Cristal - Novella (12 page)

***

The hotel phone rang, startling her from her
thoughts. She glanced at her watch as she picked up the phone.
Kerim must be in the lobby now.

“Kerim, I’m on my way down.”

A deep voice responded, but it wasn’t
Kerim’s. “Ms. Hernandez, this is the hotel concierge. There is an
I.S. agent here who wants to speak with you.”

Why would a security agent want to speak with
me?

“Madame, are you still there?”

She shook her head to clear her
thoughts.“Yes, I am coming down.”

Zero
: The data you sent this morning
should have been encrypted.

Onyx
: It’s been crazy here. Elf man
is riding my back and now I have to do the reports for our whole
team. Thanks a lot for leaving me behind.

Zero
: We need you over there. You’re
one of the best programmers on our team. We’re counting on you to
get the data we need.

Joanna was about to type something
sarcastic, but paused.

Zero:
I am personally counting on
you.

Before responding, she thought to herself,
Oh, really? You think I’m that stupid to believe that crap?

Zero
: I’ll contact you again in 10
hours. SYL

OMG. Seriously? She wasn’t going to let
Harry get away with this. She finished typing an email and sent it
to her friend, Jenna Adams, a journalist for the
New York
Times
. You wait and see who should have gone to Tel Aviv with
you, Harry, she thought to herself.

“Joanna, are you on planet Earth?”

Beaver, the Elf man, was standing at her
cubicle. Just the sight of him made her want to barf. Everyone on
the IT team knew he was a useless dweeb. He wore his senior manager
title as if it were his shield that would protect him from the
truth.

She rolled her eyes.

“What do you want, Beaver?” She turned back
to her screen.

“Shelley wants to see you,” he said with a
sly smile.

Freak! What does the boss want to see me
about? Why did Harry leave me here to hold down the fort all by
myself?

“Did you hear me? She’s waiting for you.” He
turned away, waving his hand as if he was summoning his pet
Schnauzer. Her hand tightened around her mouse as she imagined
hurling it right between Beaver’s beady brown eyes.

He turned his head around and mouthed to
her, “Well, are you coming?”

She pushed her chair back, stood up and
walked towards him, trying hard not to make a face. He pointed to
his watch with his “hurry up” face and let out an exasperated sigh,
which sounded like air coming out of his rear. Ugh! She let him
walk ahead of her. His royal “highneyness” was enjoying having his
minion follow three steps behind.

Her cell phone vibrated inside her pocket.
It was a text message from Jenna.

Jenna:
Hey, Joanna, got your email.
What’s up?

Joanna:
You asked me about Harry
Doubt. Have a story about his close friends.

Jenna:
Finally came to your senses,
girl? Come over after work. You still like sushi?

Joanna:
See you @ 6. Will bring
drinks.

A smile crept onto her face. She shoved her
phone back in her pocket.

***

They were polishing off the contents of
their Bento boxes while sitting around the coffee table,
cross-legged on the floor—like the good old days. She watched Jenna
clearing up the empty food containers and bringing them to the
kitchen. She would have offered to help, but why bother?

She smirked to herself observing how Jenna’s
apartment was small and cramped compared to hers. It made her
remember how she had negotiated with Harry to get her a
two-bedroom, fully furnished apartment with minimum 900 square
footage and the lease paid in full for a year. It was her way to
test him to see how much of a valuable asset he thought she was to
the team. When she had arrived in New York, not only did he hold up
his end of the bargain, he managed to get her a luxury suite on
Crosby Street in Soho. She knew that compared to the other Truth
Seekers in NYC, her place was in the best location, had the best
layout, and had the coolest furniture.

Jenna returned with two wine glasses and the
bottle of red wine that Joanna had brought earlier.

“Sushi was just what I was craving. Thanks
again, Jenna.”

“My pleasure. It wasn’t much. Just spent all
afternoon making them for you. Not!” she laughed, tossing her
bleach blonde hair to the side. “Let’s get to work.” She flipped
open her laptop.

