These things happen.
Have you ever heard that saying? I could never decide whether or not I liked it. It usually follows behind poor circumstances and situations that left people in conditions beyond their control. Whether they were small and simple, or possibly world ending. These things happen.
Like Norma for instance on Level 2 who, for some time now, has been going on and on in my ear with her blasé attitude in regards to informing us when her terminal server suddenly crashed, and didn't think inform us in the I.T department until 4 days later, since it didn't and I quote "pertain then like it does now". To the company, it could spiral out into a 'world ending' type of situation. But to Norma, it was small and simple.
"Mrs. Corti, I understand that you think our computer system is confusing, but this is actually a serious problem." I kept my voice calm as I hear Norma on the other end huff and puff.
"Don't tell me this is a problem; I know it is. What about the progress I made? Is it completely lost?" I have never met Norma face to face, but she had a voice that gave me the mental picture of a middle-aged woman. Like the kind that has black hair cut sharply to neck-length and is dressed in what she would consider in a carefully-crafted, dignified style.
"I wouldn't say that. If you haven't fully set up with our cloud for the company then any progress you have made is going to be even harder to salvage from the floor's actual server, let alone your personal work computer. That's if possible, when found. That is why we heavily encourage you to use the company's cloud if you yourself didn't have an online backup or an external saving hard drive like a USB."
"Clouds? This has nothing to do with the weather, Ms. Buchanan and this needs to be fixed as soon as possible."
Oh good lord.
I move the phone away from my ear and take a slow breath. Looking to my desk clock I nearly groan. I've been wanting to hit myself in the head with my desk phone for over 30 minutes. Putting the phone back to my ear I am met with a few words that have me blinking a few times.
"I will not be held accountable for your lack of effort in our-" The rest of her sentence drones out to nothing as I blink a few times.
I'm sorry, what now?
"Our lack of effort?" I echo while she's in mid-speech.
"Yes. Your lack of effort." She reiterates.
"Now hang on a minute." I say as I lean forward in my chair. "Mrs. Corti you should not be pointing the proverbial finger at someone who's job is to actually help you in situations like this. I am trying to help you by explaining-"
"You haven't helped me much at all, Ms. Buchanan!" That had me taking a breath and pulling the phone from my ear a moment, debating on throwing the damn thing before I put it back. "I'm just saying-"
Okay, I have had enough of this and I still had work to do so I changed tactics.
"And I am just saying that the help you are requiring is not from our lack of effort." I stated calmly cutting through again. "When you were hired, I.T helped move you into your office. While there we set up your computer, your email, your log in and handed you your server codes." When she doesn't add anything, I continue staying firm, but my voice calm. "We also left clear instructions both on your desk and in your home and work email on how to log into the server to access the cloud and any information that pertains to your work done here at Tricell. That way, it doesn't get lost if we have a random system or server crash. And if we do, we will help you recover them. Like I am trying to do so now." I pause and take a slow breath. "That's not lack of effort on our, or more specifically, my end. However, I am not the one to be at fault due to fact that you yourself didn't manually log in, in order for your computer to be linked to both the server, which then would have uplinked you to the cloud. Then, this wouldn't have happened. And since you waited so long to notify us, we will have to dig into days worth of deleted files to find the ones you are looking for. And as I have been trying to explain to you for the past 45 minutes, is what I have been trying to locate."
"And how long does that usually take?" She inquired and I closed my eyes and took a breath, thinking about it. Our company building was large, thanks to a merger 2 years ago. So instead of our old small building we now had several floors to account for. Below ground, we had 4 levels of labs, and above ground including the main floor, we had another 5 levels. That was several servers per floor, twice as many computers, and at the speed of which information is saved and processed on a daily basis… Whew.
"Well, the day of the crash, perhaps a few minutes, but days later? It could take could take a few hours, or a few days. A lot gets processed here, believe it or not so it's a lot of information to go through." I admit honestly.
"I don't have a few days! I need them by the end of today!" The way she demanded had my jaw jutting out sideways.
"You would have had days if you had notified us sooner." The slight bite in my words had her huffing out a loud exhalation on the other end of the phone that matched my internal one. "Mrs. Corti, I am moving as fast as I can. But it will work a lot easier for both of us if you work with me rather than against me. There no point in playing a 'whose-fault-is-it' game when we both want the same thing." I wait for a moment before a long sigh greets my ears. "Okay?"
"You're right. I'm sorry. These things just happen." There it was. That saying. And she sounded like she meant it. And from there, I continue my search for her missing shipping slips.
"Not a problem. Now, if you would please be so kind and remind me, there are multiple deleted slips that you are needing that were going from your main terminal to Asia, you said?"
"That's correct." She still sounded a little tense, but calmer. That was a relief.
"Then that should help us when we are sifting through this information. It's not often that Shipping gets a crashed server so it should be a simple find. If you could send me the accounts that they were headed to, this should go by a lot quicker." I say as I enter codes into the server search engine.
"I can send them to you in the next few minutes." I heard the faint sound of clicking and relaxed immensely.
"Fantastic. Thank you." I lean back in my chair as my fingers start loading up level 2's server and enter into the corrupted sections when she gives me the information I am looking for. From there, it's a few minutes before I have located what she seems to have been missing. "Alright. I have a few things here. The best I can do is resend you all previous notes you have made, although any loss of recent information will have to be written once again, unfortunately there isn't much I can do about that."
"Why is that?" She sounds relieved that I found what she's looking for, but still a little miffed about the loss of notes.
As I lean back in my chair I glance up and see Michael Strickland, a security guard for our main lobby walking my way with a purposeful stride. "No doubt the notes were made but unable to be saved before the server crashed. As for the physical slips, they should be saved on the fax machine they came in on and I will have them directed to you as well." I say as I click a few times as Michael has neared my office and offers me a small hello with a quiet wave of his hand. I offer him a weak smile and roll my eyes in regard to being on the phone.
I look up at him as he leans a shoulder on the edge of my cubical wall and silently mouth the words 'hang on' and raise 3 fingers to indicate the minutes needed. He nods and mouths back; 'no rush' and lets me turn back to my computer.
"Better than nothing." Norma returns as I get to typing quickly. "Thank you." She adds.
"Indeed and your welcome. I've also enclosed directions on connecting your computer to our cloud for further backup safety."
"I will definitely get to doing that. I'd hate for this to happen again. Then again," She chuckles on her end. "these things happen." That's the second time she's said that and I hold back my long-drawn-out sigh.
"Lets just hope not anytime soon, okay Mrs. Corti?" When she agrees I promptly hang up and let out a long-pained sigh as I log out of the server then turn to smile at the face of my favourite security guard.
"Good mmm," I drawl and glance back to my desk clock and read the time and found myself surprised when it only read 11:27. "Morning, Mr. Strickland. How's our favourite security guard doing?" I ask as I turn my seat a little side to side.
"Working hard as ever. Seems you're doing the same." He jerked his chin towards the phone. "I saw when I was heading over that you were looking a little... Irked."
"That's a word for it." I take my glasses off and run a hand down my face before I slide them back on. He looks at me, with a face that radiates concerned interest. "No, I'm fine, it's just been a long morning." I admit.
"Its almost noon." He offers and I let out a pained laugh.
"Feels like 3pm. Most of my morning was held up thanks to Mrs. Corti." I tell him as I gesture to the phone and rub my eyes under my glasses once again.
"She's in shipping, right?" He asked as he shifted a little before continuing to lean against the wall of my cubical. When I nodded with a long hum of agreement, I heard his chuckle. "Yeah, from what the other guys tell me, she's quite the character." I look up at him and see him shaking his head. "She's had a few of our guys wanting to pull their hair out. It looks like you took that quite well."
