[podcast]http://www.paintthetruth.net/allwebsites/deathwave/wp-content/plugins/podcasting/player/chapter1final.mp3[/podcast]

“Welcome to our world,” she said as she guided him through the mammoth industrial complex of brushed aluminum and cold slate tile. “We keep you safe. That’s what we do.”

They walked up the quad to one of the many ultra modern buildings, all sleek with post-modern austerity. All gigantic and woven with steel between glass. He tried to get the door for her with an awkward tug, but she stopped him with a quick draw of her badge.

“We’ll get you yours at the end of orientation. Until then,” she continued, “please keep your name tag on.”

Earlier, he had applied the name tag in the bathroom and had strained to get it level. It read: Stewart Kitchen.

There was a whole procedure to getting the door open. She explained to him that his hand shouldn’t be on the handle when he waved the badge in front of the infrared detector. Then there would be two beeps, prompting one to enter their personalized code. If you waited too long and the third beep rang, then that meant that your badge would be locked out of the system for five minutes. Security would be notified and put on orange alert.

“Orange alert?” he asked.

She went on that orange alert wasn’t such a big deal and that security would just do a few system checks. “Now teal alerts… different story entirely,” she said with a flash of her whitened teeth and toss of her blond perfect hair.

“Teal alerts?”

But she was focused and waited for the second beep, blocking off the keypad with her arm to prevent him from sneaking a peek at her code, as if they were still in school. Then she punched in a series of numbers and the door made a sad sound as it clicked open. “Tada!”

He smiled uncomfortably and stared out of the glass wall as she led him down a long glass hallway and up an escalator. He saw three security guards wrestling with a man who very well could have been homeless. “They have batons.”

“And guns,” she muttered as they dragged the man into the back of a black car and drove off. “Don’t let it get to you. It happens all the time. Look. If we can’t keep ourselves safe then how could we possibly guarantee that very same promise to our customers?”

He felt uneasy but tried his best to hide it.

“Don’t worry. You’re one of us, now.”

She led him up a sweeping glass staircase, which opened to an atrium enclosed with two arcs of more steel-framed glass. Lots of shiny glass and steel… and grey suits! He hadn’t realized until just now but everyone wore grey suits. Grey suits with sad checkered ties.  And, as the suits passed him and his host walking him through with the quick clip-clops of her heels against the milky white tiles, the suits never made eye contact with either of them. They moved expressionlessly like ants in this great colony of see through walls.

Stewart was one of them now – grey suits and blank stares. Worker ants on their mission to serve the colony – to serve the queen or whomever ran this huge conglomerate of corporations. He thought of Janie, his fiancée, and felt like a prisoner as the woman walked him up the marble stairs and into the glass atrium on the way to wherever it is they might be going.

Orientation. On the very first day he already felt like a prisoner being led to an unknown destination and an unknown fate to meet those who he had nothing in common with other than the fate of working for the same place. She talked on and on about the merits of their fringe benefits and vacation packages, but all he could see was the forced friendships he’d have to make and whittling the days away by taking recurrent trips to the water cooler to partake in meaningless conversation while all the while dreaming the day away.

He had several urges to bolt and run out the front door, but the desire to take care of Janie stopped every one of them with the resounding promise that was built into the reinforced hardened steel of the security doors, as much as it was built into the slogan of this company, as much as it was part of the implicit corporate culture of every company – ‘to keep you safe’.

Besides, he didn’t know if he could even find the front doors… and what kind of alert would running through them create?

She led him into an impressive reception area and into the grand ballroom, festooned with a giant crystal candelabra hanging from the center of the parabolic ceiling. Directly across from where they stood was a stage that ran nearly the entire width of the room and was framed by two huge oil portraits. The one on the right was of President George W. Bush.

Turning to him, she saw he was impressed: “We revolve that portrait out whenever a new president comes into office… as long as he’s not a jackass.”

“What if he’s a democrat?” he asked.

“Then our guy gets four more years.” she said. “By the way, that one on the left is our president, Wilson M. Price the Third. He never gets revolved out. You’re quick. I like that.”

The janitors folding up chairs and rolling out the round tables caused the first hint of negative emotion he saw on her face. “I have to apologize for this. We usually have chairs setup for lecture when we do orientation but we just had our fourth quarter celebration soiree. It was an amazing fourth quarter, by the way,” she proclaimed with a plastic smile.

She planted him at the table in the middle of the room and ushered the janitors out. Before she could return from across the cavernous room, he quietly asked almost to himself, “Am I the only one?”

But his question easily bounced off the parabolic dome ceiling and reflected to her and every table. “This session, yes,” she responded, adding: “you’re lucky to have gotten this job.”

It was an ugly unspoken truth that SecureCo Insurance had to lay off thousands employees to have had the fabulous quarter of which she spoke. That was the way many corporations managed to find black ink on their statement and drive stock prices up. It also didn’t hurt that the company just received a huge government bailout.

He knew nothing about SecureCo before the presentation other than their famous slogan: “We keep you safe. That’s what we do.” But he was soon to find out. The lights dimmed, and the impressive curtains swept open to reveal an Imax screen. A 70mm projector began flashing images onto it from the back of the room. “Welcome to SecureCo”… “An IMAX film by Michael Bay.”

