Slum Enterprise - Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

Thursday morning, Lee walked past the main gates with HR SWAT eyeing heavily as he passed. Same old same old. The smell of garbage proliferates the smokey air in the office. 

“Cold today,” Lee thinks. 

The barrel fires burn bright and shoot flames high to the ceiling. Lee walked to his zone with his head down, he didn't even dare look past the sales and marketing fencing out of suspicious fears. 

Scott is guarding the gate. Lee nods and Scott finicks with the gate latch and to let him in. HR SWAT roam and pat their clubs onto open palms waiting for action hoping. Lee checks on Murphy in his tent. He is deep in thought and playing with his hands.

“Hey, you okay?” Lee asked.

“Im fine.” Murphy looks up and puts his hands down like he was caught in the act of something. 

“Just remember I need you today, I can't do this without you,” Lee said with a small stutter, he was extremely anxious.

“Dont worry Lee, I got your back, just speak slowly and get your point across fast with whomever you find in there.” Murphy said.

Lee turned away from Murphy so he could go back to mentally preparing. Then he walked the 5 paces back to his tent and sat down on the low cot. He heard a whisper.

“Stan, are you there,” Lee rolled over to see the cardboard hole cut out. Stan was staring at Lee.

“Hi Lee, are you getting ready to go?” Stan asked.

“Yes, I'm going over the plan in my head, I could barely sleep last night.”

“Just wanted to check in, you still owe some trinkets.” Stan laughed but deep down was serious. “Let the series of events play out.”

“What do you mean?” Lee said curiously.

“Why worry about the uncontrollable, the act of doing is perfection, the act of doing will bring you success.”

A silence overtook both of them, there was a break from Stan's interesting wisdom. Lee noticed that he was also in his own head about something. Stan did not break eye contact.

“Stan,” Lee said in a piercing tone. This seemed to snap Stan out of his stupor, the slums were not good for him. “Im afraid… I'm afraid to take the leap.”

“Like I said, the action of doing is the only step you need to take.” Stan lectured. “You don't see Murphy complaining.”

“Well Murphy doesn't have that much to lose now, Scott is at the end of his career here, I'm just starting out, what the hell am I going to do after this?” 

“Youll figure it out, the next thing will always come… be satisfied in the mundane such as this.”

Lee did not respond, the last profound statement of wisdom stuck unexpectedly. “Why am I so hard on myself all the time? I need to shake the ideas of the rat race, I'm better than that.” Lee thought. 

He laid back on his cot and looked at the top of his tent with glassy eyes. The rims of his glasses made a frame in his peripheral vision. 

“Whatever you do, whatever you find out, just be ready to accept and move on to the next thing, breathe and be calm, dont freeze up… One more thing, Today is my last day, I put my notice in 2 weeks ago, this is it for me, send the box of trinkets to my house, I'll be seeing you around” Stan said and closed the hole.

Lee could only force out “see ya, good working with you.” He felt a wave of melancholy drown him.

 He fell asleep, there wasn't anything else to do besides wait till Scott's shift was over.

When he woke up Lee looked at his watch ticking away, it was almost noon. Scott’s shift was ending and would come to Lee's tent to send him and Murphy off to initiate step one of the plan. Lee started up the little gas stove to boil some water for coffee as he was groggy and in a really bad mood. He called Murphy over, he walked over and sat down next to Lee on an old shop towel.

“Here Murphy, have some coffee, wake yourself up. Scott should be coming in soon.” Lee said. 

They could hear the cough and sniffles of the other team members rotting on sleeping mats and army cots. It sounded like they were all getting sick with something. 

They sat together in silence and drank coffee from two tin mugs with wire handles. Then, they heard trash and debris being kicked against the walls, it was Scott coming back in with a sharpened broom stick in hand. Lee checked the concealed pot to make sure it still contained the Colt 1911. He found it and picked it up to feel its weight, it was still in there. Lee let the anxiety shake off him again. Scott came into the tent and threw his meditation pillow down and the broomstick in the other corner and sat.

“This is it.” Scott said and smiled. He gave an approving nod to the other two comrades in the tent with him.

Scott picked up the heavy pot and pulled out the pistol and shoved it down into Lee's belt. “Leave your shift untucked, no one can see it then,” Scott said.

It felt cold and was heavy, it made him walk funny for only a few steps while it found a nice crevasse in the seam between his pelvis and leg. They all left the tent and went to the gate entrance.

Another lab tech followed in close behind, he was to cover Murphy's watch shift while they were away. Scott opened the barbwired  gate and let the two out into no man's land, the wild west, the slums. They took a few steps out, Lee turned around and looked at Scott.

