David Wallace - The Pale King - An Unfinished Novel

‘We haven’t yet covered the Martinsburg part of the process yet, though,’ the TO said.

‘The point for you is that 1040 exams are divided into rotes and Fats, and you’re tasked to rotes, which are relatively simple 1040 and 1040As, hence Rote Exams. Fats are done in Immersive Exams, which are staffed by more senior, umm, staff, which under some regional organizations also handle 1065s and 1120Ss for certain classes of S corporation.’

The lady extended her hand in a way that signified acquiescence.

Cusk noted that pretty much all the information the training team was offering was also in the orientation packet, although the team was presenting it in a different way. His seat was in the third row from the back and all the way to the right. His fear of an attack was considerably lessened by the fact that no one was around him or in a position to look at him closely. One or two of the new examiners toward the front were actually sitting in the planar column of sun from the damaged window shade. Cusk tried hard not to imagine how much warmer and more exposed these new hires or promotions must have felt, since he was aware that other people did not suffer from phobic anxiety about attacks, which combined with the other terms ruminative obsession, hyperhydrosis, and parasympathetic nervous system arousal loop in a self-diagnosis he had arrived at through scores of hours of covert research — he had even enrolled in psychology courses he had no interest in, in order to create a plausible cover for the research — in the Elkhorn-Brodhead Community College library, and an awareness of his unique anxiety was one of twenty-two identified factors that could help prime him for an attack, though not one of the really super-drive factors. The sound of the door closing behind him was what first alerted David Cusk to the fact that a change in pressure he had felt was not due to the start of the pressurized room’s AC, but to someone else having entered, though turning his head to see who had come in was a sure way to draw that person’s attention to him, which was imprudent because there was a reasonable chance that a late-arriving person would sit behind him, near the door through which he had first entered, and Cusk did not relish the thought of a person he had made eye contact with sitting behind him and possibly looking at the back of his hair, which was still suspiciously damp. Just the thought of the prospect of being looked at was enough to send a small aftershock of heat through Cusk’s body, and he could feel selected pinpricks of sweat breaking out along his hairline and just under his lower eyelid, which were the sites where sweat usually first appeared.

Cusk realized he had also missed a minute or more of the training presentation, to which he now returned his attention with an almost physical force. The CTO was referring to control cards and batches of returns being sent someplace that Cusk deduced might well still be in the Service Center.

‘They’re numbered by batch, then sent for keypunching.’ She accentuated her stressed syllables with the pointer, which was approximately twice the length of a conductor’s baton.

‘Through both gang punching and specialized binary codes, GS-9 keypunch operators scan each return and generate a computer card with 512 key points of data on it, from the TP’s Social Security number—’

‘Which you might hear referred to as “tin.” For TIN, for Taxpayer ID Number—’ The man actually took time writing this on the whiteboard while the Compliance TO held up two computer cards that looked more or less identical from Cusk’s vantage.

‘Please note that both Service Centers and Martinsburg have gone to ninety-column cards,’ the lady said, ‘thereby increasing the computing power of the Service’s IDS, or Integrated Data System.’ The projector moved to an image of what looked more or less exactly like the cards the GS-11 was holding up, although the holes in the card of rectangle were round instead. The Fornix corporation logo on the side was almost as large as the image of the card. ‘This can, in some cases, affect the layout of the printout you’ll receive along with each return you’ll be examining for audit.’

‘For this is what you guys are doing,’ the Personnel aide said, ‘is examining returns for audit-potential.’

‘Which we’ll be getting to in exactly eight minutes,’ the CTO said, giving the Personnel aide something of a look.

Cusk was first aware of an unnaturally pleasant smell originating from somewhere behind him, more pleasant than the processed air of the room and considerably better than the faint sharp-cheddar smell he imagined came off his damp shirt.

‘If the Powers card specs affect your IDS-360 in a significant way, you’ll be given special supplementary training on this by your Group Manager.’

‘Your Group Manager is your Team Leader’s supervisor,’ said the Personnel aide.

‘Overall, the data include TIN, occupation code, dependents, classification of income and deductions, amounts on attached W-2s, 1099s, and similar information.’

‘This is pure transcription,’ the man said. ‘There’s no exams at this phase.’

‘These are transported to Martinsburg, where Card Readers transfer the information to the Central Computers, which check for arithmetic errors, crosscheck the W-2s and income statements—’

‘And very basic discrepancies, which are recorded on the internal printout for each return.’

‘The printouts are known as “Internal Memo 1040-M1s” or just “M1s.”’

‘Although appended to the 1 is the last two digits of the relevant year for the return; for instance, a 1040-M1-84 is a printout for a 1984 1040 Individual Tax Return.’

‘Although these numbers refer to the return’s classification in the Master Files, the printout itself has no real code designation.’

‘In the Master Files, a specific return’s location would be 1040-M1-79 plus the TP’s TIN, so it’s actually a seventeen-character designator.’

‘They’re not here for Systems orientation. The point is that all you’ll see is a printout with the return, because the M1 printout and the return comprise the case file, and what rote examiners do is examine case files for audit potential.’

Cusk was starting to pick up on the rhythms of the dual presentation and the interrelational cues that came from the Training Officer when the presentation had veered into a digression or was covering something comparatively less important. The main one was that she looked at her wristwatch, which made the shadow of the pointer in her hand stick out to the side on the lit screen and point directly at the Personnel aide’s shadow, even though the two were not equally close to the projector. Plus the relevant points were right there in the orientation packet. In the part of his mind that was aware of his own arousal-level, sweat-situation, the room’s temperature, the location of all the exits, the locations and sight lines of all people in the room who might be able to see it if he had an attack — all of which, when he was in any kind of enclosed public situation, took up some part of his awareness no matter how intently he concentrated on whatever was going on in terms of the room’s official business — Cusk was aware of the presence of someone behind and slightly above him, probably just inside the exit door, possibly standing there deciding where he or she would sit. And the possibility that it was a she — for the pleasant scent in the air was perfume, it was reasonable to assume, or else an unusually floral and effeminate kind of men’s cologne — caused another wave of warmth to pass through Cusk’s head and scalp, though not a really severe or attack-grade wave of heat.

‘In essence,’ the Compliance Training Officer said, ‘the master files allow us to verify the arithmetic and check for discrepancies that would take several man-hours to do by hand.’