Cristal - Novella (3 page)

He turned away from her and sighed. “You
know, I can’t tell you that. Your job is to complete your mission
and not ask questions, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Doubt,” she said, her sarcasm
seeping between the words. “So sorry…I forgot that you’re all work
and no play.”

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes.

Later that evening
,
Cristal and Harry were sitting at his dining table with their
laptops set up in front of them. Cristal was busy scribbling notes
on her pad of paper.

“You have the best laptop money can buy and
you’re writing on paper,” he said, shaking his head.

“Writing with pen and paper helps me
brainstorm.” She frowned as she concentrated on her scribbles.

All Harry wanted to do was touch the strands
of hair that fell seductively on her porcelain cheek. He watched as
she snapped a barrette on the wavy locks against her face.

“Geez, my hair is driving me nuts. One day,
I’ll lose my patience and shave it all off,” she mumbled under her
breath.

Harry stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t
mean that, right?”
Doesn’t she realize how beautiful her hair
is?

She made a face and said, “Long hair is just
a pain to keep up. It would be much easier if I cropped it really
short, like yours. Don’t you think?”

She put both her hands under her chin, gave
him an innocent smile and blinked her eyes. Not only was she
amazingly adorable, she had a great sense of humor. He chuckled to
himself.

“What’s so funny, Harry? You don’t think I’d
do it?” she teased.

She punched him on the arm playfully.

He turned his eyes away from her. “Why do I
care if you cut off your hair or not?” he said, shrugging his
shoulder.

“Oh, whatever, Harry. I can’t figure you out
sometimes.”

From his peripheral view, he could see her
sulking in her cute way, her lips in a pout and her eyebrows
furrowed together.

Global Nation was behind the disappearance
of his mother Bina Schwartz. A conglomerate non-profit organization
with offices and universities all over the world, he had enough
data to prove that GN hid behind its peace, educational and social
activism initiatives to do experiments on innocent people. He
needed more data to find out where his mother was and why GN
kidnapped her.

Romance was not on his agenda. There were
more pressing things at hand.

Focus on the mission,
he scolded himself. He
didn’t have time to be distracted by anyone. Not even Cristal.

***

Eight months earlier, Harry had put his
first mission into motion: landing a job at Global Nation’s head
office. It was simple plan and easy enough to pull off by himself.
After all, getting his PhD before his twentieth birthday meant that
all the biggest companies were lining up and offering him dream
jobs with six-figure salaries.

It must have come as a surprise to them,
when he applied for and accepted a low-paying job working as a
middle manager at the GN central IT department.

“Don’t you think you’re a little
overqualified for this position? The pay isn’t even half of what
Google was probably offering you,” George Beaver had asked him
during his interview.

His first impression of the Beav’ was that
he looked like a potato-head Elf—his huge bald head balancing on
top of his short, stocky body.

It was obvious that Beaver didn’t understand most of
the technical terminology he was reading from the interview
questionnaire, mispronouncing terms such as
GUI interface
.
In the IT world, it was pronounced “gooey” not “G.U.I.”
Ah yes, a Mr. Potato Head avatar
suited Beaver. Maybe he’d add a beaver tail that
smacked the ground too.

“I never really had a real job before, so I
think I have to earn my stripes like everybody else.”

Harry cleared his throat hoping that he had
responded in a humble tone. He would bet his last dollar the Beav’
had a Napoleon complex.

The answer must have satisfied Beaver,
because he smiled and wrote a few notes on the paper. Then he asked
Harry a few more questions and finally he stood up.

“Wait here a moment, Harry,” Beaver said,
grabbing his papers.

“No problem.”

Harry took a deep breath and fixed his tie
as he waited. A suit and tie guy, he definitely was not.

Minutes later, the door opened and to
Harry’s surprise, Shelley Lionheart entered the room. Stylish, in a
manly way, she carried herself like an Amazon queen. She was
someone who would stand out in a crowd. She was in her mid-forties,
wearing a fitted matte black jacket and pantsuit; her raven black
hair cut short close to her scalp; blue-black nail polish and lips
painted with a dark burgundy color, which contrasted against her
dark chocolate skin, and slanted cat-like eyes that seemed to glow
like coal-hot embers. On top of all this, at six feet tall, 200
pounds of muscle, she was definitely not one to joke around
with.

Quickly, he stood up and stretched out his
hand, ready to shake hers. The night before, he had repeatedly
practiced in front of the full-length mirrors in his bedroom. A
confident handshake is a good first impression, his mom had always
told him.

Lionheart looked him square in the eye and
squeezed the circulation from his hand.

Satisfied by his lack of response, she
turned to Beaver. Beaver quickly pulled back the chair.

“This is Shelley Lionheart, President of
Global Nation and GN University,” Beaver stammered.

Harry waited to see if he would pull out a
trumpet to herald her regal presence.

Lionheart sat down gracefully despite her
size, almost as if she was floating into the seat.

Harry pulled back his hand quickly and sat
back down.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Lionheart,” he said,
trying hard not to let his voice waver.

She folded her hands on the table and leaned
slightly towards him.

“Let’s get to business. We have GN offices
in every continent. We need someone like you to help set up the
security firewall for our networks and database servers globally.
We had, what we call, an incident at our GN charitable office in
Manila, Philippines. Long story short: The web servers were
compromised and we experienced breaches in security after the
recent riots. The breach involved unauthorized access to personal
data of a number of our very important charitable donors. As you
can see, this is a delicate matter, which needs to be resolved
immediately. Beaver will arrange for you to fly out tomorrow.”

She attempted to smile, but the expression
on her face resembled someone who had just taken a bite into a bad
burrito.

“I haven’t been offered the job yet,” he
said quietly.

