Nicole spun herself around in her chair, kicking off of the legs of her desk again, and again, and again, and again— Until her foot missed and struck only air, slowing the spin enough for the mixed bile in her stomach to begin bubbling angrily.

The room melted for a moment before she squeezed her eyes shut, forced to wait for her body to catch up to the slowed and soon still chair. Eventually Nicole opened her eyes as the nausea passed and the room was popped back to normal as a thanks for the end of the spinning.. That was enough spinning for now. She sighed and slumped down in her chair.

There was nothing to do today, no to-do list other than the assignment left to her by Megan—but she could do that later. It wasn’t like she had much to fear, Megan wasn’t there today! Nor was Gil. The two always had a day off each week, ironically enough since Megan in particular would NEVER provide a day of freedom to the others willingly. But, her and Gil’s absence left a day of technical freedom!

And yet also a day of boredom from the lack of screams and pointing fingers. No one even put anything new on the share board since it was silently agreed to be useless to even look at the board if Megan and Gil were gone.

Nicole clicked her tongue and stood up, maybe she could try to stir up the others in the office today if she just—broke the quiet?

She left the room and went through the halls. “Hello!” she called in dragged out tones. “Hi! Anyone here?!”

“Yup,” Kaitlin chirped, peeking out of her office with a smile on her face. “Just waiting around really though. I’m only here so I can write more.”

“Oh, what are you writing?”

Kaitlin grinned. “Something.”

Nicole sighed and shook her head. “I see a bigger CPA file in your future, you know?”

“HEY! Look, what happens isn’t really my fault because it NEEDS to happen!”

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

And then it all died out and the two just stared.

“We really do get abandoned every week,” Giana sighed as she slipped from her office to see what the two had been talking about. “Huh?”

The other two nodded.

“It’s dead here.”

More nods.

.

.

.

“I’m going to go work on—” Nicole paused and frowned. Well, she wasn’t in the mood to write a short story yet, or anything really. “I dunno.”

“Nor do I,” Giana sighed.

“Yeah, Megan isn’t here to help me torture Nicholas,” Kaitlin muttered.

“WHAT?!” Nicole snapped.

“Nothing!”

Giana all the while nodded. “And Gil isn’t here to give us assignments. Which is good for me honestly, I still need to work on the last one but—I also have some plans to build a plant hanger today so I’ll probably do that today.”

“That sounds fun!” Nicole smiled.

“Yeah!” Kaitlin chirped.

Then the smiles faded to, yet again, quiet.

“Hey, Kaitlin!” Kylie called. “Do you want to help me out over here with this character?”

“Oh, yes!” Kaitlin scurried back into her office to find her sister on the other side of the door connecting their rooms.

Giana turned around to go back into her office and work on her craft.

And Nicole, she stood there. Waiting in the silence. Until she ended up going back to her office and plucking up her computer pen to draw something other than what she needed to draw.

It was a consequence free day for procrastination, even if those consequences were only less than 24 hours away.

Nicole Soto "Do it for the Fame!" A Contemporary/Semi-Dystopian novel touching on revenge and Corruption. Following Emeric through his fight with the Game Show Empire of Fame! Written Californian Author, Nicole Soto, we all are sad because it is... NOT YET RELEASED! Click ​HERE​ to read more about Nicole!

​

Welp. This is the final episode for now.

Wow, it’s been 28 authory weeks! Honestly, at times, I was certain we’d end up holding an episode out and having to break up the consistency, but we did it! Consistent Monday (spare for one of the weeks were there was the unspeakable, shall not be named, and never happened, one day delay) posts for a full 7 months. You read that correctly; the prolog episode went out all the way back at the end half of March!

I am so glad you all, my likely fellow authors or curious reader readers, stuck around this long to enjoy this season of the Author Headquarters! Yes, I said season, does that mean there will be a second—

SH.

No spoilers.

Ahem, anyways! I also want to thank those who’d sent their appreciations of this series!

If any of you readers wish to see more of my stuff—uh, wait around for a while? I have a work in progress still with a mysterious (and, whoopsies, several times delayed) release date that not even I, the author, know when it is!

—Nicole Soto.