Behind the Puppet Master

Homecoming

I feel my gut drop to the ground, a heavy lump forms in my throat, my heart is thumping hard against my chest, and my breathing is accelerated. No, it can’t be- Nick can’t be back already? It’s only been six months! Six months- for crying out loud! What could he have possibly accomplished in six months? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything has been going so perfectly, and now I have this on my mind. Alexia comes up to me and guides me to the couch.

“Alina, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you. Besides, I’m not sure he’s actually back.” she says, trying to calm me down. Except, even coming from her, it doesn’t work. 

My heart is beating so hard against my chest, I feel like my ribcage is going to break. I close my eyes and try to focus on my breathing. Why am I so conflicted knowing he's back? It just doesn't make sense. All I know is that I was much happier, and had more peace of mind, knowing he was gone. Alexia takes my hand, which doesn’t help my heart at all, because now it’s excited. “What do you mean?" I ask, trying to get clarity.

“I heard my mom yelling on the phone, and she never does that,” she starts, “she was telling him that he needs to let it go. He has always been good at holding grudges, you know?” I nod, allowing her to continue, “I don’t know, she said something about he’ll always be welcome at home, but that he needs to move on from you. He’s become obsessed and hellbent on taking over.”

Suddenly, my confusion melts away, and is instead replaced with anger. I take a deep breath, and finally ask, as calmly as I can, “But, why did you say that you think he’s back? Is he not here in California?”

She looks away for a moment, and then turns back around to me, “Because my mom was trying to convince him to stay in New York City.”

“New York? But I thought he was in England?”

“He was, but he called her today and told her that he’s in New York. Apparently he met a new business partner and thinks William would love her. He’s insistent on bringing her here to meet William.”

“What does your dad think?” I ask her, hoping he’s against it.

“He doesn’t know about this yet. My mother was begging him to not come back, encouraging him to start his own business or something.”

I shake my head, knowing this means Nick will eventually come back to California anyway. I get up and walk towards the window, looking out to collect my thoughts. Alexia comes up behind me, and puts her hand on my shoulder, sending goosebumps down my spine. 

“I just thought you deserved to hear it from me first; wanted to give you a heads up.” she says apologetically.

“I appreciate it, I really do. Thank you.”

She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back. We go back to my desk and she tells me she put in an application for the science lab. I raise my eyebrows and ask her if she’s sure that’s what she wants. She tells me she’s actually undecided on where she wants to intern at, so I offer her a full tour of the facility. She takes me up on that offer so we head out of my office. I first take her to the science lab and, after the intensive sterilization process, I introduce her to Dr. Takahashi and her team. They show her around the lab, and I can see her interest growing. I walk over to look at the lab rats while I let her enjoy the mini tour. I start thinking about what we can do to increase the security here, to prevent Nick from coming in. Maybe I can hire more security guards? Or maybe make it harder to enter the facility? I'm sure B can help with the extra security. I lose myself in thought as I stare at the rats, when Alexia suddenly brings me back to reality. "This place is so cool!" She exclaims.

"I agree completely." I tell her, smiling at how adorable she is, "But you haven't even seen everything yet. Let's move on with the tour, shall we?" She nods in excitement and I lead her out of the research lab. Next, I take her to the production floor, where they build most of the medical equipment. We run into Jenine just as she's getting ready to head up the elevator. I introduce her to Alexia and ask her if she can spare a moment to give her a tour of the whole production lines. She tells me she'd be honored to show the daughter of William around the clean room. She takes us to the supervisors' frocking room, where she instructs Alexia on what to do. First, she must put on a hairnet and a face cover. Then she has to wash her hands for a minimum of twenty seconds. After that she must get gowned up in the frock and matching boots. Finally, she must put on the latex free production gloves and a pair of safety goggles. I already know the drill, so I’m cleaned, covered, and ready to go. Normally, if she was a worker, she would have to wear the all white hazmat-looking cleanroom frock, but because she’s visiting, she wears a green frock to distinguish from the others. As supervisors, we wear black frocks.

Jenine guides Alexia into the massive cleanroom, giving her a tour of the whole production floor. There are approximately four production lines, and on each line there are an average of thirty assemblers. This doesn’t include the associates who work on the parts. This is a huge floor, and this is where I actually started my internship under Evelyn. She showed me how to fix the automated machines that build the tubing, and taught me how each medical kit works. I learned how to build every kit and what patients need. I also know how kits can be improved, so now I instruct engineers on how to design new kits and what I expect. I let Jenine take Alexia on the tour while I go around and check on the assemblers.

