

### The Lottery Caller

Copyright 2016 AP Hunt

Published by AP Hunt at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 – The First Day

Chapter 2 - The First Call

Chapter 3 – Calls 3 and 4

Chapter 4 – Upstairs

Chapter 5 – Calls 5 and 6

Chapter 6 - Security Issue

Chapter 7 - Call 7

Chapter 8 - The suit

Chapter 9 – Routine

Chapter 10 – Suits

Chapter 11 - The Visit

Chapter 12 - Not The First Rule

Chapter 13 - The Next Task

Chapter 14 - Gridlock

Chapter 15 - Hello All

Chapter 16 – Precursor

Chapter 17 - Game Off

About the Author

Connect

Acknowledgments

To those who have supported me and my many indulgences and projects. They know who they are.

Chapter 1 – The First Day

Lacey felt the coffee cup warming her fingertips while the frosty morning breezed about her hands. She shrugged and burrowed her head down into the plaid scarf she had wrapped about her shoulders, watching a nearby clock tower notch its hands toward nine o'clock. It was her first day in her new job, and she was loitering on the street outside the building, waiting for starting time.

She had only been in the workforce for a few years, having spent a bulk of her employment time learning about the Gaming industry in a bar. Lacey hadn't ever considered a career in Gaming when she was going through school, instead hoping to forge a career in law, but she had fallen into her first job through the necessity of needing an income.

This new job wasn't much of a departure from her previous workplace, but it paid more in wages, and she was at a stage in her life where she needed to bring in more cash. She had grown weary and tired at her last job, serving in a small bar with slot and poker machines, sadly watching the patrons come in every week, pouring their money into a machine before departing. This new job should be different, Lacey had determined. This was a job with the Lotteries.

Lacey sipped on her coffee, feeling the brew warm her insides, the steam tickling her nostrils. She exhaled heavily, enjoying the brief moment of solitude before the clock would strike nine and she would need to enter the building of her new workplace. She liked this limbo moment in her career, where she had discarded all the responsibilities of her previous job and was now beginning anew and afresh. She was about to begin learning a new environment, new tasks and a new angle of the industry, and the thought of the challenge gave Lacey a smile.

She mentally patted herself on the back for her go-getter attitude, and getting away from the small bar environment. While the customers she served in the bar were friendly, it had become dejecting to watch them go about their daily pattern of gambling.

The Lotteries building itself was a step up from the small bar in which she had worked previously, although it still wasn't a large building. The bar had been in an older, refurbished building that had been gutted and remodeled while still retaining the outward appearance of classic architecture. It was an abode with organ transplants, putting the new inside while the outside elected to age gracefully.

In contrast, the Lotteries office was in a two-storey building with tall glass panes on the outside and flat rendered spaces that served as a visual division between upper and lower floors. Taking another sip from her paper cup of coffee, Lacey was relieved to learn that there was a decent cafe near her new place of employment. Everyone had their vices, and coffee was quite high on her list. Like almost everyone.

She glanced at her phone for a moment, first to check the time, and second to check for any correspondence or notifications. There were some well-wishers in her tweets and on her Facebook, but otherwise there was nothing of note. She enjoyed social media, even if the interactions and exchanges were fleeting or superficial. They gave her a connection with someone, somewhere and they could enlighten each other on their own personal stories. Lacey loved that connection.

Lacey had made some good friends at her old job. The patrons to the bar were welcoming and warm, even sure to slip Lacey a tip if they had a good win at the games. She always tried to refuse, but the patrons were always so insistent, with one even declaring her to be "good luck".

She sipped again on her warm brew. It was five minutes before 9am. It was time to get started. Lacey wanted to hit the ground running with her new bosses, but she paused for a moment to mentally steel herself. The new challenge intimidated her as much as it excited her. Deciding that arriving in the office a little early would fulfill that task of making a good first impression, she pulled on her cup of coffee until it was empty and strode toward the building, its tall glass panes reflecting the cold, overcast skies.

The frontage for the Lotteries was pristine. The reception counter was lined tastefully with timber, and warm lighting bathed the area in a subtle glow. The front reception counter was high and curved, with the receptionists both peeking up from behind the barrier with square-rimmed glasses. To the side of the room was a staircase that consisted of multiple timber slats, protruding from the wall and leading to panes of glass, which were atopped by a solid, timber rail. The stairs disappeared up into an unseen landing.

A man and a woman both greeted Lacey, almost in unison before one paused to let the other finish the greet. Before Lacey had a chance to introduce herself as the new employee, the pair cheerfully welcomed her by name and offered their own; Michael and Chelle. Lacey was quite taken aback by the familiarity but it was a pleasant feeling to be embraced so warmly by these strangers so early. They both offered her a fresh coffee and extended to relieve Lacey of her empty takeaway cup. They both scurried to assist her before telephoning Lacey's new supervisor. She had met the supervisor at the job interview; a fellow named Travis. During the interview, Lacey had noted his well-kept appearance and confident demeanor. His voice had a deeper tenor, and his clean shirt suggested that he liked an orderly ship, although his lack of tie was possibly a sign that he wasn't too formal. When Travis emerged from the back of the office to meet Lacey, he still carried the same confidence and casual neatness that she had seen at the interview. Travis gave Lacey a firm handshake and quickly invited her into the office space that lay behind the reception desk. Lacey quickly accepted the coffee on offer from Michael, with thanks, before stumbling along behind Travis, struggling to keep up with the surge of events. Michael beamed at the thanks that Lacey offered her, watching her as she slipped into the realm behind the reception desk.

"You had no troubles getting here?" Travis asked Lacey, checking back over his shoulder to her as he walked.

"I had to learn my way around the trains, but I think I have it figured out." Lacey replied. Her previous job had been quite close to home, so she had little reason to use public transport before, only using the trains every now and then for the nights out on the town with friends. The commute to work meant she needed to strictly obey a schedule to ensure that she arrived at work on time, whereas her nights out had no such chronological concern.

Travis nodded, "I hear the trains are quite reliable. I wouldn't know." he stated before adding, "I catch the bus; all the comfort of public transport with all the _benefits_ of being stuck in traffic." his sarcastic tone eliciting a small, but nervous, laugh from Lacey.

Travis walked Lacey around the office, introducing her new colleagues. First was the accounts payable people. Then the Media people. Then the various other paper pushers.

The office was typical to what Lacey had seen on television; grid after grid of cubicles with head-height partitions, interspersed with glass segments so passersby could inspect the animals within. The back office, however, stood in contrast to the warm bathing glow of the reception counter. The office itself was lit in a staid blue-white colour and the carpet was a deep grey with generic, splotched pattern, designed more for hard wearing than aesthetics.

Lacey reflected briefly on her last job, which largely consisted of standing at a small counter, taking peoples' betting slips to either dispose of them, or to hand over their winnings. The sounds that she had heard in that den of gaming were the chiming of the machines, or the muffled sounds of horse racing ekeing through the noise of music. That environment, however, was a distant memory compared to the faint sound of telephones murmuring, and the burble of quiet conversation in this office. For a brief moment Lacey considered that she didn't belong here, and how the sterile colours and hushed sounds of this new world felt alien and distant. But with each person she met, and each person giving her a warm welcome, that despondency melted slowly away. They weren't as enthusiastic as the receptionists Michael and Chelle, but that pair's warmth would be difficult to eclipse.

Travis guided Lacey to a quieter corner of the office and gestured to an empty cubicle. It was small like the other work stations, but bare with the exception of a computer, phone and a couple chairs. The computer's monitor was on the larger size, being slim and functional while perched on top of a practical-looking box that housed the computer components. The phone on the desk looked modern and intimidating, with an LCD screen displaying myriad pieces of information and smaller buttons with LEDs lit in random positions.

"This cubicle is now yours," Travis offered, "you're free to personalise it as you see fit."

Upon staring at the stark wall behind the PC and the empty shelf, the thought of occupying it with her personal items filled Lacey with small glee; photos of her cat, or bringing her various items of stationery from home could easily fill in the blanks on the wall and shelves. Travis seated himself on a nearby chair and invited Lacey to join him as he began to explain her role.

To Lacey, her role seemed fairly basic and benign. Regular customer service duties seemed to dominate the list that Travis was reciting, although there was some data entry work and filing. Lacey nodded with each task that Travis detailed, understanding that her position was entry-level and that all the gaming experience she'd gleaned from her employment in the bar seemed to count for naught here. This was the bottom rung, and she was only being granted this height on the ladder because she had "industry experience". Which was good, because Lacey had no idea how to operate a copier.

Travis stood and gestured for her to follow, "And now to show you where you'll be making your calls to winners"

Lacey blinked in surprise.

"Yes, you'll be the one to tell people they've won the big prize each week" Travis said with a smile.

Lacey again failed to contain her surprise. She never considered that she'd be the one to deliver the news to winners. In her experience, customers had always been grateful for their meagre winnings in the bar when they gambled on the horses. Her mind raced with excitement and nervousness at the thought of people reacting to the news that they had won life-changing amounts of money.

Travis seemed to sense her excitement, "Yes, you'll be telling people the best news they've heard in a long time, or even the best news ever."

"I would have thought someone more senior would handle that job." Lacey said.

Travis shook his head to the negative, "Nope, it's just another customer service task. Everyone here does it at least once, but it's typically handled by the office gopher."

They walked around the perimeter of the office before stopping in a different corner of the premises. There were a number of other cubicles here, but none of them had any furniture in them. Lacey's cubicle had been bare, but these ones were completely empty, with no shelves or computers. Travis guided Lacey into a meeting room which had a small round table in the centre. On top of the round table was perched a single red phone. The room was lit dimly with yellow halogen lights, each one casting a yellow cone downward from the ceiling. The round table and red phone was bathed in its own little spotlight, making the pair of items the central feature of the room. This room was very different to the sterile blue-white of the rest of the office. The large pane of glass that bordered the room was frosted over for privacy. The ambient murmur of phones and idle chat between workers that Lacey had noticed before had dissolved away to nothing, leaving only the noise of the air conditioning roaring in Lacey's ears. The red phone was a classic old-style handset with a bulky hand piece and a large circular wheel on the face for the numbers. The only giveaway that the phone was modern were the buttons for dialing – Lacey understood that older phones had a radial thing that you had to wind with a finger to dial.

She'd seen those kind of phones in old movies. This red phone was modern, but styled in the retro shape.

"This is where you'll call each week's winners. These people have registered their details with us, so we know exactly who to call" Travis informed Lacey.

Lacey nodded, suppressing the immediate questions that came to mind. Questions such as why the room was so secluded from the rest of the office, or why there was a special phone for making the calls to winners, instead of just using the regular phones found in the other cubicles.

They must have their reasons, Lacey figured.

"On the day following the draw, this is where you'll be, contacting winners on the phone." Travis said, guiding Lacey away from the room and easing the door closed. He continued talking as he walked Lacey back to her cubicle, "For now, let's just start you off with the typical tasks you'll be doing every day."

Lacey nodded in reply. Some of the nervousness she had felt when she had first walked into the building had dissipated, but she felt that the remaining butterflies would soon flutter away once she actually got stuck into her job.

As Lacey began her duties, she started to familiarise herself with the people with whom she'd been introduced. Everyone seemed understanding of Lacey's background and work history and nodded with understanding when she told them of the gaming experience she had and what she felt she could bring to the Lotteries.

A couple people made a knowing remark on how it was her job to call the winners of the draws.

"The customer is always right, you know" said Tim, one of the two accountants that the Lotteries had on staff. He was a middle-aged man with deep lines on his face, and a mid-sized paunch. Lacey nodded, adding that she was quite familiar with dealing with winners face-to-face and how many of them were thankful for their good fortune.

"Yeah, the winnings here changes lives" Tim said, retaining his smile.

Lacey could only imagine the impact of such huge winnings. She started to feel a small kindling of excitement build as she realised the weight of that particular task in which she had been entrusted. She was going to be the messenger of news that many dream of receiving. Anyone would love to receive the phone call that she was going to be making.

Lacey imagined the excited screeching coming at her from the phone as a single mother has the burden of finances lifted from her shoulders. She thought of the minimum-wage factory worker who could finally sell his rust bucket for a supercar. The scenarios were infinite in Lacey's mind.

This could be quite a lot of fun, she thought.

Even though Lacey could feel her excitement build over how she was going to be delivering good news to people, she did still wonder about the small room that was dedicated to calling the winners. Lacey had heard of horror stories of how lottery winners had received harassment from opportunists and so-called "long-lost family members", so she thought that perhaps the room was there to help winners' privacy.

The red phone was curious as well, if only for its break of uniformity with the rest of the handsets in the office. Lacey vowed to ask Travis about these oddities.

But for now, Lacey needed to get through her first week. There were a stack of papers to file away, and a list of items she had to address.

Order copier toner.

Order printer paper.

Get in a maintenance guy to fix that flickering light above the copier-printer.

Research what kind of copier-printers would be good replacements for the current copier-printer, which seemed to consume a lot of toner and crumple a lot of paper.

Lacey's role was affectionately referred to as "gopher", in that she was assigned ad hoc tasks that she had to "go for". Go for this. Gopher that.

Even as she was familiarising herself with the job, her mind continued to wander back to that small, secluded room, the phone and the job of calling winners.

She'd been told that the next draw was on Saturday, and that the task of calling a winner would need to wait until Sunday.

Lacey didn't mind working Sunday.

Chapter 2 – The First Call

Throughout the week, Lacey completed her various tasks and carried out her duties with her typical enthusiasm. All the while, at the back of her mind was the thought of calling the winners on the looming weekend. Over and over again, the thought of her giving people life-changing news made her nervous and excited, each emotion coming round and around, circling like a carousel. Travis had said that he would come into the office on Sunday and help out with the calls, just to show her the ropes. Also, Lacey's weekend access hadn't been organised, so Travis would need to let her in anyway.

"Damn building owners can't get off their behinds to get your access." Travis had said during a conversation with Lacey.

It was during this chat that Lacey had remembered the two floors of the building. Lacey was curious as to why she had only been shown around the bottom storey, when according to the building directory, the Lotteries were the only business in the building. She'd seen a car park beneath the building and spied a number of expensive-looking cars sat in various bays, bathed in the light of several pale fluorescent lights. Even though many of the parks were occupied, she never saw anyone go up to the top floor.

"Upstairs," Travis had said, "That's where the bosses are."

"Executives?" Lacey had queried.

Travis had nodded, "Yup. They're the ones we answer to. They do all the top-tier stuff, such as keeping our partners happy..." Travis trailed off, "... and stuff."

Lacey stayed quiet with any further questions. It was just her first week on the job, so she had decided to curb her curiosity for the time being.

Sunday was another cold morning, but Lacey was dressed warmly in her casual attire. Clutching her typical morning coffee, she exhaled heavily into her scarf as she approached the building. Travis was waiting for her at the door, wearing a broad smile that was half buried beneath a scarf of his own. His long, grey coat covered the most of him, although the cut of the style made him appear fairly frail and diminutive as the clothes clung tight to his form. His business attire during the week hadn't been as fitted as this casual outfit. Lacey amused herself with the observation that his casual clothes appeared less comfortable than his business ones.

"Welcome to Winner's Day" Travis beamed, "Not an official title." he added.

Lacey hid her nervous excitement with a smile and an attempt at a casual shrug, "Meh, what's a million dollars?" she asked with mock flippancy.

Travis laughed as he scanned his pass at the door, which replied with a couple cheery chirps. The latch clicked and Travis shoved his way inside.

"There were two winners last night" he said, "I'll ring the first one, just to show you the ropes. Then you can call the second one."

Travis' cavalier attitude toward the task of telling people that they're rich struck Lacey as odd, however she understood that Travis had been with the Lotteries for some time.

"Does it ever get old?" Lacey asked.

Travis turned to her, sliding his scarf from his neck.

"Telling people that they're now rich?" Lacey expanded.

"I don't think it becomes simply 'routine'," he replied, "People react in different ways."

"I can imagine." Lacey said.

The office was deserted, with the exception of a solitary IT support guy who was tucked away in a corner, visible partially from his silhouetted figure before a glowing monitor. Christian, Lacey recalled.

Travis walked to a nearby printer and retrieved a sole piece of paper, "The winners we have registered on our databases," he explained, "Sometimes there are winners who aren't members, and have bought over the counter at an outlet, so we can't identify them," He looked stern for a moment, "Some prefer it that way."

"I've heard some horror stories." Lacey said.

Travis agreed, "Yeah. Money changes people, and changes those around them."

"That makes it sound like the lottery is a curse." Lacey said.

Travis looked distant for a moment, "I tend to think that for every horror story that there are many good stories."

Lacey nodded as she understood.

Travis continued, "I mean, people win the lottery every single week. Literally hundreds of people per year. And we hear, what, ten horror stories?"

Again, Lacey nodded as she dutifully listened.

"I prefer to think we give most people what they wish for." Travis concluded, "If I thought this place was doing a bad thing for people, I'd have left a long time ago."

Lacey nodded one last time, electing to stay quiet for the time being. There was something in Travis' tone that concerned Lacey. It didn't make her fearful or increase her nervousness. She just got this feeling that continuing the conversation would yield little results. There was no point questioning the very core business of her new job.

Besides, this was meant to be the exciting part of the role!

Travis and Lacey weaved their way through the office to the odd, secluded room toward the back of the floor. The room was still lit in its warm halogens, and the red phone was still centre-stage on its table under its own circle of light. Flanking the table were two regular and unremarkable office chairs, to which Travis offered Lacey one of them. He pulled up his own seat and placed the piece of paper with the winners' details on the table as he lifted the receiver, "I'll do this one so you can watch how it goes. You can call the second one." he said.

Referring to the page as he dialed, he stole Lacey a quick smile as if to compound the exciting nature of what they were doing.

He leaned back after dialing, waiting patiently. Waiting.

"It's early for many people on a Sunday..." he offered to Lacey as an explanation for the wait before his voice caught. The receiver had been picked up on the other side.

"Hello, is this Ms Schulz?" Travis asked. Pause.

"Hello, Ms Schulz, my name is Travis and I'm calling from the Lotteries, how are you this morning?" He continued.

"That's good," He answered after a brief pause, "So sorry to wake you so early on a Sunday morning but," he paused again as the other side of the line spoke, "Yes, we all had a late night after the team's win" Travis added. He smiled again at Lacey with a little shrug. Lacey knew that Travis didn't care much for sports, but was clearly faking his interest for the sake of the chat. Despite this, Lacey could feel that excitement building again. She knew what was coming. Travis knew what was coming. The third person, Ms Schulz, was likely curious, and perhaps on the verge of excitement herself.

"Ms Schulz, I am calling you this morning to inform you that you were a winner of our first prize in last night's draw!" Travis said, his smile beaming.

There was a longer pause, and Lacey could hear a faint exclamation of excitement coming from the red phone's receiver. Travis pulled the receiver away from his ear as the exclamation turned to a squeal. Travis winced a little, as if someone had bellowed in his ear, and he laughed, "Congratulations, Ms Schulz" he offered. There was another pause as a question was asked.

"Five hundred thousand" Travis said, "Yes, two winners."

Travis nodded in reply to the words coming from over the red phone, "That's right, yes. You don't need to claim anything anywhere, as we have the details of the ticket you bought, and it appears you've supplied us with your banking details for Oblige Bank, so we can arrange the bank transfer automatically. Is that the correct bank?"

There was another pause and Travis nodded. Travis' smile faded a little as he listened, "A few days, so probably this Wednesday. Banks can hold up the process a little, particularly with larger amounts."

There was another reply and Travis' smile grew back slowly, "Thank you for appreciating. We will make the arrangements immediately and you'll have your winnings as soon as we can get them to you." He nodded again to the voice on the phone, "Very good, and congratulations again, Ms Schulz. You have a lovely day." He lowered the red receiver to the phone and ended the call with a clunk. The receiver sounded heavy, but hollow as it clomped back onto its cradle.

Lacey couldn't help her broad smile. They had just made someone's day.

Travis spent a brief moment with Lacey to explain the information on the piece of paper he had, showing the details they had on the winners, and whether or not they had appropriate details to make the payment.

"The person you're calling hasn't supplied their banking details to us, so we will need to present him with a cheque, or he will need to nominate an account with us." Travis explained.

Lacey understood and picked up the receiver to make the call. Mr Hedersen was the winner's name. Lacey punched the numbers into the phone and awaited an answer. The phone pipped numerous times before a voice answered. The voice was a little croaky, and sounded a little perturbed. He was probably rising from his slumber on this Sunday morning, just as Travis had mentioned prior to the previous call answering.

"Hello, is this Mr Hedersen?" Lacey asked, her cheerfulness resonating in stark contrast to the groggy voice on the phone.

"Yeah, who is this?" Mr Hedersen replied.

"My name's Lacey and I'm calling from the Lotteries, how are you this morning?"

"I'm good, thanks..." Mr Hedersen stated, but the last word of his sentence inflected upwards slightly as though he were asking a half-hearted question.

Travis nodded to Lacey in encouragement.

"So sorry to wake you this morning, Mr Hedersen, but I'm calling to let you know that you're a winner of last night's Lottery draw!" Lacey said, her smile broad and her voice barely disguising her own excitement.

"Oh wow..." came the reply over the phone, "Wow."

"Congratulations, Mr Hedersen" Lacey offered.

"How much?" Mr Hedersen asked, his voice suddenly sounding very awake. Lacey continued her smile, feeling a rush of happiness in that she'd just made someone's day.

"Five hundred thousand." Lacey said.

"Oh wow." Mr Hedersen repeated, "That'll fix up some problems."

Travis pointed on the sheet of paper to the section denoting the lack of payment information.

"I am sure, Mr Hedersen." Lacey said, "Now we don't have any details for you on our records so we can send you your winnings. We can either cut you a cheque..."

"How long will that take?" Mr Hedersen asked. Lacey looked to Travis who seemed to anticipate the question by writing down a timeframe on the paper.

"About a week," Lacey said, "but if you nominate a bank account, it'll likely be there by Wednesday."

"That's quite some time" came the reply from the phone. Lacey felt her excitement fade a little.

"Well, banks, you see..." Lacey started, remembering the conversation that Travis had with the previous winner.

"Yeah, but the money is my winnings. You have to have it somewhere. Where can I pick it up?" He asked, his tone becoming terse.

Lacey was stunned. Her mind gamboled over various possible replies, none of which would have been considered professional, and certainly Travis watching on would rebuke her for such phrases. He was looking at Lacey with concern, but his eyes also suggested encouragement. She drew upon her experience in dealing with customers and started to formulate a reply.

"We don't keep the money in our office here." Lacey began.

"I need the money. I've got shit to buy." again came his insistence. Lacey started to feel flustered. The progress of the phone call was not what she had anticipated, and Lacey was floored at the way he refused to accept her reasoning. She was trying to _help_ him get _half a million dollars_. He didn't seem to see the good news in the way Lacey had predicted.

Lacey began again, "I'll have to see what..."

But before she could finish the sentence, Travis reached over to take the receiver from Lacey, "Hello Mr Hedersen" he said. There was a pause before Travis spoke again, "I am the manager of the person to whom you're speaking."

Again a pause. Travis looked unimpressed, "Our standard process is to either cut a cheque for you, or to arrange bank transfer. There is no other way."

There were more words coming from the receiver before Travis spoke evenly and with finality, "I understand, sir, and we take all feedback seriously. We shall provide you with a cheque and shall post it to you. Any further concerns you have about receiving the money should be directed to your bank."

Travis said an idle, "Thank you" before putting the receiver down to hang up, the phone clunking again heavily. Travis smiled at Lacey, "You get those kinds every now and then. It's probably good that you experienced that early."

Lacey tried to hide her frustration and confusion, "He just wouldn't accept the explanation," she said, "He was completely unreasonable. I mean, he was going to receive his winnings eventually, so what's his problem?"

Travis nodded, "Again, it's a good thing you received that experience early. The best thing to do with people like that is to not engage them, and just tell them how it is and get outta there."

"That's not very customer service friendly." Lacey said. Her training at her previous job had drilled in and repeated the mantra of customer always being right.

Travis seemed to take Lacey's words on board, but countered her, "They're not really customers though, are they? Certainly, they're not going to be buying from us again, and they won't be recommending us to their friends. We're a gambling outfit, not a corner take-away shop."

Lacey had trouble processing this new information, as it flew in direct opposition to what she had been taught at her last job. The customer was always right, and you always had to accommodate their requests. An unhappy customer, or worse, a bad review meant lower patronage, and an angry boss. Travis must have noticed her trying to reconcile her thoughts because he spoke again.

"Let's get a coffee and finish up for the day." he offered, smiling warmly.

As the pair of them left the building, Lacey started to feel the disappointment at the phone call dissolve away. She had dealt with difficult customers before, and she had done it face-to-face, so the previous phone call was nothing new to her. She spent a brief moment to mentally chastise herself for not anticipating that customers for the Lotteries would be little different to customers she had encountered at the bar. She kept walking with Travis, each step slowly deleting the unpleasant feelings. As they entered the cafe, the smell of roasting coffee melted the last of Lacey's mood away. Travis quickly asked her if she was okay, to which she genuinely and casually shrugged away his concerns.

"Customers are customers," she said, "They're no different here than anywhere else."

Travis ordered two beverages from the barista, "Good, good. You just seemed a little shaken before." He turned back to the barista to fine tune the order a little; skim milk in one and not the other.

"I just wasn't prepared. It's my fault for thinking that people would be different to what I had dealt with before." Lacey said.

"Our customers can be demanding. I'm not sure what you've dealt with before, but I think that some people get affected by the money immediately." Travis said, "It's like an immediate spell that's cast over them, and suddenly they think that because they're rich, that they're different."

"Nouveau riche" Lacey said vacantly.

Travis returned her a look of confusion. Lacey quickly explained the term of "new rich" making Travis laugh.

"Oh totally. Completely lacking in tact and taste." He said.

The coffees arrived, steaming up in transparent white curls, even in the warm cafe. Travis collected them both after handing over some currency to the barista, "Well, it's good to see you weren't rattled too much. I think you'll be fine if you just stick to keeping it simple with winners, and being firm on the process."

He offered Lacey a coffee and she accepted it, sipping it with appreciation, while listening and nodding in understanding. Although she could hear the message from Travis, her training and her customer service experience cried out for her to look after the people she was meant to serve. She'd always prided herself on following through for the customer, sure to over-deliver on their expectations. While she had experience with difficult people, she never had to tell them sternly that they were _wrong_.

The customer was _never wrong_.

The following week was an exercise to Lacey. There were so many people to meet and remember, along with many and varied rudimentary tasks that she needed to perform. She understood her place as a "gopher", and figured that over time, should she prove herself, she'd be given more responsibilities. All the while, there was this nagging sensation, idly jabbing at Lacey's mind;

The red phone.

She would sometimes walk past that isolated room during the course of her duties, and the phone would stare back at her through the door, squat in the centre of its own spotlight, waiting for Lacey.

Lacey felt nervous each time she walked by that room, her eyes unable to resist being drawn into the phone's abode, inside which the red monster peered back at her. Lacey knew it was irrational to feel trepidation on using that phone based upon her single experience with the device. Travis had assured her that the kind of calls with demanding winners (like what Lacey had experienced) were rare, which only alleviated Lacey's concerns very briefly before she descended back down into her slight discomfort.

The only reprieve she could give herself was knowing that, according to Travis, most of the winners are glad to receive their prizes. She figured that, over time, the feeling of nervousness would drain away and that she would discover that people like Mr Hederson were the vast, but vocal, minority.
Chapter 3 – Calls #3 and #4

The door arced open slowly as Lacey eased it with a gentle push. She was alone this Sunday, having finally been provided with building access for the weekend. She walked gingerly through the office as she collected the sheet of paper on the printer with the names of the winners, exhaling to steel her nerves. The red phone awaited her.

The office was dark and empty, and the phones that had rhythmically chirruped during regular business hours were stone quiet, as though knowing that the red phone was about to be used. There was a faint tapping and clicking coming from one of the cubicles, which Lacey understood to be the IT support worker, Christian, beavering away at the computer infrastructure to make sure it all still worked. He was a quiet fellow, who never seemed to lift his eyes from the screen before him. Lacey imagined that he was actually fused to his chair, which explained why she always saw him in the same place, each and every day, never moving and locked to the glowing beacon of his work.

She strolled silently between the various cubicles and partitions, not rushing to the secluded room with the red phone. She chided herself for her nervousness before stopping in her tracks and turning to retreat back to her cubicle to retrieve something.

At her desk, she spied "Gerald" - her beanie toy – sitting dutifully next to her keyboard. Gerald was an animal of some description, like a blend of a purple mouse and a kiwi, filled loosely with beans and sporting two large, black, beady eyes, a triangular nose and long whiskers. She quickly scooped Gerald up in her palm and gave him a quick, reassuring squeeze before stepping back toward the red phone room. Gerald replied with a rustle from the beans inside him. Gerald had always helped her out in her more stressful moments, where Lacey had squeezed him while she studied, or while she prepared herself for a job interview. Gerald had never let her down before.

She felt her courage return with each stride back to the room, giving Gerald another pulsing squeeze with each step. She reached the room and closed the door behind her so that the IT Support guy, Christian, wouldn't hear her. The red phone greeted her with a silent stare from the table. She perched herself beside the red phone and lifted the handset as she placed the paper of winners details down, resting Gerald on top like a paperweight.

The hand piece for the phone felt bulky and unwieldy in Lacey's hand as she pressed it against her ear. She began to dial the number of the first winner, the tones melodiously singing back into her ear.

The number finished dialing and the sound of phone ringing pulsed from the handset. Lacey exhaled slowly, apprehensively waiting for a voice.

Click, "Hello?" The voice was a young girl. A child.

Lacey plastered a quick smile onto her face, "Hello, I am looking for Ms Ertsa?" she asked.

There was no reply for a moment. There was some clicking as though the phone was being fumbled.

"Hello?" Lacey asked, trying to find an answer.

"Hello?" came the reply.

"Yes, hello! I am looking for Ms Ertsa. This is Lacey from the Lotteries."

There was a hush for a moment and some other clicking sounds. In the background, Lacey heard a faint voice, "Madeline, what are you doing? Put Mum's phone down!"

There was some more noises as footsteps drew closer to the speaker. Some more crackling occurred before another voice came down the line, a much more mature-sounding voice, "Hello? Sorry, my daughter got hold of my phone and didn't mean to ring you. Sorry."

"Oh, it's okay, it's Lace..." Lacey replied before her ear was slapped with the sound of the phone disengaging. A long, sad monotone.

Lacey frowned in mild frustration. She assured herself that the abrupt end to the call was just a small hiccup in the process, and began to dial the number again. The receiver again blared out the pulsing tones of a call being made.

"Hello?" came the answer. It was the more mature-sounding voice from before.

"Hello, Ms Ertsa?" Lacey began, administering her smile again.

"Yes?"

"It's Lacey here from the Lotteries, and I'm calling..." again Lacey was cut off.

"Look, I'm sorry" Ms Ertsa said, "I've got a busy house here and can't spend much time on the phone to answer your questions."

"No, Ms Ertsa. I am calling to tell you..."

"I said no!" Ms Ertsa said with force, and again the phone fell dead.

Lacey sighed in frustration. This wasn't how Travis showed her. She tried once again, hearing that tone of the phone.

"Hello?"

"Ms Ertsa, I am from the Lotteries to tell you that you have won the major prize!" Lacey galloped the sentence out before there was a chance for interruption.

"What?"

"You've won half a million dollars!" Lacey said, feeling her excitement rekindle.

"Are you serious?" Ms Ertsa said, her voice cracking a little.

"Yes, Ms Ertsa. You won the major prize! Congratulations!"

There was a squeal of delight, and Lacey could feel her genuine smile return, paving over the facade of her last fake smile. This reaction seemed more like what Lacey had anticipated.

After a few seconds of excited joy, the voice came back down the line, "Are you still there?" Ms Ertsa asked.

"Yes, Ms Ertsa. I am. Now, payment will be made in the next few days to the bank account you've nominated here."

"Oh excellent." Ms Ertsa said.

Lacey smiled, a little relieved.

"Wait." Ms Ertsa said, "Which account is that one?"

"I have here that the bank account is with the National Bank"

"Oh right, yes. That one. That's an old one" Ms Ertsa said, "Can I give you details of a new one?"

"Certainly" Lacey said, quickly fetching a pen from a pocket.

"Right, now I'll need the money to go into three separate accounts" Ms Ertsa said.

"Right...?" Lacey replied tentatively.

"I need two-hundred-kay in my mortgage account. Then I need one-hundred-kay into my savings. The rest can go into my investment account" Ms Ertsa instructed.

"I'm not sure," Lacey began, "Perhaps if we deposit the lot into one account, you can then arrange with your bank to..."

Lacey was again interrupted, "Oh no, that won't do. Why don't we just do everything right in one transaction and save everyone time?" Ms Ertsa offered.

Lacey bit her tongue on a reply to suggest that it wasn't saving "everyone's" time at all, and it was only saving Ms Ertsa's time. But even if Lacey had spoken, it wouldn't have mattered, as Ms Ertsa blurted out the bank account details, said an excited, but brief, thank you and hung up with a clunk.

The red phone's receiver again sang that minor monotone to Lacey as a sign of the ended call. It was a forlorn tune.

Lacey placed the receiver back on the red phone and sat for a moment, stunned. She re-transcribed the bank account details on the sheet of paper so that it was more legible, as her hurried handwriting was scratchy and crooked and likely to be difficult to read at a later date.

There was a second winner to call.

Lacey again picked up the red handset and gave Gerald a reassuring squeeze. She dialed the number and awaited the answer.

A sleepy-sounding man answered the phone with a gurgle and a cough. His greeting tumbled over the phone line awkwardly, almost incoherent.

"Hello, Mr Edwards." Lacey started, steamrolling the sentence on before he had a chance to react, "I'm Lacey from the Lotteries here. I am calling to tell you that you've won first prize in the last draw!"

She really forced the smile onto her face and into her voice. Despite her apprehension on where the call was going to go, she knew she had to maintain her professionalism.

"Huh?" Came the bewildered reply. There was a scratch on the phone as though his beard had scraped along the microphone.

"You won the lottery!" Lacey said, crow-barring some enthusiasm into her tone.

There was a moment where Mr Edwards paused. Lacey braced herself for the incoming demands.

"How much?" came his voice.

"Half a million." Lacey said. Her cheeks were becoming sore from the exertion of lifting the sides of her mouth.

"I thought the prize was one million" he said.

"There were two winners" Lacey replied, trying to not append the word _duh_ to the sentence.

"Half a million isn't enough. I wanted to be a millionaire." Mr Edwards said.

Lacey again felt the stun flow through her. She could not fathom the notion that somebody could look at half a million dollars being handed to them, and still have more expectations.

"Half a million is what you've won. Think of what you could do with that!" Lacey said. She really tried to muster her voice to lofty heights to complement the exciting news, but a flatness had crept into the communication noises she was making.

"Does the other winner know?" he asked.

"Yes, I rang them before."

"Damn," came the reply, "I guess we can't rig it now so that I can get more of their winnings."

Lacey's mouth fell open. She searched around her mind for the best reply that would still fulfill her dedication to exemplary customer service, but the search yielded nothing. She reverted back to her internal script.

"A cheque will be made out to your name and posted to you in the next couple days. Congratulations, Mr Edwards" Lacey recited before hanging up the phone. Mr Edwards' voice said something, but Lacey didn't register the language enough to convert it into something sensible that her brain could retain.

Emitting a frustrated growl, she grabbed Gerald with a fist and hurled him against the room's window.

The thud of the beaded toy hitting the pane thrummed a dull tone, droning on for a second as the glass settled back into its static state. Lacey cursed firmly, venting her frustration at the lack of appreciation from these people she was calling. The nerve, she thought. The _entitlement_ of these people.

She gathered up Gerald, who hushed with the beads inside of him. As he settled in her palm, a single, solitary bead inside Gerald tickled within him, whispering Gerald's protest at Lacey's rough treatment. The bead quietly rolled around inside Gerald before settling. She gave Gerald a brief pet as she left the room, shutting the door behind her with a gentler thud than which she had treated her toy companion.

A head peeked up from behind a partition in the office. It was the IT support fellow, Christian. He looked to Lacey for a brief moment from across the rows of cubicles before lowering himself back down behind the partitions. Lacey felt a brief pang of guilt for having disturbed him and forgetting that she wasn't alone in the building.

She walked toward Christian's cubicle with some sense of apprehension and a touch of guilt. The glow of the PC served as a beacon for her progress as she negotiated the twists and various alleys within the cubicles. The 90 degree turns felt like she was tacking into the wind in a sailboat. She rounded a corner to the desk where Christian sat, still dutifully tapping into his computer. Various numbers scrolled up the screen at a rhythmic pace, steadily climbing to the top of the monitor before disappearing from sight.

Lacey tapped politely on the partition, her knuckle making a light but hollow sound on the thin metal frame, "I'm sorry."

Christian turned around in his chair, facing Lacey. His face showed little sign of consternation, or even any other emotion. His eyes were blank and his mouth a perfect horizontal line of emotionlessness. He didn't appear fatigued or alien, but only a perfect picture of the middle ground between happiness and sadness. His clothes were neat but not fashionable; a polo shirt and casual jeans with nondescript shoes. He clearly hadn't bothered with his hair at all, as it had a style that could only be created upon combining climbing out of bed and leaving the rest of the styling work to gravity. He answered Lacey's apology with a raise of the eyebrows and a subtle shake of the head to denote confusion at her apology.

