Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1) (12 page)

One of the requirements of my work is that I not contact my family regularly. I am evaluated and poked and prodded but I can’t message or visit my family or any of my friends. I really wanted to for the longest time, but the Corporation has studied the effect and we become less effective in these jobs if we have deep emotional attachments at home.

I’m not even supposed to talk about what we do, but I was first asked to write you and then directed (ordered) to tell you what I was doing.

I’m a Corporate Marine. If you’ve played the latest sim games, then you know what my armour and weapons look like. We are the first line of defence for Earth. We deal with the rare pirate incident, conduct raids and ensure the safety of the solar system.

I have seen advances like you would not believe. Humanity needs to stay out here so that we can hit our full potential. I have seen some of the news reports of the movement to isolate ourselves in the solar system and it’s a mistake.

I am allowed to write all this to you but I cannot even write my parents. The Corporation has even censored some of what I wrote, but they gave the message back to me and simply asked me to modify a few bits to be more general.

I think they want you for something. If they offer you a job, then TAKE IT! This is exactly what we talked about sometimes when doing the homework and studying.

I was asked to keep this short, and I do not think I will be allowed to send a second message. But know that I didn’t want to just abandon you, my family or the rest of the guys. I am out here doing what is right. Please let my parents know that I am okay and try to explain.

I miss you and our gaming.

Tina.

I just stared at that message for hours. I had no way to get a message back to her.

T
he next day I found out what the Glentol Corporation wanted. They offered me a summer job within the local main offices. But I didn’t know why.

I had received the offer that morning and it was on my pad waiting for me when I woke up. I talked to my parents about it when I went downstairs.

Mom seemed happier that I had a message from Tina than anything else. Dad just looked at me and asked some questions. My answers were pretty simple.

“So where do they want you to work?”

I shrugged. “I dunno; it didn’t say.”

“Okay, when would you start?” This Monday morning.”

“They are paying you?”

“Yup, intern wages, which are twice what I made last year.”

Dad finally gave up and motioned and I just handed the pad over. It was way easier than playing twenty questions when I didn’t have the answers.

He grunted as he scrolled through it. “So you start Monday, the number indicates...” He whistled and then looked at me. “You’re going to work as a summer intern in Senior Management.” He looked stumped for a minute. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing.” He gave himself a shake and then nodded. “We’ll have to get you packed and over to the train by Sunday morning. You are going to need clothes and supplies for two weeks, and make sure you are bringing two proper suits, not just that garbage ‘casual workwear’ that is trendy. They don’t like that...”

I was just staring at him with my mouth hanging open, and Mom got in there first. “What train? Where do you THINK he’s going?” She had that tone that she was not happy.

Dad looked at both of us and then shrugged and pushed the pad back to me. “If Timothy had read the attachments, he will be staying in the corporate lodgings as a senior management intern. I expect that he will be either partying himself to death,
or
if he wants to make a good impression, then he will be working twenty-hour days and trying to impress his boss without sucking up.”

Dad just looked at Mom and she stopped and slowly nodded.

I was totally against this. “Dad, I don’t mind a part-time job for the summer, but I want a life, you know? Hang out with my friends, get some playing in, and recharge before the next school year…”

He was looking at me and I couldn’t keep going. He was looking at me coldly like I was under the microscope and could infect him.

He spoke quietly. “You are taking this position. How you work is up to you. There are
no
senior management intern positions. Normally you would be working for some junior manager in my office and learning how to be a go-fer, like go-fer coffee. There have been rumours of new training and recruiting experiments to fast-track certain targeted individuals. The position you are going to fill, you need to be a top manager slotted for something greater, which is why you end up an assistant for someone much higher. Most people need to be in management for six years or more before they are even looked at for a position like that. So you will take that position, and I suggest that you work harder at that than ever before. A good rating could push you right to management when you graduate.”

Dad stopped and looked at me. Then I saw Mom staring at me. She frowned. “Why did they pick you, Tim? Did they do testing at school or something else?”

I just sat there shaking my head no. “I go through the standard testing everyone else gets and never signed up or did other tests. There are rumours that some of the stuff that we do with the new pads at school are run through a corporate algorithm, but that was more for scoring and tailoring educational needs to the specific individual. But you already know that, Mom.”

They were both nodding. Dad spoke next. “It doesn’t matter; they picked him. Do the best you can, Tim. You may end up in a much higher position than I am in the Corporation after you graduate, and I’m okay with that.”

I grimaced. “I guess that means that I buy the big house then, and you live with me raiding the fridge?”

Mom and Dad both grinned and Mom said it first. “You got it, kiddo!”

I
left Sunday morning and took the train to my position, with way too much luggage. I had to take a taxi to the corporate dorms, and got myself settled in. It wasn’t anything fancy and not what I thought it would be like. Instead, it was a hideous, big concrete box that was ten storeys tall and every room had a double bed and small screen mounted on the wall. There was a heating unit and sort of a chiller and a tiny bathroom with a shower that felt like you were hosing off in a shoebox.

