A Persian's Tale: Scarred for Life 10

01/13/10 -- 2160 words

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter (Rowling) or Gundam Wing (Bandai, et al.)

AN: Sorry for the long delay. Remember in the last AN I said RL is a bitch? Not even an offering of Midol and chocolate helped.

PS: Harry gets devilish and Quatre gets pissed.

Mr. Johnson from Accounting was having an affair with Mrs. Malloy from Human Resources. Mrs. Malloy had two children and a husband of twelve years. Mr. Johnson had gotten married a year ago to his reunited with high school sweetheart. There was a pool on how long it would take for them to be discovered by their respective spouses.

Andrea, an older female secretary assigned to the Production Department Head, had come to work a bit...tipsy last week and according to those ''in the know" this was not the first time either. Rumors varied on why she had yet to be fired but the two preferred theories involved blackmail or sex.

Harry wanted to scratch his ears off.

"And don't get me started on Mr. Davison. That arrogant, sexist ass thinks he's God's gift to women but the only women desperate enough to sleep with him require payment," Ms. Rebecca huffed. "Ugh and he's a red head."

Big gold eyes turned up incredulously.

"Yes, yes pot and kettle. But really, who would know better than a fellow red head? And he's probably one of the worst tempers I know. Oh, he thinks he's managed to hide it but I'm his secretary for cryin' out loud. I hear the raised voices, the fist beating on the desk, and once he threw a five hundred dollar vase against the door then called me in to clean it up and pretend it never happened!''

Mrow?

'She's talking about the Rat,' Harry thought excitedly.

'Yes, the she-speak is proving useful and we got salmon,' Camo purred.

'I'm not sure if I would call this useful. We spent twenty minutes to get to this point and I am just short of going Voldemort on Ms. Rebecca's arse. Even if she did give us salmon,' Harry sulked.

'Patience is a virtue little other. You would do well to learn that. Now, how do we enter the Rat's hole? The female is intent on not leaving her territory.'

'I dunno but we have to think of something fast, Quatre is going to be getting worried if he isn't already. We're just lucky he is the CEO and can't up and leave in the middle of an important meeting,' Harry said.

'Give me control,' Camo said abruptly and nudged his other away from the fore front.

Camouflage stood up a stretched, careful not to claw the chattery, companion deprived salmon giver. Gracing her with a dainty lick to her finger tips he gracefully dropped to the floor.

"Oh, are you leaving already kitty? Mr. Winner won't be free for at least another thirty minutes. Forty-five if I'm lucky, more time away from Mr. Winning Personality – not! Ugh, that man…" and Ms. Rebecca started ripping in on her bosses' multiple character flaws while clacking away on the keyboard with her right hand and opening a file cabinet drawer with her left. She was once again absorbed into the world known only to secretaries and Harry privately hoped he was never so desperate for a job he'd be inducted into the overworked, under paid world of the glorified gofer.

'Focus. She has sufficiently distracted herself but how do we enter Rat's hole?' Camo reprimanded his other.

'We would either need the key card or an override code. Neither of which we can get our paws on.'

'What about your glitter? Can it get us inside?' Camo persisted, undeterred by the seemingly impossible obstacle. He was a cat after all, if he wanted something he would get it one way or the other. If something was destroyed while in the process, well…that's what humans were for.

'That is a good question. If I can slow a two story drop I think I can spark enough magic to fritz the locking mechanism since it's electronic. Wait two minutes and we'll see,' Harry replied, excitement lacing his mental voice.

'Why?'

'She's a secretary. She's bound to get a phone call in the next two minutes and then she'll be completely distracted.' Harry's thoughts dripped with malicious glee at the prospect of the chaos he was soon to unleash. Camo was in full agreement.

----

Eighty three seconds later…yes he counted…and the predicted call came in. Maybe Fate was finally done with her cycle and feeling kind because the enthusiastic, "Andrea! How good to hear from you. Have you heard the latest on Malloy and Johnson?" promised to keep her occupied for a while.

Visualizing his magic, or glitter as Camo had dubbed it, as a snitch sized quaffle he 'threw' his magic at the key card reader. With a beep, beep the door slid open on silent rails. Camouflage slipped inside on equally silent paws and the door slid shut behind him.

