“That utter fucking bitch!” grated out the roughly cylindrical, late middle-aged woman in the premium grey linen business skirt suit. Her perfectly coiffed hair, with the perfectly dyed color, and the perfectly applied highlights was in a conservative, yet attractive up doo, the carefully chosen stray curls just barely touching the high collar of the white blouse that was buttoned all the way up her neck. The perfect hair was fighting a desperate yet futile battle to hang on to the last shreds of the attractiveness the woman once wielded like a weapon to get her way. The bright red color of her face and the crushing grip of her teeth grinding together were utterly destroying everything the hair was trying its utmost to do. The hair was used to it.

She roughly grabbed her glasses and tossed them away from her in a brief fit of anger, only the gold filagree chain she had attached to them and looped around her neck saving them from destruction. The chain was used to it too, but it was far, far too terrified of the woman’s petty wrath to ever break.

“She’s been jealous of me ever since I got promoted out of that God Damned onboarding department after that whole Troy debacle. I will fucking get her for this. She’s making me look bad. Emergency Fixes indeed!”

In the tiny office outside, the woman’s assistant hunched her shoulders and tried to look like a small and uninviting target. Her task too was futile.

“SHARON!!! GET IN HERE NOW!” bellowed the bulging cylindrical tyrant in the much bigger inner office.

The much younger and yet not ever, ever prettier Sharon skuttled into her boss’s line of fire, desperately wishing she had the seniority to get transferred to a new position. “Yes Ms. Beasler?”

“I want you digging into that Walker man’s paperwork, that utter bitch Agatha is using it to embarrass me, um, My, er, our department. I want you to go over it with a fine-toothed comb and find every irregularity, everything! If there is a missing semicolon in the optional comments about what flavor toothpaste he prefers, I want it in a document and on my desk yesterday!

Share quietly answered, “I’ll need to retrieve the change logs and updates from her department, madame, the request are already filed. I’ve already gone through our change logs and created a document on the irregularities in the file when it left our department. I’ve also gone over them again and found a little something from when he left Onboarding and transferred to the Deities Division. She handed the angry woman a one-page document, with the most important bits pre highlighted on both sides, in case actually reading the document became too taxing.

“Not transferred to training, no primary skills, secondary skill of sleeping, sent directly to onboarding, what utter fucking moron put out a piece of shit recruit like that! I’ll murder them!”

Sharon tried to hunch smaller and slide behind the lamp on her boss’s desk, to avoid the line of fire. “Um, you did madam, remember when our numbers were going to come up short at the end of quarter 4 weeks ago and you, um “Skillfully corrected the issue” working “so very late” until nearly 6pm that Wednesday night?”

“Well wipe the change logs as soon as you can! We can’t let her find that!”

With a sigh, Sharon continued, “Already done madam, I did it in as part of a free space reclamation and drive defragging this morning.” Sharon might be junior, made down to plain to within an inch of her life, and in the line of fire when it came time for a scape goat. But Sharon, she was also very good at her job, her skill having earning her the out of grade promotion to Executive Assistant. A fact she regretted wistfully at the moment.

Shaking the paper in rage, “Where are the good damn irregularities you spoke of, I can’t find them!”.

“On the other side madam, remember in my quarterly review you docked me a full grade for not putting anything about us on a different side of the paper than errors of the other departments. This was after Mr. Johnson read over your shoulder in that meeting while you were leaning way forward to flir… I mean, consulting with him on the document.”

Ms. Beasler flipped over the paper and read eagerly. “Yes, yes I can work with this. Not a fatal blow, but I can wipe that smile off her goddamn face. Good point about the Johnson incident. Don’t want a repeat of that. Changing briefly to an old man’s voice ‘What does financial irregularity mean?’, indeed! Reprint and re-highlight this part of the report for me. I’m heading out with it in 5 minutes. What else… Oh and get me a clipboard and put it on it, I’m going to need a clipboard for this one. I’ll teach that backstabbing bitch, oh yes I will.” At that Ms. Beasler stumped out from behind her desk, her skirt and hose valiantly containing her nearly columnar legs, before they plunged into a pair of tiny heels that were also very used to the abuse. Expensive, tiny heels which fearfully carried her to the side cabinet where she opened a bottle of vodka to mix up her “afternoon tonic”, before going forth to do battle.

