A Vital Morning Meeting for Special Projects

I’m slow getting up. Slower than I’d like. After all, I’ve got a meeting this morning. One that may well determine a lot of things in me and my section’s future. As the city is developing outward, the budget is being allocated more and more to the more productive sections within the office. Even though me and mine are one of like three sections in our little subgrouping of departmental projects that if we shut down people would actually start to notice. But that doesn’t matter. Not to the people with the money. They have to be reminded of it every now and then. Gathering up this quarter’s and last year’s numbers and notations, which I printed up last night specifically for this meeting, from my printer, I carefully lay them into my briefcase. Locking it, I head out to my car.

The drive to work started as uneventfully as normal. Because of certain elements of the job, I tend to be on the road well before anyone else. Not that I mind much. Normally, I’d switch on a podcast or an audiobook, depending on my mood, and relax through the forty-five to seventy minute drive. Normally. But I don’t think I can focus on that today. No, not can. I can pretty easily. I don’t think I should. I really ought to focus on the meeting. So, instead of my podcasts or some fascinating audiobook, I go for a bit of nice white noise. Flipping on my radio and turning the audio down low, I let the noise rush past me. I barely even listen to the music of my second favorite station. I hear it, but I don’t listen. I simply let it be present as I focus on my presentation.

I need to focus on what we did stop. What we did track. But also there are the instances where outside forces noticed something but we were unable to capitalize on the heads up. I mean, generally it was due to some issue of scale and distances, but the gentle implication that it might be due to budgetary concerns and personnel gaps could increase our funding slightly and lift the hiring freeze. Which would be nice, with Lewis finally talking about retiring from fieldwork. But I need to make sure to keep that only as some sprinkling in the middle, or else we might get folded into one of the other projects. I practice a rough sketch of my pitch as I drive, muttering to myself behind the wheel, gesticulating wildly with one hand while the other makes certain I don’t veer off of the road.

It’s around fifty, fifty-one minutes into the drive that I turn into the large parking lot of the building. There are a lot of other government departments that work out of here, so the lot generally fills up as the day progresses. That said, nine minutes before seven in the morning is a bit earlier than most of those workers in other positions tend to have to show up. Unfortunately for me, the boss lady just got back from desk jockeying on a field assignment for her old section-head out in the Southern French countryside. Because she can give herself what amounts to a working vacation to “help out” our “friends” in the French Government, but we haven’t been allowed to hire a new case manager in the last four years. No complaining futilely. I need to focus on what I can control. I park in a corner of the lot, somewhere people wouldn’t think much about. Stepping outside with my briefcase and locking the car behind me, I walk into the building.

The entryway is bigger than it really needs to be. Some sort of initiative to make the local government feel more welcoming. Now, I’d agree one hundred percent. If this was where any of the elected officials worked. It isn’t. Just a bunch of bureaucrats and employees. And those of us with important jobs don’t need random people bothering us all the time. Walking past the welcome desk - why they have a welcome desk is beyond me, but I digress - the guy working it steps out. I don’t recognize him as he approaches.

“Good morning,” the clerk greets me, “Is there any way I can help you out, Mister…” He trails off, expecting a name.

I don’t give him one. I’m not supposed to. Instead, I reply to his politeness with the official secret code. Working in one of the Special Projects sub-groupings, we’re technically not supposed to be acknowledged. “Soom ney-moe,” I carefully pronounce out, which I think is Latin for ‘Ignore me’. Not sure, though, I got promoted up to section head from fieldwork, not hired for it. What I do know is that they’re supposed to reply with some long phrase starting with Nih-hil. Unless they’re in a Project, too. We’ve got our own reply phrase.

This guy did neither. “Um, okay Mister Neymoe. Can I help you with anything?” he asks again. Clearly he’s new here. Which is fine, just mildly irritating. I switch my briefcase over to my offhand and fish around in my suit jacket’s interior pocket for my badge. I don’t stop walking past him. Pulling it out, I show him that I belong and ignore his question. He’s going to be grumpy with me, but oh well. Can’t please everyone. Swiping it for the gates to the actual working portion of the building, I slip past them into a large hallway, making sure to close them behind me. The welcome desk clerk groans and returns to his post grumbling about stuck up government people. I don’t disagree, I am pretty stuck up. But in this particular instance, it’s legally required.

The hallway is wide. On both sides, there are windows leading into offices. Separating the windows, there are small sections of wall that are painted with beautiful murals. Each is roughly nine feet wide. I head over to one of the murals, which has an RFID scanner on it. Not apparently connected to anything, just sitting beside a mural. Swiping my ID past it, I can hear the whirring of motors behind the wall. It takes a moment, and several different noises. And there I stand, waiting. Eventually, the mural itself clicks backwards slightly and slides into either side of the wall. Where there was once a wall is instead a metal gate leading into an elevator.

