Steve Short Story

1

The day started normal enough for Remi Spencer as she made her way through the New York subway system. She picked up coffee and a bagel, the morning paper, and then made her way to the bottom of the Avengers tower to sign in to Stark Industries.
"Morning Mr. Jones. Did you catch last night's game?" She asked the security guard at the desk as she swiped through.
"Morning, Dr. Spencer. You know it. Now how about you pay up?" The elderly guard asked with his hand outstretched.
"I'll pay you when your team makes the finals. You know I'm good for it," she said with a wink.
Mr. Jones raised his eye brows in mock surprise as she walked through the security turnstile and went to hand him the sports section of the paper.
"Now now, Dr. Spencer, I might have to report you for extortion if you don't pay up," he said to her in mock seriousness.
"Who's extorting whom here? My team lost last night. You should be buying me a conciliatory coffee," she said as she smiled at him.
"I'll catch you on the other side, Doctor," he said as he laughed.

Remi herded herself into one of the many elevators along with the other employees of Stark Industries. As an up and coming twenty something she was lucky have landed her dream job. She was a bit of a child prodigy and had her doctorate in aerospace engineering and materials. Some of her ideas were used by the department of defense and other private aviation contractors, making quite the reputation. Instead of working on designs she now worked in research and development for Stark Industries. They were teaming up with Tesla to improve space travel and exploration. As she reached the 50th floor, she and a few others exited the lift and went to their respective offices.

By lunch time Remi found herself adjusting her unruly curls again. She took off her glasses and rubbed under her eyes to ease some of the tension. She was was finally stumped  on a problem and needed to take a break when her department head, Dr. Henry came by her workstation.
"Hey Remi, are you coming up on a break?" He asked her.
"Yes. I'm kind of stumped right now and need to clear my head. What did you need?" She asked.
"I have a request. From upstairs." Dr. Henry fidgeted with his tie before continuing and cleared his throat. "Mr. Tony Stark has requested you bring him the files on high temperature titanium alloys tests and results."
Remi looked at Dr. Henry with a raised eyebrow. "Can I send him an email? Doesn't Friday have access to all the files already?" She asked.
"I have already posed those questions and he insisted he wanted the paper copies brought up by you since it was your work."
Remi's face fell at his statement. "Does that mean I'm in trouble? Did he find an error in my research and models?" She was thinking out loud as she wasn't looking directly at Dr. Henry.
"I don't know. I'm just the messenger. Take your lunch break and then take those files to him."
"Yes, Doctor," Remi said as she turned back to her workstation. She saved her current project files and then dug up the reports Mr. Stark requested. Her jaw dropped when she looked at the size of the files. All of her text, graphs, and animated models was at least 1 gigabyte of data.  It would take a few hours to get all of the reports printed. She picked up the phone and called one of the internal offices. "Hey, good morning. I need some files printed ASAP."

After the phone call Remi gathered her purse and jacket and exited the building to find some lunch.