"For the noise I made. I don't swear in the office." Lacey explained.

"I've heard worse, and most of it from out of that room" Christian said. His voice had a timbre to it that commanded a presence, but Christian's slight figure betrayed the sense of gravitas his vocal chords cast. His visage didn't change much as he spoke. He appeared unperturbed at Lacey's sudden presence in his cubicle.

"People make noise in that room?" Lacey asked.

"Most weekends, yeah." Christian replied.

"You mean others get the same treatment as me?" she asked.

"I dunno. I've never had to do whatever it is that you do in that room." he replied.

"You don't know what that room's for?"

Christian shook his head, "People go in and swearing comes out."

Lacey half-smiled, feeling humbled at her behaviour, "You're not curious about it at all?"

Christian shook his head again.

"We call the lottery winners in there." Lacey said simply.

"Oh." Christian said, his face still unchanged, neither appearing curious nor dismissive.

"Yeah. The winners I've spoken to seem like jerks. You wouldn't believe the demands people make." Lacey said, holding her half-smile.

Christian turned his seat to the side to reveal his desk. It was covered in papers, cables, paper cups and electronics. The computer monitor still showed a cascade of text scrolling upwards, climbing unending into the top of the screen, "I think I can guess." he answered.

"What are you doing?" Lacey asked.

"Migrating a database," Christian said, "It's about as exciting as that sentence describes. 'Upstairs' needs it done by Monday."

Lacey nodded, "Unrealistic demands?" she asked.

"Job hazard," he said matter-of-factly, "You just gotta take what comes with the territory."

Lacey nodded again, realising the parallel of his situation to hers, "You deal with jerks then?"

Christian contemplated her words for a moment, although any hint of the gears grinding in his mind weren't visually obvious. Lacey imagined a cup of hot coffee inside his mind being drip-fed to a rat on a wheel. He spoke again, "It just sounds like you've experienced people in their 'asshole moment'."

Lacey's face must have revealed confusion, because he continued, "An asshole moment is something we all have, myself included. Even yourself. You and I both know that we are lovely and wonderful people for the vast majority of our time awake, but we can have these moments where things are just too much and our filter just snaps off."

Lacey listened, considering his points, "I _am_ calling these people first thing in the morning." she mused.

Christian continued, "Well, I am sure that we have had moments where we, for a split second, did something a bit selfish that inconvenienced someone else. For that moment, that single moment, we were the asshole, and in that moment we didn't care. We all have the potential within us to be an asshole, and those brief seconds we become that asshole, we are forever branded an asshole by someone else," He stopped talking for a moment to reach back and grab a coffee that was sitting on his desk, "An asshole moment." he said finally.

Lacey blinked at the onslaught of words. She hadn't expected the barrage of opinion from somebody she had effectively just met. What he said seemed to ring true to Lacey, in that she cannot judge people based on mere seconds of interaction, but she blinked again as she considered what she just heard from someone she barely knew. She then chuckled to herself. She tucked Gerald under her arm and held out her other hand to offer a handshake.

"I'm Lacey, by the way."

Lacey had always prided herself on reveling in a challenge. The task of ringing up the lottery winners was certainly presenting itself as a challenge. The "new rich" she was speaking to were definitely giving her a hurdle to surmount. Customer service, Lacey knew, was fraught with these kinds of people, and it appeared that the lottery was going to be a lightning rod to the most demanding of folks.

Lacey did ask herself one thing. One question that settled awkwardly inside her mind: were these people really customers?

She went over the definition in her head as she trudged through the cold streets that same Sunday on the way home from the office. She'd finished up her day by finishing some tasks and having a further brief chat with Christian before setting her sights for home.

A customer, Lacey reasoned, was someone who was paying for a service or a good. The customer's experience with a company's customer service was going to dictate their thoughts and potential return custom. The power of the customer was the promise (or threat) of continued business. Without customers, businesses could not operate.

These lottery winners were customers, in that they had purchased something from the company; a one-in-fifteen-million chance of getting rich. Beyond that, it wasn't their experience with the Lotteries that ensured their continued patronage, but rather their own choices to buy tickets for the lottery.

So, did the tenets of Good Customer Service still apply if the winners had already gotten what they wanted? Lacey wondered.

Her mind returned to the brief introductory chat-slash-sermon with Christian earlier. What he suggested seemed to be a succinct but blunt retort to Lacey's wrestle with definitions, "You just gotta take what comes with the territory." he had said.

Lacey sighed to herself as she continued down the cold street, returning to the train station that would deliver her home from the office. The lanes between the buildings were blue-grey from the winter shadows, and the wind had a bitterness to its chill as it swept through the channels of steel and glass.

She knew that she needed to put aside her own pride and just deal with the people she spoke to on the red phone. Even if they weren't "customers" by the definition that Lacey had moulded in her mind, she knew that the whole reason she was being paid was to make the Lotteries look professional and friendly. She needed to suck it up and deal with these people and their ridiculous demands. This was her lot. This was her _job_. A cold gust of wind blew into her face, threatening to sneak inside the warm confines of her scarf. She lowered her head into the wrap and breathed out to warm the fabric, staving off the cold for another moment.

Tomorrow was the start of a new, fresh week.

Chapter 4 – Upstairs

Lacey tapped on the door frame of Travis' office. It wasn't a large room, but it was semi-modern-looking. A large, single pane of glass faced toward the cubicles, and it was opposed on the other side of the office by a large window which gave a glorious panoramic view of a brick wall and an adjacent car park for a neighbouring building. Travis' back was to the window, and he was deep in contemplation as he stared into the monitor of his notebook. It was a slender computer, built for portability and battery life, but it was clearly an "economical" model. Travis having a notebook was only notable because everyone else in the office used regular desktops.

He looked up from his screen to greet Lacey, "Oh hi! How'd you get on yesterday on your first solo flight?" he enthused, referring to the red phone.

"Oh fine," Lacey said, stifling the mental gag-reflex she had, "They can be a demanding bunch, can't they?"

Travis raised his eyebrows, as though surprised, "Ah yes, winners. Well, so long as they know the process, then they're typically pretty handle-able." his voice stumbled over the last conjunction of words, "Handle able? Handle-able..." He wrestled with his mouth for a moment, "manageable" he finished.

"Well, one wanted the payments divided into multiple accounts, and the other wanted more money." Lacey said.

Travis smiled at the last piece of information, "They really try it on, don't they?"

Lacey nodded.

"Well, if you cut them both a cheque, I'm sure they'll be on their merry way, spending and drinking and laughing it up." Travis said, returning back to his screen, "Go see Accounting and give them the information. They'll take care of the rest."

Lacey made a noise to denote her understanding and retreated from the office to head towards Accounting. That chat with Travis had gone better than she had anticipated. She thought she hadn't been direct enough with the winners, but Travis didn't seem to object to the idea of the first winner wanting their winnings divided into separate accounts.

When she reached Accounting, however, there was a different story.

She was met with two people who seemed to befit the Accounting section perfectly. A man and a woman, both with round glasses and rounder physiques, stared at Lacey as she presented them with the information for paying the winners. They both pushed their glasses up the bridge of their noses with a look of disdain before the woman spoke, "We don't do it that way." she said in a flat statement.

The round man chimed in, "We just pay the people. It's up to them to figure out where they want it to go." He added.

"They were most insistent" Lacey countered, "And the customer is always right, they say!" she added with a wide smile, although she was surprised at her added tone of sarcasm.

The two accountants again pushed their round glasses to seat them better on their faces.

"Did you promise the 'customer' anything?" the man asked, emphasising the c-word.

Lacey replied in the negative, "They had dunked the phone on me before I had a chance to respond."

The woman sighed in exasperation, "Looks like we might have another issue on our hands. Look, we can't guarantee anything when it comes to specific payments. Upstairs has only granted us permission to do one transaction per winner, so even if we could do what you're asking of us, we'd need Upstairs' approval."

Lacey raised a quizzical eyebrow, not sure what to make of this new information. The way that people referred to "Upstairs" seemed almost reverent, like a holy power that shone down from above.

"So, maybe I should speak with someone upstairs?" Lacey offered.

The pair of accountants stared back at Lacey with stone cold visages. Lacey counted the seconds go past as the trio stared at her, then at each other, locked in an awkward standoff. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. The woman spoke.

"You don't just _go_ upstairs. You need to be requested." She said.

Lacey looked dubious, "Why? The stairs are just there." She gestured over her shoulder in a roundabout fashion toward the front of the building, "I'll just walk up there and chat with someone."

Lacey's logic seemed bullet proof to her. She didn't understand the big deal of trying to go the extra mile for the winners. It didn't seem like such an extraordinary expectation; just good customer service. The man spoke, interrupting her train of thought.

"You need access permission to even get up there. Even then, there's no guarantee you'll see anyone that'll help you."

"Why not?" Lacey asked incredulously, "What is upstairs? What do they do?"

"They manage everything." the woman replied in a matter-of-fact fashion.

"They guide the business." the man added.

"Then they surely can give some guidance on this." Lacey finished in an abrupt manner, storming away from the pair. She fumed in frustration, glancing back over her shoulder to see if she could glimpse their reaction, only to find that the pair of Accountants had simply resumed their duties without another word.

Lacey weaved through the cubicles, working her way through to the front of the building where the stairs to "Upstairs" awaited. The stairs were timber and stained dark, protruding from the wall and leading into a glass panel on the other side. On top of the glass panel was a matching timber rail for steadying the travelers going "Upstairs". Lacey gave a smile and a friendly wave to Chelle and Michael who were staring at her as she walked to the stairs. Their faces were a mask of confusion, but they remained silent, just watching her.

One by one, Lacey climbed up each step of the wooden stairs, her shoes clicking rhythmically. As she climbed higher and higher, she felt the air grow warmer, and a little more humid. Lacey noticed that each step had its own small light at the wall, bathing each part of the ascension in a warm glow. The walls grew a little darker, lessening their strain on Lacey's eyes.

Lacey reached the top, and was greeted by a single door on a landing. The door was flanked by two healthy-looking plants, and a keypad and pass scanner. Lacey searched for any other clue as to how to contact someone behind the door, but found no phone or intercom.

She scanned her security pass, to which the keypad replied with a burping buzz and a red light. Instinctively she tried again, waving her security pass over the scanner, only to be offered the same burp and red stoplight. She didn't know why she expected a different result.

Lacey searched around the doorway for some other clue on how to get past the obstruction. Staring at the door, Lacey figured that it was ludicrous that a floor was inaccessible to employees of the company. There had to be a way in.

Unable to find any other solution, Lacey rapped her knuckles on the door. The wood thudded, suggesting the door was thick and dense; not some hollow veneer. Lacey felt the seconds tick past her, and listened for any kind of cue or clue that there was someone on the other side of the door. There was silence. Lacey again tapped on the door, somewhat more insistently this time, and waited some more. Still nothing. Lacey began to question whether anyone was behind the door at all, and that she was wasting her time.

In frustration, Lacey again hit the door, but this time bunching her fists and pounding on the surface. The door thudded loudly and deeply, rattling inside its own frame.

Lacey heard a beep next to the door. The noise had come from the scanner that had burped its refusal to Lacey's card, "Yes?" came a voice over a tiny, unseen speaker. A woman spoke. In that single word, it was clear to Lacey that the woman was frustrated.

"Hi, it's Lacey. I'm from downstairs."

"Have you spoken to your manager?" asked the voice from the scanner.

"I was directed to upstairs to make arrangements for payment to a winner." Lacey explained.

"Your manager must have been mistaken. We don't do that here." the speaker replied.

"It wasn't my manager. It was the people in Accounting." Lacey said.

"The people in Accounting must have been mistaken. We don't do that here." the speaker repeated.

"I have a winner that wants payment made to different accounts. Accounting said that someone up here needs to approve it." Lacey said, her voice growing agitated.

"They were mistaken. We don't do that here." the speaker replied.

Lacey felt her frustration boil over, "But a customer of ours has made a request that isn't unreasonable. Shouldn't we do what's right by the customer?" She talked through a bit-back voice, remaining terse but with a forced sweetness.

"We should. But _we_ don't do that here. That's your job." the speaker said.

"But I can't do it if you can't give me the approval" Lacey countered, thinking she had a checkmate.

There was a momentary pause. Lacey wondered if they were starting to see the light of her argument and were perhaps understanding. There was a click at the latch, similar to the one that Lacey heard when she unlocked doors to the building that she was permitted to pass through. Satisfied with the result, she pushed the door open. A waft of warm, scented air greeted her nostrils like a cloud flowing through and around her. As she stepped over the threshold, she viewed a large room with a counter near the opposite wall. The far wall carried the Lotteries emblem of a sphere and a lightning bolt, although the emblem was coloured gold rather than the typical red that was seen on posters and tickets. The room exuded warmth, much like the reception area downstairs where Michael and Chelle resided, with yellow down-lights casting cones of light evenly down the walls. The reception counter even appeared similar to downstairs, curving around the sole worker who was sitting there. The counter top was a thick timber, stained a deep, dark blackish red. The counter downstairs was lighter coloured and definitely cheaper looking.

Behind the counter was the sole worker, a woman dressed in an impeccable suit and sporting thin-rimmed glasses. Her dark hair was pulled back taut, but a ponytail wavered gracefully behind her. Lacey assumed this woman was the source of the voice in the speaker outside.

"You need approvals?" the woman asked, "Will that be all?"

Lacey nodded, "Yes. The details are on this sheet." Lacey offered the single slip of paper to the woman, who gently took it from Lacey and reviewed the sheet's contents.

"Is this everything?" she asked.

Lacey replied to the affirmative. This Upstairs place seemed quite direct, Lacey thought to herself.

"I'll take a copy and pass it on. Wait here a moment." the woman said, turning on her heels and disappearing into an opening in the wall that Lacey swore wasn't there before. The opening was recessed a little, but it blended in so well to the rest of the wall, it couldn't be seen easily. Lacey took a moment to review the room again, noting the subtle differences to downstairs. Aside from the quality of the counter, the carpet also seemed thicker, the lights a little brighter and the finishes on the architraves and skirtings seemed fancier.

After a brief wait, the woman returned with Lacey's slip of paper and handed it back, "For your records." she explained.

"You'll let me know when the approvals are done?" Lacey checked.

"I'll find what you need and have it taken care of." the woman replied.

Lacey smiled warmly, "Thank you so much! I'm Lacey, by the way."

The woman pulled a smile across her face, an expression that was slow to extend as though the woman was struggling with some old motor skills she hadn't exercised in some time, "Nice to meet you, Lacey." she said, not offering anything else in reply. She reseated herself at the counter and looked at her computer screen.

Lacey took the hint to leave.

Stepping from the upstairs landing above the stairs, beginning her return to the lower floor, Lacey felt the cool air wrap back around her. The sharp change in temperature made her shiver involuntarily. Happy that she had achieved a result, she descended the stairs to the downstairs reception where Chelle and Michael were sitting, watching her arrival.

"What happened?" Chelle asked.

"I needed an approval, so I went up and asked." Lacey replied.

"You just went up and asked." Michael stated evenly. He might have meant the phrase as a question, but he just intoned it flatly, as if processing the array of words in the sentence.

They glanced at each other for a moment.

"And they let you in?" Chelle asked.

Lacey shrugged with a slight tilt of her head, "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't they?"

"No one gets to go upstairs," Michael said, "Or at least I've never seen anyone go up there on their own. I was told that you only go up there if you're asked up there."

Lacey shrugged again, "I dunno. They seemed okay."

The pair glanced at each other again, "Okay?" Chelle said, "I've only seen one person from upstairs before, and they didn't even register I was alive. Others who have seen the suits from upstairs tell a similar story. They don't talk to us downstairs unless they need to give us direction, or... otherwise."

"What did you do up there?" Michael asked.

"I just needed that approval, so I asked."

The two seem flabbergasted at the notion. Lacey was confused. "Upstairs" seemed to be some kind of mystical world to these two, but Lacey hadn't had any major difficulties, apart from the door.

"Well, I should get back to work." Lacey said, walking from the reception area and into the cubicle farm behind the desk, leaving the pair at the front to watch in awe.

The following days drifted past for Lacey. She was still learning the names of all the people in the office, but she never had an opportunity to spend an extended period of time with them. She was the gopher and she needed to burrow between jobs quickly, changing her priorities and her skillset accordingly. The Accounting pair, Tim and Beth, needed copying. Michael and Chelle needed proofing. Travis needed coffee. Christian never seemed to need anything. The several others in the office just needed things delivered or followed up.

With each one, Lacey slowly regained some enjoyment from the role she was doing. With every smile and thanks, she felt assured she was on the right track with the job, and was achieving something. Since she had joined the workforce a few years ago, the resonance of a simple thanks had always given her a reason to heed the call of her alarm clock in the morning. Hauling herself into the workplace felt far less of a burden, if she felt she could do something good.

The next few days were a chance to recharge after having had her enthusiasm sapped by the winners she called on Sunday. She wondered whether this would be the pattern her working week would follow; start on Sunday with the dejection of demanding winners, the Monday of fulfilling their needs, and the remainder of the week regrowing her soul. She sincerely hoped not, although it might just have to be her burden while she was employed at the Lotteries.

At least she could focus on keeping her colleagues happy, who seemed far less particular and demanding than the winners.

Lacey's cubicle phone rang. She had been proofing some promotional materials for an upcoming lottery draw, fixing up some errant typographical errors and common malapropisms before it would be sent to the printers. She answered the phone casually, noting that the phone call was from within the office. It was Travis.

"Can you come see me?" He asked. His voice seemed even and friendly, but there was some expectancy in his tone. He probably wanted her to chase down some information for one of the beneficiaries of the lottery.

Lacey strode confidently through the cubicles, giving cursory nods and greets to colleagues of whom she thought she remembered the names. They each nodded in return, taking extra notice of the slips of paper they each carried.

Travis was on a phone call when Lacey arrived at his door. He gestured for her to enter and for her to close the door behind her.

"Alright, it's no problem" he said into the receiver, "I'm sure we can expedite a solution."

Lacey walked to his desk and took a seat before him, waiting patiently. Travis' call quickly finished with a few apologies from Travis and a quiet thunk of the handset.

"Just my manager," he explained, "'Upstairs'"

Lacey nodded. Over the past few days she had learned precious little about the land "Upstairs". Some others in the office had learned of her sojourn to the elevated world, expressing curiosity at what she had seen when she went up there, not that she could offer them anything more substantial other than it was "nice".

"Now, a winner hasn't received their money yet." Travis started.

Lacey blinked in surprised. She thought she had tied up all the loose ends regarding the winners. Everything had been passed on and she'd been assured that it would be done.

"Ms Ertsa was quite annoyed." Travis said.

Lacey recalled the name of the winner, remembering the conversation she'd had with Ms Ertsa. She had wanted the winnings divided up into separate accounts, and Accounting should have taken care of it.

"I passed on her details." Lacey offered.

"Beth and Tim say they didn't get the information from you." Travis countered.

"They told me they couldn't help me." Lacey said.

Travis looked confused, "No, they should have helped you. That's been their job for the past decade. I don't see why they would turn you away."

"They told me I had to get approval from upstairs." Lacey recalled.

Travis looked surprised, "Why would they tell you that?"

"Ms Ertsa wanted her winnings divided up and paid into separate accounts." Lacey said.

Travis shook his head, "And you told her we didn't do that?" he explained, the upward inflection of a question suggested annoyance.

"I did, but she just threw these numbers at me and hung up."

Travis sighed, "So what did you do?"

"I asked upstairs for approval." Lacey said simply.

Travis frowned at this new information Lacey had imparted. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes. Crows-feet emanated from the edges of his eyes, giving Lacey an indication of his age, "Why didn't you come to me first?" he asked.

"It's my job to pass on the information, right?" Lacey asked.

"Not to Upstairs, you don't."

Lacey was confused. She understood that her job was to follow things through, but the woman upstairs had assured her that the matter would be done. Lacey knew that she needed approval from the nebulous realm that existed "Upstairs" and that was where the details of Ms Ertsa's payment was last seen.

"They have her details Upstairs. It's in their hands." Lacey said.

Travis' look of concern didn't recede, "It's our job to not bog down Upstairs with petty matters like this."

Lacey was again confused. Lottery winners were the bread and butter of this business. She reeled mentally as the confusion whirled her around and she tried to reconcile this bizarre new data, "They were the ones who needed to approve it." Lacey repeated.

Travis inhaled heavily, easing his breath back out, "You bought into a winner's demands." he said.

"Am I not meant to meet customer expectations?" Lacey asked. Her question sounded sarcastic, but her confusion gave her query a genuine curiosity.

"Just don't engage them, remember?" Travis said, "Just tell them that we'll cut them a cheque, or we can take their bank details."

"What if the winner is like Ms Ertsa? What if they go off script like that?" Lacey asked, trying to justify her position.

"Look, if they throw you a curve ball like that, just tell them you'll do what you can, and then we cut them a cheque." Travis said.

Lacey was astounded, "You just lie to them?"

"It's not lying" Travis said, "Our systems are pretty rigid, and for good reason. We've never had a complaint when people receive their cheques. If they wanted their payment some other way, we just tell them that the cheque was the best way for us, given the information we had. The winners typically go away. I think the lure of getting their millions outweighs any beef with our methods and systems."

"So, why am I getting chewed out, and not the woman I spoke with Upstairs?" Lacey asked, her confusion bubbling over into annoyance.

"I don't know what you've been told, but I can tell you to not expect 'Upstairs' to do anything for you." Travis said.

"So, that's it? They can drop the ball, but I'm the one to get blasted?" Lacey asked.

"I'm annoyed enough that you went to shoot over my head, Lacey. Look, I think I'll need to sit in with you on the next few calls to winners, just to be sure we get it right." Travis said. The sound of disappointment in his voice bit into Lacey, which made her feel both guilt and frustration. She felt as though she'd betrayed some trust between her and Travis, and that she now had to inconvenience him by making his come into the office on a Sunday.

But that woman upstairs, Lacey thought, she can't get off Scot-free. She can't dodge blame for ignoring the task Lacey had entrusted to her.

"I'll get Tim and Beth to cut Ms Ertsa a cheque and we'll put this behind us." Travis said, "Just a small hiccup." He finished with a smile, obviously trying to ease Lacey's feelings.

Lacey stood and said a brief apology before leaving Travis' office. She took a moment to steady herself as she closed the door behind her. She buried the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to bring the gamboling confusion back into line. After a few seconds, Lacey turned and moved with a determined stride.

Back towards the stairs.

Lacey fumed as she marched through the cubicles, heading back toward reception and to the stairs. It annoyed her incredibly that she trusted a colleague in the workplace, and that she was getting the blame for their inaction. She went over the scenario in her head as she walked, thinking of how this person could just get away with simply not doing what they promised. It seemed unprofessional to not help out a colleague, especially with a task so important.

Michael and Chelle both greeted Lacey as she arrived at reception. Lacey ignored them both, such was her fuming. She imagined the trail of steam billowing behind her, like an angry cartoon character. Lacey stepped onto the stairs and began her ascent to the world above the lower floor. She heard Michael and Chelle again voice their concern, but Lacey shuffled their noises to the back of her mind.

Her shoes clicked again on the solid beams as she walked up. She felt the same warm air greet her as she climbed, but that did little to lower the flame on her internal boiling. If anything, it served to increase her mood, as the more comfortable temperature reinforced to her that the woman upstairs had better treatment than those who toiled in the comparatively frozen wastes of Downstairs.

Lacey arrived at the landing and stared for a moment at the door, going over the anticipated conversation in her head. She approached the closed door with the intent of banging her fists against it, like she did previously to get a reply, but she immediately tempered herself. An internal monologue opened up to her, asking her whether she was really going to confront this person. Was she going to really sacrifice her professionalism at the altar of her slighted sense of propriety? Was it worth it?

Adjusting quickly, Lacey politely knocked on the door.

No answer.

Lacey quickly discarded her sane inner monologue and her sense of calm and insistently banged her fists on the door.

"Yes?" Came the voice of the speaker. The same woman's voice.

"Yeah, hi. I gave you a piece of paper this week with some winners details." Lacey began.

"We don't do that here." came the reply.

"Yeah, but here's the thing. You kinda did take the winner details and said you would follow it up for me." Lacey said.

"You are mistaken. We don't do that here." the speaker said.

Lacey slumped her shoulders, suppressing a guttural moan of exasperation, "You said you would follow up payment for a winner for me. I left that with you, and now the winner hasn't been paid because of a hold up."

"As I said, we don't do that here. It sounds like something that is _your_ job." the speaker replied matter-of-factly.

"But I trusted it with you." Lacey countered.

"Isn't it _your job_ to follow up payment with the winners? It sounds like that didn't happen. It sounds like you didn't do your job properly." came the voice.

"But you said..." Lacey went to repeat.

"Payment of winners is your job. Not ours. We can't be responsible for not doing something that is not our job." the speaker interrupted.

Lacey stood stunned. The voice coming from the speaker was calm and measured, almost as though they were tolerating a child. Lacey tried to offer a reply to reinforce that she wasn't at fault, but there was a logic coming from the speaker that Lacey couldn't refute. Regardless of the betrayal from this Upstairs-dweller, it was true that Lacey hadn't followed through and had simply fobbed the task off to someone else.

"Is that all?" came the voice from the speaker.

Lacey nodded to the speaker in the empty room, despite the speaker not being able to see her. Her shoulders fell completely in defeat. She turned around and departed from the door and the landing.

She slowly tread back down the stairs, feeling the air around her re-chill slightly. She offered Michael and Chelle a weak smile before retreating into the back of the office. She was completely numb from the exchange with the speaker next to the door, knowing full well that she had done the wrong thing, and she couldn't justify her actions to Travis, nor to herself. She had misjudged, and she chastised herself. She also understood why people in the office were so tentative about dealing with the "Upstairs".

On this occasion, they had left Lacey out to dry, sending her a clear and concise message. Lacey weaved her way through the various cubicles, not registering any of the colleagues nearby or any other sounds, only repeating the message she'd silently heard over and over in her mind.

Upstairs were in charge.

Chapter 5 – Calls #5 and #6

The door beeped and clicked as Lacey scanned her pass. The opening coughed slightly as Lacey shoved through, the still, warm air inside the office fighting futilely against the door swinging.

It was Sunday again.

Travis was going to meet Lacey today, so he could make sure the task of notifying winners was done properly and without issue. Lacey felt no need to wait for Travis outside in the cold, and elected to meet him in the room with the red phone.

The building was empty, save for Christian beavering away in the corner, just like on previous weekends. She gave him a cursory wave as she passed by, to which he replied with a nod.

Lacey paused for a moment, suddenly finding herself curious as to Christian's experience at the Lotteries. He had been with the company for some time, she understood, so she thought that he would perhaps share some anecdotes of his time. She returned to his cubicle, politely rapping on the partition with her knuckle, "Hi."

Christian turned to face her, "Morning." he said simply.

"Just a quick question," she started, "What's your experience been with 'Upstairs'?" She said the u-word with the typical semi-hushed tone she'd heard others use when mentioning the upper floor.

"Haven't had anything to do with them." Christian said

Lacey was surprised. In her couple weeks with the organisation, she hadn't seen any other computer support people in the office. She figured that if anyone had gone upstairs, it would be the people who ensured the computers were working.

"Don't they have computers up there?" Lacey asked.

"Pretty sure they do," Christian said, "But they don't ask me to fix them."

"But you're the support guy." Lacey said.

"I'm the support guy for this place, yes. Upstairs never ask me for help, so either they don't need help, or they get it from someone else." Christian suggested.

"Why would they do do that? It seems odd, and expensive, to get someone else in when they have a perfectly fine person on site." Lacey said. The compliment was inadvertent, but it was ignored by Christian anyway.

"They give us direction from up there. They set the rules. It's not my place to ask why or what or whom." Christian said.

"Yes, people say they give us leadership. I tried to get something done with their help this week..." Lacey said, but was cut off.

"They don't help." Christian said.

"But they're a part of the same company as us. Why wouldn't they help us do our business? We help them keep the company going. We are the ones delivering their business."

"We aren't the same as them." Christian said coldly.

"So, we're the ones who deal with the public and their expectations, while they just hand down the orders like some God?" Lacey asked, semi rhetorically, "Do you have any idea how demanding people can be?"

Christian looked at Lacey with a stare of sarcastic curiosity, and Lacey realised that she'd asked Christian this question before.

"Oh yes, right." Lacey conceded, suddenly growing aware of the time, "Well, I guess I should go see what demands people are going to make of me today." She gestured toward the room that housed the red phone.

There was a snap at the far end of the office as the security door opened, the metallic latch clapping the announcement of a new arrival. Lacey straightened immediately to peer over the various partitions in the cubicle field to see the cause of the noise. Travis sauntered in, his face half-buried in his scarf, and a gloved hand holding a cup of coffee.

"My handler's arrived" Lacey said to Christian with a smirk, to which he answered with a casual swing around in his chair to re-face his computer, resuming his tapping on the keyboard. Lacey could see Travis making his way to the room with the red phone, and she scurried to intercept him.

She caught up with Travis as he approached the room, and he greeted her with a broad smile and boisterous hello.

"You beat me here." He said.

Lacey smiled, "Gotta be keen." she said with half-enthusiasm.

"Been waiting long?"

"Nah. Just been chatting with Christian while I waited."

Travis looked concerned for a moment, "You haven't been taking tips from him on how to deal with people, right?"

It was true that Christian was gruff with people, but he always delivered results. Lacey figured that Christian was one of those people who were allowed some leniency in their attitude because their effectiveness compensated for their unpolished surface.

"Oh no, not at all. We were just exchanging stories of our week."

Travis' look of concerned faded away and was replaced with his broad smile, "Well, let's finish the week on a high, shall we?"

Lacey agreed and followed him to the room with the red phone. The spotlight in the room always seemed to be beaming down on that phone, as though no one had the temerity to turn it off. Lacey had a chuckle to herself at the thought that the phone was some kind of powerful object, that the room was its chapel, and that people were afraid to displease the phone, leaving its light on to delay its wrath. Lacey continued the thought, wondering if that could be why she was getting demanding winners; had she displeased the phone in some way?

Lacey shifted that thought into compartment of her brain that reserved all her other abstract thoughts and fanciful ideas.

Travis provided Lacey with the familiar sheet of paper with the winners details. Both winners hadn't provided their bank details for automatic transfer. Lacey sighed in defeat, knowing she needed to extract information from winners. Just as she reached for the red phone, a little light on top of the device lit up, flickering quickly before extinguishing. Travis snapped into life, suddenly grabbing Lacey's wrist and stopping her from touching the red phone, as though stopping her from touching a hot stove top.

Lacey yelped in surprised and pulled her hand away from Travis. She stared at him in confusion.

"What the hell?" Lacey asked.

"Just wait." Travis said, his eyes not leaving the flashing light on top of the phone.

The light flickered again and again, pulsing over and over. The phone remained silent while this occurred. Again and again, the light flickered.

"The phone is ringing," Travis said, turning to Lacey with a grave expression, "You never answer this phone. Only calls are made on this phone." His tone was resonated with a stern tenor. No smile existed on his face and his eyes had turned almost to stone with their lack of any emotion apart from seriousness.

"What? Why?" Lacey asked.

"The only people who ring this phone are previous winners. They found the number through caller ID on their mobile phones, and they're calling us back."

"And we shouldn't answer them, why?" Lacey queried.

"No good comes from it."

"Can't they just look up our number and ring Michael and Chelle?" Lacey asked

Travis nodded, "Oh yes, and they do ring the office number, but Michael and Chelle are brilliant at turning them away. They have it down as an art."

"So why not just let them field the queries?"

"They're busy enough. Besides, we found that when we gave the red phone its own dedicated line, the number of winners calling us back declined by sixty seven percent. We figure that leaving the dedicated line alone, isolated from the rest of the office, that we can save our own time in unnecessary work and headache." Travis explained.

Lacey seemed dubious, "How do you know every call on the red phone is a winner? Surely these are all customers who need help, right?"

Travis shook his head, "Oh no. Everyone who calls the number for the red phone thinks they're getting some special 'inside' line, and that they're bypassing some queue. They think they'll get some special treatment."

"Everyone?" Lacey asked.

"Everyone." Travis stated, "The only people who know this number are people who have received calls from it." He huffed sarcastically, "Thank you, Caller ID."

The light on top of the phone stopped flickering and lay dormant for some seconds. Travis told Lacey to wait a little longer, just in case the caller decided to give the number another call. After a few moments, Travis visibly relaxed and gestured for Lacey to pick up the handset.

"Remember, don't engage and tell them their only options." He instructed. His face had softened, and he offered a contrastingly warm smile.

Lacey dialed the number and awaited the answer.

A gruff voice answered the phone. It was an older voice but it seemed quite awake.

"Hello, Mr Young, It's Lacey from the Lotteries here," Lacey shot, "I'm just giving you a call to let you know you've won first prize in last night's draw. Congratulations!" Lacey forced a smile onto her face. She looked to Travis, who motioned for her to continue. The voice on the other side of the phone started to react to the news, but Lacey forged on.

"We don't have any details for transferring your prize to you, so if you could provide me with some details so that we could send a cheque or arrange transfer, we'll get that ball rolling."

"Wow." Said Mr Young.

Lacey continued on, the words falling out of her mouth, "Okay, Mr Young. I can tell you want to celebrate. We have your postal details on file, so we'll send you a cheque. Congratulations, Mr Young."

Lacey placed the receiver down with haste, the handset giving a satisfying and audible clunk. Travis raised his eyebrows in surprise. Lacey shrugged in a soft way that suggested she was asking, "What?"

"That was..." Travis started, "Efficient."

"I didn't engage." Lacey replied.

"Quite true." Travis conceded, "I guess that's better than before." he smiled, "Well, I guess you got a result without any further problems, so we'll chalk that up as a win."

Lacey smiled softly. She knew he was being supportive, but she knew that her experience in customer service meant getting the best result for the customer, no matter what. It annoyed her that the winners were so expectant and entitled, almost acting as though – because of their new money – they were more important than Lacey. Lacey was beneath them. The notion triggered Lacey's annoyance.

Travis spoke again, "Okay, you might have been nervous because I was in here too. Look, for the next one, you can call them on your own, but I'll be just outside. If you run into any problems, just wave me in."

Lacey absently rubbed her forehead with her fingers, "Can I get a coffee first? I'm getting a withdrawal headache."

"Of course. See you back here in ten." Travis offered.

The cafe thrummed lightly, gently wafting the scent of cooking bacon and roasting coffee under Lacey's nostrils as she entered from the cold outside. The cocktail of smells and warmth embraced Lacey in a familiar, almost parental hug. Her coffee addiction was clearly becoming a problem if it was becoming as welcoming as an embrace from a loved one. A few faces turned to her as she entered, but then turned back to their conversations, resuming the typical cafe murmur. Lacey grimaced to herself, noticing there were a number of people queued near the cash register, although there was a familiar sight at the tail of the queue.

Christian was there, patiently standing, awaiting his turn. Lacey had only ever seen him sat in his seat, hunched over the keyboard and furiously etching away at some code or computational instruction. She hadn't realised how tall he was. Now that Lacey could see him in full, she also noticed how disheveled he was, and how his clothes suggested a lack of fashion sense. Polo shirt. Jeans. Trainers. All untucked and well-worn.

It was also a well-worn cliché that the person who supports a company's computer system was gruff, unrefined and socially awkward. Many television shows and movies portrayed the vocation in this light, but now that she saw this living-breathing example "in the wild" she saw that sometimes the cliché did echo reality.

She stepped in behind Christian in the queue, "Need that morning kick?" she asked his back, referring to the smell of coffee.

Christian straightened, hearing Lacey's voice, half-turning to see who had addressed him, but he quickly swiveled back to reface the queue.

"Not awake fully yet?" Lacey asked, teasingly.

Christian turned around fully, giving Lacey a full gaze. His face flickered into life like an old television as he recognised the speaker, "Oh, hi. Sorry. I didn't think you were talking to me. Morning." His face seemed a little brighter, when compared to the atmosphere he eked when he was seated at his desk, but Lacey figured it was just his dark corner that made him appear more cold.

"Who would I have been talking to?" Lacey asked, still smiling.

"I didn't know it was you. No one typically talks to me here in the cafe. I just come in and fly out with my coffee." Christian replied.

The queue stepped forward once, and Lacey spied the barista at the counter flitting back and forth, fetching the various items that people wanted. The customer who had just been served with a coffee walked past Christian and Lacey, idly stating a quiet remark about how their order took "long enough."

The barista continued to scurry along the counter, placing saucers on the surface before returning to the next customer, whom they greeted with a nice smile. The customer stated their order flatly, and the barista brightly replied, taking payment and punching the machine before them with a finger. The machine erupted with grinding noises as it was poked.

"Seems like people really need coffee today." Lacey observed to Christian, noting that the customer who had just placed an order appearing deflated and annoyed.

"Or people just don't bother with niceties anymore." Christian stated, his face wearing a half-smile.

"That seems like a broad statement to make." Lacey said.

"If you did my job for as long as I have, you'd probably _see_ it occurring broadly." Christian replied.

"Is that why IT support people are always so surly?" Lacey asked, a teasing tone evident in her voice.

"Now who's making broad statements?" Christian asked with a smirk, "Let's just say that if I ever have children, I won't teach them manners, like 'please' or 'thank you'"

Lacey raised her eyebrows in surprise, "That's a bit much, don't you think? There's always room for manners and being polite."

"Oh, I still value politeness, don't get me wrong," Christian said, "I just think that, in the future, being respectful of others is going to be an impediment. I'll teach my kids to just demand. Demanding gets results. Politeness isn't as appreciated as it used to be."

