The sun wasn't even up yet when Mike stood in front of the mirror, adjusting a tie he didn't really know how to tie.
Behind him, Cindy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, hair in a sleepy mess.
"You're gonna choke yourself."
He laughed under his breath. "It wouldn't be the worst way to go."
"D'you need some help?"
Mike turned. "Yes please."
Cindy walked over, tugged the tie loose, and redid it in seconds.
"There, you look like someone who knows what he's doing."
"I feel like someone who's trying too hard."
She shrugged and went back to setting the table. She served the pancakes on a saucer and set down two glasses of milk on the table. She then went to get maple syrup from the shelf.
"This is really delicious Cindy," he complimented. "You've outdone yourself."
"Thanks, I learnt from the best."
They enjoyed their breakfast in silence and cleaned up after themselves before leaving the apartment house. They took the elevator to the ground floor where Mike's bike was parked.
He revved the engine to life and pulled up next to Cindy, before helping her put on the helmet. She sat behind him and held onto him tightly, before he sped away onto the tarmac.
"At what time should I get you from school today?" He asked.
"You don't have to pick me up from school today. I'm going to pass by the hospital to check in on my Economics teacher." She spoke.
"Will you be home by six? It's dangerous for you to be out alone past that time."
"Don't worry. I'll be home early." She spoke.
The rest of the ride was silent. The highway was not crowded at this time of the day. He maintained a steady speed of about 50mph, as going any faster would get him on the other side of the law.
The morning air was cool and refreshing. The wind blew past him, sending cold shivers down his spine. Behind him was his teenage sister; the only reminder that he once had a family. She was in the 11th grade and doing exceptionally well. Five years ago, they'd lost their parents in an accident, and their relatives ghosted them after their funeral. This was just after he graduated from MIT with first-class honours. It was then up to him to take responsibility for his sister and raise her like his own. Thanks to her smarts, she'd secured a full scholarship at Chicago High School, where they had to relocate to from their suburban home.
He had saved enough to rent an apartment and to keep them on their feet before he could find a job. After moving into Chicago about three months prior, he worked a few jobs in order to get some cash. His bike was gifted to him by the dean at MIT for being an outstanding student. He was working at a cybercafé before he applied for a job at Castell Inc.
He pulled up to a stop in front of the school gate.
"See you later Mike and good luck on your first day." Cindy said, as she disappeared into the crowd of students.
He waved at her and pulled away. He had only one mission left before reporting to his first day working at Castell. He was to deliver a package that was sent to him by mistake, about half an hour away.
He knocked on a door, and a middle-aged lady came to open it.
"Good morning, ma'am. This package was wrongly addressed to me and I was instructed to bring it here." He started.
"Thank you, kind sir." She said, taking the parcel. "Please, come in."
"Thanks for the offer, but I have to get going." He said respectfully.
The lady smiled slightly. "Ok then. Have a good day."
He took a step back, and the lady closed the door after him. He went back to his bike and rode away to the main headquarters of Castell Inc.
*****
Her alarm clock went, sending her eyes open. She sprang out of bed and sat. It was a quarter to seven. She fell back on the bed, studying the patterns embedded under the roof of her queen-sized four-poster bed. She took out her phone and looked at her schedule. She sighed disappointedly before putting the phone on the bedside table. She got up and grabbed her bathrobe before going into the shower.
The room was large and exquisite. A strong 3-inch-thick camphor door stood at the entrance. At the far-left corner, there was a queen-sized four-poster bed. Its beddings were of a light shade of pink, and a circular feather pillow lay on its headrest. The bed was made of mahogany wood, specially shipped from the forests of Borneo by the great minister for his daughter. Next to the bed, there was a table with four drawers and an expensive-looking radio clock sat on top. A translucent 2-inch-thick tempered glass door stood between the bed and the mirror, leading to the balcony. Next to the dressing table, there was a large desk and a swivel chair on which some papers and a laptop sat. There was also a computer of the Epsilon brand near the edge of the desk. A tall wardrobe stood next to the bedside table, and next to it was the door leading to the showers. A light blue carpet covered the entire floor space, and a chandelier hung majestically from the ceiling.
