sadlikeknives | To Account Mercenarily

...yes. They're back. This is not actually the next story in the sequence, which is sitting in my hard drive sucking like a black hole.

Rather, this is the tale of Kaleena Maxwell and her files from an outside perspective. As Dead Week goes on and finals approach, you may get the tale of Kaleena Maxwell and her files from inside the poor crazy thing's headspace.

So. Late for

celli's Taxfic Challenge, but I'm trying to placate her in the hopes she won't kill me for running so very, very late with the sequel to "Investigation". Lead-up to be found here in drabble form.

Title: Fire Pretty
Rating: PG-ish?
Summary: "The accounting division is not responsible for the behavior of its individual accountants, especially during peak times." An adventure of the Mercenary Accountants. Kaleena goes a little crazy. Prequel to "Investigation," occuring shortly after the events of "Not At Fault." That was a bad week for the Accounting Division all around.

Chris grabbed a girl rushing by and asked her, “What’s going on?”

“It’s Maxwell, sir, she’s set her files on fire.” Emme scrambled out of her seat and followed them to Maxwell’s cubicle, two rows over.

The girl was leaning against the wall and a tall, broad man Emme thought worked in the files room, laughing hysterically. Kaleena was a pretty thing, when she wasn’t insane and had showered in the last three days. She thought Chris had been dating her at one time, but that held true for half the junior members of the department, male and female alike. “Lee?” Chris asked gently, sidling up to her as warily as he would have any mark during his bounty hunting days. He’d switched from bounty hunting and assassination because he wanted a challenge. Emme didn’t think he’d been expecting this sort of challenge.

She cackled and pointed at the pile of her paperwork, which was still burning merrily. “Burn, baby, burn! Fire pretty.”

“Oh, good Lord, somebody get a fire extinguisher,” Emme said, her British-influenced Kalathean accent coming to the fore as it always did when she was stressed. “Miss Maxwell, at least tell me you had the good sense to back up your work.”

Kaleena momentarily sobered, straightening and stepping away from her support. “Of course I did, Madam Reinhardt. What, do I look crazy...y’know, don’t answer that.” Then her eyes bugged as she said, “BURN!” and began giggling again.

Emme pinched the bridge of her nose. “Too much caffeine, not enough food. God give me strength. Yes, thank you, Alex,” as a man finally put out the fire. A little cluster of alarmed-looking people proved, on further inspection, too well-groomed to number them among the harried accountants. Mercs, then. The accountants were used to...well, not this exactly, but displays of temporary insanity. “What are you looking at?” she snapped at them, and they scattered.

“Should we tranquilize her?”

“No, we need her lucid.” That got her a funny look, so she explained, “Yes, I know she’s not lucid. Someone take her off–actually, two or three of you, as she may go violent–and get her a shower and some food. And for God's sake, take away her lighter. She has to finish her accounts by tomorrow, and as we all know, Andromeda doesn’t allow extensions.”

“She’s most likely sleep-deprived,” one of the other senior staff members pointed out.

“She doesn’t have time to sleep. Who’s got the least work left to do?”

After a lot of conferring, Yomiko Inoue got shoved forward like a sacrificial lamb. “I’m almost done with my last client for Andromeda,” she confessed. “I was hoping to get done early.”

“Fantastic. Sorry, but you’ve just gotten tagged to help walk Miss Maxwell through the rest of hers.” The girl paled. “If anyone else comes in looking to file, tell them they can go to hell.”

“But if we turn them away and they don’t get their returns in on time, won’t they be arrested by the Andromedan constabulary?”

“I don’t actually care. Ellis!”

“Yes?”

“As soon as you get a few moments free, do fill out the incident report.”

“That’s not my job.”

“I’m sure you need the practice.” She turned a significant look on him.

“I think I hate you.” She smirked. “Come on, Emme, I have five returns due tomorrow and one of them just brought in his information twenty minutes ago!”

“Then you shouldn’t have been wasting time asking stupid questions at my cubicle, should you? Everybody get back to work!” She glanced at the floor. “God, what a mess.” She turned on her heel and went to round up an intern to clean the mess up and see what was salvageable, and possibly to have a cigarette before getting back to her own work.

Feedback would be appreciated.