The queue stepped forward again.

"Politeness and manners is what brings customers back to a business, though." Lacey said, "If they have a good experience, they'll tell others and that brings in more business."

Christian shrugged, "Perhaps. In my work, politeness doesn't matter."

"But you deal with people all the time." Lacey reasoned.

"My performance isn't measured by return customers, though. Politeness doesn't bring more business in. My job is measured by how many computers I fix, and how fast I fix them. I have found that when I spend the effort of being nice to people, it results me taking thirty-seven seconds longer to finish a task." Christian said.

The queue stepped forward again, taking Christian and Lacey to the counter.

"I should know. I've timed it." He said to Lacey before turning to the barista, "One flat-white, please."

The barista replied with the same bright smile that he'd offered the previous customers, taking Christian's payment and busying himself with the preparations.

Lacey smiled as she heard him use politeness, "So you say 'please' _now_?" Lacey asked, her tone taking him to task over his earlier assertion about not teaching his children manners.

"I'm not at work here." Christian replied simply, "Besides, it's not like my manners got me a better response from behind the counter. He would've given me the same reply as the other customers, regardless of my use of 'please'" He pointed to the barista who was silently working with Christian's order, oblivious to the fact that he was the subject of Lacey and Christian's conversation.

"Furthermore," Christian added, "I never said I don't believe in manners. Just that I won't teach them. They're going to be redundant in a generation."

To Lacey, Christian's attitude didn't add up. It sounded like he was thinking too far ahead, but without any consistency in his philosophies. He was gruff, but believed in politeness. Surly at work, but approachable outside.

He was odd.

As Christian received his drink, Lacey quietly stated her understanding of what he was telling her before she made her order, stating her request with flatness.

The barista brightly responded to her request.

The latch cracked open as the pair returned to the office with their coffees held tightly. Christian's mood seemed to darken as he crossed the border into the building, hunching his shoulders forward and huddling around his hot beverage as though it were a campfire. He nodded in departure as Lacey branched off from his path and traveled toward the room with the red phone, where Travis was patiently waiting.

"Okay, let's get this done so we can all go home." Travis said, his tone quite chipper, "You're on your own for this one, but I'll be just down the office a bit. If you lean back in your chair, you'll see me. So just signal me if you need any help."

Lacey expressed her appreciation, taking the paper with details of the winner from Travis, and entering the room. She glanced back over her shoulder to see the back of Travis as he walked away.

Lacey sipped her coffee again, letting the flavour swirl inside her mouth. She exhaled with a measure of brief delight, appreciating the warm embrace of taste and drug coursing through her innards. She rested her cup on the table near the phone and smoothed the paper, ready to call.

The pips from the phone were becoming quite familiar to her now, and the sense of dread that came from the ringing tone had lessened a fraction. She recalled the conversation in the cafe with Christian, and she lamented for a moment his words on what he was – or wasn't – going to teach his children. The phone cracked and a voice answered. A cheerful female voice greeted Lacey, quite bright for the morning on a Sunday.

"Hello, Ms Jaeger?" Lacey began.

"Yes?"

Lacey introduced herself, and was surprised to hear a squeal of delight before she managed to explain why she was calling.

"Are you serious?" Came the excited voice from Ms Jaeger.

"Ms Jaeger, you are a winner of last night's draw. Congratulations." Lacey said.

There were more squeals of delight and cries of incredulity. There were some voices in the background, asking as to the events. Once Ms Jaeger explained the situation to the other voices off-phone, Lacey could hear their woops of excited joy.

This was precisely the kind of experience Lacey had anticipated when she first learned that she was going to be informing winners of their lucky windfalls, but Lacey surprised herself with her indifference. She knew that no matter how pleasant this person was, she would change within a moment into the person who knew They Had Money.

"Ms Jaeger, before we can get your winnings to you, we will need to obtain some information, such as details on a bank account, or a postal address for a cheque." Lacey braced for the demands.

"Oh sure. I'll just get the bank details for you. I don't know them off-hand." Ms Jaeger said, her voice wavering from the excitement, "You can just transfer it to that account!"

Lacey felt her eye involuntarily twitch. Ms Jaeger seemed nice enough, but the way her tone seemed to shift irked Lacey. Lacey repeated Ms Jaeger's words to herself in her mind, "Just transfer it".

"...Just..."

It wasn't just as simple as " _Just_ transferring it", Lacey boiled internally. There was actual _work_ involved. Work done by _people_.

She leaned back in her chair to look to Travis. He stared back at her from across the office, curious as to Lacey's progress. He raised his eyebrows quizzically, to which Lacey replied with a forced smile and a thumbs-up.

Lacey turned back into the room, looking away from Travis. She leaned forward in her seat, cupping the red phone's receiver with her other hand. She recalled the instructions, nay demand, in her mind.

"Just transfer it."

Lacey frowned, hushing her voice, "Say 'please.'" she said.

"I'm sorry, what?" came Ms Jaeger's reply.

"Say 'please'" Lacey repeated with some firmness.

"I'm sorry, I don't follow." Ms Jaeger said, some confusion seeping into her voice.

"It's a simple request. I won't take your bank details until you say 'please'" Lacey said again, her voice deepening almost to a growl.

"I don't understand. I won, you said. Now you're saying you won't take my information?" Ms Jaeger asked, confused. She didn't seem angry, but uncertain as to how or why the tone of conversation had shifted.

Lacey leaned back in her chair again to shoot Travis another mock-hearty thumbs up before turning back to the phone.

"Say 'please'" Lacey said again.

"Um, please?" Ms Jaeger said.

Lacey flinched, concluding that the questioning inflection of her "please" indicated insincerity, but Lacey didn't push the matter further. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears, and her temples tingled. She had never stood up to a customer before, "Thank you, Ms Jaeger" Lacey said finally. Coldly.

Ms Jaeger relayed her bank details to Lacey, which she dutifully wrote down on the paper. She took another sip of her coffee while still on the phone to Ms Jaeger, wished her a good day and hung up the receiver. Her hands trembled as the adrenalin swirled through her, blended in with the coffee to make a cocktail of hyper-stimulation. She exhaled for a moment to steady herself.

She turned back to face Travis and gave him a two-thumbs-up. Travis returned with his own thumbs-up and broad smile.

Lacey leaned back in her seat to relax, her fingertips still tingling from the previous exchange. Her mind wandered over the conversation to evaluate, tripping over her own questions to herself on her behaviour. Was she too rude? Did Ms Jaeger deserve that?

Maybe and probably not, Lacey answered herself, feeling a brief pang of regret. She then cast her mind back over the last phone calls with previous winners of the draw, remembering the demands, the expectations and the sheer rudeness from some, where doing too much wasn't enough for them. None of them knew manners. None of them showed a scrap of appreciation for the luck they had been granted, forgetting that many others would kill for that one-in-a-million win.

Lacey remembered another previous chat with Christian, the one where he talked of "asshole moments". He was right, in that most of the people were probably perfectly nice individuals, but Lacey realised that she was catching them at a precise moment in time where they changed.

Money changes people, went the axiom.

And Lacey was that moment.

Lacey tightened her scarf around her neck as she left the office. The bitter wind of winter had receded, leaving only a fresh and crisp morning in its wake. Lacey shrugged her handbag over her shoulder before stuffing her gloved hands into her jacket pockets.

She had informed Travis of her successful phone call with the last winner, strategically omitting the part where she insisted Ms Jaeger use her manners. It seemed like an inconsequential detail that need not be raised or scrutinised. Lacey figured that she'd retrieved all the information needed, so everyone would be happy. Case closed.

She dreaded for a moment that Ms Jaeger would call another day to complain about Lacey's attitude, however Lacey felt some comfort in knowing that Ms Jaeger had a million dollars worth of distraction to deal with.

Lacey rounded the corner of the lottery building, and stepped onto the driveway from the car park beneath the structure. She heard the sound of an approaching vehicle from beneath the office, but she continued walking with only half-attention directed at the sound.

She quickly glanced to her side as she sensed that the vehicle wasn't slowing for her to cross. From the well-lit car park emerged a long, black vehicle, featuring an angular grille and bright blue-white driving lights. Lacey tried to make eye contact with the driver, to try and gauge his intention, but the windows were tinted very dark. Lacey slowed her pace, trying to determine whether she should continue crossing or wait.

The large, black car did no such hesitation, driving onward without pause, and its tyres groaning and squeaking over the clean concrete. Lacey stopped abruptly and retreated a step as the limousine drove through, meandering arrogantly onward as though Lacey didn't even exist. Even though she couldn't see a driver or a passenger, she shot an icy glare and an incredulous gesture to the car.

If the driver of the car had seen Lacey, there was no indication or acknowledgment. The car didn't change pace, neither speeding away nor slowing any. It seemed completely ignorant to Lacey's concerns, cruising away at the speed at which it had exited the car park.

Any good feeling that Lacey had held from her earlier success quickly evaporated as she stared at the departing tail lights of the black car. The style of the car was angular, with bright red LED lights wrapping around from the rear to its flanks in an L shape. Lacey recognised the badge as a Lexus. All the angles of the car's panels gave it an aggressive appearance, prominent and bold. Such was its brash design, Lacey thought it was the type of car a comic-book villain would drive on their weekends off.

The tail lights lit up as it approached the main street, accentuating the L-shaped brake lights. Pausing for the merest of moments, the black Lexus turned left and drove away with the same, consistent nonchalance.

They didn't even indicate to turn, Lacey thought to herself.

Lacey paused for a moment before deciding to resume her walk, becoming curious about the car park beneath the structure. She remembered seeing it before but she hadn't ever seen cars go in or out. Indulging her curiosity, she descended the ramp down into the car park. The ramp was a grey, polished concrete, and seemed wide enough for two vehicles. It was flanked by two walls, making it impossible to see into the car park from the vantage point of the ramp. Reaching the bottom of the ramp, Lacey's heard her footsteps repeated back to her as the sound echoed off the walls and pillars. She scanned around the park for a moment, noticing a number of cars parked – all black limousines of varying prestige brands. Each one was parked across two spaces, with the tyres straddling the white line between the pair of bays. The parks were well lit in a pale white fluorescent corona, and the black cars shimmered back the lights reflection with a showroom quality.

At the far end of the car park, Lacey could see a brighter pool of light and a pair of timber doors, each one with a small, round window. Further curious, she started toward the doors.

At the doors, Lacey noticed a button to the side, along with a scanner for a pass, similar to the other scanners dotted about the building. The button featured a solitary "up" arrow on it, which upon closer inspection, Lacey found to be intricately and ornately carved. It had an almost Gothic appearance, the shaft of the arrow grained like wood, and the arrow head textured like a worn weapon of war. It was a bizarre level of detail for something as rudimentary as what Lacey figured was the "call" button for an elevator into the building.

Lacey hadn't noticed any doors in the office for an elevator, though. Perhaps she just hadn't found them yet, she figured to herself.

She pressed the arrow button, which lit up the moment she touched it and extinguished the moment she released it. The button clicked with surety, and suggested high quality switch-work.

Lacey ran her security pass over the scanner, which beeped angrily at her a number of times – a signal of access being denied.

Lacey inspected the doors, straightening a little to peer in the window. It was dark, either from tinting or lack of inside light. Lacey could make out some wood paneling inside and two more buttons. One was labeled "P" and the other "2".

There was no "1" button.

Lacey retreated from the doors. She was curious as to why the car park had an elevator that seemed to only lead to "Upstairs", but she snorted derisively to herself.

Upstairs obviously didn't want any commoners from downstairs interacting with them, Lacey thought.

Now bored, but brimming with mild annoyance, Lacey quickly exited the car park and headed to the train station.

Chapter 6 – Security Issue

Lacey woke the following morning with a measure of dread permeating her being. She couldn't exactly pinpoint what was wrong, but she simply held a feeling of disquiet. She repeated the events of the previous day; she had called the winners and informed them of their good fortune. She had asked one to use their manners. She had written down the details required and handed the paper to Travis.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to Lacey in that regard. She had done her job, and everyone had seemed happy. She recalled the conversation she'd had with Christian in the cafe, but again found naught to be worried about. Her mind drifted back to the black Lexus and the car park, and she surprisingly found a distinct source of concern. The big black sedan had unnerved her.

After staring at the ceiling for some time, slowly drinking in it's early-morning blue hue, she slowly climbed from her bed and readied herself for the day, showering quietly and thinking about the exchange with the black limousine. She asked herself if she was concerned that she had upset one of the bosses, but she quickly dismissed that notion as she leaned back in the shower, letting the water run down the length of her hair. She heard the water slap on the tiles on the floor.

She hadn't done anything wrong.

She washed her hair, pushing her sense of unease to the back of her mind.

Well, she hadn't done anything _super_ wrong.

Lacey arrived at work earlier than usual. The reception desk wasn't occupied by either Michael or Chelle, and the back of the office was staffed only by Christian's ever-present body. It was like he never went home.

She gave him a greeting nod as she walked past, which he acknowledged with a brief nod of his own before huddling back over the monitor.

Lacey seated herself in her cubicle and powered on her computer while sipping at her routine morning hot coffee. The computer woke slowly, as if understanding the slow pace of Monday morning, and Lacey logged in to open up her email.

Her mailbox was unremarkable, save for two messages from "Management Circular". They were the only unread items in her inbox. The subject line of the first message was "Car Park Security Update", and the second was "Changes to end-of-year dinner".

Lacey opened the first message.

Dear colleagues

Please note that due to security concerns with the car park beneath the building, automatic gates will be installed over the next few days. Staff members who have an authorised car park space will have their security passes updated to allow them to enter the park via these gates.

You will notice workers near the entrance to the car park over the coming days as they install the new gates and card readers. It would be appreciated that staff keep clear of the area for their own safety.

Management

Lacey felt a chill run down her back. Security concerns? She was in the car park yesterday. She ran through the possible scenarios in her mind; what happened? Was anyone hurt? A security problem? Did she narrowly miss what happened? Had she been in danger by being down there?

She wondered further, trying to remember any details about what she saw in the car park. There had been no one else down there, save for the car that nearly ran her down. Lacey suddenly became concerned that the car had been stolen, and that she had narrowly missed meeting someone breaking into the building.

However, Lacey remembered that the car hadn't been in a hurry. There weren't any broken windows on the car. The behaviour of the car was remarkable only by how casually it seemed to drive away. Lacey felt the blood rush from her head, considering the notion that she had nearly come face-to-face with a criminal.

She minimised the email and opened the second message.

Dear colleagues

Unfortunately due to unforeseen changes, the venue for the end-of-year dinner has changed from The Foxhead Restaurant to Shunters. We understand that many might be disappointed with the change, but circumstances have not allowed us the opportunity to attend the former venue.

Lacey hadn't heard of any dinner, but she knew the two venues. The Foxhead was nice, but fairly average as a whole compared to other places that Lacey had been. _Shunters_ , however, was a step downward. Not a large step downward, but certainly cheaper. The incremental difference between the two establishments would be unnoticed to most people, but Lacey had dined out with friends often enough to appreciate the difference in quality and price.

Lacey minimised the second message and started about tidying her desk before the day started properly, hoping that some menial tasks would take her mind off the "security issue" that had occurred.

But at least you're safe and avoided any trouble, she thought to herself.

Lacey paced through the cubicles at a steady pace. Travis hadn't sounded too concerned when he phoned Lacey to ask her into his office, which didn't give Lacey any reason to think it was a pressing matter. He was probably just wanting to hand on more things for her to file.

As she weaved through the office, turning 90 degrees at each cubicle, she wondered why the layout of the cubicles wasn't more open and direct. It seemed unnecessary that she needed to deviate multiple times simply to get through to her manager's office. Everyone she passed on the gauntlet through to Travis seemed buried in their own pieces of paper they carried, not making eye contact with her.

She tapped on the open door to Travis' office. He looked up from his desk and gestured for her to enter. He was as neatly presented as she'd grown to know from him, although his demeanour was a little colder.

"Please, sit." He said, spacing the words out evenly, giving both utterances equal weight.

Lacey did as instructed.

Travis moved the computer's mouse around, and made a couple clicks with the button. He stated his actions out loud, as though the tasks needed to be handled with care, "Minimise and close" he said to no one in particular, before turning to Lacey.

"Hi there," He said, "Sorry about that."

Lacey smiled and shrugged without a word.

"Now, I received an email earlier about the car park." Travis said.

"I know. I got one too. There was a security issue?" Lacey asked.

Travis nodded.

"Is everyone okay?" Lacey queried, "I'll admit that the news of a security issue did spook me a little."

"Everyone is fine. No harm done." Travis said, "Although the email I'm talking about relates to footage we obtained from the car park."

Lacey breathed out, "Did they see who it was?" her heart started pumping in panic. Lacey had known the phrase "Knowledge Brings Fear", and she suddenly had an understanding of its meaning. She felt she was about to find out how close she came to this security issue.

Travis answered in the affirmative, "Yes, there is footage. Pretty clear."

Lacey shivered.

Travis leaned back in his seat, "Now, was there a reason for why you were in the car park yesterday?" His tone was curious, albeit somewhat accusatory.

They must have seen her on the video, Lacey thought. She grew more worried, thinking that she might have missed the perpetrator by mere moments, "I'm okay," she said, trying to pre-empt any more of Travis' concerns, "but I didn't see anything unusual down there."

Travis straightened up a little, "But there was no reason for you to be down there?" he asked.

Lacey shook her head, "As I walked past the car park, a big, black limo nearly run me over." she said.

Travis raised his eyebrows at the information. He turned back to his computer and clicked a few times, "What car?" he asked.

"It was a Lexus." Lacey said. She was familiar enough with cars to recognise badges.

Travis leaned back into his seat, "Well, I'm sure that was just an accident." he said.

Lacey frowned in confusion. She knew that the incident with the Lexus hadn't been that worrying, and that she'd embellished a little on what had actually transpired, but Travis' seeming eagerness to brush aside the event perturbed Lacey.

"Well, I just thought I'd let you know that going into that car park without permission or access isn't allowed." he said. He was firm, but still exuded his typical approachability.

Lacey nodded in reply, still a little confused, "Sorry, I didn't know."

Travis leaned in, resting his elbows on the desk and crossing his arms, "Well, no harm, no foul, I guess. They're putting up gates now to prevent unauthorised access in the future, but I was instructed to remind you about access and authorisations."

Lacey didn't drop her confused face, "I thought it was a public car park. There was nothing to suggest that I couldn't go in there." she reasoned.

"I think there's a sign there about private property." Travis replied, half to Lacey and half to himself as he tried to recall his memory and what he knew of the car park.

Lacey sighed, "So, how close was I to this? Was it a thief or something? How close did I come?"

Travis clicked on his screen a couple times, "Look, the important thing is that there was no harm done," he chuckled disarmingly, "I don't need to fill out any more forms."

Lacey shot him an even more confused look due to his evasiveness, "Was..." she started, thinking as she spoke, "Was _I_ the security issue?"

Travis looked her in the eyes, almost as if to apologise, "Well, you said you didn't know to not go in there. Now you know. I'm sure this'll blow over quickly, and Upstairs will have forgotten all about it by now."

Lacey reeled in her seat, overwhelmed by the various emotions running through her. Her head felt light with the realisation that she'd done something wrong and that she may have put her job on the line inadvertently. She felt shame for having let Travis down.

However, these feelings washed away to annoyance.

"I didn't know." Lacey repeated, her tone revealing her chagrin.

Travis smiled a warm smile, an obvious attempt to steady her, "It's okay. We all make little mistakes when we first start in our jobs."

"How was I to know?" Lacey asked.

"You didn't have any reason to go into the car park," Travis said with a measured calmness, "You don't walk into any place you have no business, right?"

Lacey felt herself bristle. While Travis' seriousness had melted away to show his typical friendly mask, Lacey could just sense his disappointment, his chastisement, his _patience_. Patience as though he were dealing with a child. Lacey bit back her pride for a moment, stifling a response to tell Travis she wasn't some amateur and to offer him a suggestion to where he should take his smile.

But no, she reasoned with herself, he's just doing his job. What he's suggesting is totally reasonable, and it's true that she had no business in the car park. She exhaled audibly, "Is that all?"

Travis beamed back at her with that smile, the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes deepening, "Sure. Keep up the good work, otherwise. I'm hearing some pleased reports from others down here!" He turned back to his monitor.

The compliment was clearly meant to put Lacey at ease, but she felt the sting of his condescension. She stood, returning a mustered smile, pivoted on her heels, and walked from the room.

Lacey weaved again through the various cubicles, tacking in the direction of her own desk. She passed Christian's cubicle, where he was sat, still intensely staring at the glowing monitor that showed the program from which he would receive his tasks. His queue.

Lacey could still feel herself fuming, but she didn't know many people in the office with whom she could vent. Christian was probably the closest she had to a friend in the workplace. She walked to the opening in his cubicle and tapped on the frame.

"Do you ever get the feeling they're mocking us?" Christian asked immediately.

Lacey was taken aback at the sudden question without any other greeting, "I uh..."

Christian turned to face her, his face sunken and ashen. She shot him a confused look, surprised at his statement, and further surprised how he seemingly knew it was her.

"You're the only person around here who knocks" He replied to her unspoken question. Lacey understood immediately from his tone; No one else in the office had manners.

"I never really thought about it." Lacey said in response to his earlier question, "Who's mocking us? Travis?" She asked.

Christian rested his forearms on the seat's armrests, "'Upstairs'" he said.

Lacey shook her head to the negative, "I don't know anything about Upstairs. All I know is that they supposedly give us our jobs," Lacey mentally recalled her episode with the unnamed lady upstairs, "and they don't take any ownership of what they're given."

Christian seemed unsurprised at Lacey's assertion, "You don't think they just consider us playthings? People who exist just to amuse them?"

Lacey answered him with a confused shrug.

"These two emails this morning," Christian began, "telling us that they're installing a new gate in the car park downstairs."

Lacey felt the blood drain from her face. She wanted to put that particular mess behind her. She didn't want to dwell on her mistake, and it felt bad enough that her only real acquaintance in the office was talking about it, "What about the emails?" she asked.

Christian continued his explanation, "And this second email, telling us that the dinner has moved to a cheaper place. Did they think we wouldn't put the two together? They decide to buy something frivolous like a gate, but in almost the same breath they subtract from the one thing many people here in the office actually look forward to. They really don't think much of us."

Lacey started to agree, but held back her opinion. What Christian was saying made some sense, although it did seem a bit paranoid, cynical, and given the nature of the subject – criticising the bosses – quite risky. Lacey had certainly seen some callousness from Upstairs, but she felt it was just arrogance you get from superiors sometimes. Even in her old job, there were those who considered themselves above others, despite them only being perhaps a single rung up the invisible totem pole, "I dunno" she said.

"Since you told me about what you do on that red phone, I've been wondering; why have that one phone for you to ring winners?" Christian asked, "I found out that the red phone is not on the office system. It has it's own dedicated line."

"Travis said it was to misdirect winners away from our office line." Lacey offered.

Christian looked dubious, "And why have that old-style phone as well? Don't you think they're mocking us by not even having a modern looking phone? Maybe they're mocking the winners? It's like they think we're not worthy of the nice, modern things they have. They're reminding us of our place, and that we get old things instead of new and modern ones. The winners don't deserve the niceties of even being called on a nice phone."

Lacey again started to agree with Christian but tempered her enthusiasm for his conspiracy theory by understanding that her mood was probably affected by her earlier conversation with Travis. She knew she shouldn't get caught up in crazy talk like this. Talk that was critical of the people in charge. Especially since she had done something to get the wrong attention of the people in charge, "I dunno. Maybe?" She said with a hint of dubiosity.

"And the work in the car park itself," Christian continued further, "they're fencing out us proles so that we don't trespass on their 'sacred grounds'," he 'air-quoted' the last couple words, "so we don't inconvenience them in any way at all. They're like those kinds of people who think they're owed the perfect day with no inconvenience at all. They cannot give any kind of concession at all, instead choosing to be a nuisance to everyone else because they just wanna do things their own way."

Lacey felt something tickle at the back of her mind as Christian spoke, a recognition that she had heard a similar rant somewhere before. She quickly scoured her memories for anything that suggested she'd heard a similar rant somewhere in the past. She had a quick revelation, "Is that some comedian's line you're ripping off?" she asked.

"Louis CK" Christian confirmed.

"So you're stealing someone else's joke?" She teased, hoping to lift the tone of the conversation. Christian seemed rather worked up and annoyed.

He stared back at her, deadpan, "I'm not a comedian performing here. It's not like I'm joke-stealing. I'm not using someone else's material for profit here." he countered.

Lacey considered his reply. He did have a point. He wasn't performing in a club and ripping off someone else. He was just a lowly office worker, trying to do the best he can in a job he seemed to tolerate. He was perturbed right now, and Lacey felt she should at least try to insert some levity into the conversation, worried that they were both depressing each other. She had approached Christian in the hope of obtaining some kind of catharsis, but the result was that she was now Christian's sounding board. She reflected on the stolen material Christian had just used.

"It still feels wrong." she said.

Christian seemed to relax, as though releasing steam from his aura. He visibly and slowly sank into his chair, "Yeah, we should probably get back to it. Thanks." he said, turning back to his screen and resuming his tapping on the myriad keys.

Lacey agreed and departed the cubicle, tapping a cheeky knock on the frame as she left. She headed toward her own corner, thankful that she had momentarily distracted herself from the earlier conversation with Travis.

The cold air blew in Lacey's face with an abruptness that was blunt and heavy. She instinctively lowered her head down into her scarf, like a tortoise housed within a mohair shell. The street was darker due to the heavy clouds hovering above the city, threatening to empty their contents onto the huddled masses below. Lacey knew the most direct route to the train station was past the car park entrance, but she hesitated to go that way. She felt like she was tempting fate to return to the scene of her "crime".

She steeled herself, however. She wasn't going to create another situation by going into the park, so she chastised herself on being over-cautious and possibly a little neurotic. She discarded her hesitation and strode toward the entrance to the car park, being mindful of any emerging traffic and menacing Lexuses.

The opening to the car park seemed darker than she had remembered, but she attributed the gloom to the dark clouds that menaced above. As she approached, she saw the gates that had been installed to keep the security issues away. She had expected a fairly crude gate, considering the haste at which these were installed, but Lacey noticed that the poles and the bars that made up the gate were as detailed and intricate as the elevator button she had seen inside.

The vertical poles had been shaped to look as though they were twisted, and each was crowned by an intricate fleur-de-lis that immediately looked pleasant in its style but upon closer inspection was threatening in its sharpness. Each petal gleamed in what little light was available, showing them as freshly polished – brass, Lacey guessed.

Each of the gates had a large hydraulic arm attached, both of which retreated into a box that drove them, which was also equally detailed in ornaments. It was almost as though no expense had been spared in ensuring that nothing looked tasteless. Lacey heard Christian's rant from before resonate in her mind, pontificating on how the people upstairs were mocking everyone, spending on themselves while simultaneously taking away from those who seemed to be doing the work.

Lacey felt her annoyance grow again, starting to accept Christian's rant as not merely the delusions of a cynic.

It seemed that not only had the people Upstairs taken things away from the workers downstairs, but they had also blamed Lacey for it. They had found a convenient excuse to spend money on themselves, while simultaneously being able to pin the blame on someone other than themselves.

Rich people, Lacey grimaced.

She walked away from the car park, her mind bitterly racing through the various other situations in here she had witnessed similar things: Politicians often gave themselves pay rises while simultaneously cutting budgets, large corporations often raised fees to their customers while also reporting large profits, laws passed that mandated that people send their wages to a bank account, which ensured that banks would never go out of business, yet small businesses struggled to keep lights on. Corporations could outsource their labour to cheaper countries, while regular people were forced to consume local, and more expensive produce.

Lacey growled audibly, her frustrations getting the best of her. She continued down the street like a juggernaut, directly heading to the train station. She pored over Christian's rant, feeling like she should do something, but ultimately knowing she could do nothing. She was a nobody. A gopher in a rich field.

Rich people.

Rich people were assholes.

Lacey walked past a payphone. She stopped for a moment to scrutinise the oddity in a world of technology. It was a shrine to the old days, scratched and beaten from years of neglect and vandalism. The hand-piece stood out to Lacey, styled in a fashion similar to her red phone.

That red phone. The gateway to creating assholes.

Lacey resumed her trek to the train station, feeling somewhat refreshed at a small revelation.
Chapter 7 – Call #7

The red phone seemed a little smaller on the table today.

Lacey looked over the sheet that revealed winner details. Just the one winner today. It meant that they had a large prize that didn't need to be shared with others.

Perfect.

Perfect for the test.

The sheet wavered a little in Lacey's fingers, her nervousness shimmering the paper. She mentally braced herself as she sat down and picked up the red phone. She punched the numbers into the dialing pad with a steady cadence, hearing pips in her ear over and over.

The phone rang.

It clicked and was answered by a dreary male voice, "Hello?"

"Hello Mr Kent!" Lacey said brightly as she introduced herself, and not wasting any time in launching into her business, "I am calling to let you know that you won the lottery in last night's draw!"

Lacey paused as Mr Kent reacted to the news with an astounded gasp and a joyful whoop. He called to the other residents in the house who also responded with their own declarations of happiness. Lacey rolled her eyes with impatience and made an idle gesture with her hand, circling it around her wrist in an effort to silently say, "Hurry it up"

"This is amazing!" Mr Kent said.

"I know right?!" Lacey answered with mock-exuberance, hoping to not sound too sarcastic, "You must be so overjoyed!" she added.

"Oh we are. There's so much we can do with this!" Mr Kent replied.

Perfect, Lacey thought to herself. Perfect lead in.

"And what do you plan on doing?" Lacey asked. She felt her blood pumping through her body as she prepared herself for the next step. She sincerely wished that Mr Kent would say something sensible, or at least somewhat altruistic, but her previous experience made her sure that his reply would only disappoint.

"Oh, I'm going downtown in my daggiest clothes and going into the Ferrari dealership!" Mr Kent said, "And I'm gonna test those guys on whether they judge me on my appearance! Then I'm gonna watch their face when I tell them that I'm paying cash!" Mr Kent laughed at the scenario he'd painted.

Lacey felt her temples heat. This was precisely the kind of attitude that Lacey had grown to resent. People who think they're better than others, just because they won the lottery – not just this lottery, but the lottery of life. People who were lucky enough to be born into luxury and wealth.

"Well, that idea's a bit a shit." Lacey said coldly, suddenly dimming any brightness in her voice.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, "I'm sorry?" came a bewildered voice from Mr Kent.

"That's a bit cliché, isn't it?" Lacey asked, "Those salespeople work hard for their commission."

"I, er... I can do what I want!" Mr Kent replied, still sounding unsure.

"Look, Mr Kent," Lacey said with a tone of authority, "I don't know what axe you have to grind with the lovely folks at 'Downtown Ferrari', but before I give you your winnings, I want to be sure that you're going to represent us in a manner that befits our winners. Our winners aren't just lucky, Mr Kent. They're 'deserving'" Lacey accentuated that last word, almost as a threat.

"I won this prize! Who are you to tell me whether I deserve it or not? This was my gamble, and it looks like it paid off!" Mr Kent said sternly. There were some concerned voices in the background of the phone. Lacey felt she should get to the point.

"Mr Kent, it is true that you are the winner of this week's lottery, but before I release the funds to you, I would like a thousand word essay on what your plans are with the money. I'd like to be sure that you aren't going to simply waste it away."

There was some angry swearing emitting from the phone's receiver, which Lacey pulled away from her ear instinctively, "You can't..." Mr Kent started.

"Mr Kent, I can and I am." Lacey said firmly. Her whole body trembled. Her head thumped. She so desperately wanted to drop the whole idea she had, knowing that she was putting her job on the line, but it was too late now. She was too far in already. She could feel her fingertips burning. Despite all her internal cries to sate the needs of the customer, she held firm in her voice, "I would like this essay before tomorrow morning, Mr Kent." Lacey stopped for a second before summoning up her bluff, "You would be amazed how many winners have their details lost." She said.

There was a pause on the phone. Lacey winced, waiting for him to yell some more at her, or demanding to speak with her manager. She knew this was a huge gamble, and this was a moment of truth, but she wanted to make this stand. Any stand that would show to her that she wasn't completely powerless against these wealthy assholes. Eventually the voice spoke again.

"What's your email address?"

Lacey woke the following morning with a sensation of oddness. It wasn't a feeling of dread, like what she had experienced the week before, but merely a sense of weirdness, as though the previous day hadn't existed. She even felt a little heartened by how well she had handled herself with the confrontation over the red phone. It was a dicey game that Lacey had played, but it had fallen in her favour.

What also put Lacey's mind at ease was that the company hadn't seen fit to give her an email address that identified her by name. She was in charge of generic "Admin at Lotteries" email, so that served as a good channel through which the winner could send his essay without him knowing her name.

She knew that he could ring the office and ask who gave him the phone call, but he seemed so willing to comply to her request that Lacey wasn't concerned about that possibility. She guessed that Mr Kent didn't really care, so long as he eventually got his riches.

Lacey busied herself with preparations for work. She even hummed a happy, aimless tune to herself.

This week was going to be different.

The remainder of the week for Lacey seemed unremarkable. She relayed all the winner's information to the Accounting pair, Beth and Tim, who processed everything she provided. Travis seemed genuinely happy with the work she was doing, even complimenting her on her promptness and thoroughness. Christian spoke occasionally with Lacey, offering none of his typical rants or opinions.

Even Mr Kent's essay arrived nice and early, prior to him receiving his payment. Her plan would have counted for nothing if he'd received his winnings before sending the essay. The essay itself was fairly basic twaddle, speaking earnestly of the charities he was going to help, despite the fact he couldn't spell the names of the charity properly. He clearly struggled with the goal of a thousand words because he repeated himself a few times and used dozens of annoying, redundant, unrequired, superfluous, repetitive descriptors and synonyms. Lacey used the word count tool on her word processor, and it replied that precisely 1000 words were in the document.

No more, no less, Lacey smirked to herself. When given the right motivation, it seemed that people were suddenly more agreeable.

Lacey walked past the room with the red phone a number of times during the week, peering in to see the device still on its table, still in the pool of light. She had avoided that room in the previous weeks due to the dread she felt emanating from that chamber, but now the phone seemed less intimidating and less menacing.

Lacey, for the first time since beginning the job, started to feel glad to have that task.

Lacey strode into the office on the Sunday, brimming with confidence. She happily retrieved the winners' details from the printer and walked happily past Christian's cubicle. He looked up from the screen for a moment.

"You're in a good mood." Christian said, his tone the usual unemotional offering.

"Actually, yeah. I am." Lacey smiled.

"Off to give some people the good news?"

"Yes. Well, it should be good news. Let's hope they behave." Lacey said, trying to sound cavalier, but she knew she gave off a somewhat cryptic air.

Christian raised a curious eyebrow, his gaze not leaving Lacey.

Lacey returned with a smile to try and deflect, but she had this bubbling urge inside to tell him. Out of all the people in the office, Christian would probably best understand her victory from the last weekend. Lacey had taken back some power from an over-demanding customer and used it to remind them of the virtue of being nice. Lacey hoped that the experience helped that winner, Mr Kent, treat his fellow person with respect. That the riches wouldn't change him for the worse. That he kept some humility.

As the pair stared at each other, Lacey grew aware of the increasing awkward pause. She sighed, figuring there was no harm in telling him.

"I told a winner last week to write me an essay to justify why he deserved his prize."

If Christian were surprised, delighted or condemning of Lacey, he didn't show it. He turned back to his computer and resumed his typing, "I hope you know what you're doing." he said.

"No harm done." Lacey said with a cheerful sing-song.

"They didn't simply demand their money?"

Lacey tried to remember the conversation from the phone call, but drew a blank on the question. She had been trying so hard to suppress her nervousness during the phone call, that she hadn't absorbed the conversation in full.

"Nope." Lacey said.

"And you thought it okay to ask this of them?" Christian asked, his eyes not moving away from his task.

Lacey shrugged, "Considering the attitude from winners that I've received, I reckon they can give a bit of time to consider what they're going to do with their wealth."

"Even though you don't really know this person?" Christian asked.

"I asked him what he was going to do, and it sounded like he was going to be a massive jerk." Lacey reasoned.

Christian kept typing, "Well, I guess 'no harm done'" he said, repeating Lacey's own words back to her.

Lacey knew where Christian's concern was coming from. She started to feel the twist in the stomach that denoted guilt. She remembered what Christian had said about "asshole moments" and how she didn't really know Mr Kent, and nor could she accurately summarise him from a simple exchange over a phone call. But, it felt right to Lacey. Winners had, invariably, been massive jerks.

Without any other word, she turned from Christian's cubicle and headed toward the room with the red phone, preparing for the phone call. Christian's flat reply to Lacey felt as though it didn't warrant any further discussion.

Approaching the room, Lacey felt that the phone still seemed smaller, although that pesky knot that Christian had tied made her a little uneasy.

She silently cursed him.

Just as Lacey seated herself and reached for the phone, the light on top of the device began to flicker.

_Never answer the red phone._ Travis' advice echoed in her ears. She stared at the light as it shimmered silently at her, a person on the other side just waiting for a voice. She reached tentatively for the handset, curious. She imagined a sign above the device which read "don't push this button" and she then realised the power of the forbidden. How could she not answer the phone when given such a strict instruction?

Her hand paused just before the receiver, and she waited. The light continued to beckon her. She promised herself just one more ring, wishing that the light would extinguish and she could discard the curiosity. But the light kept flickering.

She picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Um yeah hi," came a male voice, "My name is Scott Andrews. I won the lottery a few months ago."

"Yes?" Lacey asked.

"Well I've burned through the money." Scott Andrews explained.

"Yes?" Lacey asked again.

"I thought I'd give you a call to see if you could kinda free up some more for me. I was lucky enough before, so maybe you could mulligan me on this?"

Lacey drew breath in audibly, trying to suppress her shock. She was aghast. She didn't believe what she was hearing. She didn't think that anybody could be that deluded to think that they would just be given more money.

"Sir, that's not how..." Lacey began.

"Look, you guys have millions to win every week. Surely you could just break it up a little more and give me a share. No one would need to know." Scott Andrews reasoned, "I've won before." he said, as though that fact was actually important.

Lacey replied only with a stunned silence.

"Hello?" Scott Andrews pried, "Hello? I need the money. I know this is the lottery's secret line. I have your number saved. What if I made it worth your time?"

Lacey bristled at the suggestion. Was he trying to bribe her into doing something unethical, if not illegal? It was true that she could use extra money, but for all the things Lacey would do, sacrificing her entire career on something with legal dubiousness wasn't a thing she was willing to do.

Making wealthy assholes write essays on why they deserve money? Fine. She had rolled that dice already. Effectively stealing money for someone undeserving? That was a line to not be crossed. She wasn't a thief.

Lacey hung up the phone quickly and firmly. She stared at the red device with a look of untamed shock. Her look eventually drooped to a sense of dismay.

_We don't answer the red phone_ , Lacey recalled Travis' advice.

The knot of guilt that Lacey had felt after her chat with Christian started to unravel, as she confirmed to herself what she had realised before: Each winner was the same. Demanding. Selfish. Entitled. Each one of them, upon learning that they had gained wealth became more demanding. Lacey could almost hear their transformation occurring as she listened to them over the phone. This attitude suggested that these winners perceived themselves better than others because of their wealth, no matter that it was obtained through sheer chance.

Each week, Lacey budgeted most of her income to making sure that she could eat and have her heater on in her apartment. She would love to receive even a tenth of what these people were winning, but yet each one of them still wanted more.

Her thoughts turned to how she saw this attitude reflected by those she had seen Upstairs. The people she met and had dealt with hadn't seemed to be doing any work, and the only experience Lacey had with one of them ended with them accepting no responsibility. Even the car that had driven from the car park didn't even seem to care that Lacey existed.

A message resonated with Lacey. A message that toned with a deep resonance.

They are better than us. They don't care about anyone. Downstairs people only exist to keep them happy and serve their needs.

Lacey frowned a determined gaze. She lifted the red receiver on the phone and dialed a winner's number. A fellow answered the phone with a cheery voice, but Lacey pushed aside any kind of reservations she might have had for him. He sounded nice, but Lacey knew he was no different. He would also change when he found out he was rich.

"Hello. This is the Lottery." Lacey said, not bothering with any other niceties, "You have won the major prize." She said the sentence with a steady cadence and no emotion to her voice.

"Really?" came the excited reply, oblivious to Lacey's stone emotion.

"Yes. But before I can send through your winnings, I need you to do one thing for me." Lacey felt her temples warm again as her panic and excitement rose within her, albeit the desire to flee was less pronounced than the previous week. There was no thumping of the temples, only a tempered heightening of her pulse.

There were a few moments as the winner went through his emotions at discovering his newfound wealth.

Lacey tapped on the phone microphone impatiently, "Excuse me, I said I needed something from you." Lacey said.

"Oh yes, of course. What do you need?" the winner said, the smile evident in his voice.

"I need you to make a video of yourself," Lacey said "running at speed into a solid wall."

There was silence.

"Are you serious?" the winner asked.

"Deadly serious. If I don't see a video on YouTube in the next few days featuring you running head first into a wall, without hesitation or any attempt to cushion your crash, I will simply lose your details and you won't get your winnings." Lacey said. The panic had seeped away, leaving only a grim determination.

"Who is this?" the voice asked.

"You're not in a position to ask questions. All you need to know is that I'm the gatekeeper to your millions." Lacey spat.

"How can I tell you're actually from the Lottery?" he asked.

The question was stupid, but Lacey needed to keep up the charade, "How did I know that you won?" she asked rhetorically, "Check your ticket. Check the winning numbers. It's you. Make your YouTube account, and send me the details so I can review your 'performance'".

He replied oddly quickly. Lacey wondered whether he was panicking over his potential lost fortune, "Where do I send it?"

Lacey stopped. She felt that she should possibly keep this endeavour off the Lottery's official radar. She retrieved her smartphone from a pocket and quickly opened her social media, "One moment." she said.

She quickly went to Twitter and created a new account. She wondered how she could make her account sound legitimate, but not sound too official in its capacity.

"Do you have Twitter?" Lacey asked, to which the voice replied in the affirmative.

"Send the video link to @NotTheLotteryCaller" Lacey said.

Lacey felt her heart jump, both with excitement and with nervousness. She liked the Twitter handle; it showed a link to the Lottery, while still retaining some plausible deniability if trouble arose. The handle was reminiscent of those parody Twitter accounts that always seemed to garner some followers, like @NotThePresident or @NotWallStreet, so Lacey felt somewhat assured that she was covered. She knew that she was continuing the risk by playing with lottery winners in this way, but Lacey wasn't concerned. She was making a stand. She was teaching people respect. Teaching them humility.

She hung up the phone without another word. She picked up her smartphone and quickly searched for a generic photo to attach to the @NotTheLotteryCaller Twitter account. She considered taking a photo of the red phone, but wondered if she was pushing her luck. She debated herself, arguing that if she was looking for plausible deniability as to being the person behind the @NotTheLotteryCaller Twitter, then having a photo that was undeniably from the Lottery office would surely send off the alarm bells for Travis, and those Upstairs.

Instead, she opened the browser on her phone and searched for "red phone" on Google images. She scrolled through the results, finding a photo of an old fire emergency phone, red and old-fashioned. Pleased with herself for finding another dodge to trace the account back to her, she quickly loaded the photo into Twitter and closed the app.

Lacey tried to search within herself for any feeling other than satisfaction, or any feeling that she shouldn't be doing what she was. She found nothing.

These people needed a lesson.

She closed the door to the room and walked back past Christian's cubicle, tapping on the frame of the partition.

"They're all the same." she said.

Christian turned to look at her, his expression the same as always: deadpan apathy with only the slightest hint of curiosity.

"I answered the red phone." Lacey said grimly, as though announcing that she had done some grave sin, like opening a portal to Hades, "Travis said to never answer the red phone. Now I know why."

Christian replied to her with a raise of his eyebrows, asking for further elaboration.

"The winners call back, and they make more demands." Lacey said.

"So you learned the depths of customer expectancy." Christian said.

Lacey nodded, "I never knew just how low it can go."

"What did they want?"

"More money."

"You didn't promise them anything, did you?"

Lacey shook her head, "I hung up as quick as I could."

Christian turned back to his computer, "I guess that's why Travis said that no one answers the red phone." he said with finality.

Without answering him, and perturbed at Christian's know-it-all-ism, Lacey turned and headed toward the door, depositing the winner's details on the table near the Accountants.

She had been so rushed in her desire to teach the winner a lesson in humility that she didn't even get their bank details. They'll get a cheque, Lacey told herself, hurrying out the door.

Her face was greeted with the sharp sting of cold rain, traveling in sideways from a brusque wind. Being on the lower floor of the building had hidden the sound of rain on the roof, and Lacey was too lost in her own annoyance to have noticed the patter of weather on the windows. Lacey pulled her plaid scarf up from her shoulders, wrapping it around the lower portion of her face, like a kabuki theatre stagehand wearing Burberry.

She'll deal with any potential fallout about her little "lesson" tomorrow.

The following morning was just as cold, windy and icy as the previous day. Rain fell from the sky in a near-sideways descent, shooting pitifully against the glass window of the cafe that Lacey currently occupied. She stood in the queue, waiting patiently beneath the warm glow of the yellow hanging lights of the establishment.

The line stepped forward a single pace.

Lacey fetched her smartphone from her pocket to quickly check for any notifications. There was the odd message in her email, typically a company trying to tell her of the next great big sale they were having, or her bank telling her about finance deals. Her personal social media seemed benign, with only a few likes to things she shared before sleeping last night, and the odd follow notification for her twitter account.

There was also a number of new followers to the @NotTheLotteryCaller twitter account that Lacey had created the day before, but she dismissed a few of them as simply being members of the bot rabble that seeped from Twitter's pores. However there was notification for a follow and a mention to the @NotTheLotteryCaller twitter account.

The handle was a fairly generic name, and the account didn't have a picture, aside from the basic egg logo that every new account is assigned. The mention was brief with a link.

Hi @NotTheLotteryCaller Here is the video you asked for.

Lacey seemed genuinely surprised. She hadn't expected such a quick turnaround time for the video. In fact, over the previous day as the hours passed, Lacey convinced herself that the winner wouldn't even go through with such a ridiculous demand. Yet, here was a link awaiting her touch.

She pressed the link, which opened up the video app on her phone. The speakers immediately began to hiss with the sound of background noise captured with a bad microphone. She immediately reached into her pocket to fetch her headphones to silence the loud noise.

On the video was a man in a mask, wearing a neat polo shirt. His voice was muffled from the plastic over his face, but Lacey could make out his message as his eyes stared at her through the eye cut-outs.

"Hi Not The Lottery Caller. As you said, here is the video you needed." his accent was harsh and simple.

Lacey looked on in shock as he turned away from the camera and faced a brick wall behind him. He was under a street lamp at night, it appeared. Lacey could see him preparing himself for impact as he stared at the brick. He audibly blew out, moving the mask slightly as he puffed his cheeks before he broke into a run.

He continued the run at the wall, keeping the same pace until he hit the brick with a sickening thud. He bounced from the wall, the kinetic energy of a stoppable force hitting a less movable object making him stagger for a few steps before he steadied himself. He corrected his mask, which had gone askew from the impact, and held a palm to his temple.

He gradually and steadily walked back to the camera, the hissing background sound noise fading a little as he approached. He stared through the screen to Lacey through the eye-holes of his mask and spoke with a stern assertion, "I would like my winnings now."

Lacey covered her mouth with her hand as the video ended, both as a reaction of shock and also to stifle an incredulous laugh. Lacey found it so comical. It was so ridiculous. She looked around the room to see if anyone was staring at her as she worked on burying her mirth in her glove, but everyone was focussed on their own conversations or smartphones.

Lacey took a quick glimpse at the number of views the video had achieved. Only five. Lacey felt a measure of relief. She didn't need a video like that to "go viral", but she felt some assurance that YouTube was already clogged with literally years of footage of people willingly hurting themselves. One guy throwing himself against a wall is unremarkable in a sea of videos of people self-flagellating.

Thank you, Reality Television and those Jackass pioneers.

But Lacey's reassurance was tempered by her knowing that there was potential for her workplace to be tied to this. She hated to think of the consequences to the company if people were harming themselves because of advice they received from the Lotteries.

Lacey again reviewed the video as the queue moved forward once. She looked at the intense eyes of the man in the mask. He wanted his money. He would do anything to get it. But Lacey knew that he, among the many others, was just one in a conga line of entitled little jerks. The red phone always delivered entitled little jerks. As she remembered the man who telephoned the direct line to the red phone and had flat-out just asked for more money, she felt an undeniable urge to put those kinds of people back in their place. They each spoke with her as though she was nothing – that she was lesser than them.

She stepped forward once again, reaching the barista.

"One coffee, without milk." Lacey asked, "Make it strong."

Over the course of the week, Lacey regularly checked the video of the man who ran into the wall. Each time she checked the site, the viewer count had grown incrementally. There were hundreds of views, not a large number by YouTube relativity, but enough to warrant a few comments below the video, mostly people expressing their mirth. There were the odd comments that asked about what he had won, but thankfully, the man hadn't answered any questions in the comments, likely because he was distracted with the task of spending his money. Or perhaps receiving medical treatment for his head injury.

Lacey spoke with Travis a number of times over the course of the week, and he offered no indication that he was aware of the video. There were no emails from Upstairs, either.

As the week concluded, Lacey felt assured that the video had flown under the radar, and that she was in the clear. While she was relieved, she still felt this inner urge to action. She felt she needed to continue with what she had done. One winner wasn't enough. She wanted to keep all winners of the wealth from Lotteries grounded. Each winner was a potential power holder, and she knew that she had a chance to teach them humility, right at the cusp of them needing that lesson. She started to feel that this was her duty, not just for her own sanity but for all the people who would need to deal with these winners in the future. The car sales staff who needed to tolerate an insufferable jerk testing them. The waiter who bent over backwards to sate their egos in the hope of getting the scraps of a tip. The staff in any business that these people started.

Great wealth needed to be the result of hard work, Lacey reasoned. Simply being handed great wealth was a path to misery. In the past, Lacey had read articles that detailed the stories of other winners who felt that the money was the greatest curse heaped upon them, and that they weren't properly prepared.

And what was Lacey doing, if not preparing them?

Chapter 8 – The suit

The following number of weekends came and went easily enough. Lacey could feel the pattern establish: come in, chat briefly with Christian, who would opine on something seemingly random, go to the red phone and call the winners to tell them their task.

The difficulty that Lacey found was finding different things for the winners to do each week. She couldn't simply have people throwing themselves against walls every week. That was a one-off, Lacey felt, fueled by her anger at the time of the call. Besides, Hospitals may become curious as to the sudden increase in treatments for wall-sourced concussions.

But the winners needed to do something bold that would take them out of their comfort zone. Something that would bring them to earth. Something humbling.

"Bungee jump naked" Lacey instructed one.

"White river raft naked" Lacey told another.

Lacey really needed to get past nakedness as a means of humbling people. YouTube didn't allow nudity on their site, which meant that winners needed to upload their tasks to unconventional sites, but this had the added benefit of keeping the videos low-key. Less chance of something going "viral".

The part that troubled Lacey was that the @NotTheLotteryCaller twitter account seemed to be growing followers. Not just bots and randoms, but also winners and friends of the winners. Before two weeks, the account had a thousand followers, which wasn't remarkable for Twitter, but still greater than Lacey had anticipated. She didn't post any tweets from the account, and never replied to any mentions from winners. She knew that the more she engaged with people, the greater chance that the lid would come off the pot she was simmering.

Lacey was also growing concerned with the increased number of views for each of the videos that were being sent to her. Considering the amount of smut on the internet, she was surprised that people doing things naked would get any attention at all. Nakedness and the internet were nearly as synonymous as politics and assholery.

The mentions to the @NotTheLotteryCaller account started becoming less about what the winners were doing to earn their prize, but what people were suggesting Lacey should make them do. Some were more reasonable than others, and there was the odd anti-capitalist who suggested Lacey tell the winners to cast themselves off a bridge to rid the world of greed and gambling. More amusing was the self-righteous individual who insisted that all energies could be poured into making the world better and how altruistic they would be with such wealth. These people amused Lacey the most, because she knew that these people would be the quickest to change if Lacey ever had to call them for their winnings. They would quickly drop all pretense of benevolence and buy thousand-dollar trinkets.

But for each mention to the twitter, Lacey didn't reply. She couldn't.

She couldn't risk escalating this project of hers. She chastised herself over not anticipating this eventuation. At first she didn't want anything to "go viral", but the problem wasn't immediate wide exposure, but rather a gradual, growing audience, each person thirsty for the next bit of drama.

Perhaps Lacey shouldn't have mentioned the lottery at all in her Twitter handle.

Lacey also noted that the winners now seemed less concerned with their anonymity, happily recording themselves climbing into a raft or throwing themselves off a high tower wearing naught but an elastic cord. They weren't being humbled at all, Lacey realised to her dismay.

They loved it.

Then Lacey got a call from Travis on a Saturday night.

"No winners tonight." he said.

"So, what do we do?" Lacey asked.

"Nothing." Travis said, "No need to go into the office tomorrow. Don't need to call any winners. You might be busy next weekend, because it means the prize pool is bigger, and typically that means more entrants and more winners."

The call ended without any further drama, although Lacey started to consider what else she would need to tell people to do. She was fast running out of ideas, and the least litigious suggestions from Twitter were starting to dry up. She needed to think.

For the first time, she sent a tweet from the @NotTheLotteryCaller twitter.

"No winners this week. No videos to make."

Within seconds, the mentions started filling up. Lacey glanced over a few of them, reading peoples' disappointment over the lack of something new for them to consume and digest. Certainly, it wasn't just the winners who were loving this game she was playing, but also those voyeurs from the sidelines.

This wasn't really what she had hoped for.

Dejected, Lacey switched away from the @NotTheLotteryCaller account and checked her everyday personal one. There was nothing really interesting there, either. With a quiet huff, Lacey put her phone to sleep and busied herself with the rest of the day, thinking that perhaps during the week an idea would arise for the onslaught of winners the next weekend.

Lacey was typing up some documents for final formatting before sending them off. An icon of an unopened envelope appeared in the bottom corner of her screen, denoting a new email. She never received many emails directly to her, as her responsibility was to the generic "Admin" mailbox. Opening her email, she saw that it was a company-wide communication.

From Upstairs.

Dear colleagues

Today we are pleased to be announcing our new Customer Service Framework. This framework will be a great resource for staff who deal with our valued customers and our winners. These guidelines will help ensure that the interactions with our customers are best practise and ultimately end with satisfied people, which reflects the professionalism of the Lottery.

The release of the framework will be officially announced shortly.

Regards

Management

It was a largely innocuous email, full of corporate speak and good vibes. Lacey closed the message and was about to continue with the letter when Travis appeared at her cubicle. He looked concerned. Lacey smiled and greeted him, but he answered her quickly and without warmth.

"You've been requested Upstairs." he said.

Lacey felt a pulse of her heart thump heavily in her chest, like a timpani drum. The gravity of Travis' sentence was heavily implied with his expression, but Lacey knew that the summons was an unusual occurrence. Upstairs wasn't a place for regular people. No one went Upstairs, at least not for anything good.

"Oh?" Lacey said, masking her dread, "What for?"

Travis shrugged, "They didn't say. They _don't_ say." he emphasised that last sentence with the grim tenor Lacey imagined an executioner would use as he welcomed the condemned onto the gallows drop floor.

Lacey nodded solemnly, standing. She began a weary trudge through the office, feeling a number of eyes on her as she weaved through the cubicles. She saw Christian as she walked through, who only glanced up for a moment before returning to his work with nonchalance.

Travis trailed behind her a respectful distance before veering off into his office, leaving Lacey to step unto the breach herself. Lacey disregarded the looks of confusion from Michael and Chelle at reception as she walked to the stairs, ascending up the timber steps with a measured pace.

Again, Lacey felt the air change temperature as she ascended, and the lights seemed to lower and change to a more warm, yellowish tinge. The sound of the vents hushed, even though Lacey could still feel the breeze of the heater working, bravely staving off the chill from outside.

Lacey reached the top of the stairs, and was surprised to see someone waiting for her. It was the same woman with whom Lacey had given the winner details that first time. She was dressed in a sharp, pinstripe suit and her hair was tightly pulled back into a bun. Her square-framed glasses only accentuated the cold look she was giving Lacey, as though Lacey had climbed out of some burrow and had interrupted this noble's day.

"Please follow me." the lady said, using the word "please" with the empty sincerity of a recital rather than any genuine desire for politeness. Lacey complied with the hollow request, following her through the door and through the adjacent lobby. The lady kept a brisk pace as she led Lacey around the perimeter of the floor. There was nothing but corridors to see, excepting the odd door which would take them deeper into the storey. Meeting rooms were lined around the outside of the floor, each one with a broad window that surveyed the outside world. The meeting room tables were a dark timber, and lit in a similar warm light to that of the room with the red phone. Projectors hung from the ceiling and large television screens were on and displaying a pleasant nature photo. Each conference table had a vase of fresh flowers in its centre.

They continued through the corridors until the lady directed Lacey into one of the meeting rooms. There was nothing special about this particular meeting room – it appeared just like the others, except the screen for the projector must have been hidden behind the large wooden cabinet doors at the opposite end of the room. A large jug of water and a number of glasses were on the conference table, placed on a round, steel tray. The woman instructed Lacey sit in one of the chairs and wait before spiriting out of the room.

The chairs were heavily cushioned with high backs and dark leather. The seat Lacey took groaned with the sound of leather rippling over her business pants.

Lacey checked her smartphone to look at the time before turning to take in the surrounds. They were far more luxurious than anything she had seen in the cubicles downstairs. Downstairs was neat and comfortable, but it had nothing on this place. Lacey wasn't particularly surprised, though. In fact, she had half expected the pristine quality of the Upstairs décor.

She ran her hands over the timber of the table, marveling at how the wood was polished as smooth as glass, exhibiting a sheen that reflected the downlights above.

After a small wait, Lacey reached for the jug of water, hoping the drink would help her steady her nerves. As she began to pour her drink, a man in a suit appeared at the door. He was tall, standing with a confidence that gave an air of authority. His charcoal-grey suit was neatly pressed and free from imperfections, as though he had collected it from a tailor that morning. Brown pinstripes adorned the suit in a small, yet tasteful flourish. He carried a simple brown leather-bound folder.

"Hello, Lacey." he stated, a smile spreading across his face slowly. Lacey felt a chill run down her spine. His smile wasn't warm in a greeting, but rather one of twisted amusement. Lacey stood to shake his hand, but he walked to the chair opposite Lacey's and seated himself, opening the brown folder. A few simple pages were contained within the folder, which he spread out neatly and evenly across the table.

"You've been having some fun, Lacey" the suit said, not looking up from the pages.

Lacey sat down again, feeling the dread coming over her.

He picked up a page and inspected it as though scrutinising an artifact he'd unearthed, "You like social media, Lacey?" he asked.

"I use it every now and then." Lacey said, not wanting to offer too much rope.

His amused smile grew further, "I can see that." He slid a page across the table to Lacey. It was a print out of the tweets being sent to the @NotTheLotteryCaller Twitter account.

Lacey could feel her panic rising, "I don't understand." she began.

The suit nodded, "Sure you do, Lacey. This is clearly you behind this account."

Lacey shook her head in refusal, "This says 'Not The Lottery Caller'. I don't see how you could think this is me."

The suit chuckled softly, "Look, Lacey. This isn't some law thing where you think you can get away because of 'reasonable doubt', Lacey. We aren't silly, Lacey."

The way he repeated her name unnerved Lacey.

"This is you, Lacey. We know it's you." he said, tapping the page with his finger, "The only thing now is what we do with you." He continued.

Lacey went silent, awaiting the descent of the verbal blade.

"Well, you're aware of our customer service framework now, Lacey?" he asked.

"Yes, I saw the email." Lacey said, feeling numb.

"You can now consider yourself aware of our commitment to customer service, Lacey." he said, the smile still spread widely, "You may go now."

Lacey shot a confused look to him, "You mean I'm not fired?"

His smiling face remained unchanged, "Oh no, Lacey. Ticket sales are up quite a bit since you started your game."

Lacey was still confused, "But, the customer service framework..."

The suit dismissed the sentence quickly, "Yes, yes. That's our official line. We're not telling you to stop what you're doing. You do what you want to do, Lacey. But we now understand that you are officially aware of our customer service framework."

Lacey then understood. She was a benefit to the company, but the company would throw her under the bus once she got caught. It was the perfect out for them; get as much benefit from her actions and then take no responsibility for it when it went sour. She could feel the disdain growing inside of her as, yet again, it was the richer people who were benefiting without doing any of the work or taking any responsibility.

Despite this feeling, Lacey was still felt a small reason to be heartened.

They still wanted her in the job. They weren't going to fire her. She straightened in her seat, "I'll tell the media that you knew what I was doing." she started in a quiet threat.

The suit seemed unmoved, "As I said, Lacey. This isn't like some court case you're defending. There aren't any rules here, Lacey. You do what you want, Lacey, but know that you're aware of our policy. I can see the press release already:" he lifted his head slightly and stated in an official-sounding manner, "'The Lottery has a very strict customer service framework which has served us greatly in delivering the best for the people who use our service. If one of our staff was acting in bad faith and they will be dealt with internally'"

"And if I stop what I'm doing?" Lacey asked.

The suit shrugged. A cavalier gesture. He smile never left his face. He truly didn't care.

"And if I tell people following me on twitter that you're letting me do this?"

"We have our framework." he sighed, "Look, Lacey, you can do whatever you want. Either way, we don't care."

"But you benefit more from me continuing the game. You said yourself that your ticket sales are up." Lacey said, a smile starting to creep across her own face.

The suit didn't flinch. If anything, he appeared more amused by the situation, "What are you saying, Lacey?"

Lacey raced through various items in her head. She had some kind of leverage, but tried to think of how she could exercise it. She had a chance to really stick it to some rich sod.

"I want a car park downstairs."

The suit didn't change his face, "You want access to the car park?"

"I want my own car park."

The suit sat looking at Lacey, unflinching, unmoved, smiling like a crescent. It wasn't a mask of ridicule toward Lacey, but nor did it signify any respect. Lacey searched his face for any kind of indication of his attitude, but she could only find an overt confidence that implied that he wasn't in any way fazed. He might have been curious about why Lacey felt so bold as to ask for access to their inner sanctum beneath the building, but Lacey felt firm on the matter.

The suit slid the pages back from the table and neatly piled them inside the leather folder, "Alright, Lacey" he said, his tone easy and warm, "You can have your car park. Your necessary access to the gates will be arranged and we'll inform the people who need to know."

Lacey felt herself deflate with relief as the suit closed his folder.

"As you were, Lacey" he said with a smooth surety as he strode from the room. The lady who had guided Lacey to the meeting room reappeared almost magically at the threshold as the suit passed.

"Please follow me." She intoned with a professional breath before walking away. Lacey stood immediately and began to follow her back, retreading in her mind the exchange with the suit. She was certain that she was going to be fired for acting on behalf of the Lotteries or carrying a public image of the Lotteries without express permission. She cautiously and mentally gave herself a reassuring pat that she had gotten through the exchange unscathed, except the confidence that the suit held still unnerved her. It was unspoken that the suit knew that eventually, one day, her game will end.

As she departed Upstairs, walking back through reception and back into the office, she caught a glimpse of the room with the red phone. It's door was open.

Above the table was the light that cast its pool downward over the red phone. It was a hanging light, dangling from a chain and it's own power cord.

Lacey hadn't noticed the light hanging that low before.##

She turned her attention to her cubicle, thinking that it exuded a dullness. Staid. She didn't want to sit there at this moment, her thoughts unable to leave the exchange between her and the suit, and the sojourn Upstairs. The suit had unnerved her, even though she had claimed a win with the car park, but there was something about his confidence that shook Lacey. He was sure. He was unmoved by what Lacey had done and was doing. He even seemed slightly amused, as though he knew exactly what Lacey was trying to do with her game on Twitter, but he didn't care.

He held all the cards.

He had the power.

He could have simply relayed the message through Travis, and rebuked her that way, and it was at this moment that Lacey began to understand. He wanted to deal with her himself. She heard his voice inside her mind, repeating her name again and again, his warm, charming voice contrasting with the sense of unease she had felt in his presence.

She turned from her cubicle and sought out Christian's abode in the labyrinth of an office. She was unsurprised to see him in his usual position near his computer. She tapped on the partition, completely aware that he'd know it was her immediately. Without waiting for him to turn to face her, she spoke.

"I need a drink."

He looked up from his computer, still facing away from her, "I'm going to a bar tonight. You're welcome to come along." he said to the wall behind the computer before returning to work.

"Done." Lacey replied.

Chapter 9 – Routine

The pair walked into the comedy club, descending down the stairs into the basement of an old residence. Lacey found it amusing that comedy places were almost always in a cellar, buried beneath the world as though the art of making people laugh was something to be shunned. The rooms were always sparse in décor as well, featuring uncomfortable-looking chairs and small tables covered with dim light from open bulbs glowing in the ceiling. The only flourish was the stage, which was flanked by two large, heavy curtains with a backdrop of a simple painted black wall.

Lacey went to find a seat toward the back of the room as Christian walked to the bar and chatted briefly with the barman before returning with a couple glasses of wine. Lacey accepted the drink and took a long pull on the alcohol inside. Red wine was perfect for a cold day such as this, an opinion she had shared with Christian on the walk to the club from the office.

As Christian had crossed the line between the office and the world beyond, he seemed to ease and relax, like whatever weight had been pressing on his head was removed. He was far from cheery, however. He would make light-hearted observations, pointing to things in the world that amused him. Lacey had chimed in with her own amusing anecdotes, to which he replied with a soft chuckle – a noise that seemed alien when it was emitted by his cynical throat. Lacey had figured Christian to be the typical gruff, ever-suffering IT Support guy, nihilistic in outlook, and ultimately dead inside. However, Outside-Office-Christian seemed far more approachable.

"You're different." Lacey observed, feeling the warmth from the red wine wander through her.

Christian sipped from his own glass, raising his eyebrows, and making an inquisitive noise that reverberated within the glass chamber from which he drank.

"You're not as cold here."

"It's a comedy club." Christian replied.

"But you're so distant and cold at work." Lacey said.

"All part of the service." he said, momentarily wearing his typical deadpan face mask before easing it back to a relaxed state.

"But the service isn't warm or friendly, like how I was taught I should be. You just deliver what's asked and carry on. I was always taught to go the extra mile to satisfy customers."

"The more you bend over backwards, the more you open yourself for a kick in the nuts." Christian quipped before correcting, "Or whatever." he gestured to Lacey's figure, insinuating that she should replace the word "nuts" with whatever she felt apt.

"But don't you take some pride in what you're doing?"

"I used to." Christian said, "But then I learned that there was no point."

"That's a bit defeating." Lacey chided.

"Not really. When you see that extra effort simply raises the bar of expectation, you realise that you're creating more work for yourself with no actual reward." Christian said.

"If you do a good job, that gets recognised, though. You can get promoted." Lacey offered.

Christian was sipping his wine as Lacey spoke those words, and he exhaled through his nose in amusement, making the glass chuff like a failed steam engine, "I'm not playing that game. Travis has been playing that game for years in the hope of getting to go Upstairs. It ain't gonna be happening for him. They keep stringing him along, and he doesn't learn. He'll never go Upstairs."

"You don't know that for sure." Lacey countered.

"How long do you think he's been with the Lottery?" Christian asked.

Lacey shrugged. She didn't know. It never occurred to her to ask.

"Nineteen years." Christian said.

Lacey looked surprised, "He doesn't look that old."

"Blessed with genes, I guess." Christian sipped on his wine.

"And he's been in that job the whole time?"

"Oh no, he started in a job like yours."

"So, he _has_ been promoted." Lacey replied decisively, as though she had a _gotcha_ moment.

"Yeah, but it's only incremental. Upstairs toss him a bone every now and then to keep him happy, but he's always gonna stay where Upstairs want him." Christian said.

"Downstairs." Lacey concluded.

Christian put his glass on the table, "Those in charge will make sure they're always in charge. They're not gonna let outsiders in to ruin their insular little party."

"But they need new blood, don't they?"

"Nepotism" Christian replied matter-of-factly, "Or cronyism." he shrugged, "Pick an 'ism'."

"Sexism?" Lacey asked.

Christian shrugged, "I don't know. I haven't seen anyone from upstairs the whole time I've worked there. Couldn't tell you with any accuracy. Either way, the message is clear: you're not in their party, so you're not invited. Travis still hasn't learned that yet, and you're better off learning now."

"They gave me a car park." Lacey said.

Christian's face changed from it's monochrome apathy to a look of genuine surprise, "What? How'd you manage...?"

"I had something they wanted, so I asked for more."

Christian seemed dubious, "A person in an entry-level job got something in the first few months of starting, something that Travis has never been able to get?"

Lacey replied with an offhand shrug, "Maybe he's not playing the right game." She tried to not sound smug.

"'Game.'" Christian recited, resuming his drink of wine, a vague look coming over his eyes. He seemed away in contemplation for a moment before he finally cracked a smile, "Well, I guess we have our different ways of progressing in life."

Lacey felt as though she were being accused of something, but she dismissed it. She knew the risks of the game she was playing. If Christian was making assumptions about her character based upon what little he knew, then she didn't care for his thoughts.

They continued their conversation, veering the topics from work, to media, to lottery winners and what people did with their money. The room started to fill with people, and the walls started to reverberate with the murmur of many other conversations.

"I'm certain that, after a while, having that kind of money becomes just 'everyday'. Like, things just become ordinary." Christian said.

"How so?" Lacey asked.

"Well, there's no need to put off anything for later. There's no anticipation for something. If you want something, you just go get it. You're free from the tyranny of time, to a degree. There's that saying, 'do a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life'? Not many people are actually in that kind of position. I mean, I didn't start out my career wanting to be the IT Support guy. It's just something I wandered into, and now I need to work there – not because I want to, but because I have to." Christian said.

Lacey smiled, "So what's your plan then?"

The lights in the room dimmed, and the MC walked out on stage. She was a diminutive figure, a little shorter than Lacey, dressed casually and comfortably. She spoke with an easiness and confidence that suggested years of experience with warming crowds. She welcomed the guests to the Open Mic night and made a few jokes about current events. The crowd laughed along with her as she regaled her experience of the past week, referencing events in politics – always a good target – and making some observational quips.

"Alright, now for our first act." The MC smiled, before meandering on a couple more quips about Open Mic night and how welcoming they are. Eventually she built up her voice before announcing the name of the first performer.

"Christian Jameson!"

She announced Christian's name firmly and excitedly, clapping along to encourage others to follow.

That was rather fortuitous timing in the conversation, Lacey thought to herself. She felt she should have known this was why Christian brought her along to this place. It was so obvious in hindsight.

"Thanks for the courage-drink." he said as he stood up from his table and walked toward the stage.

He seemed a little shorter, Lacey thought. How odd.

As Christian stepped onto the stage, under the lights, Lacey saw him change in a way that was subtle. To any other person who didn't know Christian, it would have been imperceptible, but to Lacey the difference was night and day. His face had gone sullen and his stance had gotten a little more hunched. He took the microphone gingerly and greeted the audience. His voice was down, different to the person she had been chatting with.

The crowd greeted him back, still warmed from the MC.

"I had to cross many roads to get here." Christian started, "Not that that's anything special. My parents do allow me to cross the road now. Have for a few months now."

The audience chuckled softly.

"But I noticed that whenever there's no cars coming, heaps of people cross on that red man sign. But it's not like they're all flouting the law immediately, no. They all just stand there awkwardly before one person, some _rebel_ , decides to cross."

The crowd again chuckled softly.

"As that rebel crosses, far ahead of the pack, one-by-one the rest of us begin to follow, all breaking the law by disobeying that little red man. All becoming rebels, one after the other.

"It gets to the point where I'm left on the side of the road, all alone, waiting for the little red man to turn green. I think to myself, 'At least I didn't cave to peer pressure." He paused for effect, "Who's the rebel _now?"_ he punchlined.

The audience softly laughed, although a cough was audible.

"There has to be a point," Christian continued, "where the rebel becomes the norm." His face stayed dark, "I mean, sure that first guy's a rebel, but what about the rest of them? Are they rebels? No. _I'm the rebel_. I didn't follow them."

The audience murmured with a little nervous laughter.

Christian persevered, "We as people don't obey little laws like that; little laws that are meant to prevent utter chaos. As a result, I'm not going to teach my kids manners."

Lacey felt the crowd smiling, although no laughter was audible.

"It's not that I don't believe in manners, I do." Christian said, "It's just that I think manners are going to be an impediment to my kids in future."

Some soft laughs were heard. Lacey's mind flickered in recognition.

"I mean, we don't just go into a shop and buy stuff anymore. We demand that our every whim is met. And we're buying, like, miniscule shit but we seem to think that we're owed stuff. We are customers. We are King! We pop into a shop to buy a cable, and we ask the poor sales guy, 'Is that the best price you can do?' I mean, get over yourself! Buy your shit and get out! You're not blessing the shop with your money, so stop pretending that you're the Cash Pope and expecting that staff have to kiss your ring!"

Lacey thought that she had heard this routine before. She darted her conscious into the back of her head to retrieve the memory of where she'd heard this before. She rummaged through her wine-addled mind until she realised that she'd heard this before from Christian himself, in the cafe.

He had been testing his material on her.

She had always thought that his rants were a little vent of frustration, being released in a focussed manner to her, rather than something he was planning on delivering to a broader audience. He was harnessing his annoyance in the Lotteries office and was directing it into something else. It seemed to be a shame that the audience wasn't receiving it particularly well. There was the odd polite chuckle as Christian continued his routine, but Lacey felt a coldness in the room.

"We're paying customers!" Someone called from the dark ink in the room, "Is this the best you can do?" they said, mimicking Christian's line from before.

Christian paused for a moment, his face cracking a slight smile, "This is like every job we do." he said confidently, "Everyone always seems to think they can do better than the person actually doing the job."

"I reckon I could!" came the heckle.

"Thanks for proving my point!" Christian remarked, returning his expression back to his Grumpy Dude face, "Every job, everywhere, I am convinced, is simply being paid to do a task that everyone else thinks they can do better."

The audience softly chuckled again. There was no further heckles.

"Look at any job out there, and there is always someone who thinks they know better. Politicians know less than the person on the street. Taxi drivers always take the wrong way. There's a whole industry that is dedicated to 'knowing better', like magazines." He spat out that last word, " _That_ media is truly amazing. Like, car companies pay six figures to engineers who have studied for years to know how something as complex as a car works, but the media employs a bunch of people who can string words together to tell them what the engineers did wrong! It's amazing." He chuckled to himself before opening into a dialogue meant to be in third person, "'Hi there, consumer. I like things a lot so therefore the words I write on this website are more knowledgeable than someone who spent a large fraction of their life in college, dedicated to making the things I like!'"

