Carter's War - 1. Chapter 1

There are some debts that no matter how hard you try you can never repay.

The fact William Carter was there, sitting tapping a pencil against his desk staring down over the city of Toronto, was a testament to a debt he could never hope to repay. It bothered him, that no matter what he did, no matter how many times he said "thanks," it just never seemed to be enough. It was a personal thing, he knew that, and Robert Avery would have been happy with just that, but Will honestly felt there should be more.

He had tried to simply do the job he had been promoted to do the best way he could, say thank you by living up to the faith that had been invested in him. He felt as though he was trying to live up to Robert Avery's expectations. He had responsibilities--he was director of Human Resources at Avery-Woods Communications--and he had a workload that he managed well. It wasn't that he was good at his job, more that he was competent at it, competent and hard working.

He was a corporate wage slave now; a year of working for the same firm and he had worked his way up the ladder to get a decent salary, a nice office and the right to choose his own assistant. He attended seminars, trained staff members and coordinated a team of recruiters. He loved his work; it gave him a satisfaction being in charge that he could never get anywhere else. But he wouldn't be sitting there if it weren't for one man giving him a hand when he stumbled.

He reached out a hand and clicked on the phone on his desk, "Alicia, coffee?"

"I'll be right in." Alicia, a godsend in the form of a personal assistant, had been with him since he had been promoted; she kept him up to date on his meetings and kept him grounded when he needed it. He had been lucky when he accepted the job working for Avery-Woods Communications that she had been available. At first it had taken her a while to adjust from her old position in copyediting to assisting him, but it was amazing the difference a pay raise and a few benefits had on a person's dedication to a job.

He turned back to the window that gave him a modest view over Bay Street and leaned back in the office chair. Had he really earned his place? Well, he felt that he had. He met his quotas, maintained his department, and integrated company policy more readily than people twice his age did; but sometimes he still felt out of place, too young somehow to be in the position he was in. But that wasn't about to stop him from doing the best job he could; he had skills and for the time being he was where he was. That, in of itself, was enough.

The gentle knock at his door saw him pivot the chair back to face it; he rested his hands on the desk and looked up, "Come in."

Alicia leaned around the door and smiled. "Coffee?" she asked as she crossed to his desk and set the mug down before him.

For all her newfound work ethics Alicia had changed little since she had first come to work for him. She often felt her looks placed her at a disadvantage in the work place and so she wore glasses to make her look intelligent. She had sharp eyes and a keen head for names and dates, something Will definitely lacked. But she also had a way about her that relaxed him; it made dealing with some of his employees and co-workers almost bearable.

She sat down across from him, curling her legs up into her seat and cradling her own mug of coffee, "I completed typing up the employee evaluations you need for the meeting tomorrow."

He groaned audibly as he picked up his mug and sipped it, "I swear we spend more time in meetings discussing what to do than actually doing anything."

"Must be nice," Alicia replied. "I can't remember the last time I got paid for doing nothing..."

"I can," Will replied dryly. "Right now, for example."

"This doesn't count," she said as she quirked a smile. "I'm working to keep the boss sane."

"Ahh," he took another drink, "big job."

She shrugged, "someone has to do it. So what's gone wrong today, Sam didn't hire another transvestite did he?"

Will groaned at the memory, the endless hours of arguing with the homophobic operations manager, Bruce Weippert, who had expected a clean-cut young man for an outbound position and had been shocked to see the boy turn up in a short red dress and heels. The argument had lasted for a week, until the young man in question had come back to the office with a triumphant smile and a new five-hundred-thousand-dollar client. It was a victory, but Will had no desire to repeat the endless corporate backbiting that came from so many big egos stuffed into such a small building.

"No, nothing like that," he said as he picked a fax out of his inbox; scanning it he screwed it up and tossed it towards the garbage pail. "Apparently the company is acquiring Tri-Tech."

Alicia watched the paper ball bounce off of the wall and miss the pail completely, "Well, what's wrong with that?"

"Tri-Tech's a smaller firm," Will admitted, "and consolidating our two operations will cut costs for us, but the company is riddled with financial problems. It came out in the news recently when their CEO, Rena Allison, was indicted in that insider-trading scandal."

"I remember," Alicia said, as she grew interested. "Are we handling the integration proposal?"

Will shook his head, "No, apparently Bruce is handling all the details, we just need to focus on the Vancouver expansion."

Alicia nodded as she drank a little from her mug, "Funny, Avery-Woods is the only company expanding right now, I thought we would be cost-cutting like everyone else is."

"That was fallout after the Nortel thing; from what I can gather, old man Avery is holding out against the other shareholders who want to cut back. And since he holds the majority share," Will shrugged.

She grinned. "Well, you should know, you are the Golden Boy," she countered as she got up from her chair.

Will arched an eyebrow; he hated it when she called him that. "Well anyway, I think I'll find out more tomorrow at the board meeting."

"Worried?" she asked sweetly.

"No," Will replied as he stood up and grabbed a file folder from his desk, "I'm just concerned that's all."

