Layover

CHAPTER 24

Race was going over the procedures to switch sections of the line over for short runs and custom orders with the line engineers in their small conference room when her comm beeped.

"Excuse me." She stepped away from the holo covering most of one wall and grabbed the small in-house-channel talker GUP had provided her. "Race Harrington."

"Ms. Harrington, this is Tamika Khafiri, Mr. Smylie's personal assistant? Mr. Smylie would like to see you in his office this morning as soon as it's convenient."

Race looked back at the engineers clustered around the instructional schematics. Smylie's office was on the opposite side of the huge office/industrial complex, it would take her at least ten minutes just to get there.

"Tell him I'll be there in thirty minutes," she said into the little blue chit, then clipped it back onto her lapel.

"Yes ma'am."

Smylie greeted her at the door of his spacious office and led her back to his desk. They walked on two inch thick carpet that felt more like a mattress under her feet than a floor covering.

"Glad you could take the time to see me today," Smylie was saying. "I know how busy you are." He indicated she should sit. There was a loveseat and two chairs arrayed before his desk. She chose a chair

His desk was some sort of polybond synthetic wood with a burl design, thick and heavy and polished to a glossy finish. He sank comfortably into a tall-backed faux leather chair behind it and, with his elbows on the armrests of the luxurious chair, tented his fingers under his chin.

"Coffee? Water? Milk? No? Well, I just wanted to say how impressed we are with the work you've been doing. The changeover is already way ahead of schedule, which my people find incredible, and they all tell me the same thing. It's because of you."

"Well, thank you Mr. Smylie. But you've got competent people, they're the ones actually doing all the work. I'm just giving them direction."

The entire wall behind the desk was a window looking out on downtown Garshak. This high up, the only thing she could see from her chair were the tops of nearby officebuildings and the occasional floaters with no altitude restrictions. Corporate delivery services, mostly, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, and the occasional police vehicle, glinting in the sun. The tint on the windows kept the glare down, but Smylie was still barely more than a silhouette in the chair.

"Nevertheless, we both know you deserve most of the credit." He paused, and regarded her intently for a few seconds. "Outside of Gupink, how do you like our fair city? Have you had much opportunity to see the sights?"

For a second Race wondered what exactly he meant, then decided not to read any hidden messages into it.

"Not much," she admitted. "Mostly I go straight from here to my hotel, and then right back in the morning."

He nodded and pursed his lips. "Even so, I'm sure you've experienced a little. . . culture shock. Monsipur's a far cry from New Mantique, we're about on opposite ends of the spectrum."

"That's certainly true," she said with feeling.

"Has it made working here…uncomfortable for you?" he asked. He was trying to be delicate, and subtle, but he wasn't very good at it.

Race decided how best to respond. "While, for me, there's always a shock, visiting a strange planet, I have spent quite a bit of time on worlds other than New Mantique. So the…freeness of your culture wasn't as much of a shock as it might've been were I a strict observer of New Mantique classicalism who'd never been off the planet."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" he repeated. "I've been to New Mantique, and it was downright repressive. That was years and years ago, and I know it's gotten worse. No offense meant."

"The Classical Movement, or the move toward what have been termed Traditional Values, has grown stronger in recent years, yes."

"Are you a proponent of this?"

Race shifted in her chair. "Well, I work in the corporate world, a traditionally male-dominated environment. This move toward 'Traditional Values' where women stay a home, raise children, and don't contradict their husbands, has made it more difficult for me."

Smylie nodded again, and sat quietly in his chair. After a while he said, "I assume you've heard what's happening with the synthetic legislation on New Mantique?"

"Yes."

"What do you think the outcome will be?"

"Well, the bill will become law, it's only a question of when. My guess is within a year or two. At that point the board of directors of NMS will have three options: shut down the company, try to produce models which conform to the new regulations, which will reduce sales by eighty percent or more and could result in their bankruptcy, or move the company off New Mantique entirely."

"Your guess?"

"They'll move offplanet. NMS already has GUP Inc. and a dozen other companies throughout known space licensed to make synthetics. Moving the corporate headquarters and R&D farm to another world only makes sense. The expense will be massive, of course, the NMS complex on New Mantique is over two kilometers across, but it's really the only option if they want to stay competitive."

"There'll be a massive corporate shakeup."

"You're probably right."

Smylie paused again, a long one, then said, "I really wish you'd gotten the chance to get out and see the town, see what Garshak is really like." He paused and sighed, then leaned forward and tapped the palm-sized comm cube on his desk. "Tamika? Would you come in here please?"

"Yes Mr. Smylie."

Smylie leaned forward and regarded Race thoughtfully. "I'd like to offer you a job," he told her. "Vice President, Marketing."

