[right][sup][b][s]Greater Shill Zone[/s][/b]
[b]"N[s]O[/S] MAN'S LAND"[/b][/SUP][/right]

Lott stared blankly at the black screen in front of her. The room was a private conference chamber that was really more like a confessional if it had been designed by bored inquisitors looking for new methods of torture. It was much too short for her to stand without craning her neck, but then they had failed to install a bench for her to sit upon. She could stoop, albeit awkwardly and painfully, so the only option for her was to kneel and pray that she’d be able to stand up after. Perhaps the room truly was a confessional. However, the sins revealed today wouldn’t be her own, partially because there wasn’t enough time but mostly because that wasn’t what the screen wanted to hear. The screen wanted to know how others had transgressed against it, and by bowing before it Lott had honor bound herself to telling it what it wanted to know. So, no, she decided, it wasn’t a confessional but rather the denunciation station, her whistle blow signalling the arrival of the snitch express.

Only, judging by the blank screen, there was nobody waiting like a military wife for her shell shocked husband at the platform. Lott didn’t redirect her gaze from the screen. For all she knew, [i]they[/i] could be watching her. [i]They[/i] was in reference to the most important person in Lott’s world: [i]her manager[/i]. She needed a manager so she could do her job. Her real job. Gatch was only her manager on paper. The screen was the-pronounced-thee manager with a capital M. Without The(e) Manager she was a lost sheep in a synthetic wool suit who’d stare at a blank screen for, she guessed, seven minutes straight without moving or even saying a word. She reached her wrist up to check her guesstimate. 

In that one movement, her hand accidentally tapped  the blank screen. The dark denunciation station radiated with a harsh blue glow as the image of The(e) Manager appeared on the touchscreen. They were nothing more than a still gray blob of a human silhouette, but she knew it was them nevertheless. The(e) Manager spoke and the blue bars danced behind its silhouette like a crashing wave. 

[b]“You are twenty minutes late, Ms. Ramana,”[/b] said The(e) Manager, their voice as sexless as their appearance. Lott blinked. Considering she had been five minutes early, that meant she’d been staring at nothing for nearly half an hour. She made a mental note to mention her slippage of time to Howland next time she saw him, and then made another mental note to make an actual physical note considering she’d surely forget that first one. 

[b] [color=lightgray]“My humblest a—”[/color][/b]

[b]“What is your report?”[/b] said The(e) Manager, cutting Lott off.

Lott paused. How could she word what she wanted to say without directly saying that she had nothing to say? Lott had so far discovered that if someone on Gatch’s team was actively working against him then all he had to do was sit back and wait while the rest of the crew just botched the campaign due to their ineptitude. The security team they had hired had been an absolute mess, with one of them blowing themselves up while another had not only failed to protect the innocent life of her cellular but had also confiscated its remains and prevented it from reaching cell Valhalla. However, they were contractors, not team members. They couldn’t be held responsible for the things The(e) Manager was hoping to squash.

[b][color=lightgray]“I have currently vetted a number of campaign workers and volunteers, but have yet to come to any conclusive data on whether or not any of them could intentionally be planning to sabotage the Mayor’s campaign. After extensively dealing with the media these past few weeks, I have begun to believe that there’s a decent chance that the outlets are just creating stories and seeing which ones make us flinch. How—”[/color][/b]

The blue lights danced to life and signaled that it was time for her to shut up. [b]“Ms. Ramana, I would like to remind you that your duty is to find proof of the existence of saboteurs and not the opposite.”[/b]

[b][color=lightgray]“Yes, you have been quite clear in your expectations and I look forward to achieving them,”[/color][/b] said Lott. Achieving, but not exceeding. The better she did, the more they’d expect from her next time. Overachieving only led to becoming a future disappointment. [b][color=lightgray]“As I was about to say, there has been some issues with one of the new security contracts: Knight…”[/color][/b] She scanned back through her footage until she caught sight of Glory’s badge. [b][color=lightgray]“Knight Enterprise. I currently plan to proceed with investigating whomever was in charge of hiring the—”[/color][/b]

[b]“Ms. Ramana, the company has put its faith in you as one of its most valued auditors. Not only do we not need to know how you plan to conduct your investigation, we cannot afford to have our time wasted. If you have nothing to report, than you only have to say it.”[/b]

[b][color=lightgray]“Currently I have nothing new to report,”[/color][/b] said Lott, averting her gaze.

[b] “How unfortunate, Ms. Ramana. Remember, further waste of the company time will be noted in your performance review and docked from your salary. Hopefully you will come back to us with a name next time.”[/b]

[b][color=lightgray]“Yes, of course, thank you.”[/color][/b]

[b]”And Ms. Ramana?”[/b] Lott looked up. [b]“Do be careful. Word is the locals are getting a little rowdy around there.”[/b]

The silhouette snapped out of existence as the screen went to a solid soft blue glow. Lott dug her fingers into her thighs. The company had made it clear: they didn’t want the truth, they wanted a scapegoat. She didn’t doubt that it’d end up being her if she couldn’t produce a name. She wasn’t an auditor. She wasn’t a counteragent. She was an executioner tasked with performing a blood sacrifice to appease the gods of upper management, and if she couldn’t find a heart to cut out then she better tear out her own. 

