Sam sat in her office. Once again, she wondered if she had done the right thing giving Brandon that little bit of help. She pulled the only picture she owned from the desk. Sam could not even remember when the photo was taken. Sarah laughed at some forgotten thing, and Sam stood next to her wife with a grin.
“I couldn’t help him more than that. I still hate myself for doing it but giving him that little bit extra information would have made you happy,” Sam said to an empty office. “Second chances were your thing not mine.”
A knock sounded at the door.
“Enter.”
The door opened and an older gentleman entered the room. He walked in with a stiff back. His black suit had crisp lines and appeared to be freshly clean. Sam noticed that even though the man usually had a little stubble on his face by this time in the afternoon; he was clean shaven and his hair was neat.
“That is a little over the top even for me,” said Sam as she put the photo back in her desk. “I know I can be a stickler sometimes but we are not the military, no matter what some people think. What do you need Terry?”
The man stopped in front of her desk and stood rigid. “I know ma’am, but these orders just came down from the top. And it seemed appropriate.” Terry handed Sam a thick yellow envelope and took a step back.
“P.A.T. has announced the end of a cycle,” said Terry.
“How long do we have,” sighed Sam.
“One month.”
“A bit faster than normal but not unheard of.” Sam opened the packet and skimmed the first few pages. She got a small jolt of surprise when her eyes read over the first line with any real information. ‘Lead/Sherriff: Terry Jones’. It came as less of a shock than she expected. Sam had led the last 3 facility cycles.
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“I’m sorry ma’am,” said Terry. “If it was my choice, I would have gladly followed you for another cycle.”
“Congratulations,” said Sam as she tossed the thick packet to the far corner of her desk. None of the other information in the envelope mattered to her. It was no longer her problem. “I hope you have at least a few people in mind for your 256-count carryover. Don’t forget you need all types of good people, not just a bunch of managers. I made that mistake myself the first time through. I could give you a list of candidates if you need.”
“That won’t be necessary ma’am. I already have a core group in mind and we can take it from there. I just thought it would be good to let you know before anyone else. I just got the information myself not 15 minutes ago.”
“I suppose you will be wanting your new desk then?” said Sam without moving.
“No ma’am. You are still the boss. I would not dream of it.”
‘At least they chose someone with some brains’ Sam thought to herself. “So be it, go start your recruitment. Once you have your core group let me know and we can work through transferring some of your normal day to day tasking to someone else. You are going to be very busy for the foreseeable future. Dismissed.”
Sam saw Terry crack a grin before he turned to leave her office.
She had thought less and less about what she would do when it was her time to turn over the reins of leadership to another. The ideas kept her up at night over the first few years, but it had been a long time since she had thought about it seriously.
Sam knew almost as little about what laid beyond the portal as anyone else. But she did know she would need every advantage and resource she could manage. She had what some would call friends on the other side, maybe, but she knew that the odds were better that she would have enemies. You did not run a Facility for near 60 years and not have a few people that would rather see you dead.
Sam pulled up a roster with all the current inhabitants of New Denizen and looked to see if there was anyone she could trust at all. There was a lot of work to be done.