The crowd again chuckled softly and politely.

Christian stared out at the crowd, pausing for a moment. He smirked wryly to himself before stating, "Well, if you like what I did, feel free to write a review! Everyone will take your word for it! You keep that media machine going! Thank you."

Christian redocked the microphone into the stand and walked off the stage. The audience politely clapped as he exited and the MC climbed back to the stage, and boisterously launched into a couple follow-up jokes. The crowd's mirth returned and warmth grew again within the crowd.

Lacey could see Christian working his way through the darkness in the audience, back to where Lacey was seated. Lacey picked up his half-full glass of wine and offered it to him, "I didn't know you performed!" She said to him with a smile.

He shook his head, "First time."

Lacey raised her eyebrows in surprise, "Oh wow. That took some bravery. Well done!"

He sipped his wine and lowered his shoulders, "That sucked." he breathed.

"The crowd was tough, I think." Lacey offered.

The crowd burst into applause as the MC introduced the following act, a woman in bright clothes, big hair and thick glasses. The new comedian immediately dropped a few crass jokes, igniting the laughter in the crowd.

Christian sipped his wine again, this time a little longer, "Thanks, but I think that was a bomb."

Lacey shrugged, trying to be indifferent. She knew it hadn't gone well for him, but didn't want to rub any further salt into the wound. She went through various other explanations in her mind to help him but simply said, "The Grumpy Dude schtick might not appeal to these people." She pointed to the stage as the next comedian bounced around, still making crass jokes.

"It's just something I gotta practice at," He said, "You can't just 'know' how to work a room."

Lacey wasn't sure if she agreed with that, but took a drink from her glass to submerge her objection. She had known people who seemed to be natural entertainers, extroverts who just fed from the energy in a room and could command others on a whim. She wasn't sure whether Christian had the gravitas or chutzpah to do that.

"So, why do this?" She asked him.

"Gotta have something to do if I get given the ass." Christian said.

Lacey looked at him quizzically.

"I can't rely on this job forever," he explained, "And I have little other qualifications to fall back upon. I might as well try to embark on something I think would be good for me."

"But you can use your IT skills in other jobs, surely?"

Christian regarded her with an amused look, "Yeah maybe, but you know how I am at work. Do my eyes suggest that I'm someone who still possesses a soul?"

Lacey sipped again from her wine in reply.

"I figure that if I can find something that works for me, something that I can walk away from at the end of the day feeling proud of, then I might stand a chance of regrowing at least a portion of my soul back."

"You're betting pretty hard on comedy?" Lacey asked.

"I am," he said, "I want my time back. Out of all the people you speak with on their lottery wins, what do you think they want or need?"

"They want riches." Lacey said.

"But why? What are they truly after?"

"They want freedom from their stresses."

"That's what they want, but what do they _need_?" Christian stressed.

Lacey thought for a moment, searching Christian's face for any indication of what he was alluding to, but she only found the gloom and fog of a dark room and the symptom of wine drinking.

"They want time." Christian said, leaning in, "If these people were doing what they wanted, whenever they wanted, and could be free of their financial burdens, then the money gives them their time. They want riches, but I think they just need their time back. At the moment, they're trading time for money to support themselves."

"Time is money." Lacey recited philosophically.

"So, I try things in the hope they'll eventually pay for what I need. I don't need to be rich. I just need freedom."

"But you won't be free if you end up a successful comedian." Lacey countered, "You lose your anonymity, which is what celebrities most cherish."

"I don't need fame." Christian said.

"So you want to be a successful comedian, but without the fame?" Lacey said, half joking, "Talk about having your cake."

Christian shrugged, "I'm sure it can be done."

Lacey drew upon her glass of wine again. She thought he was certainly naive for someone who, at every interaction, had exuded an abyss of nihilism. His aims were lofty, but she felt that he was trying to not get too far ahead of himself. Perhaps, she thought, he was trying to remain grounded just in case his desired career did take off.

He'd have to work on his material, though.

"Well, you've got guts," Lacey said, "to get up on stage like that and stand to face judgment head on takes courage."

Christian pointed to his wine glass and drank from it as a means to reply.

"Even still, it's not something I'd do." Lacey said.

"You don't know what you're capable of until you try it." Christian said.

She sat back and listened for a moment, turning her attention back to the laughing crowd and the bright woman on stage who strode around with the confidence of a fully feathered peacock. The laughter reverberated within the downstairs room, and the warmth from the people gave the theatre a slight haze. The comedian on stage reveled in the atmosphere, animated, lively and smiling.

Lacey smiled to herself before remarking, "That sounds like a message you'd read on the side of a coffee mug."

Chapter 10 – Suits

The week drifted past without event, with Lacey's car park access being finally granted on the Friday afternoon. She had hoped to take her car into the office for one day that week, but settled for driving in on Sunday when she needed to contact the lottery winners. It would be easier to negotiate with less traffic around anyway, she reasoned, and that she could learn the car park more easily. She didn't need to get confused in the car park, which could potentially lead to accidentally scratching someone's new Lexus.

Sunday arrived and as she drove up to the gate of the car park, feeling that the tall spires with their fleur-de-lis were taller than she remembered. She figured that her lower position in her car gave that illusion. The spires spiked upward elegantly, although Lacey would not envy anyone who attempted to climb over the shapely prongs on the top. They didn't look welcoming at all.

Lacey scanned her pass at the nearby reader, which chirped in confirmation. The gates glided open with smooth elegance, and nary a sound. Driving her car through, the gates slid closed with the same ease and grace in which they had opened. The car park was quite empty, save for a couple black cars near the elevator; two European brands, and they were parked straddling the line between two bays, effectively occupying two spots. They gleamed under the white lights that dotted the ceiling around the lower floor.

Lacey scanned around for a car park that had no sign, and was pleased to find one in the centre of the floor. Lacey had anticipated that she would be funneled off to some dark corner where the commoners wouldn't be seen by Upstairs occupiers. That she had found a park close to the elevator relieved Lacey.

Locking her car, she strode toward the elevator at the rear of the floor. Lacey thought for a moment that the doors looked more welcoming, but dismissed that notion as simple placebo satisfaction at having obtained a car park in the first place. She heard a distant rumble of thunder outside. Then there was a chirp at the front of the basement. She turned to see the black Lexus wander into the car park, through the elegant opening gates. She turned to smugly smile at the approaching car before turning to the elevator. The Lexus parked closer to the elevator – across two bays – the driver's door opening with a click that hinted at the car's expensiveness. Lacey was unsurprised to see the man in the suit with whom she had negotiated her car park access. She greeted him with her continuing smug smile and a wave.

He smiled back, a soft curling upward of the edge of his mouth. He pushed his car door, the sound of the closure again suggesting a quality build.

Lacey scanned her pass at the elevator to call it down. The scanner buzzed at her in refusal. Confused, she scanned the pass again. Again the scanner blurted out its disobedience.

The suit approached, covered mostly in a long three-quarter coat and carrying a bag casually over his shoulder. He didn't say a word to Lacey, instead smiling softly at her in a manner that was unnerving. She scanned her pass a third time, and for a third time the scanner abruptly refused to comply.

"It's not working." Lacey said to the suit.

"Yes, it is." he replied. His words were evenly stated, neither mocking nor sympathetic.

"So I can get into the car park, but not into the elevator to take me into the office?"

"You weren't promised elevator access." the suit said.

"Who gives people car park access, but not access into the building?" Lacey asked, her voice growing incredulous.

"Well, _We_ do, clearly." the suit said. It was a matter-of-fact statement that again didn't give any indication to Lacey of the suit's intent. Even though Lacey knew she was being wronged, his confidence shamed her a little. He was right, though. She hadn't been promised anything other than a car park. She had assumed she could get into the building via the car park. She sighed in resignation, "Well, I can follow you in, I guess."

"No, Lacey. There's a reason we have permissions to our access." the suit said.

"Oh come on," Lacey said, "It's about to rain outside."

The suit shrugged with the bag still on his shoulder, the bottom portion of his coat billowing out a little to reveal the tailored outfit beneath, before settling back against his legs.

"So, I need to go outside, around the building and through the front door?" Lacey asked.

The suit nodded, his face unchanged from that impartial, unflinching smile.

Lacey growled lowly in frustration and began to walk away. The suit turned to watch her as she strode toward the front of the car park, toward the large gates and their tall spikes. She turned back to glance over her shoulder, to only see the suit still standing there, under the light with his bag slung over his shoulder. He did nothing, although Lacey could still imagine that haunting smile wafting across the car park. She turned back to face her exit, a cold wind flicking her in her face as she refocussed on her path.

He was amused. Lacey was a plaything, and he was amused.

She looked around the gate to find a path through which she could exit, but she could only find blockages. She scanned her access pass that would have opened the gates for her car, and waited for the gates to open. They seemed achingly slow when she wasn't in a car.

Emerging from the car park, Lacey felt a light drizzle on the small portions of skin she had exposed. She began her walk around to the front of the building, feeling her annoyance building inside her. She felt so stupid, thinking that she could get the upper hand with the suit. That denizen of Upstairs. She stomped around the corner to the street front. She was so focussed on her bitterness at the suit's attitude that she barely noticed the thunk of a door behind her as she walked to the front door of the building.

"Hey!" came a call. A guy.

Lacey ignored the voice. No one would be calling her. She waved her access pass at the scanner she knew would comply with her request. It beeped.

"Hey you!" came the call again.

Lacey turned from the door to look back at the street. The voice belonged to a man in a suit, a different kind of suit. It looked expensive and sharp, although it wasn't as well-fit to his shape, hanging awkwardly around his paunch and arms. He was stood in front of a car, an exotic-looking machine, vibrant red in colour and low to the ground. Ferrari, Lacey noted. Not a rare Ferrari, as far as Ferrari's go, but still quite new.

"Are you the lady who calls Lottery winners?" the man called.

Lacey turned back to the door, but it had latched.

"Hey! Are you the lady who calls winners?" the man asked again, striding toward Lacey.

Still in a state of consternation, Lacey faced the ill-fitted suit with a cold glare.

"You made me run into a wall weeks ago so I could get my winnings." He said, his voice tinged with anger, "I had a headache for days!"

Lacey tilted her head to the side in a look of mock-sympathy. She didn't know what this guy wanted, and she did remember telling someone to run into a wall, but she wasn't in much of a mood to hear a sob-story.

"Well, this is me now." He said, as though making some grand conclusion. He swung his arms away from himself as though to say, _Ta da_

Lacey took a moment to look over the guy, who was standing proudly before her. She stayed silent as she appraised the figure, taking in his expensive but sloppy-shaped clothes. His head was topped by neatly groomed hair and even though she was a few feet away from him, she could smell a musky odour on the breeze. She looked past him to the exotic car on the street, its sleek shape very close to the curb. It didn't look like the kind of car that appreciated speed bumps or steep driveways. She directed her attention back to her addresser who was standing prouder than before, clearly impressed with himself. Lacey looked at him straight in the face before answering him with half a shrug, an expression of boredom, and a lazy shake of her head. She said nothing, but her actions clearly asked the word, ... _and?_

Lacey was unsure if he was trying to impress her, or if he was trying to rub his wealth in her face.

"You should've been nicer to me." He said confidently.

"Why?" Lacey asked, speaking for the first time.

"I'm rich now." He said.

"So?" Lacey said.

"You should be nice to people," he said, "because you never know..."

"Never know what?"

He paused for a second to think, "Whether they'll be rich or not."

"You assume I'm not rich?" Lacey asked, already tired of this conversation. She wasn't rich, far from it, but she was in no mood to be reminded of her place. She re-scanned her security pass to unlock the door. The door beeped.

"But you're not, right?"

"So what if I am or not?" Lacey asked, an escalation in her voice evident.

"You could've had a chance." the sloppy suit said.

Lacey almost felt a snap inside her at this guy's bravado. Truly, wealth did create monsters, for this guy to think this way.

"You think money means you had a chance with me?" she asked at volume.

The door re-latched again.

"No, I didn't mean..." the suit-slob stammered.

"Tell me," Lacey continued, "Why did you buy that car?"

He glanced over his shoulder to look at his shining Ferrari, "Because it's the best car." he said.

"To who?" Lacey asked, "Is it truly the best car, or is it what you think others' think is the best car?" Lacey pointed at him, circling her arm to gesture to his body as a whole, "And this? Did you buy this outfit because you liked it or because you think it makes you look rich?" She stopped her gesture, "No, don't tell me, because I can see that you don't look comfortable in it. You bought it because it was _expensive_ , right?"

"You don't..." the slob suit tried.

Lacey interjected, "Yeah, I think I do. You think that money somehow makes you better. You think that wealth makes you a success." she gnashed her teeth, "Well, let me tell you, you are only successful because of a one-in-a-million chance. You are no more a success than someone who gets hit by a bolt of lightning." Lacey felt her voice drop into a growl.

The slob looked unimpressed with the rebuke, "You treated me like crap by making me jump through hoops for my winnings. I could buy you, you know. You are nothing to me." He said.

"And you," Lacey bit back, "you aren't a rich person. You are acting how you think rich people act, but you have no idea." Lacey hissed, her mind returning to the suit in the car park. The suit was a far cry from this nouveau riche she found in front of her. The suit was dignified and confident, with no reason to prove himself. The suit didn't need to prove himself. The suit just did. This guy, this slob dressed in a suit-shaped tent, was over compensating, "That car," Lacey continued, "Did you buy it because you actually liked it? Did you try out all types of cars before buying that one? Did you like that one the most?"

"Yeah." The slob replied.

"Bullshit." Lacey spat, "No one likes anything anymore. People like what they're told to like. You bought because you saw a fat Yorkshireman on a TV show rave about it. You think it makes you a man of taste and refinement, except you bought it really because you want others to envy you; those other people who watch that same fat Yorkshireman on TV. You want to feel big. You want to show off your 'success', but you are caught in the trappings of lower-class thinking. You're a kid, thinking that they're playing in the big leagues, when the big hitters wouldn't ever let you join them.

"I ask you," Lacey leaned in, "What will you do when the newer model car comes out, and when your fancy Yorkshireman-approved car is old hat? What will you do?"

The slob shrugged, "Buy the new one."

"You don't have that much money." Lacey said, "Even with the biggest prize from this lottery, you couldn't buy the newest model for more than a few years."

"I have plans for the money." the slob said.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Lacey said, "More purchases? More consumption? More trinkets that you've wanted for years but could never afford? I'll bet you've made more friends these past few weeks than you have over the course of your entire life." She let the insinuation sink in.

People only liked him for his sudden money.

The slob didn't reply.

"Truly rich people don't worry themselves with this kind of bullshit." Lacey said,

"I'd never be your friend. You're not my type, either. I don't surround myself with fakes like you. Enjoy your new 'friendships'." Lacey said with heavy sarcasm before turning about and heading to the office, "I hope they stick with you through the tough times when your money runs out!" she called back over her shoulder.

She scanned her pass at the door, which let out another triumphant accepting beep before Lacey shoved through the door, leaving the rich slob out in the street. She didn't pause to take a look at his face. She didn't need to. There would be no satisfaction in it, regardless of whether he was reeling from her verbal assault or whether he was angrily flipping her off. He didn't matter. Despite his wealth, he was a nobody. He wasn't the real deal.

The suit was the real deal.

She could feel her heart thumping in her throat from the adrenalin rush. She was surprised at herself, having not been comfortable with giving such a harsh treatment to people before. Her fingertips tingled, either from the high, or from the warm air of the office meeting the bitter cold of her digits. She breathed out in a long, laboured blow to steady her nerves, feeling her head start to ease its wavering.

She could see Christian across the office, focussed on his screen as usual, continuing his eternal servitude to the demands of the superiors. However, one of the accounting staff was also visible from Lacey's vantage point. Beth. She too was heavy invested in her computer screen, the glow of the monitor giving her shape an odd bright tracing in the dim office.

No one ever turned on the lights on the weekends, Lacey observed. She cynically concluded that it was probably a directive from Upstairs to save money on the power bill, while the suit bought more cigars, scotch and Lexuses. Lacey snorted to herself. She had never considered herself a cynic before, but it was growing inside her, a bitter ball of disdain and sneering.

For a moment, she felt she understood Christian's persona, and his gruffness inside the four walls of the office. The cubicles might have been giant hamster wheels that each of them ran inside to power the overall machine they were in, all for no reward other than the promise of more kibble and water. This kind of servitude was good reason for the slow erosion of the soul, and Christian's persona and comedy routine was the bitter, crumpled result of trying to appease the never-appeased.

Travis exhibited no such traits, but Travis was a different kind of creature. Travis persevered.

Lacey walked past Beth's cubicle, watching her stare blankly at the spreadsheet, scrutinising it intensely as though trying to burn holes in the screen with just her irises.

"I don't usually see you in here on the weekend." Lacey said, mustering up some cheer to discard the bile she could taste in her mouth.

"Gotta do it sometimes. Such is the task for the 'Senior Accountant.'" Beth replied, giving Lacey a half look over her shoulder.

"So you're the senior one? I always thought you two accountants were the same." Lacey said.

"Oh no, we're both Senior Accountants." Beth said.

Lacey was confused, "But, if you're Senior, it suggests the existence of someone who's _not_ senior. Is there a regular accountant here?"

"No. It's just me and Tim here." Beth said without flinching.

"But if you're both 'senior' and are the only accountants here, why even have the 'senior' title?" Lacey asked, "Seems a bit redundant."

"They promoted us last year." Beth said, clearly referring to Upstairs.

"Did you get a pay rise." Lacey asked.

"Yes. Some." Beth said, her voice trailing off.

"So you both are happy with a bit extra money and a new title?" Lacey said, feeling that bitterness wringing her insides again.

Beth turned back to her screen with a positive-sounding, "Mm" and a slight nod.

"It never occurred to you that if everyone is 'senior', then technically _nobody_ is senior?" Lacey asked.

Beth stopped what she was doing and turned back to Lacey in full. She looked Lacey in the face with a deadly serious look, "It was a promotion." Beth said. She laboured the last word, reinforcing the belief and trying to wrench it in as reality. Lacey looked back into Beth's eyes, noting their intensity, and their surety. But there was also an emptiness to them, Beth's gaze sometimes staring through Lacey and off to a thousand yards in the distance.

Lacey then realised something chilling.

Beth needed to believe it was a promotion.

Lacey nodded in acceptance of Beth's words and quickly walked away. Lacey saw little point in engaging her, and felt that her continued questioning would only create tension. While she was still in a state of consternation over the events with the suit in the car park, and the slob-suit in the street, she felt that there was a system in play. A game that everyone was playing without even realising what they were doing. Lacey recited in her head:

Be good to customers. They will come back and give you rewards.

Do everything for your manager. They will reward you with extra duties and promotion.

Work hard. Your dedication will be recognised and success will come as a symptom of that dedication.

All bullshit.

Lacey addressed each of these items in her mind, rebutting them all.

Customers didn't want good service. They wanted leverage, so they can have a sense of power. They do not want to reward good work. They will forget good service as quickly as they forget taking a shit.

Managers don't want to reward people. They want to look good. Travis was proof of management draining good talent for as much as they can.

Working hard means nothing if all you get is harder work. Beth's hollow face and empty eyes were a sign of having been strung along and given only tiny, symbolic signs of achievements.

Dedication means nothing if you simply don't have the talent. Christian's flailing comedy endeavours would only be proof of that.

The game was clearly rigged against the people in the Downstairs office, but yet they still participated. Lacey participated. Even when she thought she had a win, the rules were changed by those people in command so that the win was either fleeting, empty, or nothing at all.

Lacey wanted to feel a rise of defiance within her, but she only felt a drained apathy. There was nothing she could do. Her thoughts turned nihilistic, opining within herself that if any God truly existed then the assholes Upstairs would get their comeuppance eventually, preferably with some kind of biblical theatre to it, like an explosion of locusts. She blinked herself from her thoughtful abyss and berated herself for getting overly melodramatic.

She walked past Christian's desk. He didn't look up to Lacey, although he did speak, "Another day of calling winners?" he asked.

"Yeah" Lacey replied simply. Emptily.

"Does it get repetitive?"

"Kinda"

"Every job is repetitive, I feel." Christian said, not turning from his screen, "I imagine the rock star playing their hit song at concerts, months on end, night after night, and each night they need to sell their enthusiasm to a crowd, even though they are bored out of their minds. Every crowd looks the same. Each night they perform is the same. Same songs. Same crowd reaction.

"A comedian would be the same, too. Repeat the same jokes each night and pretending as though you're amused at yourself despite knowing the punchline because you've repeated it over and over. Show business sounds about as soul crushing as production line work."

Lacey sighed, "More material?"

Christian nodded.

"Change your schtick." Lacey said with a frown, "'Angry Dude' is old hat."

As Christian turned to face Lacey, she strode off toward the room with the red phone. She knew she was being rude, but she didn't care. She was not in the mood.

Besides, perhaps Christian needed to be told like that, Lacey thought. She was doing him a favour.

Lacey snatched the list of winners from the printer, making the paper sharply snap as she grabbed it with an angry assertiveness. There were two winners on the page, and both had proper information that required no real follow up. Lacey let her arm holding the page hang to her side, debating internally whether she should even call the winners. The arguments for pro and con bounced back and forth inside her skull; perhaps these people will be different. Perhaps they'll be nicer. Surely everything that Lacey had learned over the past few months couldn't be indicative of _all_ winners.

She shook her head, if only to herself. She knew it would be no different this time, but she felt driven by her sense of duty. That was the hold that the workplace had over her. The hold that the Upstairs had over them all. No resistance could really be mustered if the rules were constantly changed to benefit Upstairs, and that Upstairs knew – and played – the rules better than those Downstairs. It's easy to win when you can change the rules.

Lacey slopped down into the chair before the red phone, picking up the receiver immediately. She quickly dialed the first winner. The phone chirruped a number of times before an excited lady's voice answered.

"Hello Ms Nguyen," Lacey said, pausing for a brief moment to think, "This is Not The Lottery Caller." Lacey laboured the words of her title.

"What?" Ms Nguyen said.

"You've won first prize." Lacey said in a flat tone. Lacey scanned around the various ideas she had in her head as to what she would make this lady do to earn her winnings. But she came up with nothing, "Congratulations, Ms Nguyen. Payment of five-hundred-thousand dollars will be made in a few short days to the account you've nominated."

Lacey heard some squeals of delight as she moved the receiver away from her ear and hung up slowly. She sighed with resignation, looking at the second name on the list. Robert Trimboli.

Lacey dialed the number, listening to that familiar ringing tone. A click was heard and a steady male voice answered.

"Hello, Mr Trimboli. This is Not The Lottery Caller." Lacey said, bored, as though reciting from a script.

There was silence being returned to her from the other side of the phone. Lacey grew confused. Typically when she was calling people, there was an immediate reaction. One of delight. Sometimes skepticism. This time there was nothing. There was only slight white-noise being beamed back into her ear. Lacey grew concerned at the haunting silence, not sure whether Mr Trimboli was still there. This strangely unnerved Lacey. This reaction was not typical and the fact he didn't simply demand his money twisted the already tight knot in her stomach. Just as Lacey was about to speak, Mr Trimboli replied.

"What do you want me to do?"

Lacey was stumped, not simply because she didn't know what instruction to give Mr Trimboli, but because she hadn't expected the question. She said nothing for moments as she contemplated what to say to the unexpected query, her genuine surprise rendering her speechless.

"Are you there, Lottery Caller?" Mr Trimboli probed.

Lacey attempted to gather her thoughts but tried to not make any noise that would reveal her faltering. She needed to say something.

"Can I call you another time?" Lacey asked. She silently cursed herself for asking permission. All her previous conversations as Not The Lottery Caller, she had tried to be confident and enigmatic, but in those situations she had been in control. She had been the instigator. In this case, due to her annoyance with the suit, she had been stumped and flummoxed. Distracted and demoralised.

Mr Trimboli didn't answer immediately, as though confused. Lacey was quick to add to her question.

"I might have a special task for you." She said finally, eventually slipping back into the persona she had worn in previous phone calls. Confident and enigmatic.

"I..." began Mr Trimboli, hesitant for a moment, "I follow your twitter account." he said, "I was only expecting a task."

"And I will give one to you. But this one might be special. You will receive your winnings in time, but I will need to call you again." Lacey said, suppressing any nervous wavering in her voice.

"Okay." came Mr Trimboli's tentative reply.

Lacey hung up without any farewell. The chassis of the red phone clunked.

She sat in the room for a moment, stunned. She truly hadn't expected such a willing participant to her game. Every winner she had spoken to before had seemed apprehensive and dubious about her requests for them to do things, but they always complied in the end. The @NotTheLotteryCaller account had a couple thousand followers, so Lacey had determined that the probability that an actual winner would know about that account would be quite low.

Lacey hadn't considered the odds that a winner could also be an actual follower. Those odds were surely lottery-esque. She recalled the words from the suit, prophetically yet cryptically insinuating that her game would eventually implode.

But screw the suit, Lacey thought. She could manage this winner, and all future winners. She was the gatekeeper to their riches. She had leverage, she told herself. She had leverage over rich people. Not wealthy people, like the suit.

There was a difference.

Rich people, new rich, could be useful.

Chapter 11 – The Visit

Lacey stared at her phone as she waited for the notification to arrive. She was aware of sayings relating to watched pots, and how they never boil, but she was partially excited and partially nervous.

She was seated in the cafe near the Lottery's office, on her lunch break. She had again called Mr Trimboli a couple hours after the initial phone call the previous day to tell him the instructions. Her mind was abuzz with enough noise that it drowned out the hubbub of the cafe.

She racked her brain, searching for any avenue through which her idea could go awry, but felt somewhat reassured with the precautions she'd taken.

Christian had told Lacey that the messaging app, BBM, was secure and difficult to trace back to her. It also had a feature where tasks could be assigned to people and ticked off upon their completion.

"It doesn't reveal your phone number or anything. It's pretty secure" Christian had assured her, "But I'm no software engineer. I'm just a tech jockey."

That had satisfied Lacey. Twitter had seemed too public to send messages, and it was clear that the suit – and Upstairs – kept a close eye on what was happening at the @NotTheLotteryCaller account.

Christian hadn't seemed too fazed with her abrupt rudeness earlier that day, and her telling him to drop his "angry dude" routine for his comedy gear. However, his persona in the office was difficult to read when his facade was perpetually apathetic. He might have been disdainful toward her. He might not have been. She couldn't tell. But he seemed helpful in setting up her BBM app on her phone, and he didn't ask any unnecessary questions as to why she needed a private method to chat.

She had called Mr Trimboli and relayed the information to him in a brief, but cryptic sentence.

"Get a pen. Get a smartphone. BBM, PIN D1F8DE49" she had said in measured rhythm before hanging up. She had started to dread that she hadn't given enough information, or that Mr Trimboli didn't write down the BBM PIN, or worse, he didn't even have a smartphone.

No matter, Lacey thought, other future winners will likely have a smartphone and would be better candidates. If Mr Trimboli didn't get all the details that Lacey had imparted, he would simply get his winnings and nothing else would happen. That latter thought relieved Lacey somewhat. Her idea was reckless, but she had already committed to communicating with Mr Trimboli through this method.

Lacey put the phone down on the table and picked up her coffee cup. She looked around at all the patrons in the cafe, each lost in their own conversations. She strained her ears to listen to any single discussion, curious as to the concerns of the everyday person. It was difficult to tune into a single chat, each group covering disparate matters covering myriad topics. Politics on one table. Film on another. Family on a different one. The topic of the latest gadget to help in the kitchen was one being discussed on one particularly boisterous table. The person talking could well have been a salesperson, shilling for the next amazing thing to add to the home, along with details of payment plans that could make it happen.

More consumption. That's all people seemed to do.

Rain patted on the window next to Lacey.

Lacey did consider that she was exposed to hyper consumerism more than most, because she was dealing with a concentrated dose of funds that would lead immediately to huge purchases, but she brushed aside her philosophical wanderings by reminding herself how she got into her current situation;

People are jerks, always looking to get that one rung above them in the hopes that the ladder leads to a special carrot that will finally convince themselves that they are "better".

Better than whom?

It doesn't matter to them, Lacey thought. More money means they're "better". Just look at the slob-suit with his Ferrari.

Lacey retrieved her phone from the table and quickly opened Twitter to her personal account. Again she found trouble getting a bead on a single conversation, with each user lost in their own sense of relevance. The feed was chaos, rapids flowing down her phone's screen and sloshing about in an almost incoherent manner. So much energy in so many people and it was being spread so haphazardly that nothing made sense.

They all just consumed. Or wanted to be consumed.

They are the product.

That energy could be put to good, surely.

Lacey's phone blinged suddenly with a notification she hadn't heard before. BBM had offered a new friend request.

Mr Trimboli, most likely.

Lacey accepted the request. The phone paused for some moments as it laboured over the task of sending tiny packets of data between the two people. The app eventually allowed the two to communicate.

"Hello, Mr Trimboli" Lacey typed. She sent the message, waiting for the message from the app to inform her it had been delivered and read.

"Hello, notthelottterycaller" came the reply.

"Well done on finding me, Mr Trimboli" Lacey sent.

"Why not twitter?" Mr Trimboli answered.

"I have a special task for you." Lacey typed.

"And will I get my winnings soon?" Mr Trimboli asked.

Lacey's face became a mask of consternation. She knew that the money was the only leverage that she had over winners, but it still annoyed her that it was the sole base of her interactions with the people. Her conversations with them felt like it was never between two actual living people, but between two automatons, both with a singular job to do: one to give and one to get.

That's how this "customer service" felt to Lacey.

"You will get your winnings. But don't post anything to twitter." She wrote.

"How will you know I've done your task?" Mr Trimboli replied.

"I'll know." Lacey replied, "After you've done your task."

"What task?"

"Buy eggs." Lacey wrote.

The morning was sunny. Lacey drove through the traffic on her way into the office, noticing that it was flowing smoother than what she considered to be normal. The past few weeks had been dreary and depressing, so the brightness was welcome inside Lacey's car.

As she turned into the sunken car park, she noticed a van across the floor of the complex. It was parked near a dark Lexus. _The_ dark Lexus. The car that the suit drove. A man in overalls walked about the car, wiping soapy water over its surface. Puddles of soap formed around the car as droplets slid down its angular shape and pooled around its rubber boots. Lacey parked her own car, a small smile etching itself on her face. In that moment, she held a look that she felt must have been similar to the smile on the Mona Lisa. In that moment she felt she knew something that the Mona Lisa knew. In that moment she felt she was the Mona Lisa, knowing and confident, assured in herself and her situation. She felt in control.

She climbed from her car and gave the vehicle's door a firm shunt, thunking it closed with assertion. The car cleaner looked up from his toil to regard Lacey, giving her a polite nod and smile before busying himself back on the panels of the Lexus, scrubbing to remove a yellow film from the black paint. Lacey walked to the gate, letting herself out so that she could use the front door. As she was allowed to do.

She entered the office, welcomed by the sound of a whirring vacuum cleaner and people shuffling around the office with a vigour she'd not seen before. The two at reception, Chelle and Michael weren't chatting with themselves but were laser focussed on the task they had.

Lacey continued to the back of the office, noticing the two Senior Accountants buried in their own work. Christian was visible in his usual spot, not appearing any different to what Lacey had always known from him. He was always buried in his computer, and he didn't seem swept up in the whirlwind of activity and noise in the Downstairs office. Lacey gave him a casual wave as she walked to her cubicle.

The sound of the vacuum cleaner grew and grew as she approached her desk. Rounding the corner of a partition, she discovered Travis hunched over the cleaning device, pushing it fervently back and forth, painting cleanliness over the carpet.

Lacey called to him a couple times over the din of the cleaner. Travis looked up from his chore and smiled, quickly disengaging the vacuum and emptying silence into the office again.

"You're a cleaner now?" Lacey asked with a wry smile.

"Someone from Upstairs is coming down here for a visit." Travis said.

Lacey's smile faded a little, "And you're cleaning for that?"

Travis shrugged, "Well, I can't let them see the place in a mess, can I?" He mustered an optimistic smile, although Lacey could see the emptiness behind it.

"But it was fairly clean before." Lacey said.

"Yeah, but I like to make sure. Be thorough." Travis explained.

"So, you're going the extra mile, just so someone from Upstairs can be free of the inconvenience of dirtiness?" Lacey knew it was the suit who was visiting.

"I can't let them see any sign that the place isn't running smoothly." Travis reasoned, "It would reflect poorly on me."

Lacey shook her head in disappointment.

The poor sod thought that Upstairs _didn't_ think poorly of him already.

"I don't see why you need to shield them from how things are down here. For one, it's fine anyway. For two, if things weren't working well down here, wouldn't it be in their best interest to see it for themselves? Shouldn't they then see reason to fix it?" Lacey said.

Travis shrugged again, "I just gotta do my job, and I've taken it on myself to do this task." He smiled that empty smile again before reigniting the vacuum, letting its banshee-wail fill each crevice of the floor. Its sound was muffled and pitiful through the various corridors and alleyways of the office cubicles.

Lacey sat at her desk, feeling the last of her Mona Lisa grin fade from her face. She began her duties, logging into her computer and checking her email. As she'd predicted there was an email from Management.

Dear colleagues

In light of recent security events, you may notice a security guard on station around the building. Do not be alarmed, as these security issues are rare and only occur after-hours. We do not feel that staff are at risk, but we always are mindful of everyone's safety.

Please stay alert around the building.

Regards

Management

There was only the one email. Lacey had predicted a second one to suggest some kind of cutback for staff that would help cover the cost of the security guard, but there was none. Lacey didn't recall seeing a security guard when she walked into the building, but she realised that she wasn't necessarily looking for one, either. Maybe they'll only bring the security heavies in after hours, she thought.

The morning continued on, and Travis finally finished his cleaning duties. The office looked pristine, with glass windows seemingly brighter and the floors more fragrant. The air seemed fresher and the other staff seemed cheerier. It wasn't much of a surprise when the suit eventually arrived at Lacey's desk, greeting her with a measured tone and his confident smile.

"Hello to you." Lacey said, grinning.

"I just wanted to pass on that you've done quite the job here. It hasn't gone unnoticed." the suit said.

Lacey looked past the suit and saw Travis loitering a few cubicles away, his head perked up in curiosity.

"I do what I can." Lacey answered sweetly.

The suit looked amused, "Well, that kind of go-getter attitude is what we like to see around here."

Travis coughed quietly behind the suit. The suit paid him no attention.

"I take pride in my work, is all." Lacey said, feigning modesty.

"If only everyone used their energy in such productive ways." the suit said.

"Oh?" Lacey asked, "Whatever do you mean?" she could feel the mocking tone creeping into her voice. She knew that he was referencing the security issue, but she wasn't going to let him intimidate her.

"Well, you saw the email this morning, I am sure." the suit said, his smile not wavering.

"I did," Lacey said, "Whatever is the world coming to?"

"Throwing eggs at cars is a terrible waste of energy, wouldn't you think?" the suit asked.

"Oh yes," Lacey said, "Terrible, terrible behaviour. Did the security cameras get a good look at the cad who did it?" Lacey enjoyed a moment of working the word "cad" into a modern conversation.

The suit nodded, "Christian has already given us the footage, yes. Just some random in a balaclava, it seems."

Lacey tried to mask her surprise, but failed. She didn't realise that Christian looked after the CCTV footage around the building as well. She felt her confidence dwindle a little, realising that Christian must have told Upstairs about her nosing around the car park that first time. She was disappointed.

"Such petty crimes." The suit continued, "What they don't seem to realise is that these kinds of behaviours only give decision makers more reason to clamp down on such things."

"It was just an isolated event, surely." Lacey said. She knew that the suit was accusing her of organising the egg attack on his car, but he wasn't directly stating his case. Only talking in threats.

Her reason for her previous confidence; the fact it couldn't be traced to her in any way, and the thought that she had shaken the suit, was silently eroding.

"Probably." the suit said, "But it's like all petty crimes. Enough isolated incidents occur and you get a whole bunch of money and energy wasted on pasting over a cumulatively large number of incidents. And I ask you, Lacey, who pays for that?"

"Everyone." Lacey said quietly.

"Indeed, Lacey. Everyone does. But I doubt that the teenager who draws his tag on a public wall stops to think that the government that cleans that tag will need to charge his parents more taxes to pay for cleaning it. That teenager doesn't realise that he could be one tag away from his parents not being able to afford his iPad for Christmas." the suit said, disdainfully but mockingly.

"You screw The Man. The Man screws back." Lacey said, trying to return a smile.

The suit sighed with exaggeration, "I get that teenager, though, Lacey. I get him." he said, "He wants to feel empowered. He wants to gain some control. He wants to be master, but sadly he doesn't see where real power is."

Real power? Lacey thought. She said nothing, but the suit continued anyway.

"Power is not through ordering people around or by breaking rules." the suit said, "Anyone with confidence can do that. Real power is having the world cater to you without even realising that it's doing it."

Lacey looked past the suit to see Travis still hovering at the back of the office like a tortured soul still residing between this plane of existence and the blissful afterlife, straining to hear what is happening in a world it wished it lived within.

"Not everyone can get that kind of power, though." Lacey said.

"No." the suit replied simply, "They can't."

Lacey felt her smile disappear from her completely. Dread again creeped back into her. She thought she had gained a small victory over the suit by having his comfortable little bubble rocked by some vandalism. He knew she had arranged for the egging of his car. She didn't need to confess to it. He knew.

