Super: Origins (8 page)

Lex took up the envelope, folded the lip back, and felt her jaw drop as she saw a sheaf of papers inside that measured about an inch thick. She stared back at Carl with dismay in her eyes as she let her thumb fan through the stack. He remained stoic despite her gaze and continued on.

“There are a good number of papers there, so we don’t expect you to have them all reviewed by the end of the day. Get through what you can, and you can finish the rest off tomorrow if you decide to accept. The most important thing is that I’ll be back here today at five for your response. If you decide not to join, please fill out the first set of papers in the stack, which constitute a confidentiality agreement, and give that back to me along with all of the rest of the documents.”

He caught her eye then and gave her a hard look. “Make sure all of the papers are there whether or not you decide to join the team. Each one will be accounted for, and if any are missing, that would not be good.”

Carl continued after a pause, his eyes moving to the side slightly, as if he didn’t quite want to look at Lex. “In order to make your decision, please at least read the summaries. We’ve organized the contract into sections and at the front of each one there are a few summary pages that highlight the agreements or rules detailed within the section. That should give you enough information to decide what you want to do.”

Looking at Lex again, Carl asked, “Do you have any questions?”

“Not at the moment,” Lex responded, “but what if I have some when I’m going through the paperwork?”

“You can mark them and ask about them tomorrow, if you like. No one will be available to answer you today, so you’ll just have to factor any questions you have into your decision.”

“Is it possible to get these reviewed by a lawyer?” Lex asked curiously.

Carl looked at her through slightly narrowed eyes and then sighed. “We don’t recommend it.” He took a piece of paper out of his inner jacket pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to her. “Here’s our list of lawyers who are approved to review this documentation, since it’s highly confidential. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t going to be able to turn this around for you today.”

Lex pretended to look at the paper, but she already knew that she wasn’t going to consult any of them anyway, since she didn’t have the money and she’d rather take her chances reviewing the contract on her own than to ask Kurt or his family for a favor.
After all
, she told herself,
I’m not sure I’m taking the job at this point
. But she couldn’t stop herself from biting her lip nervously.

“All right, thanks. So,” said Lex, looking at her cell phone, “it’s about quarter after ten now, which doesn’t give me all that much time to get through these. I guess I’ll see you back here at five.”

Carl again smiled one of those almost nonexistent smiles. “See you then, Lex.”

After walking Carl to the door, Lex cleaned off the coffee table, took out the contents of the envelope, and spread all of the piles of paper on it. She briefly read the headers for each stack: Pay and Benefits, Responsibilities, Rules of the Team, Testing Informed Consent, and Confidentiality Agreement. She put the smaller confidentiality agreement that had been on the top of the stack back into the envelope.

Since it looked like a lot to tackle, and due to the fact that her last cup was now cold, Lex took a break to brew herself another cup of tea. While she did she stared out the window, watching people strolling on the sidewalks and driving in the streets below, and wondered what things she’d find in the contract of a group that threatened to kill you for talking about them. Once done with the tea, she gave a final look outside before going back into the living room. She examined the stacks on the table suspiciously but sighed and settled herself onto the couch to begin reading.

Might as well begin with the good news
, Lex thought, reaching for the Pay and Benefits section first. She almost dropped her tea on herself when she read the pay amount, however, a figure somewhere between two or three times the highest salary she’d ever earned.

Immediately on high alert, she stared at the Responsibilities section but decided she should finish the summary she’d started with first. Lex did grab a pad of paper from her nearby computer desk, however, and began a list of questions that started with “Salary—why so high?” at the top. As she continued with the Pay and Benefits section, she found to her surprise that all medical expenses were covered without deductible, whether something happened on the job or off. Benefits included a pension plan that looked generous, and usage of the non-restricted team facilities detailed in the Rules of the Team section.

Curious, she turned to Rules of the Team next. It started with a lot of general information on working together as a team and team exercises, but eventually got into a description of the team resources, including the building where she’d be staying (which seemed to be called “headquarters” in the document), and Lex’s jaw had dropped by the time she got to the end of the summary list of perks and resources available. Her interest sharpened as she read about the probationary period that would be expected, however. For the first six months, she’d be required to live at headquarters, other than a weekend out every two weeks.

Lex stopped reading there and looked out the window again, but realized that all she could see from the couch was a corner of the office building across the street and a slice of sky. She didn’t think Kurt would like the idea of her being gone for so long, and she shook her head a moment later to free her lip when she realized she’d nervously bitten it again. Sighing, Lex looked back down at the document, figuring she should read the rest of the summaries before calling Kurt to talk, because there might be other unpleasant surprises. Taking a deep, calming breath brought along with it the faint scents of tea and coffee from the nearby kitchen and the will to forge on.

Continuing, she read that after the probationary period, it was still
highly recommended
that all team members live at headquarters due to response time limits. She shrugged, since it wasn’t required, but noted it anyway. The only other item of real interest to Lex she found as she neared the end of the summary. In a section titled Reassessment/Transfer, Lex learned that both the team sponsor and each individual member would be allowed to reassess their relationship at each year anniversary after the individual had joined the team. If either side wanted a change, both parties would have to agree on it, whether leaving or transferring, but a stalemate could be put to a team vote to break it. For a transfer, however, the individual had to be with the team at least three years before one could be requested, but at that point the transfer could be to a team located anywhere in the United States.

