Tyler Read online

  Contents

  WELCOME TO ACI

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Epilogue

  ABOUT

  WELCOME TO ACI

  On the surface ACI looks like any other big corporation. What really goes on behind the scenes? Hot alpha guys taking care of business and finding true love, for a start!

  From the company website:

  We are Alpha Corps International

  Always Forward

  Committed to achieving mission-critical challenges for our enterprise and government customers. Specializing in areas of national security and cyber warfare, we innovate where others hesitate to lead. Our team of experienced professionals share our core values of ethics, integrity, and honor. We take pride in providing our customers with outstanding service and a job well done.

  What we do:

  Mission Support

  Business & IT Systems

  Engineering

  PFD & Service Automation

  Current Openings

  Field Mission Consultant (in country - West Coast base)

  Field Mission Technician (in country - West Coast base)

  Field Mission Consultant (in country - Europe base)

  Logistics Analyst (WA - Sala Bay)

  Intern (CA - San Diego)

  Sr. Logistics Analyst (VA - McLean)

  Systems Engineer - Aviation (WA - Sala Bay)

  Russian Language Analyst (CA - San Diego)

  More …

  Don’t fall asleep just yet… Tyler’s one of those Field Mission Consultants and he’s heading out on maneuvers—in the office! So turn the page already…

  1

  SOPHIE

  This is the most Mondayish of Mondays! I can’t believe what a struggle my day is so far. I mean, Mondays are always a little hard, transitioning from the authentic me of the weekend to the corporate drone of the work week, but this one is going worse than usual. The office dress code is business casual which is mostly fine, but jeans are strictly forbidden, at least for the regular cubicle dwellers. The so-called ‘field consultants’ get to wear whatever they damn well please when they show up and nobody says anything, but I digress. I’m not allowed to wear jeans in the office (ask me sometime how I know this rule is enforced). Since the real me lives in jeans and yoga pants, I have five ‘business casual’ office outfits that I mix and match. I got so busy on my new digital art piece yesterday that I didn’t stop to do laundry. Trying to get fairy wings to look dainty and transparent is harder than you might think. I thought it was okay because I still had one pair of black pants left in the rotation. Until I went to put them on at five minutes to six this morning; I need to leave the house at 6:15 to make my bus. They felt strangely roomy in the butt area and that’s when I discovered that the back seam had split, and not just a tiny little bit that you could cover with a safety pin and a long shirt. So then I had to search through my entire closet to find something, anything, to wear into work where nobody was going to see it anyway, because I sit behind a cubicle desk all day.

  So here I am standing in front of the Alpha Corps International building in Sala Bay wearing a knee-length blue and gold brocade cocktail dress with an old black suit blazer that doesn’t quite meet in the middle anymore. I think I was in college the last time I wore it and my curves weren’t quite as generous back then. But I need the suit jacket to cover my bare shoulders which are also against the rules. I’m sure I look strange, particularly since I wore my regular, boring black leather shoes.

  Since this is only my third month working here I’m more than a little concerned that I’m already twenty minutes late. You can imagine my sigh of relief when I reach my ugly beige cubicle and discover that all the surrounding cubicles are still unoccupied. I plop my messenger bag down on the corner of the desk and take my lunch bag into the tiny kitchen down the hall. When I come back, I adjust again the sign I made on the outside of my wall directing people to the restroom. As the newest employee I got the worst desk, the one nearest the elevator bank where everyone stops for directions. Since the conference rooms are clearly labeled with arrows all anyone ever wants to know from me is where the bathrooms are. Did I mention that I’m not a receptionist? I’m supposed to be a process analyst. What I really am is a digital paper shuffler but either way it’s hard to work when I’m constantly being interrupted by guys who want to take a leak.

  The fact that these are almost all incredibly hot ex-military guys (yeah, remember those field consultants?) is just sad because I promise the sexiest man in America isn’t really all that hot when asking a stranger where the restroom is.

  I try to shake off the morning’s stress when I finally sit down at my desk and turn on my computer. I’m sipping my truly abysmal cup of coffee from the kitchen since there wasn’t time to stop at the coffee shop when my cubicle neighbor, Jasmine, breezes in.

  “Morning, Sophie! How was your weekend?”

  “Okay. How about you? Do anything exciting?” This is really why Jasmine is asking me about my weekend in the first place. She’s fresh into the honeymoon phase of a new relationship and everything in life is wonderful. She rattles on about her fabulous weekend with her new boyfriend with stars in her eyes. She’s nice enough but we don’t even work on the same team so we don’t know each other all that well.

  “… and then we took the ferry over to West Seattle and found this cute little place on Alki.”

  I’m still nodding and smiling while keeping one eye on my computer to see when the login screen decides to make an appearance. This place is crazy with security. More than half the employees have some kind of top secret security clearance and the ones that don’t, like me, still have to clear a thorough background check. I didn’t mind, except that it took forever and I had to watch my bank account dwindle while they tried to find my high-school geometry teacher or whatever they were doing that took a month to complete. They have all kinds of virus checks and filters on the computer systems so it takes forever to get going in the morning. And forget trying to check your personal email or say, shop for new pants. I can do that on my cell but the screen is cracked and I can’t afford to fix it. New office clothes are going to have to wait until I can place an order at home tonight.

