Polymath

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

I stood in front of my mirror, pulling my hair down, down, down, and it bounced back up, hiding itself. I probably have never pulled the same hair twice. Blinking, my contacts righted themselves and my image became less blurry.

My blue uniform fit perfectly. Greene provided me with the blue pleated shirt, the blue pants, and the black shoes, all in my size. He handed me the shiny, gold badge embellished with Vermont's seal. It read 'Freedom & Unity' and it sat above my breast pocket with pride. This was what I've been waiting for since I was eighteen, and began to notice all the wrong things about my neighborhood.

Gated community, but people still got in. No parking on the road, yet there HOLLY was. People who had a rap sheet, or had blood relatives with a rap sheet weren't allowed, but oh, here was Paisley.

I could finally bust her chops, dear Lord, thank you so much.

I walked inside the station early the next morning. It was a three story building, almost like a small apartment. When I walked into the first floor, Greene immediately whisked me up the stairs to the second floor.

"This is your office," he said, beckoning me inside an unoccupied room. It was little, with four-by-four walls that were painted powder blue and the wall in the front had a small half window where I could see the hallway. A four drawer file cabinet sat in the corner with a pink orchid on top. A little desk with a glass top sat in the middle of the room with two drawers underneath, and I was surprised to see a brand new laptop sitting on top with an old fashioned call phone with a thousand buttons sitting next to it. The part that dazzled me the most was the back wall that was ceiling to floor windows, three, side-by-side, just like the ones at home, with white sheer curtains. "We can change it if you want, but your spunky personality led us to this."

"No, no," I walked inside, looking around even more. There was the craziest light structure I had ever seen protruding from the ceiling, with five metal bars twisting around and around each other, ending in bare lightbulbs. "This is incredible."

Greene chuckled. "You received a little special treatment, since you are the only girl working here."

"What?" I knew I had been the only girl during gun training, and Green had told me I had a great chance of being the only girl on the squad, but I didn't know he meant literally. I unfortunately imagined myself surrounded by men, wanting to get close to me, to know about me. The only boys I were comfortable with being close to me were the Jefferson's. "Isn't that a code violation?"

Green seemed uncomfortable. "We're trying, Redford. You're the first girl to ever want to join us."

"Really?"

"Yes. I have work to do upstairs, so if you need anything, you can buzz for me on the phone, or call Caster, he's next door, right there." He pointed to the door next to mine, which was open wide. "Enjoy today, we'll be ramped up tomorrow."

I didn't want to ask what he meant, so I just nodded and he walked away. As soon as his navy blue coat was out of view, I dashed inside, shut the door, but not all the way, behind me and threw myself into the white desk chair. Embarrassingly I rolled away from the desk, but quickly scooted back up.

Paisley, Paisley, Paisley.

My laptop was already set up with all the necessities to search all the information about everyone in the entire world. I imagined myself standing on the top of the Himalayas with a giant magnifying glass, searching Paisley's house through all the windows.