The colander shifted toward the edge of the couch. Kay's dispassionate gaze followed its progress. When it came close enough for the animated electronic to poke its plastic edge free, she nudged it back across the cushions with the rubber sole of her shoe. Each time it trilled a ringtone of frustration and spazzed out with a hint of scorched upholstery before it settled down and slowly inched along the cushion once again.

Clearly, her cell phone was feral. Or crazy. Wasn't that the very definition of insanity? Repeating the same action over again and expecting different results? Could something be insane without every truly being alive?

Kay sighed. The burn of unshed tears throbbed in her sinuses. She was an idiot.

Jess hadn't returned in hours. The echo of the slammed door still rang in her ears. How had she screwed this up so badly? Jess was talking to her again. She helped Kay avoid a worse situation with her parents. They laughed with each other. But what happened when it was time for answers?

Kay's lips refused to move.

They sat there in confused silence until Jess's jaw set and she left the apartment, punctuating her anger with the unfortunate door. She didn't tell Kay where she was going or when she would be back, not that Kay deserved it.

What the hell was wrong with her?

What was the point of protecting a secret that was well and truly out of the bag? She brought home a cursed object! Cursed because she blatantly ignored company protocol. The Fantasy Land Inc's clean up crew hadn't burst into the Cave yet so her place wasn't bugged, or maybe they were waiting for the order. Maybe they seized Jess while she was outside, a thought that made Kay's knees shake. Visions of various disasters played through her head until she gave it a hard shake, the tears finally breaking free to perform a slow sad crawl down her cheeks. The colander edged closer. A fat droplet rolled off her chin and absorbed into her jeans.

The worst part was, she wanted to tell Jess. She wanted to tell her roommate everything and she didn't understand why she couldn't force out the words. It wasn't as if she choked on the words, or didn't know what to say. The fear of repercussions wasn't holding her back exactly, she knew those were unavoidable for her now. She wanted to tell Jess so her roommate could avoid them. Instead she sat, mute, and watched the hurt bloom on Jess's face.

Kay buried her over heated face in her hands. Her adrenaline had long since drained out of her and left a sucking void of exhaustion and stress. She listened to the faint strains of her cell phone inching across the couch cushions as something swelled and broke inside her.

What if the cell phone wasn't the only thing cursed?

She spread her fingers, staring hard at the floor as her mind turned over those heavily redacted pages she'd received from Shaffer. She'd made the critical mistake of not pouring over the NDA on her first pass, but she'd read it as well as she could between blocks of black marker. The heading 'Cautionary Preventative Measures' kept tugging at her thoughts. It was a heavily marked out section but she remembered one of the few visible sentences.

"The signing of this document absolves Fantasy Land Inc of any complications that arise from company mandated measures to maintain anonymity and discretion."  

Oh good gravy, what had she absolved or given permission for without even reading it through?

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered to herself. What if they did something to her? How would she even know? Her eyes narrowed. Who would know? Would Stanley answer her if she asked him directly? Though, Kay knew she would be pushing her luck after their earlier encounter. Would he even know? Stanley seemed like he rarely left the building.

Sweet as Tiny was, she didn't know him well enough to trust him. Kay gnawed on the inside of her cheek. There was one option; to ride the elevator and talk to the person she least wanted to see.

Kay startled as her ringtone blasted at max volume beneath the colander. Oh, oh no. She debated letting it ring until the caller left a message. But what if it was Jess calling with an emergency? Or her parents insisting they risk a visit after all? Or worse, Shaffer, and not answering would be worse. Saliva flooded her mouth as she shoved on the dishwashing gloves. Hoping for the element of surprise, she slapped the colander off without warning. Her cell phone did a drunken pirouette in the air as it rang. Apparently, the function threw off its equilibrium. Kay snatched at it and yelped as it spit little shots of electricity at her. The gloves insulated her skin from the heat. The number was not listed in her contacts, but she recognized it all the same. Kay swallowed. She finally managed to hold the damn thing still long enough to hit the answer button, amazed it rang for so long without going to message. Putting it to her ear was not an option, so she took Jess's advice and hit the speaker.