"But this has gotten rather philosophical, Lacey." the suit said, straightening up and smoothing his tie. He lifted his voice a little, "I just wanted to say that you're doing well, and that we have noticed the good job. Keep it up." he gave her a theatrical thumbs up before turning on his heels and striding back down the corridor. He nodded absently to Travis for the briefest of moments and continued on his trek back to his home Upstairs. Travis smiled and nodded in reply, watching the suit cruise past him and onward, out of sight.

Lacey leaned back in her seat, the exchange having left her drained. The suit always had an answer, and that infuriated Lacey. It seemed that no matter how much she much she thought she had in terms of influence, the suit simply disregarded the matter.

But there was another matter to attend to.

Lacey found a vigour within her again, and stood and paced over to Christian's cubicle. She tapped her familiar knuckle-tap on the partition and she spoke without waiting for any acknowledgment from him – not that she ever received any.

"You sold me out." Lacey said.

Christian stopped what he was doing and turned slowly around in his chair to face Lacey. Considering how Lacey viewed Christian at this moment, a saboteur, she half expected him to be stroking a cat on his lap as he turned.

"I'm sorry?" Christian replied, deadpan, "I didn't realise I had you to sell."

"You told Upstairs that I was in the car park that day. You're the reason that they found out, and put security up."

"CCTV is part of my job. If I find something to report, I need to hand it on."

"You know I meant no harm in there. I was just curious." Lacey said.

"My job says that I gotta report whatever I see."

"You couldn't look the other way for a friend?" Lacey asked.

"I like you, Lacey. I do." Christian said, his voice being more emotive than Lacey had grown to know from him, "But not in a 'risk my job' like-kinda-way."

"But you want to get out and do comedy." Lacey said, "What of the dream?"

"I still need food until that happens." Christian replied, "I can't just put my bread and butter at risk."

Lacey sighed in resignation, the feeling of annoyance draining from her, lowering her shoulders. She could see his point. She could see everyone's point now. Everyone worked here because they had to. They were all trapped into servitude just to survive, and their days were spending their energy for a thankless task while dreams withered from the lack of dedication. Christian's comedy would never take off, not while he couldn't spare the energy to write properly funny material.

Lacey's conversation with Beth on Sunday revealed that she too was dead inside, but she was denying it until the bitter end, until the last remaining milligram of her soul was deleted, strung along with the empty promise of a better deal.

A better deal like how Lacey thought she had with the car park. She'd been strung along with the promise of a car park, but denied access to the convenience of the elevator.

Everyone was given just enough to keep them going, but they were still reminded of their place; they're Downstairs. Not Upstairs.

She could quit, Lacey knew. She didn't need to hang around this place. There was likely more work out there for her, but she didn't deny that the extra salary she was receiving here was helping her. She fumed, realising that the extra pay was just that carrot that kept her participating, but she needed that extra money.

She didn't know what she did without that money before.

Christian was still staring back at her, awaiting her response.

"You need better material if you want to be a comedian." She told him simply.

"Why?"

"You're not funny." Lacey said.

"Correction: _you_ don't find me funny." Christian replied.

"Didn't you hear that room that night of your open mic? You're not funny."

Christian shook his head in denial, "That's a common thing I hear; 'they're not funny' or 'their humour sucks'. These critics never stop to think that maybe that humour is subjective and is different things to different people. No one is an arbiter of what is funny and what is not."

"So, you didn't hear the silence in that room?" Lacey asked, reinforcing her point.

"I heard it. But I'm not going to think that I'm a failure. That night was a failure. I gotta keep trying until it works."

Lacey slumped her shoulders even further. Her phone chirruped in her pocket, which she fished out and checked. It was just an SMS from her carrier, telling her that her data limit was approaching for the month, a mocking reminder that she was still on a leash to a wealthy company that demanded their share of the spoils of her energy.

However there was another notification. From BBM. Five people had sent her requests to communicate.

Remembering what she had said to Mr Trimboli the previous few days, she opened a message to him, and composed him a brief dose of text. While she still felt dejected from the exchange with the suit, the messages coming into her phone did feel a little heartening. She stabbed the Enter key, sending the message.

"Well done, Mr Trimboli."

She turned her attention back to Christian who was waiting for a reply to his ramble before.

"You need to work harder at your act." Lacey said.

Chapter 12 – Not The First Rule

It was clear that Mr Trimboli hadn't kept the NotTheLotteryCaller private BBM a secret, and Lacey chided herself for overlooking the possibility that he'd spread the word. She had trusted Mr Trimboli to understand that whatever she fed him from BBM was to be private, and that his case was special. Lacey was disappointed in him, in a way. Much like how previous winners thought that calling the red phone would somehow garner them special treatment, Lacey thought of these unsolicited BBM requests as people trying to forge a shortcut to a life of leisure, or that from "knowing someone inside" meant that they would be assured an advantage somehow.

Lacey didn't dismiss each of the requests, though. She didn't know whether or not these people would receive a notification of their rejection, so she preferred to just let the requests hang in limbo, neither accepted nor ignored. If she wanted to keep a mystery around the NotTheLotteryCaller persona, she was best to not engage these people on any level.

"Do not engage" Lacey remembered Travis telling her early in the job. It was sage advice in this instance. Her mistake in not trying to keep a lid on the BBM account left her open to a chance that someone might take issue with her and make a complaint, or draw more attention to the account.

The private line into the Lottery.

Throughout the remainder of the week, Lacey went through her routine. She drove in, parked, walked around the building and in through the door reserved for the commoners. The elevator in the car park continued to gleam like a beacon, mocking her, reminding her of her place. She could see it, but could never go there. It wasn't _for her_.

Christian had gotten seemingly cooler toward Lacey, if such a thing were possible. She did figure that he would eventually get over her harsh commentary of his aspirations, considering that they both needed to work together for the same company. It's impossible to hold a grudge against someone with whom one closely worked.

She would invite him out for a drink later in the week, if he was up for it.

The @NotTheLotteryCaller twitter account grew in followers as well, spiking up as much as one hundred people in a day. The mentions to the account were variants on a similar theme.

"What's next for the next winner?"

"Make them run through a public area." one tweet suggested, the word "naked" heavily implied.

"The hotter the better."

Lacey responded to none of them, knowing that the account was still probably watched by Upstairs.

Lacey cursed that Upstairs still had a hold over her. It was all part of the structure, though. She needed the job more than the job needed her. Remembering her conversation with the suit, she had been told that the increased tickets sales was the only reason they were tolerating her exploits, although Lacey started to feel the sense of something much worse. It's wasn't just about ticket sales and money. Her experiences with the suit suggested that money to the Lotteries wasn't really a concern. Instead, they were keeping her around for a far more insidious reason.

They were amused by her.

Lacey watched the Twitter followers grow, despite her not posting anything on the account. BBM friend requests continued to trickle in slowly. Clearly she should have told Mr Trimboli the "First Rule of Fight Club."

She felt like a cat's toy, batted around playfully, providing a source of entertainment for a predator that cared neither for its well-being, nor its sentience. Like a cat's toy, or a cat's prey, it would be a matter of time before the cat grew weary of the game and simply ended the whole thing. In a sharp bite, the toy would either be split open and ruined, or simply tossed aside and replaced with something new.

In this realisation, Lacey understood that she was on borrowed time. Looking from her desk to the room with the red phone, she again noticed the low-hanging light.

"In for a penny..." she said to herself.

She opened up BBM on her phone and started accepting the friend requests from the strangers. One after the other, she stabbed the approval button, welcoming in new faces to her contact list. With each addition she started to feel a little more heartened, the despair crumbling away slowly, albeit with an overarching sense of caution.

No one replied to her acceptance. After accepting each new account she stared at the names, one by one. They were all names she didn't recognise. They weren't handles or portmanteaus, but actual real-sounding names. Nobody was hiding who they were. Nobody was taking precautions. It astonished Lacey how little regard people had for discretion.

But then Lacey remembered the videos that previous winners had uploaded, the ones where they performed the self-flagellating tasks she'd assigned them. None of them had cared for discretion, either. They were all willing to do whatever it took to get their money, and they all seemed to love the attention.

Lacey negotiated her phone's internet browser and pointed it to one of the videos she remembered, where she had instructed someone to whitewater raft naked. That video was still there, but the user had uploaded a series of other videos, showing how they had spent part of their winnings, and what other crazy things they were willing to do. Comments beneath the videos were making further suggestions for them, some serious, and others were the typical anonymous "do good with your money instead of being a moron" suggestions.

Lacey hadn't just granted this person their winnings. She'd given them an avenue to celebrity.

This was another layer of the system, and the game that she had witnessed. Even with wealth, people still wanted more. Their previous worries were now eroded away, and in their place was a desire to get higher on some totem pole. They wanted notoriety. They wanted more from their existence. It wasn't enough for them to be free of financial burden, but they wanted freedom from what could be considered the banal. Freedom from being perceived as boring.

Lacey knew that they would never reach what they wanted. They wouldn't be allowed to join the upper-crust clubs that they saw being enjoyed by the likes of artists, actors, musicians, or even politicians. They would never command the respect, and at best would only ever enjoy being Internet Famous.

They would still be commoners. They would never be like the suit. They all wanted to be liked. They wanted fame. It was such a banal desire, Lacey thought. Lower class thinking trying to penetrate upper class society.

The suit would never want something as uncouth as celebrity. He would never care about being _liked_. In fact, if anything he didn't care if he was liked. Being liked didn't matter if everyone was catering to their every need, like Travis as he vacuumed and cleaned everything in order to remove anything that could offend the suit. Why be liked when the world caters to you anyway?

Lacey opened BBM and started inviting everyone to a group so that group discussions could be done. Christian had shown her how she could use the app to assign tasks and how to broadcast messages. It was a nifty app. After sending the invites to each member of her contact list, she went to the tasks sections and created a new task.

"Go key a Lexus" she posted.

Lacey felt an immediate pang of guilt as she added the task to the queue. Her thumb had loitered over the "enter" key for only a moment before she had stabbed it, ultimately casting the action into the cosmos. She was unsure if anyone had read the task – or indeed even knew how to find the task, as BBM wasn't immediately intuitive like other apps she had used. But the message was out there, and those requesting contact with her could be absorbing the instruction to go out and vandalise someone's property.

Anyone who can afford a Lexus can probably afford to insure it, Lacey reasoned with herself. Justifying it to herself. Convincing herself.

Her experience with wealthy people had left her cold. New rich or old. When she felt herself peer through the veneer of what seemed to motivate people, it wasn't just mere survival on their cards, but ascension.

Even Twitter had its own currency, and the fake carrot of the "blue tick" to authenticate people of import. Opening her phone's Twitter app and navigating to her own personal account, Lacey scanned through the various people who had been awarded such a tick, and she found that very few of them were instantly recognisable. There were the odd journalists who might have some risk of anonymous denizens from the bowels of the internet impersonating them, but others she didn't even know what they did to warrant such an accolade as the azure badge. Nobodies wanting celebrity status on the basis of their own sense of self worth. A badge to lord and lady over the other commoners, which probably only momentarily distracted themselves from their own empty, wretched existence. Blue ticks who submit themselves to the machine for grinding up, and having everything of worth extracted from them before the machine discarded the used husk into the landfill of one-hit wonders, meme-tastic photos and viral has-beens.

And suits at the helm of the machine. Suits in Lexuses.

"Key a Lexus" Lacey read again.

Lacey did consider for a second that perhaps her views were skewed by her disdain for the suit, and the power he seemed to wield over the Lotteries office. Her mind briefly returned to giving broader society the benefit of the doubt, but she again always circled back and saw the same thing, again and again. The commoners gave their all for the simple promise of acceptance and ascension, and yet the energy they spent would never sate the machine.

The machine needed to stop, Lacey determined.

But Lacey was one person, she knew. She wrestled with understanding that she was growing arrogant to think she could stop the machine from her position. But she realised that she had a direct line to the newly, and stupidly, wealthy.

She couldn't stop the machine. But perhaps she could take a cog or two out.

Lacey woke to the sound of thunder and rain slapping against the window of her bedroom. She was over winter. She wished it would hurry up and end. She missed the sunnier days in where she could simply wake in comfortable temperatures and not want to just disappear under her duvet in an attempt to hide from the cold fingers of air wafting around her room.

She reached for her phone next to her bed to check the time. 3am. It was remarkable how she always seemed to wake on the hour.

BBM's icon for notifications scrolled down from the top of the screen. One after the other lazily drifting into view before disappearing back up into the phone's bezel. The only hint as to the what the message contained was a simple square picture, denoting a photograph.

Lacey unlocked her phone and opened BBM. There were new messages from many of the people she had added to her contacts list, each one with nothing but a photo and no other text. Lacey opened the first on the list, Andreas Stamas, curious as to what was being offered.

The photo was of the side of a silver car, under the bright light of a smartphone's LED flash.

Lacey tapped the photo with her finger to take a look at a larger version of the photo. Looking closer at the panel, she could make out a long, curved scratch. It was difficult to discern the scratch from the paint in the poor light of the photo, but it was undeniably there.

Lacey pressed the sleep button of her phone, plunging her bedroom back into darkness. She stared at the gloom before her, her breathing increasing and her heart thumping in her chest. She started to feel the weight descend on her with the realisation that someone had actually followed her order.

Someone had accepted the instruction and had willfully inflicted damage to someone's property.

But there were more notifications to read. More photos.

Lacey kept staring at the darkness, thinking for a moment that she was staring into some abyss. If she were, she wanted to feel that sensation of the abyss staring back at her, like abysses had been described as wont to do. It felt strange, having people listen to her and indulge her whim. This could have been a sensation similar to what the suit had described, having the power to have the world bend to you.

But what Lacey potentially had here was chaos. It wasn't a focussed effort. She had simply told people to scratch a Lexus, an order fueled by her futile exchanges with the suit, and it had escalated to willy-nilly vandalism.

Lacey reopened her phone and checked the next notification. Again, it was a photo of a scratch, this time across the hood of the car, the Lexus emblem unmistakable.

The next photo was again of a scratch across the hood of a Lexus, but the person, Annabelle, had drawn what appeared to be an "@" symbol, with the tail of the character scratched straight through the middle of the "a". Lacey wasn't sure of what the symbolism was meant to signify, but she was surprised at the extra bit of artistry. It stood out to her. Lacey idly replied to Annabelle's picture with a "thumbs up" emoji that she found in the app. The little icon next to the message flicked between the symbol for sending and then onto the "delivered" icon.

One after the other, photos appeared of defaced Lexus cars, each scratch different in its deepness and shape, sometimes following the flow of the creases in the panel, othertimes just haphazard scrawling.

Lacey flumped back into her pillow, closing the phone with her forefinger. She stared up at the ceiling, albeit hidden by the darkness.

She continued laying there, awake, her brain truly kicked into gear and not stopping. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she remained there, staring up into the night, prone and numb.

She lay there until the dawn peeked through the top of her blinds, filtering some dim light into the room. The furniture in her bedroom faded into view, although Lacey looked upon her possessions differently. She owned these things. They were hers. She took care of them. The weight of responsibility of such ownership oddly felt tangible and overbearing. Before she had only considered them things, but now she oddly felt an affection toward her things. Things that seemed to house snugly in her modest apartment.

Lacey climbed out of her bed and silently padded toward her wardrobe. She opened the door slowly, sure to let her hand slide down the smooth timber before she reached in.

Fetching her clothes for the work day.

Chapter 13 – The Next Task

Lacey arrived at the office far earlier than she ever had in the past. She felt a little fatigue from the lack of sleep, but she had functioned before in far worse states. Her youth had necessitated the need to go and be social with friends, and she had worked with full-blown hangovers in the past. Lack of sleep would not be a major hurdle for Lacey. Muscular fatigue was only an idle distraction and heavy eyes could be masked simple tricks.

The door snapped as she pushed through, the familiar latch cracking its sound of acceptance, permitting Lacey to enter. She walked through a darkened office, noticing only – as always – Christian's desk glowing. She approached his desk, seeing him hunched over more than usual. He was staring down into his smartphone, ticking away on the on-screen keyboard. He turned as Lacey greeted him.

"Morning." Christian said.

"Yup. Sure is." Lacey replied, letting her tiredness slip into her voice.

"Late one?"

"Kinda, yeah"

"Don't hang around work if you're not 'with-it.'" Christian advised. His phone blipped with a familiar sounding tone.

Lacey's phone also blipped with that sound. Lacey noted the coincidence and checked the notification. It was from Annabelle.

"OMG hi" read the message.

Lacey slept the phone and slipped it away. There was no need to indulge Annabelle any longer.

"How's BBM working for you?" Christian asked.

"It does the job well, yeah" Lacey replied, "I like some of the finer features that let you manage groups."

"Wait until you start assigning them tasks and you can really keep your projects going." Christian said, his voice sounding a little more enthusiastic than what Lacey had known from him, at least while he was in the office.

"You quite like it, don't you?" Lacey teased.

He held up his phone. It was a BlackBerry. Lacey didn't think that BlackBerry made phones anymore, having fallen away to more competitive and premium brands, "Ah, that explains it. You're a fanboy."

Christian shrugged, "It works. I recommend things that work."

"Ah, so you're a zealot." Lacey again teased.

Christian raised an eyebrow, "I recommend one BlackBerry thing, and I'm a zealot? Clearly you've never been on forums for," he paused, "a certain other fruit-branded company."

Lacey understood what he meant, and didn't acknowledge the name.

"No, I don't frequent internet forums, to be honest." Lacey said.

Christian turned to the glow of his monitor, "That particular brand is seen everywhere, used by stylish people. All the beautiful people use them. All the heroes in movies use their products. All tech news seems to centre around them and their phones. Look at the queues at their stores, nay churches, and tell me... am _I_ the zealot?" he asked.

Lacey didn't catch tail of Christian's rant. She had already departed his cubicle and was headed to her seat to start her long list of tasks.

She had no mood for rants today.

Throughout the week, BBM pipped to Lacey with messages from her group, each wanting to know what was next. Lacey was surprised at how voracious they had become, hungering to do more for her. Lacey questioned her initial summation of their desires, and whether they simply wanted to get into her good graces because they thought it brought them closer to Lottery wealth. But Lacey started to feel that there was more to their devotion than the superficial appeal of money, rather more that they wanted to feel connected to something. Something special.

Some would send messages to offer support in what she was doing. Support that she was making sure that wealthy people were reminded that they weren't "above" others. This struck Lacey as odd, because she was sure that in among these messages of anger toward lottery winners, that there was some likelihood that there were lottery winners saying these things to her as well, as though they were loathing themselves because of their wealth and luck.

Or maybe they just want to differentiate themselves from other wealthy people, Lacey considered. They weren't _like them_.

As the week progressed, the messages started getting more stern, as people wanted instruction. They wanted progress. They wanted to move. To mobilise. Lacey started to grow frustrated with the messages that upon feeling overwhelmed she turned off her phone to silence its insistence. The silence from the phone was luxurious for a while, but Lacey knew that she needed to return to it. Her life was still intrinsically linked to the black rectangle that stored her existence.

She could just delete BBM and the group she'd started, she knew. But each time she parked opposite the suit's black Lexus in the underground car park, she felt a renewed sense that what she was doing was right. She wasn't just in it for the car park and pay cheque, but to make a stand.

The rich should work for their rule and the commoners, the downstairs dwellers, shouldn't be trampled upon.

Each time she had a moment of reflection that caused her doubt, the big black Lexus would seep into her mind's eye, and the memory of that one time it had nearly run her down.

But she knew she couldn't just wage a war on Lexus owners. That was too scattershot. Too broad. Again, she need to hone her ideas to something more focussed. Most of all, she wanted to see the suit once without that eerie smile on his face. She wanted to see his world shaken, and the realisation cross his face that he was not the master of all domains.

Lacey counted up all the photos she had received of scratched cars, tallying the total to twenty five. It was enough for Lacey to feel some satisfaction, but it wasn't enough to garner any real attention from media, either social or traditional. Lacey was relieved of this fact. Too much attention would get her fired quickly.

Lacey cursed at her reliance upon having that steady income.

Every other Thursday was a good day. It was pay day. The spoils of her toil would finally be fed into her bank account, lifting the numbers in there briefly before gradually deflating over the fortnight as Lacey fed herself and her caffeine addiction. Her new job with the Lotteries had given her just enough so that she wasn't living on bread and water for the final few days before pay day, whereas the wage at the last job at the bar (with tips) had barely covered her food budget, let alone kept the lights on. She didn't want to go back to that kind of life where she lived frugally, stretching the dimes for every inch she could get.

The money with the Lotteries was good, even though she could feel her soul eroding slowly with each weekend passing. When Lacey contemplated whether she should just drop the job and return to the bar, she still looked at the Lotteries as more favourable.

She would only stay at the Lotteries for a brief time, Lacey assured herself. She wasn't going to be there forever. This was just a stop-gap to build her up so she could move onto more greener pastures.

Two-thirty flicked onto the office clock, and the pay envelopes were slipped into inboxes around the office. Each fortnight the pay was exactly the same, but Lacey still felt some sense of excited anticipation as she peeled the envelope open, hoping for a little surprise.

This fortnight had a surprise, though. It wasn't a good surprise.

Her pay was lower by a couple hundred dollars.

Confused, she searched the slip of paper for more information as to why there was less spoils for her toils. There were the typical categories outlined on the sheet, rows of numbers to denote gross pay, tax and Nett. Lacey did notice, though, that an extra row had been added, "ancillary deduction". Two hundred dollars.

Thinking that there must have been an error that was not in Lacey's favour, she walked across the office to the two Senior Accountants, Beth and Tim, for an explanation. They both stared back at her with an empty gaze before Tim turned to his computer and retrieved some data from within stacks of spreadsheet cells and charts.

"Car parking expense" Tim told Lacey.

"That doesn't sound right." Lacey said, her confusion growing.

"You don't have a car park?" Tim asked.

"No, I do." Lacey said.

"Then that's what the expense is for?" Tim said, leaning his head forward at the neck, an eyebrow raised. Lacey knew that Tim was confused, although his tone and the upward inflection at the end of the sentence was a bit more condescending than she'd have liked.

"I negotiated for it." Lacey explained.

Tim turned to the drawer in his desk, and began sliding his finger over the various files contained within. His fingertip rippled quickly over each cardboard envelope before he retrieved one particular folder and opened it. He rifled through the papers within, shuffling each page around as he searched for any important information.

"Your security pass was updated to get car park access, but there's nothing in here to say that your salary includes a car park." Tim explained.

"But I was given a car park." Lacey said.

"No, you were given access to the car park."

"You mean that's not the same thing?" Lacey asked.

Tim shook his head, "As far as I can tell, you've opted to have a car park and that you're paying for access."

"Paying who?"

"The building owner."

Lacey was still confused. The suit had promised her the car park. The suit was the one who would have requested this for her. She began to doubt herself for a moment, thinking that perhaps she hadn't made her request to him clear.

No, she answered herself. She'd made it perfectly clear. The suit had elected to do things against the intention of her request. She changed her tack in the conversation with Tim.

"Shouldn't they just invoice me?" Lacey asked.

"They could," Tim said, "But we take the liberty here of paying on your behalf so you don't have to worry about paying." He smiled a little at that last piece of information, as though he thought he was delivering good news.

"What about Upstairs? Do they pay?" Lacey asked, frustration and rhetoric tone threatening to slip into her words.

"They negotiate the car parks into their salary." Tim explained, "It's part of their wage to entice them to work with the Lotteries."

Lacey sighed, not hiding her incense any more, "So the people who can most afford things are given stuff for free?"

"Not free," Tim answered, "The building owners get paid. It just isn't subtracted from their pay."

Lacey growled in frustration, "Typical. Everyone else has to pay their way, except them."

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, as he contended with his own thoughts to mount a reply, "They negotiated it," he repeated, "Their parks were organised officially, and the Lottery wants to ensure it gets the brightest and most talented people here. A car park is one way of sweetening their deal without increasing their wage."

Lacey fumed, hearing the patience creep into Tim's voice, as though he was addressing a toddler. She resented the tone.

Tim continued, "Look, you'll need to talk to Travis if you want to air your grievances. I'm just doing what I'm told to do."

Lacey imagined Tim clapping his hands in an upward-downward fashion, as though dusting off his palms after having done a hard job. That was Tim giving Lacey the fob-off. Tim didn't want to deal with Lacey.

Lacey turned on her heels and marched away, her mind distracted with what she was going to do with less money on this pay. She didn't want to lose that extra cash. She had plans for that money.

She could give up the car park and get her money back, she considered for a moment.

No.

She wasn't going to give the suit the satisfaction.

Remembering her phone in her pocket, she opened up the screen and searched for any notifications. Strangely there weren't any. She had grown accustomed to icons of birds and blackberries greeting her upon opening her phone, but now the screen was oddly bereft of such heralds.

Opening up BBM, she immediately noticed the message from Annabelle. The picture with the crossed-out @.

Lacey promptly downloaded the picture and opened up the Twitter app. She composed a new message and uploaded the picture of the scratched hood, only including a simple, single word in the communique.

"Ha"

Lacey's finger hovered over the "post tweet" button. She knew that the account was being followed by Upstairs and the suit. She knew that she was acting rash in her momentary rush of anger. She sobered for the merest moment to consider what she was doing, but she quickly succumbed to her ire with an internal shrug, stabbing the "post" button.

Not waiting for any feedback she immediately returned to BBM and opened up the task list, adding a message that would be distributed to all her contacts in one simple press. A tiny gesture with grand ramifications.

Hopefully.

"Ruin a car park boom gate."

The task was posted to BBM. The phone blipped with the confirmation. Lacey quickly switched her phone to silent so she wouldn't hear any messages, and then pocketed the device.

She approached her cubicle, again noticing the room with the red phone and the light above the table. She snorted derisively at the inanimate object and sat down, resuming her duties. She knew that feeling that she'd gotten when she'd realised that cars were vandalised, and the realisation that there were real flesh-and-blood people affected by the instruction she'd given. She knew that sense of guilt.

But she figured that property like a car park was likely insured, so any kind of damage should only affect the big-end of town; the giant insurance conglomerates that vacuumed up funds by offering little tangible product to the masses, apart from a sense of comfort. It must have been quite a racket, Lacey determined, to sell people mental comfort, especially when that comfort comes with a tome of conditions that only the bravest of legal minds would dare negotiate, with its various definitions and escape clauses.

Lacey felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, drawing her attention for a moment.

Lacey huffed in mild frustration before grabbing the phone and depositing the device in her handbag, underneath a scarf where she couldn't see or feel it.

Lacey's car blipped as she unlocked it remotely from across the car park. The long, long day had finally finished and she was more than ready for the journey homeward. She had heard her phone vibrate throughout the day, but she dared not check the messages. She knew how she felt when she woke up that previous night, having discovered that her followers in BBM had done their deeds. She didn't need to wrangle with those emotions while at work. She decided she would read the replies when she was home, safe from the cold and embraced in the warm hug of red wine.

The bell to the elevator chimed as Lacey opened the driver's door of her car. She quickly climbed into her car, not wanting to face the suit this day.

Glancing up at the elevator for a moment, Lacey realised that the lift wasn't depositing the suit, but a woman. The woman who had greeted Lacey when she first made her sojourn Upstairs. The "We Don't Do That Here" lady. WDDTH lady. She strode from the lifts with a confident straightness, her high heels striking the floor of the car park with authoritative clicks.

Lacey had never spoken to this lady outside being told to fob off. She didn't know what it was that the "WDDTH" lady actually did Upstairs. Then again, Lacey didn't really know what the suit did, either, apart from what others described as "giving direction". Lacey climbed out from her seat and stood half-in and half-out from her vehicle.

"Long day?" She asked WDDTH lady.

WDDTH lady turned her head to Lacey, not stopping her walk. She nodded in a way to acknowledge Lacey had spoken, but not committing any kind of answer.

"Sorry, I'm Lacey. We've met before, but I felt I should be polite and introduce myself." Lacey gestured to herself by placing her palm on her sternum.

WDDTH lady stopped, "Monique" she said.

"I'm the gopher in the office," Lacey smiled, "I do what I'm told. We spoke so quickly that I didn't get much grasp of what happens on your floor."

"Just management stuff. Boring really." Monique said. Her face didn't have the appearance of annoyance. If anything, she seemed to be part-welcoming to Lacey's conversation.

"It's all go-go-go downstairs, I can tell you. Everyone needs something done." Lacey continued her smile.

"I can imagine." Monique said, not conveying much emotion. However she didn't seem dismissive of the conversation, as Lacey had anticipated. Perhaps she was more relaxed now that her suited overlord wasn't watching her, Lacey surmised.

"So what do you do?" Lacey asked, "You know, just so I know to not bother you with stuff that isn't your role in future." Lacey didn't mean that as a backhanded swipe at their previous exchanges in where Monique had replied with "WDDTH", but Lacey couldn't retract the message after having said it out loud.

"Just make sure everything is working fine. Management stuff, really."

"Oh, like budgets and stuff?" Lacey asked.

"Correspondence and office maintenance." Monique said.

"Well, it sounds more important than 'gopher'" Lacey said, offering a chuckle-like sound.

"I'm an Associate," Monique said with a sternness.

"Oh wow," Lacey said, "Sounds important."

Monique cracked the slightest of smiles, "Well, management does need to be taken care of. A smooth moving office is a sign of a professional office. The Directors can be quite demanding at times, though."

Lacey tweaked her eyebrows upward in a little surprise. What Monique had called her own title didn't reconcile with what Lacey thought it was. An Associate sounded like a partner in a firm, or someone with very good expertise in a related field. What Monique described sounded similar to Lacey's own job. Except Upstairs.

"I understand," Lacey said, "But I guess you gotta keep the world moving for these people. They need us to keep the show moving along."

Monique's slight smile faded a little, and her face firmed a little. There was a slight pause in the conversation as Monique seemed to wrestle with a notion inside her head that was uncomfortable. After a second or two, she spoke again.

"I don't know what it's like for you, but I assure you that we Upstairs operate a little differently to you Downstairs."

Lacey blinked, a little taken aback, and a little confused at the double-think in that sentence. Monique _didn't know Downstairs_ ... but she claimed she _did know_ that upstairs operates differently. A moment of clarity descended over Lacey.

Monique was like Beth. Monique was offered something as a reward for her work, just to keep her going. Just to keep her satisfied. Just to keep her believing that she was progressing and not stagnating in the same job. Monique was told, and she believed, that because she was Upstairs, that what she did was more important than the work done by Downstairs. Lacey took a moment to regard Monique superficially, noting her sharp suit, finely done hair, nails and makeup. This wasn't someone who did things because she liked doing them, but because it was expected of her. She wore the uniform of someone complying to their betters, as though to pretend she was one of _them_.

But she wasn't one of them. She was Lacey, but in pinstripes.

"Yeah, you might be right." Lacey said, "Well, I won't hold you up any more. Have a good night!"

Lacey didn't await Monique's reply. She lowered herself into her driver's seat and started the ignition, waiting patiently for the car to warm its heater. Monique turned to stride away, her heels still audible over the sound of the old engine of Lacey's car. Lacey watched Monique with a degree of sadness in her eyes. It was demoralising to see someone who probably had more to offer being reduced to a function that didn't seem to rise up above the task of "removing daily inconveniences from the life of the well-off".

What was sadder was that Monique believed that she was part of their club. Yet another participant in the charade, following the blind belief that compliance would lead to ascension.

Lacey shifted her car into gear and drove from the parking lot. A strong gust buffeted the side of the car as she drove out of the car park, rocking it gently. The alley between the Lottery building and the one next door channeled wind, accelerating gusts through at a brisk pace. The windows on Lacey's car creaked a little from the pressure exerted upon it by the wind.

The next morning was going to be cold.

Chapter 14 – Gridlock

Traffic was bad.

The morning commute was always a chore, but today it moved at a pace that could only be described tedious. Lacey stared ahead at the taillights of the car before her, trails of its exhaust dancing up the back of the car as the hot fumes met icy air.

While it was illegal to do so, Lacey opened her phone to check the traffic congestion on the maps app. Big red lines ruled in grids across the entirety of her screen. The city was gridlocked.

She rested her head on her hand, propped up by her arm on the window sill of the driver's door. She tossed her phone back into her handbag and reviewed the other drivers around her. Each one was held in a similar pose to her, impatiently waiting for the car in front to crawl ahead a few more feet. Their eyes stared vacantly off into the distance, even though they could barely see past the glowing red beams from the ass of the car in front of them.

Lacey's in-car entertainment chattered away with the noises of a comedy podcast that she had downloaded to a USB stick, and had plugged into the dashboard. She was lucky that someone had fitted an after-market stereo to her aging car which allowed her to curate her own playlists, rather than having to tune into a radio station to listen to music that men-in-suits had ruled as acceptable to the ears of the audience.

She chuckled to herself as a punchline from the hosts were delivered, taking a playful jab at the Prime Minister and the cavalcade of cockups he insisted on overseeing.

The cars crawled ahead.

She was going to be late for work.

Lacey looked around again at all the cars.

She wasn't the only one who was going to be late.

We can all be late together, Lacey thought with sarcastic triumph.

The trip slogged on, remaining tiresome for its entire duration. Nine o'clock came and past, and Lacey quickly punched an SMS message to Travis to let him know of her tardiness, sure to outline that she would have called, except for the fact that it was illegal to do so while in traffic.

SMSing in traffic was still illegal, but at least it was easily hidden.

After crawling for an age, Lacey eventually arrived at the car park under the Lotteries building. The gates opened achingly slow. Mockingly. She hurried through the opening, driving briskly and with little care for the surrounds. It was 10am and she'd never been this late for work before.

She parked her car and exited. As she approached the gate to walk out to the street, it slowly eased open to permit entrance to another vehicle. A black Lexus. Again, the black Lexus. She sighed, not wanting the suit to have seen her lateness, but she couldn't escape it now. He would have seen her, and any attempt to hide would only amuse him more.

She politely nodded to the Lexus, but didn't seek any kind of reply. She took the opportunity to walk through the gates while they were opened and went to the front door of the office.

Traffic was still busy outside, queued up across the entirety of Lacey's vision. There was no honking of horns, or any kind of anger on display. Just a long line of bored-looking drivers and cars impatiently blustering out the by-product of a combustion cycle.

No coffee this morning, Lacey thought, walking straight into the office. The sounds of the street faded and disappeared with a click as the door closed shut. In place of the idling engines was the sound of humming air conditioning and the gentle whine of photocopiers. Unseen phones rang.

Perhaps she should have taken the train.

Michael and Chelle smiled at Lacey from their reception desk. They were both their usual selves. Always cheery and proper.

"Caught in traffic?" Chelle asked.

Lacey nodded slowly, indicating her fatigue.

"Apparently some car parks were vandalised in the city, which is why cars are queued up everywhere." Michael explained.

"Yeah, cars are across intersections, and they can't go anywhere, because nobody can get into their car parks." Chelle continued.

Lacey felt the blood drain from her face, "What?"

"Some people decided to smash up boom gates for a few car parks," Chelle said, "for some reason, I dunno." she shrugged.

"People need a life." Michael said.

"That's what's caused the traffic jam?" Lacey asked.

Chelle and Michael nodded, "That's what's on the news on the radio. Three car parks in the city were hit." Chelle said.

"Only three?" Lacey asked with incredulity, "Three car parks is all it takes to gridlock a city?"

Michael and Chelle shrugged in unison, their uniformity creeping Lacey out a little, "Apparently so." Michael said, "When there's so many cars in the city and all going to one central point, I guess all it takes is the right points hit at the same time."

"I see." Lacey said, pulling her handbag up and over her shoulder. She strode past the pair, vaguely hearing one of them wish her a good day. Her ears buzzed from her anxiousness and from her chilled lobes being warmed by the climate controlled air.

Lacey again began to feel the weight of what she had done. What she had commanded. What she thought was the right thing to do. Again, it was only meant to inconvenience a small number of people, but she never thought for a second that a whole inner city could be gridlocked from her act.

She hurried over to her cubicle and thumped her bag down next to Gerald, her stuffed toy companion, and fished her phone from her bag.

She opened BBM to inspect the notifications coming in. They were all photos of busted boom gates for car parks. More concerning was that the photos were of three different car park gates, but they were sent by more than three people.

The contacts were collaborating with each other. They weren't operating independently, but were actively part of a team.

Lacey flopped into her seat, sprawling inelegantly across the cushioned base and her arms draped over the armrests. She reached up to gather Gerald before beginning to pivot the office chair, yawing left, then right, back left, again right. Her feet rocked with each partial swivel and for a moment, Lacey felt enjoyment at the smoothness of the chair swinging, all while cradling Gerald in the crook of her arm. No wonder those villains in movies liked those chairs to swivel on.

She checked her phone again, focussing on that name, Annabelle. The one who had scratched that @ on the Lexus. Lacey opened up a message, her ears still buzzing from the anxiousness and warmth. She quickly tapped out a message to Annabelle, all the while asking herself the wisdom of contacting a stranger on a matter of dubious legality.

"Were you involved?" Lacey wrote. She sent the message, and BBM replied with a "D" disc appearing to denote that the message had been delivered. Almost immediately, the "D" changed to an "R". The message was read.

"omg yes" came Annabelle's reply.

"Did you operate alone?" Lacey asked. D disc. R disc.

