Billionaire Scientist & his New Secretary
Chapter 1
Part 3
I realised belatedly that daine did a lot of nodding. Ah well, let's just say she's a bit overwhelmed, hence speechless. hee hee... Anyway, Thank goodness I upped the rating, coz there's some fluff in store. MUAHAHAHA...
I do apologise that this update sounds a bit abrupt, I wanted to quickly get the details out of the way and move to the fluff- I mean, plot. Yes, plot is good. Nod nod.
DISCLAIMER
Unfortunately, Tortallan characters all belong to Tamora Pierce and not me... sob sob... Also, the office layout & technology is just out of my imagination. So if you are so lucky to have such an office, be assured, it's just a coincidence that this sounds like your office. hee hee!
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"Good Morning Evin," a husky female voice greeted when Evin and Daine walked out of the lift.
Daine blinked, at the blonde vision in front of her seated behind a receptionist desk. She had stylishly cut bob and brown eyes. They had entered into what seem to be a reception area. Couches, chairs and small tables were fashionably scattered in the reception area. An assortment of pictures, magazine, newspaper cut-outs were framed on the wall. A cursory glance showed that they were all linked with Numair. To Daine's surprise, two security guards were seated in the reception area as well.
Evin noticed her surprise as he gently nudged her towards the reception desk, he explained, "Numair gets top notch security since all his work is top secret. We can't risk people leaking information or trying to steal his ideas. This reception area is rather casual, as it's mostly our own scientists and staff who come to see Numair."
As they reached the reception desk, the receptionist stood and smiled, showing her brilliant white teeth. She held out her hand, "Hello Ms. Sarrasri, my name is Shalene. I am Numair's receptionist."
"You can call me Daine," Daine said and shook her well-manicured hand, surprised that Shalene knew her name.
"I make it my job to know everyone's name as well as how they relate to Numair. This is so that I know who I should let in or not," Shalene smiled.
"I will count on you to keep Daine up to date on who's who in Numair's life so that she can handle the calls and visitors," Evin grinned. "You can even let her see the 90210 file."
Evin guided Daine behind the reception desk to enter, to Daine's surprise, not Numair's office, but rather, another maze of offices. Daine was a bit dazed at Evin's efficient introduction of the rooms and personnel. It appeared that Numair was like a company onto himself. There were meeting rooms, a library, lounge, pantry, even a science laboratory ("more for demonstrations than for real work, the real heavy duty stuff take place in the lower levels" Evin had explained).
What surprised Daine the most was the wealth of personnel employed for Numair's use. He had his own legal counsel ("since Numair needs it most for application of all the patents"), PR Manager ("to deal with Numair's active professional and personal life," Evin had whispered, "some while back the PR Department was complaining that they dealt with so much of inquires about Numair that he deserves his own PR manager to handle it."), research assistants ("This is a minute fraction of the R & D capability of Tortall Inc. Actually, the bulk of people under Numair's control is the R & D people and the various scientific departments which are located in the R & D block. Not all the labs are here though, they are spread out throughout the country, some are even overseas."), HR manager ("Oh come on, with all these people under Numair, you need someone to take care of them. Moreover, since he's in charge of all the R & D, he has to continually be on the look out for new talents") and all their accompanying supporting staff.
Daine found that she even had secretarial support. Shalene dealt with all the walk-in visitors, another similarly blonde lady dealt with all the telephone calls, another handled all of Numair's faxes and mails, another had a full time job of looking through all his e-mails at his official e-mail. ("Numair only checks his personal e-mail, only relevant e-mails are forwarded to him from his official e-mail. Most of it is junk or fan mail. Fan mail or media inquiries are all directed to PR Manager to handle.") There were other ladies dealing with his paperwork.
Finally, they reached a door. "As you noticed," Evin said, "Most of the doors look identical, so it would be hard for an intruder to find the correct place he's looking for. Anyway, here is your office." He pointed to the black panel and Daine took out her card to wave it across.
The door slid open. What struck Daine was the space. Her office space was bigger than her apartment and probably a lot more comfortable. On the left was a gorgeous view of the city and its skyline, while on the right seemed to be rooms. She had an impressive mahogany desk that was probably bigger than her bed. On the desk was a sleek looking computer with an LCD screen (of course) as well as, curiously enough, a panel of buttons and some what seemed to be remote controls.
"Well my dear," Evin pranced in. "You probably have the most exciting office in this building."
"I do?" Daine asked. "What are with all these buttons? At least they seem to have labels."