"Thank you, Mike." I shift in my chair as I get a solid look at him. From the dark blue security uniform to the way he looked he always reminded me of Martin Freeman from the movie Hot Fuzz. It always made me smile when I saw him, though now I catch the worry lines that creased his forehead. "Although I don't suppose you came all the way here to talk to me about Norma Corti?"
"No, uh, as a matter of fact I didn't. I need a favor." He asks sheepishly.
"Name it." He looks at me surprised when I was that quick to respond and looked sheepish for just a second before he pulled out a slender little laptop from behind the cubical wall and showed it to me. It was a slender blue HP laptop covered in cartoon stickers that had me raising a brow. "Didn't figure you for the SpongeBob watching type, Mike." I tease as he looks to the stickers and lets out a nervous chuckle.
"It's my daughters." He explained as I take it. "I was using it and... well..." He trails off and I look at him feeling a little unsure.
"If this is about internet safety and her going onto weird sites, I don't want to do anything if you haven't talked to her about it beforehand." I admit and the unease flickers out of his eyes.
"What? No! Nothing like that. I trust Janine to be safe in that regard. I wouldn't want to violate her privacy without cause." The conviction in his words had me turning to mush inside. Good dad. That had me offering a small smile. He ran a hand over his chin, down his neck. "My laptop's been busted and I asked to use hers and think I fucked up one of her writing programs or an essay to be exact."
I chewed on my bottom lip in amused thought. "Okay. Fucked it up, how?" I ask and that had him pace a step or two.
"I don't know! I'm not good with these things. One minute it was fine, then a new window popped up and I skimmed over the text and clicked on a button that I think said 'overwrite'. Then the whole program just… stopped. But I didn't want her to give me a headache about misuse of it and since she's out looking at College campuses, I figure I could bring it to you to work your magic before she got back." The way he moved when he talked made it look like it was life or death. That had my smile growing a little more.
"Sounds simple enough." I opened the little laptop and booted it up. "I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you." He let out a breath and left me to work. Her laptop was clean, a few letters faded from use, small stickers decorated the corners, one that had me smiling was a cartoon bee that was followed by the word 'happy'. Cute.
"Do you know what essay subject it was on?" I ask as it boots up to the main screen. No password protection, no numerical code, it just put you into the main screen that had a picture of a beach. Hm? Smart girl, but an unlocked computer? Most kids, hell, some adults always locked their electronics up like a damn vault. Opening up a window for her most used programs I search for her Word Processor and go to her recent folder. Judging from the pervious works that are saved on here, this girl is just a regular high school senior student. That to me, showed her openness. Nothing to hide.
"History, I think." Mike returned breaking me out of the thought. Glancing up to him and thinking about his words about respecting his daughter's privacy, I can't help but get the sense that their family was a solid unit. Open. Accessible at all times. I would be lying if I didn't say I was a little jealous of them. Swallowing past that small twinge, I press on.
"Alright. Let's get started." I murmur as I look through a few things. A stark difference from dealing with Norma who thought her problems were too small to bother with. And then there were some, like Michael Strickland here, with the simple situation of accidentally deleting or overwriting his daughter's history essay is, to him, world ending. He's now in my cubical, pacing as I poke around this little laptop. Peering over my glasses at him, I can't help but let out an amused sigh. "Mike, seriously, you're going to thin out my carpet. Take a seat. Relax." He stops his pacing and lets out a groan as he rubs the back of his neck again.
"I appreciate you doing this, El." He chuckled nervously as he took the seat across from my small desk.
"It's not a problem," I say with a comforting smile as I search for the essay. "After all the work we've been recently doing backing up all of L2's servers, this is a nice walk in the park." I admit as I scroll through her deleted files.
"This stuff is all to complicated for me." He waves a hand before rubbing his forehead.
"What were you doing that made you delete the file if I might ask?" I glance to him as I type a few words in a search bar.
"Well I was typing up a letter to my supervisor and saved over it. Or broke it." He explains. I glance up from the small screen and frown.
"Everything alright?" I ask as I slow down my typing. He nods and offers me a worry-free smile.
"Nothing worrying. A new position opened up in BL3's security and I was looking into it. Better pay, better benefits and longer hours." My fingers stop as my head fully turns to regard him.
"BL3? That's," I stop and think on it a moment before a slight chill covers my shoulders. "The BioLabs." I say quietly. He regards me blankly and nods once again. "Are you sure you want to be on that level?" I ask cautiously as I push my glasses back to the bridge of my nose when they slowly slide down.
"I wouldn't be signing up for their trials or tests, El, rest assured. Just for the security of that floor. That's all." He says it so reassuringly that I have to take a small breath and slouch in my chair.
"Good." Comes another voice that has him turning in his seat and me looking up from my own to see my cubical neighbor Taniesha Carter walking down the corridor holding two coffee cups. Her deep rich brown skin contrasted against both her uniform blazer and slacks and the glass windows of our cubicles. Her hair hung in thick braids that was weaved with vivid colours that change with each passing week. This week's colour was orange. "So many good folks have been called down there we hardly know what's going on. They took Bruster over a month ago and no one has seen him since." She stopped just shy of the cubicle's doorway. "Shame. He did good code work for the systems." She reaches my desk and hands me a still steaming cup of coffee.
"Oh, come to me." I murmured, taking it and blowing on the cup while Taniesha starts reaching into the small fridge we share to start filling it the rest of the way up with some almond milk, ice, then a couple—fine quite a few—drops of chocolate syrup. I can't understand how she can put ice in hot coffee but I can't find the effort in me to care as I let out a hum of thanks as I bring my black with two sugars coffee to my lips and take a refreshing sip.
"They didn't take him, Taniesha. He retired." Mike explains as Tanisha casted him a skeptical look.
"Mike, he was 49, barely pushing 50. Who retires at that age?" She goes over to her desk and clicks her mouse, her screen blinking to life not long after.
"Someone whose been working since they were 15 and loves golf?" I inject as I find a few files and start restoring them to the hard drive.
"He played golf? I thought he had a bad hip?" Taneisha looked over her shoulder at me as she logged back in.
"He had carpal tunnel in his left wrist." I return looking out of the corner of my eye at her.
"Same thing."
That had me frowning in a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Not really. Ones in his hip and the other's his arm."
"Pft. Anatomy." Taniesha shrugs off as Mike tilts his head back and chuckles as he looks between the two of us.
"My god ladies, I've forgotten how you girls talk to one another." He shakes his head. "Makes me think of my wife and her sisters." That has Taneisha tsking and moving her head side to side with a playful smirk.
"That's what happens when you've worked together for almost 3 years." She smiled and raised her mug towards me and I raised mine back. Her mug lowered as she looked back to him and sends him a small frown. "But why you gotta go and bring up your wife? You know I don't care to hear about that." She pressed a hand to her chest, like she was heartbroken while I rolled my eyes. Here we go.
Mike looked back at her, amused. "Well, I care about it. Sorry to burst your bubble."
"Come on, Mike… You know you've thought about it." She teases as she stirs her coffee. He leans against the wall of my cubical and grins at her.
"Well, that's more your job. You know, to think about a lot of things." He tosses playfully back at her.
"Like getting our work done?" I call to her. When she rolls her head back and groans, I can't help but let out a humored huff.
"Speaking of which,' Mike turns to me with hopeful eyes, "how's that laptop coming along?"
"I've recovered the essay, saving dual copies and finishing up… now." With a little flair, I press the SAVE button and turn the laptop towards him. The look of relief on his face had me smiling wide.
