Jameelah Jamjoom watched Setna Amjed's words stream across her dataport. She’d been Warden Smith’s agent for nearly ten years – long enough to understand the critical importance of knowing what Ibrahim was up to at all times, and of making as many friends in as many corners of Misr Corporate as humanly possible. Both paid off now. As soon as a call came in from Ibrahim, Janice McCallum in communications sent her an emergency flash and patched her into the call, at which time she’d surreptitiously sketched the glyph for voice-to-text which she'd had the gang at the helpdesk program into her dataport. She felt a guilty flush at looking on as the overbearing twit tore Ibrahim a new … well, part of the anatomy which a decent girl from a good family shouldn't mention.

A new asshole. So much for a decent girl from a good family.

No one who really knew her had called Jameelah by her given name since she was four years old. For as long as she could clearly remember being called anything, she'd been "Mushkilah." The word meant "problem." Though she'd often questioned the fairness of the name herself, no one around her ever seemed to doubt its aptness.

Someone thudded heavily down the aisle behind her and she tapped her datapad. The string of Amjed's words vanished, replaced by the weekly progress report on Ibrahim's performance that she was supposed to be working on. Another thrilling account of seven days behind a desk. Someday she’d put it all into a novel.

She swung her chair around and went about checking her hijab in the mirror which hung on the wall of her cubicle. She'd long ago mastered the skill of adjusting the scarf without the aid of a mirror, tucking in stray wisps of hair or quickly removing and rewrapping it when it had begun to scoot back on her head. She'd hung the mirror on the wall of her cubicle for exactly the purpose for which she now used it. The be-robed form of her floor supervisor receded in its reflection, disappearing at last through the door to Mr. Amjed's office. The door shut, and she spun back to her dataport.

[… grateful for your services on the Glory of the Ottoman's Park World <sarcastic lilt> <full stop pause> we've decided to forgo them in this instance. <full stop pause> Do you understand? <query inflection>] That was Amjed, she knew.

[<second speaker> no <full stop pause> no definitely not. <full stop pause> he just checked the connections <full stop pause> that’s all <unidentified gastric event>]

No doubt but that was Ibrahim.

<deep inhalation> And that would be Amjed. He always took a deep breath before really getting going.

[now then], Amjed began.

Poor Ibrahim.