Page 19 of A Light in the Dark
“I wish you the best of luck with that. You’re going to need it.”
EIGHT
I wondered who was forced to deal with the idiocy.
Madeline beatme into the office by ten minutes, something I viewed to be a promising sign. Tomorrow, she wouldn’t be stuck waiting in the reception for me. Our first task of the day involved getting her full access to our floor along with a tour. By the time I finished with her, she’d be prepared for life in Stonecreek—and be at no risk of facing Gabriella’s fate.
I wondered how she’d made it through the floods, and I could only assume someone had taken a liking to her and advised she stay indoors at the start of the rainy season. Within an hour, the woman relaxed, which led me to wonder what the hell was going on at our client’s office.
Rather than ask, I sat her down at my desk, explained the sad truth about our role in the company, and went to work introducing her to our clients, their various quirks, and the paperwork disasters she would need to help me conquer. Upon realizing we were the poor bastards who set up theaccountants, tax preparers, and lawyers for dealing with the clients’ submissions to the government, she made a gesture, crossing her heart with her hands, and muttered a prayer.
“I wondered who was forced to deal with the idiocy,” Madeline whispered when no one else was around. “My former employer? Organization was not in their dictionary. That explains why the filing boxes. I watched them fill them, Valerie. They wiped everything off a desk and shoved them into the boxes without even looking at them. They just assumed they were needed.”
I regarded the boxes in question, which sat beside my desk and waited for me to have time to deal with them. “I appreciate that warning. We’ll be dealing with that mess tomorrow. Today, I think I’ll stick with the companies that do a tolerable job of organizing their documentation. That mess will be excellent for teaching you the ropes and what we need to do for some of the harder clients, though.”
Madeline regarded the collection of boxes as though snakes might rise from them and bite her. “On Earth, we used digital records for everything. We signed digitally, too. Paper did too much damage to the environment, and there weren’t enough trees for oxygen as it was. But the mining we were doing did even more damage. We learned to fully recycle every piece of our tech so we did less damage.”
But then Earth’s days as a habitable planet had come to an end, her volcanoes wiping everything out. In the months following the eruptions, satellite photography had shown the sad fate of the world. Rather than nuclear winter, something those on Earth had feared since the creation of the devastating weapons, a thick layer of volcanic ash blocked out the sun and lowered the temperature of the planet.
Probes revealed more volcanoes had stirred, and the land had become mass lava fields incompatible with most life.
The oceans either boiled or froze, and most doubted any substantial life remained.
“But then the eruptions happened,” I murmured.
Madeline nodded. “I guess those who said Mother Nature would sort our shit out if we couldn’t sort it out ourselves were right. She definitely won that round. It will be several lifetimes before Earth is habitable again.”
I had a hard time imagining the planet as being habitable again in even ten or twenty lifetimes. “I think Earth has served as an important reminder of why we need to be ready for catastrophe. I take it how things operated on Earth doesn’t work here?”
“It really doesn’t, and I think my previous employer was frustrated with it. Wecan’tdo things the same way we did on Earth. The technology isn’t here. And the technology doesn’t belong here. I couldn’t answer any of their questions on how to make it or how it works. I just used it.”
Ah-ha. As part of the migration process, the refugees had been asked to limit how much they discussed tech, with those who had minimal understanding of Earth tech remaining on our world while those with strong technical inclinations had been sent to a new planet. From my understanding of the situation, we would be swapping refugees for years moving forward until our world was inhabited by those who wouldn’t miss Earth’s level of tech.
Once I got home, I would reach out to the Hunters and ask if the pursuit of knowledge and technology might be part of the reason refugees were being eliminated in Stonecreek.One thing was certain, however: I would do what I could to protect Earth’s survivors.
I had begun with Gabriella, but I would not stop until I felt at least some confidence in the security of those who had sought safety and refuge among us.
Madeline’sprevious employer had attempted to bleed her dry, and it took an hour to convince the woman overtime was a dirty word we only used in the two months leading up to the submission deadline for taxes for the year. As my boss caught me in the act, he joined the fray, informed us both we’d be getting the overtime from handling Madeline’s onboarding, and he assured the refugee she would have all but nine of her thirty-two hours each day for herself.
The idea she got weekends off confused and baffled the woman.
Then, because Mr. Accor understood more about life than I often gave him credit for, he gave her the dual-employment options in case she needed to work longer hours or wanted to skip having weekends.
I’d opted against joining the program, but the company did have a method of handling employees who wanted to work extra hours.
After he finished that, he also gave her the option to work for our company in a second position.
Once Madeline left, my boss sighed and said, “We’ve learned that Earth wasn’t a leader in employee rights… or other rights, either. It wouldn’t surprise me if Madeline is used to working fourteen hour days just to get by.”
“But Earth was on a twenty-four hour cycle.” How could anyone live with working fourteen of twenty-four hours? When was there time to make breakfast or have lunch? What about dinner? How did they sleep? The math didn’t add up.
It often took me over an hour to make dinner and clean the kitchen afterwards, and I spent just as long on breakfast and lunch. How had any of them had the time to do basic chores?
Even an eight hour day seemed somehow unmanageable when only working with twenty-four hours.
My boss held up his hand. “I know what you’re about to ask, and you won’t like the answer. In fact, if I tell you the truth about it, you’ll be fuming the rest of your day and come in cranky tomorrow. I wouldn’t blame you for that. I become rather unhappy thinking through the specifics. What matters is that Madeline will need to adapt to life here. She now has a job where she only needs to work nine hours a day to have the rest of her thirty-two hour day for leisure. This is going to be new territory for her. I’ll see about a bridging program to get her used to not working late. I’m sure we have plenty of extra work kicking around here to manage fourteen hours a day for her until we can wean her down to nine and get her used to the idea of having free time.”
Having to teach my assistant that life wasn’t just about work would test my patience, but I’d muddle through somehow. “I’ll work with her.”
