Phoenix 2125

Posted By Alexander Hollins on April 29, 2008

Watching Daneel walking away towards a small unmarked door set in a squat concrete building, Tom felt a vibration on his hip. Pulling his phone out, he saw that the alarm he had set was going off, meaning he was now officially late for his first day. Hurrying across the square towards a copper framed glass building, he took the steps up towards the entrance three at a time. Eschewing the large ornate double doors intended for visitors, he turned to a side door marked “Employee’s Only”, and again his thumb instantly released the internal lock. Opening the door, he walked into a simply appointed hallway right as a woman walked around the corner towards the door. She looked up from her watch, and the look of irritation that was plainly plastered across her face melted away. She ran an appraising eye over Tom, and strode purposefully towards him.

The long hallway gave him time to do some appraising of his own as he stood just inside the door, waiting. The first thing anyone would notice was red hair of such a color that the phrase “flaming” could do no justice to. It fell down just below her shoulders in gentle waves and curls, framing an oval face dusted across the cheeks in freckles. Emerald green eyes dominated her face, and quickly drew all attention to themselves. Of medium height, she possessed the gentle curves of a woman who exercised regular, but didn’t starve herself, a fashion that had been making a come back lately.

“Hi, you must be Tom. I was starting to get worried about you.”

“Hi, yes, I’m Tom. Sorry about that, there was a detour. I still would be not here if I hadn’t run into a precocious young lady that knows this place like the back of her hand. Since Ms. Craven’s picture on her profile looks nothing like yourself , I would assume you are Ms. Stryker?” At this, he held out his hand in the traditional greeting.

Taking his hand and shaking it, the redheaded woman nodded in the positive. “Indeed. And Deborah, please.” She clasped her other hand over Tom’s, now holding it with both hands. “We tend to be rather, informal, here.”

As she took his hand, Tom felt a tingle at the point of contact. Shaking hands with her, the tingle spread up his arm, a warming sensation much like sunlight on his skin. When her other hand clasped over his, the warmth spread, growing stronger, and suffusing his body inside and out. As the heat grew, strongest at the point of contact, his hand felt as if it were about to burst into flames. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, in fact, some part of the heat felt very good, but that part fled as it intensified. Just as the sensation started to become truly painful, Deborah released his hand, and motioned towards the hallway she had just come from. The feeling of heat instantly fled, but the tingle remained, pulsing in waves across his body, slowly back and forth. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck lift and bend one way then the other, as if the wave was some form of static electricity.

“Well, no sense dawdling. Let me give you the five buck tour, and we’ll get you to work!” As they headed down the hallway, Deborah watched Tom cautiously waving his hand at his side, and now and again run his fingers through his hair and across his neck. “So, by precocious young woman, I assume you met Daneel?”

” I did. She says hello by the way.”

Deborah smiled broadly, and Tom felt momentarily weak in the knees. “Well, I expect we’ll be seeing her later, after shes done informing the whole of the island about our new boy. She does gopher work for pretty much everyone, so that also means she’s the main source of gossip for just as many people.”

Turning a corner, the hallway opened up into a wide room lined with steel filing cabinets that stretched ten feet up to the ceiling. Wheeled ladders ran along tracks mounted at the top of the cabinets, and several small desks were scattered about the room.

“Well, here we are. P and R central. This will be your desk here,” she said, sitting on a mostly empty desk in the middle of the room, thumping the pine top, her legs folded and swinging. “And there across the room are the bathrooms. I would assume that after the cable car ride in and getting lost, you’d like the opportunity to freshen up before I introduce you to every one else?

“Thank you, I would indeed.” Tom turned towards the direction Deborah was pointing and started towards the door as she hopped off the desk. While doing so, her fingers brushed his shoulder, and he jumped as a new wave of fire raced across his skin.

Watching him walk towards the bathroom, rubbing his shoulder, Deborah chuckled softly to herself. Rubbing her own fingers against themselves to get rid of the tingling sensation across her own skin, she pulled out her phone. She typed out on the small keyboard, “We have a winner”, and sent off the text message.