“Good luck,” he said. “You know what to do…give me hell. I'll be waiting for you when you get back.” He smiled and waved them goodbye.

Lee and Murphy were off on the divine journey of slum discovery. They were off to figure out the entire meaning of this enterprise. They walked through smokey corridors to find a soul to talk too over at the sales and marketing zone. They had to plant a seed and watch that seed grow into a perfect sabotage event.

They both kept their heads low and did not say a word, or make eye contact with employees wandering about. The zone area was wide open. The fences were well built and held down by thick posts with sandbags holding the base. HR SWAT were everywhere, about every 50 ft they stood looking out protecting the valuable department. Lee was ahead of Murphy and quickly went around a corner at the far end of the zone to hide from sight.

“Shit,” Lee whispered. “We will need to wait till shift change.” 

The timing was lucky, the HR SWAT shifted more in the sales and marketing zone because the head of operations wanted sharp minds and eyes on the place at all times. They didn't want another procurement and finance fiasco. 

They stood behind the corner wall and peeked their heads out every few minutes to check the status. After 30min a whistle was rang by one of the HR SWAT at the zone front gates and they started to filter out. Some were coming at Lee and Murphy, they took evasive action and rounded another corner down the hall to blend in with the surroundings. Lee and Murphy found an old cubicle section for some small forgotten department. It looked like it was the janitorial commune area now. Yellow mop buckets and cleaning carts were stacked everywhere. They rushed over to a group of janitors huddling around a barrel fire. Lee rudely budge himself in, he received nasty looks. Murphy dove behind a stack of pallets with cleaning chemicals and hid. The group of janitors ate slim jims and were cooking bread on a metal skillet made from a stop sign (the paint was stripped). Lee blended in and warmed his hands, the janitors didn't say anything as they were probably hungry and tired and sick of all this too.

They waited and watched a group of 4 HR SWAT pass and continue on down the hall. Lee whispered and yelled over to Murphy. 

“Murphy, I think they're gone, go back and check the zone, see if it's clear.” Murphy heard and stuck his head out and the army crawled out and ran to go check. Lee was back at the fire smiling in the most inconspicuous way he could manage. Murphy dashed back and grabbed Lee and led him down the hall back to the corner viewing point.

“Look,” Murphy said “the fence is wide open, now's your chance. I'll stay here and keep a look out for the next shift of SWAT. You don't have that much time, go”

Lee nodded his head and ran up to the fence and started to speed walk on the edge of the fence. He kept singing “One Foot In Front Of The Other” to make sure the panic didn't freeze his legs. He was in the open and exposed to everything. 

He searched frantically inside. He stopped and noticed movement in one of the tents that was close on the other side of the fence. Lee shook the fence to make noise so that whoever was inside would hear it and come out to see what it was. Suddenly a head popped from the tent flaps and looked over to find that Lee was making the rattling sound.

“You there, what the hell do you want?” The man said. He was younger and handsome and in casual business attire.

“Please come here, I have something important to tell you, believe me you’ll want to hear this.” Lee yelled out.

“Get out of here, I don't want to hear anything you have to say, I'm calling guards.”

“No wait, trust me, it involves the company's longevity. Do you want the company to go bankrupt? Do you want to lose your job?” Lee said. This intrigued the man enough to inch closer to the fence and stop him from calling the guards. 

“Got him now,” Lee thought.

Now, what do you mean by all this?” The man said. “Is the company going bankrupt? My manager said everything was fine… this is my first job, I need the money, I can't lose it now.”

Lee spoke quickly and clearly, more clearly than he has ever spoken in his life. His stammer smoothed out and he got every point across concisely. The story seemed to convince the employee. The more Lee spoke, the man's face contorted in anxiety, he even began to chew his nails.

“Stop, I heard enough, I'm going to my manager, he needs to hear this,” The man said.

“No wait, let me in, it's not safe for me out here in the open.” Lee pleaded.

“Why would I let you in? You already told me what I need to know.”

“Well I had more to it” Lee said, this was clearly a lie. “Let me talk to you boss and I’ll give everything up. Man to man, I don't want to lose my job, I have a family to support, you can understand can you?”

The man hesitated and looked back and forth from Lee and the interior of the zone. Finally the man gave in as he didnt want to be the reason to fuck it all up in case Lee did have more to say.

“Okay, follow me, I'll walk alongside you. Once we get to the gate I'll tell our guards to let you in. They aren't gonna be happy about this, I can't promise you safety while you're in here.” the man explained. Lee shook his head and followed the man along the fence to the main gate. Lee glanced over he shoulder and saw Murphy sticking his head out around the corner. 

