Realizing he had left his wireless mouse dongle plugged securely into the multi-port hub rather than his bag, Ryan turned back from the elevator lobby before stepping into the open corridor, his footsteps falling softly on the quiet office carpet. The fourth-floor marketing pod was completely deserted now, the overhead fluorescents casting long, stark shadows across rows of empty ergonomic chairs and silent, darkened computer monitors.
As he approached his desk, a pale block of paper caught the amber spill of evening light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the darkening Barangaroo waterfront. Resting squarely face-down across the silent keys of his mechanical keyboard was a thick, heavy printout of his quarterly departmental budget—an anonymous document covered from margin to margin in frantic, aggressive red pen strokes and circled expense figures pointing straight toward the phantom logistics transfers in Mascot.
A cold, heavy knot tightened in Ryan’s chest as he stared down at the paper, the rhythmic hum of the building's air conditioning sounding suddenly like a distant, low-frequency pulse. With a slow, exhausted breath, he picked up the offending sheets, folded them methodically into quarters to join the accumulating evidence inside his messenger bag, and finally turned his back on the desk for good, eager to catch the T9 Northern Line back to the predictable quiet of Rhodes.