22:59

06:35

Roger's reminiscing was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

"Uh... You called for me, Mr. Stone? Sir?"

Christian, one of the newcomers, was hovering in the doorway. Someone's son, as far as Roger could remember, definitely, otherwise he would not have accepted him in his department and the guy would have been stuck somewhere below the first floor among the couriers and handymen.

Roger stared at the monitor, pretending to read the finely typed text, making Christian break out in a cold sweat.

"Christian, come in." He said finally.

Christian was frozen in place. Roger's eyes widened and he pointed to a chair near the door. The newcomer swallowed, hesitated for about five seconds, and limply sank into the chair. Roger stared at him, trying to contain his laughter and irritation. This one's a mumbler.

"Christian, can you guess why I called you in?"

"Uh... N-no. No sir. Mr. Stone... Sir."

"I looked through yesterday's incident report, and something bothered me a little," Christian swallowed again noisily. "You were on site 13/67 yesterday, weren't you?"

"Uh... I was, sir. But I don't understand... What did I do wrong? Sir. Mr. Stone."

Roger looked from Christian to the monitor and read: "At 15:23, a Medicol employee allowed a red Chevrolet with two young girls in it to pass through." Roger looked pointedly back at Christian. "Is that so, Christian? Did you allow these two ladies to pass?"

The young guy at the door seemed to melt into the chair and was silent.

Roger waited a minute and continued, "You probably thought that they were late somewhere? You wanted to help them? You wanted to cheer them up by showing them how polite and responsive young people are on the roads in our times? Is that so, Christian?"

"No, sir... I mean, yes, sir!"

"So you mean to say that you deliberately violated paragraph five of article twenty-eight of our charter because you wanted to help these two ladies?" Roger leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and frowned.

Christian jumped out of his chair, red like the Chevrolet he had let pass yesterday at exactly 15:23.

"N-no, sir ... I didn't mean to do it! I just... Mr. Stone, I was distracted. This will never happen again, sir!" he had turned white, and his lips trembled. Under Roger's stern gaze, he slid back into the chair, "Never, s-sir... Mr. Stone."

Roger felt sorry for the newcomer who it seemed was about to faint. This was all he needed right now, to coddle this brat, whom as far as he remembered, someone forced on him. Roger sighed, rubbed his forehead with his hand as if trying to erase the memory of the incident, and looked at Christian.

"Christian, you are a newbie among us and with rookies we usually forgive minor oversights. Passing through a car however is not a minor oversight. This is a violation of the rules. Do you understand that?"

Christian hastily nodded his head.

"Okay. I will assume that you were distracted. And I believe that this will never ever happen again."

Roger glanced back at the monitor, looking for a file named Assignment_15.08. Opening it, he scrolled to the very bottom, where he had a table which showed the distribution of personnel by vehicles and areas. He thought for a moment, mentally calculating the options, tapped his finger on the table and decided: "Today I am going to assign you to site 31/17..."

Christian turned even paler, if that were possible, and Roger understood his fear. All of the employees knew that this section had a ring road that connected the main streets of the city. Busy traffic between strategically important sites, including a school, a hospital, a library and the largest shopping center in the city, was very difficult to control. Being assigned to this site was a punishment.