The office door opened and Smylie's assistant came in. She was exotically beautiful, thanks to an unusual Japanese/Arabic heritage. Her jet black hair was perfectly straight and hung to the middle of her back, and she wore a short-waisted double breasted blazer of green silk with padded shoulders. The bottom of the blazer just barely touched the waistband of her skirt, which was made of some thick black elastic material that shone like it was wet. The skirt came down just far enough to cover her buttocks, revealing creamy thighs. She wore black toe boots, little more than ballet shoes with six-inch spike heels that laced up over the ankle. They were so uncomfortable Race didn't know how anyone could walk in them, but they looked great, and Tamika moved as if she'd had a lot of practice wearing them.

Tamika had a sensuous, fleshy body, with full lips painted a rich, glossy red. Her buttocks and shapely thighs screamed SEX! Race thought of it as the slutty voluptuous look, and not very appropriate for an office setting. The skirt by itself was disconcerting. Not only wasn't it very professional, it was distracting—Race kept expecting the skirt to ride up over Tamika's round buttocks.

"Yes Mr. Smylie?"

Smylie leaned back in his chair and swiveled it sideways. Tamika walked across the office, her curvy legs impossibly long in the toe boots.

"What are you offering?" Race asked him, her cool tone hiding a hammering pulse.

"Full benefits package, of course, your own speeder," Smylie told her as his assistant walked around behind his desk. He leaned back in his chair as she knelt on the carpet before him. "Corner office, with a great view. We'll help you look for a residence, and will provide an apartment free of charge until you find a place. An unmatched health care package that covers everything short of permdying."

Tamika began undoing Smylie's pants, her glossy hair falling forward to obscure most of her face. The desk blocked most of Race's view, and with Smylie's words echoing in her head she was slow to realize what the assistant was doing.

"Base pay of seven hundred thousand, plus profit sharing and the standard performance bonuses."

"Seven hun--!" she began. "What is she doing?" she asked suddenly, sitting up straighter to peer over the desk.

It was obvious exactly what Tamika was doing, Smylie's pants undone, her head bobbing over his lap, but her thick hair concealed most of the activity from view.

"Exactly what you think she's doing," Smylie told her. "That's why I said I wished you'd seen more of Garshak, this is part of our national culture, our corporate heritage. Your benefits package includes up to four personal synthetics, and one executive assistant of your choosing. It can be a man, if you like; the point is we do things a lot differently here than on New Mantique. An assistant's duties are much more…all encompassing. I wanted to make sure you were aware of that fact before you made a decision."

"I'd heard, but I wasn't expecting…."

"I understand, it's tough to believe it until you see it. Whatever you've heard is probably true, everything about our society is pretty wide open. Talk to any of the female department heads, or division V.P.'s."

As bizarre as it was, after her luncheon meeting the day before Race had no doubt he was telling her the truth. The top of Tamika's head bobbed into view above the edge of the desk with metronomic regularity. Subdued slurping sounds filtered around the solid desk to her.

"Why don't you get a synthetic for a personal assistant?" Race asked him, still having trouble getting her mind around Monny corporate life.

"Against the law. Any job that can be performed by a human must be."

"What?"

"How do you think we keep our unemployment at three percent year after year?"

Tamika's head appeared above the desk top, her mouth shiny. Her ruby lip gloss was still perfect, indicating she'd invested the extra money for semi-perm lacquer. "Do you have any idea how much money I make?" she asked Race. "How hard it was to get this job?" Her head lowered and resumed bobbing.

The competition for executive personal assistant positions was, in fact, as intense as it was for executive positions. The pay was excellent for what was, in all actuality, a rather easy job. But the competition…Tamika rented instructional feelies on fellatio at least once a week to ensure her boss never got bored with her talents. She took so much X-Cite-R that she felt jacked up even when she knew there couldn't be any left in her system, but she'd been so jacked up for so long that it didn't bother her anymore like it used to. She couldn't remember what it was like to not be bubbly and dripping wet from dawn to dusk. Her boyfriend surely enjoyed the side benefits of her job. She also watched what she ate and spent a fortune on clothes that skimmed the fine line between sexy professional and professional pulatrita. Some personal assistants she knew did a lot more, but she wasn't morphing or implanting anything.

Race sat there, silent, for close to a minute. Smylie watched her, seemingly oblivious to Tamika's ministrations.

"I'll need some time to think about this," Race said finally.

"Of course."

Race stood up. The height gave her a better view of Smylie's assistant on her knees behind the desk. She'd pulled her skirt up over her ass when she knelt, revealing full, alabaster cheeks unencumbered by underwear.

"Are you married?" Race asked him, honestly curious.

"Yes. Twenty-one years next month."

"And your wife..?" Race waggled her hand in the direction of Tamika's bobbing head.

"Does she know?" He gave a short laugh. "Of course. She helped me during the interview process. If she minded, Tamika wouldn't be where she is now. No, my wife is actually glad that no matter how stressful my day is I always come home relaxed and pleasant to be around."

Race started to say something, changed her mind, and started toward the door. She stopped midway there, turned to look at Smylie again, and saw Tamika climbing to her feet. The assistant turned away from Smylie and gently settled herself on his lap with a wiggle.

"I'll just let myself out," Race said.

"Thanks, that'd be great. You can leave the door open."