Off The Grid Read online

She’d been hired at MassEnergy to oversee the development of a product line that would compete with StuTech’s towers and stubs to deliver wireless electricity. If successful, it would break StuTech’s lucrative strangle hold on the wireless market. Thus far it had been a colossal failure for both her and the company with millions upon millions of dollars thrown to the wind with nothing to show for it. She was feeling the pressure to deliver. Her reputation and the compensation she was accustomed to were on the line.

  The Engineering Candidate Class had been her idea from the beginning. Bring in a group of capable, smart engineers, physicists, statisticians to aid MassEnergy’s development team. The new employees were largely expendable - hired guns themselves. It was their skills and ideas that were critical.

  The classroom grew quiet as she slowly walked around the desk and paced in front of the classroom of new MassEnergy employees. Luke sat at a table in the middle of the room next to Amir Ghorbani, who had seemed to take a liking to him and had yet to leave his side all morning.

  “Welcome to the engineering candidate class,” Kathryn said. “And congratulations for making it this far. The 35 of you were selected because you each offer something unique that this company can use. It’s a significant accomplishment to be sitting here today, but don’t kid yourself, you have achieved nothing and if you don’t contribute anything meaningful to the mission of this company then you won’t be around much longer.”

  You catch more bees with honey, than you do vinegar, she thought as she paused and smiled to let everyone know that she wasn’t so bad. Of course if you could trap those bees, you could train them to make you the honey. She was already captivating the audience.

  “In front of each of you is a sealed packet which contains your first assignments, which are designed to test your skills as problem solvers in your respective fields. You’ve been divided into seven groups, which for now, will be your team, but you are on your own for the work. Each team will have a liaison from MassEnergy who will serve as your contact at the company. You have all agreed to work with us, knowing very little about what you are a part of and that’s not going to change now. Accomplish the tasks set out before you to our satisfaction - that is your goal. You are all being paid well enough to be content with this arrangement.

  “Look around the room, it may be the last time you see some in the class. Fail to perform and you’re gone. No second chances.”

  She looked at the ashen faces of the crowd, knowing that many of them had left good jobs with a future to take this fleeting opportunity to get in on the ground floor at MassEnergy. She forced a smile.

  “It’s just a job after all, right? Report to your pods and get to it.”

  Chapter 8

  Luke had taken notice of those with orange packets, which corresponded to his own. Each candidate’s packet was a different color according the team they were assigned to. Amir also had an orange packet – of course. The color-coded teams followed a staff member to their assigned workrooms – called pods.

  The pod was a large circular room with high white walls and plenty of light. The exterior rim of the room was filled with five workstations, each equipped with an assortment of drafting tools and 180-degree wrap-around computer monitors and desktop touch screens. Luke took an open desk on the far side of the room and opened his packet. Inside was a set of instructions to log on to the company’s internal network, set up encrypted passwords and initiate a series of tests, which were not defined in the packet.

  The orange pod consisted of five individuals with varied skill sets. Luke and Amir were engineers, electrical and mechanical, respectively. Meredith Barnes had previously worked with a communications company in Kansas City, managing cellular tower networks. Nadeer Husan was a statistician from Toronto. William Yong was the elder of the group. In his 60s, William was a retired former shipbuilder who had already made it clear he had no idea what the hell he was doing there.

  Luke was about to begin setting up his accounts when Kathryn Tate and a woman named Sheryl from Human Resources walked into the pod.

  “Before you get started, you’re going to need a tour of the campus,” Kathryn said.

  “I think we can manage fine without a tour. We have a lot of work to do,” Meredith said with the tone of someone who preferred to work alone. She spun in her chair, turning her back to the group.

  “You misunderstand,” Kathryn said curtly. “Consider this new hire orientation. The tour is not optional and believe me, you are going to be spending a lot of time here and you are going to need to know what Sheryl is about to show you.”

  Meredith looked terribly offended, but followed the group out the door.

  “Luke, can you hold up a second?” Kathryn asked, stepping in front of him, blocking his path. The rest of the group continued down the hall with Sheryl. “I’d like to have a word with you.”

  “No problem.”

  Up close she was even more beautiful, he thought. Luke forced himself to maintain contact with her eyes and not wander anywhere else.

  “Walk with me and I’ll give you a little tour myself,” she turned and they headed in the opposite direction of the team. “I’ve assigned myself as the liaison for the orange pod and I wanted to let you know that it is because of you.”

  That was the shortest corporate spy career on record, he thought to himself. He looked to his right and left, assuming the security guards would converge on him at any moment.

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or something I should be concerned with,” he said, after a moment passed and nobody tackled him.

  “It’s a bit of both.”

  “I think your work at StuTech is probably some of the most relevant work experience we could ask for, but I also wonder why you would leave after just five years. Especially concerning to me is your relationship with Rachel Evans.”

  “That’s exactly why I left, to be perfectly honest,” Luke said, reciting his lines. “Once Rachel and I stopped dating, my work life suffered a lot. She made it very clear that she wasn’t going to make it easy for me at the company and I made the decision to leave, rather than be constantly punished for our failed relationship.”