“So far so good,” Lee thought. 

The weight of the gun made Lee feel safe no matter how unsafe he actually was in the zone, it was his fail safe option to escape.

The man ran ahead to the gate guards and told them to let the strange man in. The guards had perplexed looks but agreed. Lee heard a large latch unlock. The gate cracked and creaked open only a few feet to let him slide through.

He was face to face with the man. He didn't say a word and turned around and started walking, this was Lee’s signal to keep following. 

The man led the way through a labyrinthine system of tents, the smell of fresh food lingered in the interior. Other sales and marketing employees could be seen with pen, paper and large abacuses and massive drawing boards you find in old engineering draft rooms. These must have been the lower echelons of the work force here, the ones who didn't have computers so they resorted to the old school way of working on giant spreadsheets and doing hand calculations. Some of the drawing boards had pictograms and marketing material being hashed up for the next promotional campaign. 

Instead of rusty barrels, the zone had dedicated fire pits built from red brick with a pizza-like oven enclosure and smoke stack that was vented through the ceiling. The fire pits blasted out heat in all directions making that cold retreat back to its bunker of stillness.

The man and Lee passed the courtyard where all the cooking smells were coming from. A few people were fully immersed in leisure activities, it was nearing the end of lunch time so it was emptying out. 

The employees still in the communal area sat on old office chairs and ate with their personal plate, fork, and knife at whatever was being cooked up. A lot of them were reading an article posted by the communications department that was printed on lie detector graph paper laying out last quarter's sales metrics. The fire pits provide enough light and comfort for a pleasant reading experience. The fire pits looked to be burning full chopped logs. Lee didn't know but a third party brought in wood weekly. 

Everyone gave Lee nasty looks as his past, they questioned who this clearly non sales/marketing employee was. The deeper they went into the zone the thicker it got. Tents were closer together, there was more background noise of people working on paper spreadsheets. 

The generator stolen from the company next door used 65% of its capacity powering the zone. Artificial light was not a luxury here.

 Lee was getting claustrophobic but then the thickness broke and he was standing in front of a massive tent.. Lee looked up and saw the  tent roof almost touch the black painted structural I beams and conduit holding electrical wiring and old PVC pipes used for the transport of water to the bathrooms and water fountains. 

“This must be the VP tent.” Lee thought. The man took a quick left and went to a smaller satellite tent nearby. 

“This is my division's manager's spot.” The employee said which Lee assumed was a part of the sales team. The sales employee went ahead and walked through the tent flaps and disappeared for a moment, then an arm stuck out motioning for Lee to come in.

Lee’s glasses fogged up from the heat and humidity inside, it took awhile until the glasses adjusted to the nominal temperature. There was a lamp emitting warm light on a wooden desk with stacks of paper. The manager had his head down and scribbled something out. He was balding directly on top, the rest of his hair was white and uncombed. The manager looked up and noticed that Lee wasn't one of his direct reports.

“Who are you?” he asked. The sales employee jumped in.

“Mr. Berg, sorry for intruding.”

“Who is this man, what is the meaning of this, you need an appointment to see me. I don't have time for this,” Mr. Berg interrupted. 

“Im truly sorry about this, it's just that this man has some important information about the company, it might be something you want to hear.” The cog said.

“What can this man possibly tell me that I don't already know? I should call the guards at once and have him sent to reconditioning.” Mr. Berg said sternly.

Lee looked back and forth, he felt the walls closing in on him. He began to sweat and fidget with his hands and tap his toes inside his steel toe work boots. Mr. Berg pointed at Lee with a long skinny finger.

“You, speak now.”

“I…I came to tell you about sales and product, it's in jeopardy.” Lee's mouth was dry and his voice was failing him. He wasn't used to the humidity in the tent, it seemed to choke him up. He managed and told Mr.Berg what he told the sales cog, the customer contracts were destined to collapse along with the company. 33% of all the warehouse's inventory of salable products were defective. Lee was finished and Mr.Berg didn't say anything. He leaned back in his chair and pondered. Lee stood and shook while he waited for a comment.

“Oh goodness.” Mr. Berg said. The sales employee was behind Lee getting closer to the tent flaps. Lee thought that he wanted to escape because if what he was saying was true he (the sales employee) didn't want to see Mr.Berg react.

“Why are you telling me this?” Mr.Berg questioned.

“The labs…” Lee took a breath and tried to slow down after the frantic explanation. “The labs are in need of supplies, I need to keep a job, I don't want the company to go bankrupt, have you seen the job markets, I don't stand a chance. We can't go on much longer.”

“I see,” Me.Berg said.

