Chapter 93: ELIORA
KEISHA’S POV
Two days later, Nadia had already figured out the filing system.
I came past her desk on my way to the archive room, glanced at her screen and slowed down.
She was cross referencing two log sets simultaneously, the new unified standard Marcus had circulated, and she was doing it correctly. Far more than I expected from her. Everything was done actually correctly, the reference numbers running sequentially, the date formatting consistent, the flags properly tagged.
I kept walking before she could see me looking.
In the archive room, I stood for a moment and smiled at a shelf of folders.
She was going to be absolutely fine.
I printed Eliora’s ID card from the system and went to find her.
She was at her desk with three files open in front of her, her brow slightly furrowed and looked slightly irritated about something she was reading.
I set the card on the corner of her desk. "Your ID." I told her. "Keep it on you during work hours."
She looked up. "Thank you." She picked it up and looked at it briefly.
I glanced at her screen and my stomach dropped slightly.
Oh fuck.
The log she was entering was formatted completely wrong— the wrong column structure, the date in the wrong field, the reference numbers not following the sequence at all. These weren’t casual mistakes. This was literally the foundation of the job. The kind of mistakes that only a rookie could make. The kind that suggested she was not familiar with this system at all.
"Eliora." I kept my voice even. "Can I see that for a moment?"
She turned her screen toward me and I looked at it.
The formatting was the opposite of what she had been shown in the induction yesterday. Every structural element wrong. And no, it still wasn’t wrong in the way it was when you made a simple mistake — it was wrong in the way something was wrong when you were encountering it for the first time.
I thought about her interview. Her answers about cross referencing. Her confident specific language about documentation systems.
I thought about her resume. Years of experience. She had certification.
How could she make such a mistake?
"The reference numbers run sequentially from the source log." I said as I kept my voice level. "Look at the first column. The sequence needs to match the originating document." I pointed at the screen. "Everything in this entry needs to be corrected before it’s submitted."
She looked at the screen and something moved through her face. "Of course." She laughed but it sounded dry. "I’ll fix it."
"All of it." I said. "Not just the column. The date field is wrong, the tag structure is wrong, the reference sequence is wrong." I paused. "Start from the top."
She nodded and didn’t meet my eyes.
I walked back to my desk, sat down and thought about her interview answers.
Something was wrong. But I couldn’t exactly get why.
An hour later I went past her desk again.
The log was marginally better. Some of the column structure fixed. The date field still wrong and the reference sequence still not right.
I corrected it for her, talking through each step, and she listened carefully. I looked at her face a few times. Oh fuck.
It was clear. She’s listening but she’s not recognising this. She’s hearing it for the first time.
I went back to my desk.
At lunch I brought food to Eliora’s desk— a small peace offering for the morning’s corrections— and she thanked me and seemed genuinely grateful so I sat down.
Then the superior’s office door flew open.
The sound was loud enough that three people flinched.
Mr Hale came out holding a folder and looking at it with an expression that I had not seen on him before. Fury.
"Who submitted this?" He held the folder up. His voice was completely controlled which somehow made it worse. "This record list. Who submitted this to me twenty minutes ago?"
The office was very quiet, then Eliora stood up slowly.
Mr Hale looked at her. "This." He said, opening the folder and turning it toward the room. "Has four formatting errors, two incorrect reference sequences, a date discrepancy that goes back three days and a flag that was marked resolved when it is demonstrably not resolved." He looked at Eliora. "You submitted this to me as completed work."
"I—" Eliora started.
"Completed." He said again. "You marked it completed."
"I thought—"
"What did you think?" He continued, not raising his voice. "Walk me through what you thought."
The office was so quiet I could hear the ventilation system.
Eliora opened her mouth, closed it and her face looked drained of color.
She didn’t even know what to say.
"I’m sorry." She said finally. "I’ll redo it."
"You will." He said. "Today. On my desk by four o’clock." He looked at the room generally. "The unified standard was circulated Monday. It is now Wednesday. I shouldn’t be receiving work that doesn’t follow it."
He went back into his office and the door didn’t slam. Everyone took a sigh of relief.
Nadia was at Eliora’s desk before I had processed moving to her and she was talking to her quietly, her hand briefly on her arm, and Eliora’s shoulders were shaking slightly.
I sat at my desk and watched.
She should have figured all this out after her many years of working in communications. How then was she fucking it up?
I couldn’t move from my seat. I just watched her quietly, my brows furrowed in confusion.
After a long second, I opened a new document on my screen and started typing.
Eliora’s name was at the top.
There was only one way to find out.
.
Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!
Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
Creation is hard, cheer me up! VOTE for me!