She was pulling another all-nighter. It was the second one this week. She was on the sell side of the cattle deal and their team had been preparing for the presentation for the past month. The cattle people were flying in tomorrow and they'd want to see what they were paying for before they went ahead with the pitch. Everything had to be perfect and Rei Chan was overseeing it personally, of course that didn't mean she was staying all night like her. As the most junior member of the team she was stuck with majority of the monotonous tasks such as actually putting together the slides, due diligence on the company, and most of the research. The senior members dealt with information that also involved other departments such as information that would need to be discussed with the compliance, and credit risk departments.

"Hey, Serena, that's coming along really nicely." Jeremy was also working on his piece for the presentation. He was only three years more senior than she but he was already VP associate. He worked hard for long hours. There was no one he was responsible for and no family he had to run home to. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had a sleeping bag stowed somewhere in the office. She could work hard also but she needed her break otherwise her tired mind had a tendency to wander.

"Thanks, Jeremy."

"I'll see you tomorrow. I just finished what I had to do."

"See ya, have a goodnight."

When she finished the slides it was 4:30 in the morning. Car service was waiting for her when she got downstairs and of course it was pouring and she was without an umbrella. Before she could reach the door of the waiting car a figure grabbed with first.

"HEY! I think that one's mine."

The figure turned around. It was the young man that she'd met the first day in the elevator.

"Sorry. I didn't think anyone was still here and just figured that this car was for me."

He didn't seem to recognize her.

"No you take it, I'll just take yours when it comes," Serena says as she turns back to the building. Even if he didn't know her, she felt that he helped her when she needed it, and it was just a small gesture she could make to thank him.

"Thanks," he says looking at her quizzically.

It takes three separate alarms to go off before it even registers to her that it was time to get up. She'd set her alarms an hour early so she'd have time to get ready. The lack of sleep was leaving her with bags under her eyes that she needed to cover up. Her pale complexion also needed brightening. She hadn't had time to trim her hair in the past 3 months. It now hung listlessly around her face. She tied her hair up in a low bun. Clean and simple, that's how she liked it.

Grabbing a bunch of coffees at the Starbucks around the corner from the office she heads up with a ready smile ready. The clients were already in the boardroom. Even with the coffee she'd bought her in hand Rai wasn't pleased at her tardiness.

The presentation went as well as expected, and the cattle people were satisfied with their performance. Now she was returning to the office. She was meeting with Rai for assignment of her next project.

"Take a seat Serena. Good work by the way. Jeremy has decided to leave us. He's given his two weeks notice. We need you to take over for him and continue his report on the mining industry. Can you do that?"

"Sure, absolutely, Rai. It's too bad about Jeremy."

There was no response from Rai, merely raised brows. Serena took the hint and stepped out of Rai's office.


The party for Jeremy was scheduled for 6 that night. The whole office was probably going to head down to the downstairs bar for happy hours. Serena figured she'd better catch Jeremy before then to figure out where he was at with the research.

When she entered his cubicle she saw that he was already packing up to go.

"Hey Serena, what's doing?" Jeremy asked cheerily.

"Heading to greener pastures?"

"Yea, I got a generous offer from Diamond Ventures."

"Diamond Ventures!" Serena exclaimed surprised. What a small world she thought to herself.

"Pretty unexpected, right. I thought so too but apparently they have a investment branch of the company that has an opening."

"Did you apply there?" Serena asked quizzically.

"That was the other weird thing. They contacted me. They'd heard that I was doing some research about their business and I had some smart questions I guess, because they wanted to meet and then I got the job."

"Well congrats! Rai spoke to me about taking over some that research on mining companies that you were doing. Do you have that saved on the network somewhere?"

"Yea, yea, let me show you."

They went over in detail everything Jeremy had covered and where his direction was going to be in the main report that they were going to publish and send out to members and media. Jeremy was a very conscientious worker and Serena just hoped that she would be equal to the task. He'd done the preliminary research already and already had a run up on the companies with the largest market cap in the industry. Jeremy got a lot of the qualitative work done already. He just needed the numbers to back it up. Operational efficiency was key in evaluating mining companies and Serena saw that this was where Jeremy left off. She would have a lot of number crunching on her hands.

It didn't surprise her that two of the companies that she would have to do a detailed run up on would be Diamond Ventures and Kingsley Industrials. She was just glad that Jeremy had already done the bio on the two enigmatic CEOs.