An office-inspired story fragment

This is a story fragment that I wrote while working at the Otolaryngology Department at the U. I did a lot of writing at work, a skill that I perfected during my five years there. Just in case there might be any disapproval from my superiors, I "hid" my stories in a folder in a folder in a folder on my computer.

I had not fleshed this out beyond the opening sequence, but my vague idea was that it was somewhat bladerunner-ish - the heroine is a plant, stuck in the office for a purpose that she doesn't even know, but something keys her in and she starts researching her own past...

The office setting was inspired by my worplace at the U, although that was never so frantic.

And now, the story.

The Brauns are working overtime and the Canons are jamming about every five seconds. Nevada spends half of her time on her knees in front of the machines prying out accordioned pieces of paper no one else can find. It's almost an office litany. The cry of the distressed sek; "Nevada, could you come safe my life, dear..."
Nevada doctors her caf with a squirt of vasopressin and tries to look alert. They say the bosses are watching on the cams. It has often been said, but on this particular day it has been said with greater enthusiasm (or fear), so she's inclined to take it seriously. There's a big job coming through. The decasek has been working on it all morning, skipping breaks. Nevada has in fact never seen the decasek so coordinated; it's like they're a machine with twenty hands and a single brain. Wired together. A little spooky, actually.
Nevada is a specialist.
She doesn't merge well.
But she doesn't miss anything.


It's 5:35. Quitting time. The decasek has become an octasek. Heather had to leave at five for a dentist's appointment, and Randi had to pick up her kids. The others remain at their terminals, hands flashing and voice-activated headsets humming with the flow of information. Nevada considers leaving. The office changes character with the advent of evening; the slackers are gone, the copier running smoothly. There really isn't any need for her now. She doesn't know enough about the computer interface to take Heather's place, and Randi leaves her desk in such a mess that Nevada doesn't want to bother with it.
So.
She knocks before entering.
"Come in," says Keith. His tie is loosened but still dangling around his neck. His desk looks as bad as Randi's. Towers of paper leaning one way or another, a stack of disks, a stack of flopticals and a final stack of empty take-out containers from the Vietnamese place across the street. There's a computer on his right, a computer on his left, and a third behind his head, feeding information into his headtap via coded sequences of laser blips. "What can I do for you?" he says.
"Stamp my ticket?" she says, leaning over the desk with a smile. She presses her arms together so her dress will gape over her breasts. His eyes flicker up at her and then defocus.
"A little early, isn't it?"
"It's..." she glanced at her watch. "5:40. Everything's quiet. If I stay I'll just be rearranging things." She rubs her thighs together, shifting beneath fabric.
His mouth gapes a little. She leans further forward, getting right into his face. "You should leave early for once. Take a little time off..."
"Sht," he hisses. Two of the computers bleep simultaneously, and out in the main office one of the secs wails. Keith's eyes focus and Nevada would swear they change color from a vague blue to slate-hard grey. "You're working Saturday," he growls. "This may need to be handled hard."
Nevada closes his door quietly, and stands against it shaking with laughter. Donna gets up from her terminal and gestures to Nevada. She looks sheepish and a little ashamed.
Out in the hallway they both burst into loud gasps of laughter.
"Ohmigod," says Nevada, "I thought I was gonna die when you yelled."
Donna shakes her mass of curls. "It wasn't me! Agneta couldn't believe the computer had gone down, god you should've seen the look on her face. Speaking of which..."
"And you said it couldn't be done." Nevada stretches, rubbing her back against the wall. "So you gonna pay up, girl?"
"Of course." Donna digs in her purse, Nevada stares out at the blue patch of sky visible through the stairwell window. The whole scene feels more than a little childish now, but at least it was a moment of excitement which set the day apart from the one before it. A blip in the continuum, as it were.


The office is halfstaffed on Saturday. Generally this does not include Nevada. If the Canon jams on Saturday, Bill the Hallboy comes in to fix it. If the Braun runs out they order a hot pot from the Mainline on the corner. But these are not Nevada's only specialties, and occasionally it seems to occur to Keith that she can be useful for other tasks.
On this particular Saturday, she's filing.
Not merely filing, but hardcopy filing. It's the sort of thing that seems like an unduly demeaning task. So utterly pointless; metal cabinets full of sheets of paper with information about clients and their accounts, all duplicates of information also stored on various computer systems all over the building. But Keith has assigned her, wearing his stormy look, and Nevada is dutiful.
She is alone in the filing room. Dusty blinds mute the sunlight to a peachy glow, a fly buzzes against the glass and down in the street traffic hums. Nevada hums as well. She's not thinking about anything as she shuffles the pages, letters and numbers settling in her mind like leaves of tea in water. A single beam of sun runs across the back of her neck.
Something looks familiar. Nevada stops and pages back, scanning the text more closely now. There. A signature at the end of a document. A name she's never heard before; Damiana Luytens. She puzzles over it for a moment, wondering what caught her eye. Someone I've met? she wonders. No face comes to mind, nothing but a sense of familiarity as though a hand reached out and clasped with hers.
Hand. Writing, signing a form. The 'a' at the end of Damiana matches the flourish at the end of Nevada.
"I wrote this," she says slowly. The sunlight suddenly doesn't seem so warm. The silence is a waiting silence, hushed for revelation. But what knowledge is there to be uncovered? She reads the rest of the document, intent, but there's only the ordinary jumble of personal details and insurance company bravado.
"It couldn't have been me. I would remember. Wouldn't I?" It seems more likely that there's someone in the world who just happens to write her 'a's the same way Nevada does. But the shock of recognition is still fizzing in her blood.
Given the assumption that she did write it, how could she find out the details? When, why, how? For someone else? Might it be a forgery? Nevada sinks down to her knees on the dusty floor - she wears jeans on the weekends, so it doesn't matter - and tries to encompass the piece of paper. What would it gain her to sign someone else's name, and why would she forget about it?
After a moment she shakes her head and files the paper. The hum of traffic seems to resume. Or did it ever stop? She's not sure. She's not sure of anything at the moment.
The filing won't take long, and then she can leave. Saturdays are always short for Nevada.
Aren't they?

Long corridors flashing by, light dark light under an endless ceiling. Occasionally a head leans into her field of view, speaking to other heads. She doesn't understand their speech even though she feels she should.
"Completely blank?" one asks.
"No problem," answers another. "Been blanked so many times it's like it's her natural state now."
"Ever done it with one?"
"Once. Not worth the bother."
There is silence and a vague lack of awareness. She sees and hears, but nothing connects. Sometimes there's a longer period of dark or light.