Annabeth and the Nine Step Career Plan

Step 5

Detainment

Even knee-deep in work mode, fleshing out a meeting memo to discuss the limitations of using duralumin alloy in the new drones, Annabeth hears and recognizes the familiar gait several seconds before the footsteps come to a stop behind her.

"What are you up to, anything important?" Lana asks, leaning a casual hand on the top of her chair.

Annabeth polishes off the last bullet point before turning her head to make eye contact.

"I feel like I should say yes, out of principle."

"Right," Lana snorts, "Well, if you're bored with your oh-so-high-priority task, I have something fun for us."

The other woman jerks her head towards her office, and Annabeth lets out a small grin, promising to join her as soon as she emails out the memo.

LINEBREAK

Lana's soundproof office is a welcome respite, blocking out the noises of incessant typing, ringing phones, and mindless chatter that Annabeth has had to endure for hours on end. As she settles into the chair on the opposite side of the desk, Lana drops a stack of paper down onto the wood with a dull thud. Annabeth eyes it warily. Almost eight inches tall, it doesn't look any more appetizing than planning out unnecessary meetings for people who could have resolved their issues in a brief email thread.

"Alpha testing reports and their corresponding beta testing proposals," Lana explains, catching her hesitant expression, "And you are going to help me decide which ones to approve."

Annabeth brightens almost instantly, moving her glasses from her head to her nose and grabbing the first stapled packet.

"For the new tech projects?"

"Some new, some old," Lana shrugs, grabbing a second copy of the same report, "And others that I was able to pull off the backburner."

Annabeth nods absently, already starting to read through the testing protocol for a new type of solar panel.

The pair leaf through the reports, initially in silence, then break into a discussion, going back and forth on the strengths of the testing modality, edge cases left unconsidered, the quality and quantity of repeated tests, and so on. And when Annabeth has nothing left to say, Lana nods, brings an ink stamp down onto the cover, sealing the project's fate, and moves on to the next. As a single hour bleeds into two, and finally three, the daunting stack of paper has been neatly separated into two piles: the approved projects and the ones to be sent back for more rigorous lab testing.

When the clock finally rolls past four pm, Annabeth marvels at how she had barely even noticed the day pass by.

"Finished in record time," Lana announces, stretching her arms in her seat and glancing down at her phone following a short buzz.

Annabeth opens her mouth to reply, but Lana's cell buzzes twice more in a row.

"Someone's persistent," she comments instead, raising her eyebrows.

"It's Clark." Lana rolls her eyes but opens the messages anyways.

"I don't want to seem like I'm intruding," Annabeth pauses, "But he's the one you told me about, right? The childhood friend."

Lana looks up, expression surprised, before she drops it and sighs.

"The very same." She shakes her head. "Do I even want to know how you figured that one out?"

Annabeth shrugs, and, with a slightly sheepish smile, gives a half-answer if she's ever heard one.

"Sorry, once my brain connects the dots, there's no unlearning it."