Chapter Seven
“Get me that document now!” Stratos barked into her earpiece.
“I’m looking for it…” She scrolled through the chaotic jumble. Give me an effing chance. Some days, she could kill him.
“Don’t just look for it—find it!”
“I’m aware of the urgency,” she said through gritted teeth and cut off the comm before he provoked her into saying something she might regret.
In the middle of a hologram meeting, he had called for a report, but the electronic filing system was a disaster.
There was nothing systematic about it. Folders weren’t organized in any logical order, some weren’t named, and documents weren’t in the right folder if they were titled.
She had to comb folder by folder, document by document.
“It’s not my fault your files are a mess, you stupid jerk! ” she muttered.
“I may be a jerk, but I’m not stupid,” Stratos said.
Oh, fuck! He’s still here! Dammit. She’d thought she’d cut off the comm. Learning unfamiliar electronics was only one of the many challenges of a new job.
“If the files are a mess, fix them. That’s what I hired you for!” This time, she heard a click.
I would fix them—if I had a spare second. Rarely could she get more than a few minutes of uninterrupted time.
“Here it is!” After shooting the document to him, she moved the file where it belonged—and found a slew of unread comms. Hundreds. Somehow, several days’ worth from a few months ago had been misfiled.
Stratos was brilliant. Every day, she learned of something else he’d envisioned and created. A tech-whiz, he knew the company’s electronics forward and backward. But methodical? Organized? No.
At this stage, she doubted anything important was among the unread comms. Anything urgent would have been dealt with by now or ended in disaster and then handled.
But just in case, she scrolled through subject lines.
A hundred or so messages down, one jumped out at her.
Sent from the Personnel Department, the subject read:
STRATOS’ EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT UPDATE.
Curiosity piqued, she opened the message.
Corona,
Per your instructions, I reviewed the latest applications for Stratos’ executive assistant position and eliminated the candidates he’d likely find acceptable. I scheduled interviews for the remainder.
She clapped a hand over her mouth and reread the message. Oh…wow…
Eliminated the candidates he’d likely find acceptable? They had been trying to not get him an assistant. His inability to find suitable help wasn’t totally his fault. Personnel had been working against him.
Obviously, the message had been sent to him by mistake.
He’d made no bones he didn’t consider Personnel competent, but this wasn’t incompetence, but underhanded, dirty sabotage. He had to have an assistant. He couldn’t oversee Research and Development’s projects, manage his direct reports, and deal with the barrage of administrative tasks.
It was like Personnel wanted him to fail.
If the situation had continued much longer, it could have worked.
Without someone to triage and field the requests, comms, demands, and minutiae of bullshit, he’d barely been keeping his head above water.
He hadn’t missed anything urgent, but he’d overlooked a few important issues that subsequently became urgent.
That was one of the situations he was dealing with in today’s holo-meeting.
What do I do now? Do I tell him what I found?
She bit her lip. If he sees the comm, he’ll confront Corona.
She’ll know I saw it. This could rebound on me and bite me on the ass.
She did not want to make enemies. If Corona and her staff had the audacity to plot against a vice president of an essential department, they wouldn’t hesitate to exact revenge against a lowly admin.
A temp. She could end up losing her job.
She had to hang onto this position until her emergency fund recovered, and she’d gained enough tenure to cite the position on her resume.
One black mark on her employment record had been bad enough. She didn’t need another.
But what they did to Stratos isn’t right! What should I do?
“Savannah!” he shouted in her ear, and she jumped. “I’m still waiting for that document.”
She closed out the message. “I sent it to you ten minutes ago.” She managed a calm tone.
“Well, I don’t have it,” he said testily.
Many times, she itched to tell him to go jump in a lake, but it wasn’t right for someone to try to push him in! It was underhanded and dishonest. “I’ll come help you.”
She entered his office. In holographic form, several VPs and high-level managers sat around his conference table-desk. She could feel their scrutiny as she walked around to his side. With two taps, she accessed the correct folder and the document popped up.