  Making up lies about Rachel was difficult. He was still very much in love with her, although due to the terms of his agreement with Steve Lunsford, they were not permitted to have any contact. Rachel wasn’t pleased with the arrangement, but she supported him – at least she had 11 months ago.

  “That’s good to hear,” Kathryn said. “Angry ex-girlfriends are in a class of their own. You’ll find that there is very little fraternizing at MassEnergy, although people practically live here.”

  She walked them out of the pod complex toward the large five-story administration building. Building schematics for the campus were filed with the Portland City Department of Building and Code. Lunsford had gotten a hold of them and required Luke to memorize the detailed plans. He knew where the offices and suites were but not who or what was located in them. This walk with Kathryn was helpful to fill in the blanks.

  She gave Luke a cursory overview of the admin building. It housed company executives on the top floor, where one of her offices was located. The four floors below were filled with the typical assortment of departments, such as human resources, legal and accounting. The auditorium and several large conference rooms surrounded the public lobby and exhibit hall.

  The exhibit hall was a huge room that held artifacts from the early 1900s that were collected to inspire employees and interest potential investors or other visitors. A 46-foot high wood and metal tower sat in the center of the room. A four-foot glass railing surrounded the tower to keep visiting school children from attempting to climb it. It was a quarter-scale replica of a famous Nikola Tesla project.

  “I assume you recognize the tower?” she asked.

  “Of course, in 1901 Tesla built his communications and electricity device, called the Wardenclyffe Tower in rural Long Island. The 15-story structure was intended to transmit wire
less radio signals around the world. Funding for the Tesla Broadcasting System originally came from J.P. Morgan – the man – not the company. It was intended to deliver radio transmissions around the globe through the ionosphere.”

  “And if he would have left his design at that, it might have actually been completed,” she said.

  “Right, Tesla added to his design what he thought was the ability to wirelessly transmit electricity along with his communications signals. He called it ‘world wireless.’”

  At the time electricity was used primarily for simple lighting at night, but was quickly spreading to industry and home convenience. He was attempting to turn his alternating current into a radio transmission that could be delivered anywhere.

  Luke continued, although it seemed as though Kathryn already knew the story.

  “Once J.P. Morgan learned that Tesla’s tower had the potential to provide free electricity to everyone on earth, he pulled his support, knowing that his investors would never go for such a giveaway. The Wardenclyffe tower was never completed and thus never tested. It was torn down a decade later.”

  “Tesla had a vision, but could not gather enough support to see it through,” Kathryn said. “Sounds like MassEnergy so far.”

  “He was ahead of his time,” Luke said. “He did not have the technical knowhow to accomplish what he intended to deliver, though he was far better prepared at the time than any of his contemporaries.”

  Tesla’s plans influenced the development of modern day cellular tower networks and, no question, were the inspiration for Warren Evans to develop his proprietary wireless towers and stubs.

  Luke looked up at the tower, which even on a small scale, was more than four stories high. It was wood, metal and copper and topped with a circular dome. The replica was made from pictures of the real tower.

  On the exterior walls of the exhibit hall were large-scale reproductions of Tesla’s massive energy machine designs. Tesla coils, which looked like something out of a black and white Frankenstein movie were placed around the room. Images showed bolts of lightning shooting out from the devices. Several whitewashed wooden planks, which were said to be from the original Wardenclyffe Tower, were on display under a bright light.

  “Why do you think StuTech and its public relations wing have so vehemently denied any association with Tesla?” Kathryn asked.

  “Honestly, it’s because of Warren Evans’ vanity,” Luke said. “Tesla was viewed as a mad scientist. Evans doesn’t see himself that way. He’s an inventor, who delivered the world a gift. Tesla comparisons would tarnish that.”

  The design similarities were obvious. The devices themselves were both a bit mysterious, Tesla’s having never been completed and Evans’ locked down as proprietary technology.

  “MassEnergy has taken up the mantle of Nikola Tesla to gain its funding and build a system that could compete with StuTech,” Kathryn said. “This room represents what this company is all about. Delivering energy to the people where they need it.”

  “The notable exception to that vision of course is that no one is giving it away for free.”

  “That’s simply the nature of our business. Or any business. Nothing in this world is truly free, but at the moment there is no competition in the market and StuTech can charge whatever it wishes. We might not be able to deliver wireless energy for free, but we can provide an alternative to StuTech’s monopoly.”

  “So you think it’s possible to break the monopoly?” Luke asked.

  “You tell me,” Kathryn said. “You know more about them than anyone here.”

  “It won’t be easy. They’re geared up for a fight. StuTech isn’t giving up any ground.”

  “I’m not interested in taking them head on. We’re not ready, but there is room for us too.”

  “Filling in the gaps their system misses?” Luke asked. “Putting cities back on the grid?”

  “Exactly, but we’re not close to delivering any product at the moment so it really doesn’t matter, which is why we started the Engineering Candidate Class,” Kathryn said.

