“With power comes the abuse of power. And where there are bosses, there are crazy bosses.”

Judd Rose, American writer (1955 – 2000)

The early morning sunlight glistened off the glass of the four-tower office complex, and the street below was a bustle of activity as hundreds of people streamed inside like sheep into a barn.

Milly glanced up at the tenth floor where her tiny, shared cubicle—and Mr. Fredrickson—awaited her.

Here we go, Milly. Be brave. You can do this.

She swung her backpack over her shoulder and merged into the crowd, trying to make herself small. She fell in behind three hungover young lawyers as the slow current of the crowd carried them forward.

“So, did you seal the deal last night, Billy?” asked the youngest lawyer, clutching his leather briefcase tightly as he nudged his friend in the chest. “Or did you blow it like the last time?”

“I play the long game, Matt,” Billy answered stoically. “Because, unlike you, I’m a gentleman.”

“That means he blew it,” Matt laughed. “Maybe Elmer should teach you his tricks. He never goes home alone.”

“Tricks?” Elmer grumbled, rubbing his forehead to ease his hangover. “There’s only one trick. Don’t tell them you work in this shithole. The moment you mention Legal Eagles, all they want to talk about is Judy Brass’s god-awful three-in-the-morning commercials. And, trust me, talking about Brass is not an aphrodisiac. That woman is a real piece of…”

“Shut up, man. She’s right over there,” Billy whispered, pointing towards a wrinkled woman stalking through the crowd with a scowl plastered on her face. A young blond woman trailed in her footsteps as she carried the woman’s coffee and briefcase, her head down and eyes fixed to the sidewalk.

The three men slowed just enough to avoid their CEO’s path, and Milly was forced to slow with them.

These guys are pigs. Well, they are lawyers, I guess. Just don’t let them run into you. The one with the briefcase looks like he can’t keep his hands to himself.

“You know, I should give Hana a little of the old Matt charm,” Matt whispered to his friends, wiggling his fingers suggestively in the air. “Brass runs the poor girl ragged, and she could use a night of fun.”

See? Called that one. Gross.

“Wait, do you want Hana to sleep with you, or do you want her to have fun?” Billy teased his friend. “Because those are mutually exclusive goals.”

Matt smacked his briefcase into Billy’s arm, and Billy laughed.

“The last time one of Brass’s lawyers hit on Hana, he was fired and plunged ass-deep in workplace harassment lawsuits,” Elmer advised his friends with deadly seriousness, his eyes still following Brass. “So I’d think twice if I were you.”

“Might be worth it,” Matt muttered, staring at Hana’s backside until she slipped into the lobby. “Something about her just makes me want to—”

Milly slowed to let the men get further ahead of her, wanting to avoid the rest of the increasingly uncomfortable conversation.

Her sudden change of pace caused a woman to slam into her from behind.

“Speed up, girl,” screeched a shrill voice in her ear. “Some of us have important things to do. God, you’re useless.”

Milly knew the voice and didn’t look back. She kept her head down as Edna Carthage and her sister Cynthia marched past. The twins—the embodiment of ‘I’d like to talk to your manager’—were managers themselves at Acicentre and the terror of every employee on the tenth floor.

They pushed themselves through the crowd until they spotted one of the receptionists and screeched at her for dressing ‘like the office tramp.’

She felt bad for the receptionist, but she kept her head down as she slid silently past the sisters.

Those two are vicious harpies. Almost as bad as Mr. Fredrickson. Ugh…I really don’t want to talk to him this morning. Maybe he’ll forget he sent me that email.

She let the flow of the crowd carry her into the building and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally passed through the glass doors and entered the lobby.

An instant later, her relief turned to fear as she glimpsed the fiery redhead ahead of her.

“I don’t care if he signs my paycheck, Naomi,” Calista snarled, clutching a tray of coffees. “If he sends me out for coffee one more time, or asks me to dry-clean his sweaty shirts, I’m going to lose it. Anand is his assistant, not me. And I’m definitely not his goddamned mother.”

Dressed in golden high heels and a short skirt to match, Calista Gale was gorgeous by any measure, but carried herself with the self-righteousness of a high school bully used to getting her way.

And she’s had me in her sights ever since she transferred to our department two weeks ago. I wish she’d stayed on the eleventh floor. She’s been picking fights with Xavier non-stop, and I’ve been dragged into the middle of it. She keeps bumping into me. Insulting me. Calling me Mil-dead. And now she’s started waiting until the end of the day to drop off my paperwork, which gets me into trouble with Mr. Fredrickson. Why can’t she just leave me alone? I-I can’t deal with her right now.

She fled along the wall of the lobby until she reached the far corner, all notion of arriving at work on time abandoned. Each time Calista looked over her shoulder to scan the crowd, her anxiety spiked. She curled her knees to her chest to stay hidden.

To distract herself, she ran her fingers along the bronze plaque embedded in the floor beneath her feet.

“The Castle of Glass by Robert Castle,” she muttered to the floor. “The place never lived up to your vision, did it, Mr. Castle?”

She knew the story. Built in the early 1990s by the revolutionary architect and businessman, the office complex was intended to mirror the structure of a grand English castle – four sixteen-story towers connected by a glass-enclosed lobby that served as the castle’s courtyard.

The ‘Castle of Glass’, as it was christened at the ribbon cutting ceremony, could have revitalized the nearby neighborhoods and businesses, which had fallen into squalor over the decades. Only shortly after the Castle of Glass opened, Robert Castle was arrested for tax evasion and fraud, having gambled away government financial advances and his staff’s pension fund. The Castle of Glass was auctioned off to the highest bidder a year later and had gone through more than two dozen owners since that time.