"Thanks, I owe you one." He breaths out as he closes the sticker covered laptop.
"I'd settle for your word saying that you'll be careful on any B-floors that you might get assigned too." He regards me slowly and after a moment his head moves up and down in agreement.
"Can do. But if you're ever in a bind, let me know." He lifts the laptop and gives another thankful nod. "Take it easy, ladies."
"You too Mike." I call as I settle back against my chair while Taneisha leaned back in her as he walked away and a low whistle left her lips.
"You just scored a favour in security." She looked at me and gave a teasing wink. "Nice." She took a long sip of her coffee, her dark brown eyes never leaving me. When it held for a long minute, I leaned my head backwards till my banana clip touched the headrest.
"What?"
"What kinda favour would you call in from him?" She gives me a mischievous look that I scoff at.
"For fixing a save file?" I set my coffee down and chuckle. "Probably for him to let me into the building if I were to forget my umbrella or something mundane after we locked up." I shake my head with a small shrug.
"That's no fun." She looks at me with clear disapproval.
"Well, my calendar is already filled to the brim with impossible missions that require discretion. A little mundane wouldn't be too bad to break things up now and then." I shake my head as she lets out a throaty laugh. "Thanks for the coffee." I add when she finishes laughing.
"Oh, no problem. I actually got held up. I was talking to one of the scientists from B4 so it took a little longer than usual." That was a surprise and my brows lifted.
"A scientist?"
"Mmmhm."
I frowned. "In our break room?"
"Yep. His names Nolan." She smiled a little.
"Why would Nolan be in our break room? Don't they have their own?"
"They do and he was there 'cause he knows we make the best coffee." I couldn't help but agree. I.T did work around the clock, therefore the one thing we all could agree on was a need for good quality coffee. "Anyway," she continues, "he was telling me that he got approval for a request to put in voice activation for all the labs."
"What?" I gap at her. "Voice activation? Like talk to text?" She kissed her teeth while she thought about it.
"Kind of. Apparently, he made a good argument to Littz about how if he's working away from his computer, he can could be able to call out a command and have the computer make notes instead of him walking away to do so. It saves time and saves him the trouble of missing a small detail if he were to just walk away." As she explained I felt a new kind of awe for the technology we were getting to have at our fingertips.
"Just for the Labs?"
"That's what he said."
"Would it work for us?"
"I think it would, since that'll also be something we have to code and tinker with. After all 'our labs are our newest priority'." She reminded me, mocking our supervisors voice. Since our small company got merged with Tricell a few years ago and another unknown company that specialized in medicine, that has been a top priority. Glancing to the glass windows of our cubical, the frosted symbol of the company stood out against the lightly coloured walls. I could almost here the slogan; 'Tricell; the future of medicine,' or at least that's how they saw it.
The scientists below us were of the minds that if they could enter the blood stream they could repair any damage, kill any cancer, reverse the ageing process, aid the immune system... they could carry out surgeries, save unborn babies that otherwise wouldn't have made it, repair genetic damage, remove genetic disease and so on... It kind of baffled me. The offices themselves were built with fresh air and health as a priority. As such, air from the outside arrived in floor vents and left through the ceiling directly above. It lowered the dose of any viruses present, as such it was a different kind of medical supplement to compliment other forms of healthcare.
"El? Ellie? Elodie!" Taneisha's voice snapped me out of my thoughts and my eyes snapped back to her face. "You went quiet." She scolded me softly.
"Sorry. Do we have to get our voices recorded or does it just recognize the command?" I ask referring to what she had been talking about.
"He didn't say. Well, I didn't think to ask to be honest."
"hmm. Could we do it from our offices?"
She shook her head, her braids swaying at the bottoms. "Nah, he said it was localized, meaning that its just in the labs. So if you're on those floors-"
"That's the only place you can do it." I finish for her. She hums in agreement as she takes a long drink of her coffee. "Great." I mutter when her desk phone rings. She turns back to her desk with a flourish of flipping a single braid out from hanging over her ear as she picks up her phone. Checking back into my computer I check my work mail and see a notice to call Edward Reeds. Picking up my own phone I enter his extension and wait as it rings.
"Edward Reeds, Marketing." His voice was clipped, like he rushed to pick up the phone.
"Yes, hi Mr. Reeds-" I was cut off by an irritated groan.
"I've sent you a new project list that you haven't returned back to me."
What? "Oh, um, I'm sorry?"
"You'll need to go through it the same way you did yesterday's assignment." His voice was coming in waves of louder and softer, like he was moving around his office.
"Sir-"
"Once you're done with that, you can start making courtesy calls to clients who haven't rebooked and let them know you're offering them the chance to meet with us before our calendar fills up."
"Mr. Reeds I think you have me mistaken for someone else." I say gently when he paused for a breath.
"What?" He sounded confused. "Isn't this Rachel?"
"No sir, it's Elodie Buchanan from I.T. You emailed me earlier this morning and told me to call."
"Yes, right. What took you so long?" He asked sounding irritated. I inwardly wince and shrink in my chair from the tone of his voice.
"I apologize sir. A problem with shipping's server held me up until a few minutes ago."
"Right. Whatever. Then… why did I ask you to call?" I didn't answer, since that sounded like he was asking himself that question. "Oh yes, right. Please tell me that you fixed that routing error from last week?"
I close my eyes and internally wince. "No, not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because we haven't received the materials for it." I supply and its for situations like this that make me pleased that I don't have to go from person to person like an assistant. "I can't repair something without them."
"I thought I gave them to you to do it yesterday. Around the same time I gave you my copies of our server history for review, which, no doubt, you haven't finished since they should be on my desk."
That had me taking a shallow breath.
"I was here all night and I barely got through half." I admit as I glance to the stack to my right. It still rested there. I narrowed my eyes at it.
"What do you mean only half?" I heard the sound of creaking, no doubt the man was leaning back in his chair. "It wasn't that much and it doesn't take you this long."
"Sir, I personally had to go to the printing room and pick them up. You had all six printers printing 23 pages a minute for 30 minutes." I explained tensely as I rubbed my eyes feeling a small migraine forming as I did quick math. "That's... 4,140 pages."
"I don't want excuses, and you will mind who you are speaking to, so watch your tone." He snapped. My lips pressed together while my fingers tightened on the phone.
For the second time today I wanted to throw my phone. "I'm sorry sir." I gentled my voice, even though I was beginning to get irritated.
"That's better." I hear the sound of a door opening, the muffled sound of another voice before he lets out a quiet 'thank you' before the sound of a door closing again. "Now, I expect them to be on my desk by tomorrow morning, at the latest. I don't want anyone from higher up breathing down my neck any more than you do. Do I make myself clear?"
I suppressed the urge the bang my head against my desk.
"Yes sir. Crystal clear." I say tightly. He barely gets the word 'good' out before my ear is met with the droning tone of a disconnected call. Lowering the phone to the hanger I set my eyes on the paperwork and glare at it. It was in multiple stacks that covered the better half of my desk. Finding my marked tab from where I left off, I get back into work, reading line after line of code for our servers and take out a highlighter to mark sections off for review for the higher ups. I don't know how long I was going through them but I made a decent dent when Taneisha calls from her side of the cubical.
"Did you hear that someone from higher up is coming to our branch this week?" Taniesha asks as her nails click over the keys. I shake my head as I pull out a book for a brief reference while I navigate to L4's remote terminal for a minute.
"No, I haven't had my ear out for that unfortunately." I admit absentmindedly as I skim through the pages then back to the screen. As her words sink in, I mark my place. "Think they're here to see how our quarters are doing for products?" I asks quietly and I pause in my search to look at her.