Lott stared at the blue screen, and the gray blob that was her grainy reflection stared back. How unfortunate? A waste of company time? She slammed her face against her reflection and the screen went black. She let out the angry breath of hot air that she’d be holding inside, and slammed her face against it again. The screen flipped from black to blue and back again as she repeated the exercise until something cracked. She looked up. The screen had given out before her nose, a dash of blood highlighting the spider web of glass.  The soft blue light made the red blood look purple. It was inhuman. Synthetic. Alien. 

Lott wiped the mess away with her sleeve, and checked her watch.

When she looked up, it was brighter and she was standing. Lott was in the gilded chrome cage of the VIP elevator. She knew it was the VIP elevator because it came with a liftman in an exosuit with a rifle casually slung in front of his chest. The normal elevator only came with the light smell of disinfectant and lingering tobacco smoke. The armed security guard slash elevator operator was holding out an embroidered handkerchief towards her. Lott’s brow twitched—it was the most quizzical look she could give—and the liftman waved the kerchief again. Was it part of his job not to speak? Very important people didn’t like chatter. She was curious how long he’d continue to do this strange gesture without speaking, only to realize when she rolled back the past that he had spoken.

[b]“You’re bleeding,”[/b] he had said thirty seconds ago. An eternity, when it came to offering someone a tissue. A weaker man would’ve stuffed the handkerchief away by now. This was why he was given the illustrious position of making sure none of the common corporate scum stink up the VIP lift that was only reserved for special corporate scum. If he hadn’t thought of Lott as that special kind of scum before, he certainly would now as she continued to vacantly stare at the rag. There was a tiny design on it of a chibi girl. It made Lott think of her intern as she grabbed the tissue and dabbed her nose, careful not to get her tainted blood on Theresa’s face. 

She went to return the handkerchief but paused. She had to know. She unravelled the wadded cloth and looked: red blood. Human after all. That was a pity. She quite liked the idea of potentially being extraterrestrial. Lott went to hand the rag back, but the liftman paused her with his hand and shook his head. It was hers. Fine. She could use a Theresa towel. Lott carefully folded the rag and put it in her front suit pocket. The elevator dinged and her time with the liftman was over. She felt her heartbreak as she walked out of the chrome cage without even giving him a head nod. If she had, he’d recognize her immediately as not being very important and likely would’ve gunned her down before she reached Gatch’s hideaway.

Lott crossed the reception area and mouthed “I’m expected” to the secretary as she fired off a snap from the old business gun at the double doors. There was a buzz, and the doors swung open to another set of double doors. Lott stepped forward, the first set closed behind her, and the second set opened with another buzz to the [i]situation room[/i]. She paused and adjusted the liftman’s handkerchief so that “Theresa” was poking her little wide eyes over the edge of her pocket. This was where real business happened. Her intern deserved to see it. Lott looked up in time to see the doors automatically beginning to close. She slipped through with one long step. 

A series of heads snapped to see who had broken through their tight defenses of one armed elevator man, one highbunned secretary lady, and two pairs of double doors. Lott was hit by a barrage of disapproving looks that the woman was all too comfortable with receiving before the heads returned to staring at the screens and muttering to one another. She looked at the screens of the growing crowd of protestors below. Now that was living. She wished she could be part of that crowd. Pushing, screaming, vandalizing, drinking—

[i]Drinking?[/i] Lott felt a spark of life inside of her hollowed cavity and scanned through the covered faces of tired citizens. Behind the crowd was another crowd, and above that smaller crowd Lott watched a shaker spin in the air before disappearing back behind them. Cool moves, but could it be? Lott smiled, and the cameras were engulfed in flames. Not the cocktail that Lott desired, but it at the very least broke her attention from the excitement of raising violence. She clutched her tablet to her chest and approached Gatch. He seemed calm like she seemed calm, although his calm was likely meditative while hers was medicated. He exhaled as she stepped beside the couch he had been watching the Riotvision. It was a warmer kind of a hello than Lott had anticipated.

[b][color=lightgray]“We should prepare for the worst,”[/color][/b] said Lott, staring at the screen of black smoke. She wasn’t talking about the riot. [b][color=lightgray]“We’re ahead in the straw polls, but that has only driven the other parties towards working together to embarrass us during the debate. The Pirates intend to leak footage of what they claim to be a schizophrenic woman being roughhoused by Central Party funded security. Said whackjob has ties to the NTP. I’d like to run through some questions so they don’t tear us apart up there.”[/color][/b]

Assuming, Lott calmly glanced at the screen, they didn’t get through and tear them apart in here.