RedT Reads Randomly

Amy, an erstwhile vet student, had an encounter with Loki in Book I.  Due to a misunderstanding, he wiped out her bank account and disappeared, causing her tuition check to bounce.  So she has taken a break from school for a year so she can earn next year's tuition.  She has a temporary job at the FBI, Department of Anomalous Devices of Unknown Origin, also known as ADUO.

“You called me in, Sir?” she says, wringing her hands. Steve hates her. She’s not exactly sure why.

“Why were you an hour and a half late today?” Steve says turning around. His face is flat and unreadable.

“Well, I was coming in at my usual time, and as I was walking down the alley a pigeon with a broken wing came running toward me...because obviously it couldn’t fly...and well, I tried to ignore it, because you know, there are feral cats in the neighborhood and they deserve to eat, too, but it climbed up onto my shoe, I think it imprinted on me, and you know once something thinks you’re its mother, you can’t abandon it. . . .”

. . . “Uh- huh,” says Steve. “I never see you actually answering the phone, Amy, or doing any typing or filing.”

Amy blinks. “Well, no one ever really gives me anything to ”

“Do you realize how deep in debt our country is?” Steve says, sitting down and scowling up at her.

That’s got to be a trick question. Amy tilts her head. “Doesn’t it change minute to minute with compounded interest? . . .”

[Steve gives her a box of invoices to arrange chronologically.]

. . . Opening the box, she rifles through a few folders.  this assignment makes her want to cry even more than Rogers yelling at her. The files already look like they are in order...which means she’s just verifying they are in order, which is worse than ordering them to begin with. There is a special room in Hell for file organization quality control.