The Sphinx in HR

The papaya sat on her desk, slowly oxidizing in the fluorescent office light. Elena had brought it from home—a rare luxury, a reminder of the vacation she'd taken alone after the divorce—but now it felt like an accusation.

Marcus from IT stood in her doorway, holding a coiled ethernet cable like a dead snake. "Your connection's been unstable," he said, not meeting her eyes. "I've been monitoring the traffic."

Elena felt the cold drop in her stomach. Monitoring. Since when did IT monitor individual traffic unless there was a reason? Since someone—maybe him, maybe someone else—had decided she needed watching.

Three weeks ago, she'd found the sphinx paperweight on her chair. A cheap thing from the museum gift shop, its enigmatic smile frozen in painted stone. No note. Just the sphinx, waiting with its riddles. Marcus had walked past her desk that morning, whistling. He'd been the only one nearby.

They'd been friends once. Post-work drinks, commiserating about management, sharing secrets over lukewarm office coffee. But things had changed. Elena had started asking questions—about the budget discrepancies, about why certain employees vanished while their access permissions remained active.

Now Marcus watched her with the careful neutrality of a spy who's been made but won't break character. His loyalty lay elsewhere now.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear," he said suddenly, startling her. He placed the cable on her desk, his fingers lingering just a moment too long. "Some riddles are better left unsolved."

Elena looked at the sphinx on her shelf. At the browning papaya. At the man who'd been her friend, now something else entirely.

"The riddle," she said quietly, "isn't what I'm looking for. It's who's looking for me."

Marcus didn't answer. He just walked away, his footsteps silent against the carpet, leaving her with the cable between them and the terrible certainty that she was no longer just an employee, but a problem to be solved.