Joanna smiled to herself. Jenna was never
one to mince words. She always had been driven, even when they were
college roommates. Jenna was a California babe—blonde, blue eyes,
and hot “bod” with brains to top it off. Added to the mix were her
cold tactics that she used to get her way, even if it meant
sleeping with whomever she needed to get the story. Together,
Joanna and Jenna, were a formidable pair.

“So give me the goods, Joanna,” she said
with her usual, “I’m losing my patience” tone.

“Shut up and start typing,” Joanna
replied.

Jenna never intimidated her,
New York
Times
journalist or not.

Jenna smiled, flashing her perfect white
teeth. “Webcam will get everything I need. Now take a sip and start
talking.”

Jenna saluted her with her wine glass,
kicked off her heels and curled up on the couch.

“Cristal Hernandez and Kerim Ilgaz. They’re
Harry’s prized Truth Seekers. But that’s not the story.” She
paused.

“Come on, what is it?” Jenna moved forward
on the edge of the couch.

“I think that Cristal was responsible for
starting the earthquake that happened in different countries all
over the world. And I think Kerim had something to do with it,
too.”

Jenna rolled her eyes and closed her laptop.
“You’ve really lost it, Joanna. I can’t believe I wasted my evening
waiting for this earth shattering information.”

She stood up and started putting away her
things. “I’m a serious journalist. I don’t do gossip or ET
stories.”

“Fine. Don’t believe me,” Joanna said and
grabbed her purse from the coffee table. “But I saw it myself with
my own eyes.”

“Wait,” Jenna said and turned to look at
her. “What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you going to record what I tell
you?” Joanna asked.

“No, not until I’m sure it’s worth it,”
Jenna said, while leaning back and waiting. “And the only reason
I’m willing to hear any of this psycho-babble is the fact it’s
coming from you. So thrill me.”

“Harry and I were meeting with Cristal,
Kerim, and Gabriel on video chat the day of the earthquake. At the
precise time it happened, I saw Cristal freeze, almost like a
zombie. Her eyes were blank, while the whole room was shaking like
crazy. Kerim was in the doorway, holding onto the doorframe and
Gabriel was holding onto him with his eyes closed.”

She closed her eyes trying to remember what
she saw that day.“The weird thing was Cristal and Kerim were
staring at each other. They both were real calm during the whole
thing. Then the screen went black.”

She opened her eyes to see Jenna’s
“whatever” expression on her face.

“Great, Joanna,” Jenna said rolling her eyes
again. “Now, I am really convinced.”

Joanna could not ignore the thick layer of
sarcasm in her friend’s voice. She sat back down and took out her
smart phone. She opened up a video and maximized it on the
screen.

“Here. Watch this,” she said, handing her
phone to Jenna.

Jenna sighed and took it from her hand.

“This better be good,” she said.

The video started playing. The screen filled
with the larger-than-life image of Shelley Lionheart, wearing a
neon-white suit, seated at her glass desk in her white high-back
leather office chair in her fifteen-foot windowed penthouse office.
The picture jittered slightly—Joanna had done her best to keep her
phone steady.

“You’re doing an exceptional job filling in
for Harry and Cristal,” Shelley was saying.

“Thanks, I’m just doing my job,” she heard
herself say.

Shelley leaned forward, crossing her hands
on the desk. Her two-inch nails were painted the shade of blood
red. It took a lot for Joanna to be intimidated, but she had to
admit that being in the presence of Shelley Lionheart made her a
bit squeamish.

“This information must stay in this room,”
Lionheart said, lowering her voice. “Can I trust you to keep
confidential information?”

“Umm, yes, of course. I’m a professional,”
Joanna replied, a little too fast.

“We both know that George Beaver is an
incompetent programmer and senior manager,” Shelley continued. “I
need someone like you at my side to keep me abreast of what is
happening in our IT systems—from current software installations, to
development roadmaps and security concerns.”

Shelley smiled, if you could call it a
smile. It appeared more like a sneer.