SecureCo billed itself in this orientation film as the next step and natural evolution of the insurance industry. They planned to broaden and expand how the world would view insurance in the future. “Fact is”, the president of SecureCo declared in an intoxicated Texan accent as he sipped a Mai Tai on a tropical cabaña set “SecureCo covers everything.” Then he toasted the camera, “welcome to the good life. So welcome. Welcome all of you,” his voice echoed, bouncing off of the prefect parabolic ceiling.

Stewart looked around. It was just him alone there in the ballroom. Just he and the presidents.

SecureCo did cover everything one could think of, as promised. The Michael Bay film showed that in beautiful action packed jerky cuts the road to safety that SecureCo paved. Un-meritous law suit? No problem. Legit claim? You’re covered. Health? Of course. Pre-existing conditions? SecureCo will be there for you. Accidental injury? No doubt. Premeditated? SecureCo is committed to you.

He watched as the film promised to protect virtually every fate and terrible malady of the human condition. It promised the safety of covering anything and everything that could ever happen to you, and it did an unexpected thing to him.

It worked.

He started to see himself as a part of this safe world. He envisioned his wardrobe of grey suits with little rebellious outbursts. A red tie maybe. Or pink handkerchief. Maybe if he wore yellow socks or he didn’t know maybe he could retain his sense of self by jacking off in the private lavatory or smoking pot with the janitors. He thought of Janie. He could do this for her. Steady money…and if they covered base jumping in their base plans, their maternity policy must be amazing. Welcome to the good life indeed!

He could get into that. And if this place was anything, it was safe and rich and powerful. Imagine the money and power it would take to hire Michael Bay to direct their in-house presentation! What could be next?

What was next on the IMAX screen was the Rolling Stones playing their hit “Sympathy for the Devil.” Mick Jagger shared the stage with Wilson Price as the two sang alternate verses and playfully did choruses wagging their butts and grinding in to each other. Thump! Thump! The shot craned wide. Thump! Thump! Then via helicopter pass which synched with a musical segue he watched in awe as all were backed up by the USC marching band.  Thump. Thump! Went the drums. Whoo! Whoo! Went the horns!

Thumping their way to the good safe life – Thump! Thump! Whoo! Whoo! He was indeed lucky to have landed this job in these hard economic times. She was so right.

Thump! Thump!

Whoo! Whoo!

What a sound system! The chairs rattled. The crystal candelabra vibrated as it swayed.

BANG! BANG!

The band played on. USC drummers through the subwoofers made the walls feel like they were going to collapse.

He toasted as the president pitched again “to the good life” when he noticed something strange. His portrait, adjacent to his flickering celluloid image was slanted. And, the slant was increasing as the drums beat on and as the sirens roared on.

SIRENS!?!

Those were sirens he heard as the president’s oversize picture toppled from its mount and cart wheeled across the room and into a smoke glass wall which shattered like confetti into millions of tiny fragments.

Now the violence and sirens overshadowed USC and The Stones which pounded triumphantly on. The cries of anger caused a wave of panic to flow through him as he bolted for the newly-made glass doorway. He wondered if this indeed was the teal alert.

Out and into the reception area, he watched people rush to get out. The escalator was overcrowded as the once meek ants now scrambled to escape. At the security doors they frantically tried to escape the steel and glass web which only groaned the repeated orange alert warning: “Not Authorized.” The idea of being locked in against the ear piercing alarm sirens only served to redouble the panic. Grey suits cried out in pain as they were crushed and trampled.

Then someone grabbed his hand! It was the HR lady who brought him here. What was her name again? Her pantyhose may have been ripped but she carried herself with the air of a New England waspy socialite.

“Come with Joan” she said as she pulled him aside and down a hallway that lead to a hidden door. She flipped her badge, waited the count, punched the numbers, and outside they were in the free cool air under a large portico.

“Was that the teal alert?” he asked.

Before she could answer they watched a black Maybach Exelero fly by and heard someone scream: “that’s him!” Others chanted: “get him!”

“Who?” Stewart asked Joan, as she started to chase the Maybach as well.

Mid-sprint, she broke a heel and now had to take the time to pull her shoes off. Joan turned and yelled at him: “That’s Mr. Price, that’s our president, you heathen. He needs us!” Then she took off running in her pencil skirt and bare feet as fast as she could.

He watched as the employees swarmed the 2 ton ultra-luxury sedan, using their bodies as a barricade and forcing it to a stop from over forty miles per hour. Nothing made them stop. Not the blood of lost comrades. Nothing. Not even Joan who was hoisted kicking and screaming as they threw her off of the man she was trying to protect like an invading bug. They were ants again. This time turned against the cancerous nest.

They pulled the door off of the car and pulled the man out before they realized what he saw. In the opposite direction another identical black Maybach Exelero, this one still shiny from the fresh coat of polymer wax that was applied that very morning was headed out of the complex.

By the time it turned onto the highway onramp already traveling well in excess of one hundred miles per hour.

The ants all stopped and watched in unison as the real Wilson M. Price the Third drove away.

“What did he do? What did he do?” Stewart asked.

“Him? He took all of our money.”