NOVEL WEB Chapter 35: 34th entry
Season: Autumn
Weather: Flaming hot, scorching weather above 40 deg C. Summer is back.
Day of the week: Wednesday
Date: 20th March, 2024
I wasn't meant to go into work today, but I did. My team leader called me in to help with an influx of urgent tasks that had to be finished by the end of the day.
After work, I happened to find myself in the elevator with a few of THE biggest boss of all's team of people. They were trying to figure out who would go with the boss to some business dinner meeting slash formal to take notes and be a pretty vase.
None of the secretaries could or would go for some reason and none of the assistants were free. They were all making excuses and arguing over who had the more valid excuses (like the man who's wife worked evening shift and he had to get home to take care of the kids as soon as possible before they burned the house down) and who didn't (looking at the woman who said her chubby pet dog would starve). The elevator had just dinged to open the door and let me out on the ground floor, when I was pulled back into the lift. The arguing secretaries and assistants had stopped arguing.
"You. We've seen you and your work. You'll do."
I didn't even get to protest. And when I did, they all just ignored me.
I was dragged out of the elevator into the first basement level toward a storage room full of clothes and dressing rooms. The ladies forced me to try on various dresses and forcibly did my makeup before pushing me into the arms of one of the female assistants. That female assistant grabbed me by the arm, nails digging into my skin hard enough to paint the tips of her sharp but fake nails red with my blood and half dragged me back to the lifts where the smaller number of gathered secretaries and assistants nodded.
The entire group pushes me into the arms of one of the male assistants. He forced me to go with him to the basement carpark park and pushed me into a car, putting my seatbelt on for me, while another assistant got into the driver's seat.
Before I could even try to get back out of the car, it was moving.
"When we get there," said the assistant, "just keep your head down and take notes. You shouldn't have to answer any questions. Do whatever the managers say. The Boss is going to be late, so you may have to help entertain the business associates. Try not to mess this up. It's for a big deal contract. Play your cards right and you'll be fine. If things go wrong, our entire corporation may fold overnight. I'll ask the boss to give you overtime pay today."
I felt sweat break out all over my body.
"This is an international level contract we're talking about. You don't know anything about it so just keep your mouth shut and stay by my side. Everyone's scared to go because the people were meeting aren't good people. The syndicate they're from have one foot in the dark and one foot in the light. The representatives they always send us are criminals the police can't find evidence to pin down, lechers who swing both ways and are very, very bad news. They will try to stir us up and rile us up so that they can unjustly accuse us and bring their costs down. Whatever happens, stay calm."
"Then why are you bringing me to this dinner?" I asked breathlessly, terrified to the point of tears.
"Just take it that you drew the short straw," the assistant gave me a glancing look of sympathy and then continued to pay attention to the road. "Just like I did. If neither their boss nor our boss turn up in time, neither of us may be able to escape unscathed. If that happens, at least we'll be compensated. Boss knows what these people are like. He'll rush over as soon as he can."
That wasn't very reassuring. Not assuring at all.
After he had parked the car in a multistorey car park, the assistant and I stopped outside the a private room in a special clubhouse I had never noticed nor heard of before. It seemed so low key from the outside. In fact, if it weren't for the burly security guards both inside and outside the front door, I would have just passed it off as another mediocre entertainment venue.
Both the assistant and I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm our shaking nerves.
"Don't shake so hard," the assistant pleaded with me, adjusting and readjusting the folder in his arms. "You're making me more nervous. We just need to be professional. Ok? Professional. We're professionals. We can do this. You keep you head down and take notes. I'll do everything else."
He took another deep breath, tucked his chin in, squared his shoulders and then paused, his hand pausing just before the room door. I saw a very fine tremor there.
I was holding the laptop and visibly shaking.
"We can do this," the assistant of THE biggest boss of all muttered. He took another long slow breath, stilled his shaking hand and knocked, stepping in front of me so as to be the vanguard of our very nervous array of two people who had been thrust into a situation that wouldn't normally fall to us, and knocked on the door.
A moment later, the door opened.
A scarred face with what looked like a perpetually sneering expression due to the tattoos that had been inked across his face stared up at us from a rather sticky figure. It was menacing and yet a bit of an anticlimax. The vertically challenged tattooed man who looked like he had been in more than one war looked us up and down while the assistant greeted and introduced us in a very professional manner.
I only gave a very stilted bow as greeting and kept my eyes down. My hands that were gripping the laptop had turned white at the knuckles.
"Come in," said a rough smoker's voice from inside.
Thankfully, the place was a smoke free place, otherwise I could imagine that we'd be stepping into a fog of choking smoke.
Upon entering, the short face tattooed man with the sneering face closed the door behind us and then stood calmly to one side of the door as if he were a door guard.