William Stocks had gotten a promotion. He hadn’t asked for it and frankly didn’t want it, but it had come all the same. Apparently a half-assed report that skipped over half the records he’d meant to check due to his near-miss encounter with a rogue Alpha project counted as ‘exemplary field work’. Apparently hiding in a bunker staring at a screen while Davis was risking his life to help the evacuation counted as ‘strong crisis management.’ William had been quite certain Damien Cash, who remained his supervisor, had lost some of his mental faculties when he announced the promotion, but when he followed it up by explaining he hoped William would be taking on more exemplary field work and crisis management in the future, things began to make a rather disappointing amount of sense. On the bright side, William had verified he’d be able to keep Four as his personal APA (android processing assistant), and more field work could only be a benefit from her point of view. Damien Cash had offered to upgrade William to a more expensive model if he wanted one, which he had of course steadfastly refused. Much to Cash’s relief, as he’d grumbled a bit about APA budgets before ending the video call, leaving William with no real clue as to what, exactly, his new position was meant to entail.
Emails continued to ping his inbox as usual, so a week after the promotion, nothing seemed to have changed, and he was beginning to wonder if he had hallucinated the whole thing. The only indication of change in the first week was that his pay was about 10% higher, which was nice. A week after the promotion, though, a calendar invite pinged his screen: “Dr. Angela Trebira accounting report – location: Grand North research institute.” The date was tomorrow. There were no other details.
William spent the next five minutes staring at the notification trying to figure out what, exactly, he was meant to do with it. He spent the following hour trying to ignore it and plug away at other work – perhaps more details would come in a separate email? Finally, as time marched on, William sighed in resignation and asked Four to put a call through to Damien Cash. With his impressively mustachioed face beaming as usual, he clarified, “Oh, you know. Just the usual, really. The woman’s financial reports are severely delinquent, and if things continue, we’ll have to cut off her access to funds. It's a truly unpleasant amount of paperwork to cut off an approved researcher like that, and we’d have to get Audits involved, and you know how volatile those types can be sometimes. They don’t take interruptions to their work very well. Not very well at all. It’s in everyone’s interest to make sure they’re gently pushed back onto the straight and narrow. Your financial work on the Eingopher situation was quite solid, so I trust you can do the same with Ms. Trebira. Preferably without any rogue Alpha projects this time.” Damien Cash winked as if he had made a joke. William did not find it funny.
As the screen went dark, Four’s metal ears twitched slightly, “Was that…. helpful?”
“I’m not sure he recalls we were only following Audits’ lead on the Eingopher investigation. If it’s just a financial reconciliation, though, it shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll just need to review the floor plan and note anywhere her androids might have stuffed invoices and transcripts.”
“I should be able to follow up on that, if you’d like to head home for the evening?”
“I appreciate the offer, Four, but since both of us are going to be there tomorrow, it’s probably better for both of us to get familiar with the lab’s layout, wouldn’t you say?”
“Ah? That does sound sensible. They haven’t given us much lead time on this, have they?”
“No, they have not,” William agreed wholeheartedly. Today would be another day where he’d be returning home well after dark, and he didn’t have high hopes for tomorrow, either.
****
The clouds had cleared off overnight, and the next day was so bright as to be almost blinding. Despite Trebira’s Grand North research institute being nearly a dozen kilometers outside the central district, no company car had been volunteered to William, and since there was hardly a point causing a fuss about Four, himself, and his small briefcase, he settled for the subway. Fortunately, at this time of day there was hardly anyone onboard, so he and Four were easily able to find seats.
There was still a short walk from the station to Trebira’s lab, and as they stepped from the station into the dazzling midday sun, William found his gaze drawn to Four at his side. She seemed enraptured by the scenery around them, which was one benefit of the new position, at least, but William couldn’t pull his gaze away from her. The slight purple tinge to her hair glittering in the sunlight, impossible to miss now that he’d realized it was there. The subtle curves of her body under her simple, quietly dignified black dress, and past it, the tantalizing softness to the matte-textured polyvinyl skin of her legs and forearms. With effort, William forced his gaze back to road ahead of them. It was certainly impolite to stare. “Are you alright, William?”
