THE NEW LIFE, THE NEW ME - an Apple Loving Individual Thriller

Chapter 16 - a Shady Plot

Chapter 16 – a Shady Plot

Wednesday, May 23, 2046
9:00 PM
Leaving the office
Houston, TX

Okay, so I work 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, from Mondays to Wednesdays. That include two sixty-minute breaks in the middle of the entire shift. However, the company, which closes late night till 9 PM decided to keep me to close for the summer, which added three more hours to my week. So now, I've signed up for that. In the meantime, my relationship with Jake has strengthened. Been a couple weeks now, and I'm one amazing, financially well-off girl, dating my coworker, who also is the floor manager, to my surprise. Yeah, so technically, he was my boss. However, this job was very difficult to get fired from, so he wasn't at all bugged by us.

"Just another night, just another payday." I said in excitement. "All fired up for the weekend and Mondays."

My excitement was short-lived when I got in my car and began to drive home. My car stall suddenly. My vehicle came to a jerk stop. Thankfully, I was buckled up tightly.

S.A.L.M.A then said, "Alert! Human presence on the road. I repeat, human presence on the road!"

"S.A.L.M.A?" I said in worry.

It was showing a few people outside my car. They were demanding me to exit the vehicle. They seemed to be scared, worried for something, and I didn't like the looks of this. I got out to see a few young to middle-aged men and women. About a dozen.

"Please, help!" said a woman.

"We saw you come out of that building earlier. Are you okay? Is Starla okay?" said a man, perhaps in his mid-30s. "I've not seen or heard from her in days. She was in that company."

"What is going on?" I said, looking at them in concern. "What's the matter?"

Then I saw her again, the girl from the bar who cried. She walked up to me, and she shed more tears. I didn't know what was going on. I sure had a bad feeling about this now.

"Is Carlos okay?" asked the girl. "I'm Penelope! His girlfriend! His family and I worry for him, as he hasn't returned home in weeks!"

"What?" I said.

"Kimberly!" said Jake, who was right behind me. "What's going on here? Who are these people?"

"Please help us!" said an elderly woman in tears. "My husband got a job here two months ago, but never came back since last Friday!"

"My wife hasn't come home, either!" said a man next to the lady.

"Neither has my daughter!" said an elderly man.

Jake and I were in no doubt scared.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"You may wanna see this, I just pulled this up!" responded S.A.L.M.A, who sent a link to our smartphones.

Jake took out his iPhone™, and I took out my Android™ device. An article on Medium™ pulled up in our apps. The article was dated Friday, May 18, 2046. It said, "Missing citizens, in Houston, TX possibly links to huge corporate entity in City." by Ajay Malhotra, and we read the article, dropping our jaws. Lately, there have been absences in the company. And I came to notice this earlier today, as there weren't many people working today. This was written by an employee who quit on the same day too, as the article was published.

"Jake, what on earth am I looking at here?" I said.

"Is this real?" Jake replied shuddering.

"In what sense?" I asked, also in fear.

"Fuck! If I know!" said Jake. "However, I came to notice some personnel were missing."

"Jake, something is terribly wrong here." I was scared for real.