“And instead of solving the squalor, it became its centerpiece,” Milly muttered as she stared up at the cracked glass that comprised the lobby ceiling. The entire building was dilapidated—its repairs few and far between. Its handful of tenants—Acicenter, EnergyWave, and Legal Eagles, along with a few government offices on the lower floors—were barely enough to fill the Tower One.

The other three towers had sat empty for a decade—the home of mice and mildew.

The lobby was filled with chipped and shattered tiles. The single tree planted at its center had died long ago—a testament to squandered potential.

The only improvement the complex had seen in recent memory was the revitalized storefront in the northeast corner, where a young woman had, for reasons incomprehensible to all eight hundred employees at the Castle, opened a coffee shop called Rain on My Parade.

That name...it sounds like my kind of place. If I had any money to spend on coffee, that is. Which I don’t. Sigh…

She stole a look through the shop’s entrance and spotted a young woman with short brown hair and a white apron sweeping the floor and humming to herself. Despite the early morning hour and the steady stream of people in the lobby, the store had no customers.

After a few minutes, the crowd in the lobby thinned and Milly emerged from her corner. She headed over to the elevator just as it arrived, its gears grinding to an ear-piercing halt. She tentatively stepped inside, the only other occupant a young Filipina woman who looked as scared as she felt.

The elevator doors closed with the rusted scrap of unoiled metal, and, simultaneously, both their eyes flashed to the half-peeled safety sticker above the panel.

“Last inspected September 2003,” the woman read as the elevator began its slow climb. "That's a bit disheartening."

The elevator lurched, and Milly leaned against the railing along the back. Her palms grew sweaty, and her heart pounded in her chest as she thought of her imminent meeting with Mr. Fredrickson.

“It’s my first day,” the woman continued despite Milly’s silence, flinching at every mechanical groan. “I should’ve taken the stairs. It’s only a few flights.”

“I’m not sure the stairs are any better,” she advised, grateful for the distraction. “Umm…which company are you with?”

“The government—Department of Agriculture. They’re on the first couple of floors. I’m a disease specialist. Just graduated,” the woman rambled. “My name’s Diwata.”

“Milly,” she muttered awkwardly as the elevator ground to a halt on the fourth floor.

Diwata quickly stepped out and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Have a good day,” Diwata waved as the doors closed, and the elevator continued its journey.

Somehow, I don’t think I will. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good day.

Half a minute later, the elevator stopped at the tenth floor and its doors slowly creaked open.She was instantly bombarded with the chaos of two hundred employees crammed together in tiny cubicles.

Taking a deep breath, she hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder and strode into the chaotic office.

She didn’t make it very far.

“Milby, you’re three minutes late!” Mr. Fredrickson shouted gruffly from his office. “Get in here!”

The voices around her went silent, and prying eyes peeked over their cubicle walls. She grasped hold of the bottom of her black hoodie—her safety blanket against the world—and strode into Fredrickson’s office, head low and shoulders slouched.

“Yes, umm…s-sir?” she said meekly, her eyes fixed on the stack of papers on Mr. Fredrickson’s desk.

The middle-aged man leaned forward, and his massive stomach rolled over the edge of his desk. His hair—dyed black to cover the grey—was so caked in hair product that it dripped down his neck. His breath was heavy, and his lips parted in a scowl as he sipped his freshly delivered coffee.

If mid-life crisis had a poster child, Mr. Fredrickson would be it.

“Last night, you left without finishing your paperwork,” Fredrickson said bluntly.

“I-I didn’t have time, sir,” she stuttered. “Calista dropped it off three minutes before five, and my bus leaves at five after five. She keeps trying to get me into trouble and I…”

Fredrickson slammed his desk with his fist.

“I don’t care about your excuses, Milby,” he yelled, his words carrying through the open door and into the office. “This isn’t the first time you’ve failed to meet my expectations. So you’ll be staying late tonight—without pay—to catch up.”

“B-But sir. That’s not fair. I…”

She felt a touch of anger threaten to escape her lips, but, as always, she buried the feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

Everyday I try so hard, and all I get is shit. Why can’t life just give me a break? Just one break.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Fredrickson interrupted, grabbing the stack of paperwork and plopping it in front of her. “Mrs. Anand is too busy to finish this. Add it to your pile—also to be finished before you leave.”

Damn it. Seriously?!

“Sir, I don’t think—” she protested, staring down at the six-inch-thick pile.

“Well maybe you should start,” Fredrickson interrupted again, looking pleased with himself. “And if you don’t like it, you can find another job.”

I really want to punch this man in the face right now.

Burying her anger once more—unable to risk her meager livelihood—she sheepishly collected the pile of paperwork as Fredrickson returned to his work.

“Oh, and Milby,” he added, without looking up. “Since you were late this morning, your pay will be docked accordingly. Half an hour. And if it happens again…”

Fredrickson left the threat hanging as Milly stood in the doorway, papers clutched to her chest as she tried to hold back angry, hopeless tears.

“You’re a dime a dozen, Milby. Remember that.”

The Non-Canonical Aftermath:

“September 2003!” exclaims Joey, the elevator inspector, as he reads the safety inspection sticker. “This office complex is a death trap.”

“Well, not yet it isn’t,” The Author foreshadows. “Give it a couple chapters. Here, take a peek at the script.”

“A Tapas story? Let’s see here…Leveling up in a Deadly Contest…well, I could turn a blind eye to all these safety violations. For a price.”

“I’m just a poor, starving author. How about, in exchange, I don’t make you a recurring character in the story?”

“Deal!”