May noticed the change before she could explain it.
It was not dramatic. Nothing snapped or broke. No voices were raised. If someone had asked her to identify the moment it began, she would not have been able to. It felt more like a shift in temperature, the kind you only realize after your skin has already adjusted.
The office floor looked the same when she arrived.
Lights were already on. Screens glowed in neat rows, glass walls stretching floor to ceiling, security cameras blinking faintly in corners, the RCG initials etched into polished steel overhead. Coffee cups sat beside keyboards, half finished, abandoned, then returned to. RCG moved the way it always did, efficient and quiet, as if the building itself understood hierarchy as well as momentum.
May slipped into her seat and set her bag down carefully. She smoothed the edge of her notebook, aligning it with the corner of the desk, then opened it to a fresh page. She wrote the date at the top, paused, then underlined it once.
For a few minutes, everything felt normal.
Then she waited.
Yesterday, instructions had come quickly. Short explanations. Paper placed on her desk without ceremony. A sense of being watched, assessed, even when no one spoke directly to her.
Today, nothing arrived.
She told herself it was still early. People were settling in. She watched Lydia pass her desk without stopping, heels clicking against the floor, the subtle shine of a luxury watch catching the light, posture precise and unhurried. Harper followed a moment later, laughing softly at something on her phone, careless in the way only people with leverage could be. Simone trailed behind them, eyes flicking up briefly before sliding away.
May looked back down at her notebook.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
The hum of the office continued around her. Printers whirred. Someone coughed. A chair scraped softly against the floor. The rhythm of work carried on as if she were not sitting in the middle of it, waiting.
She checked her email. Nothing new.
When a stack of documents was finally placed on her desk, it was done without a word. The hand withdrew before she could look up.
She scanned the top page.
No instructions. No notes. Just numbers and headings that assumed familiarity.
She inhaled slowly and began anyway.
Halfway through the second document, she realized something was off. Not wrong enough to flag immediately, but unclear. A reference to a model she had not been given access to. A margin that relied on an assumption she could not see.
She marked the line lightly in pencil and moved on.
By midmorning, the feeling had settled in fully. She was being included just enough to be responsible, but not enough to succeed easily. Somewhere above the floor, behind glass offices she could not access, oversight existed without announcement.
At the corner of her vision, she saw Harper glance over. Their eyes met briefly. Harper's mouth curved, not quite a smile, before she turned back to her screen.
May kept her head down.
When she stood to ask a question, the conversation nearby quieted just a fraction too quickly. Lydia answered without looking at her, voice smooth and efficient, explanation complete enough to end the exchange but thin enough to leave room for error.
May thanked her and returned to her desk.
Her hands felt steadier than she expected.
At some point, Lena appeared beside her, holding a tablet.
"Hey," she said quietly. "You're on the variance reviews today, right?"
"Yes," May replied. "I think so."
Lena nodded once. "They didn't give you the updated framework, did they?"
May hesitated, then shook her head.
Lena's lips pressed together briefly. She tapped something on her tablet and angled the screen toward May. "This is the version they're using now. It's not public yet, but you'll need it."
"Thank you," May said. Relief loosened something in her chest.
"Don't mention it," Lena replied. Her eyes flicked briefly toward the inner offices before returning to May. "Just don't let them rush you."
May understood who she meant.
The change deepened after lunch.
It showed up in small ways. A file she had already reviewed was reassigned without explanation. A question she sent by message was answered hours later, with a single sentence that did not quite address it. When she spoke during a brief team check in, Lydia acknowledged her point, then repeated it five minutes later as if it were her own.
No one objected.
May did not either.
She wrote everything down.
By late afternoon, her eyes ached. She rubbed them lightly and straightened in her chair, rolling her shoulders once. Across the aisle, Simone stood with Harper, whispering. Harper laughed, not bothering to lower her voice.
"Some people really don't know their place," Harper said.
May pretended not to hear.
The words landed anyway.
She focused on the numbers in front of her, grounding herself in what she could verify. When she flagged another discrepancy, she double checked it twice before submitting it.
This time, Lydia did not comment.
The silence felt deliberate.
As the hours stretched on, May became aware of something else. She was not being pushed out. She was being tested, quietly, persistently, as if someone higher up had already decided she was worth watching.
Neither option felt safe.
When the workday edged toward evening, people began packing up in unspoken waves. Chairs slid back. Bags were lifted from under desks. Conversations shifted toward dinner plans and traffic.
May stayed seated, finishing the last review.
She did not notice Lydia standing beside her until the shadow fell across her desk.
"You missed one," Lydia said, tapping the paper lightly.
May looked where she pointed. Her chest tightened, then eased when she followed the numbers.
"I didn't miss it," May said carefully. "I marked it for follow up because the supporting data wasn't attached."
Lydia raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And without it, the projection isn't verifiable," May replied.
For a moment, Lydia studied her. Then she smiled, pleasant and unreadable.
"Good," she said. "Attention to detail is important here."
She walked away.
May exhaled slowly.
When she finally shut her notebook, the office was quieter. Lena waved at her from near the elevators, already packed up.
"You survived," Lena said when they walked together.
"So far," May replied.
Lena smiled at that. "That's how it starts."
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside with a few others. The access panel beside the doors glowed softly, biometric sensors blinking as employees exited on different floors. The descent was smooth, silent.
As the numbers ticked down, names surfaced in May's mind without effort.
Lydia Grant. Harper Nguyen. Simone Blake.
They felt heavier now, more defined. No longer just edges, but points she would have to navigate around, or through.
When the doors opened at the lobby, Lena gave her a small nod and headed toward the exit.
"See you tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow," May echoed.
She stepped out into the evening air, shoulders squaring slightly as she adjusted her bag. The building loomed behind her, glass reflecting the fading light, the RCG initials gleaming high above the street.
RCG.
She did not look back.
Not yet.