The remainder of the work week passed by at a snail’s pace. Half of the committee usb drives were missing information and another third were dead.
One in particular had this green stain. When Zach asked the biology department about the usb and the stain in particular, the drive was snatched away and he was shooed away with a promise of a new drive tomorrow. The new drive took three days of checking in, approaching three different members in turn as the previously contacted member was in the lab the next day and unavailable. When the new usb did arrive, it came shiny, new and the same color as the mystery stain on the previous one. Zach pulled out the gloves from the bottom drawer of his desk before handling that thing.
The cybersecurity department had everything in order, but had developed their own flavor of jargon, rendering their materials unreadable. Their files were now covered in translation scribbles.
Most of the work, however, involved long flurries of short emails and calls to fill in the missing information. By the time Friday came around, he had a new pile of notes to sort before getting any presentation put together.
Burnt out from working so many flurries in one week and frustratingly little to show for it, he slumped back in his chair, his head drooping back so that he was facing the ceiling. The ceiling was bland and empty with nothing of interest to study, but study it he did. He was that out of it.
An undisclosed time later, his cell phone rang. Craning his head back to a healthier position, sharp pains sparked up through his back. He sat up straight and started to stretch out the stiffness and pain while simultaneously fumbling for the phone. His coordination must have also been affected, as the phone slid from his fingers to the floor. By the time the phone was retrieved, this time without any extra injuries, the ringing had stopped.
The missed call was obviously a scam call, the number being from another country. Zach tossed his phone on the desk and dropped his face into his palm. Through his fingers, he could see the new piles of documents covering the older ones. There was no chance of a spot of empty surface left.
A soft knock at the door jolted him upright again. Upon opening the door, a whiskey bottle came very near to hitting his face.
“Maria?”
She placed the bottle in his hand. “I heard about the cybersecurity department.”
Zach juggled the bottle, still feigning off the daze. “Bu...But office policy!”
“Good. You can still catch on to things like that. Let’s go.”
“Go? Where?”
“To where opening that bottle is legal.” She paused a moment before amending, “Well, sort of.”
A half an hour later, Zach and Maria were in one of the building’s event rooms. This particular room was scheduled for use later in the weekend. Two sides were lined in boxes, the ceiling hung heavy with black balloons and someone earlier had already gotten to the pin-the-tail-in-the-donkey hung on the far wall. The two sat at the one set up table near the entrance. Two small paper cups sat between them, one empty and one mostly full; the barely opened bottle sat off to the side.
It was now Maria’s turn to shake her head and let her face fall into her hands. “And a third were dead. No wonder you were looking stoned earlier.”
“Hey!” He began to protest, and then stalled. “Wait. Was it that bad?
“Yes.”
Zach had barely one sip of the whiskey before spilling out all of the week’s frustrations. Maria listened patiently and quietly as usual, but there was an additional furrow across her brow today.
“Now, I need to ask this. Throughout the course of this week, did anyone become even remotely aggressive about you doing your job?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Just checking. You know just as well as I do that the topic of safety can cause some…resistance.”
He mulled over it a bit. “It wasn’t so much aggression as it was sheer sloppiness. And maybe…”
“And?”
“Oh, I don’t know…silo syndrome?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fixing ‘operating in a silo’ is why our department was created in the first place.” She bit both of her lips together. “Do you think that you will be ready for the first committee meeting?”
Zach recognized that expression. She was disappointed, but of what? “If there are no more hiccups, yes. Otherwise…I will need more time…Unless I can get some help.”
She crossed her arms. “I will unlikely have much time next week, but if a major hiccup occurs, do come to me.” She glared down at her never filled cup.
“Did something come up?”
“Brandi has a contract that has been turning out to be very difficult. She’s been hitting walls left and right…and it looks like she may need to consider recommending legal action to her client.”
“Oof! Is it her first time? Having to recommend legal action, I mean?”
“Yeah. She’s going to need to make sure that everything is sufficiently documented for a lawyer.” Maria rolled her eyes. “And apparently her fiancé has not been supportive about it, either.”
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“What?”
Maria put up her hand in a stop position. “I know. If my husband acted like that, I would slug him and he knows it, but it’s not my business.” She repeated, more to herself than to him, “It’s not my business.”
Zach stayed silent. There was a great deal of missing information here and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to open that can of worms. Regardless, this was probably going to be Brandi’s first time recommending legal action. That means defending her claims of being unable to perform her job, and not letting anyone psych her out, especially herself. The first time Zach went through that was some years ago. Thankfully Maria was there to walk him through the process step-by-step, or he would have quit from the sheer pressure. At the time, someone close to the client was forging documents, so there was additional gaslighting, which made everything worse. But then again, the newest member of the interdisciplinary department might be facing a very similar scenario.
“If you need an extension due to a big hiccup, let me know. I will probably be helping Brandi, so look for me near her office. Otherwise, letting this last longer than absolutely necessary would be torture for you, so try to keep to the timeline.”
“Yes, ma’am!” and saluted her.
Maria gave him a look. Rolling her eyes, she waved him away. “Dismissed.”
Zach jabbed a thumb at the bottle. “What about that?”
“I have a place for that.”
“In the office?”
“You need not know.”
“Uh…”
“Go start your weekend. Go. Shoo.”
Zach got up and headed out, but then stopped at the doorway. Maria had stayed in her seat without any intention of moving. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was coming, which she anticipated.
