Whimsy Wins — @flashfictionfridayofficial
Polly Exhaled, relieved to finish the call. As soon as his lens adjusted back to the room, he began to pull up the feed of bureaucratic documents he now had to work his way through. Before he could start, Jules caught his eye. She was sitting by the window, lounging unprofessionally on the pale yellow cushion attached to the seat. She was throwing what looked like a datashard into the air, catching it again before it could hit the floor. If he'd seen anyone else, including himself, doing this on company time, he would have reprimanded them without a second thought, but not Jules. Jules was special.
Polly smiled as he watched her— fascinated that she could entertain herself with something so simple when she was surrounded by interfaces. To an outsider, it would be clear that Jules, lounging by the window, was the CEO; and Polly, laboring away at his desk, was the assistant, but the opposite was true. While Jules' was technically a personal assistant, most of what she did consisted of reminding Polly to be present— grounding someone who would otherwise lose himself in his work.
Hearing his lack of movement, Jules caught the datashard one last time and turned to face him.
“Ya' doin' okay, Polly?”
Polly smiled hearing his own name. Among her other duties, Jules was also the only person in the Union who Polly had trusted with his true Identity— in fact, she was the first person Polly had met capable of understanding gender.
“Yeah, I'm fine, Jules. I suppose the monotony is getting to me again, that's all.”
“Then stop working. It's not like anyone would know if you let a 'pseudo fill out those forms. You should work on something fun, like that liminal space research.”
Had he really forgotten to tell her what happened? Or, maybe, his unconscious mind just didn't want to disappoint her.
“Project got shut down,” he explained, not making eye contact with her as he did.
“What?! Why?” Jules stood up, walking up to his desk like an angry investor.
“It was pointless, Jules. Leenad set up hundreds of stations in liminal locations, none of them found anything.”
Expecting disappointment, Polly averted his gaze. When Jules didn't respond, he looked back up at her, hands on the front of his desk like an angry teacher, though her expression told a different story. She looked at him like he'd just said something magnificently stupid in that way only she could get away with.
“What?”
“Polly— if the key to falling out of space time is liminal spaces, you can't set up research stations inside them. If a space is a destination, it is no longer liminal.”
“I don't think spacetime is that sapiocentric—”
“Who says it is? Just because this sort of thing only happens in areas we perceive as liminal space doesn't mean our perception causes it. Come on, give it one more chance? For me?”
Polly never even tried to resist Jules puppy dog eyes— he just stood up, letting her drag him by his wrist to his office door.
“Come on! Let's go get Leenad,” Jules said, dropping Polly's wrist just before they entered the hallway, beginning their charade once more.
Thanks for reading! Once again, this story takes place in the same universe as my main project, as well as The Red Jacket (FFF 317, Lead the way), Failure (FFF 346, Monolougs and Monoliths), and even features the same characters as Gender Envy (FFF 342, Envy's Attire).
