Tag: Cindy Margrave

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Narrative

High Anxiety

Brenda Redmond wasn’t sure whether she felt better or worse after giving the news director a copy of Lou’s little treasure trove of information. She’d been careful not to leave anything on it that could trace it back to Lou, so she shouldn’t be putting him at risk. On the other hand, Lou had gotten it specifically because Drew was wanting the information, not so she could pass it around.

Except giving Autumn Belfontaine a copy wasn’t exactly “passing it around.” Autumn was a professional, and part of being a reporter was knowing when to be discreet. She’d even commented on the issue of needing to protect one’s sources, which made it plain she recognized the issue.

For that matter, maybe Autumn could give her some pointers on how to get it to Drew without attracting attention. Right now she could certainly use some advice, since her ever-so-carefully worded hints had apparently zoomed right past him.

Today the kids were eating lunch with their classes. Normally she would’ve been happy not to have to keep them corralled in the dining commons, but right now she really could’ve used the distraction to get her mind off her worries.

Maybe she could meet up with a colleague or two, talk shop…

And then she saw Cindy Margrave, looking very alone and very worried. Sometimes lending a listening ear to someone with worse problems helped take your mind off your own.

“Want some company?”

Cindy gestured toward the seat beside her. “Go ahead. I don’t know why everybody’s decided I’m toxic all of a sudden. I mean, sure I’ve got Constitution test coming up, but it’s not like I’m going to jinx everyone else.”

Brenda quick suppressed the urge to laugh at the notion. Until Cindy could laugh at her own fears, it would sound too much like ridicule. “I know, it’s scary because it’s make or break. They’re always warning you that you have to pass to graduate, but it’s not nearly as hard as they make it sound.”

“That’s what everybody tells us, but Colonel Hearne gives us really tough quizzes.”

Brenda leaned over to Cindy and kept her voice low. “I’ll let you in on a secret. The actual test you have to pass is standardized, from the state department of education. That means it’s going to cover the basics, not whatever esoteric matters of interpretation. They’re trying to measure our ability to be good citizens, not constitutional lawyers.”

That was just absurd enough to get a laugh. Not a nervous giggle, but an actual laugh. “I sure hope you’re right.”

“Actually, your biggest danger is going to be trying to overthink the questions, especially if you’re used to having to watch out for traps. If it’s the same test I took, all the questions are straightforward. Use your common sense and you’ll do fine.”

Seeing Cindy’s relief, Brenda guided the conversation to more neutral topics.

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Narrative

Reporting One’s Findings

Cindy Margrave was still fighting off weariness as she arrived at the station offices. She knew she shouldn’t have stayed up so late, but she’d been trying to finish a project for her teaching responsibility and she did not want to disappoint the senior instructor by arriving at class with it still incomplete.

At least the people from Food and Nutrition had come by with fresh coffee for the coffee urn. Ken Redmond always said that the Engineering department ran on coffee, and insisted that the coffee urns scattered around his domain be refilled on a regular basis, to the point of having IT rig sensors on each of them to detect when they were getting low.

Cindy retrieved her mug and poured herself a generous cup. Not quite up to the rim, since she needed to leave room for sugar and creamer, but she needed plenty this morning. As she mixed in the sugar and creamer, she thought about just when she’d started drinking coffee on a regular basis.

Back home on Earth, coffee was most definitely a grown-up thing, and even junior hi and high school kids were discouraged from having it. In fact, there’d been a bit of a to-do about the vending machines at the high school including a coffee machine, to the point it had been moved to the teachers’ lounge. As if it were any less healthy for you than the caffeinated pop that was right next to it.

On the other hand, back on Earth kids her age were still very definitely children, and not just in the sense of being legally minors. None of them were shouldering the sorts of responsibility she and other kids her age did on a daily basis, not just as teaching assistants, but also in jobs that helped keep essential parts of the settlement running. Sure, some of them worked at fast food places or big-box retailers, but they did it because they wanted the spending money or to save for college.

Coffee in hand, Cindy returned to the front office and settled in at the receptionist’s desk. Someone else had already turned on the boombox which set on top of the big filing cabinet. It was still Breakfast with the Beatles, although Brenda was playing some of their post-breakup solo work right now.

The programming director had left a few things for the morning receptionist to take care of, mostly verifying some files. Get them knocked out quickly and she might be able to get a little studying in if Autumn didn’t have anything for her to do.