"It's Tricell, Ellie. I'm pretty sure they're not coming here to talk about our Anderton software. No doubt about the little problem that happened a week or so ago." She tosses out as she clicks her mouse a few times while I mentally recall last week. So much happened here that it blurs together most of the time. The all nighter didn't help either.
"What makes you say that? I thought it was cleared up?" She kisses her teeth as she leans back in her chair, her face a mixture of smug and doubtful and something… else... That had my eyes widening and a sense of foreboding settle across my shoulders. "Dammit Taneisha, did you do something sketchy?" I ask in a harsh whisper but I already know the answer, especially when she makes an over exaggerated roll of her head and groans.
"Look, do you really want to grill me for the next hour asking me exactly what I did or did not do, or do you want to help me sort through this?" I swallow a little and rub my eyes under my glasses again as I reach into my desk drawer and mentally prepare for this. She doesn't wait for an answer and just goes on as I start bracing myself. "I had to do some scrubbing from BL4's records and their maintenance records are showing that they replace heat sensors on nearly all of their floor panels bi-weekly." She points out and I feel a pit in my stomach start to grow as I rub my temple as I sip my coffee. "Now," she starts again, "why would they go through all that trouble when they told us via bulletin board that everything was okay and cleared up?"
A minute passed between us in silence and I can't help but think about it and I let out a tired sigh.
"What grade of sensor?" I ask and she raises a brow before leaning closer to me.
"Almost military grade." That had me blinking several times before my eyes squinted in confusion. Military grade sensors like that have only a few legal uses. And they were mainly used for the armed forces. Taking off my glasses, I lift a bottom corner of my shirt and start nervously cleaning the lenses.
"That doesn't make any sense." I admit softly. "It's not like the sensors would get used up in that short amount of time." I put my glasses back on my face as my other hand trailed a finger up and down the stacks of papers on my desk. I really need to get these done... "And no news has come to our attention of them ever failing a safety test." That, believe it or not, was one of the few slightest perks of working in IT. Taneisha pointed a finger at me in agreement.
"Exactly, they wouldn't."
"So someone is bulk buying these sensors so they could hide something." The words leave my lips in nearly a whisper as trepidation crawls along my skin. "So why are they getting so many heat sensors?" I ask aloud.
"I don't know. But it can't be good."
"Well, we don't know that." I start to continue but I'm cut off by Taneisha's desk phone. She turns and looks down at the number and rolls her eyes before putting her headset on. "In truth, I could think of three different ways they could explain these away. We don't know what goes on in those labs, and-".
"Not if we can manage to get them on record before they know we have it." She points out and I balk at her.
"Whoa whoa whoa, we? Record?" I echo, feeling like I'm slowly figuring out what she's implying. The phone continues to ring and with each ring, I feel the tension between us grow.
"It wouldn't take much for one of us to dig and find out." She says as she hooks in and looks me dead in the eye. It takes a moment for her words to register before my mouth slinks open as I look at her in alarmed shock.
"Taneisha Carter you are not asking me to do what I think you are!" I whisper yell as she slowly pressed her lips together in a thin line.
"I'm not asking, I'm… invitingly implying." She clicks a button on her phone's pad before I can get another word in. "Thank you for your patience, I am currently busy with another client and will be with you shortly, please hold." She clicks the button again and waits for it to start blinking orange, indicating the call was behind held and looked at me. "Girl, you can't sit there and tell me something about all this doesn't seem odd to you." She pushed a braid out of her face while I steadily feel a wave of panic coming on.
"It doesn't matter if its odd to me!" I look up to make sure no one else has heard me before looking back to her, feeling that pebble of panic grow in the pit of my stomach. "In case you don't remember, the last time you asked me to do some digging, that was before the merger and that had a few alarms trip up as well as questions were asked. Louanne was fired since she kept asking around and I haven't heard from her since last July." I swallow tightly and push my glasses up my nose since they slid down a little. Taniesha looked away at my words. "Since then, I keep my head down, my nose out of the labs work and just work on helping people get their computers up and running from a safe distance since that's what I am good at!"
That has her kissing her teeth again, looking displeased. "Ellie-"
"Don't you 'Ellie' me!" I snap making her eyes go wide. "It isn't my business and I am going to keep it that way." I point a finger at her. "You want to start digging where you aren't concerned? Then fine. Be my guest. But leave me out of it." My tone seemed to have gotten through to her as she nodded tightly and turned in her chair facing away from me.
"Hello, you've reached Taniesha at Tricell Corp, IT department. How can I help you today, Mr. Owens?"
Her phone call, thankfully, cuts our conversation short but my mind still lingers on what she had said about the sensors. But… I look back to my computer and see line after line of code from Level 4's terminal. It wasn't a question, I could find out why if I dug deep enough, some of us hadn't looked much deeper beyond the surface since our merger, many of us had been curious to see who we would be working with, and very few could peek behind walls, but the information I had started looking into spiraled out into an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole situation. The phrasing of reports of certain serums had me confused and that's when I discovered copies of attached photos. I shut my eyes before the recollection had me shuddering out a breath. Opening my eyes, I saw my fingers tapping on the desk, nerves slowly peeking in.
Glancing to my desk clock, I see the time is well into 2pm. I haven't eaten and now is a good a time as any to get something in me that's not coffee. Logging out of my server and computer, I gather my bag and head towards the luncheon with a handful of the papers under my arm. No one else is around, and for that, I am surprised but grateful for the peace.
My lunch sprints past me as I work and eat. I barely remember getting back to my desk and continuing to work on the stacks of files. As I had told Reeds, I had worked all night last night on these damn things and by the 3 quarters the way through, I can practically taste ink through my fingers. After dealing with 6 more calls of smaller varying irritating degrees, I am back at the damn server review. Line after line blurs together and soon, my mind is on autopilot, collecting and storing at a rate that some still find boggling. My highlighter is now making shrieking sounds whenever I run it over the paper and I feel like it's the audible sound of my internal brain screaming.
How could they use so much and yet, they seem to produce so little? It boggled my mind for maybe 21 pages before I let it go. It wasn't worth getting a nosebleed over. When my highlighter is just about to fade out is when a soft knock on my desk had me breaking out of my work and looked up at Taneisha.
She held up a pair of coffees in her hand and offered me one without a word. Her face looking tired from our day but also held a twinge of regret. Looking from her face to her extended hand, I let out a tired sigh and took it from her.
"I'm sorry." She said softly as she sat in the chair across my desk. I looked into that cup of dark liquid and for the first time in who knows how long, closed my eyes and nodded. My eyes stung from being held open so long, a problem I had when doing long bouts of steady server work.
"I'm sorry too." I admit feeling the day weigh on me. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that… And not that its an excuse but I am tired from my all nighter and have had people jumping down my throat all day. You didn't deserve that."
"I shouldn't have pushed you before. I know that it makes you… uncomfortable." She says looking from me to my computer. "Though I will say," she says softly looking back to me. "You look hot when your getting angry."
"I don't like getting angry." I mutter as my fingers move over the rim of my mug.
"I think you get the best snapbacks when you do." She offered and I roll my eyes.
"Well, regardless, thank you for the coffee. It'll help carry me over the last of these files. I should be done soon."
"Do you want a hand?" She asks looking over the files. The relived sigh I let out had her reaching over to the stack and grabbing a decent chunk with a toothy smile. "I'll help with as much as I can but I can't stay long, me and Andrew have a date tonight." She tells me, her eyebrows going up and down suggestively as she begins adding her almond milk while I take a generous gulp before setting my mug down.
