Reductio Ad Absurdum (Working Title First Draft)

Chapter 1: The Red Sea of Dead Suits

I wince as the red laser scans across my retina, and push open the heavy, Plexiglass door. I've worked in this department for four years now, and I still haven't acclimatised to the extreme security at the Sacramento Traffic Control.

The elevator scans my thumbprint, the lights surrounding the door briefly glow green, and the metal slabs part like the red sea. Behind them lies not a miracle, but a plethora of identical pinstripe suits, greyish, tired skin - and bloodshot eyes.

Damian's been sitting at my desk again. I can tell from the greasy prints on my keyboard. The seat is still warm, almost uncomfortably damp. I can see him smirking at me from across the office, his hair slicked back, leaning suggestively over a busty intern. She's laughing politely, but looks more uncomfortable than an evangelical dentist with false teeth. I'd slap him across his acne scarred face if it weren't for the constant electrical hum of the Ethicameras.

I've already had one disciplinary this year.

I type my unique twenty-eight digit password into the system. On the desks opposite, Valerie and Emily discuss the most recent bombing in Liberal Russia, and I tune out. It's the third hit this month, and by now it's old news. It doesn't shock anyone anymore. It hasn't for a long time, but we're safe here.

My monitor bleeps, the small camera blinks, and my face appears at the top left of the screen.

'Good morning, Miss Proietti' rolls across the screen as my work programmes pop up one by one behind them. We don't get to choose what we work on each day – the computer chooses for us. Or maybe it's Damian. Hard to tell. It's always the same – I sit down, I log in, and there are the pop ups. The live feeds from each traffic cam in our assigned district. Today, I've pulled McDonalds Boulevard right down to Coca-Cola Drive. A nice easy district. Which means I can spend the morning indulging in extra curriculars.   

A glance around the office tells me that Damian has somehow, some way managed to lure the unsuspecting intern into his office. For a man who spends all day in a room of glass walls, you'd think he'd try and keep his private life a little more, well, private.

Then again, my boss always has been an exhibitionist. There's still water-cooler gossip about the time someone saw Janine crawl out from under his desk after a particularly lengthy lunchtime meeting. At least, there would be water cooler gossip if those maintenance men hadn't strolled in last Monday and loaded the thing onto a trolley, laughing to themselves as they pushed it into the elevator. The rumour is, people spent too much time drinking and not enough time working. I was one of those people.

It takes a few minutes to bypass the coding on camera 43 and that's when I find myself in the shared office files. We're not supposed to have access to it, because from here, I can delve into everyone's work quotas, traffic cams and intranet histories. But that's not why I'm here today. Damien's expecting an email. I want to see it.

It's a convoluted route to hack his computer – complex enough that Damien could assume the mindless drones in this office would never figure it out. But a few more taps, a hacked password here and there, and I find myself staring at Damian's inbox.

He's the only one of us with access to email, and he spends most of his day sending lurid, graphic messages concerning the new intern, rather than doing his job. I have minimal interest in who has the biggest tits in the office (It's Valerie), but five minutes of sifting through the chaff I've found the proverbial wheat. Passwords.