Just by looking around the production lines, it’s clear that some of the assemblers are very uncomfortable and in pain. Watching them work, it’s clear that when the engineers wrote the manufacturing procedures, they had no idea how the lines actually run. Some assemblers are sitting in uncomfortable positions, reaching for parts that would make anyone’s back ache. This is completely unacceptable. I find Jenine and apologize for interrupting her tour, but ask for the extension line to the lead engineer. She tells me he can be an arrogant hothead, as a word of caution, but then provides the number, and I’m off to contact David Pierce.

The phone rings five times before he answers, "Pierce."

"Hello, Mr. Pierce. This is Alina Monroe speaking."

"Oh hello, Ms. Monroe. How may I help you?" 

"Can you please come down to the production floor? I have a few questions for you."

"I'll be down in 10 minutes." He says and just hangs up.

I collect all the manufacturing procedures(MP) and lay them out on an empty table, awaiting David's arrival. A little more than 20 minutes pass before he finally arrives on the floor. He looks around the room before seeing me sitting at the table waiting for him. We shake hands and take a seat. I begin inquiring him about the MP's, by first asking who wrote it, who approves it, and who tests out the flow. He tells me that different engineers wrote each MP, he approves it, but no one tests the flow of the MP before approval.

"Do you actually read through the MP's before approving them?"

"Yes, of course. Why wouldn't I?" He asks, acting almost insulted. 

"Then you would have no problem explaining this MP." I hand him the MP that was the least ergonomically friendly. 

He quickly reads through it and explains what it says with protest. The annoyance in his eyes is unmistakable, as if he could spend his time doing something better than reading and explaining the MP to me. "What seems to be the problem with the MP?" he asks.

"On paper? Nothing." I tell him, waiting for him to lose his limited amount of patience. He keeps looking at me filled with confusion, waiting for clarity. "You said no engineer has taken the time to actually watch or test the flow of these MP's."

"Yeah? The lines have been running just fine with no issues. So what's the problem?" He asks in frustration, clearly nearing the end of his patience. 

"Please follow me." I say with the sweetest smile I can muster. 

I find a trainer passing by, and I ask them to follow us as well. We walk towards the station we were talking about, where an older lady is hunched over and struggling to work at. "Hello, ma'am, may Mr. Pierce give this station a go? We're testing something out." She politely nods and gets up, almost grateful she can have a break. I gesture to the seat, asking David to give the station a go. I instruct the trainer to show David how to work at the station. David rolls his eyes, obviously because he already read it, so why does he need training? After a few minutes, the trainer stands back, allowing him to work, and he is struggling. About ten minutes pass and he's complaining about his neck, his fingers hurting, and his back aching. Satisfied, I thank the lady for letting us take her spot and ask David to head back to the table.

“So, what was the point of all that?” he asks me annoyed.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, trying hard not to groan, and look at him. My brain goes into overdrive, trying to think of a gentle way to explain this to him. “I had you working at that station because I want you to make it more ergonomically friendly. You barely worked there for fifteen minutes and already complained about it hurting. You need to find-”

“Well it’s cause I’m not used to it.” he rudely interrupts me. 

“Excuse me?” I ask, baffled by his audacity. 

“I’m just not used to building the kits. These assemblers do it every day and with time you get more used to it.” he claims, too arrogant and confidently, causing my eyebrows to raise. 

“No, that isn’t how this works. It actually causes more damage in the long term. So, as your boss, I’m tasking you and your engineers in rewriting the manufacturing procedures, making them ergonomically friendly.”

He stares at me, wide eyed and in disbelief. He keeps opening his mouth as if to say something, but then stops and does it again. It goes on for a little bit longer before he finally says in protest, “Rewriting the MP’s will be an extensive amount of work! Not to mention that taking on this huge project, will substantially delay all other projects. Also, if we change the MP's then we'll need to do additional construction to accommodate the changes, which will slow down production.”