She was just finishing the last item when the door opened and in walked Spruance Del Curtin, looking very satisfied with himself. What was he up to now?

Cindy gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You’re sure here early.”

“Wanted to get to you when I have a little time to talk. One of the guys I used to work with in Engineering had some ideas about what might’ve riled up Colonel Hearne so badly.”

Cindy’s annoyance weakened. However, she wasn’t sure she wanted to let it show right now. “Oh? What does he think?”

“Apparently there was some serious back-room dealing to get Admiral Bradbury the top Pacific Fleet post back in ’09. Either someone had something on President Flannigan, or he owed someone a favor and they decided to call in their marker. It’s not exactly something that’s going to get into the official sources, but you know how scuttlebutt goes.”

“Don’t we all.” The words didn’t come out quite as cool as Cindy had wanted, but at least she came close enough to hitting the right note.

“Yeah. I’ve lost track of how many PSA’s they’ve had us run about not spreading rumors or unconfirmed information.” Those big buggy Shepard eyes did a truly theatrical eye-roll. “Anyhow, there’s a tradition that military officers aren’t supposed to criticize the Commander-in-Chief in the public forum. Tactical criticism through channels, yes, but not open condemnation. That’s why Captain Waite’s always used the ‘keep your oath’ exhortation in all his messages against the abuses of the Flannigan Administration.”

“I was thinking there was something like that going on. Thanks for taking so much time to dig into it, even if you did run into a dead end.”

“Hey, we’re family, and family’s gotta stick together. Especially in times like these.” Sprue held up his fist.

Cindy gave him a fist-bump. Then he was off to whatever he was supposed to be taking care of.

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Narrative

A Rather Awkward Position

After all his efforts, Spruance Del Curtin was still at square one on Drew Reinholt’s request. Whatever was going on down there at Schirrasburg, it was buttoned up so tight that no information was getting out at all.

That or people knew but just didn’t want to talk about it. Or had been forbidden to talk about it.

Certainly Autumn Belfontaine’s remarks to him hinted at that. She was almost certainly able to get pretty much any information she wanted that wasn’t outright classified. However, she also was not the boss at Shepardsport Pirate Radio — he still remembered her remark when they were first setting it up, that freedom of the press belonged to those who owned the press.

On the other hand, she’d just made that offer to take him into the news crew. He was still ambivalent about the idea, mostly because he really didn’t want to give up being a DJ. But he was starting to wonder if he ought to talk to her about the possibility of doing some of the back-office work of the news department while keeping his air shift.

Even as he was considering that, his phone chimed incoming text. He found a new text from Cindy Margrave.

How much do you remember the beginning of the Sharp Wars? The Arizona Memorial Incident and all that stuff.

Some, but I was still in grade school, and they kept a pretty close watch on our media access at the NASA clone creches. So we got a very filtered version, what the grown-ups thought we were ready to handle.

And you didn’t try to get around it?

Yep, Cindy knew his rep for viewing those situations as technical challenges. Trying’s one thing. Having the skills is another. So’s having the necessary access to computers and the Internet.

The three dots icon flickered for an unusually long time. Probably Cindy was needing to think about her reply.

Finally it popped up on his screen: That would be a difficulty. Did the older kids have those restrictions too?

Some of them. I think the guys who were in high school had unrestricted TV and Internet access, but they lived in the other dorm across the courtyard from us, and we didn’t have a lot of contact.

Sprue paused, considering how far he wanted to carry it, then decided to take his chances. I’m sure they’re up here, but most of them had left the creche years before the Expulsions. I mean, they started using artificial uterine environments right after the Lanakhidzist Revolution, when we first got the technology from the Soviet labs. You’re talking about more than thirty years since the creches first opened, so those guys would’ve been tracked down and Expelled individually, just like the ones who were gestated the old-fashioned way and grew up in regular families.

He felt oddly naked, talking so frankly about those matters to a young woman who wasn’t even the child of a clone, just a member of Colonel Dalton’s household.

Cindy’s response came more quickly this time. Thanks anyway. I was hoping maybe you could connect me to someone who was old enough to remember, but isn’t too busy to talk to it. Some stuff came up in Constitution class today, and I wanted to find out more on my own.

