“Dwight, is it absolutely necessary to install that alarm system right this minute? I don’t think it’s within your jurisdiction as a Volunteer Sheriff’s Deputy to install prototype systems like this. My landlord might get mad.”

Angela folded her arms and stood a safe distance away from Dwight, who was kneeling by her apartment door with a monkey wrench, two blowtorches and a restaurant-grade sushi knife. He lifted his welding mask briefly to turn with a reassuring smile.

“I know what I’m doing, Angela. This alarm system is both foolproof and viciously effective.”

“If you say so.” Angela sipped at her small cup of green tea. “So the minute the sensor identifies unknown pupil patterns passing through my door…”

“…the wasabi spray will be activated from these two corners,” Dwight explained, jumping up to point out the hidden nozzles, “and the knife will be dropped so that the tip dangles exactly six feet from the ground.”

“But what if Jim ever comes in?”

“I programmed his pupil into the system,” Dwight placed his hands on his hips. “But why would Jim ever come into your apartment, Angela?”

She shrugged and sipped at her tea again. “No reason.” She turned and walked back into her bedroom. “I’m getting dressed for work now. You’d best leave now if you’re switching cars at the abandoned lot three blocks away from work instead of two.”

“I left my car at the two.” Dwight placed his blowtorches on Angela’s kitchen counter and pulled on his suit jacket. “Goodbye, Angela.”

“We’ll meet again in half an hour, Dwight.”

Dwight took his key from where it was buried in the flowerpot next to Angela’s doorway cross. As he stood up again, he noticed a well-worn piece of paper tacked at a perfect right angle on the magnetic door. A gloating smile broke out across his face.

“Angela, I am forty-five points ahead of you.”

“What? How?”

“You don’t notice the glances, Angela,” Dwight laughed, reaching for the handle of the door. “You can’t see the glances.”

He left the apartment and secured the locks five times each before getting into the elevator. Angela came out of her room and picked the piece of paper up from where it had fallen on the ground, grabbed a pencil and retraced the fading letters “PAM PONG: APRIL”.

~~~=]~~~

Somehow, in the three years that he had worked at Dunder Mifflin, Ryan had only used the HR complaint files a few times. Kelly seemed to file complaints every two hours when she was supposed to be doing real paperwork. They mostly consisted of requests to move a certain desk closer to another certain desk intermingled with paperwork campaigning for an employee’s rights to paint their own wallpapers.

Ryan largely suspected that Toby didn’t bother to read Kelly’s complaints anymore, just shoved them into a file for later. He suspected that Toby spent far more time writing emails to his Vietnamese penpals than he did reading employee complaints. But Michael was reaching an unprecedented level of creepy, and Toby’s desk in the back was far from Michael’s eyes and ears. So he waited for Kelly to go to the bathroom – she always waited until the last minute, so that she didn’t miss a single thing he did – and then quietly made his way to Toby’s desk.

“Toby, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Toby hastily closed out of his game of chess and turned to face Ryan. “How can I help you?”

“Um, it’s Michael.”

Toby sighed and pulled a legal pad out of his desk drawer. “Start.”

Ryan leaned against the desk and checked his watch. “It’s about ten o’clock now. I started counting at eight this morning, so…um…Michael’s been sending me emails from his David Bowie account at a rate of about one every three minutes.”

“David Bowie’s on Yahoo, right?”

“Um, I think he got a new one. It’s MSN now.”

“I see.”

Toby finished writing and stapled the paper to another important-looking form, then dumped the two pages onto an inch-thick pile in a corner of his desk. “Y’know, you can come talk to me anytime. It doesn’t even have to be for a complaint.”

“I know,” Ryan nodded and anxiously peeked out of the break room door. Michael was pacing in front of Pam’s desk with a pair of Discovery Channel binoculars in his hands. “Um, I have to get back to work.”

“All right,” Toby sighed, and turned back to his chess game. As Ryan turned to leave, Toby leaned back over to call him again. “Ryan? Have you heard about it yet?”

Ryan shook his head. “Um, what?”

“Never mind.” Toby smiled faintly. “Watch for an email from Creed. I promise it won’t be hippie pornography this time.”