"Ahh, you'll slowly learn and see what the buttons do. You see, as Numair's secretary, you are also the guinea pig for all his experiments. You get to try the latest cutting edge technology and devices. After all, if Tortall Inc doesn't use its own inventions, who will?" Evin explained. "Come come, see my favourite remote control," he bent over and took a remote control labelled "bar".
He turned to her, "One tip when you are trying out all these gadgets, the safest place to stand is probably your desk area." He pressed the red button and the wall on the right flipped open. To Daine's amazement, panels of wood and metal unfolded themselves to slowly form a bar top counter with stools. A wooden panel slid back to reveal shelves of liquor and glasses. "Cool huh? Never fails to impresses the chicks," Evin grinned. "So you can help them fix a drink if they want it. If you don't know anything about drinks, no worries," he walked towards the counter. "Just activate bartender 3000 with this green button."
A warm baritone voice said, "Welcome! How may I be of service?" Daine blinked as Evin led her to a screen behind the bar counter.
"Yes my good man," Evin said. "I want a martini, shaken, not stirred."
"Very good sir," the voice responded.
"See the screen," Evin explained. "You can even change his voice or put it to silent mode. This mode it is on, is automatic mode, it helps you make the drinks. Alternatively, if you want to make the drink yourself, you can change it to help mode. If you tell it what drink you want, it will list the ingredients as well as tell you where you can find the ingredients."
A whirling noise came from behind them and a panel slide open to reveal a cocktail glass with the martini. Evin took it, "Want some?"
"No thanks," Daine said. "Are you sure you are allowed to do this considering that Numair is around here?"
"Relax, Numair is a pretty laid-back guy," Evin said as he walked out from the bar. He pressed the red button on the remote control again and the bar efficiently folded back into the wall. "Wait till you see your bathroom, it even cleans itself!"
"Evin," Daine interrupted. "I'm sure it's all well and good, but I really think I should see Numair before it gets too late in the day."
"My dear girl, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," Evin grinned as he walked toward her desk.
"I'm not Jack and I'm being paid pro rata," Daine scowled.
"Ah, only paid pro rata till Numair confirms your appointment," Evin said. "The way Numair goes through his secretaries, we thought it's better if we just go pro rata than a fixed salary because they normally drop out of the job in less than a month."
Daine gulped.
Evin took what looked like a sleek palm top and handed it to Daine. "Guard this with your life," Evin said, "this is a prototype, fresh out of Numair's laboratories. Only you can access it with your card, so if you would do the honours?" Daine swiped her card across and Evin continued to speak, "In here, you can access all the various installations here, like you can activate the bar using your palmtop. This is done by new technology Numair devised. So please keep this to yourself, it's confidential. Nobody knows of the exact technology Numair is using for the machines to..." Evin dropped his voice and tried to say in a scary tone, "talk to each other..."
Daine rolled her eyes.
Evin grinned and continued the demonstration, "Here, is Numair's appointment book. Both personal and professional... Ooohh la la... Ain't it a pity that you had to sign the confidentiality form or get your pants sued off? If only Numair hired guys... I tell you, what I'll do to get his black book..."
Daine elbowed Evin, and peered at the palmtop, "So this is his schedule for today... A meeting with the Board of Directors at 10am, that's half an hour from now!"
Evin nodded, "and knowing Numair, you will have to remind him and drag him there. Now, you can find the location of the place by tapping here and here. You probably have to follow Numair to the meeting, but you don't have to take minutes or anything, because if you press here and here, you can tape record what is said, the computer will be analyse the voice patterns and convert the audio file into a word document. You can then send it to your computer, just tap here, here and here."
Daine shook her head, she felt like she was in some science fiction novel. "Evin," Daine asked. "Sorry to be so frank, but, what exactly is my job? I-I-I don't seem to have anything to do. The secretarial staff takes care of most things and even the technology around here would probably do a better job than I at taking minutes and such. And, why is it that you know so much about all the technology and such?"
"First, I'm a Personal Assistant to Onua. She gets a lot of top brass visiting her. Besides, everyone drops by HR now and then from all departments, so I get to hear gossip here and then. Second, I'm a true born busybody. Third, I had to do this introduction to ALL of Numair's new secretaries, so I slowly got to learn about all the technology that went into this place," Evin explained, grinning disarmingly at Daine.
Daine began to wonder, 'Exactly HOW many secretaries did Numair go through?' She shook her head, "so what exactly am I hired to do?"
