Sphinx in the Orange Hour

The email arrived at 4:58 PM, just as Mara was contemplating the ominous orange glow pooling on her desk. Subject line: Project Sphinx Update. From: Colin.

Colin, who used to be her friend before he became her boss. Before he became the person who'd stolen her promotion and claimed her work as his own. Fox in the henhouse, someone had whispered at the holiday party. She'd laughed then, bitter and bright.

She stared at the email without opening it. Project Sphinx had been the company's white whale for three years—a mysterious initiative rumored to change everything, though nobody outside the executive suite understood what it actually was. The sphinx's riddle, unsolved.

"You're still here?"

Mara looked up. Colin leaned against her doorframe, suit jacket uncharacteristically unbuttoned, holding two paper coffee cups. The fluorescent lights caught the copper threads in his hair.

"Just finishing up," she said.

"I've been thinking," he said, stepping inside. "About us. About what happened."

Her stomach tightened. "Colin, don't."

"I know you think I'm some kind of villain." He set one cup on her desk. "But you don't know everything. There's sphinx-level politics you're not seeing."

She snorted. "Save the corporate philosophy. You stabbed me in the back. That's not a riddle. That's just Tuesday."

"Maybe." He paused. "But I'm leaving, Mara. This job, this company. I'm done."

She blinked. "What?"

"Sphinx is dead. They're killing the project. Layoffs coming. I wanted to give you a heads-up—you're on the list, but I think I can save your position if we—"

"If we what?" She stood up. "If I become your friend again? If I pretend you didn't ruin three years of my career?"

"I'm trying to help you."

"You're trying to buy absolution." She gestured at the untouched coffee. "I don't want it. I'd rather take my chances with the sphinx."

He sighed, the sound long and weary. "The fox always gets blamed, doesn't he? Even when he's just trying to survive the same hunt as everyone else."

"You didn't just survive, Colin. You ate the rabbit first."

He left without another word. The orange light deepened to rust, then gray. Mara opened his email, finally. It contained just two words: I'm sorry.

She deleted it. Outside, the city lights flickered on like distant stars, cold and impersonal and beautiful. Somewhere out there, she knew, the sphinx was still waiting.