Friday 31 May 2013

Friday, May 31, 2013 -

Walking Disaster

by Rue Chapman
Published: May 25, 2013
Words: 16,374
Category: romance
Orientation: M/F
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OPENING EXTRACT
Grace stared in horror at the man groaning on the floor.

"My God Grace, you've killed him! We've barely had this one a day. You're in SO much trouble!" Becka giggled, then knelt to check the body, which was starting to mutter and trying to stand up, "Come on, here we go, up you get, just sit on this chair and I'll get the First Aid kit. We always keep it handy." She bustled out of the office, leaving Grace alone with her victim.

"I - I'm so sorry, I just - I opened the door - I didn't know you were behind it..."

The moaning got louder. Grace stood, helpless and useless, wishing the floor would open up and swallow one of them.

"Here we are, now we'll set you right," Becka scurried back in. As she often pointed out, twenty years of marriage to a DIY 'expert', and four sons navigating through the dangerous waters of the teenage years, meant she could deal with almost anything without turning a hair.

Oddly, twenty-eight years of creating havoc had left Grace totally unable to deal with the results, despite countless opportunities for practice. She watched her latest victim, her blue eyes mournful.

"I just opened the door..."

Two dark eyes glared at her for a moment, then refocussed on Becka as she held a coldpack to the egg-sized swelling on his forehead.

This was a new record. Usually they lasted at least a week.

They were called Administrators, or Co-ordinators, or Managers, but the job was the same, whatever the title. They were the constant effort by the company to keep control of the crazy geniuses in the Research division. The exact proportion of craze to genius was under debate, but the labs kept producing, bringing in the big contracts, including certain work done for the government, involving terms like Top Secret, and High Security. Which meant that someone had to supervise, and check, and make it look like there was some sort of control over the brilliant, lucrative lunatics.

There was a ferociously high turnover in the job. Currently the new Administrative Supervisor was slumped in a chair, seeing double.

"Gracie, what have you done? Oh you poor man, let me look after you!" Gina swept into the room in a cloud of concern and expensive perfume. She fluttered over to her target and scooped the coldpack out of Becka's hand, deftly elbowing her out of the way at the same time. "What happened? Has Gracie been clumsy again? Honestly, she's a disaster, isn't she! We should call her Grace-LESS!"

Becka shrugged and stepped back. Grace stood there hating Gina for being taller, slimmer, blonder and totally NOT clumsy. Any one of those was hard to forgive, but all of them together were nauseating. And calling her 'Gracie' was almost grounds on its own for justifiable homicide.

Gina made a few more soothing noises over the sufferer, took a few steps towards Grace then hissed softly, "Haven't you done enough? He won't want to see you right now, will he? As if he ever would. Now why don't you run along and try to keep out of trouble, if you can, you clumsy oaf. And remember, I saw him first!"