Chapter 7
BENJI
Midday traffic zipped by at a surprisingly fast clip for city streets as I exited the New Day Tech offices.
My mind raced like one of those speeding vehicles, bobbing in and out of traffic.
My zagging thoughts didn't slow down the entire time I was on the T, headed back to my apartment. Once there, I immediately started working on the project that, holy fucking shit, had become a collaborative project with Anson (call me Ani) Day. But the entire time, in the back of my mind, it wasn’t angles and calculations that were ticking through my brain.
It was the blueness of his eyes and the way they creased at the corners when his smile was relaxed and genuine.
I worked late into the night, reaching for my phone more than once before remembering that I had no way to contact Anson.
Each time, I got back to work, but eventually I would find myself staring at my fingers as they typed away on my laptop, remembering how warm his hands had been, surrounding one of mine.
I told myself I ached to connect with him, to share what I was working on, but I knew there was more to it.
I wanted to see that awkward smile again.
I wanted to watch him stumble on my name and then turn around and politely but emphatically demand things from his staff.
I wanted to clock the muscles in his arm as his fingers flew over a tablet, our project coming to life from just our back-and-forth, manifesting on a computer screen while we leaned in close to watch it grow, his scent surrounding me, his energy setting me on fire.
I spent a lot of time that night thinking about shaking hands, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what I was really thinking about, what I really wanted, was to touch him again.
It occurred to me that aside from all the other things that Anson was—famous, rich, queer, iconic, the source of my gay awakening—as it turned out, he was also one of my dad’s contemporaries.
Having grown up in my parents’ hometown, I’d met any number of people they’d gone to school with, none of whom had ever mentioned Anson Day living on my block for a few years.
My dad and Anson weren’t ancient, but if I thought about my dad, I would basically think of him as old. I closed my eyes and pictured Anson again, and there was no way I could equate him to my father.
Anson was a walking contradiction. Vibrant and shy, nerdy and chic. My dad’s age but not old. Unassuming and one of the most important men in America. And, if my interview had gone as well as I thought it had, my about-to-be boss and the hottest man I’d ever met. All at the same confounding time.
I was sure Anson hadn’t been humoring me as we’d collaborated, and if I’d had the nerve to ask him outright if I were hired, I believe he would have had the temerity to affirm it. I might have asked, too, if we hadn’t been so engrossed in our work.
Then Henry Beckett walked in. Everyone knew Beck was in charge of the corporate side of New Day Tech, and that it was his focus and business acumen that had propelled the company to greatness almost as much as Anson’s innovation.
Anson had been quoted more than once saying that he just wanted to tinker with his code and his robots, and that Beck was the one whose business sense allowed him the freedom to do just that.
It seemed clear that Beck’s instincts had led him to mistrust me.
Would he convince his best friend not to trust me too?
I fell asleep slumped over my desk, imagining Beck and Anson debating about their company and robots and me.
I was being pushed out the door of an unnaturally long and oddly hazy conference room.
Did it even end? It didn’t matter if it did.
I wanted to be in the room because Anson was in that room.
Beck would push me toward the door, but then Anson would be in front of me.
He’d smile that creased smile, then Beck would turn me around, and I’d be at the door again.
Before long, Anson would be in front of me, shaking my hand in both of his for far too long, squeezing it as if we were sharing a secret.
The haze would form into numbers and then into components before turning back to cloudy dust as I spun around between Anson and Beck.
Eventually, Anson stepped closer, pulling me to him.
“There’s always the fort.” The walls and windows of the conference room faded and were replaced with a patch of trees that I recognized as being down by the creek at my childhood home.
Somewhere a bird ca-cawed. Once, twice, getting louder, getting closer.
It was shady by the creek, ensconced as we were among the trees, but the sun had begun to peek in through the branches.
Anson was with me. We stood face-to-face, one of my hands still in both of his, my other arm resting on his shoulder as he looked at me, the goofy grin of a younger man lighting up his sleeker face. I looked around to discover Beck wasn’t with us. It felt like a victory.
