Chapter Text
Helga Pataki hit the front doors of Community Horizons at eight-fifty-seven, coffee in one hand, phone wedged between her shoulder and ear, briefcase swinging like a weapon.
"...I'm telling you, Phoebe, the man compared himself to a wolf."
She crossed the lobby without slowing.
"Maybe he likes wolves?"
"He used the phrase alpha mindset three times."
"Oh."
"Exactly."
The elevator doors were already closing. Helga shoved two fingers between them. The doors jerked open, accompanied by a collective sigh from the packed interior.
"Good morning to you too," Helga said, squeezing inside.
Someone muttered something under their breath.
"Sorry I value employment."
The elevator resumed its climb. Phoebe laughed over the line. "So another bad date."
"Bad date? No. Root canal with appetizers."
A man in the corner snorted. Helga pointed directly at him. "Thank you. Finally, someone who understands."
The man immediately looked away.
"You're impossible," Phoebe said.
"That's corporate slander."
"You've broken up with six men this year."
"Seven."
"Helga."
"What? If we're doing statistics, let's do accurate statistics."
The elevator dinged. A few people escaped; Helga stayed where she was.
"If it makes you feel better," Phoebe said, "you usually know they're wrong within fifteen minutes."
"Fourteen."
"That's worse."
"It's a gift."
"Remember Ian."
Helga's mouth flattened. There it was—the name. Phoebe only brought it up once every few months, like a dentist checking a sensitive tooth.
"Ancient history."
"You dated him for two years."
"A mistake can be long-term."
The doors opened again. This time it was her floor.
"Anyway," Helga said, striding out, "Rhonda says my issue is that I dismiss people too quickly."
"Maybe she's right."
"Rhonda thinks every problem can be solved with a blazer and an overpriced cocktail."
"Helga."
"I'm hanging up now."
"Love you."
"Questionable judgment, but love you too."
She ended the call. Three steps later, she heard it.
"Miss Pataki!"
Helga closed her eyes. Of course. Every office had one. Community Horizons' happened to be named Baron Weiss. Baron emerged from a doorway clutching a stack of papers thick enough to qualify as infrastructure.
"Brief moment of your time?"
"No."
"Oh." He blinked.
Helga kept walking. Baron hurried after her.
"Then perhaps a medium-sized moment?"
She sighed. The man was relentlessly polite. It was his most annoying quality. "Fine. One tiny moment. The microscopic kind."
Baron launched into a question about grant reporting requirements. "...and Section C references three redevelopment parcels on East Fourth Street, but I couldn't find matching occupancy projections for those addresses."
Helga blinked. "What?"
"The occupancy data."
"Not that part. What addresses?"
Baron shuffled clumsily with pages. "412, 416, and 420 East Fourth."
Helga waved a hand dismissively. "City records updated those parcels last month. If something doesn't match, Carl probably imported old data."
"Oh."
Helga leaned toward him slightly. "Trust me. If there were a problem, the review board would've caught it."
Baron released a breath, smiling. "Right. That's what I thought."
She lifted one brow. "Never think that hard before nine o'clock. It'll ruin your day."
Then someone passed behind Baron.
Tall. Blond. White button-down. Travel mug.
Arnold Shortman. Housing counselor. Patron saint of lost causes and impossible clients.
Arnold glanced toward her. His eyes moved to Baron, who was still talking, then back to Helga. His expression didn't change—not technically—just the slightest curve at the corner of his mouth.
The universal office expression for: Still trapped, huh?
Helga rolled her eyes. Arnold lifted his coffee in silent sympathy and kept walking.
Traitor. He could've rescued her. Instead, he disappeared around the corner.
Baron continued. "...and then I wasn't sure whether section B referred to fiscal year outcomes or projected outcomes..."
Helga stared down the hallway where Arnold had vanished. "Projected."
Baron brightened. "Really?"
"I'd bet money on it. Baron?"
"Yes?"
"Go ask Arnold."
Baron's eyes lifted. "Shortman? The housing counselor?"
Helga nodded solemnly. "The very same. Oracle of Community Horizons. Solver of Problems. Whisperer of Budget Narratives."
"Oh." Baron considered this. "Okay."
He remained exactly where he was. Helga stared back. Baron stared back. The office's fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
Finally, Helga tilted her head. "Were you waiting for me to release you into the wild?"
His face brightened. "Right." He pivoted immediately. "Okay, I'll talk to Arnold."
And just like that, he was gone.
Amazing. No predator instincts whatsoever.
Helga watched him disappear down the hall before heading toward her office suite. She yanked open the door. "HOWDY."
The receptionist, Diane, nearly launched out of her chair. Helga grinned.
Diane put a hand over her chest. "One of these days, I'm filing a complaint."
"You say that every Thursday."
"It's Monday."
"See? You're already behind schedule."
A long-suffering, soul-deep sigh followed—the kind of sigh a person developed after sharing office space with Helga Pataki for four consecutive months. "Morning, Ms. Pataki."
"Call me Helga. Ms. Pataki sounds like a woman who owns decorative geese."
Diane blinked. "What?"
"I don't know. It's just got goose energy."
Without another word, Helga crossed the room to her office and dropped her briefcase.
THUD.
A framed certificate on the wall rattled in fear. She collapsed into her chair and immediately planted both feet on the desk. The chair squeaked. She rocked again. Squeak. Again. Squeak.
Perfect. A quality squeak. Hard to find nowadays.