Maybe you ought to talk to Autumn about that. She was already working as a reporter for the college radio station during the 2012 election, and barely escaped a riot at the Minnesota statehouse.

Thanks. I’ll see if she has the time and wants to talk about it.

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Narrative

Awkward Questions

By the time Cindy got back home, her mind was itching with curiosity about those early days of the Flannigan Administration. Days she sort of remembered, glimpses of things on TV without any context, hurriedly turned off or changed to another channel if an adult noticed she was looking in that direction. Vague answers about bad people doing bad things and how she should not worry because she was safe here and Adult Authority would protect her.

Reflecting on those days with the experience of a decade and a half, she wondered how much she was confusing memories of national events with memories of her parents’ accident. She and her sister had been safely at home with a sitter that night, since their parents had been going to an event for grown-ups, so all her memories were of strange people suddenly appearing at the door, of a neighbor’s adult daughter coming over to stay with them for a couple of days until Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty could pick them up and make the necessary arrangements. A vague memory of what she now knew to be a courtroom, in which they were granted legal guardianship, but which at the time had been frightening in its echoing vastness.

One thing was certain — she had no meaningful memories of the events themselves. And she was pretty sure that what she’d been told in school back on Earth had been so heavily slanted that it was best discounted altogether.

And since we got up here, everything’s been either practical stuff like safety and first aid or science and technology, until the time came up to take our mandatory Constitution class.

She’d no more than stepped into the apartment when one of her cousins gave her a sharp shhhh and whispered,”Mom’s got a headache. Something happened at work, I don’t know what, but she came back looking awful and went straight to bed.”

Cindy nodded her acknowledgement, scarcely daring to breathe. A sudden headache… her guts clenched with dread. Hadn’t that been one of the symptoms of the diablovirus?

Except it was also a symptom of a dozen other things, some minor and others very dangerous. Dwell too long on the worst possibilities and you’d be running up to Medlab certain that you were in the throes of a cerebral aneurysm or a brain tumor when you’d just gotten a kink in your neck.

In the meantime, maybe she’d better start thinking about who else she could go to with her questions. People who were definitely old enough to have clear memories of that period and understand what they saw, but who wouldn’t consider it an imposition to take some time to talk with her about those events. While she was getting old enough that adults were starting to take her seriously, it was still tricky to know exactly where the boundaries were when it came to conversations that didn’t immediately relate to work or class.

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Narrative

Thoughts and Implications

Constitution class seemed unusually subdued today. On the other hand, they were rapidly approaching the end of the course, at which point they had to take the test. So of course everyone would be paying close attention for a change.

Today Colonel Hearne was doing another of his “big picture” lessons, in which he pulled back from the minutia of articles and clauses and amendments to see how they all worked together. However, this one was a little different from the earlier ones because he was also trying to put the entire Constitution into the context of the Revolutionary War and the Framers’ concerns about putting too much power in the hands of any one person.

Cindy Margrave listened raptly, realizing that none of her American history classes back in Houston had drawn the connections between the colonists’ quarrel with King George III and the flaws of the Articles of Confederation. In retrospect it was obvious, once someone connected the dots, so why had none of her teachers ever done so?

As class wore on, she realized that Colonel Hearne was holding back. Although he was talking about the weaknesses and failure points of the Constitution, particularly as related to the Civil War and Watergate, he was very carefully avoiding the issues that had led up to the Sharp Wars and the Expulsions.

It’s not just the issues of human cloning and genetic engineering. If those were the real issue, he could just point out that the questions could’ve been resolved with an amendment any time after the revelations of the Lanakhidzist Revolution. And he’s talked about the issues of technological change as they relate to Constitutional law multiple times, especially when we were talking about the Twenty-fifth Amendment and its relationship to improvements in medical technology.

It must have something to do with President Flannigan that he doesn’t want to come out and say. Cindy recalled talks with her Uncle Carl, about a military officer’s obligations of respect to the Commander-in-Chief, and how it related to the peculiar situation that had obtained since the disastrous 2012 elections

So he has to walk around the edges, and trust our training in independent thinking to lead us to the conclusions he’s trying to point us toward. Presumably related to the way the Framers wouldn’t have been able to anticipate the disastrous 2012 elections, balanced against the dangers of specific language allowing for emergency powers, given how so many other countries have seen tyrants use them as vehicles for assuming absolute power.