She walked out of the shower, a towel around her bosom. Her skin was wet and glistening, and her dark brown hair flowed majestically down to her back. She had already brushed her pearl white teeth. She walked up to the tempered glass door, which automatically opened to let her into the balcony. A chaise lounge sat on the terrazzo floor against a wall. A love seat sat at the middle, behind a low glazier coffee table. There was a bookshelf at the near left corner of the balcony. She stood against the railing, looking down at the workers diligently tending to their areas. She then walked back to the room, and sat at the dressing table. She dried her skin and hair before applying ointment on her skin, carefully and gracefully, giving her skin a radiant glow. She donned in black business attire and low-heeled stilettos, before taking her handbag and walking out of the room.
She walked cautiously down the staircase to meet her family waiting for her at the breakfast table.
"Good morning, mother, and father." She said, pulling up a seat.
"Good morning, dear. You look good today, as always." Her mother complimented.
"What's the day's agenda?" her father asked, biting into a scone.
Arianna sighed. "Well, we're still working on the project: the Inner World Explorer."
"If I may ask, what does that do?" her mother asked.
"It's a brain-computer interface that allows users to explore and interact with their own subconscious minds." Ari explained.
"What's missing then?" her father asked.
"That's the problem, we have all the resources, but we can't get it to work without frying someone's brains. I feel like there's something we're missing, and I have a hunch it's not hardware it's the project's software. We can't even work it out if we can't even work out what's missing."
"Take your time dear, what's the rush?" Janet asked patting her daughter's back.
"We have to make the project work the end of February, and we've already spent six months working on a dead end. If this keeps up, we might have to forfeit the project." Ari said, sipping from her glass of milk.
"No, that's out of the question. Keep working on the project. Find a way, and make it work, got that?" Thomas barked.
"Yes father," she said meekly.
They had their breakfast and dispersed to their places of work.
Ari's chauffeur, Jason, was standing in front of her blue Aston Martin DBX 707. She got in, and he drove away through the gate.
*****
He pulled up to the parking lot and killed his engine. He took off his helmet and looked up at the skyscraper that seemed to touch the sky.
Glass walls, white floors, quiet footsteps. The place didn't just scream power; it hummed with it. He had never seen anything like it. Sleek architecture, massive screens and employees moving like they were born in suits.
He left the helmet at the gate storage room and proceeded into the building.
"Names?" the receptionist asked.
"Michael Reeves."
She looked up at him and smiled. "You're the new guy, huh?"
He nodded. "That'll be me."
She handed him a key card and a name tag. "Come this way, Mr Reeves." She said politely, getting up from her desk.
She led him to an office at the end of the hallway.
"Mr Cohen has been expecting you. Have a pleasant day, Mr Reeves." She said, bowing her head slightly before heading back to her desk.
Mike knocked on the door, and pushed it slightly open. A man was standing at the window, his back to the room. There was a large table at the centre of the room, with several chairs neatly arranged around it. The room was tastefully designed, with a love seat in one corner, and a coffee table in front of it.
"Excuse me, Mr Cohen." He called.
Cohen turned to face him. He was a bearded middle-aged man with rectangular framed glasses.
"Michael Reeves. Your reputation precedes you." He started. "Please, take a seat."
Mike pulled up a seat. "Thank you, sir."
"We'd received a lot of job applications, and I daresay; yours was the most impressive."
Mike was tongue-tied.
"Top of the class at MIT, I must say, you deserve this job. I hope you know what this job entails."
Mike nodded. "Yes, I do, sir."
Cohen nodded, and walked up to the table where a landline phone sat, and dialled some digits before putting the phone up to his ear. He asked the receiver to come to his office.
"I have assigned you to the software development department. I'll be closely monitoring you, Michael."
Mike nodded. A knock was heard at the door, and a young man opened the door by degrees and walked in. He was blonde with bluish eyes. He wore round glasses and donned in black.
"You called for me, sir." He spoke.
"Yes, David. This here is Michael. You're to show him around, and show him the ropes. I believe you are up to the task."
"Yes sir. Michael, please come with me."
Cohen watched them disappear through the door, and turned back to the window.
*****
Mike sat in his working station, separated from the next by a partition of medium height. A computer sat in front of him. He was idle since he hadn't been assigned any task. He sighed deeply.