The office was a stereotypical high rank executive office. Solid oak bookcases lined the left and right walls filled with books and files. The very solid, rich dark wood desk was situated in front of a wall of windows that let in sunlight most of the day and a ridiculously comfortable looking leather executive chair was behind the desk. Flanking the only entrance were a pair of potted plants in expensive looking vases.

'Think one of those is what Ms. Rebecca was talking about earlier?' Harry asked curiously.

'Focus, other. This place is overwhelmed with the stink of ammonia. Let's investigate and then leave. We must return to our blond soon or else we shall never escape him again,' Camo ordered.

'How many times am I going to have to apologize for that?' Harry groused.

'You satisfied that desire the first time. Now, where do we look?'

'The computer. Allow me.' With that Harry took over once again and jumped into the leather executives' chair that was heaven under his paws. Sun warmed and supple from use he only just refrained from sinking his claws deep into the leather and playing. Instead, he hooked his front paws onto the keyboard tray and awkwardly walked backwards across the seat to pull out the board and mouse. Batting the mouse aside sharply the screen flashed on to a document Mr. Davison had been reading prior to going to the meeting.

'While this is all well and good little other, it will take a smaller cat than I to be able to manipulate keys meant for tiny human fingers.' Camo scoffed.

'Let me take over for a moment. I have an idea.' With that Harry hopped off the chair and onto the desktop. Situating himself just so, Harry flicked his tail lightly and the watched the mouse move across the screen. Pleased with himself, he moved the mouse until it hovered over the minimize button. Turning around Harry pushed the left click button with his paw and the document left the screen to reveal a screen full of file names and miscellaneous facts about the documents.

The thought was unanimous, 'Bingo.'

With a few careful tail twitches and button pressing the cat was busy scrolling through the list of documents.

'How will you recognize what you are hunting for? You do not even know if your prey is in here,' Camo asked, taking control while his other busily scanned the file names.

'How do you know when there is something there to hunt? You just do. It's the same thing, I know what I'm searching for is here, I just need to find – There! Scroll up, scroll up!' Harry mentally shouted in glee.

Camo promptly complied and stopped when his other directed. Letting his other take partial control the document blossomed on the screen. It was a memorandum received from MacroWorks just three days ago. Reading slowly through the document, trying to understand the vocabulary, his hackles rose while a vehement hiss left his bared teeth.

'We've found it. Now to make sure Quatre sees this.' Harry murmured.

'You have a plan? We don't have much time according to the salmon female,' Camo pointed out.

'Give me control. This is going to be a pain in the tail but blondie has to see this.'

And rest assured, trying to open up the company email, attach the incriminating file, and send it to his blond Arab required fur rending patience and dexterity. Not to mention the short note that drained his drastically reduced magical reserves. Seeing how nicely the sun was shining on the top of the leather executive chair and remembering just how wonderful a perch the similar chair at Heero and Duo's was, the exhausted Persian gracelessly clambered to the top and promptly curled up into an exhausted sleep.

----

Camouflage had left twenty minutes ago and Quatre was getting worried. He couldn't feel any distress from his companion but he also had not felt anything from Camo a week ago just prior to being floored by a cats rage. Let's emphasize that, it was a domesticated feline's rage. So, he felt perfectly justified worrying about any possible adventures his newfound pet may have gotten/be getting into.

Mr. Albert Davison, the second youngest executive in WEI at 26, was currently pressing his agenda for a deal with MacroWorks. While he wasn't against doing business with the computer corporation, and in fact he had a history of business deals with them, what Davison was suggesting was ludicrous. WEI was Winner Enterprises, not MacroWorks Enterprises but what Davison was espousing would give MW the foothold necessary to try such a coup. He would give the ginger haired man points though; he had amazing breath control to be able to talk so long without pausing for air.

An unobtrusive alert appeared on his laptop screen signaling the arrival of a company email from…Davison? Quatre looked up and confirmed that the email sender was currently standing before him still extolling the virtues of handing his company over to another company with more anti-trust lawsuits thrown at it than it was possible to count. Double clicking on the email he stared dumbfounded at the message.

meow-camo

Quatre didn't even bother trying to contemplate what the message meant, he just backburnered it while opening the attached document.