I nod in agreement to his math, but continue to stand my ground, “I appreciate the quick math, Mr. Pierce, but first of all, let me worry about the production. Second of all, I’m asking you to go through each MP with all your engineers and rewrite the ones that need work. I will be conducting a safety and satisfaction survey from the assemblers once the new procedures are in order. I expect everything on my desk in no later than a month.”

He stares at me as if I have three heads, stumbling on his words once again. Claiming that what I’m asking for is impossible, that it would take hours on end to read each MP, and go through and change them all to match the new modified MP's. Then he explains the excruciating process of getting the new MP's approved by at least five different engineers. He also warns me that making such significant changes to the production line would require a lot of man power. It would also take time to retrain the assemblers to the new procedures. He finally tells me it’s unfair to dumb this load on him, and that he feels like he’s getting punished. I smile sweetly at him, “I’m sorry that you feel punished, but let this be a lesson. These assemblers are only human. What your engineers wrote, and you approved, puts them in very uncomfortable and often painful positions. Now you know for next time.”

His face is burning red with rage, the veins in his neck are threatening to burst from anger. He looks at me, and through gritted teeth says, “I understand. I’ll have the MP’s looked over. Anything else?”

“That’s all. Thank you.”

He gets up angrily, and storms out of the cleanroom, offended. I take a breath of relief just as Jenine and Alexia finish up their tour of the cleanroom. I thank Jenine for taking time out of her day for us, and we proceed to leave the production floor. While we remove our frocks, Alexia seems giddy and excited about the cleanroom, and can’t stop talking about it. I chuckle at how adorable she is. I tell her if she thinks the medical kits were cool, then she would love the weapons floor. Her eyes widen, asking me if I’m going to show her that too. I nod my head and the way her eyes light up is priceless. I say goodbye to Jenine and guide Alexia down one floor to the arena. I tell her that the weapons production is top secret, so unfortunately, it’s illegal to show her it, but she can have a go at testing out some weapons if she’s interested. She mouths the word ‘really?’ in bewilderment, and I nod again, this time with a smirk. 

“I’ve never shot a real gun before.” she disclaims.

I chuckle, and try my best not to offend her, saying, “I’m really not too surprised.”

She blushes, and bites her lip, sending tingly feelings all over me. She lets out a nervous giggle, “Well, to be fair, I’ve never had a need to. Father doesn’t think it’s proper.”

“Nonsense, everyone needs to know how to use a gun. In fact, my father always told me that during a war, it doesn’t matter whether you’re male, female, child or elder, bullets can’t tell the difference.”

She lets out a nervous laugh, unsure of what to say.

“It’s alright, you can try out the virtual arena first, and then maybe you can try a real gun.” I assure her. She seems satisfied enough with the answer, so using my badge, we gain access into the virtual arena. I have her put on a pair of goggles that project targets for practice. The gun she’s handed looks and feels like a real pistol, but shoots virtual bullets. Other than the virtual bullets, it feels like shooting an actual gun. She will need to handle the recoil, learn how to reload the gun, and of course learn to aim. The pistol I handed her was based on the famous military M-17, and M-18 pistols used in 2018. Of course, that was child’s play compared to what we are creating now, the F-26. I demonstrate how to use the virtual reality goggles, which buttons to press, and most importantly, how to use the gun properly. After a couple of demonstrations, it’s her turn to give it a go. At first, she’s so nervous she closes both her eyes before shooting, missing the target completely. She’s also not used to the light recoil on this, so her arm goes flying upwards. She lets out a little “ouch” as she massages her bicep. On both of our goggles, a 0% flashes into view, indicating that the way she handled the gun, as well as her posture had a 0% chance of hitting the target. Her lips are pursed in disappointment.  

“It’s alright, it will take a bit of getting used to.” I inform her, “try to keep both eyes open and on the target. Believe me when I say that the target is more afraid of you, than you are afraid of it.”

She rolls her eyes, smiling and playfully shoves me, saying “Shut up.” 

I let out a chuckle, and instruct her to try again. This time, she’s holding the gun completely wrong, so I adjust the way she’s holding the gun, and I grab her hips to fix her posture. 

“Keep your eyes open this time.” I instruct her, and she shoots the gun. At least this time she hit the edge of the target. This time, a 27% flashes into both our views. “Good, that’s a little better, but there’s still room for improvement. How about we stand a bit closer to the target?” I place my hand behind her back and move her a few paces forward. “We’ll focus on long distance shooting in a little bit.” 

