"Third floor, please." Tenel Ka stepped into the large turbolift and the attendant pressed the large button labeled "3" in about five different languages. Through the glass sides, she saw Jacen climbing the stairs to the fourth floor, where his job was located. Tenel Ka thought taking the lift would fit her character a bit more than using the stairs in high heels and a skirt. He caught her eye and nodded slightly.
The lift came to an abrupt stop and the doors swished open. "Thank you." Tenel Ka said, as she made her way into a richly decorated hallway. Mara had secured her a secretarial job at a top law firm on Coruscant.
She stopped at the door across from the lift with a plaque made of a strange, purplish metal, inscribed, "Barr Brothers Office of Law." As she entered, she knew Mara's lavish costume choices had been good ones. There were rare paintings and sculptures adorning the wallpapered office, and the two front desks were made of dark wood from the trees of Kashyyyk.
"Can I help you?" A young woman sitting at the desk on the right asked. "Yes, my name is Liana Dajal... I was hired as a secretary here..."
"Ah yes!" The woman stuck out her hand, and 'Liana' shook it cordially. "My name is Lavada. I'm the Barrs' personal assistant, part time."
"How nice!" Tenel Ka grimaced inside. How very...annoying this character she was playing acted.
"Well, Liana, here is your desk. Go ahead and set down your bag, and take off that coat! It's positively boiling in here!"
Lavada introduced her to the three Barr brothers. They were certainly strange, but seemed harmless. The youngest brother said, "Hello Lavada! And this must be Liana. What alliteration we have in the office!"
Tenel Ka found that remark shallow and quite odd, but Liana found it amusing, and giggled slightly.
Lavada showed Tenel Ka her workstation, the wooden desk on the left of the lobby. After she finished some simple filing, the eldest of the Mr. Barr's poked his head out of his office.
"Lunch time, ladies!" He smiled broadly. "Take as long as you like."
"I always go to the café on the fourth floor- would you like to come?" Lavada picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. "No, I..." Tenel Ka may have eaten lunch quickly, and alone, but Liana certainly would not. "You know what? That would be super." Liana smiled, picked up her own bag, and followed Lavada out the door.
Jacen entered his new office. Quite the opposite of Tenel Ka's, his office was modern and metallic looking. In the front, there was a sitting area with four uncomfortable-looking modern chairs, and a coat closet. Down the center of the office, and just beyond the sitting room, was a hallway with three tall cubicles on each side.
A humanoid stuck his head out of the front-left doorway. "You must be Gavin Jan?"
Jacen pushed his fake glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. "Yes, that's me."
The man stood up and walked towards him. He spoke in a monotonous voice. "Welcome to the office. As you know, we work in the cataloging/database business. Some say it's dull work, and well, they're right."
He led Jacen to the third, and last cubicle on the right side of the hallway. The man slammed an enormous stack of papers and a computer disk onto Jacen's desk. "Catalog these names and addresses." The man turned to leave. "Oh, and my name is Mr. Pon. Those are all due today." He flashed Jacen a false and irritated smile and left.
Jacen began typing the hundreds of names in the computer, onto the disk. It was going to be a long day, indeed.
About an hour later, Jacen decided it was time for lunch, and snuck out of the office. He found a café right on his floor that served blue milk, just like his parents always had stocked in the fridge. He got a dish of some type of broiled meat and the blue milk, and sat down, only to find that Tenel Ka and another attractive though dumb-looking woman had sat down at one of the only empty tables.
"Hello ladies. Mind if I join you? There doesn't seem to be any more space in here."
The blonde giggled shrilly. "Why of course not! Pleeease! Sit!" Tenel Ka smiled and shoved a forkful of salad in her mouth.
"I don't believe we're met... I'm Gavin Jan."
"I'm Lavada, this is Liana. We work down a floor at Barr Brothers." Tenel Ka just chewed on her enormous mouthful and waggled the fingers of her prosthetic arm at Jacen.
"How nice to meet you. Both of you." Jacen took a bite of his meat. It was certainly overdone, and very chewy.
"You too." Tenel Ka said after she had finished chewing. She looked him in the eye for a moment and then went back to her salad. Jacen stared at her for a moment as well. He could tell that she was trying to get Lavada to think they were falling in love, in order to do some sneaking around in the building. Not only was Lavada easy to convince, but as Mara said, the falling in love part wasn't a stretch for either of them.
"So how was your first day at work, Jace?" Jaina had taken leave from her duty on the Rouge Squadron to see Leia. Jacen and Tenel Ka walked in to the hospital wing's waiting room/lounge, still wearing their disguises. Jacen slumped into an armchair
"Exhausting. I can't believe how many people do that every day." Jacen had been typing all day, and unaccustomed to the repetitive motion, his wrists were very sore.
"I did notice something strange in my office." Tenel Ka spoke up. "The middle Barr brother has a slight Force-sensitivity. I had to keep mine masked when I was in the office, lest he became suspicious."
"We'll have to do a background check on him." Jacen said as he poured himself a mug of caf from the carafe on the table. "Want some, Jaina?"
"Already did, thanks."
"Tenel Ka?" Jacen knew she didn't usually drink caf, only water and healthy juices, but she did look awfully tired.
"Yes, thank you Jacen." She took the mug from him a sipped a little. "Hot. Yet, not as bad as I would expect."
A/N: Dumb ending I know, but this has been on my computer for months, just thought I'd put it up in case anyone still reads these....