Yes, she’d have to talk with Aunt Betty tonight. Unlike Uncle Carl, she was civil service, so she didn’t have the issue of not appearing to speak disrespectfully of the Commander-in-Chief. If she needed to say hard words about President Flannigan, she could.

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Narrative

More Disturbing News

Cindy’s shift as receptionist at Shepardsport Pirate Radio had not been an easy one, mostly because of all the commotion. At least they were getting fewer listener complaints about the sudden decrease in broadcast quality, which was a relief. But right now she was just as happy that there wasn’t any secretarial work to be done, because there was no way she could’ve managed to maintain her concentration with everyone coming and going. Quite honestly, it seemed like half of Engineering had been in here over the course of her shift.

And with so many people coming and going, not to mention the continual possibility that Ken Redmond might come back in, she didn’t want to check her e-mails or her texts or anything else that might be considered “personal.” Which made the shift all the harder to get through. Finally she’d gone on the computer, checking some news websites and hoping she could make it look like something Autumn had assigned her for the news department. Except most of what she was seeing only made her feel even worse.

At least Mars and the Moon are holding together so far, assuming the command structure hasn’t lowered a cone of silence over the problems. Cindy was aware that Autumn sent sensitive stories past Captain Waite before airing them, although as far as she knew, he’d never outright silenced anything.

By the time Cindy’s shift was over and she could leave the station, she was very glad to be out of there. She didn’t have the technical expertise to help with the broadcast equipment issues — although she wasn’t sure how much more Spruance Del Curtin could bring to the table. And after spending most of the shift trying to look as if she was doing a project for the news department, she was pretty sure that no, she did not want to go into journalism as a career.

As she was walking down the main corridor of Engineering toward her first airlock, she checked her phone, was surprised to find several new texts waiting for them. Among them was one from Shelly Walstrand.

Curious, she swiped the flag on the lock screen to open the text. As it turned out, there were actually a whole string of texts. Apparently the food at the place Shelly was holed up had run out. They’d all brought the food from their own houses when they’d gathered there, so that was no longer an option. So the friend’s big sister had gone off to look for a store that still had food. One of the guys had insisted on going with her, even though he was just fifteen and pretty skinny.

Apparently it was a good thing, for the simple reason of having a second pair of eyes watching. The convenience store at the corner gas station was empty, whether because it had sold out or had been looted, neither of them could determine because it was abandoned, the door swinging loose but not showing any obvious signs of having been forced.

They’d continued onward to a small community grocery store, where they’d found the door locked, but with the window boarded over in a way that created a narrow slot through which one could pass money and products could be pushed out.

Not surprising, considering how a pandemic would make people want to minimize contact. More surprising was the prices for what little the store had on offer. A single loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter would take all the money they had brought. Not to mention none of them had any more cash, and it was a long way to her bank, assuming her paycheck had even deposited, given her workplace had been closed.

But with the younger kids scraping crumbs from the bottoms of the remaining jars, there wasn’t much choice. They had to bring something home, so they bought it and started heading home.

They hadn’t gotten far before they realized they were being followed. They ended up running the last several blocks back home, got through the door and then had to barricade all the entrances against several very desperate looking people who were now trying to force their way in.

All over a loaf of bread and a tiny jar of peanut butter. Cindy’s gut clenched, hard. And here we were worrying about losing those big planters down at Agriculture because of the irrigation breakdown.

Although Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty did belong to the Christian Science Church, the denomination Alan Shepard had been raised in, they’d never been very active members. And now Cindy felt a very strong urge to pray for her old friend down on Earth, and she wasn’t sure how.

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Narrative

Coming Back to Try Again

Brenda could tell it was just one of those days, when you started late and spent the whole day scrambling to catch back up. The kids were still upset about missing out on their visit to their grandparents. They weren’t openly pouting, the way kids their age back on Earth might have done. But they were definitely less than enthusiastic about getting dressed and ready for the day.

They’re just kids, said a voice in the back of her mind. With everything that’s going on, they have a right to be disappointed.

But she also knew that they were living on a world that was very unforgiving, and it was far easier to form good habits from the beginning than to break bad ones. Indulge them now, and when it was time for them to assume serious responsibilities in a few years, it could end in tears. No one had forgotten the Munroe girl, and what her stubborn self-pity had gotten her.