"No. Five of us were there." Annabelle replied

Lacey was astounded by the reply, not knowing how to respond to someone who seemed so diligent and so keen to follow orders. Lacey still felt a little light-headed at seeing the ramifications of her orders, and those orders being realised with such a grand impact. She pondered her next message to Annabelle, tossing up whether to simply end it now, call off the dogs and tell the group to disperse. If this light-headedness was a symptom of managing people, Lacey was unsure if she was fit for leadership roles. She wondered if her crusade, her little petty rebellion against those in charge, was worth the effort.

The memory of the cold, dead eyes of Monique and Beth gave her some resolve back. Not Christian, though. His nihilism was as superficial as the suit's smile.

Every company out there must have a Monique and Beth, run by a suit who only cares about the bottom line, or the power they wield. Lacey typed out her reply to Annabelle.

"What's in this for you?" she asked.

D disc.

R disc.

Seconds passed. A message appeared at the top of the screen, "Annabelle is writing a message..."

Lacey waited.

"I'm sticking it to the man." Annabelle replied.

"Don't you have other means to do that?" Lacey asked.

"These people can only help with sticking it to the man." Annabelle wrote.

"How do you mean?"

"Any cause needs resources. Lottery winners have resources." Annabelle wrote. Although more words began to appear in the reply, "They are people who are tired of working for the man and they finally got a chance to take something back."

"You're not in this for the money or fame?" Lacey asked. It seemed like a pertinent question. All the interactions she'd had with people recently seemed to centre around these two things. Money and fame. Money from winning. Fame from recording stupid shit and uploading it to the internet. Again there was a pause after the message had been read. Lacey's phone eventually blipped again.

"No."

Lacey bent her arm to squeeze Gerald a little, hearing him hush with the beads inside. She cradled him for a moment before picking him up and looking into the dark orb he wielded as eyes, searching for some kind of eureka moment. Annabelle seemed genuinely aligned with Lacey's feelings, and seemed to have enough people supporting her. With Annabelle's drive, and a willing team behind her who seemed well resourced, then maybe they stood a chance of making an impact.

Lacey slept her phone without any further messages.

She needed coffee.

Travis wouldn't mind, she felt.

Crossing the road to the cafe was a simple case of weaving through the stationary cars on the street as they all patiently waited for fate to grant them movement again. Lacey barely noticed the cars around her, only paying them the merest of attention that could assure her safety, as her mind was delving through the events that had caused this traffic jam.

Lacey entered the near-empty cafe. There was no queue, save for a single person in a suit. The suit. He was idly flicking through the pages on his smartphone, reading and watching. He seemed lost in his own little world, the conscious place between the brain and the wireless internet. Lacey approached the counter to order her coffee, turning only slightly to regard the suit closer. He displayed no smile, and his eyes were glassy as he stared at the phone in his palm. His suit was unbuttoned, which was an unusual thing for Lacey to notice.

She ordered her coffee, the sound of her voice causing the suit to look up from his phone for a moment to regard the speaker. Lacey met his eyes with a casual smile, an expression that denoted neither pleasure nor pain at the exchange. The suit said and did nothing, except return his attention to the phone.

No smarmy words. No smug smile. Lacey considered this behaviour abnormal for the suit, who had always seemed so ready to exude confidence at all times, with nothing in the world shaking him. For most people, the suit would have still appeared sharp, neat and powerful, but to Lacey he looked disheveled and shaken.

Lacey waited for her coffee patiently. The suit's coffee came before hers, which he took from the barista with neither thanks nor occasion. With his suit unbuttoned, he looked comparatively tired. He did arrive to the office slightly after Lacey, clearly having been caught in the same traffic as she had. Lacey amused herself with the thought that he should have called a helicopter to relieve himself of the everyday burden of the daily commute in rush hour, but then she realised that perhaps he was in his relative unkempt state _because_ of the traffic jam.

She had inconvenienced him.

The thought warmed her insides far more than the coffee would have. As he started to walk from the cafe, still looking into his phone, Lacey called after him.

"Better button that jacket up!" She said, a smile broadening across her face.

The suit looked up from his phone and turned to Lacey. He didn't smile. He didn't scowl. He stared at her with some blankness, as though he was trying to find a reason for why Lacey was so cheery toward him. Remaining expressionless, he deftly swung the right side of his single-breasted suit jacket to meet the left and quickly buttoned it one-handed. He gave Lacey the slightest of nods before returning to the task of exiting the cafe, an action announced by the sudden gush of traffic noise from outside. The cars had began moving a little more steadily.

Lacey's coffee emerged from behind the counter, which she gleefully accepted. She lifted the brew to her nose and drew a longer smell, feeling it swirl around her senses and sinuses. The heat. The smell. The dancing wisp of steam that tickled the end of the nose. It all seemed suddenly more beautiful this morning.

She waved to the barista, who replied in kind, busying himself with cleaning the counter and the coffee machine that had created the art held in Lacey's fingertips.

Lacey departed the cafe and negotiated the freshly flowing traffic before returning to the office.

Perhaps this day was going to be a good one.

Lacey cheerfully carried on through the day, performing her duties with a smile she felt had been missing for the past few weeks. Others in the office reacted in kind to her, although likely not understanding the source of Lacey's mirth. Travis did notice, and remarked that Lacey was "quite chipper" to which Lacey replied that she'd had a remarkable cup of coffee. Chelle and Michael beamed brightly to her as she busied herself with helping with their tasks. Beth and Tim even cracked a half smile to her as she enthusiastically swept through the tasks they'd given her. Christian didn't seem any different, though, however Lacey knew that was just his schtick.

She could skip gaily through the office, and he'd still regard her with vacant eyes that receded far back into his own skull.

If that's the attitude he wants to use, he can have it, Lacey thought.

During the afternoon there was a flurry of action from Travis' office. Lacey was seated at her own cubicle, putting on the finishing touches to some correspondence to a local hospital that the Lotteries professed to contribute funds, when she heard Travis' voice, inflecting in a series of questions. The voice grew louder as his questioning approached Lacey's cubicle, "Is there anything I can help you with? Can I relay anything for you?" she heard him saying. She felt the presence of people near her cubicle.

She turned to the entrance of her tiny abode.

The suit stood at the threshold, the familiar smile freshly painted on his face.

"If I'd know you were coming down, I would have..." Travis said, trailing off and leaving the statement unfinished.

" _Been a good lapdog._ " Lacey finished for him, mentally.

Lacey stood to face the suit, both to show some appearance of politeness, and to also not have him looking downward at her. She always found it awkward to be at a lower altitude to the person with whom she was speaking. The suit appeared to have recovered from his morning "disheveled" state, standing a good inch taller than Lacey. He had also regained some of his aura and stature that she had found was missing from his presence in the cafe.

"Quite a morning." The suit said.

"I know. Chaos out there." Lacey said, returning with her own smile.

"I just just came down here to just say that we've noticed the good job you've been doing and have been impressed by your resourcefulness." The suit said, the volume of his voice raising a little. It sounded a little uncomfortable to hear his voice traveling over the office.

Travis smiled from behind the suit, "Lacey's been a great help to us. We really value..."

The suit disregarded the voice behind him like a parent talking to a friend with their child clutched to their pant leg, "We'd like to see you Upstairs." the suit said, his voice still resonant amid the corridors of office cubicles.

Travis' eyes widened in surprise, "But..." he started.

"We'll let you know when. I understand that you'd need some time to hand over work and the like." The suit said to Lacey.

Lacey was surprised, like Travis, but she kept her reaction under control. She'd always considered herself to be at conflict with the suit, and she was of the impression that the suit returned the attitude. Each exchange they'd encountered had felt like an arm-wrestle, but in each episode it was the suit who had won out. Lacey considered that perhaps the suit was conceding some ground, or that perhaps she had misread their encounters. Perhaps she had misjudged the suit, and he wasn't this arrogant monster that she had concluded. It wouldn't be the first time she was wrong about somebody, she knew.

"I, uh..." Lacey began.

"Okay, I shall leave you be." The suit said, still with his knowing smile plastered to his face, "We'll be in touch about timeframes, and I'll leave the matter with the Senior Accountants as to your new pay."

"Uh, thank you." Lacey said with a measured tentativeness.

The suit departed quickly, leaving Travis standing at the boundary of the cubicle in silence. His face seemed blank as he seemed to be working through the logistics of this new situation. He was going to lose a staff member, and had to plan ahead. He was going to have to start from scratch with someone new, and invest a lot of time and energy into getting them up to speed.

All in a single moment, his day had changed. A decision from up high had been made and he just had to cope and make it happen. A decree was made in few words and the trickle-down was that much more work had been heaped onto those Downstairs, what with needing to advertise, interview and train a new candidate. Lacey suddenly felt that weight of guilt again. After a few moments of blank contemplation, Travis mustered a smile, "Well good work." he said to Lacey, the warmth of his face not really matching the tone of resignation that emerged from his mouth. He silently walked away to leave Lacey in her cubicle, his head forward with the determination of a juggernaut through icy waters. She glanced out over the partitions to look around the office, only to see the tops of a few heads, likely belonging to colleagues who had been eavesdropping on the conversation. The suit visiting the lower floor wasn't a common occurrence, let alone making an unannounced visit to give out a promotion.

She didn't know any time in any job where the bosses made a particular appearance to promote staff. If anything, they keep it discreet as to keep the other commoners on staff in the dark as to how much each of them get paid.

But Lacey knew she was still quite green in her career. She didn't know how every workplace operated, so this might simply be how the Lotteries worked.

The door to Travis' office clicked closed and the horizontal blinds blinked shut. Lacey's brief moment of reflection was interrupted by Christian's appearance at her cubicle, surprising her. He never emerged from his cubicle during business hours, remaining inside his glowing cocoon until some time after Lacey left.

"Moving on up." He quipped.

"Yeah, so it seems." Lacey said.

"Don't forget us little people down here." Christian said with a half smile.

"Did the whole office hear that conversation?"

Christian nodded, "Kinda hard to miss it, really. But these open-plan offices aren't really helpful for discretion. I can hear every word you say to the lottery winners.

Lacey gave a weak smile, "Everything?" She dreaded for a moment that Christian knew about the "game", the instructions she'd been giving winners, and likely knew of the recruitment into her little group that she'd performed.

Christian tilted his head to think for a moment, "Well, most of it. I can hear the swearing you do after you've hung up, at least.

"Congratulations, anyway," Christian finished, "It's nice to see hard work being rewarded."

Lacey thanked Christian and returned back to her computer. His reaction to the news was nice in comparison to Travis', who seemed almost disappointed. Lacey considered that the promotion would inconvenience Travis, but that wasn't something that would have given him much of a hurdle, she figured. He was an effective operator, so finding her replacement shouldn't present much of an issue.

Remembering what Christian had said to her one time, Lacey thought also that Travis was perhaps jealous of her promotion. He wanted to ascend to Upstairs, but he was always kept on the lower floor. Her being shifted up into the Promised Land in such a short time frame probably stung at Travis.

She sighed to herself. She didn't ask for a promotion, so it's not her fault. She can't be responsible for Travis' hurt feelings.

She silently cursed. That could have been an ideal opportunity to ask for elevator access from the car park. She had grown so accustomed to not having elevator access, that she didn't even think to ask. She might have to just continue to go without.

An email appeared in Lacey's email, abruptly popping in at the top of her inbox. It was another message from the nebulous "Management".

Dear staff,

You would have seen the recent news of car parks across the city being vandalised, which caused widespread disruption to traffic. Rest assured that we have security in our own car park, and that this kind of vandalism should not present an issue to staff.

We encourage staff to be somewhat vigilant when walking around the building late at night and to report any suspicious behaviour to Security on the number provided on the posters outside.

Regards

Management

Lacey's phone blipped with a couple messages from BBM. It was a distinct tone that she now recognised immediately. She ignored the app for now, as she had more pressing matters, her mind leaping to plan the things that she could do with the extra money she could expect in her pay.

Now she could maybe cover the unforeseen car park expense.

Lacey cursed again, realising that she should have negotiated for her car park costs to be included as part of her promotion.

Curses.

Then Lacey had another realisation that took some of the wind from her enthusiastic sails. This was the same dangling carrot that Upstairs probably offered to Beth, Tim, Travis and Monique. The suit was expecting her to take the promotion, and probably hope that it would keep her quiet and happy for a little longer. It was a buy out. The suit was just doing to Lacey what he did with everyone else.

But Lacey could recognise the game. She wasn't stupid. Lacey wasn't one to be bought off so easily with vague promises and pointless titles. She returned to her seat and picked up Gerald again, cradling him in her arm, again like a movie villain holding a cat as she considered this new situation. She reached down to her bag to find her phone so that she could check the BBM messages that were waiting for her.

A few more photos had come through from her contacts, of either wrecked boom gates or of the massive queues of cars. There were also messages from people who applauded Lacey's instruction, complimenting her on the gridlock fallout. A few other pictures came in of graffiti, similar to the @ with a strikeout, painted on some walls.

Recognising the symbol, Lacey checked the conversation with Annabelle, but there was no new messages from her.

Lacey quickly typed out a message to Annabelle, "Did you tell others about that @ you drew?"

Lacey stared at the symbols flickering onto her phone to show the message status. Delivered. It was read quickly.

"I did. Is that a problem?" Annabelle replied.

Lacey thought for a moment about how she should reply. She didn't really want a "brand" or "logo" for this little group, but she hadn't considered that the mob she had wrangled would get their own heads together, either. While there were a number of people in the group, it was still a small number, perhaps twenty or thirty, so there was little chance of things getting too out of hand.

Besides, Lacey could just disband the group entirely if things got too crazy. The last thing Lacey wanted was some vigilante group. She wanted to shake things up, not actually harm people.

Innocent people, at least.

"It's no problem. So long as everyone stays safe." Lacey replied, "If you're working together, just look after one another."

"Will do." Annabelle replied.

Lacey closed BBM and opened up her personal Twitter account. The feed was full of national news, politics and weather. Lacey did notice a few news stories that talked of the traffic jam, along with photos of crowded cars and busted car park gates. Lacey quickly checked the stories for any information, but was relieved to see that the articles only mentioned vandals and portrayed the crimes as mere pranks. Lacey took a look at the photos accompanying the articles, and found only one that featured the disfigured @ symbol. Thankfully no articles drew attention to the innocuous piece of graffiti, the symbol fitting into the background with all the other tags near the gates. It was likely that the symbol was unnoticed.

Reopening Twitter, Lacey then saw a tweet from a single individual. Lacey didn't recognise the name, handle nor photo, but the message read, "Busted car parks, fuck yeah. Take that, you robots!"

The poster of the tweet was a guy wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. He looked generally apathetic, and his history of tweets seemed to suggest a somewhat anarchic attitude.

This was the kind of person Lacey didn't want involved in the group. Someone with a violent axe to grind against anyone he perceived as having a slight against him. Someone who doesn't subscribe to modern society's pursuit of order and peace.

Lacey returned to her BBM app and opened up a Broadcast message, which would beam her text across all the contacts. She needed to let everyone know that the group was exclusive and that outside recruitment could only be done by her. She needed to vet people wanting in.

"Loose lips sink ships, people. Please do not mention this group to anyone." she wrote.

She closed her phone. She was aware of how the message echoed in a similar clang to Fight Club's first and second rules. But unlike that book, she wasn't railing against consumerism. She just wanted to inconvenience those who were free of inconvenience.

She was Lacey's smirking inconvenience.

Chapter 15 – Hello All

Lacey stared blankly at her laptop as she sat in the gloom of her modest apartment. The white glow of her screen creating a bubble around her reminded Lacey of her view of Christian each morning, him huddled over the screen of scrolling text with the focus of a hawk on prey.

Except her screen wasn't scrolling any text. It was blank, save for some fields and the various checkboxes that denoted a blog's content system. She had signed up for a free blog, the easiest method she knew of properly conveying the complicated intent of what she was doing. She needed to give her contacts something with a bit more meat, rather than simply supplying them these ambiguous instructions that she sent out piecemeal over BBM.

She was never much of a writer, and never really excelled at expressing herself. She was a doer. She got things done with her actions, and she held very little time for non-tasks such as meetings and other things that seemed to distract from the actual target. She'd always considered "meetings" to be a physical manifestation of self-importance. A bunch of people rallying together to fulfill that need to feel important.

But this task before Lacey needed doing.

" _Hello all."_

She hated the start already. But "dear colleagues" sounded too rigid and reminiscent of the communiques she'd seen from management and the alternative greet of "Attention Sir/Madam" seemed to impersonal. Even though she hated her start, she figured it was the best way to kick things off.

" _I must say that you have all done a fantastic job, based upon very little input from me. You certainly have annoyed a bunch of rich people with your antics."_

Lacey smiled at that last sentence before continuing.

Some of you might be wondering what it is that we're doing and what we're aiming for. "This is a fair question, and considering the circumstances that some of you have found yourself in, you are right to be skeptical."

Lacey was sure that some of the Lottery winners had probably met many people recently wanting to relieve them of some of their windfall. Lacey herself wasn't interested in gleaning money from people, and she wanted to alleviate that concern from the few suddenly-richer members of her BBM contacts.

" _I ask many of you why. Why did you buy a lottery ticket in the past? What were you hoping to get? Did you want riches? Did you want power? I can tell you that winning the lottery will give you none of these. All it gives you is brief relief. You will never sit at the big boys' table, and you will never feel the true release from servitude._

" _You have all worked in jobs you've hated, just because you needed your bills paid. You all have probably sacrificed some level of satisfaction just so you can work a little longer for a little more money. To borrow a saying, you all have worked to live, rather than the opposite, and there are those people who benefit greatly from your hard work. Those people have lived a life free of consequence and inconvenience while you sacrifice your energy each and every day, often at the cost of your own health, or your family's._

" _Things need shaking up. Those above you need to be reminded that they're no different from you down below. You bought lottery tickets so that you could feel free of the burden, but the burden will continue for many others while those people think they can get away with it._

" _The tasks I have given were meant to shake things up. Scratching a car and creating a traffic jam is likely a mild inconvenience to people who can afford repairs and who don't need to be at a job, but mild inconveniences in a large number can get attention._

" _So, I say enough to this"_

Lacey grew concerned she was getting preachy.

" _Even if a little, we will remind those in power that they need us more than we need them."_

Lacey finished the post, reading it a couple times to make sure she got all the details right and that it read cleanly. She wasn't that great a writer, and had to be sure that what she wrote actually made sense. While she knew of her weaknesses, she was still thorough, and there was nothing like an errant typo or a stilted word to make her agonise over her blunder later that day.

Then there was the risk at widely publishing such a bold call to action, and the possibility her bosses would see it. But Lacey cast aside her concerns, knowing that she didn't directly identify herself, and that free blogs rarely, if ever, achieved any broader readership. It would be arrogant of her to assume that anybody outside her contacts would even read her blog.

The Internet was replete with such blogs, all from self-appointed experts and people who thought that getting ragey and making boisterous snips at their cyber opponents was still entertaining and popular.

But readers loved dramas, Lacey knew. Even her brief stoush on twitter at sending lottery winners on foolish errands as a means to bring them some humility turned out to be a complete bust, as people loved the drama, both the actors and the audience.

Lacey quickly checked the @NotTheLotteryCaller account to see if there were any notifications. There were a few extra followers, but nothing to really note. The account had grown dormant, and even the people who used to send suggestions to Lacey for her to instruct the lottery winners had faded away to become mere digits in the "Follower" list.

Nothing is popular on the Internet, Lacey surmised. There are only fads and figureheads. Even with the mild initial success of the @NotTheLotterCaller account, and even with the added drama of newfound millionaires stripping off and shaming themselves, the Internet still largely snorted indifferently after only the merest hint of curiosity.

Her blog would go unnoticed, Lacey knew. It takes effort to get any kind of attention to a blog and that wasn't an effort that Lacey was willing to indulge, even if she wanted to blog continually. She just needed a message out there to those who were already listening.

She would be okay.

Lacey pressed the "Publish" button and watched the Circle Of Processing lap over and over before she received the confirmation from the blog that the post was now being broadcast.

Lacey copied the link for the post and emailed it to herself so that she could see the link on her smartphone. She pasted the URL into BBM as a broadcast message and pressed to send. Broadcast messages simply sent a message to all her contacts, revealing no contact information on anyone else who was receiving the text. Any replies to the broadcast message would be solely received by Lacey, and no one else. The app didn't inform her when others had read the message, so she just needed to let people absorb her words, although she didn't honestly know what to say if anyone returned a message.

Just disregard and only give them another instruction when you find one, Lacey thought. Don't engage.

Lacey was almost startled when her phone blipped with a return message. Typically, Lacey knew she would've just pocketed the phone or tossed it into her handbag, but her curiosity burned at her, wanting to know the reaction to her blog. She didn't know whether she was going too far and pushing those in the contacts beyond what they were expecting from the group.

She woke her phone.

It was Annabelle.

"I'd like to meet." the message read.

The oddity of the request took Lacey aback. Lacey had no desire to meet people, but considering what she had just circulated to everyone, Lacey did consider that she did owe Annabelle this much. Annabelle had probably, out of all the contacts, done the most work in coordinating people to do the whims that Lacey had broadcast. Annabelle had risked charges of vandalism, as had everyone else on the contacts list in BBM.

But Lacey also knew that she wanted to maintain some measure of mystique.

"I know a quiet comedy club." Lacey wrote back.

The comedy club wasn't quiet that night. All the tables had numbers of people seated at them, and the bar was kept busy by a steady rank of revelers wanting booze. Odd, Lacey thought, for a weeknight.

Lacey scanned the crowd to search for the woman in a burgundy jacket, as Annabelle had described herself. The room was gloomy, and the lights lit numerous yellow pools around the room, rather than casting a wide spread of glow. Lacey resigned from her brief search and headed toward the bar to get a glass of wine. Red. Winter demanded it.

Lacey leaned against the bench that constituted the place to order beverages, flagging down the bartender – an early-forties guy adorned with a grey shirt and a greyer ponytail and beard. He leaned in as Lacey spoke, yearning to listen to her order. He wordlessly nodded and retrieved a stemware from the rack and fetched a bottle of blood-red liquid. Lacey thanked him with a satisfied smile and turned back to the room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a woman in a red jacket from across the room. She didn't seem aware of Lacey, which wasn't surprising considering the busy nature of the room.

She was flanked by a few guys, all dressed informally and casually. Lacey felt her mood drop, realising that Annabelle must have brought some of her posse along for the meet. Lacey had simply assumed that Annabelle wanted to meet one-on-one and to discuss whatever it was that concerned her. Addressing a group of people wasn't on Lacey's list of things to do.

Lacey sipped her wine as she watched Annabelle from a distance, deftly avoiding any kind of eye contact whenever Annabelle looked about the room to search for Lacey. Lacey the @NotTheLotteryCaller.

The first act was about to begin, and the music in the room started to increase. Lacey saw Annabelle excuse herself from the guys before retreating off into the dark, likely searching for the ladies' room. Lacey turned half back to the bar and put the wine glass on the counter, signaling to the bartender to look after it. The bartender looked confused and shrugged in a questioning way, but Lacey waved to dismiss him. She would buy another one later if the bartender poured it down the sink.

Following Annabelle to the ladies' room, Lacey slid in behind her, catching the door before it closed, quietly slipping into the bathroom unnoticed by her red-cloaked prey. Lacey even managed to slip into a stall without Annabelle noticing, pressing the door closed, without closing the latch.

Lacey waited patiently for Annabelle to finish her business, her own heart pulsating heavily in her chest, nervous at meeting a stranger, a stranger with whom she felt she needed to make the right impression. Annabelle's stall opened with a metallic clack and Lacey heard a faucet running, water creating a rush of noise audible over the hubbub outside the room. Lacey opened the door a crack and glanced outward to see Annabelle washing her hands, lowering her head down to inspect the water rushing over her fingertips.

Now, Lacey asserted to herself, now is the time. This is how to make your presence known.

Lacey emerged silently from her own stall while Annabelle's head was down. Lacey pulled her hair forward so that the strands hung over the front of her shoulders, and she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. Lacey tilted her head slightly forward and kept her eyes looking slightly upward at the mirror, just so she could catch Annabelle's gaze as she lifted her head.

Just like the jump-scares in a b-grade movie, Lacey thought to herself. The surprise with a big noise was always when the protagonist closed a mirror to see the reflection of the monster. But this time, Lacey was the creature.

Annabelle straightened up to regard herself in the mirror, flinching as she noticed Lacey's apparently-sudden appearance behind her. Annabelle gasped in surprise and whirled around to look at Lacey, who coldly gazed at her with an intense stare.

"You brought friends." Lacey said steadily. Her head tingled from her nervousness, but she managed to keep her agitation under control.

Annabelle's look of shock didn't fade from her face, and she seemed to struggle to find a response. She swallowed hard and made a noise with her throat that quivered, "Are you...?" she finally and tentatively offered.

"Loose lips sink ships," Lacey said, "I didn't want to deal with more than one person tonight."

"I didn't realise," Annabelle replied, "The guys are winners of the lottery. They helped with the car park job."

Lacey returned a cold, blank stare, despite her body wanting her to run out the room and off into the night.

The din from outside the ladies' room blared into the tiled chamber as the door opened and another patron walked in. The intruder regarded the pair with an absent smile and disappeared into one of the vacant stalls. Lacey gave a gesture to Annabelle with the slightest flick of her head to nod toward the exit of the ladies' room, suggesting they move somewhere else.

Annabelle agreed and the pair exited the chamber and returned to the room. Lacey led Annabelle back to the bar and re-ordered another wine. Lacey was still buzzing from the situation, and struggled to keep her persona in check. The room began to boom as the MC strode upon the stage to warm up the crowd. The material seemed familiar to Lacey, but it was still amusing to hear the MC reciting her routine again. The crowd laughed along, and the atmosphere in the room seemed to lift. Lacey leaned into Annabelle's ear to be heard over the noise.

"What did you want?" Lacey asked Annabelle, barely audible over the noise of the room and the laughter from the crowd.

"I want to help." Annabelle replied.

"You help by following my instructions." Lacey said coldly.

The MC began to wrap up her introduction. The crowd were warmed and ready for the first act. Lacey noticed that the guys that had accompanied Annabelle had spied them and were making their way over to the bar. Annabelle's red jacket must have made her stand out like a beacon. Lacey began to panic at their approach, not wanting to confirm to them who she was and that she was the mysterious one behind the messages.

Annabelle must have sensed Lacey's reluctance because she immediately turned to the guys, introducing Lacey as "a friend from high school." The guys greeted Lacey warmly, ordering their own drinks – imported beer, which didn't surprise Lacey – before turning to the stage.

The MC continued her enthusiastic cajoling of the crowd before announcing the arrival of the first act. The name rebounded around the room before resting in Lacey's ears, which perked at the sound.

Christian.

He was still at it, Lacey thought, awarding him her own mental "points" for his tenacity.

Christian strode onto stage, but he seemed a little different to the first time that Lacey had seen him on the boards. He was more upright and his shoulders were back. He seemed more confident and he spoke with a warmer tone than what he'd tried that initial night that Lacey had seen him.

The crowd seemed enthused at his presence, clapping politely. Christian began his routine, uttering similar material to what Lacey had heard before, but again it seemed different. The punchlines were similar but refined and the crowd seemed more receptive. He was less ranty and the crowd was more reactive, laughing warmly with each quip and observation.

Lacey regarded Annabelle and the three guys she had brought with her. They didn't seem to be too interested in Christian's routine, still murmuring among themselves.

"He's not that funny." Lacey heard one of the guys say.

"I could probably do better." said another.

Well _you're not_ doing better, Lacey snidely remarked internally. The lottery winners were all the same, she concluded. All think they're superior but without doing the hard work to justify such an arrogance.

"Where's the caller?" The last one asked Annabelle, "You said she was going to be here." He pointed to Lacey and glanced to Annabelle with a look on his face that denoted a question being asked. Annabelle shook her head.

"I'm out if she doesn't show." he said to Annabelle, "I want to know what the plan is. I'm not giving any more of my time or money to someone who's just going to not give us any respect."

Lacey frowned. The crowd around her laughed again at one of Christian's jokes. She didn't owe any of them respect, Lacey thought.

He continued talking, "If she doesn't show by the end of this act, I'm gone." he gave a half-wave to reinforce his point and to clarify his intent over the din of the comedian and the crowd.

Lacey sipped her wine, looking at Annabelle over the rim of the glass, her eyes intense and accusing. Annabelle shrugged and offered a look of apology, understanding that Lacey didn't want to meet anyone else apart from her.

Christian started wrapping up his set, building up his voice to deliver the final line, which brought his topic of conversation back to the very first original joke he had made. A little awkward, but Lacey gave him a little credit for the effort.

He had clearly been working on his material, and perhaps even taken some of Lacey's advice on board. She cast aside her dark mood for the moment to allow herself a sense of pride in him.

Christian put the microphone back into the stand and thanked the crowd for their welcome. The people gave him an enthused reply as he waved and walked off stage.

"That's it, I'm out." the guy said as Christian exited the stage and he began negotiating the people to walk to the exit. Annabelle looked panicked as she looked to Lacey. Lacey offered her no reply, her momentary pride in Christian fading back to the situation at hand. She didn't want this situation, and this was something of Annabelle's creation. Let _her_ fix it.

Whether it was something that Annabelle had concluded from Lacey's look, or if it was because of some other thought she had, Annabelle frowned at the guy as he exited.

"Fine! Get out!" Annabelle said loudly, "No one needs you anyway!"

People in the crowd turned to look at Annabelle and the subject of her words. The guy turned back to Annabelle and shrugged, "Whatever." he said.

Annabelle began to chant, "Get! Out! Get! Out!" It was a two-tone song, repeated again and again. A couple other members of the crowd started to join in with the spirit of the call.

Get! Out! Get! Out! Others started to change the words to something a little more crass.

The MC strode onto the stage and she took the microphone. She stared at the back of the room but smiled, "It sounds like someone up the back is getting a bad review. Typically it's the people on stage getting the heckling. Good to see a reversal sometimes!" she smiled. The audience laughed with her.

The calls to "Get out" continued, but it started to change to the more forceful words. The target of the chanting tried calling back to the people heckling him, but his words were drowned out by the crowd. Then the MC started joining in.

Fuck! Off! Fuck! Off! The bi-tonal song resonated around the whole room as everyone joined in, even pointing to the door with the rhythm of the chant.

Fuck! Off! Fuck! Off!

The departing guy growled something indecipherable and threw his hands down in resignation. He turned and strode out of the premises, shoving his way past people as he went. The crowd cheered loudly as the guy departed, and jeered at the target's last retort of a middle finger salute he gave to the room from the door.

The MC on stage chuckled, "One less fuckhead, am I right? Now I understand why you guys find it so fun to heckle." The crowd laughed heartily and the MC redirected the proceedings to the next act.

Annabelle looked to Lacey, a massive grin across her face, proud and loud. Lacey sipped from her glass again, continuing to glare at her. Annabelle didn't seem to flinch, somehow taking Lacey's demeanour to mean that the event that had just occurred was fine.

Lacey didn't know exactly how to feel at the crowd power she'd just witnessed. The guy simply didn't want to participate, but was cast out by the overwhelming people power.

He'll cope with his millions, Lacey concluded, remembering that each Lottery winner was invariably a jerk. A rowdy club full of "commoners without money" isn't going to make him lose any sleep. She wasn't sure if it was the embrace of the red wine that was warming her, or the slightly good feeling of a group recognising the douche bag and ejecting them from their space.

Yet Lacey still felt a little conflicted. The reconciliation of feelings and thoughts circled around the same lap of the carousel; he deserved it, but did he? He's rich, so who cares? People should care. Why? Because mobs aren't always right. But he deserved it. But did he?

Lacey returned to the bartender and ordered another wine. The next comedian was up on stage, who appeared to be a well known personality. When he was introduced the crowd gave a hearty cheer, and stood to welcome him on stage. Lacey wasn't familiar with the name, but she wasn't really one for keeping the finger on the pulse of niche entertainment like small-time stand-up comedy clubs.

Annabelle slipped in next to Lacey, ordering her own drink. She turned her back to the bar and leaned against it, leaning into Lacey's ear to be heard over the booming speakers. The comedian spoke with a boisterous confidence, likely to be able to carry his voice without the addition of a microphone.

"These two guys are okay, but I can get rid of them easily." Annabelle said, referring to her two remaining companions.

Lacey sipped her wine, suppressing a chuckle that threatened to emanate from her throat after a joke she genuinely found funny. She turned sideways to regard Annabelle with a look. Lacey couldn't really pinpoint an intention behind the look. The wine was clearly starting to taking hold.

Annabelle nodded, as if to understand, which Lacey took as odd because she didn't actually mean anything by the facial gesture. It was surprising how Annabelle seemed so willing to comply with Lacey's "request", implied or otherwise.

Annabelle left the bar and approached the remaining two fellows. She shrugged at them both and shook her head. Lacey couldn't make out any of the words over the loud performance on the stage, but the pair of guys nodded along to what Annabelle was say before turning and exiting the club. They seemed quite compliant and understanding, however considering the treatment that the last guy got, Lacey wasn't surprised that they wanted to leave without incident.

Annabelle triumphantly returned to Lacey and collected her drink from the bartender, paying with a few notes. She turned her back to the bar, leaning against it again with a relaxed gait. The pair watched the comedian perform his set – a fifteen minute routine that ambled over the performer's wrangling of his life now that he had twin children to herd.

Lacey snorted to herself at his lamentations, the wine consuming her somewhat. She was toward the back of the room, so the only person who noticed Lacey's scowl was Annabelle.

"My heart bleeds." Annabelle remarked sarcastically.

"At least he has a job he likes, with his comedy." Lacey said, "Most people would just want something they find fulfilling."

Annabelle held out her glass toward Lacey, who clinked it in reply with her own stemware.

"Is this why you're doing what you're doing?" Annabelle asked.

Lacey turned sideways to glance at the question. She was tempted to just stonewall the query and give Annabelle nothing, but Lacey was beginning to warm to her bar companion. Lacey almost felt a measure of kinship with her, but she also knew that alcohol was taking its role in conversation. Loosening lips.

"I just want to get some power back." Lacey said, "Our lives aren't ours. We just do things for those in charge in exchange for just enough to get by."

Annabelle agreed, "We're just resources to be used. If they had their way, we'd slog ourselves out for four decades and then just retire and die without being pesky little burdens on the pension."

"The Lottery is just their little teasing carrot." Lacey said, "It's a chance they offer us but the odds are so impossible and the winners are so desperate and disparate, they can't unite themselves and we can't fight back."

"But _you're_ uniting them." Annabelle said to Lacey.

Lacey was surprised at the reply. She hadn't thought about it that way, but Lacey nodded knowingly, pretending as though that was her intention all along. All Lacey wanted was rich people with some humility, but Annabelle's idea was perfect. Unite the downtrodden. Lacey held out her glass.

Annabelle clinked her glass again, smiling broadly.

Disunity was what they wanted, Lacey started to ponder, the alcohol truly taking ahold of her mind. It all started to make sense inside her booze-fogged brain. The reason the suit had told her about Christian leaking the footage of her in the car park, and the reason the suit had made such a loud pronouncement of her promotion to Upstairs. He wanted Downstairs divided so that they wouldn't unite and become a problem.

Lacey and Annabelle said very little to each other for the rest of the night. Lacey's mind raced as she saw the whole system unraveling before her eyes, understanding it, and formulating ways she could use it.

"We need more to unite." Annabelle said toward the end of the evening, mimicking Lacey's own thoughts.

Lacey held her glass out again.

The pair did a third cheers, finished their drinks and walked out into the night. Lacey did think that she should perhaps congratulate Christian on his good set that night, but she dismissed the idea.

She'll do that later.

Chapter 16 – Precursor

The Sunday emerged into existence at a rate that surprised Lacey. Previously, the weeks had always seemed to drag on, almost as though savouring Lacey's dread for having to telephone Lottery winners.

There had been some correspondence over BBM with Annabelle over the previous days, where she had enthused over various ideas and operations they could perform, especially when they had more resources behind them. Well-funded winners.

Lacey had never wanted anything to do with winners' money. It was theirs. She thought it too easy and too lazy to simply try to grift winners. She just wanted the winners to be smarter and humbler. She wanted the winners to be less jerky and to learn that they weren't a better person than they were mere moments ago, before they knew they had money. This game wasn't a money-maker for Lacey. She didn't want some scheme. This was a principle.

The car park to the office was empty this day. That wasn't unremarkable for a Sunday, but Lacey just felt a desolate atmosphere to the car park. Even the streets outside seemed a little quieter than usual. The sun was out, which made a nice change from the wintry ice wind that had permeated the previous few weeks. Lacey opened the front door of the office with that familiar snap from the security latch. The warm air at the threshold was always welcoming.

Lacey retrieved the printout of winners names and read the sole entry on the list. Mister Hosking.

Well, Mr Hosking, Lacey thought, today is your lucky day.

Christian wasn't at his desk that morning. That was the most unusual thing. This would be the first time that Lacey hadn't seen his huddled and bent figure leaning over a blue glow. The office felt emptier and almost barren without that familiar beacon from that corner.

Lacey stopped at her desk and retrieved Gerald from the top of the table, figuring that even the company of a toy was better than no company at all. As she opened the room with the red phone, she attempted to turn on the light, but the bulb didn't ignite. She tested the switch a few times, up and down, rhythmically trying in vain to get the low hanging fixture to glow. No mind, Lacey figured. She could still see the red phone's dialing pad.

Placing Gerald on the table, resting on the edge of the page with Mr Hosking's details, Lacey punched his number into the phone's face and awaited the call. This had just become so routine to Lacey now, and there was neither joy nor dread in the exchange. Almost robotic was the discussion, however today she felt it was going to be different. Her and Annabelle were on the same page on this, and it felt right to get more recruits.