“The fort,” I said as I awoke with a start, the sun glaring down on me since I hadn’t bothered to close the blinds the night before, the sound of the bird melding as my phone bleated.
I hit the green button and croaked out a, “Hello,” my voice not yet awake, my brain barely a step ahead of it.
“Mr. Warren, It’s Erin from New Day Technologies.”
“Yes!” I all but shouted into the phone, answering a question I had not been asked. Luckily for me, she took it as a standard telephonic salutation and began explaining the reason for her call.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, I was hired! Erin talked for some time, but after she said that part, I couldn’t absorb much of anything. The phrases junior scientific researcher and Dr. Day’s personal assistant found their way through the haze.
“Review my email, Mr. Warren; it will have a link to the portal where you will find the employment package. You will need to sign a nondisclosure agreement and a noncompete clause relative to the work you and Dr. Day completed yesterday, and you will need to do that before the portal takes you to your employment agreement. Do you understand?”
“Yes!” I said again. Erin didn’t seem to need much more from me than that.
“The details are all on the portal but don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions you may have. If you find everything to be in order, and once your background check clears, you can start right after graduation.”
“Yes!” I enthused again, but again she took it as me acknowledging what she had said and not me accepting her offer on the spot. “I graduate …”
“I know when MIT graduation is, Mr. Warren,” was her curt reply, but then her voice softened as she continued. “Congratulations. I look forward to seeing you in the portal.”
“Yes, of course. I look forward to working with you.”
After thanking her, maybe one too many times and maybe too profusely, I hung up.
My mind flashed again to the disappointment of not having Anson’s number, because I really wanted to share my exciting news with him.
I chuckled to myself when I realized that he would have known before I did that I was being offered not only a job but a job as his personal research assistant, working on an initiative Erin had called Project Orthos.
Project Orthos. It was the title of the work that Anson had already been exploring, but since our meeting the day before, my input, my ideas, were a part of New Day Tech’s super-secret Project Orthos. Holy fucking shit.
The email popped up on my phone as I was logging back into my computer.
I registered for the portal straightaway and thought about clicking right through the two preliminary agreements, but I took a deep breath instead, made some coffee, and sat down to read them through thoroughly.
They seemed straightforward enough. Per the nondisclosure agreement, I couldn’t talk about the few hours Anson and I had spent in that conference room, and New Day Tech was the owner of the “work product” we had created and “any and all discoveries that may derive therefrom.” There were paragraphs and paragraphs of legalese, and I read them all, every word of both agreements, before signing each document electronically so I could get to the actual employment contract, which was in two parts.
I would be an employee of New Day Tech, working as Anson Day’s personal research assistant, but I would also be considered a “collaborator” on Project Orthos, which would incorporate my existing work.
So long as I continued to work on Project Orthos in my capacity as Dr. Day’s assistant, I would be awarded a percentage of any income generated from the project.
Like a murder mystery, the big reveal was tagged on at the very end of the employment contract, in a separate document labeled “Addendum A.” The attachment included not only my salary information but details on the profit-sharing agreement.
The salary was fairly generous, somewhat above what my research had told me starting salaries for someone in my field would be.
Relative to Project Orthos, New Day Tech would hold the patent, but I would net thirty-five percent of any income derived from the project.
The last page of the addendum made a point of defining income as all monies made from the project and not just net after expenses.
It seemed very generous to me, and it wasn’t even something I would have thought about.
I did some research on profit-sharing agreements and determined that, short of holding the patent either solely or jointly with Anson or New Day, it was a pretty impressive agreement for an entry-level employee, even one who held a PhD.
I was excited enough to be working for New Day Tech, and I would have said yes to a job there under almost any circumstance.
Holding a stake in the success of Project Orthos was just icing on the cake.
I e-signed the agreement, then began talking to myself, or to my computer screen, I guess.