  “How long can the company stay afloat if a wireless device doesn’t go to market?” Luke asked.

  “I’m not privy to our finances in detail, but let’s just say that it’s pretty damn important,” Kathryn said.

  “Understandable. So, what’s your role in this thing as our contact point in the orange pod?”

  “I will monitor your progress and determine who we don’t need anymore. If one of you presents an idea that we can use, then you’ll be brought further into the fold and work with some of our guys. If you have something notable to report, you’ll do it through me. The evaluation tests will give us a good idea what you’re capable of. Those should take just a few weeks, then the real work begins.”

  ***

  They continued to walk through the campus, which was buzzing with people in every building. She showed him the cafeteria, which provided breakfast, lunch and dinner – and anything in between – at no charge to employees. Workers were encouraged to work whatever hours they wanted, provided they produced. Having a well-stocked cafeteria was a nice feature that kept employees focused on work, not if they remembered to pack a bologna sandwich for lunch.

  The place was packed. Each round table had 10 chairs attached to it. There were probably 20 tables spread across the room. Luke had a flashback from high school and thought of the segregation at his small school’s lunchroom. Jocks, nerds and popular kids never mixed. That didn’t seem to be the rule today. The only obvious differentiation was in attire. Executives were in suits and everyone else was very casual or in lab coats. Luke blended in with his sport coat and jeans.

  James Beckman, VP of Development, who had conducted Luke’s final interview days earlier, sat alone at one of the tables.

  “Kathryn,” he said, stuffing his mouth with a fork full of salad. “It’s going to take you quite a while if you plan to give your whole team a personal tour of the place.”

  Beckman was Kathryn’s boss. It was his idea to bring her in as a hired gun, but her presence infringed on his territory and she hadn’t proven herself to him. In his opinion, the company was always on the verge of something great. Kathryn’s mercenaries were a cute idea, but impractical. They had everyone they needed to get the job done. Thank you very much.

  “Just giving our boy the quick run through, so he can get right to work,” she said.

  “Mr. Kincaid here shouldn’t need too much encouragement in your little rainbow pods. He’s worked behind enemy lines up in Seattle. He should be on the Dev Floor.”

  Luke knew better than to say anything, but he nodded to acknowledge the comment. He wondered exactly what and where the “Dev Floor” was. Clearly there was more to this discussion than he knew.

  “As part of our candidate class, he has the same chance as everyone else. As we’ve discussed, I don’t think he’s going to have much trouble moving through the system.”

  “Sure, but when you’re done with him, he’s mine,” Beckman said. Turning to Luke, “Just some internal politics. Don’t worry yourself about it, son. How’s your first day going, anyhow?”

  “Just glad to be part of the team and ready to get to work,” Luke said.

  “A born politician,” Beckman said.

  “We’d better get you back to the team,” Kathryn said.

  They left the cafeteria and walked out into the courtyard. Determined to show that she wasn’t bothered by the dressing down she’d just received in front of her newest employee, she continued to give the campus tour, but with a little less enthusiasm than she had previously.

  They entered a V-shaped college-style dormitory with two floors. The building was on the edge of the courtyard which was filled with large cement planters, lush green grass and crisscrossing pathways. A clerk at the front desk provided them entry. The wide hallways led to hotel style rooms, each with a queen bed, bathroom, desk and television. They were nicely appointed, but not lavish.

  “The dorms
are first-come first-served and all employees are welcome to take a room to get some shut-eye if they are working late hours. Many find it easier to grab a few hours of sleep rather than commute home to do the same thing and waste time.”

  “Isn’t sleeping at work a little unhealthy?” Luke asked. “What about work-life balance?”

  “It’s all a choice. If you need a life, you might find it at the on-site gym or nurse’s station, the cafeteria or maybe even at your desk. Need something more? You’re out of luck, that’s what we offer.”

  “No, I mean work-life balance, like families and stuff.”

  “Unattached employees are better employees,” she said. “It’s not company policy or anything official, but you won’t find many people ducking out early to catch junior’s tennis match.”

  “Good to know,” Luke said.

  “Why, are you pregnant or something? Planning on popping out a few kids, are you?” Kathryn asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Luke said, without cracking a smile, “but maybe I should visit the nurse, just in case.”

  “I’ll get you an appointment.”

  They exited the dorm and were back on the intersecting paths of the courtyard.

  “Beckman mentioned the ‘Dev Floor’ what is that?” Luke asked.

  “That’s what we call the Development Floor,” she said. “It’s the Research and Development laboratory. Unfortunately newbie’s like you don’t have security clearance to access it, so you won’t be seeing that today. We keep it locked down pretty tight. Don’t want any prying eyes.”

  “Sounds like Beckman wanted me there now.”

  “Play your cards right and you probably will be there, but for now, play the game like everyone else. I’m confident you’ll find your purpose here. Can you find your way back to the pod? Just use your thumbprint to access the outer doors.”

  “I think I can manage.”

  “Enjoy your weekend, you need to be on your game come Monday. And get that pregnancy thing looked at too.”

  “Sure thing.”