"Ah," Alicia said with a knowing smile as he followed her out into the HR department.

His department had been set up as a bullpen of cubicles all arranged around a meeting area in the centre. A couple of interview rooms, vacant at the moment, lurked off to the side opposite to his office, close to the elevators. And Jacynthe, the receptionist, was busy processing phone calls.

There was a buzz to the atmosphere, recruiting for Avery-Woods was a constant endeavour. The people who worked in that office were resourceful; Will wouldn't have hired them otherwise. Everyone did their jobs as long as they knew his eye was upon them.

A head popped up above the cubical partition as Will passed by, and the employee immediately ducked back down furiously clicking to shut down the browser windows that were consuming his attention and productivity. It was an almost laughable effort; the director could call up the server history of anyone on the floor at any time. He knew exactly how much time his employees were spending surfing the net and chatting to friends. He tolerated it, mostly because it helped take the edge off the office environment, but he never told them that. He enjoyed them thinking he disapproved; guilt was a wonderful tool for productivity.

"When you're ready," he called out above the natural noise of the bull pen, "I want you all front and centre."

Alicia grinned at her boss as she sat down in one of the meeting area's comfortable seats still drinking her coffee. He glanced over at her as he stood patiently waiting for everyone to assemble, so much for his professional credibility. But she knew better than to tease him in front of the staff. Will preferred to be in charge and did it through his own example. They worked hard for him because he worked hard for them. When they made a mistake it wasn't company loyalty that had them slaving to all hours of the morning to fix it, it was the fact that they had let him down that did it.

They were all kids, really, not that he was much older than they were though a person would never have known it to glance at him. He was only twenty-six, but the way he dressed, and the air of calm control he projected were only attributed to people twice his age. Will Carter was every inch the manager, and his employees respected him for it.

As they gathered he set his file down and looked about at his staff: good people, even if some of them were young. They all had their bad habits and he had gone to great lengths to break them of attitude problems and prejudices. That didn't mean they were all competent all of the time. Harold had a hiring policy of 'the shorter the skirt the greater chance of hiring.' And Sam Conners couldn't file paperwork to save his life. And those were some of the milder ones.

"Good morning, campers," Will said cheerily, his heavy English accent showing through, the years growing up in the shadow of London had shaped his rough-and-tumble attitude towards life. "We have a busy day ahead of us today, big meeting tomorrow and I want to take them some good news." He glanced to the recruiting board that outlined the current openings, "I see we are nearly done the hiring for our Vancouver office."

Conners lifted his hand. "I have a lead on the project manager," he shrugged, "but it's a tough sell..."

Will nodded, "That's why I hired you, you could sell Igloos to Eskimos. Tell you what--if you can fill that position by four today I'll give you an extra five percent bonus." He turned, "If you don't, you're buying the entire office pizza Friday afternoon."

Conners licked his lip, as he glanced at the sales board and the fat commission listed beside it, and Will could see the mental calculator adding up what an extra five percent would mean. "Done."

"Good." Will rubbed his eyes. "We're meeting our deadline but I need to see some productivity out of each of you on this one. Avery-Woods Vancouver needs to be up and running on time and the board is depending on us." He looked down at Alicia, "Anything you need to add?"

"Vacation schedules?" she asked, looking about her.

He sighed, "Yes, if you want time-off and haven't taken any this year get it in to Alicia as soon as. Or else you are all spending the summer here with me, and I assure you none of you want that--I get grumpy without any sun."

There was a murmur of laughter about the room; each of them knew it wasn't the sun that made Will grumpy, it seemed he could show displeasure at them even on the sunniest of days. But again, it seemed to work for him, even when he was in the worst mood they remained in high spirits. It was a disgusting display of team spirit that only compounded the belief they were all insane to work for him.

"That's it, no long speech today," he said. "Get out of here, back to work before I start writing pink slips!" He waved them all away as he wandered back towards his office.

Once safely back into his sanctum he collapsed into his chair and glanced about the office. Elegantly styled, he liked to keep it traditional; the battered brass telescope on its tripod by the window allowed him a distraction, but otherwise it was mostly books and files. He kept things ordered, everything accessible at a glance. He knew what was going on when he needed to.

He sat lost in thought, cleaning his glasses; even they were of an older-styled functionality. He wasn't about style, it was the more how things worked that appealed to him. Like his hair, dark, long and straight swept back conservatively so that it was out of his eyes. The high peaks, not from a receding hairline but from the style, gave him the appearance of being older than he was. Everything about him was geared towards doing his job; he needed to be taken seriously.

He sighed as he looked at the workload ahead of him, and with the Tri-Tech acquisition looming closer he was going to be stretched thin. It was a testament to Robert Avery's determination, since he had replaced Jeremy Woods as the president of the company, that Avery-Woods could afford to expand the way it did.

Out of interest he clicked open the stock history of Tri-Tech, which showed that ever since the scandal was announced and the indictments were brought, the stock had been in free fall. He studied it for a moment and closed the window; stocks and trading were never his strong point, and people were what he preferred. He picked up a file and began to read.