“What are you looking at?” Gina asked.

“Dr. O’Reilly,” I said, wondering if he was old enough to have bought the tie new.

“The geek down in Bio?” Elaine said, craning her neck.

“Bad tie,” Gina said.

“And those glasses,” Sarah said. “They’re so thick you can’t even tell what color his eyes are!”

“Gray,” I said, but Elaine and Sarah had gone back to discussing stair-walking.

“The best stairs are up on campus,” Elaine said. “The engineering building. Sixty-eight steps, but it’s gotten pretty crowded. So I usually do the ones over on Clover.”

“Ted lives on Iris,” Sarah said. “He’s got to acknowledge his male warrior spirit, or he’ll never be able to embrace his female side.”

“All right, fellow workers,” Management said. “Do you have your five objectives? Flip, would you collect them?”

Elaine looked stricken. Gina snatched the list from her and wrote rapidly:

1. Optimize potential.

2. Facilitate empowerment.

3. Implement visioning.

4. Strategize priorities.

5. Augment core structures.

“How did you do that?” I said admiringly.

“Those are the five things I always write down,” she said and handed the list to Flip as she slouched past.

“Before we go any further,” Management said, “I want you all to stand up.”

“Bathroom break,” Gina murmured.

“We’re going to do a sensitivity exercise,” Management said. “Everybody find a partner.”

I turned. Sarah and Elaine had already claimed each other, and Gina was nowhere to be seen. I hesitated, wondering if I could make it all the way over to Dr. O’Reilly in time, and saw a woman in a chic haircut and a red power suit moving purposefully through the crowd to me.