“Don’t be cute. Or maybe I won’t offer you
anything, Mr. Doubt.” The glimpse of a smile disappeared from
her mouth, as she continued, “We both know this job was yours
before you walked in the door. The interview was just a legal
formality. The job is yours. As you know, we are a non-profit
charitable organization. And our GN universities are funded partly
by the state with some funds coming from tuitions and fees. Of
course, you already knew this, being the recipient of this
generosity. We count on our generous donors to help run our
charitable and educational operations. So, yes, it’s not a
glamorous job and probably the pay won’t be as attractive as what
the private sector can offer you, but at least you’ll get to
travel. Or, perhaps, you can call it payback. Consider that a
fringe benefit.”

Harry tried not to smirk.

“Before I accept…when I reviewed the current
support model you have now for IT, it is no wonder that GN offices
are experiencing security breaches in their networks. GN doesn’t
have a dedicated IT operations team, despite having multiple
offices and universities all over the world. Without the proper
security systems in place with regular maintenance and upgrades to
the firewalls, it is not a shock that the breach didn’t happen
sooner. So, Ms. Lionheart, before I can accept, I’ll need you
to provide me with the best team of programmers to be able to do my
job,” he replied, trying not to sound too cocky.

The grimace reappeared on her face, as she
said, “Call me Shelley. No need for formalities. We’re all one
family here.”

Beaver nodded his head like a bobble-head
doll.

“Yes, one happy family,” he said.

Beaver started to say more when Lionheart
raised her hand.

She tilted her head slightly and said,
“Okay, that is a fair observation. What you propose is exactly what
we need here. If you take the job, you can hire three people for
your team.” She paused for a moment. “By the way, you seemed to
have impressed George Beaver in your interview. Lucky for you that
he will be your senior manager, and you are to report to him
directly.”

Beaver said with disdain in his voice, “We
normally don’t offer positions right after the interview. Now you
want to create three more staff positions out of thin air? I guess
that you must think you’re really somebody special.”

Beaver looked over at Lionheart and stopped
smiling when he met her glare. Harry almost laughed. Lionheart put
Beaver’s panties in a wad with one look. Classic.

Lionheart continued, “We checked your
references, Harry. Your professors all gave you shining
recommendations. It seems that your father’s genius has rubbed off
on you.” Her eyes seemed to drill into his.

He wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or
her way of testing him.
It’s now or never.

He took a deep breath and finally said, “My
last request is that you let me be the one to interview and hire
the programmers for my team. I need the best of the best, and since
I’m responsible for this team’s success, I want to be the one to
choose who we hire.”

Beaver glowered at him and turned to
Lionheart to see her reaction. She was expressionless, which to
Harry was a good thing. It meant that she was considering his
request.

“The sacrificial lamb, so to speak,” she
mumbled to herself. Lionheart drummed her nails on the table.

After an uncomfortable silence, she said,
“Very well, then. You will get to hire who you want for your
team.”

She waved to Beaver to get up. “We have
concluded this conversation. Beaver will get HR to get your
paperwork in order and arrange for your plane ticket. Make sure you
check into our health services office to get your vaccinations and
meds in order before you fly. We don’t want our shining new Manager
of IT Operations to get sick on his first assignment.”

She stood up and walked out of the room, or
to be accurate, she levitated out of her chair and glided out of
the room.
Very strange woman,
Harry thought to himself.

“Let’s go, Harry. There’s a lot of stuff you
have to do to get ready for your trip,” Beaver said in a bossy
tone.

Harry followed him out of the room.

Mission one accomplished
.
The next challenge was bringing in online gamers to
join him on his crusade. How was he going to convince online gamers
to leave the privacy of their virtual world to work with others in
the real world?

SERENA BENT OVER TO KISS her father good
night. He barely moved, his eyes glued to his iPad, reviewing his
notes from his consular meetings that day.

“Good night, Father.”

He mumbled something that resembled “Good
night,” kissed the top of her head, and returned to his notes. She
straightened herself, turned, and walked out of the sitting room.
Ever since the riot that devastated downtown Manila and the reports
of hundreds of people who went missing a few weeks ago, her father
had stayed past office hours at the consulate every night.

Her thoughts raced as she walked down the
long dark corridor. Due to the blackouts in the city, everyone had
to conserve electricity by keeping the lights off as much as
possible. The huge three-story house was intimidating in the
daytime but even spookier at nighttime. Built in 1926, the maids
said that the house was one of the oldest in Quezon City, which,
according to legend, the ghosts of the Filipino prisoners who were
tortured and killed in the rooms throughout the house during the
Japanese occupation, still wandered the hallways.

Suddenly, Serena felt a hand on her left
shoulder. Parts of her wanted to start running, but instead, she
froze in her tracks. The spicy scent of “
Gucci pour Homme
”
cologne enveloped her nostrils. She must have sprayed that scent on
thousands of male customers last summer at her part-time job during
the “Shangri-la Plaza’s Back to School” promotion.
Definitely,
not a ghost
.

“Don’t be scared, Serena. We need to talk,”
a deep, strong voice whispered in her ear.

This clown was about to learn he was messing
with the wrong girl. All she needed was an opening and her training
would kick in. She continued walking down the hall. The stranger
pressed his hand into the small of her back.

She squinted to see her reflection in the
twenty-foot mirror at the end of the hallway. Her short, dirty
blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealed her pale white
skin. Her pink cotton pajamas made her look like a bewildered child
and not the confident twenty-two-year-old she was known to be among
her circle of friends.

As they walked closer towards the mirror,
she could faintly see the outline of her captor; his hooded jacket
hid his facial features. Possibly six feet tall, his frame
overshadowed her mere five-foot-two inches of height. She made
mental notes, so if he got away after she disabled him, she’d have
all the details to give to the police.

“Let’s go inside your room.”

It was more of a request than a command.