When Sharon handed Ms. Beasler the neatly prepped and highlighted clipboard 3 minutes later, she stopped tapping her foot long enough to snatch a handful of random pages from Sharon’s desk, and slip them sloppily behind the report on her clipboard for a little more emotional heft. She then dramatically stormed out of the office, leaving both Sharon and Ms. Beasler’s executive chair thinking seriously about updating their resumes, agian.

---

Gar dropped me off outside the debarkation gate. I was standing peacefully in line waiting about 15 people back when a commotion started up ahead at the gate itself. A woman in an outfit that firmly declared her management, was yelling and waving a clipboard dramatically at the 2 men and one woman in coveralls operating the gate. I strained but I couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but phrases like “RIGHT NOW!” and “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!” and “I’LL BE TALKING TO YOUR MANAGER!” and “EQUIPTMENT IRREGULARITIES!” were clearly heard from time to time. The woman wearing coveralls hunched her shoulders and waived to the younger of the two men working with her. That man started walking down the line of people, rolling his eyes for all his 22 -ish years were worth. When the young guy in coveralls got to about five people away from me, I was just able to hear, “Are you Joseph Walker?” and see the shaking of the heads in front of him. Taking pity on the poor guy, I raised his hand and said “I’m Joe Walker”.

The young man walked up to me and said sotto vocho, “You poor bastard. She’s on the bleeding war path over you, mate. Follow me.” And walked leading me up to the front of the line. I took this time to take on the most stupid and bovine expression I could muster, even opening up my mouth and moving my lower jaw slightly to one side, Bill Murray style. I was just this side of Drooling. I drew the line at drooling on myself. Then I unfocused my eyes and started staring blankly ahead.

Thinking about “Equipment Irregularities” I followed this up by shoving one hand firmly into the basket hilt of my sword gripping it firmly. Sword is Priority#1 I must Keep the sword, or I’d be defenseless. Then I looped the strap on the bundle of the parts of my blacksmithing kit not magically going into my backpack, over my arm settling it firmly on my shoulder. Then getting just a little “Method”, I hunched my shoulders, and wrapped my non sword hand through the strap and clamped it onto my belt firmly. ‘Magic and Crafting’ Gar said. These puppies weren’t going anywhere.

The woman in coveralls spoke when he arrived, “There I moved him to the front of the line, are you happy now. Will you please leave us to work in peace? Look all his gear checks with the approved list here” she waved at the monitor on her console. “and it’s be preapproved for transit”

The woman in the grey suit dress, sallied forth once again, having clearly won the last point. Her clipboard held high. “I have become aware of irregularities in this man’s starter gear, I demand to be able to audit his possessions!”

The woman in the coveralls, repeated dully, “All of his gear has been audited and pre-approved by the Transport Gate Authority.”

Holding her clipboard out before her, pointing at it with one hand, while moving it about vigorously. The loud woman began again, “You can see right here, one of his 10 items is a Uniform, A UNIFORM, that CONSISTS OF NINE COUNT THEM NINE ITEMS! AND look at THAT JACKET, what is the unform of, a BIKER GANG? And that Hat, a 19th century sailor? CLEARLY THIS MAN HAS BEEN CHEATING!”

The woman at the large console made a small gesture to the older man at the control pedestal by the gate, then scrolled her screen and pointed to it. “His clothes have been pre-approved, and regulations say that we are not allowed to send anyone through naked, even if they request it, ever since the Twickenham incident. His uniform is fine.”

Continuing her tirade, “AND one of his items is a BACKPACK, A BACKPACK THAT includes DOZENS AND DOZENS OF ITEMS!” I DEMAND THE RIGHT TO AUDIT HIS POSESSIONS! HE HAS CLEARLY BEEN VIOLATING DOZENS AND DOZENS OF REGULATIONS!”

