[Vox]

Maia smiled warmly at Marsh. She liked him. He had been the first to make her feel welcome at this job.

"I'm just collecting special orders. The regular monthly order is on its way, but I wanted to make sure you didn't need anything extra." Her voice was normal, not quick and high-pitched as it was when she spoke to Rebecca.

She noticed that the rest of the drafters were too busy to pay attention to her - especially Brian, which pleased rather than annoyed her. Good. She stepped around the desk so that her back was to Brian, and bent over to look at
Marsh's drawing, placing her elbows on the desktop. "Whatcha working on?" she asked quietly.

One of their clients was the local school district, which had hired their firm to create the roads and parking lots connected with a new junior high. Included was the placement of lampposts and utility poles. Marsh headed up this project for the drafting department, and there had been some setbacks as soil reports and inspections had come in, forcing the designers to rethink the plans. Maia expected that by this time, the road would be as crooked as Lombard Street in San Francisco.

It surprised Maia that in this era of CAD and powerful personal computers, that any engineer would still rely on paper and pencils and she said as much.