Chapter 3: The Graduate Trainee
1252 Words
The mail arrived at 8:03 a.m
Abigail read it twice before groaning Department Assignment: Archive & Financial Records Division.Around her, the other trainees reacted very differently to their placements
"Corporate Strategy!"
"Investment Banking!"
"No way, I got Mergers and Acquisitions!"excitement erupted across the training hall.Abigail looked down at her own assignment again"
Archive & Financial Record"
not exactly glamorous.
Maya leaned over "What did you get?""Archives."
Maya blinked,then winced"Oh." "That bad?""It's where documents go to retire."Abigail laughed despite not been too excited herself "Sounds peaceful.""Sounds boring."maybe but boring had never bothered Abigail because numbers rarely lied but people did.
And if there was one thing she had learned studying forensic accounting,it was that the most important stories were usually hidden where nobody bothered to look.
An hour later, she found herself standing in front of a secured door on the seventeenth floor.A signpost beside it read:ARCHIVE & FINANCIAL RECORDS DIVISION
The room beyond looked nothing like she expected.Instead of dusty shelves and forgotten paperwork,rows of computers hummed quietly,digital workstations lined the walls.
Employees moved between stacks of files and computer terminals with precise efficiency.
A woman with silver-rimmed glasses approached her
"Abigail Hart?"
"Yes."
"I'm Clara Bennett." her new supervisor,Clara handed her a security badge
"No shortcuts."
"No exceptions."
"No files leave this floor."
Abigail nodded "Understood."
"Good."
Clara pointed toward a workstation near the back "Your first task." Abigail followed her gaze,her desk was buried underneath boxes,actual boxes,cardboard boxes,dozens of them Abigail stared.
Clara smiled slightly "Welcome to archives."
After Clara left,Abigail dropped into her chair and stared at the mountain waiting for her.There had to be at least thirty boxes or maybe forty but she wasn't counting,because if she started counting, she might cry.
The nearest box was labeled:ARCHIVES — 2014
The one beneath it:ARCHIVES — 2013
while underneath:ARCHIVES — 2011
Abigail squinted "How much paperwork does one company generate?"The man at the next workstation looked up,without missing a beat, he replied,"You don't want the answer to that."she laughed.
The man appeared to be in his forties,wearing rectangular glasses and the expression of someone who had spent years dealing with impossible deadlines.
"First week?" he asked
"Is it that obvious?"
"You still have hope in your eyes."
Abigail groaned
"That's concerning."
"It should be."
He extended a hand "Ben."
"Abigail."
"Welcome to the basement."
She looked around we are on the seventeenth floor she said
"Spiritually, it's the basement." and that earned another laugh.
For the next few hours,Abigail settled into a rhythm,open file,check reference number,verify dates,scan,upload and then repeat "Simple"
By noon,she had scanned over two hundred pages.
By one o'clock,she had begun questioning every life choice that had brought her here.
At two, she received a text from Maya
"Still alive"?
Abigail typed back immediately
"Barely"
Maya's response came seconds later
"Come to cafeteria,human interaction required"
Maybe a break wouldn't hurt.
The cafeteria occupied an entire floor,large windows that overlooked the city.
Employees crowded tables discussing projects, deadlines and office gossip.
Abigail eventually spotted Maya waving from a corner booth "Archives girl!" Abigail pointed at her tray "Please don't make that my nickname." "No promises."
She slid into the seat opposite her,Maya leaned forward dramatically "Tell me everything."
"There is nothing to tell."
"Impossible."
"There are files."
"Exciting."
"There are more files."
"Thrilling."
"And then there are additional files."
Maya pressed a hand to her chest "The suspense is killing me." Abigail laughed.
The conversation drifted toward university memories,difficult professors and embarrassing internship stories.
For a while,she forgot how nervous she had been that morning,until someone walked past their table,the atmosphere shifted instantly,conversations softened,heads turned Maya stopped speaking and Abigail frowned "What?"
Maya glanced toward the corridor
"That's him."
"Who?"
"The CEO." Abigail turned instinctively but she only caught a brief glimpse
Tall,Dark suit and focused expression.
Surrounded by executives who seemed determined to stay out of his way.He didn't smile didn't wave,didn't acknowledge the attention,he just simply kept walking.
The entire encounter lasted less than ten seconds,yet somehow everyone noticed
"Wow," Maya whispered
"What?"
"That's the first time I've seen him in person." Abigail looked back at her lunch
"He seems busy." Maya stared
"That's your reaction?"
"What was I supposed to say?"
"He's Damien Ashford."
"And?"
Maya stared.
"One of the youngest billionaires in the country."
Abigail shrugged.
"Good for him."
Abigail simply took another bite of her sandwich. and Maya looked personally offended.
Back in archives the rest of the afternoon crawled,the curiosity of the office had vanished,the excitement she had for her first assignment had faded all that remained was work,which, Abigail reminded herself was exactly why she was here.
The file that caught her attention arrived shortly after four,at first glance it looked ordinary,just like another archived financial report,just another entry among thousands but Abigail opened it anyway,reference code,department identifier,approval signature and date,everything appeared oddly normal.
Until she entered the file number into the system.The screen displayed a different record,she frowned,that wasn't right but Abigail checked again,again.
The numbers matched,the system didn't,a tiny frown appeared between her brows,that was odd,she compared every digit carefully yet nothing,no typo,no obvious mistake.
Just two records that should have matched but didn't.The mismatch was tiny,the kind of thing most people would ignore and perhaps they should.
Large organizations made mistakes all the time,data migration errors,mislabeling,human oversight,perfectly reasonable explanations existed,yet something about this one bothered her.
Maybe because everything else had been so organized, maybe because the mismatch seemed isolated.
Or maybe because instincts developed over years of studying financial records rarely appeared without reason.
Abigail opened a notebook on a fresh page she wrote:
File 11-A73 Reference mismatch,then circled it once,not because it was important but because she wanted to remember it later,just in case.
At 5:42 p.m., most employees were preparing to leave but Abigail wasn't.
She sat surrounded by open files and handwritten notes,the mismatch still bothered her.One mismatched code wasn't important but patterns mattered,small mistakes became large ones when nobody paid attention.
She opened the file again,compared the numbers,cross checked the dates,nothing dramatic,nothing suspicious,just enough to feel wrong a sensation she couldn't explain.
Eventually she gathered her things and stood.
The file remained on her desk,quiet,ordinary,forgettable,exactly the kind of file nobody would ever look at twice,which was probably why it had survived unnoticed for fifteen years.
Several floors above,Damien Ashford signed the final document waiting on his desk.Lucas entered without knocking,a privilege few people possessed "Still here?" Damien glanced at the clock 6:18 p.m "Apparently." Lucas dropped a folder onto the desk "Trainee performance reports." Damien looked unimpressed "It's day one." "Tell that to Human Resources."
Damien reached for the folder anyway mainly to end the conversation,his eyes skimmed the names then paused Hart, Abigail,Archive & Financial Records Division,top graduate of forensic Accounting,Interesting,not because her name meant anything or because he recognized it but simply because very few graduates voluntarily specialized in forensic accounting anymore,most preferred faster money and safer careers.
He closed the folder and forgot about the name almost immediately at least that was what he thought he did.
That evening, long after most lights on the archive floor had gone dark, a single file remained open on Abigail's desk.
Inside it sat a irregularity nobody else had noticed,a tiny error,a meaningless gap,the sort of thing people ignored every day.
The sort of thing that had remained hidden for fifteen years and the sort of thing that was about to change everything.
And the sort of thing that was about to bring Abigail Hart directly into Damien Ashford's life.
.
- Writer
