The Rise Of The Consortium

Rio started her day in her hopes to talk to Kner but it turned to be such a day where she got to know she shouldn't meet him. She had no means of talking to him. They only could meet up. And she couldn't keep herself consoled for long. She had to do something. She didn't even say sorry on behalf of her mother. She would never understand why her mother was like that but that doesn't mean they can't talk. Mornings were the hours to work in the lab with him. She could have got a few moments to clarify the situation but due to Kysop's birthday, things were canceled.

She thought of connecting to the internet through her ID to see whether she could call him in any way. Generally, people had their palm reader for such purposes but as she hadn't any, so she had to do that even if that cost her some coins for recreation. Ideas were brewing up in her mind while finishing putting back the parts of the electric chimney.

The diner where she had to work at was the farthest location of Termist. She dreaded working there as she had to walk a ridiculous amount of distance to her home. She had no way to afford a fast personal vehicle as the money received were spent on basic needs. And people also needed money to make themselves presentable in society. Recreation, socialization, and celebration were often part of survival and growth. She thought of traveling through public vehicles, but either those were too costly or there were some illegal activities going on inside she felt frustrated very often. If she were to travel in some, she would have charged at least a dozen of cases. She felt the walk was worth the shame.

Luckily she was early to reach home only to find her mother snoozing on a chair. On realizing her entry, her mother straightened herself and looked at Rio as if to say anything. Rio was scared whether her mother would have any news regarding the drama at the Manings. Instead, she asked her 140 coins for some work. That reminded Rio of the saved money from her recreation and the bigger amount of salary she got that day. She transferred 65 coins from her worker's savings account to her mother's. After giving a confused look, her mother half dragged her body towards the door and gradually her footsteps faded away. Rio felt her mother was rather becoming weaker than before and the money was sufficient for the food.

The surrounding houses were silent that early before midnight. The city might never sleep, but that was the area weirdly noiseless. But she reminded herself that she really had to explore the internet to connect to Kner. She had a small monitor in her tiny room, she used that for her virtual classes. That was funded by her college and then it was lying neglected since she ever she had to find work. Her ID had different options to connect to any screen media and after it scanned the source, it asked her to choose a plan to activate the service. Her mind reminded her to go with the cheapest one to save some money for other purposes. After successful sign-up, it showed her the current news locale wise and there was news about her being such a nosy uninvited person in Manings life. She had no will but she clicked on the article about a short message Mrs. Maning left on a social media. It read, "This girl is really unemployed, feasting on everyone's life, first my Kner and then my Kysop. She really has guts to enter our territory claiming our son had invited her. Do you all think my son would have the energy to see someone who has caused enough damage? Really, she doesn't want people to leave alone when all they want is to be relaxed. All the guys out there who have a secret crush on her must be aware of her devouring charms."

Rio felt confused about Mrs. Maning's meaning in that post. Didn't she know that it was her son who invited her to the part and not the other way round? Doesn't he know how reluctant she is to go to parties? She wanted to know what other people had to say about it. She scrolled through the comment section to have a look. All the comments were very similar, only some words twisted here and there. She realized that the dirtiest place on that virtual \world would have to be the comment section. She also felt that one could learn all the slang and curses whoever wishes and one could get a lighthearted experience of such things after one turns into an a.d.u.l.t. As she already had experienced some straight on her face, she felt it was rather a waste of time to look at those things.

She searched for the best messenger site to find Kner but as she couldn't choose any, so she signed up in all of them. After a careful search of the real Kner, she found that he was rather a royal member of the messenger sites, almost in all but under an unusual username. His profile was mostly empty, meaning he used the account only for messaging purposes. She sent a quick hi to him, although he was offline at that moment. After looking at many other news and advertis.e.m.e.nts, she hesitated but sent another 'Can we talk here?' to him. Her eyes started becoming blurry after staring at the screen for like 15 minutes. She then gave up and shut down the monitor and went to her bed to sleep.

If for some reason her friend suggested her to save some energy, then she thought it might be a good one. She felt her stomach giving a low growl but felt too tired to go for food at that time of night. She knew her mother won't be coming back anytime soon so she decided to sleep.

She had no work in the mornings as she used to work at Kner's lab, and he usually told her every day whether to come or not, but that day she had no way to know. She decided to wait for the next day to find out.

But soon she remembered that there was going to be a rally the next day, so again there might be no need of her in the lab. Being only a temporary apprentice was becoming tiresome for her. And without proper stability, her mind couldn't let her sleep. But the severe need of rest after the rally was over, forced her to sleep.