The Renegade Within by Mark Johnson

Author:Mark Johnson [Johnson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798623526656
Publisher: Prophecy Press
Published: 2020-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

11

The rostering office was a long, thin room with one smudged-glass window. It was crammed with desks, filing cabinets, bookshelves, wall calendars and wobbling, uneven chairs. The window didn’t open, exacerbating the ripening odor of unwashed bodies, moldering paper and the occasional unfinished lunch. A line of ants marched with implacable determination across one corner of the ceiling.

On her first day, Terese entered the office with a pretend smile and cheery, ‘Good morning’. None of her three co-workers replied. They stared at her until the man she’d come to know as ‘Mr Sniffles’ asked why she was there. Evidently, her predecessor, Head Chuddar, hadn’t told them he was leaving.

She’d been pointed at a desk in the corner furthest from the window, which she’d initially thought to be a table for spare files. There was very little space and the work seemed to follow an in-tray/out-tray model, but she couldn’t be certain.

“Ah,” she ventured, directing her voice at her three new colleagues, studiously ignoring her. “I’m new at this. I was only promoted just before I left Polis Armer. Could someone please just help me figure this out?”

No one moved. It was like she hadn’t spoken.

She slipped over to Mr Sniffles and bent to look him in the eyes.

“Help me. Please.”

The man looked at Terese, then back to her desk, as if trying to tell her with his eyes that her desk was over there and how could she possibly be confused about that? When she didn’t move, the man sighed heavily and walked to her corner, glumly pointing out the various features of her desk.

“Those are… the drawers. That’s your ink pot, the pins for the cork board, and that’s Chuddar’s tea mug.”

“It’s still got tea in it,” she said.

“That’s unusual. He liked finishing his tea.”

She rubbed her forehead. “All right. The job. How exactly do I do it?”

“I don’t know.” The man refused to look her in the face. He sniffed then snorted loudly, and she had to wait until he was finished.

“You don’t know?”

“No.” He returned to his seat.

She plunged into the pile. It seemed there was no need for names in the rostering office, since there were four explicit rostering roles. Regular, Extraordinary, Replacement and Incoming. Terese’s corner had a bronze plaque overhead with the word Incoming stamped in capital letters, and by lunchtime she’d gained little understanding of what was required of her. Only that she was to co-ordinate part of the other three roster-makers’ work and that she was to monitor the outgoing rosters. But to gain a better understanding, she’d have to speak to Mr Sniffles, Mr Tapper or Miss Hung Over. She wasn’t certain if the graying woman was ‘Mrs Hung Over’ or ‘Miss Hung Over’. Clearly though, the woman would never be Miss Sunshine.

It was possible the other three Heads were here on something like punishment detail. Or possibly their rotation had come up and they simply wanted to be done with the job before they moved onto something like mentoring, training or expedition.

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