A gust of the Chicago morning tore through the office copyroom. Jim Jenkins, the Chief Photocopy Officer of the Chicago Tribune, closed the offending window and shook his head with a sigh.
He walked out of the copyroom and put his hands on his hips.
"Everyone, listen up. It's the CPO's job to maintain ethical and efficient photocopying at our newspaper, and since I have that title the responsibility falls on me."
A murmur and a groan emanated from the crowd of cubicles as heads rose to see who was addressing the room.
"We've been having a lot of butt incidents lately. We've talked about this before. Photocopying your butt is limited to once a year, on April Fool's. We can't be using company resources this frivilously. Need I remind you that we're struggling to stay relevant in a dying industry? If we want to keep journalism authentic, we have to maintain a degree of professionalism!" Adam raised his voice a little, but as he did it began to crack.
Adam could see the eyes rolling across the newsroom floor. Several reporters ignored him and went back to work.
This isn't what I should be doing, Adam thought to himself, doubting whether or not he should continue. Nobody respects me here.
"So," he continued, his energy obviously waning as his doubt grew, "stop photochopying your butts. The same goes for your genitals. We're reporters, and this is a newsoom, not a playground."
Nobody was listening to him anymore, so he trailed off quietly and receded to his corner office. He eyed the plaque on the door indicating his high-ranking position of Chief Photocopy Officer.
Jim Jenkins never wanted to be a CPO when he grew up. Jim wanted to be an investigative reporter, and he had been for a time, but the pull of better salary to support his family and the relative stability of the position led him away from his dream. Now, ten years later, Jim had a fancy title with a lot of personal baggage described by one word: regret.
He'd asked his boss about getting back in the game - his kids were teenagers now, and his wife was working her own job to support the family. Money wasn't tight and Jim was no longer motivated by the security of his CPO position.
"Jim, you're on a secure career path - why would you want to go back to the scrappy life of a journo? It just doesn't make any sense." chortled his boss, the rotund Calvin Dollarpants. Calvin was the kind of guy who didn't understand why someone wouldn't be interested in a management career track, so Jim always felt like his desires fell on deaf ears.
"I just really want to do it, however irrational it seems to you." Jim had told him.
"Well, we are at capacity for our journalists. We don't have any room on the team right now, and we still need a CPO to replace you too, so it's not as simple as you think. But, I'll tell you what, Jim. If you bring me a bombshell story, and I mean a real honest-to-goodness scoop of a story, I'll move you. Show me you still got it, and then we'll talk."
This was enough for Jim. All he needed now was a good story. This was Chicago, after all, so something was bound to crop up. So, Jim Jenkins waited idly for the story of a lifetime to come along. Sometimes stories did, but the other journalists who were better in touch with their skills always seemed to beat him to the punch.
Things went on this way for a while, and Jim was about to give up, until that day when he found a body in an airport bathroom.
The last time Alice saw her parents, she was getting on a train.
"You're a disgrace!" her mothered yelled, shaking her fist as the engine pulled out of the station and as Alice ducked onto the nearest car. "They'll find you no matter where you go!"
The police tackled her mother as the train rolled away, and that scene was the last thing she saw as she lost sight of the platform.
Most people would find it pretty awful to set your mother up for fraud, but Alice didn't think so. Not after everything that had happened.
Still, though, the police had assumed that her mother was the culprit, but then thought her to be an accomplice. That wasn't planned for, but hey, Alice had needed a good excuse to get out of Berlin. She had fake identification, a whole lot of money, and no place in particular to be. Life was good: her chances of getting caught faded away along with that scene of her mother.
Alice opened up her laptop and connected to her VPN so that she could get away with some hacking, knowing full well exactly which ports the train's free WiFi would block. As she logged onto IRC to tell the tale of her spurious exploits, a sound let her know that she had mail waiting.
She wasn't expecting any mail, and this was an account that didn't get a lot of traffic. Only a few clients knew about it. So, as she switched windows to investigate, she breathed a little deeper to brace herself. Maybe another job had come in. that would be just the thing she needed right now.
To: Lost Alice alice@serious.technology From: Mercutio merc@hotemail.com
Alice, call me immediately. There's an issues with the latest job, and so we need you again.
An issue? Alice scowled, scrunching up her thin eyebrows in disapproval. She never had unsatisfied customers, or at least hadn't before. Alice pulled out one of her cell phones, fumbled around for the right sim in a bag of loose items, and then in a few minutes she had Mercutio on the line.
"Merc, what's the deal. I don't bullshit. My shit's tight son, that job was good. There's no way they could trace." she didn't even wait for an introduction.
"That part is all swell, except the wrong person found the body. Some guy I've never heard of - a Jim Jenkins - was the poor soul that found it, not... not The President."