The grey-haired man by the gate, made a “come here” gesture with his head to me, and I walked up as quietly as I could, facing just a foot away from the gate, which was still showing static.

The besuited woman’s head spun as she saw me move out of the corner of her eye, “HE HAS A CRAFTING KIT THAT CONTAINS TEN SEPARATE ITEM? TEN.” Flipping a couple pages on clipboard, she started again “I have preapproval to audit his items from the HIGHEST LEVELS! YOU DARE NOT STOP ME!!!” Then changing from a shout to a hiss, ” Your Managers Manager will hear about this!” waving the new sheet of paper back and forth across the other woman’s point of view, clearly impeding her from entering data into her panel.

The older man kept working quietly, and the gate began to emit a clear humming sound. The big woman in the suit quickly spun stormed over, and began pulling at my gear. I was hanging on, but was getting tossed about like a pillow in the dryer, the woman was clearly stronger than she looked.

Shouting “I HAVE PREAPPOVAL FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE” and “THEY WILL HEAR OF THIS!”, the woman ripped the hat off of joe’s head. She then threw it at the older guy by the Gate, bouncing it off his face. The younger man walked away from me to stand between his coworker and the big suited woman, clearly trying to provide some passive defense.

The big woman’s eyes lit in delight at this, and she repeated her shouts “EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE!! And “APPROVED AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS!” At the top of her lungs nonstop. Then still shouting she threw the clipboard at the men’s feet, and started trying to pull Joe’s crafting kit off his shoulder. He continued to stare off dully, hunching his back and trying to turn the kit away from her strong hands. Unfortunately, this just exposed his backpack to her and she unzipped the flap and started pulling Item after item out of the main compartment and throwing them onto the ground. She interspersed this with throwing the softer items at the two men by the gate control pedestal. Joe started trying to circle away from her to make it harder to pull things from his pack, moving one hand to the shoulder strap defensively. She then dove in with devilish speed, yanked the knife out of the sheath on his belt, cut the strap holding his blacksmithing kit to his shoulder and then deftly cut the cords holding the bundle together. She then spun dramatically throwing everything in a wide arc, and hurling the knife to the floor behind her like a toreador waving a bull past with a cape.

Still yelling, she started trying shove her hands into Joes and pull the sword from his belt. Joe put both hands on the sword, holding it frantically. But alas leaving his backpack undefended again. He began to try to turn it away from her. She hung on, one hand grabbing onto the open front flap of the pack, while her other hand repeatedly plunged into the main compartment, still shouting. Next, she unzipped the pocket in the top of the flap, pulling items out and throwing them. When the gate in front of Joe stabilized, she turned to the woman at the gate, and loudly hissed “At least I forced you into changing his destination first. Now he’ll be lost, that cheating bitch will be no help to him!” and shoved Joe headfirst into the open gate with great force.

Joe rolled to a stop on the ground in a small clearing in the woods, and saw the woman deftly scoop up her clipboard and storm into the other woman’s face with it, still shouting. Laying half stunned on the ground, Joe saw the old and the young guy, surreptitiously and quietly kicking any items near them through the gate. Meanwhile the big woman started screaming about regulations, timing expenses and to close the gate right now, still in the coverall clad woman’s face and oblivious to what was going on behind her.

The older guy in coveralls pointed to a counter on the wall above the two shouting women, which was approaching zero and met my eyes and shrugged apologetically.

The gate winked shut.

The younger man whispered to the older, “but we didn’t change his destination in the gate, she didn’t have the authority to change that, did she?”

“The older man muttered back out of the side of his mouth, “No, no, lad, we didn’t change a thing, but that poor bastard doesn’t know that does he?”

About then the woman in the suit stomped off triumphantly, still shouting ““EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE!! And “APPROVED AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS!” At the top of her lungs her clipboard held clutched tightly to her chest in both arms.

The old man turned to the younger guy and said “How much you want to bet that all footage of that travesty will be deleted from the records before we even get off shift to report it?”.

The younger man looked at him scoffingly, “No bet old man, no bet.”