Diversity

"You might want to get up, Mr. Fidel," Eve said coldly.

Rex managed to take off the handkerchief that had been covering his mouth. He opened and closed his jaws a few times, as if to make sure they were still working.

"Yes, Ma'am!" he finally said.

Eve had resumed her work, going through email reports. She found it less satisfying than the rustling of paper reports, but this was not a time for satisfying work.

"Miss Stakes?" Rex said timidly.

Eve did not raise her eyes from her computer.

"Where is Miss Isobel?" he asked.

It would have been like him to ask about her assistant.

"Where is everybody?" he went on.

"There was a memo," Eve said, her eyes still on her work.

"I don't have a computer," Rex reminded her. "Or a desk. Or anything."

And his boss, the Head of Security, had not called him to inform him, it seemed. Eve began instantly writing a new email to reprimand him. Of all employees, her personal bodyguard should have been warned of the changes. Then it dawned on her that, as her personal bodyguard, his position had not been made clear within the organization. Perhaps the Head of Security was not to blame. Perhaps it was her who was Rex's direct manager.

"You should have filed a request for a desk with Facility," she said, deleting the email to the Head of Security and returning to her reports. "You should have filed a request for a laptop with IT."

"I'm sorry," Rex said. "I didn't know. I'll do that right away."

He turned to leave, evidently in search of the Facility department, or maybe the IT department.

"You'll stay here," Eve said.

Rex froze at the words.

"I'll email them," Eve went on. "Sit."

She had expected Rex to take one of the available chairs, used for meetings by her executives. Instead he plopped on the floor where he'd been standing. Eve did not bother to clarify her request. If he wanted to sit on the floor, he could sit on the floor like a dog. She did not care.

She typed the emails to Facility and IT quickly, raising her eyes from time to time to check on him. He was sitting patiently, not even daring to ask about the memo.

"We had a meeting last night," she told him eventually, without being asked. "All vampire employees will be working from home until the sun-bomb situation is taken care of. It would have been too much of a risk to have that many vampires in the same place, especially with those humans targeting our corporation. All non-vampire employees have been promoted to take on essential roles that cannot be performed remotely. You've seen Oswald from Security, he used to be a janitor on the day shift. A complete waste of talent, as it turns out."

***

It turned out that Oswald was not the only waste of talent they'd had. Tina and Lola, the tall, muscular orc ladies from Facility who brought Rex his new desk, had also been originally assigned to the day shift, and charged with uninteresting tasks that had bored them to the point of wanting to quit. Until, of course, the change that had occurred the night before. Now, yawning on the night shift, they saw themselves as having been promoted from being just diversity hires to being actually useful. They came into the office all smiles, Tina holding the desk in her right hand as if it were a feather, Lola carrying an executive armchair and a footstool, which no one had requested.

Christopher, the goblin from IT, was another undiscovered gem, now shining in all his glory as the only non-vampire employee in the entire IT department. He came over shortly after the orc girls, carrying Rex's new laptop under his arm and gawking at the lavish decorations in the CEO's office. But, in spite of being taken by the gilded frames of the giant paintings on the walls, he still managed to install everything and have the laptop running and connected to the local network in less time than any of the vampire IT staff had ever done before.

While Rex wagged his tail at all the unvampire staff coming and going into the office, Eve observed them quietly. She was used to working with vampires, and with assessing them at one glance. Non-vampires took longer to get used to. But they all seemed capable, and eager to work. This gave her some reassurance that her plan was not doomed to failure. Not unless they decided to resign when they heard about it. She emailed Isobel to schedule a meeting with all staff on the premises for ten at night. And then she went to get herself a can of caffeinated synthetic blood. This was going to be a long night.

***

At ten, the CEO's office filled with people. They filed in shyly, careful not to trip on anything. They all looked unsure that they should be there, and some of them looked downright scared. Eve heard them whispering to each other.

"Is she going to fire us?"

"Is she going to eat us?"

Rex was the only one smiling, and wagging his tail as usual. This seemed to give the others some sort of reassurance.

"Please, sit," Eve found herself saying, as her employees were attempting to stand around the room, as far from her as possible. They had their backs pressed against the walls so tightly that she thought the walls were going to break.

A few of the braver employees fought briefly over the seats closest to the door. Some tried to insist that they'd be more comfortable standing. It was half past ten before all of them were seated, and even then, Rex was the only one who dared sit next to her. The chair on her other side remained empty, and the one next to it had been pulled as far back as it could go without placing it directly into the lap of the person sitting in the seat next to it.

Eve surveyed her employees. She hadn't had much of a chance to interact with her diversity hires before. For years, having them as part of the company had been a legal obligation, and she'd seen them as nothing more. But now, she had to rely on them. The sun-bomb threat had just turned them into the most valuable resource she had. The only resource she had.

"As you probably know," she began, "we are being threatened by humans."

She stopped, noticing the human girl with glasses at the back of the room. She looked like she was about to run away any minute.

"By a small group of humans," Eve corrected herself. "There will be no generalizations in this company, of course. I'm not implying..."

She stopped again, just in time. Wording this so as to not hurt any feelings was going to be a challenge.

"We are being threatened by a small group who are targeting our corporation with sun-based weapons," she said, trying this time to avoid mentioning any species in particular.

She noticed a couple of trolls shifting in their chairs uncomfortably. The only gargoyle, Alexandra from Accounting, looked petrified already.

"Of course, any employees who are sensitive to sunlight will be working from home from now on," Eve said. "I'll make sure HR goes through your files to determine who needs to stay at home starting tomorrow night."

"No, please!" Alexandra protested.

The trolls grunted in agreement.

"This is the first time we've done any work! Any real work. No one lets us touch anything, ever. Please don't send us home!"

Tiny pebbles were forming in the corner of Alexandra's eyes. Eve realized that the girl was crying.

"I will make sure you are given proper tasks when working from home," Eve said firmly. "But I cannot risk the wellbeing of my employees. Trolls and gargoyles will be working from home, the same as vampires. We cannot have you turning to stone in the middle of the night, not with a group of potentially violent attackers threatening to invade our offices."

A couple of pebbles dropped to the floor, the sound echoing through the room.

"Thank you," Alexandra said, wiping pebbles off her face with a pained smile. "We didn't think you cared about us."

Eve pressed her lips together. The girl was right: she hadn't cared. Not until this night. She had never even asked about the diversity hires, about how they were being integrated. She bowed her head to Alexandra, to all the employees gathered there.

"I have failed you," she said, with her head bowed low. "It will not happen again."