The Art of Corporate Espionage

I became a corporate **spy** by accident. The job listing said "Market Research Analyst"—a title that sounded boring enough to be safe. But six months in, I was photographing documents in bathroom stalls and memorizing product launch dates over martinis with unsuspecting mid-level managers.

The target was Artemis Pharmaceuticals, and the asset was Marcus, a VP of Operations who met me at **baseball** games. Spring training in Phoenix, where the heat made everything shimmer and secrets came easy. We'd sit three rows back, me with my margarita, him with his beer, both of us pretending we weren't using each other.

**"You're good at this,"** he said once, after I'd casually extracted information about their new Alzheimer's drug. His hand brushed mine, deliberate and warm. **"You should take more vitamins. You look tired all the time."**

I wanted to tell him I wasn't tired—I was empty. That the **vitamin** supplements I took were just placebos against the moral rot spreading through me like cancer. Instead I smiled, ordered another round, and thought about my mortgage.

Marcus had a wife somewhere in Chicago. He had a daughter who played softball. He had a conscience that apparently only worked on weekends. **"This is just business,"** he'd say, when Artemis's competitors offered him early retirement in exchange for what he knew.

The **bull** shitting me was the **bull** shitting himself—we both knew what happened to people like us. We were middle-aged strivers with mountainous debt and fading prospects, selling pieces of our souls in increments so small we could almost pretend they didn't matter.

Three months later, Artemis's competitor acquired the drug formulas Marcus had provided. Stock options materialized in my brokerage account. Marcus disappeared with a severance package thick enough to cushion any second thoughts.

I still go to baseball games alone now. I still take my vitamins. And somewhere in Phoenix, there's a man who got away with everything, except for having to live with himself.

Some days, I think that's punishment enough.