Her office looked like a tornado had earned a master's degree. Folders were stacked in leaning towers around her desk. Sticky notes decorated nearly every flat surface. A half-empty family-size bag of pretzels sat beside a federal grant application. Three coffee mugs occupied the windowsill—one contained coffee, one contained pens, and one was a mystery. Helga wasn't investigating.
She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a granola bar. Breakfast.
As she tore the wrapper open, her email chimed. Then again. Then six more times. Helga squinted at her monitor. Eight unread messages. She'd been in the building for approximately four minutes. Remarkable. People had survived thousands of years without emailing one another, yet somehow Carl from Finance needed an answer at 8:03 every morning or civilization collapsed.
She took a bite as another email arrived. She pushed upright when an intriguing ping came through, skimming laser-fast until her eyes lit up: another agency's grant was denied. Hers was approved.
Helga sat back.
Six months.
Three revisions.
Two board presentations.
Worth it.
A message from the Executive Director sat at the top: Excellent work, Helga.
Helga smirked. "Damn right," she muttered.
Before she could celebrate too hard, another email arrived. Then three more. Her smile slowly evaporated.
The grant had been approved, but it required revised program projections, updated budget narratives, a community impact summary, a detailed timeline, and signatures from approximately every living creature in the building.
Nestled between congratulations sat a message from someone in City Planning.
SUBJECT: Parcel Verification Request
Please confirm redevelopment sites listed under East Fourth Street expansion project. Our records indicate discrepancies in parcel classification.
Helga stared for half a second, then closed it. The grant had survived six months of state review, two federal reviews, and one board committee powered entirely by spite. There were always discrepancies. She flagged it for later—which immediately became never.
Helga slumped back in her chair. "There she is." The universe had noticed her happiness and corrected it. She cracked her knuckles. "Let's dance."
For the next ninety minutes, she tore through spreadsheets and outcome data like a woman settling a personal score. A budget discrepancy appeared? Gone. A formatting issue surfaced? Executed. A narrative section written by someone who clearly believed a paragraph should contain one sentence and forty-seven commas? Mercilessly rewritten.
At one point, Carl from Finance emailed asking if she could "take a quick look" at a fourteen-page attachment.
She typed back: Carl, we have fundamentally different interpretations of the word quick.
Almost instantly: Fair point.
Helga snorted. At least he was self-aware.
By eleven-thirty, empty snack wrappers had begun accumulating around her desk. A shadow appeared outside her office—Arnold, looking like he wanted something.
Helga pointed toward the hallway. "Unless you're delivering tacos, keep moving."
Arnold opened his mouth, closed it, then shook his head. "Later."
"Cryptic."
"It's probably nothing."
"Then definitely later."
Arnold gave her an unreadable look before disappearing. Helga frowned, but shook it off. Her fingers resumed flying across the keyboard.
Twenty minutes later she paused. The silence felt wrong—too quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet that suggested everyone else in the building was currently creating problems she would eventually have to solve.
She stood and stretched. Her back gave a small, productive crack. The clock read 11:57. Lunch. Finally.
She opened her desk drawer and frowned. Empty. No emergency chips. No backup crackers. No emergency emergency chips. This was serious.
As she reached for her purse, a shadow appeared in her doorway. Helga didn't look up. "If you're Baron, send an email."
"That's cold."
A grin tugged at one corner of her mouth despite herself. There was only one person in the building irritating enough to sound amused by that. She looked up, sucking her teeth. "Oh. It's Blondie."
Arnold was one of those irritating people who looked put together before noon. Not a wrinkle in his shirt, not a hair out of place. Helga had seen him arrive in a thunderstorm once and somehow leave the elevator looking freshly laundered.
"Blondie?"
"Yeah, like every small-town football coach in a Hallmark movie."
Arnold suppressed a pained laugh. "That's oddly specific."
"Meh, I got a million. What do you want?"
Arnold silently dropped into the empty chair next to her, letting his head drop back on the cushion. He waited until Helga looked at him to speak. "Baron talked to me for thirty-eight minutes."
"You timed it?"
His brows lifted. "No. My stomach did."
"You're welcome."
He sat up. "You did that on purpose."
She grabbed her purse. "Prove it."
"He was asking about the new housing expansion grant you just won."
Helga smirked. "Ah, yes. My masterpiece. The one keeping the lights on in this place."
"Yeah, it's great work, Helga. Seriously. Just one thing..." He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. "...Baron was confused about Section C. The parcel numbers on 4th Street."
Helga narrowed her eyes. "What about them? City records filed them last month."
Arnold leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I had a client looking for transitional housing near 4th and Elm yesterday. I drove down there. Helga... 412 East 4th isn't a residential building. It's an empty lot next to a drainage pipe."
Helga paused, frowning. "Then the city made a typo on the deed draft. I'll email Carl."
Arnold shook his head and slid the folded paper across her desk. "I checked after Baron asked me about the addresses."
Helga unfolded it: property records, parcel maps, inspection notes. She scanned the first page, then the second, then the third. Her stomach tightened.
412 East Fourth: Vacant lot.
416 East Fourth: No residential structure.
420 East Fourth: Ownership unclear.
Helga looked up slowly. Arnold was no longer joking, and neither was she.
"How much grant money is attached to these properties?"
Arnold exhaled. "About three million dollars."
The room went strangely quiet. Helga stared at the page. Three million. Three nonexistent buildings.
And every approval form carried one signature.
Helga Pataki.