There's Only One Quantum Read online

  THERE’S ONLY ONE QUANTUM

  A NOVEL

  WILLIAM BRYAN SMITH

  Writer’s Bloq, Inc.

  175 Varick St., 4th Floor

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright 2013 by William Bryan Smith

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to [email protected].

  First electronic edition August 2013.

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  Cover design & formatting by Kit Mills.

  THERE’S ONLY ONE QUANTUM has been designed to be read on an iOS device, but should be compatible with all other electronic readers. Should your copy exhibit any strange design elements, please contact us with a screenshot at [email protected].

  There’s Only One Quantum

  To my daughter, Auden, and my son, Beckett.

  One.

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  A squat, gray building of only forty-five stories. Over the main entrance the words, THE QUANTUM CORPORATION, and, in a shield, the company’s motto, OMNITUDE, UNDIVIDEDNESS, PERFECTION. Two men have just stood from a brief meeting at an oval, cherry wood table on the 27th floor.

  “You’ll find we do things a little differently here than Philadelphia,” Lyme said, leading him from the conference room.

  He wore an ill-fitting gray flannel suit that looked like it had been tailored for a much younger, leaner Lyme. They peered out onto a labyrinth of colorless cubicle walls, awash in unforgiving overhead florescent light. They moved slowly down the aisle. “This is Ms. Jacoby,” he said, stopping at the desk of a middle-aged woman with short dark hair, and wearing a muted pink cardigan. She was huddled over her desk, busily completing an official-looking form. “Mr. Coe is the new auditor in our section,” Lyme said.

  She looked up only long enough to make the briefest eye contact with Coe.

  “Ms. Jacoby is the supplies manager,” Lyme said earnestly. “Paper clips, notebooks, number two pencils, white-out, digital recorders, sticky notes, envelopes, stationary, business cards—remind me when we end the tour to give you yours—pens, erasers, highlighters, printer paper. Did that cover it?”

  “Toilet paper,” she said, without looking up.

  “Marvelous sense of humor she has,” Lyme said. “Our section has been tops in leakage prevention four years and running, no doubt thanks to Ms. Jacoby. It’s all kept under lock and key and dispensed at Ms. Jacoby’s discretion.”

  “Including toilet paper?” Coe asked innocently.

  “No.”

  They moved on.

  They passed over several employees busy talking on the phone, or puzzling over monitors or marking up printouts with highlighter pens. Coe wondered why they did not rate an introduction. They stopped at the cubicle of a platinum-haired woman wearing cat-eyed glasses and a ruffled collar. The nameplate outside her cubicle wall read, “Candace Davenport.”

  “Ms. Davenport,” Lyme said, tapping the nameplate. “Clerical manager. She oversees the staff for our section. All the secretaries and receptionists who service our auditors report directly to her.”

  She smiled. “Call me Miss Davenport,” she said and extended her hand weakly to Coe.

  “This is Mr. Coe,” Lyme said, as Coe took her hand. “He’s our new auditor starting today. He’s coming to us from the Philadelphia office.”

  “Mr. Revis’s replacement?” she asked.

  Lyme frowned. It was barely noticeable. In fact, Coe wasn’t even sure he’d registered it.

  “Do you know Mr. Wiloughby?” she asked.

  “No,” Coe said. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “He works out of Philadelphia,” she said.

  “It’s a big office,” Coe said.

  “He was an auditor like you,” she insisted.

  “Mr. Coe here has recently been promoted to auditor,” Lyme interceded. “After—how many years was it?”

  “Nine,” Coe said.

  “Nine years in Research,” Lyme said.

  “Well then,” she said, “I think he may have crossed paths with Mister—”

  “I didn’t know everyone by name—”

  Lyme stepped in. “Like he said. It’s a big office. You can’t expect him to know everyone, Ms. Davenport.” He laughed it off. “Do you know everyone here?”

  “Certainly everyone in my section, our division—and mostly everyone in our department,” she said.

  “One of the sharpest minds in the entire outfit,” Lyme said, ushering Coe away. “She scrutinizes every report before it leaves the section,” he said, casting a glance back at her. “She’s the naturally suspicious kind—and it’s a good trait to have in our arm of the company.”

  Coe nodded.

  “Of course,” Lyme said, “You’re familiar with the Steele incident? Quite a black eye not only on the section, but the entire company. It’s why you’re here—indirectly. Copley assured us you’re a man we can trust.”

  “Joe Copley is a good man,” Coe said.

