After a routine trip, the bus arrived at one of its more active stops: QuanTech Enterprises headquarters, a 30-story office building in the heart of the city. Amanda, along with several other commuting employees, departed and made their way inside, filing into one of several elevators. The company was large enough and split into such a wide variety of divisions and departments that Amanda didn’t know everyone there, but during her tenure she had met a fair share of coworkers she had both befriended and…disagreed with, to put it mildly. Allowing herself a half-smile and giving her purse a light squeeze as she watched the elevator make its way through the sequence of floors, she was eager to show off her new discovery to those on either side of the spectrum—albeit in different ways.
The elevator reached the 15th floor and Amanda stepped off, proceeding to her office. Being an administrative assistant to the head of the department on this floor, she wasn’t exactly privy to what its or any other department’s function was. She mostly handled organizing her boss’s schedule and passing along any important messages that came through her. Fortunately, the bus trip had gone faster than normal and she had arrived a few minutes early, giving her a few moments before she needed to start those tasks. Sitting down at her desk, she pulled the gun from her purse, glancing over its dials and settings once again.
Ok, I have to be smart about this, she told herself. Not everyone needs to know about it—maybe just a couple friends. For anyone else I’ll need to be a little more clandestine. Plus, any changes I make should all be temporary; just a few minutes then return them to normal, no matter how annoying they might—
Her thoughts snapped reflexively back to her surroundings as she heard the telltale clicking of heels a few feet from the doorway. It was a sound she had trained herself to recognize and meant she had mere seconds to stow the gun in a drawer in her desk.
“Oh Amanda. Good, you’re already here,” Megan Collins, her boss, appeared in the doorway. The 28-year-old blonde was tall and shapely, which got her more than a few looks around the office, but she was often too busy to notice as her face was constantly buried on the tablet she carried around everywhere, as it was now. “I need you to schedule a meeting for tomorrow with the network and infrastructure divisions, and let Tim know I’m still waiting on those reports he promised last week. What’s on the docket today?”
Amanda fumbled for her phone and quickly scrolled through her notes. “Uh…there’s the innovation symposium preview at 10am, an interview for the open data analyst position at 11am, then right after lunch there’s a meeting with Kristi Fuller from EdgeComm.”
Megan curled a lip at that last one. “Ugh, I almost forgot about that bitch,” she muttered, though not quite under her breath enough to miss Amanda’s ear. “Fine. Oh and let maintenance know my office is still too damn warm. Go down there and tell them personally this time, since it seems they don’t know how to read email.”
Amanda had worked with Megan long enough to know she meant for this to be a priority, but she sighed and rolled her eyes as soon as her boss had walked out. She had been so preoccupied she hadn’t even noticed the difference in Amanda’s frame. I guess it’s for the best, she shrugged as she got up from her chair. Wouldn’t want her to get curious about it anyway. Although…she wouldn’t be a bad test subject. Maybe it’ll help with the stick up her ass.
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