Executive Apartments, Stonozka, Titan
Even as she automatically returned all of the standard greetings associated with the beginning of the day, Mballa got the feeling that something was distinctly amiss. The Iron Dame wasn't what one would call extremely sociable, but that didn't mean she didn't understand how the whole human 'emotion' thing worked. Smiles were just a little too broad, "good morning!"s just a little too enthusiastic. By the time she made it to the door of her office, her face had fallen from its usual stern expression to an actual frown.
She paused, with her hand on the door handle. The only reasonable explanation was that there was a prank afoot. Strategically, she figured that the optimal prank for her office would be one that tried to elicit a reaction out of her, one that lacked some form of stoic restraint. It could be anything from water balloons rigged to the handle to fire spiders raining from the drop ceiling. Since the door opened outward, it could be a string at ankle level pulled across the inside of the doorframe.
Setting her jaw and assuming the worst, she opened the door with a step back. From her new position, she swept her eyes across the visible portion of her office. The desk was there. There were no strings across the door, and nothing affixed to the door itself. The ceiling remained intact. The couch on the wall to the right of the door wasn't as grey as it usually was, but only because Shoddy wasn't laying on it--
A prank was afoot, and that damnable Shoddy was involved. Mballa's face set, with grim determination, into a stoic frown. The Ghost certainly had the means at her disposal, and the opportunity, since she'd basically become a fixture of the office itself. Motive? Well, getting bossed around at Damalin's shindig probably didn't do wonders for her ego, especially since she was traipsing around in some sort of kitty avatar to either horrify or otherwise play with the locals. All three fundamentals of guilt now established--albeit circumstantially--Mballa hardened herself to the infinite diversity in infinite combinations that could be a ShodeyPrank (TM). Would it be a pie to the face, or some uniquely genetically engineered horror from the darkest depths of an imagination spanning a goodly portion of explored space?
She stepped forward, glancing right with the motion to check the near corner and then scanning left to check the rest of the office, the portion occulted from her previous vantage point. Picture window overlooking Stonozka's central parklands: not covered in fire spiders. Chair--occupied.
The occupant, most assuredly a woman, stood up to what had to be nearly one-hundred-ninety-five centimeters in height, a good head taller than Mballa. Thick, wavy blonde hair fell to her shoulders over a professional black jacket and low-cut blouse, the line of which bounced in a particularly distracting manner with the sudden movement of its wearer. Practice in self-control kept Mballa's fovea mostly at eye level, rather than following shapes down towards the tight black skirt terminating just above the knee and heeled black shoes; instead, bright green eyes sparkled from behind thin, metallic-rimmed glasses as glossed lips split a lightly tanned face of clearly European extraction. "Good morning," she said cheerily in the sort of voice usually compared to things like laughing brooks, "I've organized the overnight briefings and paperwork by topic. Besides the usual inter-Section standup at 0730, you've dedicated briefings with Science at 0800 and IntPoly at 0900. IntRelate would like your feedback on their interpretation of the latest policy advisement from the JIRC, but I was able to convince them that face time wasn't required and so transferred that meeting into a correspondence."
Mballa did not permit her expression to change. Total control was the easiest way to ignore the butterflies. "Good morning. Thank you." After a thought, her eyes tightened slightly. The first hint was a lack of 'ma'am'; the second was that while the surprise secretary was dressed quite professionally, she wasn't in uniform. "Shoddy."
The taller woman grinned broadly from behind closed lips, and the voice that then emerged was not only deeper but instantly recognizable. "How do you like my new look?"
Mballa said nothing and expressed nothing but stern, iron-faced stoicism.
"It's no use, Polly," Secretary Shodey said with a chuckle. "I can tell from your increased body temperature, heart rate, skin conductivity based on atmospheric microionization, and even your chakras that I'm having the desired effect."
Mballa expressed nothing.
"Your attempts to not even dignify it with a response, to suppress other obvious physiopsychological reactions, and your increased stress indicators associated with frustration over not being to control more subtle matters of blush response, pupil motion, and iris dilation only further reinforce my schadenfreude."
"God." Mballa replied quietly and evenly. "Fucking. Dammit." Breaking eye contact, she marched to her desk and sat down; only then did Secretary Shodey move to close the door to the office. Mballa couldn't say much for certain: whether the door closing was to permit her to express herself more openly; whether the gynoid was accentuating her movements for best effect or whether her own mind was doing the accentuation for itself. How certain things moved when Secretary Shodey turned to face her again both suggested natural perkiness--for as much value as 'natural' had around the Ghost--and lack of restraint.
The Supreme Emperor, sitting behind her desk, frowned mightily, then looked down at the briefings and newsfeeds that'd been neatly arranged for her. "We're not friends anymore."
"Not even if I let you cop a feel?"
"God. Fucking. Dammit." Other than the emphasis on the amplifying adjective, the statement was not nearly as heated as it should have sounded. The force behind it, on the other hand, gave away the level of control necessary to achieve this effect.
"Would you like me to get you some kawfee?"
"I'd like you to sit down and shut up, since I know that any excuse you have for movement you'll play up for full effect."
The tall blonde smiled, shrugged (jiggle), turned (jiggle), and walked (jiggle jiggle sway sway) over to the couch. She turned again (jiggle), sat down--with all the change of angles that would suggest--and folded one knee over the other. What pissed Mballa off the most about this entire tease was that she was suddenly certain, as certain as Wednesday following Tuesday, that her tormentor wasn't actually playing up anything at all so much as just pushing her buttons. "Better?"
"I should've never told you about Stupid Sexy Silaco."
"But if you hadn't, things would not have unfolded in such a way that you would actually admit that we are friends."
"Were. Now I'm going to accentuate the positive--"
"A rarity for you--"
"--and consider this an opportunity."
Stupid Sexy Shodey raised an eyebrow. "For?"
Mballa looked up. "Dealing with it." She grinned fully, her lips pulled back over her teeth in a gesture that, anywhere else, would've been considered friendly even if her eyes weren't smiling along with her mouth. After that, her face returned to its standard iron rigidity, she looked down, and lost herself in her work.