Drudge? Kay frowned and fisted a hand on her hip, the tea precariously held in one wobbly hand. Compared to the break room gossip, she'd been called worse things. For some reason, this insult stung more. Kay was very aware of the unsightly smears on her overalls, whereas not a hair was misplaced in that elaborate pile of curls across from her. The woman's skin seemed to shimmer with hints of gold.

Kay's nostrils flared. "Do you want your tea or not, prison wedding Barbie?"

The retort passed her lips before she thought better of it. Inwardly she cringed. Don't talk to the prisoners, they said. She could practically hear Shaffer tutting in her ear about company policies.

What she did not expect was the reaction. The princess's hand slipped off her chin in a sudden jerk that almost toppled her over. She straightened and peered through the gloom with sudden interest.

"You're a woman?"

Kay bristled. True, the overalls were not flattering to her slim curves, and her cropped hair was a hot mess thanks to some curious pixies, but did the woman have to sound so shocked?

"Sorry, I left my glass slippers at home," Kay muttered. The princess narrowed her eyes at the comment and sank back, her gaze boring into Kay as she approached the lock box. "Tea, ten sugars, as ordered." She spoke through her teeth. That gold gaze was intense enough before the searing focus on her now.

One sleek brow rose. "You look like you're wearing half of it. Where's the saucer?"

"I dropped it," Kay lied. The woman's lips twitched, as if she saw right through it. Kay resolutely ignored her and carefully shoved the lock box on through, more tea sloshing free of the fine china cup in the process. "There's got to be a better way to do this," she said under her breath.

"You could always unlock the door and hand it to me," said a musical voice directly above her.

Kay jerked back. She hadn't seen or heard the princess move, but the woman was suddenly in front of her, only the safety glass between them. A small smile played on her lips, and Kay realized this golden woman and Dorothy the dragon had a great deal in common. Her shoulders slumped. The inmates enjoyed messing with the newbie, was it worth getting mad when they'd been here for decades? Really, she should be flattered she was more interesting than a concrete wall.

Instead she glanced around the princess, into the contents of the cell. Unlike the other creatures, there were quite a few luxuries present in the furnished cell. A large stack of frayed hard bound books were stacked haphazardly on a small side table. There was a ream of paper and art supplies in another corner and to Kay's surprise, a violin in an open case. It was all very lovely, and when Kay's eyes scanned over the pretty art supplies again, all very unused. There was a visible layer of dust on the violin, and the books, while the drawing charcoal was unopened, the paper blank and yellowed with age. Kay wondered at that. The only thing in the room that looked used aside from the bed, was the small flat-screen against the wall.

They let her have a T.V. down here? Did she get cable too?

"Find anything interesting?"

The back of her neck heated. Of course, the princess noticed her snooping. She hadn't taken her golden gaze off Kay once as she sipped her tea. Since, she was caught in the act, and she'd already violated the rule to not talk to the inmates, she figured why not ask.

"What do you do all day?"

The princess pursed her lips at the question. Admittedly, the words twisted into a much more judgmental question than Kay planned. She held up a hand before the woman could respond. "Wait, that didn't come out right." She pinched the loose cuff of her overall, golden eyes drawn down to the movement. "You don't draw, or play, or read?"

Golden eyes snapped back up to her face with such intensity, Kay took a step back. "Why should I?"

Kay swallowed, regretting her decision to engage in conversation. "I don't--why don't you?"

The woman took a long sip of her tea before she answered. Kay fidgeted in the silence. "Perhaps I am simply more entertained by the Netflix."

Kay almost ripped off her cuff buttons. "You get Netflix down here?"

"I'm not stuck in the dark ages, drudge," said the princess.

"It's Kay," she snapped back. "Now if you'll excuse me, your majesty, I have to get back to work."

That was more than enough rule bending for one day. Kay turned to shuffle herself out of the room.

"Don't you want the cup back?"

Had to get the last word in, didn't she? "I'll send Stanley for it later," said Kay. She opened the outer door, surprised to find the bird still perched on the cart, peering up at her expectantly. The sight made her smile when little else had today.

"It's Serena."

Kay glanced over her shoulder. The woman's eyes glowed in the spill of flickering torchlight like ancient coins of a long forgotten empire.

"Serena?"

"Yes, not majesty," said Serena. "Thank you for the tea, Kay." There was that slight smile again, amused or mocking, Kay couldn't tell, but the sound of her name sent an odd little shiver between her shoulders she didn't entirely know what to make of. When she turned back, the bird was gone.