"Thank you for your help." I murmur and we get to work in silence. An hour moved past before Taneisha looks up towards the hallway. Her movement caught my eye and then I followed her line of sight. Two of the lab associates were walking and talking, their coats hung over their shoulders, their hands moving in ways that puzzle me, their voices in hushed tones. The level of tension between the two of them was palpable. One looked worried, even afraid while the other looked vexed.
"I want you to know..." I admit softly getting Tanishea's attention. "That if you ever suddenly… retired too soon, I would dig down and dig deep to find out where you'd gone... to play golf."
"Do I look like I'm at the age to retire or play golf for that matter?" She turns her head back to me, her braid hitting my arm lightly.
"I didn't say you were or that you did." I lean a little towards her. "I just mean if you suddenly decided too..." I stress a few words and her eyes widen and her jaw drops just a little before it snaps shut.
"Same here, girl." She turns back towards my desk and gets back to helping me. She says while she looks over her papers. "Same here."
"So what do you and Andrew have planned?" I ask absentmindedly changing the subject. She looks up to me and I am met with another toothy smile.
"Just heading to our favourite club on Westridge. Then, who knows?"
"I don't understand how you can be pressed in a room full of people like a can of sardines with music that makes you deaf and come out of it relaxed."
"Well the clubbing doesn't exactly make me relaxed, however the drinks and the hot grinding leading to what follows after, does." She looks at me for a second before nudging me with her elbow. "You and Isaac should get in on that."
I look over the ridge of my glasses at her and shake my head. "I'll just stick to working on our server network reviews." I hold up the papers in hand.
"Doesn't Isaac like to plan out stuff like that?" She asks as she starts on a fresh page.
"Well, he does, but we haven't had much time together. He works as late as I do most days."
The hum that escapes her sounded doubtful. "Honey, I still stand by what I think in regards to that situation."
"He isn't cheating on me, Taneisha." I mutter flipping to another page while she looked up at me with a look of baffled confusement.
"How can you be so calm?" She asks and I just shrug.
"It isn't logical getting into a frenzy over a non-existent circumstance."
She tosses a hand up. "You and logic. I can't imagine you without your grip on it."
"Would be a sight to see I imagine." I mutter as I highlight a line.
"I imagine it would. Though you should make time. Can't always have your shoulders to your ears."
"Rave dances would not put my shoulders down. Or getting illogically upset, for that matter."
"You know what would?" She asks and I hold up a hand, blatantly telling her to stop talking since I know where this was leading. That only gets the corner of her mouth to quirk upwards. "Just saying." She shrugs. We work until a small jingle from her phone breaks her concentration. She stood and snagged her phone from her desk, looking at the screen a minute before looking back to me and my work.
"That's my date reminder." She looks to the papers that litter my desk and gives me a regretful look. "Sorry I couldn't help you finish."
"Hey, we made a decent dent, don't stress about it." I wave away the thought.
"Alright. If your sure?" She asks even as she is already getting her stuff together to head home and I just nod as I stick my nose back into my papers. She starts to head out but not before leaning over my computer, her braids covering the screen drawing my gaze to her. "Unless you want me to hook you up with our club. You guys would have a great time. Not to mention you could get-"
"Go on your date." I urge her with a gentle shove towards the door earning me a gleeful laugh from her. "And keep both my relationship and my sex life out of your head."
"What sex life?" She asks her words having more meaning than one. I flip her off and get back to work while she laughs and heads out. "Told you! Best clapback's."
That left me smiling as I got back into work.
By the time I am about 6 sheets away from being completely finished, its pushing 10pm. Looking to the stacks that surround me, I decide multiple trips was not going to happen and go to get a cart from the printing room. The office was mostly dark, save the few of our I.T's who were working double shifts. Their screen either lit up with windows connecting to servers or just open to the main page. Within minutes, I am loading stacks of paper and starting to wheel my way to the elevator. I am reading over the last few sheets when it opens and I push the cart inside and press the button for the 4th floor.
The ride is slow, and with no one else in this metallic box, it's eerily quiet. Looking up from my last few papers, I see the light go from one floor to another with no sound indication. They should put in some of that mindless elevator music in here. Should at least help improve a few attitudes in shipping alone. The last page is finished by the time the elevator opens and I am greeted by a new floor that's not my own. Like ours though, marketing has little to no one left at their desks. The only light in the area is from the main secretary's desk lamp.
"Evening, Bianca." I call to Reeds' secretary as I stride through the office with the cart of paperwork. Silver, well groomed hair tied tight in a bun reveals a full, charming face. She looks up to me and her eyes grow wide when she looks to the cart.
"Is that-"
"The code work that Mr. Reeds has asked for." I finish for her rubbing my eyes. "Just finished and dropping it off." I look up to the door with his name on it. "Is he in?" I ask looking back to her as she offers me a look that tells me he's not.
"He left for a meeting on the 3rd floor about an hour ago."
Figures.
"That's fine. I didn't need him to sign anything. Would it be possible to put this in his office?"
"That should be fine. Let me just unlock it for you." She gets up from her desk and heads over to the door while I wheel the cart over. Looking over her head as she takes out her keys, I notice a few people walking out of their side offices to head home. The door opens and she backs away letting me wheel through. Moving it over to the wall closest to his desk, I grab a post-it note and address it to him and sign my name and stick it on top of one of the boxes. With a brisque thanks and goodnight I head back to my own office to do the same.
Sitting in my chair I finish up the last of my notes from today and sign out. Rolling my neck, I get up from my desk when my phone rings. The groan that left my lips was a nervous one as I saw the number that show up on that little screen was Gordon Littz, the CEO of the company. If he was calling me, it was intentional because he knew I was still here in the building. Taking a breath, swallowing tightly, I picked up the phone.
"Good evening, This is Elodie Buchanan, I.T, How are you, Mr. Littz?" I answer and internally beg for this to be a quick phone call.
"Evening Miss Buchanan. I am well. I apologize for the late call but I was wondering if you could come to my office for a few minutes of your time."
So much for my hope of just a quick phone call. Glancing at the clock again I manage to keep my exhaustion held in check. "Is there a problem, sir?" I ask as I faintly hear the sounds of some papers shuffling vaguely on the other end.
"Not exactly. I have a few notes here I would like to discuss as well as some concerns regarding employee codes and thought it best to discuss it in person."
O..kay? I nodded and reached over for my bag.
"Of course sir. I just have to gather my things and then I'll head right on up. Do you need me to bring anything? My tools, my handheld?" I ask as change my shoes from my work to my runners.
"Thank you for the thought, but no. I have everything I need here."
"Alright. I'll be up promptly, sir."
"Very well. See you in a few minutes."
"Yes sir." Hanging up the phone I finish gathering my things. Tossing my windbreaker over my arm I slide my work shoes under my desk and lock up my access USB in my drawers and lock it with my keys before putting them into my bag. Instead of heading to the stairs like I would to go home, I head back to the elevator and call for it. A few of my colleges are walking from the breakroom to their desk and say a quiet goodnight as I walk into the small box once again. As it rises, I look to my phone and blow out a breath at the time. I hadn't eaten anything since I had taken my lunch break, and yet, I wasn't feeling hungry. Just exhausted. I close my eyes, just to rest them for a minute and let the lull of the elevator rising in floors bring me a small moment of peace before the doors open again.
This floor is completely empty and dimly lit, save the one office with frosted glass windows at the end that was illuminated from the inside. Not even Littz's secretary was around. He must have let him go home early. The quiet is back, but this time, something has nerves skittering up my arms. I get about a few feet from the door when my hand is raised to knock when I hear voices on the other side.
