Manuel Gonzales - The Regional Office Is Under Attack!

Plus, this early, with no one around, she could get to work without everyone scrambling to her with their problems, most of which weren’t even her responsibility. She wasn’t the office manager or the intern coordinator or the director of outreach or assistant to the regional manager. She worked directly for Mr. Niles, was his go-to, had been so almost from her first day working here, but without fail, every single day someone would come to her with some stupid question about toner cartridges or to complain about that idiot intern Jacob, or to hand her a list of supplies the office had run out of. But whatever. Let those nitwits send her e-mails about resetting their voice mail passwords; she didn’t care. Not today. Today and in the coming weeks, she would be too busy saving their goddamn asses, so thank God no one else was around.

She poured milk into her coffee and looked out over the empty cubicles and told herself she would make a habit of this again — once this attack was thwarted — of coming in early, maybe not every day, but often.

Often enough.

But for now: the attack.

It wasn’t explicit, the warning she had received, if that was what it had been.

The envelope had contained a letter, an offer letter of sorts. Someone trying to lure her away from the Regional Office. Not sent, though, from any kind of headhunter firm — not that there were many headhunter firms trafficking in the world inhabited by organizations like the Regional Office, but there were a few, and this hadn’t been sent from any of them. This had been sent, or delivered, rather, from the organization itself. She didn’t know which. Whoever had sent the offer hadn’t specified.

And there was information, about the Regional Office, about Mr. Niles, about her arm. Information that had made her mad, violently and destructively mad. Information clearly, blatantly false. Damning and cruel, intended, she was sure, to turn her against the people she had come to think so highly of, to work so hard for, trust with her life and, quite literally, her limb.

Not that her anger had passed but had been refocused. She had curbed her impulses and trained her anger on making whoever left her that envelope pay and pay dearly.

The question she had to answer, then, was: who?

By the time anyone else showed up at the office, Sarah had narrowed the list of suspects down to six. Six organizations or conglomerations or evil confederations or anarchist splinter groups with a) any vested interest in the total destruction of the Regional Office, b) the logistical and mystical support and backing and training and time to carry out such an attack, and c) as her aunt would have dubbed it, the brass fucking balls to even think of such an attack.

Six of them. On a spreadsheet. Leadership outlined, strengths and weaknesses enumerated, potential readiness for such an assault, earliest timeline for such an attack. That’s as far as Sarah had gotten when she heard, “Wow, you’re here early.”

It was Wendy. Thank God it was Wendy and not that idiot Jacob.

If she was going to deal with one of the interns this morning of all mornings, better it be Wendy.

She could not handle Jacob right now.

“Check your tablet, I sent you a spreadsheet just a minute—”

“Yeah, I got it, just now,” Wendy said, scrolling through the names. “This year’s Christmas card list?”

Sarah was scanning the building schematics for the Regional Office on her computer, looking for weak points, points of entry, defense positions, and, frankly, she didn’t have time for jokes. She shook her head. “The Regional Office is under attack,” she said. “Or will be, soon, quite possibly very soon, so, if you don’t mind.”

Wendy smiled and then just as quickly stopped smiling. “Wait, what? Are you kidding?” Sarah stopped scrolling through the schematics to pause long enough to throw Wendy a look. “I mean, right, you’re not the jokiest person I know, but, really? We’re under attack? Guns a-blazing attack?”

“Minus the guns, yes, we’re under attack, or I’m pretty sure we will be.” She paused. “Actually, there might be guns.”

“Cool,” Wendy said, and then so she wouldn’t get a second look or worse, said, “I mean, not cool as in ‘awesome,’ but.” She paused. “How very interesting.” She paused again. “So, is this new intel from one of the Ops?” she asked. “Or something from the Oracles?”

“Look at the list, will you?” Sarah said, ignoring her questions, not yet ready to mention to anyone else the letter on her door, the information inside it. “Keep it between you and me for now. I would prefer not to have people in a panic all day, and maybe if we work real hard at it, we can stop it before it becomes too interesting. Hmm?”

“Oh. Stop it?”

Sarah sighed, spun in her chair to look at Wendy, to make sure it was Wendy and not, who knew, Jacob in a Wendy outfit. “I’m sorry, but are you feeling okay? Yeah, I think we can all agree that we should stop the attack. Right? Stop it?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, it’s just that, well, you said we were under attack and I thought you meant, like, right now, that we were in the middle of it, that’s all.” Wendy cleared her throat. “Stop it, definitely. Stop the attack before it happens. That’s definitely what we should do.”

“Great. Glad we’re all caught up. The names, please?” Sarah went back to the drawings. What was she missing, what had she missed, where were the flaws? She wanted it all narrowed down, the attack scenario and her counterattack options worked up and presentable before the end of the day, but there was something missing. She couldn’t pinpoint what, but there was something. She could sense it.

Wendy hadn’t moved. Sarah stopped and took a deep breath and rubbed one of her eyes with her thumb. “What, Wendy?”

“Should we tell Mr. Niles?”

“How do you know I haven’t told him already?”

“Right, sorry. What did Mr. Niles say?”

Sarah’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t feel the weight of her mechanical arm, that’s how it had been designed, but this morning, she could feel the weight of it pulling her down, she swore she could.

“We’ll tell him when we have something more concrete, how about that? We don’t… storm into his office with six possible attackers and a probable attack.” Wendy was nodding. “The list, Wendy? Can you focus on the list, please, and help me figure this out?”

“Right, boss,” Wendy said. “I’ll run probability reports for each name, create three — no, five — possible counterstrategies for each, get them to you by… what time is it now?”

Sarah checked the clock. It was almost eight. How had it gotten to be almost eight? Sarah stared at the clock.

“Whatever,” Wendy said. “I’ll have it all to you before ten?”

Relieved that Wendy was acting like Wendy again, Sarah smiled. “Perfect, thanks.” Wendy smiled back, was about to leave when Sarah said, “Oh, and”—she sighed, God, why couldn’t she stop sighing—“I should probably bring Jasmine in on this. What time does she come in today?”

Wendy cocked her head not unlike a spaniel. “Oh, nine I guess?” she said.

“Never mind. I’ll look it up,” Sarah said. Wendy was usually on top of this shit, and Sarah didn’t really have time or patience for her to come down with a case of the “interns,” but whatever. She’d figure it out herself.

Wendy moved closer to Sarah, reached over her shoulder for Sarah’s tablet. “Here,” she said. “You’re super busy. I can look it up for you, put her on your schedule.”

Sarah held her tablet firm. “It’s fine, Wendy, Jesus. I can take care of it.”

She scrolled through the schedule. It took her a moment to realize something was wrong and another moment for her to recognize what that something wrong was. Wendy was still leaning over her and then she felt Wendy stand up, step one or two steps back.