“I’ll come along shortly.”
He nodded in response and left.
Maria sat in silence for a moment. Perhaps there really wasn’t anything to be concerned about with the upcoming committee meetings. Zach had not found anything, other than a larger than normal number of headaches, but still all normal headaches. If he had … well, if there was something, he would stumble on it at some point. Hopefully without face-planting…or starting a fire…or catching someone cutting wires.
She stretched a bit, her vision landing on the hung donkey poster. She leaned back again, wondering what side effects would be better. Squeaky toys would be embarrassing, but acceptable. A video game exhibition would be awesome…A random fashion show? Nah.
A smile crept across her face as she thought of even more ludicrous options. In the midst of this, she looked around at the room for more inspiration and froze at the sight of the bottle.
Next week was going to be a nightmare.
She finally poured a half shot into her empty paper cup.
Mario can come pick me up.
That weekend, Maria slept in late. She only roused when her husband, Mario, came in with her phone.
“Who is it?” She asked groggily.
“Your sister.”
She took the phone, eyes barely open enough to make sure that the phone was right side up. “Uhh –”
“Sis,” came the familiar mechanical tone, “I think you need to see this.”
“See what?”
“This…thing! Or things!”
“Ella, what things?” After a little back and forth plus a little help from Mario, Maria was able to determine that her sister meant the fairgrounds nearby. About an hour later, she and Mario were standing next to her sister outside of tent. Across the top of the entrance hung a sign.
Mr. Plant’s Display of Flora languages.
“Didn’t you say that one of your reports received something weird in the mail? What if the, uh…flora was some kind of message.”
“Ella, I don’t think that’s why he was sent a log. It also came with a letter.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, have you heard anything from the police about it?”
Maria and Mario both shook their head and answered in unison. “No.”
“Will it hurt to at least check it out?”
Mario intervened. “If it’s one of those places that douses everything in fragrance, it will hurt.”
“Oh, right. It was a bit herbally in there.”
“Since you’ve already been in there,” Maria started, “do you think that you could ask what it means if a log is sent anonymously? The log is probably from a sequoia branch.”
“You know that? But I thought you said –”
“My office has its own botanist. It took a few days before he could get to the photo, so I didn’t know until yesterday morning.”
“Oh.” She took a large step towards the entrance. “Well, then. I’ll go check.” She strode awkwardly into the tent.
Mario glance around while they waited. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“Who?”
“Ella’s husband and the kids. Don’t they usually go to these things together?”
“Yeah, they…Oh, right. Ella mentioned that they would be over at the bouncy castle until the horseback riding competition.”
“Do they have an adult-sized one?”
“Hm, let’s check after this.” A big grin swept across her face.
Mario laughed. “Absolutely.”
Ella came back a few minutes later, looking dizzy. “Well, the meaning is positive, not negative.”
“Anything else?”
“Something to do with wellness and longevity.” She rubbed her temples. “The longevity part seemed rather obvious, I guess, since sequoias live so long.” Ella started to lean her head side to side. “The guy had just put out extra reed diffusers when I walked in. I…didn’t get much after that.”
“Ouch.”
“Need some aspirin?” Maria offered.
“Probably just strong coffee. Come on. There’s a good café by the bouncy houses.”
Monday morning rolled around and clouds rolled in with it. The day loomed dark and still, but had no effect on the routine march to work.
Maria caught Zach staring at his office door knob. She debated on asking whether his office had become the principal’s office, but went with something more neutral.
“So, Zach…”
He started. “Oh, hi, Maria.”
“Bad weekend? Or a case of looming deadlines?”
“The latter.” He pulled out his key and opened the door. “How was your weekend?”
“My weekend was great. Any new stone tablets today?”
“Ha!” He quickly peeked in. “No.”
She followed him into the paper-ridden office, completely back into no nonsense mode. “There are a couple of things that I wanted to mention before heading over to Brandi’s.”
“Shoot.” He tossed his bag under the window.
“First, that log was probably from a sequoia branch. I found out last Friday, but forgot to mention it then.”
“A sequoia?” He thought for a moment. “That doesn’t help much.”
“The other thing is that it has positive symbolism, like longevity, or something. So, it’s unlikely someone was trying to threaten you or have much of any ill will towards you.”
Zach turned to her with a puzzled look. “You found that out?”
“Um, it came up over the weekend…some…What are you thinking?”
Zach was shaking his index finger in thought. “Symbolism.” He slid into his desk. “Poetry.”
“Poetry? How did you go from that to poetry?”
“Maybe not poetry, per se, but literature.”
“Huh?”
The computer was now on. “The only connection I can make between the log and anything else is hat stone tablet, and that’s still flimsy. But if that log was supposed to be a hint about the tablet, it can’t be a location. The tablet is probably granite and there’s a range of places that have both granite and sequoias.”
“Okay.”
Zach started furiously typing into several search bars across different programs and they loaded. “If the log is meant as a hint about the tablet, then there has to be some other, more precise, meaning. Symbolism is used very deliberately in literature.”
“A lot of things use symbolism, though, not just literature.”
“Yes, but if there is a connection, writing is already part of the equation.”
Maria started shaking her head. “You mean the writing on the tablet?”
“Yes. And one of my contracts from around last year involved some old books. It’s still far-fetched, but gives a direction for now.”
Maria folded her arms. “Alright, I’ll leave you to it then.” She left, still shaking her head.