She tidied.
Whenever things were in flux, or she was unsure of how to approach something, she tidied. She also tidied when things were going well, of course. Saving that sort of thing for times of unease would lead to a very messy office indeed, she mused.
But it gave her something to do with her hands, so she was happy. Her office practically gleamed. If anyone were to enter to ask her how the proposal was going, they would only need look around at her so-very-clean office and know that things were going well. How could they not be? She'd worked on it for years. People had been fired for questioning it!
And perhaps she would be, too, for proposing it in the first place.
She grabbed some windex from a cabinet near her desk, and went over it in her head for the 80th time as she went at the windows.
She was the champion of this project. She was its herald. Governments would rise and fall by her word if she could pull this off. She had measured, and analyzed, and thought through every aspect of it. She had the number crunchers downstairs ready to go; she would be personally handling public relations; there was nothing left to do but approve it.
And how dare they not approve it?
It would be like throwing away money! All of that government support, all of that military funding-and for what?
She scoffed to herself.
The window was clean.
She put the windex back in its place and sat at her desk. There was little to do now but to wait for the conference call that would let her know if she was greenlit or not. Rage boiled in her stomach at the concept of her project being shut down before it even began, but her face was placid.
Her computer chimed and her body tensed as if she were expecting to be hit.
Loosening her shoulders, she accepted the call and folded her hands together. Her face was arranged in a polite smile. She considered what she would do if they rejected her proposal. She thought about shattering the window of her office.
"Hello," she said with her beautiful, measured, radio-quality voice.
The person on the other line did not have a voice suited for anything but conversations like this.
"We've reviewed your proposal...The Lachesis Project?" She can hear them shuffling through papers. Her lovingly prepared papers.
She nodded, tilting her head forward so that her hair spilled out from behind her ear. She tucked it away instantly and with extreme prejudice.
"This seems like it will be difficult to pull off…" The hesitance in their voice is a shot through the heart.
"If you look at my record, you'll see that I am more than qualified for challenging projects," she said. She felt like a lake full of sunken ships and angry ghosts; the surface was pristine and beautiful. Her hands might have shaken if they weren't so tightly clasped around one another.
There was a speculative noise from the other line.
"Do you have people in mind already?"
The pristine surface of the lake broke long enough for her to smile.
"I have files I can forward to you, but it is important that they volunteer…" She began shuffling papers of her own, bringing out the thick binder of dossiers she'd prepared. "But I can ensure that our participants will want to be a part of this."
Perhaps the voice smiled, perhaps it did not. All that matters is that it sounded satisfied. "You have the green light. I'm dedicating funding for Project Lachesis tonight. Tomorrow I'd like to see those dossiers."
She nodded firmly, her rogue piece of hair falling out of place once more.
"Don't let us down."
Click. The conversation is over.
She passed her hands over the cover of the binder she'd prepared, lovingly tracing her fingers over the embossed logo.
Let them down? Inspire Industries would be the most successful business on the planet once she was done.
She flipped the binder of dossiers open, caressing each page as she went. Each of her candidates were well suited for the project, although there was no way she could manage all of them. No, 15 was the right number. It would be tricky, of course, to make sure that everyone applied of their own free will. It would require the most finessed of corporate efforts; seamless advertising. They had to see it, and want it, and come to her on their own.
She hummed tunelessly under her breath as she turned to the pages of the participants she was eager see in action.
Sudhir Ghosh...Tailor.
Yumemu Sumii...Illustrator.
…
Author's Note
Hello everyone! I'm taking another shot at going through an SYOC, this time with the help of my friend - rocknrollalien, who wrote this teaser! You'll find the application form through a link on my profile, we're using google forms for this. As such, characters submitted through review won't be accepted!
A text document containing a copy of the form will also be available so that you can look over it before filling it out. Please fill it out on Google Forms even if you write it up elsewhere, for the sake of helping us keep organized. More information about the world is kept inside!
One of the important things you should note though is that Inspire Industries is an American company and by extension all of the people who have applied should be living in the US one way or another!
Either way, I'm very excited to get this started and we look forward to reading your applications! Thanks for your time!