to read the Snow Ball information first, as it was only a small
, one-page poster. It was a masquerade theme, not just a costume party as Paul had led me to believe. At the bottom of the poster read “View last year’s photos!” and below that was an intranet link. I pointed my browser there, as I felt the anxiety growing inside me, wondering what it was I had agreed to. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the first picture.

  It was a group shot of about a dozen people. I couldn’t recognize any of them, as they all were wearing masks. The quality of the costumes was unbelievable. Most of the people in this shot were dressed in Elizabethan-era clothes, and they looked as though they had stepped out of a movie. I hastily clicked the “next” button. The following picture had two women laughing, dressed in full fairy garb. Their translucent wings had caught the flash at the right angle, and they appeared to glisten. The masks they wore were ornate but only covered their eyes, letting the full expressiveness of their laughter to illuminate their faces. There was no way I could come up with this kind of costume by New Year’s Eve.

  “You’re here late,” a voice said, pulling my eyes up from the screen. It was Casper.

  Was it late? I glanced at the clock on my computer; it was late. “Oh,” I replied, not sure what to say. “I guess time got away from me.”

  “I hear you’ll be sharing my office for the next couple of weeks? It’ll be nice to have some company.” I could tell he was stalling, but for what reason I didn’t know.

  “Yeah, basically doing a glorified filing job,” I replied, sarcastically. “Apparently, the guy that works down there is about to get really busy dealing with some big emergency for the head honcho, and he’ll need some help keeping up.”

  “Heh, yeah. He’s a bit of slacker,” he chuckled back.

  There was a silence then, just long enough to become awkward. “Well, I guess I better head home,” I shrugged, reaching for my coat. He already had it in his hands, holding it out for me to slip my arms into. “Thanks.”

  He slipped into his favorite accent again, “Would Miss Alex care for a lift home?” I thought about this for a second, because with the southern voice I couldn’t tell his intentions behind the offer. He saw my hesitation, and added, in his normal tone, “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s pouring.” I looked outside. He was right. I nodded acceptance, collected my reading material, and together we headed down to the parkade.