  “He speaks highly of you,” Lyme said. “And it goes without saying, an endorsement from Joe Copley is worth it’s weight in gold with this company.” He leaned in and said, confidentially, “We can’t have another breach like that one...or it will be all of our jobs. Corporate would think nothing of sacking the entire section.” He laughed. “There’s certainly enough boys down in Research—in Philadelphia and other offices—just clamoring for a shot at an auditor position.”

  “I’m very grateful for the opportunity,” Coe said. “I won’t let the company down.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” Lyme said, clapping him on the back. He looked up at the name plate. �
��Ah,” he said. “Here we have Tony Diorenzo. Our Information Technologies and Support man. Fresh from a week in the London office.”

  A rumpled man with thinning hair and tortoise shell glasses looked up from his work. He had a keyboard disassembled and was brandishing a screwdriver. “Glad to be home,” the man said, and Coe noticed a considerable space between his front teeth. It resulted in a slight whistle when he spoke. “Food’s terrible over there,” he said. “Streets are lousy with Brits.”

  “Tony will get your CRT synced to the system so you can access the reports, and he’ll be the one you see for your mobile communicator.”

  “I’m Coe,” he said, and extended his hand to Diroenzo. He took it lightly between thumb and forefinger and gave him the briefest of handshakes.

  “Delighted,” Diroenzo said. To Lyme, he said, “Could be a day...maybe longer. Tate’s got his CRT a mess again. This is the third one he’s fried in a month.”

  Lyme grimaced. “I’ll have a word with him.”

  They moved on. Lyme said, “I’m the director of the section, you know. I run the outfit rather loosely, you see. I take a high-level approach to our work, as directed by Best Practices. It’s not that I choose to be inaccessible, or appear to be aloof, but well...I’ve got a lot of administrative duties to tend to on a daily level. You’ll report to one of my subordinates, Glen Mitchell. He’s an extremely capable man. You’ll learn a lot from him. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come to me if you have a question. My door is always open—so to speak. Except, obviously, when it is closed.”

  They came to an office. The nameplate on the door read, Glen Mitchell, and beneath it, Section Manager. Lyme walked in without knocking. Coe followed.

  “Mitch? This is the new fellow from Philadelphia.”

  Mitchell, seated behind his desk, immediately stood and extended his hand. “Mr. Coe. Good to finally meet you.” To Lyme, he said, “We’ve already spoken over the phone.”

  “Twice,” Coe said.

  Mitchell smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “Twice.”

  “Mr. Coe is eager to get started,” Lyme said to Mitchell. “Aren’t you, Coe?”

  “With the relocation, it’s been two weeks since I’ve worked.”

  Lyme said, “ I understand. I’ll leave you with Mitch here.” He leaned into Coe. “You’ll be in good hands.”

  “I’m certain I am,” Coe said.

  Lyme grinned. “Don’t forget the meeting with Operations at two,” he said to Mitchell, and was gone.

  Mitchell looked at his watch. “What did they have you doing all morning?”

  “Mostly paperwork,” Coe said. “W-2, clearance forms, a retinal scan, fingerprints...everything but blood work.”

  “You’re not in Philly anymore,” Mitchell said with a laugh. “And you’re no longer in Research. It’s a high-level position with high-level responsibilities. You’ll have access to much more information than you had in Research. You’ll now know the questions to the answers you were asked to find in your old department.” He looked again at his watch. “Let’s get some lunch,” he said.

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  The car lifted up off the roof of the 40-story building. Coe watched the hoverpad fade away, below. It was raining. The city was gray. A mix of fog and clouds hung over the buildings. Hover traffic was light; the streets were choked with cars below.

  “You bring a car?” Mitchell asked.

  “Left it back in Philadelphia,” Coe said.

  “Smart move. You’d spend half your paycheck on parking if you did. Public transportation is more than suitable here.” Mitchell patted the steering wheel of the hover car. “This is the only way to go in this city.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “The hover car? Christ, no.” He laughed. “Do you know how much one of these babies cost?”

  “I don’t know how much a section manager makes,” Coe said.

  “It’s a company vehicle,” he said. “You’ll have an opportunity to drive one. Have you ever?”

  “No.”

  “Handles like a terrestrial car for the most part.” He turned to Coe. “You like Thai?”

  “Sure.”

  “This place makes the best tom yam kung nam khon you’ll ever have.”

  Coe agreed, despite not knowing what it is.

  Mitchell gently lowered the hover car to the rooftop hoverpad of the restaurant, where a valet was waiting under an umbrella.

