New Hire

Jordan clacked away at his keyboard, each keystroke getting him one step closer to lunchtime. Someone knocked gently on the door. “Yoo-hoo!” Helen’s blonde bob peeked into the room. “How’s that report coming along?”

“I’ll have it in your inbox by EOD. Some timelines had to get tightened up, but I’ve got it all sorted.” Jordan rubbed his eyes and managed a weak smile.

“Sounds great. Please CC Dana too so she can keep the client in the loop.” She twirled one of the pearls dangling from her ears. “One more thing. We have a new intern that HQ sent us from the talent development program. Andy Harris. I want him to shadow you. You should start bringing him into projects so he can get up to speed.”

Jordan nodded. “Will do. Thanks, Helen,” He called out, but she was already halfway to her office. He stretched an arm out toward the mug on his desk and found it empty. A glance at the clock on his monitor told him it was a respectable hour to get his second cup. He drifted toward the break room in a tired daze.

While he was waiting for the machine to finish pouring his coffee, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Jordan slowly spun around and found himself face to face with the biggest smile he had ever seen. He had slicked-back blond hair and a suit that looked like it was custom-tailored. The navy suit extended an arm for a handshake. “Andy Harris.” His straight white teeth gleamed.

Jordan reached out and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jor—”

“—Jordan Thompson, the man with the most efficient utilization rate.” Jordan lifted an eyebrow and fixed his eyes on the account manager, Kelly, walking in with a water bottle in hand. Andy turned around for a moment. “I’ve got to get to a meeting, but I’ll catch you later on so we can go over the kickoff tasks.” He cheerfully marched out.

“So… who was that? I’ve been seeing him around all morning.” The woman’s eyes were wide, still staring at where Andy had been standing.

“That’s Andy, the new intern that HQ dumped on us.”

“I get a weird vibe from him…” She wrinkled her nose.

“Oh, I remember being his age. He’s probably just trying to come off as eager and overshooting the mark.” They heard the sound of a muffled sneeze just outside the door, followed by footsteps quickly walking away.

“I guess… kid must’ve studied pretty hard for his interview,” Kelly said, shaking her head. “Or he’s not here to learn. Maybe he’s here to watch.”

Jordan pulled out a chair and took a seat, chuckling. “Alright, I’m ready for the latest Kelly Theory. Hit me.”

Kelly rolled her eyes and plopped down in a chair across the table. “Maybe it’s management trying to keep tabs on us. You know Helen would put cameras in every corner of the office if she could.”

Now it was Jordan’s turn to roll his eyes. “So you think they hired a whole intern to—what, spy on us?”

The account manager threw up her hands. “I don’t know! I’m just listening to my gut here. Forget about it.”

Jordan took a sip from his now lukewarm coffee and grimaced.

A week passed, and Andy rarely left Jordan’s side. And when he did, he disappeared altogether. Jordan tried looking for him, but ended up awkwardly stumbling into random offices filled with fellow worker bees instead. Then he noticed that his Slack conversations with teammates were loading unusually slowly. He chalked it up to the cheap wi-fi in his office.

One day, Helen called Jordan into her office. Jordan’s heart raced on his way over. He was almost forty years old and still felt like he was being sent to the principal’s office. He walked through the open door and shut it behind him, bracing himself for the worst.

“Congratulations!” Helen burst out. “I’m offering you a promotion to Director of Operations. You’ll be overseeing all the project managers in our division. And of course, it comes with a raise.”

Jordan’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been waiting years for this promotion. “Wow, thank you, Helen. Wait… isn’t Phil the Director of Ops?”

Andy started to say something, but Helen shot him a look that shut him up.

The corner of Helen’s smile twitched. “Phil has taken a step back from his responsibilities and is now in a new role in the Cleveland office.” Her eyes dropped down to the document on the desk in front of her. “Now, Jordan, all you have to do is sign this.”

“What is it?”

“A fresh NDA. Standard procedure for this kind of jump in position.”

Jordan skimmed the first page in the stapled packet. He noticed the words “strategic confidentiality” and “reputation maintenance.” His stomach churned as the hesitation deepened, and he turned to his side. “Why is Andy in this meeting?”

Helen’s grin didn’t falter. “He’s part of a benchmarking program. We’re refining culture from the inside out.”

Jordan remembered his dream of one day buying a nice home he could raise a family in. He remembered the balance on his bank account. He shook the creeping, bad feeling off his shoulders and signed the papers in front of him.

Andy clapped him on the back. “This is a long time coming.” Jordan had the good sense to nod and turn toward the door before he wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion.

