“You need an answer that quickly?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, that’s kind of the catch, actually. As long as Gracia signs off on it, the job is yours, but you sort of have to decide now whether you want it. I know that’s not cool of me. But I’m in a bind, and if you can’t take it, I have to find someone else, fast.”
“Well, I’m free,” I said. “You were literally my last deliverationee.”
“Okay, good.”
“Tom…”
“Yes?”
“Why? I mean, thank you, and I really, sincerely mean that. Thank you so much. You’re saving my life right now. But, why?”
“One, because you need a job, and I have a job to hand out,” Tom said. “Two, because from a totally self-interested point of view, you are saving my ass, because we can’t go out into the field without a full team and I don’t want us to be saddled with some random person we don’t know. You’re right, we’re not friends. Not yet. But I do know you. And three…” Tom smiled again. “Let’s just say you turning me on to Snow Crash a few years ago put me on the path I’m on now. So in a way I’m just returning the favor. Now—” He pointed to the card. “That address is in Midtown. I’ll tell Gracia to expect you around two thirty. Get going.”
CHAPTER
3
“Let’s get right to it,” Gracia Avella said to me. “What did Tom tell you about KPS?”
The offices for KPS—the name of the organization on the card Tom gave me—were on Thirty-seventh, in the same building as the Costa Rican consulate, on the fifth floor. The office apparently shared a waiting room with a small medical practice. I had been in the waiting room for less than a minute when Avella came to get me to take me to her personal office. There was no one else in the KPS office. I guess they, like most everyone else, were working from home.
“He told me that you were an animal rights organization,” I said. “And that you do work in the field. And that you need people to lift heavy objects.”
“We are, we do, and we do,” Avella agreed. “Did he tell you what kind of animals?”
“Uh, large animals?”
“Is that a question?”
“No, I mean, he said large animals, but he wasn’t specific.”
Avella nodded. “When you think of large animals, what do you think of?”
“I guess, elephants? Hippos. Giraffes. Maybe rhinos.”
“Anything else?”
“I suppose there are whales,” I said. “But it didn’t seem to me Tom was talking about those. He said ‘in the field,’ not ‘out to sea.’”
“Technically, ‘in the field’ would indicate either,” Avella said. “But yes, we do most of our work on land.”
“I like land,” I said. “I don’t drown there.”
“Jamie—may I call you by your first name?”
“Please.”
“Jamie. Here’s the good news. Tom was right: We need a body for this next field operation, and we need it now. Tom’s recommended you, and between him calling me and you arriving, I did a background check on you. No arrests, no FBI or CIA or Interpol flags, no problematic social media posts. Even your credit score is good. Well, as good as it can be for anyone who has student loans.”
“Thanks. I love forever paying off a master’s I will never, ever use.”
“On that topic, your master’s thesis is pretty good.”
I blinked. “You read my master’s thesis?”
“I skimmed it.”
“How did you get it?”
“I have friends in Chicago.”
“Okay, wow.”
“My point is, you’re not an obvious danger or a potential problem for your other soon-to-be teammates. And for us, right now, that works. So, congratulations, you’ll have the job if you want it.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Okay.” An immense boulder of stress I didn’t even know was sitting between my shoulders was suddenly lifted. I wasn’t going to be homeless and starving in the middle of a pandemic.
Avella held up a finger. “Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “The job is yours—but I need to make sure you understand what the job is so you can decide if you actually want it.”
“All right.”
“First, understand that when we say KPS is an animal rights organization, we are actively engaged with these animals—very large, very wild, very dangerous animals. We will train you on how to interact with them, and we maintain stringent safety protocols at all times. But you can get injured, severely, and if you’re not careful, you can actually die. If you have any hesitation on this score, or if you have any problem following to the letter the directions and instructions you are given, then this is not the job for you. I need you to verbally acknowledge that you understand this.”