  Coe stared down at the fully intact prawn in his soup. Mitchell eyed him suspiciously from his side of the table. Coe carefully scooped up the unrecognizable vegetables around the crustacean and avoided its lifeless gaze.

  “You don’t know how to eat the prawn?” Mitchell said. It was somewhere between a question and an observation.

  “I’m not used to my lunch having a face,” he said.

  “Vegetarian?”

  Coe cleared his throat. “Not by choice—and certainly not an ethical thing. With the meat shortage, and the high cost of the laboratory-grown variety, my diet has become mainly vegetable-based.”

  Mitchell laughed. “On an auditor’s salary, you should be able to reintroduce steak to your menu.” He motioned to Coe’s bowl. “May I?”

  Coe pushed the bowl toward the center of the table and Mitchell fished out the prawn with his spoon. Coe averted his eyes as Mitchell tore the prawn apart with his fingers.

  “That clerical manager is certainly a suspicious one,” Coe remarked.

  “Davenport?” Mitchell said, munching on the prawn. He waved off the suggestion. “She’s a funny bird. That title has gone to her head. She thinks she’s an auditor herself since she’s the one that caught the inconsistencies in Revis’s reports.”

  “He was a mole for Steele?”

  Mitchell’s face registered discomfort. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still not convinced. Davenport had it out for him, you ask me—and you didn’t. I think she had a thing for Revis, if you know what I mean. Wink-wink...nudge-nudge. She was looking for a little office snuzzle, but Revis wasn’t having it.” He looked sharply to Coe. “You married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “I’m on my second,” Mitchell said. “Marriage, that is. Kids?”

  “No.”

  “Smart man. They’ll cost you more than naturally raised meat. I’ve got two myself. They’re with their mother. The first Mrs. Mitchell. Thank Christ I got the manager position when I did. Girlfriend?”

  Coe thought of Janeiro. “Yes.”

  “Back in Philly?”

  “Not exactly,” Coe said. “Terre Haute.” As he said it, he wondered if he had already said too much.

  “One or Two?”

  “What?”

  “Terre Haute One or Two?” he asked.

  “Two.”

  “She’s off-world?”

  Coe cleared his throat. “Yes.”

  Mitchell looked puzzled. “Strictly AV?”

  “For now.”

  “Ever meet her?” Mitchell asked. “Face-to-face?”

  Coe hesitated. He knew how it sounded. “Not yet.”

  Mitchell smiled. “I guess I come from a different generation. To me, a girlfriend is a physical manifestation...you hold hands, you go on dates, you kiss—”

  “We go on dates,” Coe said, defensively. He realized how it must sound and said, more softly, “We have...The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cape May—things of that sort. With the wearable cams they have nowadays, she can be right there, with me, experiencing everything that I do—”

 
“Come now,” Mitchell said. “Not everything. You’re using the word ‘experience’ rather liberally, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well, she sees everything I see.”

  “I’ve seen Venice many times on television,” Mitchell said. “But I’ve never been there. I only see what the camera wants me to see. She sees only what you want her to see.”

  Coe fell silent.

  “But if it works for you, who am I to judge? Right?”

  The talk shifted back to work, mainly what will be expected of Coe as an auditor. Coe finished his soup. Without the expressionless, postmortem mask of the prawn staring back at him, the soup was actually quite good. When they had finished, the waiter came to clear their bowls. “Coffee?” the waiter asked.

  “Is it synthetic today?” Mitchell asked.

  “No, sir. Colombian. We’re assured it was roasted and ground at Rainy City Roasters just this morning.”

  “Two, please,” Mitchell ordered without even asking if Coe drank coffee—which he did—when he could afford to.

  “What a treat,” Mitchell said when the waiter had left. “I must warn you. You will likely be unfairly scrutinized to start. I apologize for that. Davenport will no doubt be up your ass about your reports. You realize you were not the best-suited man for this position. We received nearly five-hundred apps from experienced auditors up and down the coast. You were selected, quite honestly, for your long-time loyalty to the company.”

  “I thought as much. There were whispers—rumblings, quite honestly—of that nature, back in Philadelphia. I’ve logged my time in Research, I’m up to the task—”

  “I know,” Mitchell said. “We know. You were the most qualified internal candidate. And with the recommendation coming down directly from Copley, well...you were a candidate we frankly couldn’t overlook.”

  The waiter brought the coffee. Mitchell wasted no time hoisting the cup to his mouth. He groaned with satisfaction. “Nowadays,” he said, “it really is about the simpler things.” He smiled, perhaps smirked, at Coe. “So how did you manage such high praise from Copley?”