  Jasmine takes her bubbly blond self off to the kitchen, probably looking for a fresh audience and my login screen finally appears so I settle in for another day of reminding grown-ass men to show up where they’ve been told to be.

  I can’t even remember what I thought this job was going to be. I don’t even care that much because frankly I need a paycheck to support my art. That’s where my heart, soul, and ego are invested. In any event what I really do is schedule, coordinate and herd mercenaries, I mean field consultants, through their required psychological testing before and after they leave on missions. Thankfully I don’t have to do the testing, that’s almost all automated. I just have to make sure they show up at the right time and place to get it done. They’re a bunch of big babies, particularly Tyler Carmichael.

  I don’t know what he does exactly but he’s already gone and come back from three missions since I’ve been here. And he’s due to leave again shortly, so he’s about to go through testing for the seventh time since I started. I can’t imagine how many times he’s been through testing in total but I promise you he’s not happy about it. He doesn’t whine exactly but his emails imply that I have more power over the situation than I really do. Like the reply I’m staring at right now:

  Come on, Princess - you know I just did this. Tell them to fuck off and use the results from last time. They’re good for two months, it says so right at the bottom of the emails you keep sending me. TC

 
I have no idea why he insists on calling me Princess. I asked him to stop once and he just ignored me and kept on going. I’ve secretly gotten a little attached to it. Even though we’ve never met or even talked on the phone, he’s one of the people I interact with here the most. As for the f-word well, just like the dress code there’s one set of rules for the cubicle dwellers and one for the field consultants. I’m not even sure there really is an HR department at Alpha Corps. The dress code police exist in the form of my immediate manager, Dennis. He does whine and I think lives in a constant state of inferiority because he most definitely was never in the military. Unless you’re willing to count time re-enacting scenes from Battlestar Galactica. He’s an expert on that. I made the mistake my first week of asking him about one of the figurines in his office. I won’t do that again.

  In any event Tyler Carmichael is fresh out of luck. The point, so I’ve been told, of doing the testing before and after a mission is to give the AI systems specific points of comparison for crazy. Basically to see if someone is about to crack up in the field. They don’t even mind the crazy; I think they may actively cultivate it sometimes, but they don’t want unstable crazy. And sadly Dennis won’t let me use the word crazy, even though that’s the nicest term used by the guys in question. No, according to Dennis I have to refer to it as mental health. Dennis believes, as he told me at length last week, that he can change the culture from within with ‘enough positive reinforcement from inclusive, emotionally-supportive management.’ So this is the reply I send Tyler:

  Hi Tyler,

  I don’t make the rules and as you know I don’t have any clearance for your personal or mission information. The system says you’re scheduled to leave again in October ( I’m not allowed to know the exact dates) so you’ll need to do the testing again before you leave. I’ve got you booked into San Diego this Friday at 9am since that’s where you did it last or I can schedule you a spot here in Sala Bay sometime next week if you prefer. We’re not as busy up here. If you want one of the other test centers I can check on availability but Sala usually has the most free spots. Let me know.

  Thanks,

  Sophie

  His reply came back almost immediately and had me fidgeting nervously.

  Princess, I’ve told you only my mother calls me Tyler. If I come into Sala Bay and do this shit one more time will you have lunch with me after? I’ll debrief on any personal you want to know… TC

  I won’t lie, staring at a beige fabric wall or my computer screen all day means I sometimes drift off into a little fantasy world where Tyler Carmichael has a face. I mean, I’m sure he has one in real life but I’ve never seen it, not even a bad ID picture. But these little flights of fancy are like flirting on an airplane, guaranteed to never go anywhere. Now he wants to make things real. But probably not in any way I dream about.

  These guys come in all colors and sizes (from big to giant anyway) but one thing they all have in common is unshakable confidence. They strut around the halls with it, shoulders back, take charge expressions on their faces. It’s enough to make a girl whimper. And I kind of have a confidence deficit when it comes to men and relationships.

  Dreaming from the sidelines comes with a lot less rejection. I know from what I can see in his file that Tyler was career military, meaning he’s at least fifteen years older than me. I think the age gap is hot, but I also know it means he probably doesn’t even understand the concept of self-doubt let alone have any personal experience that he can remember.

  I opt for a middle of the road response and send him three time slots to choose from. I don’t answer his question about lunch. He’ll find me if he wants to; my cubicle location is in the company directory. I’m nervous as hell thinking about what the next week could bring. Will I be relieved or disappointed… or something else if he doesn’t show? Or if he does? Gaaah!