"Hello?"

"Hello Ms. Oritz," said a familiar voice, but not the one she expected.

"Jerry?" The call back guy?

"Ah, you remembered me," he said. "Are you settling in to your new role?"

Kay hesitated. Was everyone at Fantasy Land Inc aware of the Grid? It was a massive building with thousands of employees. What if Jerry was just a regular guy who operated their call center?

"It's been a bit of an adjustment," she said.

"Yes, I hear the lower levels have a high turnover rate, but you've already lasted longer than the last five. Congratulations!" The last five? Really? Aside from the crotchety dragons, backstabbing princesses, and inter-species raids, it wasn't that bad.

"What can I do for you, Jerry?"

"Oh I am calling to inform you that you've been cleared for active duty," he said. He gave a faint chuckle through the line. "Back to the trenches tomorrow young lady. Have a good night, Ms. Oritz."

"Good night Jerry," she said. No reason not to be polite.

"Oh, and Ms. Oritz?"

She froze, her finger hovering over the 'End Call' button. "Yes?"

"It's good to keep an open mind working here. You might find a way to smooth your adjustments if you think inside the box."

The call ended. Kay stared at the screen. It made faces at her. She was so freaked out by the tacked on sentence, that it took her a moment to register what he said.

What he said wrong. Think inside the box? What did that mean?

Kay scowled back at her phone. "Nobody in this damn place is who they appear to be."

***

Jess didn't return the whole night. Kay knew she hadn't missed her roommate coming in after a painfully sleepless night, thanks in part to her wily cell phone. The one time she fully passed out, she woke to it smacking against her face as it flew wildly around the room. Around three in the morning, she finally wrestled it into a rinsed out jar formerly occupied by pasta sauce where the roughed up Android face glared at her from between breaks in the label. It continued to wake her up with periodic blasts of various ringtones until she raised the jar above her head, fully intent to smash it for five minutes of piece. The beeps of distress were unsettling enough to stop her, though thankfully it relented the audio assault until her alarm went off. She was so keyed up, she wouldn't have missed Jess creep in, even during that last hour and a half truce?

Kay hovered outside her roommates door. She wanted to knock and be sure, though if Jess did come in that late she was likely sleeping off a hangover. Plus, what would Kay say to her? Nothing was resolved between them and she couldn't resolve it now. Kay finally turned away to get ready for work. She was a coward. Her stomach churned her appetite away. There was more hurdle to overcome; how to get the phone to work and past Tiny. She couldn't let him see it like this. That would be the end of her. She couldn't very well take it to work in the jar...or could she?

Kay nibbled her lip. There was no way she could leave it here. She didn't trust it not to find a way to break free. Finally, she wrapped the dish towel around the jar and stuffed it in her small work duffel. She'd gotten in the habit of bringing an emergency change of clothes after Dorothy burned through her overalls. Fire resistant did not equal fireproof. She hesitated at the door, wishing she could wait until Jess got home, to know she was safe, but she couldn't afford to be late, not after being barred from the last couple days of work. At the end of the day, she still needed this job.

If she wasn't already cutting it so close, she would have walked rather than take the bus. She sat on the edge of her seat the entire ride, clutching her duffel to her chest. Her animated cell phone beat against the walls of its glass prison with muffled pings that rang like a gong in her ears but no one so much as batted a lash in her general direction. She was a wreck of nerves as she trekked the last stretch of road to the front gates of Fantasy Land Inc. Exhaustion pulled at her eyelids and unbalanced her steps but she made it to the gate. Now came the hard part.

Kay was a terrible liar.

"Good morning, Ms. Oritz!" The cheerful tattooed Goliath that was Tiny loomed over her.

Her mouth went bone dry. She dry to clear it and choked on her own sleep. Tiny's massive hand cracked across her back. She waved him off before he broke a rib.