***

"There you are," said Stanley. He sounded more than a little relieved, which compiled with Kay's unsettled feelings. She shook it off. Stanley had every right as her superior to get worried when she took too long on a task. It was his job on the line if something happened to her, such as talking to snarky inmates.

"Thought I got lost?"

He blinked behind his coke bottle lenses. "What? No, you've done great getting a feel for the place."

That was pretty damn close to praise. Kay looked him over. He did look more frazzled than usual. "What's wrong?"

"There's been a breach on the second level. I need you to take this report to Shaffer immediately so we can get a team down here."

"A what?" She took the papers he thrust at her, her confusion intensified as she scanned the memo. "An armed team? Armed for what?"

Stanley shook his head. "We'll chat later, Kay, please just run this up for me?"

She itched to question him more but she'd already done enough boundary pushing today and decided a walk would help clear her head. Kay was all the way to the elevator when she felt the floor vibrate under her feet.

"What in the world is that?" She waited to see if the vibrations continued but the elevator doors opened with a resounding ding. She shrugged and pushed the button for Shaffer's floor. She folded her arms, the papers dangling from one hand, while she nibbled the inside of her lip. He never said she couldn't read the report. Kay casually lifted the papers up enough to scan Stanley's barely legible scrawl. The words didn't make any sense. Was his hand writing that bad or was she going cross eyed? She held the paper closer to her face, squinting at the words but they remained gibberish.

"The hell?" Kay jumped as the elevator doors dinged. She sheepishly tucked the papers under her arm but no one looked up as they passed the open doors. Hustling to Shaffer's office, she knocked to announce herself.

"Come in."

Kay entered to find Shaffer waiting, hand clasped on the pristine desk, not a piece of paper in sight. What did this woman do all day? "I have a report from Stanley," she said.

A line appeared as Shaffer's brows drew together. "I'll take it."

Kay handed off the report, curious enough to linger without Shaffer's apparent dismissal. At first, Kay wondered if Stanley had played an elaborate prank on her by sending her up with a fake report, but after her initial scowl, it was clear Shaffer had no trouble understanding the gibberish writing on the page.

The blonde swore and yanked open the top drawer of her desk. "I told them it was a bad idea to put those two units together," she snarled more to herself than to Kay. She produced a pen from thin air, scribbling a message beneath Stanley's scrawl before she rolled and stuffed it into a clear tube she pulled from the open drawer. "Since you're still here, make yourself useful and run this up to the fifteenth floor." Shaffer held out the tube.

Kay wanted to ask what was happening but had a feeling Shaffer would be the last person to talk to her. "Who am I handing it off to?"

"Hand it to the receptionist, she'll take care of it."

Kay took the tube, a dozen questions itching at the inside of her mouth. Shaffer made a shooing motion when she didn't immediately move. Kay tucked the tube under her arm and kept her sigh to herself until she was back in the elevator. First the princess, then Shaffer made her feel like, well, a drudge. A few months ago, she dressed and acted like someone Shaffer would actually make eye contact with while they spoke. She stood a little straighter as the elevator reached the fifteenth floor. No sense going down that mental path, unless she wanted to start dredging up every failure and small misery of her life.

The first obvious change from the lower floors of Fantasy Land Inc was the hum of electricity that greeted Kay as she stepped off the elevator. Here it was high enough above the Grid for computers to function without sparking or attempting to graze on the paperclips. The other difference was the relaxed business casual atmosphere, as if there wasn't a subterranean prison for magical creatures below the building. Kay tried to ignore the self conscious flip in her stomach at her muck splattered overalls as she marched to the receptionist desk.

"I have a message from Shaffer Atwood." She had a feeling Stanley's name wouldn't broker much weight on this floor.

To her credit, the receptionist didn't give her outfit more than a cursory glance. "Put it into the receiving bin to the left."

Kay hesitated. Shaffer seemed more annoyed than worried about the situation but Stanley certainly appeared frazzled. "It's about a breach in the Grid."

The receptionist had already gone back to typing away on her keyboard. She nodded her chin. "Receiving bin."

Kay looked at the tottering pile of message tubes in the receiving bin. Was that the accumulation of a day or a week? Fantasy Land Inc was a rather large company, but it wasn't immune from bureaucratic bullshit. Wouldn't a breach be something to merit more attention? She twisted the tube in her hands while the receptionist went right on ignoring her.

"Kay?"

The familiar voice smacked her right between the shoulder blades like the blade of a dull knife. No, no way. This day couldn't possibly get that much worse, could it? Kay tossed the tube into the receiving bin with numb fingers and schooled her expression as she turned around. The Jerk stood not ten feet away, in an expensive pressed suit, wide eyed as he took her in. Yes, the day could get that much worse.

