Laser [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 13

"I'm sorry for what happened yesterday. I was trashed out," he apologized, looking at me straight in the eyes, "I'm not this unprofessional usually, I just –,"

"It's fine, sir," I emphasized the last word. "To have success in your professional life is not so hard. To succeed as a man is more difficult," I told him, picking up a quote I'd heard from my Dad.

His eyes darkened for a moment, a mundane shade of incensed black. Wordlessly, he held me some files with names of people who were supposed to arrive at the office that day and with hints on how I was going to treat them at the reception. For example, I was supposed to lie to this woman called Daria that Kevin wasn't in his office and tell a man named Ford that he had to contact Kevin's PA for information. I strutted off to my desk wondering about how I could hack into Kevin Green's system without catching his suspicions and prove my aptitude to Dustin CattyMouth. I tried hearing through the recorder in Kevin's room but to my consternation I realized it wasn't working, apparently someone had removed it from under his desk. Would he know I am the one?

I typed in Nina' numbers carefully and waited for my phone to dial.

"Yeah Anastasia, what's happening?" she said as though she'd been expecting my call.

"Problem. Someone removed the you-know-what from the desk," I told her, my palms getting sweaty from anxiety.

"Listen to me, Anastasia," I could hear her breaths, "Look around you. Do you see anyone keeping an eye on you?"

"No," I told her, rotating my head around a room full of busy visitors and office employees, "This is weird."

"The Green brothers are known for their sly intellect. Don't worry about the recorder and make sure you don't get caught, okay? Meanwhile, I'll talk with the others about what to do next."

"Okay."

She hung up.

I fumbled through the stack of papers on the desk to find a number named Cory and called him to inform that his parcel was ready to be picked up. Then I completed some other works which were written on the papers, including faxing some files to Gemma, Kevin's PA. And it suddenly hit me that Gemma was taking an early leave for the sake of her new born nephew and I could easily slip into her computer when Kevin was going to have a meeting with the stakeholders and probably get a grasp on Kevin's password. With an internal whoop of joy, I waited for the moment I saw the orange haired woman take her leave, and rushed to her room after making sure I was not being pursued.

A modest Dell was what sat in front of me, with a picture of the company's logo on the background.

I felt butterflies in my stomach as I searched for the word 'password' with no results popping up. I sighed; pretty sure Gemma wasn't going to be that obvious. I typed some other keywords such as 'confidential' and 'Kevin', finally finding a file that read PRIVATE. But it also demanded a password. I rummaged through Gemma's diaries to check if she had scribbled down the password somewhere, typing in everything that seemed like it but unfortunately didn't work. After five failed tries, the computer warned that I had one more attempt left and that I when I noticed the picture on Gemma's desk, carefully propped close to the computer whereas almost the whole desk was bare. It was a picture of her with Kevin, they were standing close together and she had her eyes on the tattoo on Kevin's neck. It was too small to be read but I found out a magnifying glass from her drawers and figured out what it was written. Secilidotëvdesë.

I copied it down and shut down Gemma's computer, clearing her room as it had been before I came. Then I peeked into Kevin's room.

There was nobody inside.