"Hi, Tiny," she wheezed, her eyes now watering from pain.

"Sorry about that, Kay. Good to have you back. Please put any personal electronics and devices in the tray."

Showtime. Kay made a show of patting her pockets and pawing through her work duffel. She ignored the steady trickle of nervous sweat that slid down her lower back or the flop sweat that pooled in the indent of her upper lip.

"Damn, I think I left it home," she said. Inner Kay cringed, she made a mistake. Contract language, Kay, never give an inch of wiggle room when it came to language.

Tiny 's brow arched. "You think? Would you like me to help look through your bag, Ms. Oritz? Its vital no electronics breach the grid."

Where were you yesterday? She clamped down on the words. "No, I remember now, I left on the coffee table. Didn't sleep well. Woke up late. Rushed out." Her short snappy sentences sounded like she was giving a police report. Inner Kay face palmed.

Tiny looked her over with concern. "I would tell you to grab a cup of coffee, but you're more likely to rot your stomach out with that swill before you got actual caffeine in your system."

Her lips twitched. "Am I clear?"

"I still need to check the bag Kay."

She froze. What now? She had no plan, other than maybe sprint for the door. That would go poorly. Her mouth full of cotton, she handed over the back, amazed her arm barely trembled. He was going to find her towel wrapped abomination. They would send the clean up crew after her. They might send them after Jess and her family, to be thorough. She was so fired.

Her ears were ringing.

"Okay, all set." Tiny handed the bag back.

"What?" The ringing panic popped with the sad wheeze of a deflating balloon. How?

Tiny frowned at her. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"An hour?"

He winced in sympathy. "Wanted me to bring some coffee?"

Was he...was he flirting with her? No that was exhaustion talking. She nodded to him before she opened her mouth and said something irreparably stupid. Her thoughts kept skipping to the jar in her bag. How had he missed an empty jar of spaghetti sauce filled with an enchanted cell phone. It niggled at her the entire ride down to the locker rooms. She unzipped the duffel. The towel remained carefully wrapped around the jar. Possibly, more wrapped than before.

He had to have seen it, right?

She had to get rid of this thing.

Stanley knocked on the locker room door. "Hey, Kay, glad to have you back--"

Kay let out a soft short scream and clutched the duffel to her chest. "You can't just barge in here. This is a changing room!"

Stanley stalled in mid sentence. "But, you're fully dressed?"

"It's the principal of the thing, Stanley. This is a private space," said Kay. Her heart pulsed against her rib-cage.

"But," Stanley glanced around, looking lost. "The door was wide open."

She inhaled a deep breath through her nose. "What do you need?"

He continued to look befuddled. "I was wondering if you would mind taking down the tea cart today?" A light bulb clicked on in her head.

"I normally wouldn't ask after that little incident yesterday, but there is a lot of paperwork and catch up to do and I--"

"I'll do it," said Kay. If Stanley was concerned about her sudden enthusiasm at the task, he was  too swamped to question it. Tea time was hours away. She shoved her duffel into her locker and prayed that would be enough.

To say she spent the morning on edge was a vast understatement. Even Dorothy kept a wary eye on her as she cleaned out the dragon cages. When tea time finally arrived, she took a quick detour into the locker room and stuffed the jar into the large pockets of her overalls.

Yeah, that didn't look horribly obvious.

Not much she could do about it. She tapped her bulging pocket as she rode the elevator to the fifth floor of the Grid. The cell phone flit against the sides of the jar like a trapped moth. Should she have cut air holes in it the lid? Why was this a sudden concern? A scowl pulled at the corners of her mouth as she wheeled the tea cart to room 1134. Inner Kay was good and frothy with righteous anger as she opened the cell door with a bang.

The golden Serena startled where she had been lying on the bed and dropped a worn harlequin novel on her face. She peered at Kay from beneath the wrinkled pages, a wariness in the aged coin tint of her eyes.

"I did say sorry," said Serena.