“I’m beginning to feel I may have gotten a little too used to subways and offices – or at the very least I should have thought ahead and brought sunglasses.”
“Ah, you are certainly squinting quite noticeably.”
The neighborhood wasn’t as derelict as Eingopher’s had been, but as they walked through the quiet streets, William began to notice the tell-tale signs that many of the small houses and rows of townhomes they passed were equally abandoned. There were empty rooms visible through the windows, worn roofs betraying years of neglect, and a noticeable amount of rust on many of the metal fixtures. The signs of decline were difficult to spot at first, since all the lawns and gardens were oddly immaculate. Several steps later, William noticed an android gardener working diligently down a side street, at least partially resolving the mystery, although it was still decidedly odd to have someone paying for such attentive maintenance in such an under-populated district.
Grand North research institute was a three-story brick building with large, mirrored glass windows. It sat beside a small coffee shop, which to William’s surprise was staffed not by an android, but by an old man with a bushy, grizzled beard. He was squinting just as much as William was, although it seemed to William to be a squint of surprise or perhaps suspicion. William felt equally perplexed, and perhaps a bit suspicious himself – even with the lab right beside it, he couldn’t imagine the small shop did enough business in this district to remain open, especially with a human barista. Humans weren’t cheap. With his attention caught by the man behind the counter, William didn’t notice the customer - until he waved his hand cheerfully and shouted out, more loudly than necessary, “Ey, Will! Congrats on the promotion!” William groaned. It was Davis.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Resisting the urge to ignore Davis and continue on through the front doors of Grand North, William approached the coffee shop. It was a small, narrow building, with a small, narrow counter along one side and a row of small, narrow tables stretching down the other. “Fancy a coffee before we get started? Oh, hi Four.”
“Hello, Mr. Cooper-Bullet. It’s a wonderful morning, isn’t it?”
“Positively dazzling,” Davis agreed.
“What are you doing here?” William sighed, not feeling at all inclined to join in the pleasant greetings. “Did Cash decide I needed a chaperone?”
“Standard procedures, Will. You know how these researcher types can get if you threaten their funding.”
“Funny, that didn’t seem to be a consideration for my visit to the Eingopher lab.” Even if it had to be Davis, William would have very much preferred to have had Security backup for that excursion.
“You were meant to be shadowing Audits – they would have had their own Security,” at this point Davis finally dropped his voice, “I expect your division is trying to get ahead of Audits on this one – being so far behind on the Eingopher file was some real egg on their face.”
Davis was exhausting, but William was beginning to appreciate that his insights were a lot sharper than his personality suggested. “All this inter-department drama for some paltry year-end bonuses and nice words from the executive. Whatever happened to professionalism?”
William was grumbling and he recognized it. Davis had finished his coffee, and as the three of them left the coffee shop, the barista was still squinting at them, William was still squinting at the bright sunlight, and Davis seemed unbothered by anything. He, quite naturally, had remembered to bring sunglasses. The reception area for Grand North was considerably cleaner than Eingopher’s lab had been, with not a garbage bag in sight to mar the elaborate sea-green tilework on the floor, the sky blue ceiling trim, and the almost shimming white columns interrupting the room’s plentiful large windows. It was a credit to Trebira and her staff that there was even an android waiting for them at the reception desk. Although admittedly this was a much newer lab – William reflected a good few decades and it may well end up as dismal as Eingopher’s lab had been.
William straightened his tie. “Good morning, we have an appointment with Dr. Angela Trebira for 10am.”
The android shuddered slightly (had it been in sleep mode?), before responding levelly, “Of course. You would be Mr. Stonk Williams?”
William was painfully aware of Davis doing his best to keep his laughter silent and rather failing at it. Damien Cash must have entered his name manually, and done a damn poor job of it. “It’s William Stocks, but yes, that does sound like the right appointment. From Sect. 7 Records?”
