The New Guy

I sat in my apartment Saturday until the mail came. The box arrived overnight, as Jordan had promised. All kinds of stuff from the counter-surveillance store. Walkie talkies, a bug detector (the place was clean) throwaway cell phones, and other gadgets that we will need later. We all swept our apartments and only then did we use the throwaways. We were undetectable, but I still had the jitters. Sunday I went grocery shopping, dutifully swiping out of the house. That was the part I had missed on Friday - we had to use the card whenever we left the house. The white coats explained it away with the most lame reason - that the swipe box was laser activated and if we did not swipe, our house alarms would go off. You have never seen such a large group of poker faced people as were on our floor that day.

Jordan and I "bumped into" each other at the market, where we stayed safely in the produce section, gently squeezing avocados while talking out of the side of our mouths. Thank god people shopping are so preoccupied with themselves, because we looked like nutcases. Anyway, we started on a plan on how to get us all together, and I think it is going to work, but we cannot execute it until next weekend. We parted ways and I went back to my house, swiping in. Go ahead, track my every move, assholes. You're on to us? We're on to you.

So today a new guy showed up for the filing job. He's been very quiet, but every time I turn around he seems to be near me. I started studying him out of the corner of my eye. Small, compact build, dark hair, very serious. Suddenly he glanced up and caught me looking at him.

"Uh, hi, we haven't met. I'm Peter," I stumbled. He had caught me off guard. His eyes were dark, inquiring, fiercely intelligent. He held out his hand.

"RayMan" he smiled briefly, a fleeting sweetness transforming his face into something elfin, mischievous.

"Nice to meet you, Ray," I answered.

"RayMan" he repeated. "One word".

"Oh, sorry, I thought you said...."

He waved his hand. "I get it all the time. Listen I have a question, got a minute?"

I nodded, thinking how appropriate the name was, really.

"The kid who had this job before me," RayMan lowered his voice, "took herbs, right?"

I barely nodded my head and began looking through the file cabinets for an old test processing disc.

"Can we drink chamomile tea at bedtime?" he turned to the file cabinet next to me, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"That's a strong negative".

RayMan nodded imperceptibly.

"The home swipe card. A new thing?"

"Yes". I answered tightly.

"Okay." He proceeded to move a few files down, busying himself with data sorting.

I turned to head back to my desk.

"Peter?" He turned towards me. "It was very nice to meet you," He held up a disc. "Thanks for helping me figure out where to file these".

I nodded. "No problem, RayMan. Welcome to the WME".

He locked his eyes with mine. "May I join you guys in the lunchroom sometime this week?"

"Sure," I answered, after a beat. "Come round anytime".

I got back to my desk, chewing on the inside of my lip. RayMan was no intern, he was too sharp, too together. He was on to something, was it us? How did he even know there was an "us" - asking to have lunch with "you guys". It's his first day here!
But there was something about him that felt like he was not one of "them" at all. I didn't know what to think. Jordan, Luka and Renee were in a meeting, Anacuerva and Sam were not at their desks, and although Julianne was sitting just five rows up from me, we all studiously avoided each other at work, I could find no good reason to approach her, she was on an old alternative medications case, where I was stuck going through all of the files on the Presidential Cocktail.

Who was this RayMan? I liked him, but the paranoia was barely manageable as it was. I resisted the urge to go to the lunchroom and grab a Vicoden - I really had to keep my wits on.

And how the hell did he know about the chamomile tea?