Epic Escape by Emily Evans

the rules, Hetta. You’ll need to sign and date them in black ink. Oh, and you used a date stamp. You must handwrite the date. Each date, with a pen, but not with blue ink. You must use black ink, so the image will copy clearly. It’s how we’ve always completed these forms and we’ve gotten by for this long.” She slowed her speech pointedly, as if she were talking to a child, or a dog.
    Megan picked up the papers. The stack felt heavier than before, and the top right edge cut into the inner skin of her arm.
    “And you’ll need to write a note to file to explain why they’re signed twice and why a date stamp was ever used at all.” The manager muttered “new” and “blue ink” and “fancy” under her breath.
***
     
    Megan called through the wall to Veronica and Riley. “Got a black pen?”
    Riley threw one over and Megan got to work. Sign and date. Put in signed stack. Repeat.
    Riley leaned over the top of her cube. “You’re welcome, Hetta.” He escalated the pace of his dueling banjoes.
    Megan rubbed at her temple. She might have preferred him when he was an angry fighter. “It’s not that bad guys, only some copying, and at least there’s no live audience.”
    Riley snorted and disappeared.
    She wouldn’t have said ink had a smell, but after a few hours, it did. The fluorescent light overhead hummed. A bulb must be going out. She flexed her cramped fingers and started on another pile.
    The manager stopped by and eyed her stack. “Hetta.”
    Riley snickered from the other cubicle and the manager moved over to them. Megan rose and followed, rolling her shoulders to work out the kink that had settled between her shoulder blades.
    Inside Veronica’s cube, Riley signed a form, passed the page to Veronica and she dated the signature. From the size of their stack, this was the first form they’d done. The first one. Her mouth dropped open.
    The manager crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “It looks like you two developed a system. That’s good. Work smarter, not harder.”
    Megan leaned against the wall. “One? You’ve done one ?”
    The manager picked up the majority of Veronica and Riley’s pages and handed them to Megan. “Good point, we’ll need to redistribute a bit of this work.”
    Megan dropped them in her cube and sank down into her chair staring at them. The manager followed her and lifted up the completed stack. “Give these to Mr. Steve. So he’ll know I got them done. I know how to manage my department.”
    Megan kept her head down so the manager wouldn’t see her disgust. When she first got here, she thought the office workers kept their heads down because they were thinking hard on a task or they were servile. Now, she knew it was to hide their revulsion. Grabbing the completed forms, she placed them strategically in front of her chest before walking to Mr. Steve’s office. Tap, tap, tap.
    Sniff .
    “Enter.” Mr. Steve raised his eyes chest-high. When he saw paperwork rather than her endowments, he grunted and looked down, pointing to a plastic crate adjacent to his desk. “Put them in the crate.”
    Megan bent and started to file them when she felt something prodding her calf. She looked over.
    Mr. Steve’s pinky finger was wedged into the hole in her panty hose.
    Sniff .

Chapter 31

HOSE
     
    “B ucking the dress code, are we?” Megan jerked back, dislodging Mr. Steve’s finger. Heart pounding, stomach rolling, she wobbled on one foot, and dropped the stack of papers into the carton, not caring that they weren’t filed. She shoved passed the woman in the tight dress, and into the hallway.
    “Some of us work, to earn our promotions,” the woman said, looking Megan up and down. Megan didn’t say anything, just picked up her pace.
    The manager was waiting in her cubicle when she returned. “I don’t know what’s so hard about this task, but not everybody had the time you had to work on it, and some people had to leave. So here’s a bit more.” A heavy