The android nodded stiffly, then directed them to the elevator. Despite the elaborate wood-paneled door facing into the lobby, the elevator itself was little more than a spartan stainless steel box. Trebira's office was on the second floor, and as was common in corporate buildings like this, once you were past the lobby it was if everyone involved in the design had simply given up – the second floor was a depressingly familiar corridor of bare concrete and steel doors. At least here the lights were working, although William noticed one that seemed to be on the fritz. A portent of things to come, no doubt – there was only so much androids could do to keep things running, especially when researchers tended to resent their budget being diverted from research towards sensible things like light bulbs and proper cleaning supplies.
To Trebira’s credit, she was at her desk, and not asleep, both of which were never a given with research leads, if the Records general chat channel was to be believed. She was typing furiously into a mechanical keyboard, filling the room with a loud rhythmic clacking. The android announced their presence, and Trebira didn’t so much as look up. Five awkward minutes later, the android had left, she was still typing, and she still hadn’t looked up. William looked over at Davis, who gestured as a butler might presenting an opened door. William sighed mentally. To be fair, Davis was just security, it wasn’t his investigation. William cleared his throat, hoping to remind Trebira that the 3 figures in front of her did, in fact, exist. And were actively being ignored. Another minute of rhythmic clacking and inattentiveness, and William cleared his throat again. “William Stocks with Records, we have a meeting scheduled for this morning.”
Trebira didn’t so much as twitch in their direction, and the clacking continued. William looked to Four, who tilted her head quizzically, then back to Davis, who shrugged. “It happens.”
Several dozen more awkward seconds passed, then Trebira pushed a final key with a forceful flourish and in the sudden silence finally turned to face her visitors. “Ahaha, sorry about that. When you have a good chain of thought you really don’t want to give it a chance to get away from you, you know?” She smoothed her overly wrinkled clothing, pushed her gray-streaked hair away from her face, and gave a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry, but what was our meeting about?”
“Just a quick financial review to make sure everything’s properly reconciled. We’re hoping to make sure there’s no interruption in your funding.”
Her smile drooped, “Must we?” She answered herself before William got a chance to, “Yes, I suppose we must.” She nodded to herself and her smile reappeared, “Okey-dokey. What can I do to help?”
“We’ll need access to your main records room, and a list of other locations where records might be kept. After that, we might need to ask you a few follow-up questions, but if all goes well we should be done here by the end of the day.”
They were given permission to check her main records room, and a partial list of other locations stray paperwork may have floated off to, then another thought struck her and she was back to frantically typing. As the rhythmic clacking again filled the room, William may well have ceased to exist for all the attention she gave him. This time he sighed outwardly, and figured he had enough locations to get started at least. After several hours and several more visits to Trebira with varying lengths of time spent waiting for her to look up from her computer, night had fallen, and William felt he could confidently say Grand North’s financial records were much worse than he’d expected. More concerning, he wasn’t sure if that was because Trebira’s records were a mess, or if it was because Trebira was deliberately hiding something.
While the gardener androids had kept the street looking generally pleasant during the day, at night the dark windows and occasional dead or flickering streetlight revealed how empty the district truly was. Bafflingly, the café was still open. Its lights were the brightest on the street, brighter than the streetlights, and brighter than what meagre light escaped Grand North’s windows. William imagined he could feel the old man’s gaze on his back, following them as they left. Once through the mercifully well-maintained and well-lit subway station and on a train rushing back towards central district, Four spoke levelly, “I’ll compile the reports we gathered today overnight – it’ll be ready for you when you arrive in the morning.”
Even while doing nothing more exciting than wandering through a dreary research institute and cataloguing receipts, Four had seemed in a bright mood all day. It felt wrong to send her back to Office 87 while William continued on his merry way home. Far from thinking about Trebira’s accounting irregularities, for the rest of his evening he thought through how best to make a case to management that Four really should come home with him at the end of the day.