"-the time draws near. We are close to perfection, but there is zero margin for error." The voice faded away for a second before coming in clearer a second later. "-boros is on the eve of its appearance."
Zero margin for error? Appearance? What...? Schooling my face and swallowing tightly, I raise my hand and knock a few times. A curt 'yes?' has me opening the door and peering in. The first thing I see is Littz at his desk, his oval face with a rounded jaw that moves side to side a little in thought, hooked nose, and large lips that are pressed tightly together. His dark brown eyes are hooded from his thick eyebrows. He has very short, fine, dark hair that is thinning, and has a pencil moustache that reminded me of French waiters in stuck up restaurants. No suit jacket though, just his dress shirt and his tie loosened.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" I push my glasses up as he motions me in.
"Yes, please come in. Close the door behind you." I step gingerly in and turn to close the door when I see another man in the room, his back resting against the corner wall.
"Punctual." He turned his head to Littz who glanced to him. "I like that."
"Thank you?" It was all I could manage as I took another step deeper into his office.
"Forgive me, Elodie Buchanan, this," Littz gestured to the tall man who stood in the corner who I now took a good look at. He had pale white skin and blond hair that was slicked back, he wore a long black coat that reached his ankles. Black boots, black pants, black gloves and a posture that gave me a sense of unease in my stomach that left me swallowing tightly, "is a big partner in our merger from 2 years ago." I didn't miss the slight stress on a few words from Littz as I looked back to the blond-haired man. "Albert Wesker." He finishes and I feel my blood cool as my eyes went from my boss to now, the man who, from what I have only read mere whispers about, was stirring things he shouldn't in the bio-weapon black markets.
He looked as uneasy as his name projects on deep sites. He stood up as straight as any boss that gets rich from suffering, from death, from inhuman acts of depravity. No amount or money can cover that... aura. Added to the fact that this guy wore sunglasses. Indoors.
Like a douche.
I nearly narrowed my eyes at him. Instead, I calmly and with an unsure smile, lace my hands in front of me.
"How do you do, Mr. Wesker?" He doesn't respond so instead I look back to Littz who gestured to a chair across from his desk, silently grateful that Wesker didn't reach to take my hand in a shake.
"Please," Littz urges once again. "Sit down." I'm grateful for the chair since putting a name to a face had left me feeling a little unsteady on my legs. "Do you know why I called you in here?" Littz asks as I settle in.
Given the fact that I was in an office with a man who was messing with bio-black markets, I picked my words slowly.
"You mentioned something about the employee codes?" I push my glasses up and set my bag by my feet and just notice my hands lightly trembled.
"That's partially correct. Wesker had a few questions about them and since you're one of our experts on these things, I decided to bring you in for consultation." He explained making me drag my sights back to the man in black.
"Oh?" My eyes went from my boss to Wesker who regarded me from his place along the wall to my right.
"Do you have a personal code?" Wesker asked, his arms tucking behind his back.
I blinked once, twice. "Yes sir. I have two." I admit.
"Where do you get them?"
"They're generated by the I.T. Department." Littz explained cutting in as he moved a few pages around on his desk.
"I'm surprised you need an I.T. Department." Wesker scoffed, his tone bordering on amused or mocking, it was hard to tell. Just the sound of his voice made me want to shrink away from him, to run from the room.
"For the number of employees we have working for us, and amount of technology we have, yes." Littz stated turning in his chair towards Wesker. When Wesker turned his head to look fully at Littz, I swallowed as Littz also shrank a little in his chair, though covered it well by making it look like he was just getting more comfortable by leaning back a bit.
"And it's a good one? One you trust?" Wesker asked as Littz gestured to me again.
"Ms. Buchanan is, as I've said, one of our best of our I.T department." That had the glint of the sunglasses turning back to me.
"Really?" A brow rose from behind those dark shades.
"The computers don't run themselves." I say honestly trying to make a small joke to hide my nerves. "But you can't access any of them without a personalized code." I add trying to get back to the topic at hand. The look that crosses his face is... pensive? I don't know what he is trying to get at so I try a different approach. "Do you need one, sir?" I ask Wesker who hasn't seemed to shift much in the large office that is slowly feeling like it was becoming more and more crowded even though no one has moved an inch. My words however, earn me another brow lift.
"What makes you think I don't have one?" He asks his tone charged a little with challenge. I cast a nervous look to Littz who just gestures for me to 'go ahead' and I look back to Wesker. I couldn't talk to him when he looked at me like… like I was something to pick apart. It was difficult to even try to meet his gaze, so I focus on just the logic of the situation. I can already feel my shoulders dropping a little as a small bit of ease settles over me.
"Because I am familiar with all employee codes for this building. And I don't believe I have one for you." I state calmly.
"As a member of this organization I should have one." That had me nodding in thought.
"And you would, if you continuously signed in on one of our computers or terminals at our location." I offered and thought on it a minute, mentally skimming through my mental memory and came up nil. "Have you been here in the time since our merger and tried to sign in or use our computers for an extended period of time?"
He doesn't look away from me and slowly, his head slightly tilts to one side. It reminded me of a snake before it surged forward to attack.
"No. This is my second visit here. I had clearance before with the company that merged with your own. If that had carried over it could have been altered or stolen, being used under someone else. Is it possible for someone to gain access to somebody else's code?"
Gain access? "Our systems have changed several times over to accommodate our other additional floors, so carrying over your 'clearance' is not the same as our access codes. But in regards to using someone else's code, not easily." I explain.
"Unless if you're one of 11 people, including yourself, then would you suppose so?"
"Um... Our team have access to all of the codes, but not the additional passwords since the users create them themselves in order to log in or access their resources."
"Alright." He shifts a little, stands up straight. "Then let me rephrase. In your employment here, has anyone ever asked you for access to someone else's code?"
I pause thinking about it, and shook my head gently. "Outside of our I.T team, no sir."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if someone were to lose information they were working on or have a minor malfunction, they would call us and remind us of their Main Log In code, that way, we have an easier time accessing the server it would have been stored on, find the code connected to it, and return it back to their device. They themselves would have to log in to access it once returned though."
"I see." He lifts from the wall and takes a step towards me. "Have you ever mistakenly tampered or damaged any equipment?" His tone harshens as he looks down at me, leaning over causing me to lean back in my chair.
"N-no?" I look to Littz as a glimmer of apprehension rises in my chest. "Sir, what's this about?" I ask as he looks between the both of us with a hard frown.
"Albert," Littz cuts in getting Wesker's attention off me. "Though I can understand where it is your coming from, if I were coming from another branch, I would also be in the same inquisitive position, however not only the skills and abilities of our IT department are above adequate but their professional accreditation is above exemplary." He stresses, allowing Wesker to sit on it for a moment. "As I recall, you wanted to ask questions, not make her feel uncomfortable."
"I'm just... trying to get a sense of who she is. What she does, that's all." He looks from him to me. "I apologize, Ms. Buchanan, if I made you feel upset."
I knew a crap apology when I heard it, and that one was without merit.
"Um, if it helps, Mr. Wesker, I'm more so the programmer, and though I rarely do hardware repairs, I read the reports of them, check for discrepancies and send the reports to those who have inquired... So, no. It's been years since I've laid my hand physically on a striped computer hard drive or server."
"You've never so much as scratched one of them?"
I shake my head. "I haven't, no sir." Our tech was more expensive than anything I could afford to replace. I knew when to keep my hands in my pockets.
"Do you know anyone who has?"