That evening, Jordan was painstakingly updating a spreadsheet. He glanced over at Andy frowning at his laptop, which had been angled completely away from Jordan, and slowed his scrolling even more. After a while, Andy’s phone buzzed and he abruptly stood up. “Well, I better head home for the day.” Before Jordan could respond, he was already out the door with his notebook in hand.

Jordan pulled his hands off the keyboard, resting them on the desk. He looked back at where Andy had been sitting and noticed that he had left his laptop open—and unlocked. Jordan’s heart was pounding in his ears. It was now or never. For what exactly, he asked himself? He didn’t know. He just knew there was something off about this guy.

The laptop screen had the company portal up. The names didn’t match up with the people at his office, though. And the interface looked different somehow. He noticed a small gray arrow in the top right corner of the window and clicked on it. The window fractured into even tiles that gradually disappeared, one by one until a new dashboard was revealed. There was a blue icon of a magnifying glass next to the word, “assess” in a banner across the top. This didn’t look like anything the company used. Maybe it was an internship thing?

He looked closer at the screen and saw his own name in a list. He clicked on it and a comment box appeared. It read, “Cautious skeptic, technically loyal. Socially influential. Risk level: moderate.” The next file down had Phil’s name on it, the old Director of Operations. When he clicked it, a comment box came up reading, “Inert. Removed.” So Andy was… auditing employees? Assessing them, like the name of the dashboard implied? But for what?

A notification bubble popped up on the screen with an email icon. Jordan didn’t think. He just clicked on it. An email opened from jeff@axisprivateequity.com. It read: “Thanks for the report, Andy. So far, the company seems pretty healthy for a takeover. Once we get all the right people in place, it should go off without a hitch. Take care.”

Jordan felt like his throat was constricting. He gasped, but he couldn’t get enough air. He collapsed into Andy’s chair as the blood drained from his face and everything snapped into place. Andy wasn’t some overeager intern. He was a plant. A spy. He was mapping out who would resist and who would fall in line when the private equity deal dropped. And Jordan was being positioned as the good little puppet to smooth the transition. The culture refinement, the NDAs, the sudden leadership shifts—it wasn’t a simple restructuring. It was infiltration. And he had just signed himself into it.

The next morning, Jordan handed Helen his resignation letter. Her face was cold, stern. She flashed a thin, polite smile after wishing him well in his next venture. Back in his office, Jordan was shoving items from his desk into his backpack. He zipped it up and patted the USB drive in his pocket.

A silhouette appeared in the doorway. It leaned a hand on the doorframe. “I heard the bad news.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Got offered a role I couldn’t turn down. You know how it goes.”

Andy stepped forward into the glow of the fluorescent lights. “Shame you’re leaving. Thought you’d be one of the keepers.”

Jordan blinked. “So did I.” They stared at each other in silence.

“Well, I should, uh, check in on marketing.” Andy took a couple steps back and slowly walked away, keeping his eyes on Jordan until he disappeared.

Jordan realized there was nothing keeping him there anymore. His work there was done. He slung his backpack around his shoulder and walked out. Once he was in his car, he pulled out his phone and called a number from his favorites. A woman’s voice picked up. “This better be worth my time.”

Jordan ran a hand through his hair. “Amelia, don’t sound so happy to hear from me. I have good news this time. I can make the drop now.”

The woman sighed. “Took you long enough. Axis was closing in. Our investors are getting antsy.”

“I have it all on a drive for you. The dashboard, the reports, all of it. Their little plant got complacent.”

“Do you think it’s enough?”

Jordan chuckled. “It’s more than enough to bring them down. I managed to get them to get rid of that roadblock Phil, too. All it took were some comments about his ‘issues with authority.’ Their lackey Helen should fall soon too.”

“Perfect. We’ll have the board right where we want them. They won’t be able to do a thing, and Axis won’t know what’s coming. We’ll beat them to the punch.”

“You know, there’s just one more thing… I was starting to get used to that Director of Ops title.”

Amelia scoffed. “You can pick your title at the new org. Call yourself Master Wizard of the Unicorn Kingdom for all I care.” She hung up the phone.

Jordan smirked. He let the phone rest on the passenger seat and turned on the ignition.

Two weeks later, Axis’ plans unraveled faster than expected. An anonymous whistleblower tip sparked an internal investigation that led to a massive restructuring, resulting in Jordan’s new firm installing allies on the board. The hostile takeover was executed swiftly and smoothly. Andy vanished just as quickly as he had arrived, his credentials revoked and emails scrubbed. There was no press coverage.

On a quiet Thursday morning, a new intern was introduced at the new office. He had an undeniable energy to him, and he was impeccably dressed. Watching from a secure video feed three states away, Jordan leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Let’s see who you’re really working for,” he whispered to himself.