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Want to know more about Mallory? This chapter's for you.

Shifting Consequences--Chapter 34: Inner Identities By Zmeydros (Lucien Quinn) zmeydros.tumblr.com zmeydros (Twitter) Malfedrosti (Mal Twitter)

The moment Cher is out the door, Mallory sighs in frustration. Cher is hiding something, but should she really put Cher's entire career at risk over it? Blaming Cher is really easy and it gives the men upstairs someone else to direct their disappointment toward. Until she knows all the facts, keeping the heat on Cher is the best option.

Cher's insubordination is actually a bit endearing. She'd probably make a good partner to some FBI agent if she ever let herself get paired up again. Reading Cher's file was enjoyable because she was more like one of those TV crime solving geniuses than an FBI agent. Such good talent... If only she could be controlled. In today's world conformity is the number one trait required for any office associated with Homeland Security. It's Mallory's world now, not Cher's.

Questioning orders, getting stuck on moral implications, and worrying about fairness isn't what got her to the top. Any sign of weakness or hesitation makes her bosses twitchy. To them, Cher looks like an agent from a different era. A danger to the overall mission.

It's so easy to sell the idea that Cher is the faulty fuse in the circuit that all Mallory had to do was let them see transcripts of her interactions with Cher throughout the last three years. The only issue with it all being this easy is that it's not as much fun.

Mallory takes a sip of microbrewed root beer and savors the gingery onset and caramely finish. If she's going to drink something that has a chance of ruining her figure, it better be damn good. This is worth twenty more minutes in the gym. She gulps down a bit more. Maybe Cher has something up her sleeve? Something that would make this contest of professional influence a bit harder? Mallory hopes so.

If the rest of Cher's team is any indication, Cher may actually be more respected than she initially thought. Figuring out how to keep her near perfect record from getting stained is one of the only thrills Mallory has. Following orders works great for climbing the ladder, but it is boring. Thank God for problems like this.

Who cares if that High School kid gets away in the end? How much harm could he really do? His record is cleaner than hers. Even if he can transform into some sort of monster, she doubts he would hurt a fly. The big wigs want him found, that's the only reason she cares. Another successful mission, another rung up the ladder.

She thought the video of him transforming was some sort of prank at first. Wilkins had to tell her it wasn't a joke and get a bit irritated before she believed him. There's still a chance it's some kind of hoax--that Zack or someone in that police department had too much time on their hands. Wilkins wouldn't even listen to her when she mentioned it, but that doesn't mean she's wrong.

Someday, she'll be Wilkins' boss and he'll have to listen much more carefully. Maybe she'll make it to director of homeland security or something. Then she'd get to give orders and watch other people carry them out whether they liked them or not.

Well, that would be a lot more likely if she could figure out what the hell happened earlier today. She's half convinced that the extraction team got ambushed by a troupe of Las Vegas magicians. Either that or one of the members of the team made a particularly potent pan of hashish brownies... The drug tests she ordered should be available in the morning.

She drinks the rest of her root beer licking her lips afterwards. She needs the gym. Working out will get her mind off of all this unknowable garbage. She just doesn't have enough facts yet.

When she gets out of her seat she shuts her laptop and puts it in her briefcase. Then she gathers up the power supply and stuffs it into the front pouch. When she grabs the handles coming up from either side, she lifts it up smiling at how much lighter it feels. The gym has been a godsend for her well-being and made her a bit more imposing.

Not that she needed much help. Being almost six feet tall and blonde helps one get noticed. Even her teachers in high school saw greatness in her. Especially the art teacher she banged a few times during her senior year. She has yet to feel as powerful as she did then. The fact that he knew he shouldn't be fucking a student and was unable to stop himself was a huge turn-on. The only thing that would have made her high-school life better would have been her getting something other than third place every time she competed in track.

On her way out of the office, a few of the peons say bye to her. She doesn't bother to respond. Giving them a sign that she cared about them would remove a bit of the fear she's worked so hard to instill. When she decides who her favorites are, she'll let them know. Hope of advancement is often a better motivator than fear, but until she's picked the people she wants to promote, it's better to have the respect that only fear can bring.