I frown in thought before an instance popped into my head. "Roberto had one of our printers fall and shatter his foot one time." I offer and catch Littz's barely concealed snort as I push my glasses up my nose as Wesker took a short breath.
"What do you use them for?" He asked tensely.
"Printers?" I echo and I could swear I see a muscle in his jaw twitch when Littz's shoulders bounced gently.
"No, your codes." He states more clearly.
"Oh." I lift a shoulder then drop it. "It depends."
"On what?"
"Well, Mr. Wesker, I know we use the billing codes to charge clients, then you have the lab codes for each floor, although, each section of several research labs will vary depending on types of research, then there is the computer code system for electric files, data, terminals and servers."
"What do you use the employee codes for?"
"They're special isolated codes for when you need to use the companies' resources for various reasons." Littz interjected.
"And you can access these resources from any computer?" He asked looking between the two of us and lingered on me.
"Only what is designated common information or low level can be accessed by all."
"What resources are common enough for anyone of varying levels security levels to access?"
"Accessing shared information would be along the lines of like… safety protocols, updates on our servers, reminders about building maintenance, work effort charts, employee review dates, etcetera etcetera."
"And you can go from one to another and just use it if its on?"
"No. Different terminals require you to log out of the previous ones to successfully log into a new one. Thus notifying the system of each log in and where. So if we were to, for example, log into Mr. Littz computer here in his office, he would have to log out before he left if he wanted to log in on a different computer on, say, the main floor for any particular reason. As well as the fact that the server will log you out after 8 minutes if it goes unused or you don't enter the password created by the user. That is a hard-pressed rule for our system. That also dissuades anyone from using a computer that has been left unattended and has access to higher codes, er, clearance." My last few words I think click something making him look a little at ease before something else flickers over his school face.
"And 11 others and you can recite them all?" Wesker asks, his head turning between me and Littz, his tone sounding apprehensive almost but also... maybe intrigued?
"I know I for sure can't," Littz chuckles then gestures back to me, "but Elodie here can."
"Why?" He pinned me with a look as he asked.
"Because it's my job to know?" I state carefully. "I wouldn't be good at it if I couldn't."
His head tilts a little again. "How?"
"Umm…" That has me drawing a blank but thankfully Littz leans forward, his hands resting on his desk, his fingers laced together.
"Because from what I can tell, she can, for lack of a better word and barring scientific ones that have too many vowels, consume knowledge like no one I have ever met before and has yet to consult her manual for the last few months she has worked here."
"Not true Mr. Littz. In fact just today I had to consult it today to repair a server hiccup."
"Don't be modest, Ms. Buchanan." He smiled at me. That had Wesker nodding his head as he looked back to me and could swear that he was looking me up and down in my seat even though his eyes were hidden by his glasses. My eyes went down to his boots and stayed there.
"What do they pay you here at Tricell?" Wesker asked bluntly that had my eyes widening and looking from his boots to Wesker who regarded me silently. Where was this going? I glance to Littz who also looks confused by this line of questioning or maybe mildly miffed? It was hard to tell with these men.
"Enough to say that Tricell takes care of us because we're on call 24/7." I say looking from Littz to Wesker again.
"You are always on call?"
"Yes sir. If a server goes down or a partner's computer crashes, people die." I joke half-heartedly.
"That's a little dramatic, don't you think, Ms. Buchanan?" The way Wesker said the word 'dramatic' had me looking directly at his glasses.
"Dramatic?" I echo while raising a brow. "Well, Mr. Wesker, I don't know if you were aware but six months ago, I was doing some maintenance for our server when the network went haywire for L2, which is our shipping, and L4 which is our marketing. I found through some deep errors in coding that we were in a breach of contract litigation worth quite a bit of money. They needed it fixed in a window of 4 hours. No one," my eyes skirted to Littz who casted his eyes downward to his papers, once again, "thought it could be done." I looked back to Wesker. "I had the network up and running again in 57 minutes."
"You also caught the discrepancies between 'listed assets" and "potential assets.' That had a huge impact." Littz adds in quietly.
"Yes, I believe... Hundreds of thousands, was what you said." Wesker said tightly. I swallowed a little.
"But anyone would have caught that, right?" I ask to Littz feeling heat rise up my neck and he gives me a hard stare.
"Um, out of the 50 associates that are under my purview, not one of them would have caught that." He admits and, in that room, I hate to say it, but I felt elated to hear it. I know I would good at what I did, but to hear it like that. Damn, that felt good.
"Poor performance, indeed." Wesker muttered cutting through my elation but I gathered his thoughts must have been on the others themselves.
"The people in question haven't been seen or heard from again here at Tricell, so they may as well be dead." I let my words sink in for a few seconds before I sent him a tight smile. "Is that dramatic enough for you?" My words hung in the air between us and for a moment, I was worried that they may have come across as a little to sharp.
"I was made… aware, yes." Wesker replies with a small smirk of his own and my palms start to sweat. "I also looked through your work on the potential main server bridging briefs for our branch's." He informs me and I sit up in my chair. That had taken up weeks of my time and this was the first time I had heard of it being under review.
"It looks well put together. You just seem have this eye for detail, Elodie. I mean, no wonder why Littz is so... keen about you." I didn't like the way my name left his mouth, like he was seeing how it sounded, but my thoughts lingered on Littz talking about me to Wesker.
"It- I mean, I really, really, seriously appreciate that." I stammer a little looking between the two of them and took the safer bet and settled on Littz. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate your words, but… please may I ask what this has been about?" I ask gently leaning forward. Littz's eyes sharpen and turn cold as he leans away from his desk and steeples his fingers in front of him.
"You have shown extreme potential and your loyalty is something that has been put into consideration for a certain position, as well as the amount of information you have collected in that mind of yours in the time you have been here." Littz explains and I feel my eyes widen. Potential? Position? I felt my mouth slightly gap. "You know that I pick a pony out of the herd every year, don't you?" Littz says after a moment, his terms getting my attention for several reasons.
I gape at him and yet, feel my heart pick up for a new reason. "Sir?"
"Oh, yeah. Someone who shows potential." Wesker adds with a small smirk. "We raise them up. Stamp our own little brand on them, as it were."
Littz hums out a small tone of agreement and I shift in my seat. "Are you that pony, Elodie?"
"I don't know much about horses, to be honest. I just work in IT, Mr. Littz." The words leave my mouth before I can think and I hear Wesker chuckle lowly and steps towards me.
"As you should. You've certainly got the mind of it." He pauses for a moment before he reaches up and takes of his glasses to fully look at me. The blue eyes that meet mine look... strikingly pale. Some would say they were breathtakingly sharp, yet I feel the chill in them as they moved about my face. "Such a… plain little thing." My mouth gaps for a second at his words before I shut it tightly when he continues. "Who knows what other... potential you have locked in there." My head lifts higher as I meet those blue eyes of his.
"I suppose well see, but I am doubtful it will be anytime soon." His eyes moved up and down my face before looking back to Littz as he slips them back on with a full smirk.
"Perhaps." He tilts his head back. "We'll see about that." The way he said it had another feeling settling in my stomach and it wasn't pleasant. He moves towards the door and lingers with his hand on the handle. "I will head down to check on a few things then be on my way." He looks to Littz then to me before bowing his head in a tight 'goodbye' fashion. "Until we meet again."
And he's out the door, closing it firmly behind him.
I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding and turn my attention to fully look at Littz who looks at me like, between the both of us, we landed a proverbial big fish.
"What just happened, sir?" I manage to get tightly out from my throat.
