Recorded Memories

The elevator doors open and the air changes—colder, perfumed, expensive. Helix Dominion keeps its atrium bright enough to hurt. The logo hovers above reception, its colors shifting with the company’s morale metrics. Green today. Probably because I’m back from vacation.

The girls at the desk lower their voices when I pass. They always do. Blithering airheads, hired by old men who like seeing skirts in the morning. They giggle at executives like dogs at the dinner bell. I don’t stop; I give them a nod they’ll mistake for kindness.

The office pool spreads beyond the glass partition: a hundred desks under white light, screens painting everyone blue. Keyboards whisper like insects. I like this walk; it’s my runway. The sound of my heels cuts through their typing. A few of them glance up. Rookies, interns, people who haven’t learned subtlety yet.

Two employees are talking too closely by the copy hub. Another’s skirt would violate three clauses of the dress code I wrote. I make mental notes: another round of firings. HR loves it when I help.

They’re all cogs. Some polish better than others, but none last long. Most will slide off the line and back to whatever they did before they tricked their way in—sanitation, retail, something that smells like effort. The smart ones at least pretend to admire me. The rest, the ones who think I don’t notice the staring? They’ll be gone by next week. I’ve already had two fired for turning the restroom into their own make out room.

Verra remembers the recording.

The security footage had played across her office wall in silent, sterile light. The two of them stumbled into the restroom already half-undressed, mouths locked, hands ****. The intern lifted the receptionist onto the counter; her skirt rode up as his fingers found the buttons of her blouse. She tilted her head back and moaned—just as the guards burst in.

Idiots, Verra had thought. Yet her pulse had quickened. Even now, the memory made her skin prickle. It took conscious effort not to glance down, not to check whether her nipples were visible through her blouse.

Still, as I pass, I feel the eyes on my ass and chest—hungry. Their lewd stares are infuriating. How am I supposed to concentrate with all these people fantasizing about me, whispering about me behind my back?