There were lots of people there, doing everything from testing for I don’t know what to waiting for their placements to begin. There were common areas on every floor near the two elevators, with fridges and heaters so you could warm up food or drinks, and a mid-size screen with entertainment playing.

It was crap. I always pictured people working for the Corporation to be living the grand life in high-end hotels with all the beautiful people around you. I walked in and there was staining in the front foyer, both elevators smelled of too many people, and some of the hallways smelled like piss. All the lights worked and there was nothing non-functional about the place, but just yuck!

When I complained a bit about this with some of the other people that were my age in the common room, they all laughed and thought I was joking.

There were three girls and four boys in waiting for their placement to start for training, except for the one girl, who was going to go for skilled trade testing. I thought they were freaks at first, but realized they just grew up somewhere different than I did.

I wondered what they had grown up in that made them consider place this to be nice.

The boys were wearing normal clothes that showed off their physique, but they weren’t that fit. The girls wore some damn revealing clothes and had piercings and more tattoos than I had ever seen.

I caught the best-looking girl watching me while we were catching some news. Everyone got bored of that fast and the rest took off to go do something on the town. I kept watching the media while the good-looking girl sat across from me.

I really started paying attention to her then. She was attractive, with a piecing look, and she was what Dad would consider from the wrong side of the tracks. Her hair was long and braided in three different colors; she had a bunch of tattoos, and the ones on her face really brought out her green eyes. They had to be contacts because her hair looked raven black—what wasn’t dyed, anyway. She had a small mouth with ruby red glitter lipstick. She was smiling and I could see a gap between her front teeth that actually looked good.

“Do you like what you see?” She was grinning at me and I was pretty sure that she was mocking me, so I made sure I checked her out from top to bottom. She had on a tube top that went over her shoulder and let you see her stomach, and low-rider jeans that were missing a leg. Everything showed off that she was hot and fit.

“In fact, I do like what I see. Tasteful and hot. Hopefully not too hot to burn too much?”

She was laughing at me now and sat up. “Well, uptight city boy, it’s nice to meet someone with a sense of wit that can flatter a woman. My name is Clara Brennan. What’s your name, city boy?”

I was laughing along with her. “Timothy Labaron, you cheery minx.”

She stood up and swayed over to me and before I could move, she had straddled me on the chair. “So I am a minx, am I? Well, it’s a good thing you’re a good-looking guy or maybe when I jumped onto this chair, my knee would have ended up in a more inappropriate spot.”

She was still grinning at me. I could feel her pressing against me and my brain was pretty much turned off and on vacation.

She leaned over me and whispered in my ear, “You turn such a cute shade of red too! Well, since there is nothing on the screen, how do you feel about making some news with me?”

All I could think to say was, “Arghl,” or something like that.

She laughed and leapt up off of me and then sat down in a chair across from me. “So, shy city boy, can you tell me why a nice boy like you is staying in what must be a crummy dorm to you? Did you piss someone off? Or are you trying to live like the other side?” She would have been offensive, but she had a grin on her face.

I found myself grinning back at her. “I was asked to come intern for a summer job and ended up here. I didn’t think that I pissed anyone off, but this place is a lot different than what I am used to. I live in the suburbs. I like meeting new people and everyone here seems kind of interesting, but it’s all new for me. What about you? Why are you here?”

Clara was looking at me with a quizzical look on her face like she was trying to figure something out. “If people do an internship for a summer position, they stay where they live. So they shouldn’t have shipped you here. Or at least they should have put you up in the five-star hotels that the Corporation has.” She shrugged. “Not my worry, unless you are some sort of spy for the Corp, but that doesn’t make sense. Those tight boys came to me; I didn’t go grovelling to them.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about or how much was fact and how much was just rumour. “Clara, where are you from? If you were local, wouldn’t you just live at home while you were working for the Corporation?”

She made a face at me. “Are you suburban tight boys always so zippy fast with stuff? You gonna let me finish?”

I nodded and she sat back while watching me with a glint in her eye.

“I’m from the Projects. I was at school and the Corporation was doing spot-checking for qualified people. I was rounded up and pushed through. My scores were real good and here I am waiting for more testing.”

I thought I was just watching her and listening, but she must have thought I was judging her or something. She got really defensive. “I didn’t get nasty on the floor with them or nothing! I went in and was tested and cleared on my own! I scored in the nineties thanks to my grandpa having been a tradesman and he showed me what to do, like the rest of my brothers.”

I just stared at her. People slept with the testers to get better scores so they could get jobs? I think that was what she said.

“Clara, I never really left my home except to go to university, and even then I’m in class most of the time or going to student hangouts so I don’t know much about the real world. I don’t know anything about the Projects, except from what I see in the news and how they are going to shut them down and move the people there to better housing. I didn’t know that people could, uh, ‘fix’ the scores with the Corporation. I don’t even know why the guys here were wearing gang stuff. Help?”