And promptly saw ZERO type red.

Oh, the fucker was going down.

----

"Oh, Camo there you are!" Quatre exclaimed after he got off the elevator on Davison's floor. His pet was curled up in Ms. Rebecca's lap daintily eating from a can of salmon while Ms. Rebecca was fielding calls and filing reports.

One deceptively large yellow eye opened up lazily, looked at his human, and promptly focused back on more important matters, namely the salmon.

"Ms. Rebecca, has Camouflage been here all this time?" the CEO asked when the secretary hung up.

Looking up startled at her ultimate boss she stuttered for a moment before regaining her composure with flair.

"Yes sir. He's been keeping me company while I've worked. This beauty here caught a ride on the elevator from where the big meeting was being held and I figured it was better to keep him occupied than wandering around so I bribed him with fish. I hope you don't mind Mr. Winner."

Quatre waved off her concerns with a gesture and calm smile. "No problems Ms. Rebecca and in fact I thank you for taking the initiative. Camouflage here has a tendency to wander into trouble." Here the young CEO gently cleared his throat, "Speaking of trouble, I am afraid I have some unfortunate news Ms. Rebecca. It seems Mr. Davison was in the middle of…off the record dealings with MacroWorks."

Ms. Rebecca's eyes widened in shock before narrowing suddenly. Snapping her fingers she slid her chair backwards to the far file cabinet in her work area, pulled a key from the front of her blouse, and unlocked the bottom file drawer.

"Forgive me Mr. Winner. I came across some odd files while working under Mr. Davison but I didn't understand what they were about. Something seemed wrong though so I kept copies of some and a few are the original documents that Mr. Davison gave to me for disposal. He never explicitly stated what type of disposal, just that he wanted them gone. Since he never saw them again he never thought to question me. But if he was trying to make deals with MW then it would explain the content of some of those files. Here you are sir." She handed Quatre a somewhat thick file filled with various memos, emails, and documents that suggested Mr. Davison made a successful career of double dealing and backstabbing.

Flipping through the file Quatre grinned in a fashion eerily reminiscent of his pet earlier in the day when Camo found his proof against the Rat.

Oh yes, the fucker was going down. His lawyers would make sure of that.

Women are master gossip mongers, especially when bored or in a communal work setting. I know this for I am female and I work at Walmart now.

AN 1 (updated 1/13/10) - Thealie pointed out the time discrepancy between Camo sleeping and Camo curled up with Ms. Rebecca when Quatre comes. Therefore (since I don't want to alter this chapter because I like the flow) I will explain my take on this:

Camo's time limit when entering Davison's office was 30-45minutes. 20 of those were used finding the file and sending it. That leaves 10-15minutes before Quatre is able to look for him so without further ado the tired cat sleeps because he doesn't care where Quatre finds him and (a little part of him) is hopeful he'll be found here. If you scoot to Ms. Rebecca, after the 45min mark when the meeting should have been done her boss and the other executives that work on the floor have not returned. Since she can't leave her floor -cough-battlestation-cough- to investigate she goes looking for Mr. Winner's cat to make sure he is okay. While passing by Mr. Davison's door it opens (think walmart sensor enabled sliding doors only Mr. Davison's was locked with his keycard before he left). As a good secretary she goes inside and what does she spy but Camo sleeping on the office chair. She grabs the fluff ball, content to have found him, and returns to her cubicle where she makes it up to him by opening up another can of salmon for him. So, it's been about 60 minutes so far all together, add another 10 because I don't see Davison going quitely and that leaves Quatre 25minutes late in retrieving Camo (since he is busy having Davison arrested for trading company secrets or something really legalese type giant no-no for the business world). Ergo, we leave Camo in the office but Quatre finds him with Ms. Rebecca when he arrives.

AN 2 - Walmart workers unite! -lol-

PS - the reason Camo is tired is he levitated a pencil to type out the message 'meow-camo'. As stated in an earlier chapter, magic like that is extremely taxing on his bound magic. Tirla pointed out cats and keyboards aren't incompatible but with my lack of knowledge of cats, I thought Persian's had bigger paws than could comfortably strike a keyboard. Learn something new everyday right?