I could have sworn her face was slightly blushing red, but maybe it’s the lighting in this room. She nods her head, and aims at the target again. This time, I noticed that she held her breath as she’s about to shoot. The bullet meets slightly more towards the center of the target, and a 48% flashes into our views. I commend her for her quick improvement, but suggest that she breathes out, and relaxes before shooting this time. She nods and turns back to face the target. She steadies her aim, takes a deep breath in, slowly exhales and shoots. Her face lights up when she gets even closer to the center now. A 65% flashes across our view and she’s super excited. She’s celebrating and waving the gun around, and despite it being a fake gun, I remind her not to wave the gun around, to avoid any bad habits in the future. 

She asks if she can give it another go, which I encourage her to, seeing her potential. With a determined look on her face, she faces the target again, and this time pulls the trigger more confidently. This time, a 72% flashes in view, and she’s just a few inches away from the center; I applaud her improvements, but have to end the session.

“Alright, that’s enough for today. I think, if you’re interested, you should try to intern here as a weapons tester. I see a lot of potential in you, and you would be a good baseline for people who are new to guns. You know, like the ease of using it.”

Her eyes light up, and sparkle in a way that only her eyes seem to be able to do. “You really mean that?”

“Yes, yes I do.” I collect her glasses and put them back in their cabinets. 

“O- Okay. Yeah, I’ll apply for it.” her mood seems to be elevated. 

“Shall we head out then?” I ask her.

She nods and we turn to leave, but just as we’re about to exit, her eyes lock onto the new Fay X-360 solar magnum. It’s based on the old Smith & Wesson XVR 460 Magnum, which was the most powerful Magnum pistol at the time. The bullet from the X-360 Magnum, fires at a speed of a record-breaking 2,650 feet per second. This gun is definitely not for the faint hearted.

“Oh, that’s just a prototype.” I tell her, trying to discourage her from trying it. 

“Well, if I’m going to be testing out weapons, wouldn’t I have to try it out anyway?” she asks, with the most innocent, puppy-dog look on her face. I sigh, and against my better judgement, I allow her to shoot the gun once. She’s warned of the powerful punch behind this weapon, and told to brace herself. I walk her to the real life target, reminding her to point the gun down because this gun is very real, and very powerful. Once we reach the target, she prepares to shoot the gun. She takes a deep breath in, and slowly exhales, pulling the trigger. Her arm goes flying, and she winces in pain. She makes the rookie mistake of holding the barrel of the gun to get a grip and burn herself. I hear the sizzling sound of her flesh, and smell the horrid stench of burnt skin. Luckily she drops the gun fast enough so that she only received second degree burns. I rush to her and apologize profusely for the burn, and despite her being in pain, she snickers and says, “to be fair, that was a dumb move on my part.” 

I rush her to the first aid kit, putting a cold compress on her hand, making sure to avoid breaking any blisters. She lets out a sigh of relief from the pain, and I take out the burn ointment. I sit her down and tend to her wounds, kicking myself for allowing her to get hurt on my watch. She’s trying to joke around to lighten the mood, and despite my attempts to not laugh, I fall for it. She says that maybe she’ll leave the magnum to more experienced people from now on. I shake my head, telling her that I did try to warn her. Soon, her hand is bandaged and I keep staring at her hand. “Hey,” she starts, bringing my attention to her, “it’s not your fault, it was a dumb move on me.” She cradles my face in her hand and looks deeply into my eyes. I could swear her pupils are dilated, while she’s looking at me, “Thank you for taking care of me.”

I gulp down the lump that randomly formed in my throat and look away from her, trying not to blush, "You're welcome, it was the least I could do."

My phone suddenly starts ringing and a sense of relief washes over me, knowing this means I have an excuse to break the undeniable tension in the room. "Hello?" I answer.

"Hello, this is Dr. Montgomery from Saint Monica Hospital. Is Alina Monroe available?"

My stomach immediately drops to the ground, and my mouth feels like cotton. My voice is threatening to break, so I clear my throat and reply, "Yes, this is Alina speaking."

"Ms. Monroe, you need to come to the hospital at your earliest convenience."

"W- why? Is everything okay?"

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'll get right to it. Your father is in intensive care, and we don't know how much time he has left."