Summary:A job offer is investigated, and accepted. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The new corporate headquarters and research campus for Ishiguro Industries is located in an industrial park recently constructed and completed, north of New York City. Just south of Yonkers and off the highway, management has begun moving into the facility and arranging the essential staff to the governance of the facility, such as custodians and technical experts, computer staff and security guards, and of course, the major officers of the outpost. There's rumors that the CEO of the entire multinational, Shoko Ishiguro himself, has been seen at the company, after having arrived in a private car in the extensive and highly secured parking garage adjacent to the primary office facility's executive quarters.
A broad parking lot for the consumption of both visitors and general employees is seperate from the executive level garage, between the various sundry buildings and the highway, a large sign on the carefully coifed lawn outside the central drive. There is no security to approach the facility, although outposts are present for the electronics research buildings attached to the courtesy building at the front of the complex.
Inside the courtesy building's lobby, is a broad reception desk, with flat black body and neon blue counter, a computer bank attached to each secretary's station, with hallways leading past into the managerial section, the executive offices, the maintenance complex, the physical plant, and the R&D department.
Gwen Stacy has many skills, but driving isn't one of them. She has no need of the parking lot's ammenities, having bused in as close as she could get and walked the rest of the way. She's come dressed pretty businesslike, too, in a skirt and blouse with a jacket against the cooler weather. She takes it all in as she approaches, taking note of the lack of security (or at least, obvious security, as her Dad might point out), and the various outposts. She's come early, so she takes her time, making sure to get a good look.
Before she makes her way inside, she takes the time to pull out her phone and put it on silent. With that done and the device back in a handbag, she wanders in, taking the same time for a look around, before making her way up to the reception desk.
"Hi, I had an appointment this afternoon, I believe?" she inquires of the receptionist, when it's her turn. "Gwen Stacy, to see Hashi Chinichi?
The receptionist, a slim Japanese woman born in Omaha and educated at Ohio State with an associate's in business, smiles to Gwen.
"Yes, of course. Chinichi-san is eager to meet you."
The receptionist turns to her computer, typing in a dainty but pointed fashion, before looking back and nodding faintly with a neutral, blank look of friendly professionalism. "Just a few minutes."
After two minutes, nearly to the mark, Hashi Chinichi, wearing his now familiar suit, and a man in a research coat with a bald head and a horseshoe of gray hair cut very short, with a pair of glasses and a round, benevolent face, come to greet Gwen, Hashi walking in the front and the scientist to his left and behind. "Ahh, Miss Stacy," Hashi greets, clapping his hands together. "Very fine of you to come."
He comes to a halt and waves to the man in the lab coat, with a slow and open gesture of his hand. "This, Miss Stacy, is Doctor Wang, our chief research officer on the biotics project, your potential supervisor."
Dr. Wang gives a quick, friendly bow, smiling and ducking, before he clips forward and offers his hand to shake, with a clasp of the hand behind if accepted.
If any of this is intimidating to Gwen, she doesn't show it. (Hey, if you can manage to get through an entire barbeque with half a precinct of cops and SWAT team members that your Dad got invited to, you can probably get through just about anything.) She smiles as Hashi and the man with the bald head approach, and accepts the handshake from Dr. Wang, reciprocating firmly.
"A pleasure to meet you as well, Dr. Wang," She acknowledges. "Mr. Hashi told me about the project you're working on here, in so much as you *can* tell someone who hasn't signed any contracts, I'm sure. I've been looking forward to coming to have a chance to see for myself." She bobs her head towards Hashi, "And, I appologize if I seemed scattered when we met before, I was just… surprised. A little caught off guard, you might say."
Gwen rather gives the outwards appearance, unspoken, that being caught off guard isn't easily going to happen again. Now she's prepared! Or at least, she reckons she is.
Hashi is a hardened corporate mover for the Yakuza, with a poker face hardened by a decade of business politics within Ishiguro Industries, firmed up into a benevolent purveyor of a quietly styled Japanese nationalism. He isn't a hooligan or a snake oil merchant, far from it - he was selected to attend pedigree schools in Europe in business and science, by Shoko Ishiguro himself. A highly refined corporate criminal, the kind responsible for delicate matters.
Hashi looks to an enthusiastic Doctor Wang, a faint hint of the reptile coming out to his subordinate as he allows a fatherly nod and ethereal smile, while Doctor Wang offers a grin and a pleased look.
Doctor Wang, it appears, has no idea of whom he's in league with, despite being head of an entire core division of a new expansion.
Hashi looks back to Gwen, "I am happy that I did not frighten you," he says with a grin, a bit more of the predator showing now that he's on his own ground. "Now, I will leave you two to discuss the matter at hand."
Hashi Chinichi turns to the side, and quickly moves down the hall he emerged from, back to the executive offices.
Doctor Wang motions for Gwen to follow him, as he moves to a side hallway, past security and to set of clean white hallways. "Come come, Miss Stacy," Doctor Wang says, "We have much to discuss."
In a luxury office, an old man watches computer monitors of security cameras, his practiced fingers manipulating needle and thread to create a puppet dressed as a maiden. A woman watches over his shoulder, standing behind him at his desk, a slim frown on her face.
A digit of the old man's left pinky is absent.
Gwen might be a police captain's daughter, and she might also have a proclivity for investigation, and that might even be exactly why she's here; but she's come to investigate from the angle of 'do I want to work here or not', and not 'have I just walked into a place being run by criminal enterprises'. So, that's what she's looking for, of course. She notes Hashi's expression with an upturned eyebrow, but just grins, and bobs her head. "Takes a bit more than being startled to frighten me," she acknowledges, "I am not a shrinking violet."
