The Rise Of The Consortium

After three continuous minutes of running to get to the street three, without getting hurt, Rio took a breath and tracked the time left to reach there. She still had a minute to get into the lab. But she didn't know where it was. She looked into the map from her notification and found that it would take her thirty seconds if she would run right now.

The street was more difficult to be seen and that made her reluctant to go. But she had to reach the lab. She remembered she had to unlock the doc.u.ment containing some information she didn't know. It was very difficult for her to gather strength to go when she had nothing in her mind. That made her even more difficult to begin. But when Kner had specifically told her to do that, she couldn't avoid. She was just an intern. She only has to unlock that. That's it. Without waiting anymore, she began running into street three, gathering all her energy.

She could feel her legs giving up but she had to think of something else. She looked at her sideways to divert her worry. Gradually a factory was faintly visible after getting midway into the street. "That must be the pharmaceutical company" Rio thought to herself. The dusty smoke was still produced from the chimney, making the surrounding almost hidden from the outside. Low murmurs could be heard from the factory. She didn't realize her hasty steps were slowed down until her ID vibrated reminding her that she had less than fifteen seconds to reach the lab. Swallowing, she continued running. She must get into the factory after work from the lab is finished.

Three more blocks and she must be at her location. Meanwhile, she thought when her next work session would begin. It was the first day of the workweek and there must be a lot of places she would have to go. Was the factory listed in today's work location list? If so, that would be easy for her. If not, she might have to request the scheduler and that might take a lot of time.

A surprising observation came to her mind. She didn't see anyone with any signs of danger. The street was completely clear, except the translucent smoke from the factory. So was the woman in street five created chaos? That was ridiculous. She wished she could charge her right away. But that responsibility was saved for the day before the weekend. For a moment the inability filled her in fury and that speeded her steps. She made it to the building only when she had a few seconds left. As she entered, the door shut suddenly. Whoever made this disgusting rule of paying when someone reached late has to be fixed, Rio thought to herself.

She leaned on a wall and relaxed and looked at the grey building inside. Maybe that architecture looked ancient, but all the innovation lied inside. No guards inside, everything automated. She looked at her ID for one last time, to cancel her work sessions for at least the next three hours. But there were no sessions in the next two hours. She felt relieved to cancel the session at the diner, probably to clean the silver dust. She thought that would be a great idea, to cancel every single session where cleaning involved.

She put her ID into the scanner of the building, and the doors opened into the ground floor. She took the stairs and headed to the first floor quickly. Her mind was playing a tug of war between two ideas. One, why was she entering the building when she didn't know anything and the other, whether Kner Maning treats her as a friend or as a boss? After all, it was his idea to let her work there to get some experience. If things got worse, she might have to leave that place and him forever. Was that painful? Only time will tell.

She reached the first room, which was an office, where clients and other employees meet him. She opened the door slightly and entered with slow careful steps. In a spacious room, a man with black hair in a grey suit was sitting in front of her. His face was looking bright from the light that fell from the window on the glass table in front of him. As Rio stood frozen taking in the situation in front of her, she heard him saying, "You're late, Ms. Tarnilier."

She shook herself into reality and found a pair of eyes digging into her soul. That was Mr. Kner Maning, her friend till this last second. If she didn't accept him as her boss in a few moments, then she might be doing a grave mistake. There was something in his eyes that made her feel as if she entered the wrong place in the wrong attire. Since when the formality crept into the friendship? She didn't know why but she couldn't hold his intensity and her eyes swoop downwards at her feet. Then she knew her heart might stop at any moment.

When it felt like another hour had passed, Rio heard him say again, "Come in". Her legs felt heavy just to reach to the table located a few feet away. She felt as if she was going to confront her mother instead of someone she knew quite well. She felt an urge to break the silence was slowly engulfing the room.

"The project hasn't started yet. Wh--"

"I know. You have to find the file and open it. That's why you're here." Why am I here? Or why have you called me here today? That's what she was going to say but was interrupted by him. Find the file, open the file. What does the file have in it? She tried hard remembering the conversation she had last night with him and realized she had to open a rather important file, a file on which thousands of lives were dependent on it.

"Oh. Ok, sir." Rio said as if she was dying, looking at his rather stony face. She addressed him faintly with a 'sir' unwillingly, maybe that brought a faint smile on his face. She continued thinking about the contents of the file, which she guessed might have the solution for the dust in machines she has to clean every other day, or might have a solution for her mother's illness. Then she remembered her mother was still in the hospital, and there is no one to take care of her. Her eyes shone brightly with this new realization. She had to finish this quickly to see her mother.

"I'm giving you fifteen minutes. That's not short. Isn't it?" Kner said getting up from his chair and motioned her to sit in front of him. He turned a small projector towards her so that she could see the illuminated screen properly. Her heartfelt falling upon seeing a lot of files with names of cryptic meaning.

"No. that's fine," said Rio looking at him, trying to read his feelings.

"Good." but his face was plain, no hints of sadness or anger. Rio then watched him go out of the room, busy with talking to someone over his phone.

What did she do for such cold wrath that was brought on her by him? Was it the effects of their brief friendship? The way everyone portrayed her being with him, only for the sake of getting some benefits, was wrong. She didn't chase him ever. She was freshly graduated and he was the first one to offer her a place in his lab in his home. She remembers helping him in his experiments, often giving him some tips to improve his results, which he accepted at that time.

She turned her face back to the screen, trying to understand what individual file names could mean and what might be there inside it. She tried decoding some of them in her mind, but couldn't understand what might be a possibility. He kept talking about the file but never said what that was about. He said that was conducted last week, so she searched all the files of the last week. She found at least seventeen files created that day.

Looking upon them one by one, at least half of them weren't encrypted. She wished she had written that somewhere else. If finding the file was that difficult, then she wondered how she could open it without any knowledge of the password. There was neither a system of alternate password nor there was any backup saved by her. She knew one can't save a backup anywhere else, so it's very important to remember it. She had no idea what experiment was conducted that day, so guesswork was a waste of time. Why doesn't he help her a bit to find that instead?

Just when she thought about him, she found him behind her suddenly, making her jump in fright. She clenched her hands and took several deep breaths to calm down herself.

"Did you find?" he leaned a bit on her chair to take a close look at the screen.

"No." her eyes were closed. That was all she could say.