The description of On-Call Responsibilities first caught her interest in the Responsibilities section. Basically, it stated that she needed to be on call at all times for team emergencies, which were supposedly defined with examples in the detailed document. She did note that she’d be issued a mobile device that she was expected to have on her at all times, rather than using her own cell phone.

The next section, Responsibilities to be Determined, went into the fact that her team responsibilities would be defined over her probationary period, based on her skills and abilities and on the needs of the team. What she’d eventually be held responsible for would be agreed upon by her, the team sponsor, and the rest of the team. She liked that the document stated that her normal duties, including training, wouldn’t exceed a regular forty-hour, five-day work week, but she felt nervous about the idea of stepping into something where she’d have no idea what she would be held responsible for until six months out.

Moving into the General Responsibilities section, Lex read that all team members would be held responsible for training and emergency deployment. Training routines would be created for all members, designed to improve their current skills and build new ones. When no emergencies or other duties took priority, team members would be expected to adhere to their particular training schedule. The exact amount of time expected to be spent training would be balanced with whatever other responsibilities each team member had. The Emergency Deployment section described what would need to be done to gather the team to send them out to assist with an emergency. All team members needed to be able to be uniformed, at headquarters, and ready to deploy within an hour of the initial call. For details, Lex noted they referenced the On-Call Responsibilities section of the contract.

After reading through the Testing Informed Consent summary, a document much shorter than many of the others, Lex felt she knew less about what it contained than when she started. It seemed to be a very generally worded version of some of the informed consent documents she’d seen while working for the National Institutes of Health, documents given to people interested in participating in drug or treatment trials so that they could see what they were getting into and decide whether or not they wanted to get involved. This section of the document seemed to refer to certain unnamed medical tests and procedures that might be requested of team members and what their rights were in taking or not taking them. An initial paragraph
highly recommended
that team members agree to take tests or treatments requested by team doctors. The paragraph also noted that the team might be working closely with a number of researchers, and that it was also
highly recommended
that team members work cooperatively with them. Lex made a note about that section, marking it as one she needed to read in great detail later.

The Confidentiality Agreement summary seemed to be a more severe version of the one she had signed the day she interviewed, including the wording that the government or the agency could jail or kill her for revealing confidential information. She was not allowed to talk about her job with the press under any circumstances, and she was to limit what she said to any curious individuals using the guidelines in the detailed section.

After finishing all of the summaries, Lex stretched widely on the couch and looked at the list of comments, questions, and issues she’d documented so far.
Well
, she thought,
at least some of the mystery about why the salary’s so high has been answered
. Everything that she’d read in the contract so far had made her worry more about what she might be getting into, but she really wondered if at least some of what they wanted to hold her to was even legal. Shaking her head, she looked at the clock and realized it was nearing noon.
This is going to take a lot longer than I thought
, she realized, looking at the stacks of papers with a sigh.

Then, thinking about the time again, she smiled. Kurt’s lunch break started at noon, so she could call him to talk over the few things that she wanted to ask him about.
If he really has a problem with any of the conditions
, Lex thought,
I can cut my considerations short here and just tell the M Agency no
. The thought of not having to read the rest of the paperwork made her smile again, so she began mentally going through what she would need to cover with him.

After some thought, Lex figured that the only items that would potentially impact Kurt would be the probationary period rules, the transfer clause, the on-call expectations, and the confidentiality stuff. She got together the information she knew and dialed Kurt’s cell phone.

After a few rings, she heard his voice. “Hello?”

“Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?”

“Lex! What’s up?”

“Do you have a couple of minutes? I wanted to talk about some things.”

“Sure. I’m just sitting at my desk eating pizza. Someone ordered for the office today, so I don’t have to go out for lunch. Fire away, just don’t mind the chewing in the background,” Kurt replied.

Lex laughed. “OK, you’ll only have to listen for a while, so eat away. I got the offer from the M Agency—”

“Hey, that’s great news,” Kurt interrupted, his voice suspiciously muffled. “So you’re going to take it, right?”

Lex now almost felt she could smell the pizza, and her stomach growled in response. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Lex scolded playfully, “I don’t want you choking over the phone!” After a pause, she continued more seriously, “I don’t know if I’m going to take the job, though. There are a few things about it that I wanted to go over with you before I decide.”

“OK, shoot,” Kurt replied, the evidence of pizza talking gone.

“First, in order to get hired on permanently,” Lex began, “I need to go through a probationary period of six months. One of the things about that is that I'd need to live in their facilities that whole time, except for every other weekend. What that boils down to is that if I take the job, for the next twenty six weeks I’ll probably only be able to see you every other weekend, thirteen weekends out of that twenty six.”

Lex paused for a moment and then continued. “Since that's the most immediate thing that’ll impact the two of us, I wanted to mention it first. Please let me know what you think, because I want to be sure that you’re OK with the downsides of this job before I really consider it. If you’re not, I’ll just tell them no and keep looking for something else.”

“Don’t say that, sweetheart,” Kurt broke in. “I know you’ve been looking really hard for a good job, and it would be wrong for me to stand in your way. What’s six months when we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together? It’s not like we’re not going to be able to see each other at all, right?”

“That’s true,” Lex agreed, smiling.

“OK, what else?”

“Well, if I do get the job, there will probably be a lot of it that I can’t tell you about. They have a pretty strict confidentiality clause, so it would be like having some sort of top secret spy job or something. Does that bother you?”

She thought she heard him swallow before he answered. “Not really. I think people talk too much about their work in this town already. Not a big deal. I mean, I don’t
mind
talking about work things with you, but if you can’t discuss it, that’s fine too. Anything else?”