Corbin waited silently, but didn’t break his gaze from Beckett’s eyes.
“How do you know so much about credit cards?” Beckett asked.
“When I worked for my uncle’s law practice during law school, I helped him represent a credit card executive who was wrongfully terminated. He laid out all their tricks and tactics, every strength, every weakness, every motivation.”
Beckett returned his eyes to his empty plate for some time. “I’m going to wait for my promotion,” he finally said, though without the certainty with which he usually spoke.
“Fair enough.”
After a quick walk through driving sleet, Corbin and Beckett found themselves back at the office, where they discovered yearly evaluation forms sitting on their chairs. Beckett’s desk sat closest to the door, facing the wall. Corbin’s desk sat behind Beckett, facing Beckett’s back. Both had brown leather chairs with high backs, as did each of the attorneys in the office. Next to each desk sat wooden chairs with padded cloth seats which matched the gray commercial carpet. Filing cabinets lined the wall by the door. A large window spanned the office, looking out over a parking garage several floors below. Sleet struck the window.
Corbin picked up his evaluation form from his seat. Their boss, George Kak, intensely disliked dealing with employees face to face. Hence, he tended to drop off work and things like the evaluations when the employees were out of the office. He also used the time to search desks. These particular forms were blank as Kak always made the employees fill them out themselves before he reviewed them.
“Ah, the yearly evaluations. I did mine in iambic pentameter last year,” Corbin said.
“Did he sign it?” Beckett sounded shocked.
“Without reading it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he never told me to take out the part where I listed harnessing the power of lightning as an achievement for the year.”
Beckett stared at Corbin. “You’re insane, you know that?”
Corbin grinned. “I do like to amuse myself.”
Beckett sat down, put his feet on his desk, and picked up his copy of The Washington Post, required reading for federal employees. “Aren’t you afraid someone will read it, someone who cares, like a future employer or an inspector general?”
“Not really. These evaluations go into our files, never to be seen again. Besides, it’s Kak’s name on the form. He’s the one who swore I conquered lightning, not me. I can’t help it if he was a little over-exuberant in his praise. I bring that out in people.”
“Well, I need to take mine seriously.”
“Don’t worry my friend, this is Club Fed, everyone gets great evaluations no matter how crappy they work.”
Corbin and Beckett had similar experiences upon joining the office. The more diligently they worked, the more their coworkers dropped by and “jokingly” suggested they slow down. When neither heeded those suggestions, Kak himself “jokingly” suggested they slow down. When they ignored his hint as well, Kak cut off their supply of work. When they still found work despite Kak’s embargo, Kak took the extraordinary step of telling them directly to “slow down or else.” These days, Corbin and Beckett did just enough work to annoy Kak.
Beckett looked at his blank form and grimaced. “This really is a horrible job. What I can’t figure out though, is why you’re here? This doesn’t seem your speed at all.”
“First job out of law school, other than the clerkship. Once I get this on my resume, I am outta here!”
“Where to?”
“The private sector, that far away land our coworkers fear and loathe, and yet envy.”
Just then, Stuart appeared at the door. Stuart came to deliver a letter, a letter which would change Corbin and Beckett’s lives forever, though Stuart had no idea of the importance of this letter. But first, Stuart had something more important to discuss.
“Knock knock,” Stuart drawled. The ever-present fluorescent lights reflected brightly off his prematurely-balding forehead and his thick glasses.
“Come on in, Stuart,” Beckett said, waving Stuart into the office.
Stuart entered the office, leaving his mail cart in the hallway. “Hey, I’ve got something you gotta see,” said Stuart, as he unzipped the fanny pack on the front of his belt. Fearing this meant pornography, Beckett tried to stop him, but Stuart was undeterred. He pulled a bent paperback book from the fanny pack. “Did you know the moon landing was fake? Do you know how they know?” Stuart asked in an overly-loud conspiratorial whisper. “NASA forgot to put stars in the pictures. They say they took pictures on the moon, but there aren’t any stars. That’s because they took the pictures in a warehouse and were supposed to add the stars later, but they forgot.”
Stuart paused for a response, but got only silence.
“Know what else? NASA never got any satellites into space. You know this one?” he asked, fanning the book open and pointing to a picture near the book’s middle. “It’s called Pioneer. It’s got pictures of naked people on the side.” Stuart chuckled.
Corbin smirked. “You mean the menu?”
“What? What do you mean?” Stuart asked, suddenly perplexed.
“The picture on the side. It’s a menu.”
Beckett didn’t approve of anyone “playing” with Stuart, so he tried to interrupt Corbin. But his efforts came too late, Stuart was hooked.
“What do you mean ‘menu’?” Stuart started shifting back and forth nervously.
“Think about it, Stuart,” Corbin said, ignoring Beckett. “When you go to a restaurant, they hand you a big book with a lot of pictures of food in it, right? This is the same thing. This tells aliens, whoever finds the satellite, ‘come to earth. . eat human’.”
Stuart snorted. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It’s an ad,” Corbin continued. “It says, we’re on planet number three and we’re tasty.”
“Why would the government do that?” Stuart asked, sounding somewhat mystified.
“He’s just kidding, Stuart,” Beckett interjected.
“Am not. This is the government advertising their willingness to trade us for some crazy alien gear. Seriously Stuart, why else would NASA send drawings of naked people into space? Trust me, Uncle Sam would trade you for a fancy new ray gun in a heartbeat.”
Stuart increased the pace of his shifting and began rubbing his hands together.
“Fortunately, we don’t need to worry about that, do we Stuart?” Beckett said trying to calm Stuart.
“What do you mean?” Stuart asked.
“You said it yourself. NASA never got any of those satellites into orbit. That means there are no satellites flying around for aliens to find, right?” Beckett flashed Corbin a “shut up now” look.
Corbin ignored him. “Of course NASA got those satellites into space. How else do you think we got those great close ups of Jupiter, Saturn,” Corbin rolled his head toward Beckett, “and Uranus.”
“I need to think about this,” Stuart said. He began scratching his forehead. “You might be right. I never believe the government. My mother says I’m crazy, but she’s the crazy one. She believes everything the government tells her. You guys don’t believe what the government tells you, do you?”
“Not if it comes from Kak,” Corbin responded sarcastically.
“Stuart, do we have any mail?” Beckett asked, trying to redirect the conversation.
“You can borrow my book if you want to?” Stuart said to Beckett.
Beckett shook his head. “No thanks Stuart, I have too much to read already. Do we have any mail?”
“What about you Alex, do you want to borrow my book?”
“I would, but I can’t read.”
Stuart let out a loud, sharp laugh, which caused him to hiccup. “‘Can’t read’? That’s funny! How did you get this job if you can’t read?”