Anastasia
I had barely settled into my small office when the world shifted beneath my feet. I am still shocked. The morning sun poured through the tall glass windows, glinting against the steel shelves and the scattered stacks of reports on my desk. I wanted just five minutes of quiet to collect myself, but fate had other plans. The soft click of heels in the hallway broke the silence, and before I could even look up, the door opened.
The chief of our department walked in, flanked by one of his assistants. My heart gave a startled lurch.
The chief. In my office.
That wasn't a small matter. Chiefs didn't just wander into the others' spaces; they summoned people to theirs. My office, though decent-sized for a manager, suddenly felt far too small.
I rose quickly, smoothing the wrinkles of my blazer and putting on my most professional smile.
"Good morning, sir," I greeted, my voice calm despite the alarm bells ringing inside me.
"Morning, Anastasia," he said, nodding once before stepping further in. His presence was heavy, commanding, as though the air itself had shifted to accommodate his authority. His assistant gave me a polite smile, though I noticed the tension at the corners of her eyes.
"Sit," he instructed, though he remained standing.
I obeyed, clasping my hands together on the desk, waiting for the storm. Always in a rush, I am thankful, though, that he was the one who recruited me. After I finished my studies, I interned here; my portfolio was that good. He told me you will be a great kid. Under him, I have learnt many things and blossomed.
"You're calling a meeting," he said abruptly. "Everyone in our department. Now."
My eyes widened before I caught myself. "All of them?"
"Yes." His tone brooked no argument. "We have a situation. And the longer it goes unaddressed, the worse it becomes. We need plan A, plan B, and a Backup. You understand?"
I nodded, though my pulse quickened. A situation. That word carried weight in our world. Analysts weren't front-facing; we weren't the faces of the company, but we were the ones who carried its lifeblood, its numbers. If something was wrong, if the data didn't align, everything else, the contracts, the projections, the deals, was at risk.
I reached for my phone at once, calling the floor secretary. "Get me every data analyst in the conference room within the next fifteen minutes."
The chief inclined his head, satisfied, then finally sat in the chair opposite me. His assistant remained standing, tablet in hand, ready to take notes.
Ten minutes later, we filed into the conference room, and the tension was so thick it could be cut with a blade. Men and women who preferred the language of numbers to human interaction sat rigid in their seats. Eyes darted, whispers hushed, and fingers drummed nervously on the table's edge.
We were the silent giants of the company, rarely acknowledged, often overlooked, but without us, the empire would collapse. And everyone here knew it.
The chief cleared his throat. "I won't waste your time with pleasantries," he began. His voice resonated through the room, sharp and heavy. "The numbers don't add up. And I want to know why."
A hush fell.
I glanced at my colleagues, then leaned forward. "We've been running cross-verifications last week. At first, I thought it was a system error, but the discrepancy is consistent. Our financial models and the actual reports don't align. But due to this emergency announcement, we will clear up at the end of today."
"How large is the gap?" the chief demanded.
"Large enough to cost us a contract," one of the senior analysts, Michael, spoke up grimly. His glasses caught the fluorescent light, masking his eyes, but I could hear the strain in his tone. "If we present projections based on these numbers, and the reality collapses beneath it, the company's credibility goes down with it."
Murmurs rippled around the table.
"We care about accuracy," I said firmly, cutting through the rising noise. "That's what we're here for. But right now, the accuracy is slipping. Either the numbers are being manipulated before they reach us, or someone's feeding false data into the system."
That set the room ablaze. Voices rose, sharp and urgent.
"Impossible!"
"Who would dare?"
"This is sabotage."
"Enough!" the chief barked, and silence fell again, though the tension vibrated like a live wire.
I exhaled slowly. My throat was dry, my head throbbing from the pressure of the unspoken fear settling over us. "We need to retrace everything. Line by line, entry by entry. Every department feeding us data must be re-verified. If there's an error, we'll find it. If it's deliberate…" My voice trailed, but everyone understood the weight of that implication.
"Then we'll deal with it," the chief finished coldly.
What followed was chaos, but organized chaos. Analysts scribbled notes, laptops clicked open, and charts flashed on the screens. We argued over discrepancies, debated possible causes, and challenged one another's assumptions. Numbers were thrown across the table like weapons, each one heavier than the last.
"We can't just restart everything from scratch," one analyst protested. "It'll take weeks!"
"We don't have weeks," I countered. "We have hours. By tomorrow morning, the board wants an update before the final presentation."
A groan echoed through the room. Someone cursed under their breath.
"Then we stay," Michael said bitterly, adjusting his tie. "None of us is going home tonight, tomorrow, or the day after. Time is not on our side."
The weight of his words sank in, pressing against all of us. No one even attempted to argue.
Hours blurred into each other as we dove into the trenches of numbers. My eyes burned from staring at endless spreadsheets, and my fingers ached from typing. We pieced together fragments, rebuilt broken patterns, and tore apart old reports. Tempers flared again, but beneath the exhaustion, I felt something stronger: determination.
By the time we finalized a course of action, the conference room was suffocating. Coffee cups littered the table, pens lay scattered, and no one had moved for hours.
"We'll split the work," I said hoarsely. "Half of us will comb through the external feeds, the other half will audit the internal systems. Every suspicious entry gets flagged and double-checked. No assumptions. No shortcuts."
The chief finally leaned back in his chair, regarding us with an unreadable expression. For a moment, I thought he might dismiss our plan, but then he gave a single, approving nod.
"Good. Do it. Failure is not an option."
He stood, his assistant following him, and left us in the wreckage of our meeting.
Silence stretched after the door closed. Then, slowly, everyone began to pack their laptops and gather their reports. No one moved to leave.
I slumped back against my chair, my body heavy, my mind buzzing. The exhaustion was bone-deep, but sleep was a luxury none of us could afford.
I rubbed my temples and whispered to myself, "This is torture. Absolute torture."
Around me, my colleagues wore the same expression, tight jaws, furrowed brows, sagging shoulders beneath invisible weights. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed, merciless and cold.
"Are we going to finish on time?" I muttered under my breath, though no one answered. The truth was, none of us knew.