Chương 53: Book 1 - Epilogue 2

Beep. Yanna crammed the orange chips into her mouth, chomping down. Beep. Beep.

"What the hell?" she muttered, staring angrily at the bag in front of her. Torren sighed in annoyance.

"It does that when you are close to breaching the SLA—""Do the igni-chips taste weird to you?" she asked, cutting her cubical partner off. Torren glanced up from his workstation, glaring in distaste as Yanna proceeded to shove another oversized handful of the bright crisps into her mouth. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The junior clerk set down the bag, not happy with her latest mouthful. Swallowing, she licked her lips thoughtfully.

"Probably cutting out more ingredients again. At what point do these things stop being considered chips, ya think?" Without replying, Torren yanked open his drawer, removed a napkin, and flung it at Yanna. It landed in a heap on her desk. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Yanna—""Don't!" She warned, pointing an orange-stained finger at Torren.

"I was finishing my snack. According to the handbook, I get a five minute snack twice per shift. And SLA breaches do not constitute a premature conclusion of sustenance intake." Torren cocked one of his sly little eyebrows.

"They do when it's an escalated SLA breach. Double red, by the way."

"Double—what?!" Swearing, Yanna tossed the bag into the basket and swung around in her office chair. She stared in consternation at the flashing notice in front of her. Counter-measure required. Form 27-A.

"Holy shit. It really is a double-red. Torren! Look at this. A double freaking red!"

"You screw up again?" asked Torren.

"No. Remember that form 27-A from last month?" A creak sounded as Torren leaned back abruptly in his chair.

"The one I spent half a shift helping you fill out?"

"Yeah." She clicked some more, humming to herself.

"Not correctly, apparently. Came back with a countermeasure request." Now it was Torren's turn to be caught by surprise.

"What?!" he hissed. He stood from his desk and rushed over. Several other clerks in the large cubical space of Section Nine looked over in disapproval. Their closest neighbor was giving them a particularly nasty look. His beady eyes were just visible across their cubical wall.

"Can you two please remember that section nine rapid response policy dictates—""Stuff it, Bart!" snapped Yanna. Glancing up from her screen, she gave him a warning look. His cheeks flared red.

"You can't tell me to just—""Bart. Not today. Not to-fucking-day Bart." He spluttered.

"You can't use that kind of language here. I'll be filing a report with management."

"When you do, tell them about those extended bathroom breaks you've been taking. The ones that conveniently end with you returning from the opposite side of the office." The man paled. He ducked down behind his wall, going back to furiously typing. By this point, Torren had reached her screen and read what was on it. He'd even helped himself to her mouse, scrolling down.

"This isn't right. I know we did it correctly. I watched you," he muttered. She shrugged.

"Then why's it say that." At the bottom, a notice was written in red letters. Incorrect Energy Classification. Yanna snorted.

"Formally stamped by an Uppie, too."

"Upper-supervisor," corrected Torren.

"But my question is how they considered our energy classification wrong. If I recall, we identified the corruption classification in the realm correctly…" Several clicks later confirmed his memory.

"See? Just as we left it. This can't be correct, we must have made a mistake somewhere. Double check the latest numbers on the account while I pull up the SOP on this." Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Growling in frustration, he reached for Yanna's mandatory copy of the Bureau handbook and began flipping furiously through it.

"27-A counter-measurement submission," he muttered to himself. For her part, Yanna took back the computer controls and began digging deeper. It only took her a moment to find the little box on the form where they'd indicated the energy classification. It showed what they selected. Irregular levels of corruption spiking over a hundred points. Next to it, the latest numbers were referenced from the monitoring division.

"Torren…"

"Just a moment Yanna. I'm trying to find the correct section."

"Torren, I don't think that section's going to help." He continued shuffling pages, finger tracing title after title.

"It always helps, Yanna. Remember, The Bureau runs on consistency and procedure. And where there's a problem, there's a process to fix it. You only need to follow the steps exactly."

"Really? What's the procedure for that."

"Yanna," he replied in exasperation, giving her a stern look.

"How can you expect me to locate the proper…" Torren began, only to trail off as his gaze caught on what was on her screen. Account Energy Signature: Realm Classification — Unbound Corruption — 50-100 Competitive Anomalies Detected — Source For once, Torren had no answer. He just gaped, staring at that final line of text. Competitive Anomalies Detected. Source. The silence stretched for half a minute before Yanna finally broke it.

"What is a competitive anomaly?"