If she knew how long she'd be in charge of Cher's team, she might change her strategy, but for now, she's got to play this game as if she's in it for the long haul. She catches an analyst checking out her ass and gives him a glare. His eyes widen before he turns back to his computer. Better to shoot them down early, it keeps them more fixated on her--an unattainable goal is much harder to ignore.

Mallory walks out the door to her car. If she had a choice, she'd use something more imposing, but her branch bought a bunch of Chevy Malibu's and that's what she's stuck with. She unlocks the door and gets in tossing her briefcase onto the passenger's seat. She starts the car and heads off to the gym.

Other than a beer delivery truck blocking a lane of traffic to unload some brew, her drive is uneventful. The big fitness complex stretches out before her. Rounded concrete corners and forty-five degree angles make this early 90's building look like a failed attempt to look edgy and different. The glass bricks that are in multiple walls coupled with the pebbles in the concrete mix ruin any air of luxury or newness it might have had. Good for her that it's the inside that she cares about.

Everyone must be here tonight. She has to park way out by the trimmed hedges that separate it from the nearby strip-mall's parking lot. After locking her car, she walks across the parking lot and into the building. The moment the remodeled polished granite and brushed steel interior greets her, she starts to relax.

She goes down the u-shaped stairway in the center of this dog-leg-shaped building and turns right. A sweaty old man clutching a small towel plods into the mens locker room ahead of her. A short rotund woman who is still adjusting the stretchy black top she's wearing walks past Mallory as she enters the women's locker room. She glances back at the woman for a moment to catch a look at her backside. It's actually showing a bit of muscle tone. Not quite as much jiggle as there was when she saw her last. Good for her.

Mallory walks up to her locker taking time to observe the rough-cut pink granite floor. She's not sure why, but this is her favorite feature of this gym. Maybe it's just how natural it looks and feels? Or the fact that it reminds her of Enchanted Rock State Natural Area? That has to be her favorite place in all of Texas.

She opens her locker by hitting little buttons on the combination lock and pulling up on the little latch thingy. She strips down and puts on her gym clothes. A tight-fitting yellow and dark orangish-red top that supports her C-cup breasts quite nicely and a pair of black and gray exercise pants that stretch around her thighs, but leave her lower legs a bit of room. Her running shoes are the last things to go on. She uses the bench to tie them making sure they are snug but not tight. She's ready for a workout. She smiles as she closes her locker. Until she found this gym, she enjoyed Minneapolis far less.

She runs on the track that goes around the area that has all the exercise bikes. The thought of all those people sitting and peddling while she runs circles around them always makes her smirk. The rubbery surface the track is made of takes a lot of the stress off her knees so she can run nearly worry free.

After she runs, she lifts some weights according to the guidelines her personal trainer back home laid out. She looks at her muscles. They don't even show half of the work she's done on them. Her body was made for running, but not for looking buff. At least lifting weights feels good and she can clearly see her progress in strength training.

When she's done with her workout, she hits the showers. She stares at a fifty-year-old woman with more defined muscles than hers who seems to give no shits about people seeing her nude. Jealousy drips and pools in the back of Mallory's mind. If she could get muscles like that, she'd be much more intimidating...

The fifty-year-old woman she's watching has a beautiful ass, but a nearly non-existent bust. Not that a body like that needs a nice bust to look good. Damn! If Mallory was more into women, she'd ask this female athlete out on a date. Mallory looks away. Better not to dwell on it.

When she's done with her shower, she dries off and changes back into her work clothes. Her shoulder-pads take a bit of tweaking to get them situated right. She's tired of this pinkish gray pant-suit. Why does she even wear it?

She walks out of the gym and hops in her car. On the way home, she fondles the rubber medallion on her key chain. It has a black background with a red raised red dragon design on it. Despite the shitty failure of her mission, she's feeling really good today. After dinner, maybe she can pick up her latest romance novel. The male lead is about to reveal his secret and then, Mallory hopes, start romancing his favorite warrior queen.