"Oh that?" Evin said. "As you've noticed, Numair has a lot of people working under him, he doesn't have time to go talk to them separately one by one. So you basically help to relay his will, whims and wishes. Everyone has to go through YOU first before they can get to the big guy. Like all the telephone calls, mail, visitors, the secretarial staff help you screen and filter the first level, you have to deal with the rest. You do get paperwork, but you are mainly expected to delegate them. Don't be shy, or you'll put those lovely ladies you saw out of jobs. What is your main job, as I'm surprised Alanna didn't tell you straight off, as she did to the other secretaries, is to baby-sit Numair."
"Baby-sit Numair? Are you serious?" Daine asked faintly, thinking, 'What did I get myself into?'
"Yup," Evin said. "I'll say, your first task is to make sure that Numair makes it to that meeting on time. Come, let's see the big guy." He knocked on Numair's door.
There was no response. "Hmm…" Evin said, and pointed to the black panel.
"You want me to open the door without him letting us in?" Daine gaped.
"Yes my dear, you'll soon find out that you will be intruding on Numair whether he likes it or not, so be a dear and open the door. Numair could be sleeping inside or talking to himself or all caught up in the latest discovery. Wouldn't be the first time he's missed the meeting," Evin said.
Daine obligingly activated the door which slid open. Her heart beat faster at the prospect of seeing this enigmatic boss she was to work for. She followed Evin as he walked in, trying to compose herself… 'What if he doesn't like me?' Daine thought. 'I'm not blind, I can tell that he has hired people based on… aesthetic qualities… I'm not blonde or drop dead gorgeous… I hope he'll give me a chance!'
Evin stopped suddenly and Daine nearly slammed into his back, "Hmm… seems like he's not here. You can try calling him on his mobile by tapping here and here on your palmtop."
"My palmtop can make calls!" Daine yelped, suitably impressed. "Is that even possible?"
"Tsk tsk," Evin said, quoting a Tortall Inc commercial, "By now, you should know that 'everything is possible with Tortall Inc'".
The palmtop indicated that the call was not picked up. Daine felt dazed, thinking of all the floors and rooms that Numair could possibly be in. Suddenly, there was a beeping sound, Daine jumped. "Sorry, my handphone," Evin said. "I'm not as high tech as you to have a palm top that can double up as a handphone. Oh yeah, you can use the ear piece if you want your conversation to be private." Evin picked up his phone and walked towards the window.
Daine thought, 'If only I didn't need the money so badly, but I'm way overdue in my rent. I can't possibly borrow money from Miri considering that I already owe her so much! If only I didn't need to escape so suddenly without taking a penny with me…'
Evin broke Daine's reverie of thought, "Sorry," he apologised, "I have to go back and sort out some matters, some fool had mixed up the pay cheques at the bank." He walked towards the lift lobby, with Daine following behind.
"But Numair?" Daine spluttered as they got into the flat. Evin patted Daine on the shoulder, "Don't worry dear, thanks to Onua's insistence, this palmtop can help you track him down. With this baby, you can check where he is in the building. If he's out of the building, well, good luck to you. Tap here, here, swipe your card, yes, and ah… ." Evin looked at the palmtop and grinned.
"So where is he?" Daine asked.
Evin grinned as he held the palmtop to him as he stepped out of the lift. "Remember Daine, he has to get to that meeting in, what, 20 minutes time? The clock is ticking…"
"Evin, you're making me nervous! Where is he? In the labs?" Daine exclaimed.
Evin grinned, "Even better my dear…" and handed her back the palmtop. "Welcome to Tortall Inc," he chirped mischievously as the lift doors closed.
Daine stared at the palmtop and gaped.
Numair was in his apartment!
"Odd Bobs!" Daine groaned. "Knowing my luck, he'll probably be sleeping… I just hope to the heavens that he doesn't have female company!"
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I thank all the reviewers, below are just more specific comments to certain reviewers.
Valkyrie228: Yup! It's ok! I know that you have immeasurable amount of patience with me! I remember you reviewing wayyyy back when I started writing What If. ;)
TheBrassPotato: Yup, now you understand why he's THAT rich and is a billionaire... hee hee...
confusedpink: You are right. Varice is coming soon... Ah... she's the over-used old love interest device and I'm fully guilty of going to exploit her... MUAHAHAHAHA!
w1cked angel: you've a sharp eye for detail. Yes! I mis-spelt Onua! Thanks for pointing that out!