Counterclockwise

1: A Seminal Work in Temporal Shifting

Miss Mina pauses for a moment. "Oh, please, just call me Mina. I can't stand ma'am, honestly."

"Oh, sorry!" Simon finds himself stumbling over his feet, almost, to step back. She reaches out a hand as if to steady him, a joyful smile on her face. Why are her eyes so god damn kind? It makes Simon sad; he knows they have months yet, but at the same time, he knows that's all she has left. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she emphasises, patting him gently on the shoulder. "Don't be worried about upsetting me. Save all that." Her grin turns into a thin line, and she looks away. "Hold onto it, but not for me."

"What do you mean?" Simon asks softly. He looks down at the papers they're trying to organise; most of these seem to be parliamentary bills. On top there's a speech. His eyes glance it, and he actually recognises it- it's not that they'll study every speech of hers in high school, but rather, he'll look up videos of her when he knows he's going to be coming, watch the way she pulls the crowd this way and that with her words, watch the way that she writes morality on the wall so clearly that you must know to follow her. She's convincing, and this is one of her most convincing early speeches, the one that started the movement of dissolution in earnest. She won't live to see it to its end.

Miss Mina sighs, and gives him a long look. It's still strange, looking someone in the eyes when you know they'll be long dead before your mother's birth. "Honestly, a big part of your job is just going to be handling the boys."

Simon's heart sinks. One of the things he'll do to prepare to come here is to visit Noel Spencer. Nothing will happen to him physically, and Noel won't say a goddamn word, but the thought of seeing him again- seeing him for the first time- still makes Simon shiver. It's something in his eyes.

She did say boys, and honestly, it's only then that Simon recalls the second named victim of the Rift: Leon Spencer, the older of the brothers, a footnote in the future history books. 

"...Lee largely handles himself," Miss Mina says. "He doesn't get himself into a whole lot of trouble, but he always follows Noel into it. Noel's always leading the charge. It's just gotten worse since his birthday, and I don't have time to catch up with them- and evidently Lee can't wrangle Noel on his own. Basically," she says with a sigh, "your secret second job is babysitting."

"I can do that." Simon's got no other purpose for the next two months- aside from, he supposes, researcher.

"You can try," Miss Mina laughs. "If you figure out the secret to keeping Noel out of trouble, you let me know, will you?"

"That bad, huh?" Simon asks, and the prime minister shakes her head with a smile.

"You're young enough that he might listen to you. You're twenty-nine, right?"

Age wise, yes. Technically he's negative forty or so. "Yeah."

"Well, you can try and be cool with them. Working for me will probably put a damper on things, but it seems Noel will listen to anyone he thinks is cool more than he'll listen to me. Are you cool?"

"I doubt it."

"Eh, just do your best to keep them out of trouble. For now, personal assistant wise, I basically just need all these papers sorted- we were up late last night, so there's a mix of movements we're trying to push through, speeches, letters we've got to send out, all that fun stuff. Most calls about political stuff should go to the Connie or Arif, but you've got Connie's number if you need to interact with that stuff for whatever reason. If you want to meet the boys now, I think they're in the library. Hopefully nothing is broken."

"Would you prefer this done first, or...?"

Miss Mina waves her hand. "Manage yourself, if you don't mind. As long as you do everything on the to-do list by the time I tell you it's gotta get done, I don't care in what order. This only needs done by tonight, but I'll probably dump more on your plate before then."