Crossroads—2026-04-15 (Patreon)

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Chapter 86: ONWARD WE GO by Merritt Gray

Last night ended with Hannah and me at Crossroads Phase II getting the night crew up to speed, then sitting in her living room watching the news and eating lunchmeat sandwiches.

“Will wants to meet with me in the afternoon tomorrow. He wouldn’t say what, but that he thought it was good and that you had a preview.”

She let me get away with not unfolding the whole idea. “Mr. Davis implied he’d rather I didn’t. They just didn’t want your good news to catch me off guard.”

Today ended with us back at Crossroads Phase II talking to a code enforcement inspector about a service entry panel that pre-existed the remodel. It’s a big deal, but a fairly easy fix.

All I could get out of Hannah about her meeting at the time was, “I’m processing.”

I talked her into dinner and the discussion came up immediately.

“I’m very conflicted,” she said. “I didn’t say no, of course.”

I nodded. “I figured you would be, and I knew you wouldn’t. If you want to talk about it, I’d like to understand how you feel.”

The rest of this chapter is exclusive to Patreon.

Hannah gave me a warm thank-you smile and kissed my cheek. “You sure you want to open that box?”

“If you want to process it out loud, go for it.”

"So, Mr. Robertson had a big, fancy, legal-friendly, HR-compliant way of saying they eventually want me to be a partner because I have boobs."

I smiled and shook my head. “I know he didn’t say it like that.”

"Of course not those words. But that's the gist of it."

“I also know that’s not what he meant. You’re a talented engineer. You’re great with people and details. Before anything else, you’re a partner-track engineer.”

“Who has boobs…” Hannah sucked in a breath, like she was trying to use air to clear her thoughts. “The bottom line is they wanted some idea whether or not I thought I’d be around ten years to justify investing time in me.”

“What do you think about that?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “It makes sense that they would ask, but I don’t like being given special treatment for being a girl.”

“Hannah, you’re a great engineer, and you are awesome in meetings. You understand people. You’re one of the cool kids in the room, but you’re kind and gracious, so everyone feels good about being around you. Of course they see partner-potential in you.”

“All of that is true about you. And that bit about bringing a different perspective to the partner level is just code for being female, which you know doesn’t always work out as an advantage for me.”

“Well, in some cases it helps the firm.”

“In some cases it doesn’t. Most days at Phase II the contractors and foremen want to talk to you and stare at me. The code enforcement guy probably thought I was your secretary.”

I nodded and frowned a little. “You’re not wrong, but you had to expect to be treated differently going into civil engineering. It’s still a male-dominated field.”

“I knew it in my head. I just didn’t expect it to show up like this.”

She reached for her tea, and I let her sip it, waiting for her to go on. When she didn’t, I added a thought.

“But NYC SysCo’s idea for you is a good thing.”

“They could have just gone with the plan without telling me I was being singled out.”

“Back to that part where they wanted to make sure their investment wouldn’t leave the company, though,” I added.

“Yeah, I get it, but now I’m going to know. And everyone else will notice.”

“I told Mr. Davis that,” I replied.

“So, here’s what I’d like to do,” Hannah said as she slightly turned to me. “You and I work twice as hard as everyone else. We go in early. We stay late. We get all the details right the first time. We double check, measure twice, calculate three times… We take every meeting we can, and work our way up together.”

“We work twice as hard?” I said. “How am I involved?”

“Because if you do all that, you’ll be the guy who moves up… The guy that moves up based on your work ethic and the quality of your engineering.”

“I’m okay with that,” I replied.

Hannah smiled knowingly. “And when I move up with you… me, having done all those same things… Then, people won’t think I got promoted because I have boobs.”

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All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

Message from AGI-Stories…

For context, in the United States, a small percent of civil engineers are female. Representation is improving—especially at the entry level—but women are still underrepresented in senior leadership roles.

According to Google:

Approximately 17% of civil engineers in the United States are female. While women are increasingly visible in the field, they remain a minority, with male engineers comprising roughly 83% of the workforce. The profession is actively working toward increasing representation, with higher percentages often seen at the entry-level than in senior management roles.

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