I WAS WARNED BY other graduates, who also interviewed for the job, not to take the job. I'm just graduated from college and I have the latest techniques in programming for the Internet. I have some decent job offers, but then I talk to Dan and Ed. Ed is a programmer and he has an idea for a killer Internet application. Dan has the projected sales and an offer of a stock option for me that will be worth millions after perhaps a year. I'm blinded by the thought of sudden wealth and, after I talk with my wife Jill, I take the offer.
The basic idea is solid and I know how to develop it. I'll be a key part of the development team. The company has good funding. The only problem is that George, the owner, is supposedly insane. George may or may not be insane, but he has gotten the money together and he has the ear of the big Internet players.
With some misgivings, I take the job and Jill and I then move to the company site. The company site is a valley above the California coast. The plant and some low-level worker housing are located at the mouth of the valley. The professional housing is seven houses located up a steep hill, behind a locked gate. The locked gate is to prevent anyone from snooping about while we develop the application that will hopefully make us all a fortune.
Jill and I settle in to the house that the company provides. The house is a nice one, even if it's the least desirable of the seven. Also the company has provided enough rented furniture to get us started.
Each workday morning, I and the other programmers, the hardware support guy and Internet interface guy go down to the plant and work on the software application. Some of the work could be done from home, via personal computer, but the plant has the high speed lines and such that make real testing of the software practical. Also, the plant has meeting rooms, where we can talk with potential clients and Internet media people.
As we really get started, I find that the people who work for the company are a rather strange lot.
George, the owner, looks more like a computer geek than most computer geeks. In contrast, his wife, Gina, is a very hot looking lady, supposedly a former movie starlet, although some say it was porno movies and not Hollywood.
Dan, our accountant, is a sort of totally anonymous guy. His wife Dora is a looker.
Ed is a programmer and another computer geek. Ellen, his wife, looks like a fresh scrubbed high school/college beauty queen.
Jason, me, is a six foot three inch, two hundred twenty pound computer geek who got through college on a wrestling scholarship. My wife, Jill, is a walking wet dream of curly blonde hair and a lingerie model body. Jill comes from a poor background and she obviously latched onto me because she wanted a good provider and maybe a chance to hit the financial jackpot. I suspect that Jill's reasons may also be the reasons behind a lot of the wives here.
Kyle is a hardware genius. His wife, Karen, is a dark haired girl with the kind of smouldering good looks that bring to mind a wild gypsy.
Mort is another sort of anonymous looking guy, but a top notch programming talent. His wife Mary is a hot looking, red headed spitfire who frequently does things before she thinks.
Steve, our Internet specialist looks like the guy in the lawn care ads, anonymously handsome and tanned. Sara, his wife, seems to be the kind of pretty girl whose mother kept telling her to wear skirts of a bit more respectable length and also to wear panties when she went out. However, her mother's advice apparently never took.
When Jill and I first arrive at the company site, I'm immediately plunged into a frenetic development effort that lasts several weeks. I and the rest of the development team work long hours and get an enormous amount of work done. As a result of the intense, dedicated effort, we're well ahead of schedule.
George has been selling the concept of what we're developing to potential customers and he's been gone most of the time. He's now back and he'll bring in at least the Internet media guys, once we're a little further along with the app.
We now have to do some testing. The testing can mostly be accomplished by one or two guys at the plant. The rest of us can now take it a bit easier, at least until the next development phase.
The wives take a couple of company vans into the nearest town of any size on Saturday mornings. They shop for food and whatever, bringing things home Saturday afternoon.
Up until now, I have been working Saturdays, but now I'm off. So, Saturday afternoon, I'm helping Jill put the stuff she bought for us away. While we work, we talk.
Jill tells me, "Jason, some of the things that are going on around here are a bit creepy."
I ask, "How creepy?"