~~~=]~~~

At about ten thirty, Kevin got the email. He was counting the number of Dum-Dum wrappers he had stored in his desk drawer for a week when Oscar threw an old, broken paper football at him, their prearranged signal for “check your email, it’s worth it”. When he did, he forgot all about the number he had kept in his head and turned to give Oscar a dark stare. He stared back and nodded. Kevin did his best to keep his snickers down, but as usual failed miserably.

At ten forty-five, Kevin casually got up and made his way to the break room, stealthily dropping a Skittle on Meredith’s desk. It was their prearranged signal for “there is an important email. It’s worth it.” Meredith’s AA group had recommended that she not read her emails anymore, as some shrewd net spy had discovered her alcoholism and had begun to send her windfalls of spam with titles like “Cheap vodka, in you momma’s cellar” and “come 2 drink @ my place bb”. It was no loss to Meredith, as she was barely interested in Michael’s forwards and corporate stuff, and besides, she heard all the good stuff from Kevin anyway. When the Skittle landed, she waited two minutes and then stood up to follow him into the break room.

“Who was it from?”

Kevin let the snickers fly. “Creed.”

“Kevin, I swear, if it’s anything like that video of the pigs and that poor little dog – “

“No, it’s not.” Kevin bought a fifth pack of Sour Gummy Worms and sipped at his Coke. “Creed’s calling a meeting.”

“Of what?”

Kevin’s eyes slowly trawled over to meet hers. “Poor Richard’s, right after work today. Leave work alone, drive in at least two circles before heading over, and don’t bother coming if you are being followed.”

“Oh…” Meredith nodded and took the Coke away from him. “I’ll be there.”

Kevin snatched the can back. “There’s no rum in it today. Don’t bother.”

“Damn.”

 ~~~=]~~~ 

Dwight quietly rearranged the refrigerator magnets while Angela fixed another pot of coffee. Coffee mugs were excellent for hiding conversations in, and it was a well-documented office-wide observation that Dwight murmured to himself while rearranging anything.

“I will drive you to Poor Richard’s tonight,” Dwight whispered.

Angela choked on her coffee and grabbed a napkin to wipe it from her chin. “Why? And how will you explain it?”

Dwight moved one of Michael’s stick figure faces off from where it was straddling Pam’s stick figure and next to where stick-Dwight was lying on the ground with red bar magnets under him. “Security reasons. For now, I must fix your apartment, because your apartment is suffering…termite damage.”

“You used that two weeks ago.”

“You live in a very termite-prone area of town.”

Angela sighed and lifted the mug back up to her lips. “What’s the real reason? Tonight is not a cookie night.”

Dwight frowned and turned stick-Dwight onto his feet. “I sprinted to work this morning. My car was at the three.”

Angela hid her smile into the black rim. “I thought that was you. Perhaps tonight will be a cookie night after all.”

Dwight grinned wolfishly and pulled the red bar magnets off. He began arranging them differently. “So I will bring you to the meeting tonight. You should probably bring your tallies.”

“I’m up by ten already. I watched for glances whenever I could.”

Dwight stepped back from the fridge and walked to the door. As he passed Angela, he murmured a few words: “I’m up by twelve.”

Angela walked over to the fridge when he was gone. The red bar magnets had been arranged in the shape of a cape around stick-Dwight’s shoulders. She smiled and pulled one off, placing it in his hand. A lightsaber.

~~~=]~~~

Creed tossed back another shot of straight tequila and looked around the table. “Are we all here?”

A chorus of slurred phrases rose to greet him. Meredith reluctantly put her vodka bottle down and gently took the gin from Kevin’s hands. Angela glared at her drunken coworkers and nodded curtly. “Present.”

“Excellent.” Creed waved at the bartender, and raised another shot glass. “This meeting of the Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension is now in session.”

Ryan waved his hands frantically. He had hardly touched his beer. “You said this was just a get-together! You said drinks were on you!”

Creed shrugged and downed his shot. “I lied.” He turned his attention back to the group at large. “The Committee is now in session. First item on the agenda: Jim and Pam.”

Ryan’s eyes grew wide as realization hit him. “Is this how – February thirteenth – “

Creed grinned. “Yup.”

Ryan looked at Kelly, who was watching him with a dark look in her eyes, and swallowed hard. He loosened his tie and reached for his beer. “Of course.”

~~~=]~~~