The Vitamin Deficit

Marcus sat in his parked car, eating cold spinach from a plastic container while watching the cable guy climb the telephone pole across the street. He was supposed to be meeting his contact in twenty minutes—another drop, another envelope of stolen documents from the pharmaceutical company where'd worked for fifteen years.

He'd been a corporate spy for three years now. Not the glamorous kind. No martinis or exotic locations. Just photocopying proprietary research, passing it to competitors who'd patent it first, then watching his employer slowly lose market share while his retirement account swelled.

"I feel like a zombie," he told his therapist last week. "Going through motions, eating brains—well, corporate brains anyway."

She'd prescribed vitamin D supplements and suggested he find meaning outside work. Instead, he'd taken on this latest assignment: stealing the formula for a new vitamin supplement that supposedly prevented depression. The irony wasn't lost on him.

His phone buzzed. His contact. Marcus checked his reflection in the rearview mirror—graying temples, eyes that had seen too many security cameras and too little sleep. He swallowed his vitamins without water, a routine he'd started after his wife left two years ago.

"She said I was emotionally bankrupt," he'd told his brother. "I think she meant I spent all my feelings on work and had none left for us."

The cable guy descended from the pole, his work complete. Marcus started his car. Somewhere in that envelope was research about how corporate espionage workers had the highest rates of vitamin deficiency, depression, and divorce in the private sector. He'd read it while photocopying.

He drove toward the meetup point, thinking about how much easier it was to steal someone else's work than to create your own. How much simpler it was to be the zombie than to be human. The spinach sat heavy in his stomach, a ghost of the health he pretended to care about.

At the intersection, he turned left instead of right. Toward his ex-wife's house. Toward something real.