I did my cute ‘help me, I’m a dumb guy’ smile. It always works with the nurturing women.

Clara didn’t buy it for a second. “Wow, so you going to be a super high tight boy one day, huh? University and interning here in the Corporation’s town? Kay.” Her face had gone from welcoming and friendly to emotionless. I couldn’t do that look if I tried. It was the same look that Dad had when something had gone badly wrong and he was thinking.

Clara nodded to herself and then her face warmed up. “Okay, cutey, I’ll accept that you are who you say you are. Those ‘gang boys’?” She snorted. “Those are local kids who picked up the habit like a lot of kids did. That’s just a look they do to copy what they see out of the Projects. Everyone in the Projects is loosely attached to a gang, but only a few are the real bad -boy enforcers. The law has stations, but everything is handled inside by us. Even the guys I went to school with could beat any of those pretenders to a pulp. And really, as hard as life is there, what I said about getting my own scores on the testing? That wasn’t ‘cause it happens a lot with girls giving it away for a score. It was because you from outside and would think it was like that.”

She shook her head. “We learn early on that the Corporation is everywhere and watching everything. We don’t trust them. I mean, I know there is a scanner in the corner and there will be a system watching and evaluating us as a threat, but I don’t care. I ain’t a bomb thrower and I just want to get a good job so I can get out of the Projects. Does that help? Oh, and the Projects ain’t ever getting shut down.”

I had so many questions but I wanted to get her back into a better mood, as this conversation was hard for her.

“No, I think you answered my questions. I didn’t think you had cheated or had your scores fixed. You’re too smart for that, and the Corporation is always looking for good recruits as there are so many things to do. Do you have any questions for me?”

She eyed me. “Okay, what is your home like? What are the people you go to school with like and what did you do?”

“I grew up in a subdivision and went to school with other kids from there and some other subdivisions. I go to school, I work out and I game. Not everyone where I live works for the Corporation, but it’s like anywhere. If there is a big enough family, someone does in some way. All the guys are just guys. Some are dumber than others, but most of us are not isolationists.” I went on for a while and I thought I was rambling but I thought it was what Clara was looking for.

We had both been pretty isolated growing up. I wrapped up. “Anything else?”

She frowned. “What’s an isolationist?”

Great—this was going to be a long conversation. I took a deep breath. “There are two groups today. After the invasion, some people wanted to make the solar system a big fort, hide and prepare defences for when the aliens come back. The other group wanted to expand out into the galaxy, meet new alien races and find the invaders. We need more information than we have now about them and what their intent was. None of the races that we met know or will admit to knowing about the invaders. But who knows, they’re aliens, right?”

I grinned at the old alien joke but I don’t think she got it.

She was just staring at me. “So there are people who think we should just hide here and wait?”

“Well, sort of.”

She shook her head. “No. We should be out there finding them and then hammer them with rocks from orbit until their planet splits apart and every one of them is dead. Then we should land troops to sow the ground with salt and leave scanners in orbit in case there are survivors so that they can be killed. No survivors.”

She looked at me. “Those people who think we should hide here on Earth should be slapped, really hard and a lot. How many millions died when we had rocks dropped on our heads? It was the poor that were moved to the Projects and starved. It was the poor that died. Everyone in the Projects today can tell you the names of their family that died, and that was how long ago? We all hate the invaders and what they did.”

I could hear the hatred in her voice. I couldn’t understand it.

“Did you know that everyone in the Projects who can vote does in every election? Candidates want our vote. They talk to our leaders, call a meeting and pledge that they will vote to go after the invaders. They get our vote then. They used to call our type of political feelings being a ‘hawk.’ What do you think?”

“We need to go out and explore space. If we stay here in our star system, they can come back whenever they want and they won’t make those same mistakes next time. I don’t know how we can go to war with them. We aren’t that advanced. But we can do something.”

She was smiling. “I thought I had you figured out, shy guy. You all right in my books. Even if you are going to be a full tight boy one day, living in a big house with a nice trophy wife on your arm.”

I laughed at her; I couldn’t picture that. Mom would kick my rear down the hall if I married a woman that didn’t meet her standards.

I checked the time. We had been talking for a while, but it had tired me out. I got up and Clara followed me. We chatted about shows and stuff while we slowly made our way down the hall.

I stopped at my door and then asked her where her room was. She smiled. “Back down the other way.”

The right thing to do would have been for me to walk her to her room, but I think she wouldn’t have liked that. I think she liked to be in control, so I told her good night.

She stepped in close and gave me a hug.

She turned to go. “Too bad you’re a shy city boy. We could have had some real fun…”

I watched her walk down the hall and wondered if I had made a mistake and should have taken her up on the offer. She disappeared around a corner in the hall, and then I headed to my room.