The reassignment didn’t feel like movement.
It felt like deliberate placement inside enemy territory.
By the time the formal notice propagated through the internal systems, everything had already been reframed. Access routes updated. Reporting lines redrawn. Authority quietly recontextualized.
Not stripped.
Reframed.
I stepped onto Charles’s floor at precisely 8:58 a.m.
Not early. Not late.
Intentional.
The atmosphere here was different—less rigid structure, more curated fluidity. Conversations overlapped. Doors lingered open. Visibility wasn’t avoided; it was weaponized.
“Right on time.”
Charles’s voice reached me before I saw him. He stood near the central glass table, sleeves rolled to his forearms, posture relaxed in that carefully cultivated way. His gaze tracked my approach—slo
