Patrick sat down at his desk and considered the day ahead of him. It would be a nice, long, and somewhat boring day. One he could live with. But while his terminal booted up and went through the process of logging onto the server, he went through the couple of packages that showed up in his inbox. First was yet another reminder about the staff Christmas party, which he knew he wasn't going to be able to go to, mostly because he had other plans that night. Plans that involved chilling and relaxing at home, not thinking about much of anything and having a home-cooked supper.

Of course, there were some people who worked here who thought that work and personal life should completely overlap, but Patrick would have none of that. He would keep the two separate, thank you very much. So into the trash it went. The next was his usual list of things he needed to do today. Certain goals he should reach, including benchmarks and KPIs. These, he mostly ignored as he could do them in his sleep. They were set to the averages, and he brought the average up.

The last thing was something he wasn't expecting, a larger brown envelope that was addressed to him, but had no source markings, like a return address or an indication of which office it came from. This, he carefully sliced open with a letter opener that he had to bring from home, as the one provided by the office wasn't that great. It was plastic, while his was metal. He carefully finished his cut and slid the contents of the envelope out into his waiting hand.

It was a folded sheet of ... not quite paper, he felt it for a moment with both hands, not sure what he holding. He unfolded it, and turned it around. In his hand was now an 8.5x11 sheet of pseudo-paper, white on both sides. But on the side facing him now was the picture of a woman he recognized. Sarah, the strongly built blond woman looked out at him from the picture. She had her arms under her bare chest, and her stance was casual.

Patrick raised both eyebrows.

She waved at him.

He blinked, just to make sure his eyes were clear. She waved again, and he looked around to see if anyone was watching him for whatever reason. No one was, so he turned to face his computer, and set the picture up beside the monitor, typing in his access code. The system moved to log him in and he turned his gaze back to the picture.

Sarah gestured unfolding with her hands, and Patrick tapped on his keyboard to move things along before unfolding the paper again, this time doubling it along the previously short side, and as he did so, Sarah had changed orientation to still be tall along the long edge of the paper. He turned it around so she was facing upward, despite seemingly at ease with her alternate orientation. She mimed unfolding more, mouthing words that Patrick seemed to think was encouragement to keep going, so he alternated between unfolding, doubling the short edge into being the long side each time, and doing actual work, making an effort to be quick about it so that he didn't get behind in the long run.

And if Sarah had to wait, then so be it.

It took about half an hour, but Patrick finally finished unfolding Sarah's sheet, and she was now life-sized. She was also obviously impatient, but as she was just a picture, all she could do was give him rude gestures with one hand, and encouragement with the other. The Master of Mixed Messages, he thought to himself. He finally had to resort to pinning her photo to a cork-board, and even then, her feet were trailing out onto the floor.

Once that was done, he watched as she pushed outward at the paper, and to his utter lack of surprise, the paper distended, like a plastic cover being removed, Her hand tore through, and he held out his own for her to take, which she did and he pulled while she pushed until she had stepped clear out of the picture, leaving it blank. "That took forever!" she complained as she stretched, Patrick turning back to his terminal to do more work. "Hey!"

"Hello to you too," he replied politely. "What brings you here? Aside from the post, that is."

"Well," Sarah sat down on a clear space of his desk, legs crossed, "can't I come visit my favourite pirate?"

Patrick huffed, and went back to work. "I think I'm the only pirate you know," he said.

"Quiet, isn't it?" Sarah looked up and around. I thought this was a business."

"Staggered shifts," he informed her. "I'm on the early shift, and when I leave, others will be starting."

"OK, yeah, that makes sense. What do you do anyways?" she asked, twisting to look down at his work.

He paused, annoyed at this. "What are you doing here?" he asked instead.

"Talking?" she looked at him in confusion. "Sorry?"

He took a deep breath, trying to balance what he wanted to do, and what he needed to do. "Talk," he said, "but first, how? And why?"

"Well, we shared contact information," she informed him of the how, "so I mailed myself to you. Sorta. Kinda did the magic thing to get here."

"I figured, what with the lack of postage," he told her. "That explains the how, but not the [i]why[/i]."

"Ok, so, yes, I know we said that we would use the contact info for booty calls," she smirked at the pun they all enjoyed when they made it, "but something came up, and Karen and I thought you could help."

"And a phone call wouldn't work?"

"Eh..." Sarah seemed sheepish. "I was over thinking things and wanted to talk to you in person."

"You went overboard," he told her.

"I went overboard," she agreed. "So..."

"I'm a data archivist," he said as he kept typing. "I input data, converting it from scans or otherwise in-machine readable formats into machine-readable ones. Or something approximating them." He indicated a scan of some book that was on the screen, and his efforts to transcribe it onto another. "Why? What do you do?"