I'm bored.
He leaned back on his chair and looked at the other employees, wearing headsets and visors. He looked at the computer. According to what David had said, the computer was his; he could do anything on it without being questioned.
He leaned forward and took out a flash drive from his backpack, which he inserted into the computer.
The screen lit up with the words 'code breaker.' He keyed in his password and gained access into the program. Mike had been working on software that could help a user explore and interact with their subconscious mind. The prototype was in his flash drive. Using the monitor, he could display images of his subconscious mind. It was linked to his brain through a chip embedded into his neck. He had been modifying the software to enable pairing more than one subconscious mind, something like the multiplayer function in a game. He wasn't making it for commercial use, just small scale. He started modifying the software, and lost track of time. Minutes turned to hours.
"Hey."
Mike looked up. It was David. "What's up?"
"It's lunch time. Take a break from…whatever it is you're doing. I thought you weren't assigned any task."
"It's nothing," he said quickly, ejecting the drive and putting it in his pocket. "Let's just go."
Dave shook it off and they both went out.
As they walked, David pointed things out.
"That's the adaptive rendering bay. Don't go in there unless you want to sign a thousand NDAs. And that," he added with a grin. "Is where the magic happens."
Mike looked through the glass into a lab full of curved chairs, biometric helmets, and wires that looked more biotech than tech tech.
"What's magical about this place exactly?" Mike asked.
David smirked. "That's where the best engineers of Castell Inc. work on developing the IWE."
Mike raised an eyebrow.
"The Inner World Explorer." David said, like it was a name he was proud to say. "They've been taking a crack at it for over six months now. AI assisted neuro-mapping meets deep subconscious navigation. It's like lucid dreaming; VR, therapy and a multiplayer MMO game had a weird genius baby."
Mike nodded. "So you can link minds?"
"Not just link. You can share environments, memories, even emotional states. It hasn't been completed. Still experimental, very hush-hush, if you know what I mean."
Mike looked back through the glass. For a second - just one second - he thought he saw someone in one of the chairs twitch violently. They then went still.
He turned back to David, but the guy was already walking.
"C'mon." David said. "It's time to show you the cafeteria. I'm starving." He added, leading the way.
Mike swiped his card at the counter and was served with food and an apple. They sat around a table next to the window where they had a good view of the city.
"Don't you have friends, Dave?" Mike asked.
"I have a few friends. They'll be here soon. Here they come."
Three ladies approached their table and sat with them, two on Mike's side, and one on Dave's side.
"Hey guys, what's up?" Natalie spoke.
"We're good. These are the friends I was telling you about. This is Natalie, Lucille, and Amber."
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Mike."
"Don't be shy pretty boy; we don't bite, at least not often." Natalie said.
Mike raised an eyebrow.
"What she's trying to say," Lucille interjected. "Is that you can be free around us."
Mike nodded.
"Tell us more about yourself; apart from what we already know."
"How much do you know?" Mike asked.
"We've heard you were at the top of your class at MIT." Amber said.
"Word here travels fast. You'll get used to it." Dave said.
"There's nothing much to know about me." He said, biting into his apple.
"How about I find out for myself? Want to hang out after work?" Luci asked.
"I bet you've been dying to ask that." Dave said.
"Sure, I don't see why we can't." Mike said.
"Great. I promise you won't regret it." Luci said.
"What d'you have in mind?" he asked.
"We could go tenpin bowling, going to the arcade, helping out at the community centre and what not. You do charity work, don't you?"
"Not actively, but that sounds good."
The new friends went on with their chat like they'd known each other for years.
*****
She sat in her office behind a computer. From her manner, one could tell that she was distraught. She leaned back on her chair and held her head before standing up and walking towards the glass wall; reinforced six-inch thick tempered glass where she had a 3D view of the city. Undoubtedly, Castell Plaza was the tallest building in the city.
"That guy." She said out loud.
Arianna sensed some familiarity from him. She couldn't be sure about it. She smiled slightly, and shook her head.
Just leave him be, Ari. Don't stress yourself over one guy when you can have anyone you want.
It was easier said than done. This was the first time she'd been drawn to a guy in a long time, and this bugged her, more than she thought.