Huddled in one of the chairs in the conference room, Mandy stirred.

It didn’t take long for her to wake; she hadn’t allowed herself to fall truly asleep. Just a preemptive catnap to prepare herself for the very likely event that today’s case would prevent her from her usual midday siesta. Mandy unfolded her legs, hoping the creases in her dark gray slacks weren’t too obvious, and pushed her long bangs from her eyes, smoothing a hand over her low ponytail to make sure it wasn’t too disheveled. 

Sol had called at six o’clock—calling her first because, in his words, she was both the person most likely to be up that early and the one least likely to bite his head off. He’d been right, of course; he’d caught her near the beginning of one of her “awake” periods, just finishing off a homemade omelet and still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her morning. Taking his mention of a client meeting for the gentle hint that it was, she’d immediately exchanged her jeans and cotton tunic for something slightly more work-appropriate and less likely to get her marked as the office intern. She’d been ready to go by six-ten, beat the rush-hour traffic that, if not avoided, could more than double her commute, and made it to the office by six-thirty.

Mandy raised her arms over her head and gave a languorous stretch, glancing at the clock as she did so. If she focused, she could hear the faint sounds of low conversation from the next room; if she were going to hazard a guess, she’d bet that the majority of her coworkers had arrived by now, if not all of them.

[i]Could go and say hi,[/i] she thought, wondering if the voice in her head was Sol’s or her own. It didn’t really matter who was speaking, because even as she thought it, she reached for the half-completed crossword puzzle on the table next to her. She didn’t like to draw attention; she would much rather be the first person in a room than the last, hence her near-perpetual earliness. If she [i]was[/i] going to make the first move in a social setting, she preferred to do so one-on-one, or to skirt the edges, if there was a group.

Which wasn’t to say that she didn’t make her own attempts at being social. She’d gotten there too early to play coffee fairy that day, especially not knowing who exactly would be called in, but she’d substituted that offering with another: down at the opposite end of the table, nearest the door, sat a lone box, containing a dozen donuts of all kinds. The box was as far from her as it could be—as if it had just appeared on its own, and she was just an innocent bystander, so caught up in her crossword puzzle that she hadn’t even noticed its appearance. 

It was a ridiculous, circular way of making friends, especially by human standards. But she’d only been with PHI a scant six months.

Really, she thought she’d already made a lot of progress.