All the same, by the time she got the children through breakfast and handed off to their teachers, Brenda was thoroughly frazzled. And she had an air shift to get through — and given her dad had finally called it quits on the main studio board last night, she’d have to do hers on the remote broadcast system.

As she was approaching the station offices, she was surprised to see Cindy Margrave walking just ahead of her, head bent over phone. Brenda lengthened her stride to close the gap with the younger woman. “How are things going.”

“OK.” Except her voice didn’t sound OK. When Brenda made it clear she was willing to listen, Cindy expanded. “I mean, I’m doing OK, and the rest of the family is. But I just got a text from an old friend I hadn’t heard from in years.”

When Brenda asked whether it was a friendship disrupted by the Expulsions, Cindy shook her head. “No, it was when Aunt Betty got transferred, a couple of years before. Shelly and I both swore we’d e-mail every day, but things happened, and we sort of grew apart.”

Brenda could understand how that sort of thing worked. She’d lost touch with a number of friends who’d moved away, especially the ones whose parents worked in the oil industry. No matter how close they’d been, no matter how sincerely they’d sworn to keep in contact, things would come up and the letters or e-mails or texts would become fewer and far between.

However, she doubted that reflecting on that would help Cindy. “So how is she doing?”

“It doesn’t sound good. Apparently the Pennsylvania child welfare system isn’t going around scooping up kids whose parents are in the hospital, whether or not they’ve made other arrangements. In fact, she was a little surprised when I told her about Amy.” Cindy paused. “Shelly went to stay with a friend’s family when her folks got sick, and then her friend’s folks got sick, and now all of them are sort of holed up in another friend’s place, with that friend’s twenty-something big sister as the only adult in the whole place. From the sound of things, they’re kind of worried about what would happen if the government ever notices, but apparently things are getting bad enough around there that the government’s got a lot bigger fish to fry than making sure every child has a proper legal guardian.”

“No, that doesn’t sound good at all.” Although Brenda suspected that the big sister in question was about her own age, maybe even older, she also knew that things were different dirtside.

Except telling Cindy that there was nothing they could do right now wasn’t going to be helpful. If anything, it was apt to make her worry more. “How about trying to find out as much as you can about their situation, anything they need to know to keep their place going. If you need to, let me know so I can see what I can find out.”

By then they were at the doors to the station offices. There was work to be done, and it wouldn’t wait.

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Narrative

A Distant Echo

The night before, Cindy Margrave had noticed the sudden drop in Shepardsport Pirate Radio’s broadcast quality, but no one had texted her to come down to the station offices. Not surprising, given that she was just the receptionist, and her technical skills were pretty much limited to running the station switchboard. Like as not, she’d just be underfoot if she went running down there to see what was going on.

With nothing else to do, she’d focused on her studying and hoped that things were resolved by morning. Ever since the family had been sent up here, she’d learned some hard lessons in the importance of not worrying about matters over which she had no control.

However, it had been pretty clear when she woke up that no, the problem was not resolved. Given that the dj’s announcements sounded like they were using the remote broadcast setup, she figured that the technical crew had done what they could, then knocked off when it got too late. As long as the remote gear held on, it was better that everyone get a good night’s sleep and tackle matters in the morning.

It was a sentiment she could agree with, especially after the time she’d pulled an all-nighter to study and ended up making a complete hash of her final exam after doing so well on all her quizzes and tests. No doubt she’d get down to the station offices to discover the technical crew hard at work sorting out the issues.

In the meantime, she needed to get to the dining commons and get her breakfast. Sure, she could have breakfast sent to the station offices, but she really didn’t want to have to eat food that had gone cold. Especially if it was something like sausages or cheese omelets, it could be downright nasty.

The dining commons was quiet at such an early hour. Normally there would be some people at the pilots’ table, but with all the pilots having to quarantine down in Flight Ops, the long table had been removed and replaced with more of the small round tables for the rest of the community.

She looked around for anyone she recognized, but saw only some of the technical staff, people who had to deal with stuff that needed attention 24/7. Nobody invited her to join them, and she wasn’t going to intrude on anyone by asking if she could.

Still, it felt awkward to have to sit alone. Usually she could wait until her sister and cousins were ready to go, but today she needed to be to work early.

As she scanned the QR code at her seat, she realized that she’d gotten a text sometime during the night. While she waited for the serverbot to deliver her breakfast, she pulled it up and read it.