“Why would you put it there?” he said.
“Because that’s where it’s supposed to go.”
“Can everyone else see it?”
“No!” the attendees’ holograms rang out.
“Would you like me to make it so they can?”
“That’s the whole point.”
She tapped a few times. “Can you all see it now?”
“Yes! Thank you, Savannah!” All but one person chimed in with appreciation—the lone abstainer being Stratos.
Lack of gratitude was only one of his faults.
But for all his many and varied flaws, he never lied or cheated.
He failed to display common courtesy, but he had scruples.
Blunt and unfiltered, he was honest to a fault. To a fault.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“No.”
Nothing right now. He’d be yelling for something else soon. She returned to her desk and read the comm again.
Scanning the other messages, she found nothing else alarming. However, finding the one emphasized the critical importance of organizing the files. There was no telling what else could be here.
“Savannah—where’s that report from User Interface?” His voice. In her ear.
“It’s in the folder where the other one was.”
Click.
She snorted. The man did not make it easy to like him. However, having been a victim of sabotage, she empathized. Gavin’s lies had almost sunk her career, and nobody at Karing had stood up for her, offered a character reference, or been willing to listen to her side of the story.
I’m going to tell Stratos. Even if it resulted in her losing her job, she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t reveal what she’d found.
She’d show him the memo after his meeting.
* * * *
Stratos relaxed and took a big gulp of vekkel, savoring the burn. The week’s pace had been nonstop, and he felt like he’d taken one step back for every step forward, due to glitches and unforeseen anomalies. Still, it hadn’t been as bad as usual.
“How’s the GAL Friday assistant working out?” Kepler asked.
“Too soon to tell. It’s only been five days.” In actuality, she was working out better than expected, but saying so might jinx it. It struck him that his week might have gone a little smoother than usual because of her.
“That’s longer than assistant number two, isn’t it?”
“You keeping track or something?” His mouth twitched. “It was number three who burst into tears, called me a tyrant, and quit after eight days.”
“What’s it like working with a human? Is she a lot different from an Oberian?”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know.” Kep shrugged.
“She’s got a mouth on her.” As his assistant was the only human he’d ever worked with, he didn’t know if sass was a human trait or a personal one.
“How else would she feed herself?”
“Ha-ha. She doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind and tell me when she thinks I’m missing the mark.” She’d saved his ass once or twice. Made a good call on the tube. But did she have to speak every thought that entered her mind?
“So, you hired your mother?”
He shuddered. “That’s not funny.”
“Sorry. You’re right,” Kep apologized. He’d met Stratos’ mother.
“Why are you so interested, anyway?”
“If GAL Friday works out for you, I might employ the service. My clerk is always needing time off.”
“So, you told me about it so I’d try it first. You used me as”—he recalled the term Savannah had used—“a guinea pig.”
“What’s a guinea pig?”
“A test subject.”
“Exactly.”
“As I said, so far so good, but time will tell. She hasn’t beaten the eight-day mark.” As he lifted his stein, a movement outside the window caught his attention. To his surprise, he saw Savannah outside appearing to consider whether to enter the tavern.
“What are you looking at?” Kep turned around. “Oh, that must be her.”
“Yeah. That’s Savannah.”
She bit her lip, looking uncertain, not a trait he associated with her. Apparently she decided not to enter the bar because she continued on her way and disappeared.
“Well, at least you won’t have to worry about getting distracted,” Kep said.
“What do you mean?”
“Her appearance is really…human.”
“What would you expect a human to look like?” he asked, amused. He took a drink.
“Not quite so…blah. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ugly, but definitely homely.”
That was what he’d meant? While he hadn’t given his assistant’s appearance any consideration, Kep’s comment irritated him. “If you feel that way, you’d better forget about GAL Friday.”
“But, for the record, Savannah is neither blah nor homely.” He finished off the vekkel and set the stein on the table harder than necessary. “See you around.” He stalked out of the tavern.