  2

  TYLER

  I’m all about the fucking strategy. I’ve always played the long game in life and war which is why I’m still alive at forty-two. After putting in my twenty years in the army and another four as a fucking field consultant I’m very goal-oriented. Although I can’t recall ever consulting anyone ever unless it was to find out if someone was stupid enough to take the chicken pasta MRE in exchange for something that didn’t actually taste and look like shit. It’s the political correctness of the whole thing that bothers me the most; the work in the private sector has been pretty much the same, with maybe a little more freedom to bend some of the rules. Not many, but every little bit helps when the bad guys are trying to kill you. And I got to keep hanging out with my team, the same ones I was deployed with my last two tours in the army. But now Drew is dead, Cy is retired and already stashed at his fishing cabin in Alaska, Bret is riding a desk in San Diego, and Luke is going to get everyone killed if he can’t get his mind off his new girl and back on the job.

  It’s just not as much fun anymore. Or maybe I’m getting old. They say boredom kills and I know losing focus isn’t conducive to my long term health. So I’m starting to evaluate my options. What is endlessly entertaining is teasing Princess. I know her name is Sophie but she’s the spitting image of Snow White, all dark curls, big eyes and pouty lips. Mouth watering. And curves for days.

  I’ve never told anyone this but I was a precocious piece of shit. I think I was about seven when I noticed Snow White had tits. I moved on to real girls soon enough but I never quite lost my thing for the original fairytale princess. And I never found anyone quite as intoxicating. Not until Sophie that is. She has no idea I know what she looks like but when her first email caught my attention I did some digging. Not much else to do when you’re stuck in some shithole across the world with a lot of sand, a decent wifi connection courtesy of the American government and not much else.

  It didn’t take me very long to find a video she had posted on Youtube a few years ago. She probably doesn’t even remember it’s there because she didn’t post any more and it had maybe a few hundred views. It’s a good thing she can’t see that the sudden increase in hits is all me. They had better be all due to me or people that are only interested in making the shit she was explaining. In the video she’s demonstrating some art thing she likes to do but I’ve watched it over and over to see the joy light up her eyes when she’s doing what she loves best. When her mouth makes this little round ‘O’ of excitement I can’t help imagining those soft ruby lips sliding over my cock. When she leans back from the camera I can see that her breasts are luscious and large even though she wasn’t dressed in anything revealing. They’re big enough they’d fill my cupped palms with room for my mouth too. I’m dying to know what her nipples are like. Are they pale pink or dark ruby? Do they harden into tiny buds or juicy berries? Even thinking about it now makes me uncomfortably hard but I’m not in a position to do anything about it at the moment so I’m left shifting around in my seat and trying to think about something unattractive.

  I’ve purposely stopped going into the Sala Bay office since Sophie was hired, even though it’s closer to my home. I’ve been working out of San Diego so I wouldn’t run into her until the time was right. I didn’t want to get shifted into ‘just one of the guys’ until I was able to offer something permanent. Then I overheard Trevor say that he was planning to ask her out when he got back. And he’s due back before me. So now I’ve got to make my move while I still can, before I leave on my last mission because that girl is fucking mine. This is it; I’m calling it quits after this trip. I wanted to come to Sophie with a clear plan of staying stateside before I made my move but good tactics are all about reliable intel and adapting to the circumstances. Claiming her now, when I have to leave again, is a risk I’m just going to have to take.

  Princess thinks I hate the psych testing but mostly I just like giving her shit about it. It’s boring as fuck, because its the same damn thing every time. Even the really psycho guys know the ‘right’ answers by now. But the pencil pushers never seem to catch on. And I’m still not clear on why th
ey care. Sane people wouldn’t do the shit we’re being paid so well to do. At least Sophie gets increasingly cute and apologetic the more I complain. Pretty sure that’s not the reaction she’s giving the guys stopping by to ask where the restroom is when they can’t think of anything more creative to say. I’m not going to be the one to point out the flaw in their plan.

  Right now I’m crammed into a tiny airline seat on the commuter flight from San Diego to Seattle. I’ve got a few days before I’m due in the office for testing so I’m still working through my options. She never did reply about having lunch with me but she didn’t say no either. Not that I would have accepted that at face value. I can’t explain it without sounding like an idiot but I know she’s it for me; she’s the one. Convincing her of that is all part of the tactical plan.

  Once the flight lands, I grab my duffle off the baggage carousel in the terminal and head out. I have a house out in the woods about two hours south of Sala Bay but I let my little brother use it after his divorce two years ago while I’ve been out of country so much. I’m already booked on a flight to Germany at the end of next week so I’m going to bunk in the Clusterfuck Hotel, otherwise known as the Inn at Sala Bay so I can stay close to Sophie. It’s free and in the same building as Alpha Corps because surprise, it is ACI. I don’t think AAA is going to list it in their little guide book when you have to have a company badge with retina scan to get to the check-in desk.

  The fact that I’ve made this entire trip without actually talking to another human being, (even the three flight attendants that were flirting harder with every pass down the aisle) is one of the things I’m worried about. I’m not exactly fully socialized. I like my own company and I get along okay with the guys when we’re in country or at the gym. I almost called Princess once just to hear her voice but I couldn’t think of what to say so I hung up before the call completed. I’m better with email when I can check my surly personality before I hit send. So, while I wait for the shuttle service to Sala Bay I shoot Sophie a short message.