It took her a moment to recognize the name. Michelle Walstrand had always gone by “Shelly” in school, and it had only been during some big tests that Cindy had even discovered her actual name.

Still, it was good to hear from her again. The message was brief, asking where she was and how she was doing — and quite honestly it had the feel of someone going down a long list of former contacts and sending the same text.

But she was definitely not going to ignore it. Better to at least write back, let Shelly know she was safe on Farside, that so far far they’d kept the pandemic out of the lunar settlements.

Even as she started to write, she paused. Would it sound like boasting? Would it sound inconsiderate of whatever losses Shelly might have suffered in the meantime?

Cindy deleted the text, then began again, choosing her words more carefully this time. Make their safety more tenuous, emphasize the privations of living on the high frontier, and maybe it wouldn’t sound condescending.

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Narrative

Sunrise Surprise

Cindy knew she wasn’t supposed to be studying for class during her work hours, but right now there wasn’t anything to actually do beside wait for someone to call in or drop by. And she sure didn’t want someone to decide to make busywork for her to do, just so they could feel like the station was getting its money’s worth out of her.

Because there’s always someone who confuses Visible Busy with actual productivity. And if they’re someone in authority, pointing it out to them would be insubordination.

One good thing about what she was working on right now, it would look busy to a casual observer. Hold her tablet at the right angle, and she would look like a very diligent worker.

Still, it meant that she was just a bit edgy about having someone get behind her. Aunt Betty would probably tell her it was a sign of a guilty conscience, and Ken Redmond would say that bending rules was not a good habit to get into, because it eroded the barriers against doing it on the things that could get people killed.

Except it turned out to be Lou Corlin, taking a break during a long set. “Something’s going on. There’s three PSA’s on food waste on my ad schedule, and I know I heard Brenda play another two. We haven’t done this many since things first started getting hairy.”

Cindy considered how to respond. Lou was a real straight-arrow, not the sort of guy who’d chat up a girl in hopes of making a play on her. Which meant he had some serious concerns.

“I’ve noticed it too. And yesterday Juss Forsythe went by in a real hurry, carrying a breathing rig. Which means he must’ve needed to work on something in a non-breathable atmosphere, but not dangerous enough to require a full environmental suit.”

“Like some of the greenhouse farms. Running them at high concentrations of carbon dioxide really pushes plant growth.” Lou’s thick, dark eyebrows always made him look grim when he was thinking hard. “If something went wrong in one of them and they lost a bunch of plants, that would explain all the PSA’s about food waste.”

“But how could we find out? I mean, if they’re keeping it quiet for a reason, asking too many questions could get us into a lot of trouble.”

“Brenda’s mom is head of Food and Nutrition. She’d know, and I’d bet Brenda could ask without getting in trouble.”

“Which leaves us with the problem of figuring out how to get her to ask without looking obviously nosy.”

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Narrative

Ripples

At the receptionist’s desk, Cindy Margrave tried not to pay too much attention as Autumn Belfontaine walked Colonel Hearne to the door. It was a gesture of courtesy — he certainly knew how to get back out of the station offices by himself. But honor was due to the commander of the last flight of the Falcon, who’d kept the crippled orbiter’s crew alive until the Incomparable Nekrasov could rescue them with Baikal.

Right now they were just making small talk, pleasantries that offered no clue about why the chief of Flight Operations should need to talk to the station’s news director. Cindy caught something about University of Minnesota, from which both of them had graduated, albeit decades apart. Probably just a reminiscence of some feature of the campus that loomed large in both their memories.

It’s probably just as well he didn’t come up here during Spruance Del Curtain’s shift. Sprue’s the sort of guy who sees something like this as a challenge to get around social conventions to find out what’s gong on.

And he’d gotten in trouble over those antics more than once. It probably didn’t help that he tended to view himself as the smartest guy in the room, and figure he could find a way around restrictions. It was an attitude that had probably put the kibosh on any chance of his ever being selected for pilot training, and it was a wonder he hadn’t been kicked off the station staff.

Although he had been more subdued lately, ever since he started doing that project for Dr. Doorne. Which reminded Cindy that she had a project of her own to finish. The sales director wanted her to do a research project for him, and she still had a lot of work to do. With less than an hour left on her shift, she needed to buckle down and get focused.