Sliding the gate open, I enter the old elevator. The fancy, public facing building here was built recently, but it was built around the Special Projects under-building. This is the only bit of the old building remaining above ground. Pressing a button through the gate, the wall begins to whir closed. With that, I close the gate and take a deep breath. Checking my watch, I still have a few minutes. I take another deep breath as I grip the large lever at the side of the elevator box. Breathing out, I pull the lever downwards.

Much louder than the fancy new wall, the elevator begins to rumble as the motors begin to slowly cause the car to descend. It moves at an even pace downwards. At first, it seems like it is falling into nothing but rock, but then suddenly the shaft opens up. Each floor as they pass is slightly taller than most. It’s below ground to avoid the basement of the old building. A basement that the new building is lacking. The height is so they didn’t have to hire any elevator operators.

At an even pace, the floors slowly pass. Well, it feels slow for an elevator, but knowing the height of the floors, it isn’t actually that slow. Normally, timing is important. I normally need to track the speed and the floors. But not this morning. This morning, I’m heading all the way to the bottom. To the executive offices. And the executive offices have a brake for the elevator, because they can’t be expected to remember how to operate an elevator.

More floors pass my eyes. I slide the badge back into my jacket pocket. Won’t need that any more. There aren’t much in the way of locks down here. Doors are either easily openable or under indefinite lockdown. People mostly just know better than to look where they don’t belong. Because you never know what you might see if you do, and no one likes to be driven insane. And in emergency situations, it’s always better to either be able to get through any doors quickly or never let anything else get through the doors. That’s the theory, in any case.

Eventually, I hit the tenth floor. The elevator starts to slow, the hydraulics kicking in to bring the car to a stable halt at the executive offices. Every other floor is visible, at least slightly, from the descending car, generally showing off the main hall and the doors leading off to each of the different sections. But there is no such visibility here. There is a wall, covering everything. Only when the elevator finishes its braking process, does the wall before the elevator open up, revealing a large, ornate hallway. I push the lever back into its central position. I pull the gate open and enter the hallway. I close the gate behind me, take yet another deep breath, and head down the hallway.

The hallway isn’t as large as the ones above. But it feels as large, due mostly to how grand its presentation is. It feels bigger than it is. There are only about twelve rooms. Offices for the heads of each Special Projects department. I walk past almost all of them. At the end of the hallway, there sit three doors. Directly opposite the elevator there is the room labeled Kyle Frederics - Special Projects - Local Chief Manager. The strange man the directors have to worry about. On the left side of the hallway’s final stretch, there is a door labeled Paul Vicario - Information Technology: Special Projects - Director. And on the right side of the hallway sits the door I’m somewhat familiar with. ‘Maya Diaz - Human Services: Special Projects - Director’. I knock on the door. Three quick raps against the sturdy wood.

“Come in,” Mrs. Diaz answers quickly. She’s expecting me. I check my watch again, just to make sure I’m still early. I am, though not as early as I’d like to be. I push open the door and step into her office.

The first thing anyone would notice about the room is the window. Across from the doorway sits a massive, full wall windowpane. Looking out over the stone and dirt of the area beyond the walls of this underground building. On each of the flanking walls there are shelves filled with small busts and iconography of various kinds. Not many books, but that’s not what this room is for. She’s like me, in that she was promoted up through the ranks from the field. And in the center of the massive office, sits an imposing desk. A desk large enough to make the rest of the office feel small. Behind the desk, Mrs. Diaz is looking out at the dirt and rock behind the window, the back of her chair facing me and the doorway. In front of the desk is a smaller chair, not nice or fancy, but more comfortable than you’d think. Once inside the room, I close the door behind me and sit down in that chair.

Before I even have a chance to clear my throat politely to inform her of my entrance, she spins around to face me. “So, Mister Hughes, we need to discuss your section. This latest quarter was not to expectation, as I am sure you’re already well aware.”

I pull out my briefcase and open it up. Removing this quarter’s papers, I lay them out on the massive desk. “It was, though that is not the fault of any of my people.” I begin gesturing towards some of the papers as I speak, “Just look at some of these timing. We heard of the Thief River incident, but by the time we managed to get a field team there, the tracks had already dissolved, the trail already gone cold. We brought in samples of the mutating soil that subsumed the tracks, though, which we shared with the research and development section of Enviro’s Special Projects, which should buy us some good will.”

“And what of the mauling’s down south?” she presses.

“We already implanted Lewis in the community. He’s the best we’ve got at a wolfhunt, but you and I both know how long those can take.” Shuffling through to his report, I spin it around. “He claims he’s making headway, so I expect we’ll bring one in next quarter. I can send someone down to help him out if you want it alive.”

She thinks for a moment. “That would be ideal,” she replies. Interesting. Means she’s under as much pressure for results as we are. Which is not a good sign for getting that hiring freeze lifted.