Joanna remembered how excited she should have felt.
Finally, someone from the top was recognizing her potential. But
part of her felt weird—like she was just about to sell her soul to
the devil. She shivered at the thought.
Now where did that crazy
idea come from?

The picture shifted slightly as Shelley rose from her
chair. The word
rose
was the best way to describe it. Her
body seemed to glide upwards as she stood. It could have been the
resolution of the video, but Shelley seemed to become transparent
just for a second before she walked (glided) around the desk to
stand in front of her.

The picture shifted abruptly and the screen
was filled with a blurred image. The sound was clearer now with
Shelley’s voice closer to the phone.

“We have some information about illicit
activity from one of our professors at the GN University. His name
is Dr. Nariman, but students refer to him as Dr. Saeed. It seems he
accessed encrypted files in our restricted server with the help of
some of your colleagues. I want you to find any trace of suspicious
activity in the logs, and see if you can track its sources to
identify the hackers. This will be done under the guise of a
“scheduled overhaul” of our developer systems to update our server
software and rebuild our databases. You will be in charge. This is
high-level priority, and I’ll make sure Beaver stays out of your
way. We’ll call this project “System overhaul.” I don’t want you to
let anyone know what the real purpose of this project is. Do you
understand, Ms. Chan?”

The video shook slightly as Joanna shifted
her weight.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. If I am pleased with your report,
we’ll see about giving you a promotion. Maybe you can take Beaver’s
job.”

The video shook again as she stood up.

“Thank you, Shelley. I really appreciate
it,” she heard herself saying.

Ugh, it almost sounded like she was gushing
all over her.

The video ended abruptly.

Jenna looked up from the phone and stared at
her, a smile stretching across her face.

“Okay, Joanna,
I’m down
with corporate espionage. You may have something.
Not sure
what it is yet, but I am going to start digging.”

Joanna pursed her lips together while her
fingers fidgeted with a strand of her hair. “Do you need anything
from me?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jenna said, almost gleefully.
“You’re going to give me everything you know about Harry, Cristal,
and Kerim. Every time Shelley talks to you, you’re going to let me
know a.s.a.p.”

“Sounds fine,” Joanna replied. She should
have been happy, but something was nagging at her—telling her to
stop.

“And before I forget, I need two things from
you,” Jenna added. “One, before you tell me about Cristal causing
an earthquake and shining lights, you need to show me some proof.
And two, I want you to get me into the Truth Seekers.”

“What? You a Truth Seeker?” Joanna burst out
laughing.
Did she think it was going to be that easy?

“Yeah,” Jenna said, as she started typing,
searching online.

She had already started mining the Internet
for the data. She knew this would be one of her best
New York
Times
articles ever.

“And I want to know where Harry is. I’m
going to get to the source as soon as possible.”

“You can’t join the Truth Seekers. You don’t
even play video games. And it’s all by invitation only. Harry
invites only the top players. Do you really need to be a Truth
Seeker to get what you need?”

Joanna’s stomach started turning. The sushi
was playing havoc with her intestines.

“Do you really need me to
answer that question?”
Jenna said, looking into the
distance, as if analyzing the situation and considering all her
options.

Joanna sat back, trying to think as well.
But her thoughts were wandering away. She knew she just betrayed
the Truth Seekers. More importantly, she understood now she had
just started something
.
Exactly what, she didn’t know.

CRISTAL SAW A COUPLE OF tourists at the
hotel counter arguing with the concierge. She scanned the lobby and
noticed two boys who looked like they were local, hanging around
the American girls who were apparently staying at the hotel. A
stout man dressed in a black suit with sunglasses was seated in a
chair near the front door of the lobby. He was watching her
carefully.
That must be the security agent who asked to see
me.

She took her time walking over to the
counter, grateful that the concierge was busy with the tourists. It
would give Harry enough time to get there and assist with the
interrogation.

She had texted him immediately after
receiving the phone call, “Urgent. Get here ASAP. Agent in lobby
wants to question me.”