salute [h.s]

piper proved people wrong with her intelligence

"She's cool," one of them said.

"She's hot," another added, and Piper had to try her best not to sway her hips seductively as she kept walking and really give them something to talk about.

It was the last bit that made her grin. "I think I want to transfer to T branch."

2.

"I saw the trailer for Jurassic World yesterday. It looks like it's going to just be a bad remake of an awesome movie."

"Typical."

Piper rolled her eyes because this was what gave T branchers a bad name for being nerds. Instead of talking about something important like, oh, maybe their fucking jobs, they were having a conversation about Jurassic World.

"If I could be a dinosaur, I'd be a T rex."

Piper looked over her shoulder, wondering if this conversation was real. There were, in fact, two junior agents sitting there talking about dinosaurs. She wasn't imagining it. She'd been part of some pretty strange conversations down here but this took the cake for the most ridiculous.

"I'd be a pterodactyl."

Piper couldn't help the derisive snort that escaped her but hoped that it would go unnoticed if she focused on her work. Her luck had apparently run out. "Did you have something to say?"

She turned around and shot the junior agent a feigned innocent expression. "Sorry?"

"Did you have something to say? Or was that attractive sound just because we were disturbing her majesty's work."

Piper's jaw tensed and she tried very hard not to pick up her stapler and launch it at the agents head. "Pterodactyls aren't dinosaurs."

"Yes they are," the agent shot back with a roll of his eyes and a muttered 'girls' in the direction of his friend who was wisely staying out of the argument.

"They are not. They are pterosaurs, flying reptiles, not dinosaurs." She spun around in her chair and went back to her work. "Google it, wanker."

A moment later, she was rewarded with a muffled 'bugger' and smiled to herself as she finished typing out her code.

3.

Piper decided that medical branch was useless. It was a fairly easy decision to make seeing as the four (that's right, four) doctors who had examined her throat had all taken way too long to tell her what she already knew - she had viral pharyngitis.

She'd been prone to it as a child so she'd learned to cope with the discomfort of a sore throat. Unfortunately, this time around it was quite a bad infection, transforming her voice into a hoarse croak and making her cringe every time she swallowed. It was more serious than what she was used to.

She'd been intending to pay Niall a visit after work to let him check it out and make sure everything was up to scratch but Agent Lahiri had taken away the option and made Piper go up to medical branch shortly after she'd arrived in O branch for her shift. Piper had tried to insist that she was fine, that this was routine, but Agent Lahiri was adamant and that's how she'd found herself with this bunch of bozos.

Dr. Applebaum, the resident on duty in the branch, had examined her throat for much longer than necessary and then hummed and hawed about a diagnosis she could have given herself. He then let three of the ten interns that were shadowing him examine her throat as well.

"It's viral pharyngitis," she told them when they couldn't decide on a diagnosis together. "I was prone to it as a child. I recognize the symptoms."

"You really should have told us your medical history. It would have made this much easier," the doctor scolded as if she'd done something wrong. It was the nurses who were supposed to ask about medical history. It wasn't her job to list every single ailment she'd ever had - especially not in a place like this where agents could write a book about their former injuries.