Chapter 13 : Wrong Room, Right Time
The 52nd floor had a different quality than the floors Albert usually occupied.
Not louder. Quieter, actually — the specific quiet of a place where the important conversations happened and the noise of production was something that existed below. The carpet was thicker. The lighting was the kind that had been selected by someone whose job title involved the word environment. Albert noticed all of this in approximately four seconds while looking at the wrong conference room through its open door.
He'd been directed to 52B. He was standing at the door to 52C.
The difference was clear and irreversible, because 52C was already occupied.
Six people around a table — Jack at the near end, two people Albert recognized as Standards and Practices, two he didn't, and at the far end, in the chair that commanded the room's longest sightline, a man in a suit that made Jack's suit look like a competitive choice rather than a settled one. Dark hair, sharp features, the specific posture of a person who had decided a long time ago that rooms were things that happened to other people.
Devon Banks stopped mid-sentence.
Not dramatically. He simply paused, tracking Albert from the doorway to the face to the employee ID badge to the stack of scripts under Albert's arm, and the pause contained everything that a longer assessment might have communicated. He filed it all in approximately two seconds.
"I'm sorry," Albert said. He kept his voice at the register of mild professional embarrassment. "Wrong floor. I apologize for the interruption."
He started to step back.
"Writers' room assistant, yes?" Devon said.
Albert stopped.
The phrasing was casual. The delivery was not. Devon Banks said writers' room assistant, yes the way a person placed a card on a table to see what the other cards did in response.
"Yes," Albert said.
"Jack mentioned you."
Albert looked at Jack. Jack's expression was the specific non-expression of a man who had made a professional decision not to react, which was itself a reaction. He had not mentioned Albert. Devon knew he hadn't. The whole point of the sentence was to see what happened when both of them heard it.
"I must have made an impression," Albert said.
Devon's expression didn't change but something behind it did — a minor recalibration, the kind that happened when data arrived faster than expected. "Indeed. Enjoy your afternoon."
Albert left.
The service stairwell between 52 and 51 was beige and functional and completely empty. Albert took it. He'd been holding the scripts under his arm with his left hand for the duration of the interaction and now, on the stairs, he switched them to his right and flexed his left fingers once and put it away.
Devon Banks was exactly what the Corporate Archive said he was. The assessment across the room had taken two seconds and had been thorough. The fake Jack reference had been a test of three things simultaneously: whether Albert would lie about knowing it was fake, whether Jack would correct it, and what the space between their non-reactions said about the relationship between them.
Albert had given him: a response that confirmed familiarity with being assessed, no deference, no visible alarm, and an exit that was controlled without being rushed.
That was probably three more data points than Devon needed.
He delivered the scripts to 51B, which was the correct room, which was empty, which was fine.
Jonathan was at the elevator bank when Albert came back toward the TGS floor.
Not waiting for Albert specifically — Jonathan was holding a coffee and a message folder and had the body language of a person managing three tasks simultaneously, which was his baseline. But he registered Albert's approach and shifted his weight in a way that suggested the next thirty seconds had already been planned.
"Mr. Myers." Same precision warmth as the morning after Jack's walkthrough. "A moment."
Albert waited.
"Mr. Banks asked for your name. For the visitor log." Jonathan's expression was scrupulously neutral. "In case of any future cross-floor deliveries."
There was no visitor log for employees. There was a sign-in system for external guests and contractors and a general badge-access record that nobody consulted for internal page deliveries. Albert had been in this building long enough to know the difference.
"Albert Myers," Albert said. "Writers' room assistant, TGS."
"Of course." Jonathan made a small note. Not on the message folder — on a separate index card he produced from his inside breast pocket with the efficiency of a man whose organizational system existed outside standard institutional infrastructure. "Thank you."
He walked away.
Albert watched him go. The index card went back into the inside pocket, which meant it wasn't going to the general file system. It was going to Devon directly.
He rode the elevator down alone and filed the exchange under the new section he'd opened in the Palace that morning: Devon Banks — Active. Sub-section: Information He's Collecting. The sub-section had two items in it now. By the end of the week it would have more.
From the stairwell landing between 49 and 50, through the glass atrium wall, Albert could see two floors up.
Devon Banks was standing at the 52nd floor window that overlooked the atrium. He was looking at his phone, typing something with the unhurried focus of a man who had already decided what he was typing. The phone went into his pocket. He looked down through the glass — not at Albert specifically, the angle didn't allow for it — but at the section of building below him with the expression of someone who had added something to a list they were building.
Albert noted the time — 11:42 AM — and went back to the writers' room.
The Cat Accountant restructure had been performing well in the two weeks since it aired, something he'd clocked from the ratings sheet Pete kept on the writers' room wall. Numbers slightly above the slot average. Nothing dramatic, but consistent. The kind of result that made people ask what had changed, and the answer everyone had was Liz caught something in the structure.
Which was the correct answer, delivered through the correct person, and Devon Banks had been in this building for three hours and had already decided to put Albert Myers on an index card in his inner breast pocket.
Albert needed to be considerably less interesting for the next three weeks.
He opened the door to the writers' room and picked up Frank's rejected sketch stack and went back to his notes.
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