Besides, who wouldn't want to join in and stir up the establishment any more than the downtrodden who were desperate enough to buy a lottery ticket in the first place? Lacey thought.

The phone clicked and a woman answered.

"Hello, this is the Lottery Caller." Lacey said.

"Yes? Hello?" Came the confused reply.

"I am calling for Mr Hosking." Lacey said, picking up Gerald from the table and cradling him in her arm.

"One second." the woman said, calling out away from the phone's receiver. The phone clunked as the device was placed on a table.

How quaint, Lacey thought, people still used land-line phones.

Footsteps were heard, along with the murbles of an infant, gurgling in some incoherent language only understood by the urchin. The phone dragged and lifted, "Hello?" came the voice.

"Hello, Mr Hosking. This is the Lottery Caller."

"Oh? Yes?" Mr Hosking said.

"I am calling to let you know that you've won the first prize in last night's Lottery draw." Lacey said in a monotone that was almost cold.

"Really? Oh wow!" Mr Hosking started to enthuse.

Lacey leaned back in her seat, still cradling Gerald in her arm, "But first, Mr Hosking, I need you to do something for me." she said.

"What?"

"I need you to..." Lacey began, but she was cut off.

"Wait a second, I won, right?" Mr Hosking said in interruption.

"Yes, Mr Hosking." Lacey said, realising that she was starting to sound similar to the suit, always repeating the name of person with which he was speaking, "but there's another step."

"I just thought the process was that winners win and the Lotteries pay the winner." Mr Hosking said.

Lacey could feel the bile emanating in her throat, threatening to spill out, but she remained composed, "That's not how this works, Mr Hosking. If you check social media, you can see that there's another step..." Lacey continued, but Mr Hosking again interjected.

"I don't have time for social media. I've got a job and family. I bought a ticket for that one in a million chance, and you're telling me that I got it."

"That's the game they advertise, yes, Mr Hosking, but before I can hand over your money, I want to know if..." Lacey tried again.

"Um, just send me a cheque, please? I'll take care of the rest." Mr Hosking said.

Lacey was affronted. She'd dealt with demanding people like this all the time, but a lot of them had retreated and behaved the moment she threatened to not pay them. This guy seemed a bit more stubborn than usual. There were some voices in the background; the woman who had picked up the telephone was starting to ask questions. Lacey listened into the chat.

"What's going on?" the woman asked.

"Apparently we've won the lottery but this person is telling me there's more to it." Mr Hosking replied.

"Sounds like a prank caller. Tell them to fuck off." the woman said.

The voice of Mr Hosking returned to the receiver, louder as he spoke directly into the phone, "Look, I don't think you're very funny and we're quite busy here."

Lacey frowned, "I'm not pranking you here. You've won, but you just gotta do something first."

"Nah, I'm not buying the bridge you're selling." Mr Hosking said before he hung up.

Lacey sat there, stunned, still cradling her stuffed creature. That wasn't how the call was meant to go. Lacey retried the phone number, listening to the receiver chirrup its herald.

"Hello?" Mr Hosking answered.

"Mr Hosking, it's the Lottery Caller again." Lacey started.

"Was I not clear about the 'fucking of off'?" Mr Hosking asked.

"Check your ticket, Mr Hosking!" Lacey blurted out, "you'll see that you've won. How else would I know that you've won if I wasn't from the Lotteries?"

There was a pause as Mr Hosking considered Lacey's offer of an explanation, "Right. Okay. I'll bite. My partner will take a look."

"Okay, good. Thank you." Lacey said, lowering the sound of her frustration.

"You want to wait?" Mr Hosking asked.

"Sure."

Moments passed as the household searched around for their ticket and the people searched the internet for the winning numbers. Lacey could hear them going over the individual digits and ticking them off as they went. She could hear them growing in excitement as they eliminated each number from their ticket until there was a whoop of joy at the realisation that they were winners.

"Oh you're right!" Mr Hosking said excitedly into the telephone.

"Good, Mr Hosking. Now, I am going to need your help on something." Lacey said.

"Okay..." Mr Hosking said tentatively.

"How would you like to take part in stirring up the elite classes?" Lacey offered.

There was a brief moment again as Mr Hosking thought about what Lacey said.

"Nah, just send the cheque." Mr Hosking said.

"Mr Hosking," Lacey said with a slight hint of panic rising in her voice, "I would hate to do this, but I feel that you might be passing up an opportunity here." she said.

"Nah, I don't think I am." Mr Hosking said.

"I am offering you the chance to make actual, real change in the world, instead of just being a nameless nobody who won lottery."

"Look, I've got bigger things in my life at the moment." Mr Hosking said.

"What could be bigger than starting a revolution?" Lacey said.

"Um, look. You said you were from the Lottery, right? I didn't buy a ticket to join a cult. We just need the money to pay the bills and feed ourselves. That's all we wanted. If you just send the cheque in the mail, I'll get out of your hair. Good luck with your revolution, ta." he said.

"I would hate to lose your details, Mr Hosking." Lacey said, the threat unveiled.

"What?" Mr Hosking asked, his voice growing concerned. Lacey smiled to herself, feeling that she might have him cornered. Everyone else that she had called had caved when they felt that their winnings were in jeopardy. Everyone complied when it came to the money.

"I could just lose your details, Mr Hosking." she reiterated.

There was another pause. Mr Hosking went silent. Lacey smiled, knowing she just had another recruit to her cause.

"I still have my ticket as proof." Mr Hosking said flatly.

Lacey's smile faded.

Lacey had miscalculated.

Lacey sat at her cubicle, digesting what had just occurred. She still held Gerald on her arm as she reviewed the conversation, and replayed it over and over in an attempt to grasp where it diverged. Each time she started over the lines of the call, she always returned back to the same conclusion; the conclusion that had never occurred to her all the previous phone calls she had made.

What did she expect?

In hindsight it seemed ludicrous that all the previous events had transpired this way. The notion that winners had never thought to call Lacey on her bluff was now an alien result, and Lacey wondered why it had taken so long for her to be finally called on it.

Except people loved it. People seemed to revel in being attached to the "club" that Lacey had inadvertently formed. A group had built up around Lacey's creation, which wasn't entirely what Lacey had anticipated. It was all built on a flimsy bluff, and it was now on shaky ground due to one person questioning the first step. Lacey had grown so accustomed to having leverage over winners and that they just believed her, that she had never anticipated this moment.

Lacey's phone blipped. BBM.

It was Annabelle, asking how the recruitment call went.

"Terrible" Lacey wrote back.

"What happened?" Annabelle replied.

"He didn't want to play ball. He's just going to get his money and go."

"So, he didn't want to join us?" Annabelle queried.

"No."

"Well that sucks." Annabelle stated, the period on the end of the sentence seeming to resonate with Lacey. She was right. It did suck.

"What do we do?" Annabelle asked.

Lacey didn't know. The whole notion was shaken to its core from a single phone conversation. Lacey analysed each and every possible permutation and result from what Mr Hoskings could do from this point. He could decide to complain to management, which could be terrible. He could get Lacey fired, she was sure.

"There's not much we can do." Lacey replied.

Annabelle read the message. Lacey awaited the reply, any reply from Annabelle, just to maybe give Lacey some assurance that this wasn't that dire and that everything would be okay. She knew she had pushed this idea too far, and she cursed herself for not recognising the severity of the risks earlier. She knew it was a gamble, but for some reason she had always filed the concern away for dealing with in future. Always the future.

Except the future was now.

"Who is he?" Annabelle replied.

Lacey shook her head to the phone's screen, despite knowing that Annabelle couldn't see, "I can't say, ethically." she typed.

"I understand." Annabelle replied.

"All we do is wait." Lacey said.

The message was sent and delivered. Lacey stared intently at the blue D disc, waiting for it to change to the green R disc to denote the message had been read, but the blue disc remained. Annabelle wasn't reading it.

Lacey slept her phone and leaned back in her seat, suddenly feeling the fatigue. She found herself wanting for one of Christian's stupid rants, but his corner of the office stayed unilluminated and bereft of person. She looked down to Gerald and stared into his beady little eyes, feeling his long whiskers tickling her wrist. She considered hurling him against the wall in frustration, but she simply placed him back on the desk, stood up and walked out the room, past the cubicles, through reception and outside to circle around the building and walk to the car park.

She cursed that she still didn't have elevator access.

Lacey wandered around the office as aimless as a limboed spirit. It was Tuesday. Monday had her in a similar trance. The verbal confirmation of her promotion hadn't trickled down into actual change of duties, or a relocation Upstairs. When Lacey queried Travis about the matter, he shrugged with an absent air and said, "I haven't heard any more from Upstairs yet. I'm sure they haven't forgotten. I'll check with them later, but until then we're happy to have you here."

Lacey had smiled a weak smile and resumed her tasks around the office. File here. Letters there. Dance the merry jig of the condemned in front of the photocopier while the soul slowly deletes.

Monday had been uneventful. Lacey had passed on the winner's request to issue a cheque, and it was received by Tim with a cold and indifferent nod. Most people in the office had grown colder to Lacey since she was informed of her "promotion", which still seemed as existent and tangible as the clouds of steam that emanated from the vents in the street outside. Visible, but with no more heft than the air itself.

It wasn't until Travis called Lacey into his office that Lacey felt the knot of dread twist in her stomach, yanking her despondency down to a lower level of discomfort.

"I received a phone call from the winner." Travis said.

Lacey nodded, but said nothing.

"They said that they've received phone calls that have been quite troubling. It seems that the details of the winner have gotten out, and some people have taken it upon themselves to harass the Hoskings family. Now, I hate to ask because I don't want to sound like I don't trust you, but I need to ask; do you know anything about this? There are few people who are privy to winner's information, and you're one of them."

Lacey's face ticked upward in a look of surprise before she shook her head. She genuinely knew nothing about any troubling calls. However, if there was a leak in the company, Lacey wasn't the only person who knew the winner's details. Tim, for one. Maybe even the people who look after the records of people who register their details. Heck, even the suit might even know, "I really don't know." she replied.

"The Hoskings family have lodged a report with Police to let them know they've been receiving this harassment, but they definitely want to keep this matter low-key." Travis said.

Lacey's phone blipped. BBM again. Travis ignored it. A phone's beep was mere background noise in an office with a menagerie of electronic sounds.

"But we'll continue the investigation. Internal compromises like this are serious business, and we can't rule out the possibility of hacking. Lottery winners are prime candidates for scammers and we don't need to be adding to their problems."

Lacey nodded weakly.

"Well, if you learn anything, let me know." Travis said with a smile, returning to his desk and lowering himself into his chair.

Lacey didn't await for any confirmation from Travis to leave. She spun on her heels and hurried from the office, grabbing her phone from her jacket pocket and waking it.

There was a message from Annabelle.

"I think we might have another recruit." it read.

"What did you do?" Lacey asked. The message was promptly delivered and read.

"Nothing bad. Just gave him a little nudge." came Annabelle's reply.

"How did you get the information?" Lacey asked.

"There are ways." Annabelle replied cryptically, "You'd be surprised."

Lacey growled softly to herself before punching out a reply on the touchscreen, a gesture that had its dramatic effect reduced by the pane of glass pitifully padding audibly under her fingertips. Peoples' resourcefulness to find information was inexhaustible, it seemed.

"Why did you do that? I didn't tell you to do anything." Lacey wrote.

There was a pause after Lacey saw the little green disc to denote that the message had been read. Lacey waited for an explanation, quietly seething.

Text appeared at the top of the screen; Annabelle is writing a message...

The ellipses animated as Lacey waited.

"You didn't tell me to NOT do anything." came the reply.

Lacey was floored. She was baffled. She had never given any kind of task or instruction along these lines, but Annabelle had taken some initiative, based upon the specious interpretations of Lacey's non-action.

"You need to stop now." Lacey wrote.

"Okay, I'll do what I can." Annabelle replied.

The reply seemed vague and inconclusive, almost non-committal. She'd "do what she could" suggested that she might not be able to control what had been set in motion.

"This NEEDS to stop." Lacey wrote, "You await my instructions."

"Okay." Annabelle replied. The single word glaring at Lacey with some emptiness. Apologetic but still giving Lacey some sense of vagueness.

Lacey continued to walk to her cubicle, but she heard Travis call from his office, across the rows of partitions and cubicles. Lacey raised herself on her feet to peer over the office fences to regard Travis.

"You've been asked Upstairs." Travis called, pointing upward toward the ceiling.

Lacey nearly called back to ask him what for, but she knew Travis wouldn't be able to answer. Upstairs never told Downstairs the business unless they felt that Downstairs needed to know. Besides, Travis would only assume the summons would be because of her "promotion". That mist of a promise.

Lacey buttoned her suit jacket and directed her walk toward reception, then to the stairs and then the door at the landing at the top of the stairs. She knew that the suit was summoning her, and the thought of dealing with that impeccably-dressed-shark tightened that knot in her stomach further. Her mind raced over the various scenarios of conversation, and she knew that the suit would be asking about the winner and their police report.

There was a coin toss occurring behind her eyes, debating whether she come clean to the suit or whether she obfuscate and deny. The former feeling like a defeat; the latter continuing the game that she felt was slipping from her grasp. She wasn't the sole player anymore, with Annabelle having latched onto Lacey's crusade against jerky rich.

Monique met Lacey at the door and waved her into the office, walking to lead Lacey to another meeting room. For a moment, Lacey again reflected on the differences between the two storeys of the company. While Downstairs was professional, in comparison to the upper floor it was a casual hive. Monique was dressed in a stylish pants suit, which only served to make Lacey feel cheap in her jacket, blouse and skirt. Monique didn't say a word to Lacey, striding in lengthy steps, quickly turning through the clean and modern office to the meeting room in which she had first met the suit. The same water jug rested on the table, flanked by numerous, clean tumblers.

Lacey knew the suit would make her wait.

Although she didn't need to wait very long. The suit appeared at the doorway, walking tall and confident. Like always. He carried nothing and he took no seat. His face was still that expression of smug confidence, a light smile that never seemed to vary from that subtle curl at the edges.

He checked his watch briefly before speaking, "I received a phone call from the local media." he said simply.

Lacey looked up at him from her seat, saying nothing. The suit continued.

"They were reaching out to me for comment relating to some allegations made by one of our winners. Naturally I turned them away, citing our Customer Service Framework." He made a hand wave in a lazy gesture as if to swat an imaginary fly.

Lacey shrugged, "I saw that email you sent ages ago. It was pretty clear on our customer service."

"It was." the suit said, "These allegations are quite troubling, Lacey. You don't know anything about them, do you, Lacey?"

"What allegations?" Lacey said. She was still quite confused. While she knew what the suit was referring to, she didn't actually know the specifics of what Annabelle had done.

"The winner _alleges_ ," the suit emphasised the last word, "that their family is receiving troubling phone calls. The police have been called."

"Travis mentioned that to me," Lacey said, "I told him I don't have a clue about any of this. He said he's investigating the matter on leaks."

The suit nodded, offering only a "mm-mm" sound to confirm the subject of the conversation, "The media wanted a comment from us on what's happening on social media."

Lacey recoiled back a little, despite her best attempts to keep herself from reacting. She hated the way the suit unnerved her. His smile. His eyes. His precise method of speaking.

"I haven't done anything on social media." Lacey said. It was true. She'd been off the many social platforms for a while, not to keep a low profile, but because she'd largely lost interest in it. Her mind had been on her little game.

"We know, Lacey," the suit said, "We looked. You haven't said anything for quite some time." His tone cast a spell of certainty, as though he knew that he couldn't tie anything to Lacey, he knew that she was involved. While it was tempting for Lacey to feel smug about the lack of evidence that pointed to her, she dared to not goad or mock the suit. That would be reckless.

Lacey knew that she should be thankful that Mr Hoskings hadn't complained about their phone call on Sunday. If he had done that, Lacey would have been fired for sure. That was the smoking gun that the suit needed.

"We are committed to serving our customers at the highest level. We are the pinnacle of professionalism here. Our Framework demands it." The suit said, straightening at the spine, "And we require our employees to be well knowledgeable on this policy. We would hate to think that our employees had conducted themselves in a manner that is not consistent with our framework." His smile seemed to radiate a hint of hostility. He was sending a clear message to Lacey at this point.

She was gone if he could tie this little PR nightmare to her.

"Of course." Lacey said.

The suit continued to smile, "Well, that was all. While you're up here, I might have Monique show you around. There was that promotion I offered you, after all."

Without another word, he nodded to Lacey, smiling, smiling, always smiling, that smug crescent, and departed the room. Monique appeared at the door after his departure, her expression neutral.

Such a dutiful pet, Lacey thought.

Monique lead Lacey through the abode upstairs, showing her the kitchen – completely modern and quiet – and the office equipment. Lacey was not surprised in the least to see that everything looked sleek and modern and clean of any grime. The carpets were thick and soft, squishing beneath Lacey's shoes in the kind of comforting way a stress ball compresses beneath the grip of the critically anxious.

It didn't anger Lacey to see the luscious expense bestowed upon the residents Upstairs, even though the floor seemed empty. When Lacey asked as to the location of the other staff, Monique just said, "Strategic Planning Summit."

It was a moniker that screamed its importance while also bellowing its vagueness. It was important-sounding enough to deem a whole day dedicated to it, but it was also vague-sounding enough to encompass anything. The creatures of Upstairs could be go-karting for all she knew, or even just drinking at the bar.

A thought began to poke at Lacey's temple, realising that she had never been this type of cynic before. Before she would have simply accepted the explanation and carried on her day, blissfully unaware of any kind of oddity in Monique's words. She would have never assumed any kind of inappropriate actions on behalf of fellow colleagues, and she would have still committed herself to her task in the blind faith that hard work would pay off.

Not anymore. Even if she knew exactly what was happening at this "Strategic Planning Summit", she would still be wondering what kind of lush luxury and excess was happening behind the scenes. She had grown cynical. She had grown bitter.

She longed for her old self that didn't read into anything and was blissfully unaware. Instead, she was hollow.

She was Christian's work persona.

She was the bad comedian.

While Monique was still showing Lacey around, she bit back the temptation to check her phone. The device felt heavy inside her jacket's inner pocket where she kept her device, constantly reminding her of its existence and the knowledge it held on social media. She ached to check Twitter to see the extent of the storm that had caught the media's attention to warrant a phone call to the suit.

It seemed like Lacey was going to be Upstairs all day, helping Monique and learning how to use the fancy, different equipment. Lacey would need to wait until she climbed into her car at the end of the day before she could discover what lay in the realm of social media. Lacey struggled to concentrate and focus on the new information being loaded into her. Everything with the Upstairs equipment seemed familiar, yet alien. The same job as Downstairs was being performed but there was a level of polish in the tools that wasn't seen Downstairs. Copiers operated like a smartphone touchscreen, compared to Downstairs' crude buttons and LEDs.

The computer keyboards clicked with a solidity and assertiveness of quality, compared to the "economical" equipment used Downstairs.

Again, the contrast didn't surprise Lacey. Upstairs seemed designed to cater to the person. Downstairs focussed on the most cost-effective way to churn out the product.

Nothing Downstairs was geared to the comfort of the people using the area, aside from that time when the suit visited, which had instigated Travis' whirlwind of cleaning.

Lacey climbed into her car, hauling the door closed with an emphatic thunk. The cold wind outside came to an immediate halt at that decisive, percussive sound. Lacey took a moment to look over her car, an older Toyota Corolla that served its function well, even if it wasn't stylish. Everything seemed to be function over form, with dials and tactile buttons doing the job that many other cars had since outsourced to touchscreens and computerised dials.

Bracing herself, Lacey retrieved her phone from her jacket and opened up her Twitter. She opened the @NotTheLotteryCaller account to review her mentions. There weren't a lot of mentions. Just the few people who were sending in ideas on what to make the winners do, failing to recognise that the account had been dormant for weeks.

One mention stuck out to Lacey. It was an aggressive spiel, but not at Lacey, but at the unknown winner from the weekend. Mr Hoskings. He wasn't mentioned by name or by handle – Mr Hoskings said he didn't have Twitter – but it did carry the weight of a threat, with a hashtag #HeedTheCaller.

Lacey tapped the hashtag to open a search for the index. Lacey drew breath for a second when she saw the dozens of messages being filed under that hashtag. Numerous threats and insults scanned down the page of Lacey's smartphone, each one going into rather large detail (for the limited characters) of the kinds of atrocities the users wanted to commit to the unknown winner, Mr Hoskings. Lacey reviewed page after page, trying to find any mention of the winner by name, but she came up with none.

Lacey was confused. The winner had reported receiving troubling phone calls, but there was no indication that any anonymous internet denizen had gotten the winner's details. Everyone on twitter seemed to be shouting into the digital wind, cursing some unseen body that existed but was ungraspable.

The hashtag must have gotten enough momentum for the news outlets to warrant investigation. Such ghouls, the media were, ready to report on suffering somewhere, both decrying the barbarism of online lynchings, while seemingly cheering it on from the side, profiting from the eyes reading the stories.

While the mob on the #HeedTheCaller hashtag were vocal, they were indirect. Lacey searched deep into the history of the hashtag, hoping to find the source of the index. After scanning for a few minutes, Lacey found the first known use of the hashtag, which was tweeted by a user with a familiar logo as their avatar – an @ with the tail of the symbol drawn through it rather than around it.

Annabelle.

There was little point in contacting Annabelle now. The dogs were loose and the damage had already been done. Social media was off the chain, and without that restraint, the hounds wearing @'s would piss up whatever tree and shrub they could see in the vain hope that they might splash the right one.

Lacey needed a drink.

Chapter 17 – Game Off

The only bar that Lacey knew that was near the office was the comedy club. It wasn't to Lacey's taste, but she needed something quick, easy and familiar, and the dingy nature of the mood lighting would help her disappear into the dark folds. As she entered the room, she immediately spied Christian at the bar, sipping quietly from a beer. It had been a while since the pair had a chat, but she had thought that news of her "promotion" had pushed them apart.

She ordered her drink from the bartender and gave Christian a nod, which he returned. There was silence between the two as Lacey searched her mind for any topic to discuss. She eventually landed on one.

"I saw your set the other night." She offered, "You did well. The room liked you."

He nodded, clearly keeping his pride in himself in check, "It's been good, yeah."

"Hard work pays off, I guess." Lacey offered with a smile.

"I guess. I mean, it's something I enjoy, although I doubt it'll pay my bills anytime soon. Until then, it's the grindstone for me." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the Lotteries office.

"Or unless you win lottery." Lacey said, almost absently.

Christian shook his head, "Nah. I don't need that. It'd only create more problems."

"You don't know that for sure unless you win it." Lacey said.

"Using that kind of money to fast track any kind of success as a 'creator'," Christian emphasised with airquotes, "would only really be hollow. You know, like you haven't truly earned it."

"But it'd give you some more time to refine your material." Lacey said.

Christian tilted his head to the side to contemplate Lacey's answer, "Yeah, I dunno." He seemed to think about it more, "You might be right. I guess we don't really know that for sure." Christian said, echoing Lacey's earlier words.

"Are you performing tonight?" Lacey asked.

"Nah. Just here for a beer before I go home." he replied.

"Same, although wine." Lacey said, her glass being delivered to her as she uttered the noun. She gratefully took the stemware and took a sip from the crystal. The red's tannins swirled around her mouth and into her senses, giving her the warmth she needed at that moment.

The pair sat at the bar, both downing their drinks at an even, but slow pace. After the brief chat, any awkwardness that Lacey had felt at the silence had disappeared into the haze of her wine. He clearly felt similar. They both stared forward, appreciating each other's presence and the silence they offered.

A comfortable silence. Something that Lacey had sorely missed amid the weeks of phones, BBMs, bleeps and blorps. Whirs and churns of copiers. The thrum of the air conditioning.

Even as the room started to fill, Lacey still mentally drowned out the murmurs from other patrons, staring into the void inside the glass chamber before her. She swirled the deep red liquid anti-clockwise around the glass before letting it settle down and even out, the waves of wine flattening to a still ocean inside her drink. She watched the "legs" descend slowly down the glass' walls.

Lacey continued to drink her wine until the booze descended down the glass, leaving only a pinkish hue to the goblet. Christian's glass obtained the latticework of a beer's depletion. The pair stood to face each other.

"Take care." Lacey said to Christian.

"You too." he replied.

With that, they both left the club, facing the night air together. Nodding politely to each other, they separated, Lacey heading to the Lotteries car park and Christian disappearing to whatever abode he called home.

Lacey was doing some photocopying Downstairs when Travis called her into his office. She had reported to Upstairs that morning, on the understanding that she would be further helping Monique, but her security pass was met with a terse buzzing as she attempted to enter. Using the intercom on the wall, Lacey could obtain no reply from the speaker, no matter what thrashing she gave the door.

So, everything seemed back to normal then, Lacey had figured. Business as usual. The promise of Upstairs was just as much as wisp now as it was before. No one else in the office seemed too concerned that the promotion the suit had so boisterously announced hadn't formed into anything solid. Michael and Chelle had retained their typical demeanour toward Lacey; distant but professional. Tim and Beth were their typical selves, and didn't seem too concerned with the politics of the place. Christian buried his face into his terminal with the typical, and cynical gusto.

But she trudged to Travis' office slowly.

Travis gave Lacey a soft smile as she entered his office, and he offered her a seat. She refused, electing to stand.

"I don't have good news, Lacey." Travis said with some graveness, "Did you see the Evening Show last night?"

Lacey shook her head. That show wasn't really her pace, typically featuring stories that were fluff, distortions of truth and adverts dressed as "current affairs". It was just another noise for the end of the day, adding an awful trail to the chorus of beeping horns and phones Lacey had ingested throughout her waking hours. In the evenings, Lacey elected to watch DVDs of shows she actually liked.

"So, you didn't see the news story on the winner of last week's lottery?"

Lacey shook her head again.

Travis seated himself with a sigh, and turned to his notebook. He typed in some text and made a few clicks before turning the device around for Lacey to see. Travis had gone to the website for the Evening Show and had brought up a clip for one of their stories; an interview with Mr Hoskings.

Mr Hoskings didn't identify himself by name, but Lacey knew it was him.

The show's serious music drummed from the lousy speakers in Travis' computer. The story began with a stern-looking woman half-frowning at the viewers with the glare of strict matriarch.

"You all hear of the Lottery horror stories," she began, drama in her voice, "But the latest winners of the one-in-a-million game got more than they bargained for when they bought their ticket from a lazy, quiet club in the country."

Lacey rolled her eyes at the blatant set up to paint the Hoskings family as the sympathetic figures, downtrodden by some evil force.

The talking frowny-face introduced the story, and it began with filming a family from a distance, pushing a pram and walking through a sunny park. The voice over of the reporter was equally stern, although a little less rough. Younger. The angles being shown worked to obscure the faces of the family in question. The story was sure to outline that the identities had been obscured to protect the family from any further problems.

After having prefaced the story to show viewers that they were meant to sympathise with the family, outlining how hard working they were and their financial situation, the interview started.

"What happened next?" The interviewer asked.

"Well," the woman of the family said, her face obscured, "My partner took the call, and we were told we had won. We were excited, but then we were told we had to do more in order to get our winnings."

Lacey's heart sank as she heard the words.

The interview cut away as the reporter started to cover the twitter account, @NotTheLotteryCaller. Lacey's temples warmed and she felt light-headed. Videos played over and over of previous winners, showing the various people who were doing Lacey's bidding in order to "earn" their winnings. There were even a few interviews with some of the other winners, outlining how much fun they had, although they never really considered it strange that they had to jump through more hoops to get their winnings.

The interview cut back to the Hoskings family, still obscuring their faces.

"So what did you do have to do?"

"We didn't do anything?" Mr Hoskings said.

"Nothing at all?" the reporter probed.

"We didn't engage caller."

The reply echoed inside Lacey's head.

"But there was a whole Twitter storm over it." The reporter said, "You were getting so much hate from all corners of the internet."

"We did?" Mrs Hoskings said with some surprise, "We don't use Twitter. We never heard anything about that." She bounced a baby on her knee twice as she replied, the creature gurgling happily.

The story continued, outlining how they had contacted the Lottery for comment.

"The Lotteries denied any involvement in the matter, and they provided to us a copy of their policy on dealing with customers, which details the conduct expected of its employees."

"We treat our winners with utmost respect, I assure you," came a voice on the screen, with an overlay picture of a telephone. The picture was subtitled by "Lotteries Spokesperson". It was the suit.

The suit's voice continued, "The Lottery has a very strict customer service framework which has served us greatly in delivering the best for the people who use our service. If any one of our staff was acting in bad faith and they will be dealt with internally." The suit's voice exuded the typical confidence Lacey knew was typical of him. She knew he was going to escape any kind of backlash for Lacey's little game. He was going to come out on top. Again.

Travis turned the monitor back to him and stopped the story from playing. He stood up to face Lacey, "Thank you for your time, Lacey." He said evenly, "But we will no longer require your services. Please gather your belongings and I'll escort you out."

The words didn't hit Lacey as hard as she'd anticipated. She knew that this was coming, but she still had felt as though it would always happen tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

But now tomorrow had arrived.

Finally.

She nodded to Travis and turned to go back to her cubicle. If anyone in the office was looking at her supposed walk of shame, she didn't know. She stared sternly ahead, keeping her stance upright. Sure, she was being removed from the office, but they would never take her dignity.

No money in the world would take that.

She packed some small items into a box, sitting Gerald on top so he could face outward and look in the direction Lacey was carrying him. Travis, meanwhile, walked over to the room with the red phone, reached into the room and with a deft snap, extinguished the low hanging light.

Travis gestured for Lacey to follow him further up the back of the office. For all the times Lacey had been working for the Lotteries, she had never noticed the cubby at the rear of the office, its walls camouflaged perfectly against its bordering walls. The elevator doors were nestled into the cubby.

Travis scanned his pass, and the device beeped its acceptance.

"You have elevator access?" Lacey asked.

"Just for today." Travis replied.

Lacey had to stifle a laugh. Upstairs weren't loosening their leash, even when giving Lacey a final barb.

The elevator dinged a cheery bell and the two stepped aboard the car.

As Travis pressed the button for the car park, he held out his hand for Lacey's security pass, which she awkwardly handed over while holding her box of belongings. Travis said he'd open the car park gate for her so that she could drive out, and he offered to help in loading her things into her car. Lacey declined. Lacey took the briefest of moments to admire the handiwork of the artisan who had carved the walls of the elevator, although Lacey tempered her admiration, telling herself that to envy the world of Upstairs would to be seduced by it. That's the game. That's the promise that kept her, and kept everyone, subservient. The promise that behaving and contributing could lead to having nice things.

On the way to Lacey's car from the elevator, Travis spoke again, "What's it like Upstairs?" he asked.

The question seemed sudden, and Lacey was startled enough to not know an immediate answer, "How do you mean?"

"Is it," he started, "Is it nice?"

Travis had been nothing but helpful to Lacey, even if he was just a plaything for Upstairs. She wanted to grab his face to tell him to give it all up, and that he would never know Upstairs. Even if he got to go up there, he would never be an Upstairs person. He was always going to be Downstairs. He was too good at his job, so that was where he would stay. That was where he was useful.

Lacey lowered her items into the trunk of her car. She turned to face him, resisting that urge to shake his delusion out of his skull. Even if she told him all the details of the upper storey, it wouldn't change his attitude and desire to go there. Travis was a lost cause.

"I've seen nicer." she said dismissively.

Travis smiled, "I'm sure." he said.

Lacey had found a car park near the cafe. She needed caffeine. She had to have it. She'd earned it. The cafe made good coffee, and she felt she should enjoy one last cup there. The coffee would surely taste nicer without the weight of the office pressing on the crook of her neck.

She was surprised to see the back of a familiar suit, though. He stood in line patiently, upright and impeccably dressed as always.

Lacey felt nothing toward the suit now. Any kind of knot of dread she'd felt around him previously was now dissolved away to nothing. She had received the worst thing the suit could give to her, a firing, and yet she was still standing. She walked up behind the suit and tapped him on the shoulder, "Hi!" she greeted cheerily.

He turned slowly to her, "Hi, Lacey. How are you?" he asked, smiling.

"Not too bad." Lacey said.

"You have somewhere to go?" the suit asked, referring to any another job that Lacey might have lined up, and also highlighting that he knew of Lacey's fate.

"I'm a gopher." Lacey said, "I'll find something. I think the bar I worked at before might take me back."

"A step back to take two forward?" the suit asked. Some might have taken the suit's words as encouragement, or as philosophical optimism, but Lacey knew he was mocking her. She didn't care.

"What about you?" Lacey asked.

"What _about_ me?" the suit replied, still with that smile.

"You'll just pave over your little PR issue that was raised last night?" She asked.

"It's already been paved over," the suit said, "Little episodes like this only stay in the mind of the public for two, maybe three, weeks. After that, the mob just moves onto the next thing."

Lacey sighed, "You have an answer for everything, don't you?" she said.

He replied with that smile.

The line moved to the counter and the suit approached the barista and ordered two coffees.

"Two drinks?" Lacey asked, "Who's the lucky person?"

"I've got a meeting with the Minister's Office." the suit said, "The Minister for Gaming."

"Oh?" Lacey replied, "Sounds important. What about?"

The suit said nothing. Lacey understood the intention behind the silence: It was none of her business.

"Is the Minister here?"

"No," the suit said, "I'm with the Adviser to the Minister."

Lacey recoiled a little, but then returned her own smile to the suit. The smile grew and grew, Lacey feeling the mirth rising inside her. The amusement eventually rolled up and spilled out, culminating in a hearty laugh. She felt an unimaginable release as a realisation curdled inside her. The game she thought she'd discovered, the game in where those Upstairs towed along the lackeys Downstairs with vague promises and meaningless titles; it was just a layer.

The suit looked at Lacey with puzzled eyes.

" _Just_ the adviser?" Lacey laughed, "Oh my, the Minister can't even give you their time."

"The Minister is a very busy woman." the suit said.

"Oh, you can believe that if you want," Lacey said, still mirthing, "but I don't think you're willing to admit to yourself that you're on a lower rung. You know, I thought that you were up on this higher tier," Lacey gestured a level with her hand, "but you're still not at the top, like you think you are."

The suit still looked puzzled. It was the first time Lacey had seen his expression in a shape that didn't denote smugness.

"You think you're sitting at the big table, but the real big boys only send their lackeys to deal with you. Oh, this is great." Lacey laughed again, "You think you're a one-percenter, but you're really not that important. Minister for Gaming? What even the fuck is that? A minor portfolio?" Lacey let go of any inhibitions as the cafe turned its attention to her.

"You send out an email about car park vandalism as though you seriously think your office would be a target?" Lacey laughed, "Oh wow. I see now. I see it all."

The suit turned to retrieve the coffees as they appeared on the counter. But that didn't deter Lacey who continued laughing.

"You didn't send that email out about vandalism because you were worried about staff safety. You did it because you wanted staff to think that they're important enough to be targeted." Lacey said firmly, still interspersed with chuckles.

"You're being strung along by those with _actual_ power, like how you string along Travis. They're just tolerating you, sending only their representatives rather than meeting you directly." Lacey grinned, "You think you have this power, but on a grand scale, you're nothing."

The suit began to walk away from Lacey, not saying another word. He weaved toward a distant table that was occupied by another well-suited man, who was busy doing lazy swipes at his tablet

"Oh you can continue in your delusion," Lacey said after the suit, "But know that when it all comes crashing down, you're going to be abandoned in that office when all the workers realise that they're being led on. When that happens, you'll only have the rusted-on supporters, and they'll die off eventually anyway!" Lacey laughed, even on that macabre note.

Lacey settled herself as she ordered her coffee, still suppressing little fits of laughter.

It was amazing to see. Lacey had figured that the suit himself was a member of some kind of elite club, but the realisation that he was no different to the rest of them, albeit on a different tier, was greatly amusing. The suit wanted to exude this air that he was above such menial clambers for status, but he was just as much a victim of the system as Travis, or Beth, or the pair at reception.

There was always another level above.

Lacey retrieved her coffee from the counter and felt it warm her fingertips. She settled her fits down into an easy smile that curled up slightly at the edges. She wrapped her scarf around her shoulders as she braced for the cold air outside. She glanced over to the table to see the pair of suits chatting, although Lacey was amused at the exaggerated attention the Adviser was paying to his tablet, and his dismissive demeanour toward the suit.

Lacey burrowed her head down into her scarf before she opened the door to face the wintry air. It was milder than previous weeks, and at least the rain had let up.

She chuckled to herself again.

Perhaps she needed to start her own business.

Start at her own top and build it up.

Long term.

The end
About the Author

AP Hunt is an Australian author, ghostwriter and freelance contributor and editor, having submitted various works to food, travel, automotive and martial arts publications. Having spent a large portion of time reading and learning, they turned their attention to story-telling, with particular interest in the minutiae of the world and introducing odd elements to them.

Connect with AP Hunt:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AP-Hunt-1195766743840149/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyRobbQ  
Smashwords Interview: https://www.smashwords.com/interview/OverQuill  
Smashwords profile page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/OverQuill
Other books by this author

Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by AP Hunt:

Mount Forword

Spring of This Content

The Secret Monolith

Connect with AP Hunt

I really appreciate you taking the time to read my novel! It was the product of many lunch times spent in the conference room of my full-time job, and I appreciate any time you have given this little project of mine. Below are my contact details if you wish to have a chat sometime.

Follow me on Twitter: @AndyRobbQ

Smashwords author page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/OverQuill