"Wesker was checking things out at our branch and brought up a concern about our digital security and potential leeks that could occur with our work here. I tried talking to him about the same information but he didn't sound convinced, so I figured he needed to hear it from the team that handles all that. Wanted to see if you would cave under pressure and leak out any suspicion. That is, if there was any." He looked at me with a new shine to his eyes. "I think you did well."
"I see." I swallow and push my glasses up on my nose with trembling fingers.
"He and I were also seeing if you were compatibly capable for a certain position."
"Being what, sir?"
"The title isn't clear, but you would have, in his terms, clearance so high, you could have physical knowledge that no one in your whole team would know about."
"Would I still be in I.T?" I ask and watch him look thoughtful as he leans back in his chair, the sound creaking in the silence.
"I'm of the mind to say a little of yes, and a little of no." He says carefully. "After talking to Wesker, he thinks someone such as yourself with a high mental control would have a great benefit of the position he has in mind for you." Littz shook his head, looking positively amazed. "He explained things to me that, if the meeting went well, your life would be changed in the best way."
"It does sound… intriguing." I admit though I wasn't sure how I felt about it.
"Good. Well, listen, I have some work to get to. Paperwork to fill out. Phone call to make. Reeds should be out of his meeting by now." He murmured the last bit more to himself than anything.
I got the message and nodded. "Right, I'll get out of your office."
"Yes, thank you for coming up despite the time." He says as he logs into his computer. "But in regards to that position Wesker had in mind, maybe we can, uh, meet for lunch tomorrow, say 1:00 p.m.? Fine out the details?"
"Of course, sir." I lean down and pick up my backpack and jacket and stand. He busies himself with his computer and picks up the phone and starts clicking away at the number pad as I open the door. "Goodnight sir." I say softly and he glances up at me.
"Goodbye Elodie." He says quietly and then looks back to his computer. "Reeds! Littz here, I was wondering-" I shut the door, effectively blocking out his voice as I hightail it to the elevator.
My mind in a tangle of moving too fast and not at all.
What. Just. Happened?
Pressing the call button for the elevator I think on their words. Could I be taking a supervisor's position in I.T or something? It would be a pay increase. And no one had been designated that since Louanne, making us all carry the distributing weight. But none of us had heard from her, or perhaps… She couldn't contact any of us due to her knowledge of the company for a designated period of time? I chew on my bottom lip and mentally sift through our work rules, regulations and safety and can't recall anything about it when the door opens.
Stepping in, I put my windbreaker on then my backpack as the elevator descends. She could have been hired by a rival company, that would bar her from contacting any of us. But why did Wesker and Littz stress about compatibility and capability? I was certainly capable of anything I put my whole mind to despite being called...
Plain.
Looking to the polished wall of the elevator, I could clearly see my own reflection and stepped closer. My mousy brown hair was pulled back into such a tight bun in the mornings it was a little difficult to blink and yet now, with the few strands that had come loose, I looked like I just got caught in a wind tunnel. Running a hand over the loose strands I give myself a full body lookover. I looked like a classic I.T girl... The glasses I had sat oddly on my nose no matter what way I held my head thanks to one of the wire earpieces that had crimped a little when I dropped them some time ago. I had a new set coming in. The lenses did frame my eyes, their colour was more a bleak mixture of hazel than I would care for but… what I always liked about them was that the outer ring was almost... grey. That was the only thing I thought that was unique about my face. A guy in university once told me it was a genetic thing. Still, the edges looked a little bloodshot since the day had been long.
My skin was nothing to gloat about either, although Taniesha once described it as 'tanned cream caramel. All kinda delicious goodness.' That had the corner of my lips quirking upwards. She hadn't seen the dusting of freckles on my shoulders that crept up my neck to my clavicle, so her opinion could still change. But still, I was… average. No way around it. Average 5'6" height. Slender for my size, but it didn't matter, my clothes looked a little wrinkled as well. Then again, I hadn't changed since yesterday. I needed a hot shower. And sleep. Looking back to my face, I hear Wesker's words once again.
So what if I was plain? I thought with a frown and push my glasses up. I was damn good at my job. The ding from the elevator opening had me turning from my reflection and into the large lobby. The large desk that sits in the middle of it has two guards who sit side by side with terminals with dual screens. One specifically for checking security access of employee cards when they were scanned and the other, I smile as I see a football game playing instead of their usual second screen camera. Looking my way I nod my head swiping my key card on a security terminal and wait for it to turn green and the gate to unlock. They look at me and give me a very tired nod that I return as I step past the gates and towards the glass doors that lead outside and in seconds I am met with the cool fresh air of the city at night.
Heading towards my bus stop I take long deep breaths.
The city at this late hour always seemed to put me in a state of tranquility. Perhaps it was the people that I had to work with made me frustrated sometimes and the lack of anyone around had me feeling at ease. To turn off my overworked brain and just… be still minded. Maybe it was the fact that the sounds weren't as busy as they usually were during the day and that helped make things become quiet. Ahead was the intersection for my bus stop and no bus in sight. Depending on the time, I could catch the last one of the night. But the meeting, or interrogation, went longer than I thought.
I reach into my pockets for my phone to check the time but both were empty. I must've put in my bag when I was putting my bag down. Dropping one of my bags' straps I slow my steps as I fumble around for the slender zipper, my eyes starting to lightly burn and my brain growing foggy as I reach into the pocket and struggle to move my things around to find it. The lack of light didn't help.
Damn, I couldn't wait to get home and sleep. Hell, I was going to fall into bed, fully clothed. I was too tired to give a damn. After all, a rested mind will have the sharpness to make the kind of decisions that could be the difference between promotion and being potentially fired. My head bent lower over my bag and my steps slowed to a stop until I felt the cool contact of screen to my fingers. With a small hum of victory my fingers closed around my phone and lifted upwards when everything went haywire.
I could hear muffled yelling coming from my left but… I looked towards the sound and frowned. The ground sloped downwards with a slight curve that led to... Wait. I look up and see our bright green TRICELL symbol beside a sign that read 'Underground Garage for Employees Only'. Probably someone from marketing who lost a business deal or something. It happened. I had seen a few breakdowns just outside the main lobby doors. Rolling my eyes I was about to move on when I heard several sharp pops that I could distinctly tell were gunshots and a pained scream that cooled me to the marrow of my bones and immediately stopped moving.
"Stop! Wait! P-please no!"
I waited with a baited breath and a second later it was followed by another sharp shot. The voice's echo fell to silence. The sound of loud revving of an engine was paired with the sounds of echoing tire screeching's that made me back up a single step. It wasn't the best time to think of something like it, but the sounds reminded me of an action movie to be honest, however it wasn't adrenalin that was pumping through me.
It was something else and I was beginning to choke on it.
Trembling I looked towards the opening of the garage, lingered, my eyes looking down the sloped dark pavement to the dimly lit yellow opening as a pair of bright lights blinded me when it came around the corner and paused at the beginning of the slope.
My breath caught in my lungs.
My legs refused to move.
My body began to shake.
Its direction changing slightly into the oncoming lane as it started towards me. It didn't slow. No honking either. In fact, I think I heard it speed up as I was beginning to think I should turn and run. I don't think I had even fully turned away…
The only thing I knew after that, was a pain so excruciating that any thought, anything relatively coherent left me. There was just...
Pain.
And Darkness.
AN;
Hey everyone!
Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my first Resident Evil Fic. This story is gonna have a slow burn but were gonna get into things real soon! Elodie's story has just begun... I hope you all stick around to find out what happens! Be sure to let me know what you think, I love getting reviews and enjoy reading your thoughts of where stories are headed!
Until next time!
~IMME