"Me?" Sarah huffed. "I work for a shipping company in shipping/receiving."

"My sympathies. Christmas is coming."

"I would murder to get some reliable co-workers," she groused as she crossed her arms, annoyed. "You have any idea how hard it was to get the day off?" she complained as she turned to face him, rather than staring into the middle distance.

"I wouldn't know, my job isn't holiday focused," he told her.

"And if I hear one more person tell me [i]'Hey, need a guy to lift that for you, I'm gonna murder someone!'[/i]," Sarah griped to a person who was barely listening. "Goddamn sexism. Even worse when it's one of the girls out front who ask for a guy to do some lifting."

"Having seen you lift," Patrick commented as he tapped away, "I can imagine that you won't have much of a problem."

"No, I don't," Sarah agreed. "Just ... argh! And that's why Karen and I had to come to you," she told him.

"Hey, there you are," Patrick's eyes went wide as his boss stood in the entrance to his cubicle. "Oh, good, you're already on the ball with that. Listen, Geordie switched with Maya at the last minute, happened on payroll's side of things so naturally no one told me. Can you put that on hold and work on Maya's stuff?" he held out a stack of papers, which Patrick took, worried that his Boss might notice...

Sarah grinned the whole while. He flipped through the papers. "Yeah, I can do this, it's not that hard," he commented. "Wait, how long was she working on this?" he asked, confused.

"Too long," his boss replied. "So I gotta toss it at you to finish it up so I can stamp it and send it too Outbound for processing and payment."

Patrick groaned. "Seriously? This is less work than my thing," he indicated his terminal, "and she's been working on this for longer."

"Which is why I trust you," his boss said. "You get stuff done."

"Yeah, reliable me, that's for sure," Patrick muttered. "I'll get this done and on your desk."

"Thanks," the Boss turned and walked away, ready to delegate the next task.

Patrick glanced at Sarah, and gestured with his head at the cubicle entrance, asking a very pertinent question.

Sarah's grin never left her face. "What? You think I wouldn't mail myself to you as a picture, sit here in the buff and not take the effort to not be noticed?" she asked him.

"Exhibitionist," Patrick muttered.

"Nudist, actually. Exhibitionists do it to show off and get attention, while I'm just casual." Sarah explained. "Or that's it at the most basic," she shrugged.

"Same difference," he noted as he flipped through his new assignment. "So, why did you want to talk to me again? We got distracted."

"Right!" Sarah snapped her finger. "So, Karen and I want to put on a show."

"Let me know, and I'll buy a ticket," Patrick promised.

"Can't let you do that," she told him. "You see, there's a problem."

"I don't believe it, but tell me," he furrowed his brow as he took in the mess in front of him. "What the hell?" he whispered to himself.

"So, long story short, two women who want to make an act and get a venue to perform run into... issues, especially with a magic act," she told him. "[i]However[/i]," she raised her voice just a little, "if it's a [i]guy[/i] and his two assistants..." she trailed off.

Patrick listened. "Really?" he asked her. "Seriously? You two would do all the work, why would anyone say no?"

"Sexism," she repeated. "So Karen and I talked it over, and we decided to approach you, to see if you wanted to be the front man to our act," she offered.

"I don't have the spark thingy," he told her. "You'd have to do all the work."

"We know," she agree with that. "That's why we're willing to work with you to make sure the act works out."

Patrick thought about it, his fingers moving on their own. "I think we'd need an act before we could do anything," he told her. "And a contract to keep all the finances above board."

"Done!" Sarah held out her hand, and Patrick shook it. "So, about that booty call that you gave us your number for? I'd hate to be made a liar of." She leaned forward and into his personal space.

"Oh? Going behind Karen's back, are we?"

"Nah, that's the thing about being actually bisexual. I'm attracted to both genders. And Karen knows this. We're in an open-ish relationship as long as we're open about other partners. And she doesn't mind you at all, in fact, she's willing to have fun with you too. I just happened to have a day off before she did."

"Ah," he said. "Well, I have quite a bit of work to do," he told her, "and it'll be a couple hours before I can have a break," he indicated the clock, then picked up his letter opener. "Why don't you give me some motivation I can keep on my desk, then hop back into the envelope until I get home, or on break?"

"Sure, I can do that," Sarah agreed, taking the relatively sharp object in hand. "Something hand-sized, so what?"

"Lady's choice," Patrick replied. "Just remember, it's going to be a few hours. And the rest of you will be in the envelope, so I'll have to sneak you out."

"I think you can manage," Sarah leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Motivation," she told him, then carefully stepped back into the envelope, somehow fitting in despite being far too large.

Patrick paused in his typing. "Great," he muttered. "Now I need a plan for that paper."