“We have no means to protect ourselves, the labs need some sort of relief. I thought that since your department was well provided for I could trade information for supplies.”

Mr. Berg laughed, “How foolish,” he thought. Then he spoke. “The labs are already doomed, I'm sorry to say… Say that your story was true and I returned the favor by giving you supplies you don't stand a chance. But, let's say what you say is true… just think of the promotion and pay raise. See, I've been passed up 2 times for the VP position, I've been working here for 30 years, it's about time something went my way.”

Lee was confused, he still didn't know if the manager bought it.

“Just for the fun of it, I'll give you some weapons and a bag of rice we have left over, that's all I can offer for your services, you're lucky I'm not apprehending you and sending you to HR… must have caught me in a good mood. But I'll tell you this little story of yours interests me, it's too juicy not to check its authenticity.” Mr. Berg  pointed at the sales employee almost out the door. “Go get a weapons crate and a 20 pound bag of rice for this poor soul, give it to this here Mr…”

“Collins,” Lee said.

“Mr. Collins so he and his team can quote on quote survive.”

The sales employee turned and ran out the tent. “Mr. Collins, have a seat, please.” Mr.Berg pointed at the chair on the opposite side of his desk. It was a crudy office chair with frizzle fabric and strange stains. Lee sat down, his heart rate reduced a tad.

“Now this is quite the discovery…” Mr.Berg said.

“Im sure you have a proper procedure for something like this?” Lee chimed in.

“I should just go directly to my VP with this and end it all here.”

“I would think that would be pointless right now, I'm sure he is an extremely busy man, we wouldn't want to bother him now" Lee said. He was formulating something fast to steer Mr.Berg in the other direction.

“Now why is that?” Mr.Berg said as he sat up and leaned forward putting his elbows on the desk.

“The company could collapse, I've seen the data, hell I even have the data, hence proof of all these product failures. You can't go to the VP without proof, they'll fire you on the spot for wasting their precious time. You need me to be there to explain it all. Besides, there is something else I want.” Mr. Berg was intrigued and leaned closer to listen.

“My department is doomed, My position is doomed, I have no runway anymore, no career path, I want out, and you're going to help me. Me and you can work together and both get what we want, you want that promotion and I want another cushy job somewhere internally, away from all the slums, just think about it…” Lee proposed.

“Ah… now we are getting somewhere productive.” Mr.Berg smiled. “So what you're telling me is true, the warehouse bank builds are dead in the water?”

“I can bring the proof tomorrow, we need to meet with the VP,” Lee said.

“Well, Mr Collins you lucked out, ill bring you along for the ride. Say, you remind me of Father Stemm, someone who always looked out for the company but still selfish enough to break a few heads and get what he wanted. Be it luck or fate, I don't care as long as I get mine. I've busted my ass for too long not to get what's mine. You've heard of Father Stemm I presume?”

“Plenty. I know what happened at the Mexico plant.” Lee said.

“It looks like you know a lot about the inner workings of G.E.S.”

The sales employee ran back in through the tent flaps and presented himself in almost a military stance.

“Mr.Berg, supplies are ready, it's on a dolly for transport.” He shouted.

“Very good, Mr.Collions I believe our meeting has come to an end. I’ll start to escalate, meeting with our VP… when are you free?” Mr. Berg said in a formal fashion.

“Tommorrow, end of day 430pm, I don't want my team to get suspicious of my movements.” Lee demanded.

“Tommorrow it is…If you don't bring proof and hold your end of the bargain you better believe you don't want to know what I'm going to do with you. Meet me back here tomorrow before 430 and we will get situated.” Mr. Berg confirmed. “You better keep your mouth shut and I'll shut mine.”

Mr.Berg stood and Lee followed in return. He extended his long skinny hand over the desk and stack of papers. Lee reached over with sweaty palms and they shook.

“Mr.Collions, have a good rest of the day, dont fuck with me now. Please leave my tent. I don't want to see you rummaging around here until tomorrow.”

Lee shook his head and left to find the supplies all wrapped up on a hard wheeled dolly. “Perfect,” Lee thought. 

He grabbed the dolly handle and pulled it behind him. The sales employee stayed behind and pointed him off in the right direction back to the gate. 

Lee reached the gate guards and said "I'm leaving, your manager Mr.Berg has allowed me to take this dolly.” The guards cracked the door open just wide enough for Lee and Dolly to squeeze through. He ran to the corner where Murphy was. The HR SWAT were repositioning along the fence ready for the afternoon watch. Lee and Murphy rejoined and hightailed it back to the lab.

“How’d we do?” Murphy asked.

“We’re in business," Lee said with a nervous smile.