Once Hashi has made his egress, she is happy to fall into step with Dr. Wang. She walks with her hands clasped behind her back, and though she keeps pace her eyes wander with a sharply inquisitive way about them.
"So, tell me," she asks, "Mr. Hashi told me a bit about what project you'd have me working on, but I can't help but feel there was more to it than he was letting on?"
People might be watching her on the security cameras. A few years ago she might've blown raspberries at them in passing, but fortunately for all concerned she is no longer thirteen years old. So, she just walks past them, assuming that they're there for security and that nobody is paying any great attention to her right now.
"I can tell you, that in terms of our trade practices, our internal administration allows me to tell you about the nature of your internship, as well as this particular division's project directive." Doctor Wang leads Gwen into a hallway where large, transparent panels line a wall, laboratories on the other side, with research scientists working with biological cultures, genetics equipment, and pathogen materials, biohazard symbols on the wall.
He turns, at a sufficient point, to see the entirety of the broad area, to face the laboratory from outside, a door to enter a changing room at the end of the hall, sealed into a dress and scrub room.
Placing his hands in his pockets, he says, "The aim of this project is to work with east coast university research programs, particularly those employing computer mainframes, in the improvement of mainframe coolant tubing and technology."
Doctor Wang removes a hand from his pocket, gesturing at transparent slides on a lit display of microscopic images. "This wing is devoted to the bacterial contagion unit, for the hygiene of our coolant in the various conditions that the product will face, as well as the potential consequences of any type of exposure to contaminants once employed at a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency campus facility. These mainframe parts will be used at a variety of programs, to compile vast quantities of data, as well as run advanced mathematical calculations. Your internship here, due to security clearance I'm informed you may be able to receive, will allow you to learn about the relationship between microbiology and research facilities."
Well, the place is definitely an impressive facility. Gwen can see that; it's obvious, actually, given her expression. At least she's not going googly-eyed, she thinks to herself, when she catches her reflection in the glass. She ahems softly, clearing her throat as she listens to Dr. Wang's explaination. "Well," she muses, "I imagine you're want to keep the mainframes as microbe-free as possible, yes? I'm going to guess that would mean keeping them in clean rooms, but that'd only get you so far. Occasionally they'd have to be sterilized, but you wouldn't want to be doing that all the time. Taking mainframes offline to sterilize them or repair them puts a halt to productivity."
Gwen bobs her head. "So, once that project is eventually finished, what's next? I'm definitely looking to put myself into as good of a situation for learning and eventually lining up a career as I can, so interning here, even so early in my university career, is very attractive. Would there be work for me after this project?" She rests her hands on her hips, looking up to Dr. Wang, then back through the glass. "I like to be challenged by new things," she adds.
"In corporate liability, we have to test our equipment for the vast probability of possibilities," Doctor Wang explains, watching forward as he speaks. "If there is a mother raising a child working as a custodian agent, for example, a bacterial infection getting into the processing unit, at a particular heat due to the operation of the unit in the southern climes of this section of the country, could make the sump process virulent."
Doctor Wang looks to Gwen seriously. "Further in your education, after we've catalogued all the potential effects and scenarios of these interactions with our tubing, our fluids, and our processing units, we would need to establish manuals, guarantees, and procedures for the processes to check and purge these pathogens, as well as probabilities of various scenarios occuring, for our purchasers to have confidence in our project. That would specialize your education, as well as open up your career futures outside this firm."
Doctor Wang looks back to the lab. "Your function here is admittedly short, however important to both our requirements, and your future outside of Ishiguro Industries."
Gwen rolls her shoulders lightly. "Alright, fair enough," she replies. "It sounds comprehensive enough of a first project, though. I admit I hadn't thought of the scenario you just proposed, so I can definitely see the value of what I'd stand to learn here." The young woman lets her hands continue to rest on her hips, looking through the glass and into the lab. Her eyes take in everything; afterall, she might be on the other side of said glass fairly soon.
"I'm a full time student," she states after a moment's pause. "I have a heavy course load and it's very important to me to get that done. I am prepared to work whatever hours I have to in order to get the work done here, too, but classes don't schedule themselves to my convenience. That's… really kind of my only requirement; I have to be able to attend my classes. As long as that's okay, it sounds like… I'd be pretty excited to accept your company's offer and learn something here, too."
"You will find that in the business world, everything is planning, until there is no work to be done," Doctor Wang says with a proud smile, watching his employees at labor. "Thank you for accepting our offer, Gwen Stacy. I will take you to human resources, to have you fulfill the proper paperwork. We will, of course, find it necessary to clear you through government security clearance, as this project is related to the United States federal government. That does not involve you personally, although we will keep you in touch, once you sign the necessary forms."
Doctor Wang steps back from the window and around Gwen, walking smartly down the hall with his hands in his coat pockets. "I will provide you with a company e-mail address, phone, and pager as well, for your own personal necessity. Ishiguro Industries has a philosophy that the individual, is also a product, to be increased in value through their own participation with our systems and advice. It is a common paradigm you will become familiar with, established by our founder and CEO, Shoko Ishiguro."
Doctor Wang reaches the exit to the laboratory wing. "Come, this way, I will show you the way to the proper office."
In that dim office, Ame Okamura states, "She is too smart." Ame turns off the monitors with a remote, before setting it down on her father's desk.
"They once said that about you, you know, Ame-chan," comes Shoko's tired, pleasant old voice, placing his maiden puppet on his desk, beside a puppet of a man in a judoka outfit. "It just means that your father is capable of change."
Shoko Ishiguro smiles softly, his wrinkled, pale face warping benignly, as he leans back in his large chair, the view of New York State glittering behind him through a long window.