"Hello, Matt," said Kay, keenly aware of how the receptionist had stopped typing and tilted her head in their direction. This confrontation wouldn't be complete without a voyeur. "I didn't know you worked here." Of course she didn't, Matt never talked about his place of employment and since she'd signed that company waiver herself, she knew why. He was still a raging jerk though.

"When did you start here?" He took a few steps toward her, but remained at a distance, his hands casually slipping into his pockets. No mentions of her appearance, or the obligatory comment that 'she looked good' after their months apart even if it was a polite lie. His expression appeared neutral but she knew him too well not to miss the small crinkle of disgust at her outfit that appeared on his forehead. She was tempted to go give him a big friendly hug to show how much she missed him.

"Not long," she said through her teeth, the muscles of her jaw so tight they hurt. "I managed to land on my feet," she said.

At first the words didn't appear to penetrate the gel lacquered helmet of his hair but then his brows twitched. "You're still mad about that? Kay, that was months ago. I thought we parted on rather amiable terms."

Her jaw dropped. Was he really that full of himself? Was he really that dense? She sputtered a moment. The receptionist was still listening. Kay clamped down on the urge to yell at him, to smack him, to make a spectacular scene.

"I can't believe they hired you for the Grid," Matt continued on, oblivious to her internal struggle not to wring his thick neck. "You seem a little... delicate for that kind of work." A flare of red pulsed behind her eyes. Delicate? Really? She wondered what stupid slur he'd self edited on the fly.

"The work is fine," she said, her words quiet. A rather awful thought occurred to her as she remembered what it took to get hired by Fantasy Land Inc. "I'm sure most people start on the bottom floors."

The smile he gave her was so smug she wanted to punch him right in his perfect teeth. "Wouldn't know. I tested right up to the fifth floor."

Kay's stomach soured. "Oh, that's impressive."

"Yes, I found the whole exam rather spectacular, but it was easy enough," Matt continued.

Kay saw the receptionist roll her eyes. Her lips almost twitched. It was a small comfort to know she wasn't the only one who thought Matt was full of shit.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work. It was nice seeing you again Matt," she forced out the lie.

"Oh, sorry, don't let me hold you up from mucking stalls," he said, a parting shot that hit home. "Do take care of yourself, Kay." His tone was as sincere as a frozen lasagna at a wake.

He left Kay standing there, her limbs trembling with the barely suppressed urge to scream.

"Let me prioritize this for you," said the receptionist, plucking Kay's tube from the receiving bin. She beat a swift retreat down the hall. Kay didn't linger any longer. Her steps dragged as she entered the elevator. At least she didn't cry, though the back of her throat burned from the effort. By the time the elevator dinged on the first floor of the Grid, she was ready to lose herself in some 'stall mucking' for the rest of the afternoon. Stanley was waiting for her in the hall.

"Don't know how you did it, but that was the fastest response time I've ever had to a breach report since I started working here."

"I had the power of abject humiliation," Kay mumbled.

Stanley's brow furrowed with clear concern. "Anyway, we've been dismissed for the rest of the day while they send down the team to deal with this."

Kay's head snapped up. "What? Why? Don't we have two more floors to feed?"

Stanley's mouth pinched. It occurred to her that he wasn't any happier with the early dismissal than she was. "They'll be okay for a night," he said through a sigh.

Kay swallowed the persistent lump in her throat and looked away, tugging at her cuffs, a move that was quickly becoming a nervous habit.

"Want to get a cup of coffee? I could use a cup of coffee," said Stanley.

"The coffee here is terrible," said Kay, unable to completely keep the sniffle out of her voice. Stanley looked her over, far too observant.

"But the hot chocolate isn't so bad. Why don't you go get changed?"

Chocolate in any form sounded pretty good right about now. Kay shuffled into the locker room, grateful to strip out of her overalls. A fat tear slid off her chin and splattered on the wood bench.

"That jerk," she said. She sighed as she leaned into her locker for her clothes. Compared to Matt, a somewhat haughty golden princess wasn't all that bad. She paused, tapping her fingers on the locker. She thought of Serena, all the pretty contents of her cell untouched and aged. For all her imposing attitude and demeanor, she was still a prisoner here. Kay could understand any hostility on her part, but she also seemed...kinda lonely. Maybe she could ask Stanley about the golden princess, if he was even allowed to tell her or that it would matter. It was unlikely he would send her down there again.