"I…" Not knowing the answer, Torren did what he always did in such a situation. He flipped back to the handbook, and went to the glossary. Sure enough, there was a line for it. All phrasing in their system required it.

"Here! Competitive anomalies… page nine hundred forty, section two." A minute of flipping later, he had the passage picked out. If you could call it that. Just two short sentences.

"Our monitoring division ensures all realms adhere to consistent system usage. Doing so ensures the prevention of competitive anomalies."

"Well that was worthless," said Yanna.

"And irregular. Not even a process on what to do if it is identified. As if it can't be."

"Clearly it can," she shot back, pointing back to the screen.

"What about that flag? Source?"

"Mmm. Good idea. Let me see…" Torren returned to the glossary, searching that up instead.

"Found it! Right here. A footnote reference. It's actually not far from the section on historical SOPs and archival best practices." He flipped to page six hundred and one, found the text, and read. Then, a most concerning expression took root on his face.

"Well?" prodded Yanna.

"You're staring at that thing like it bites."

"It's just. I've never… Yanna, It's blank."

"Hah! So your beloved handbook is missing something." He glared at her.

"It's your handbook. Besides, it isn't totally missing. See, right here. Section amended and removed due to sector disturbance incident." Next to it was a date. Fifteen cycles past. Torren spoke first.

"A sector disturbance incident? Fifteen cycles ago? You think it was…"

"The world breaker? Clearly. Who else nearly broke an entire sector, Torren?" Both of them sat there. Looking first to the passage on the open book, then the numbers on the still flashing notice on the screen. Then back to that mysterious classification of Source. And finally to that notice of the sector disturbance. Neither were certain of how to proceed.

"Torren… When do you think that was amended? I mean, clearly, someone redacted it. It isn't like we don't all know what happened. Some lunatic got it into his head to inform Adrian World Breaker about a tax write-off that led him to conquer thirty-two realms. Even now we still don't get proper readings from the monitoring—" she stopped.

"Torren…" As soon as she said it, the same thought entered both their minds.

"No, no, no. I'm not touching this." He shook his head violently, before closing Yanna's handbook with a thunk. He made to go back to his desk when her hand grabbed him, keeping him still. She lowered her voice.

"Torren, listen to me. This file has our name on it now. I submitted a 27-A. Someone far enough up the chain always sees a 27-A. Eventually."

"Which is precisely why I told you not to file it. Besides, it has your name on it. Not mine." A naughty smile came over Yanna's face.

"Oh Yanna! You didn't!" With a look of pure horror, he pushed back around her, grabbed the mouse, and navigated back to the first page. Form Author — Yanna B. — Section Nine Rapid Response Clerk Form Advisor — Torren L. — Section Nine Rapid Response Clerk"So, Torren. What should we do?" she asked innocently. He turned to her, disbelief still written all over his face.

"After everything I've done for you? I can't believe this!"

"You can hardly blame me. I just wanted to credit you for all your hard work. We both stayed late for that 27-A after all."

"When have you ever wanted to credit someone else?" he retorted. Torren squeezed his hands on the desk, seething. Yanna let him stew. If anyone in the entire Bureau was actually her friend, it was Torren. He'd come around. And not five full minutes later, he did.

"Yanna. This is going to be seen. Even if we do nothing, it'll just get hit with a new SLA flag and get escalated. Given its current paper trail, that would be… unpleasant for us both," he said delicately.

"Obviously. So what's the play?"

"Well… I think we have to beat them to the punch. The Bureau runs on escalation tiers. So, why don't we shift the blame. From us, to the Uppie." Yanna nearly giggled. For Torren to forgo professionalism and call them an Uppie, he must really be out of sorts.

"Oh? Just how are we meant to do that? A 27-A can't be invoked on inner-departmental matters like that. Especially not by just amending a counter measure request."

"We aren't going to amend the 27-A at all. In fact, we wont be changing it at all. Just leave it exactly as is. Instead, it's going to make up the appendix for our follow up form."

"Alright. Which one?" asked Yanna. By this point, her handbook knowledge was more than spent.

"The only form in this entire department more powerful than a 27-A. The only form that can be filed in response to a counter-measure from an upper supervisor that didn't follow proper escalation protocol. And, the only form available to rapid response clerks at our level that would actually get the attention we need." Yanna breathed in excitedly.

"You don't mean…"

"I do."" The 27-B?!"

"The 27-B," he repeated.

"It'll be on that uppie's boss's desk within the month."

"Oh, but the paperwork," mocked Yanna. Torren grinned.

"Stuff it, Yanna."