Paula wasn't even waiting for me when the elevator doors opened. The six men who'd acted like body guards to get me through the crowds on the street and through the packed lobby area, stayed in the elevator.
There were other men who stood as I stepped out onto the fourteenth floor. These men were seated on comfortable looking chairs behind a metal wall that divided the stairwell from the elevators. I nodded at them, unsure what to say, and turned in the other direction. The hallway stretched out and I was still deciding on which way to go when a young lady in a pencil skirt and a sharp looking blouse popped out of an opening door.
"Shit!" she said as she rushed towards me as fast as the skirt would allow.
I could see she was subvocalizing as she spoke to someone else.
She apologized about thirty times as she asked me to follow her. There was a big shower set up in the middle of an office space. It looked like work had stopped and people had set down tools and left. The shower was there, as was a make-shift room made out of cheap plastic sheets for walls.
I showered, a change of clothes being left for me on the single folding chair in the odd room. When I left the shower room, clean, dried, but back in my armored suit, the woman was waiting for me. She'd found a clipboard somewhere and started giving me a tour of the space. There were metal studs in places where there would be walls, sub-flooring, electrical wires and plumbing, but it was far from being ready.
"Wait," I said, "The whole floor is mine?"
"Oh yes," she said seriously.
The bedroom had the same plastic walls, but inside it had a huge bed. Something large enough to sleep ten people. I didn't know where they found it.
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"I'll leave you to your rest," the woman said. She reached out and pointed at a large flat panel which came to life. The woman was gone before I thought to ask her name.
Max informed me Paula was calling.
"Hey," I said when I accepted the connection.
"Don't ask where the TV or bed came from. Some rich asshole. There is a duffle bag, a small one, in among the pillows. It has horribly bad food I had to sneak past your cook-slash-nutritionist. By the way, you have one of those now. Not sure if Sara set that up, or the dude just showed up and said he was your Chef. If so, massive balls on the guy and he should get the job just for that. The duffel has the contraband I could sneak in. Both bad-for-you food and just cheap-bad food. I've got the episode queued up so jump in bed, pop some snacks, and let's watch this quick so you can get some sleep."
We watched it like we normally did, with commercials and all, though I could now afford to pay the fees to skip them. It gave us more time to talk and snack.
"You going to bed?" I asked as I turned the TV off.
"I should," she said honestly, "but I won't. It feels like things are still too fragile. There are residents, both old and new, making power plays. Everything here is still in flux and honestly, every ounce of power I give up, any decision making I delegate, I might not get back. Now don't you listen to me and think you're the same. You can walk into a room, demand things happen a certain way, and have the power to make sure it happens like you say. Which means you can afford to sleep."
"People might die because I choose to sleep instead of keep working," I said.
"They will," she said flatly. She didn't even argue the point.
"But you aren't a god. You have limits. And people die everyday. More importantly you have good people carrying on while you rest. This crazy machine you've built isn't stopping just because you are crashing. Rest. Then save the world again when you wake."
I pushed the trash into the duffel and zipped it closed.
"Who was the woman who showed me around?"
"One of the cultist," Paula said. "So don't fuck her."
She cackled with laughter and then hung up on me mid-laugh. I smiled, then smiled wider. I needed that hour of watching shitty TV with a friend to unwind. The normal routine was lacking and over the last hour I was able to truly relax. I worried I wouldn't be able to get to sleep, but I was out like a light within minutes.